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Gustav Fechner
Facts (25)
Sources
Panpsychism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2015 Edition) plato.stanford.edu May 23, 2001 17 facts
claimGustav Fechner was a prominent advocate of the mystical appeal of panpsychism and a fervent proponent of using analogical arguments to support panpsychism.
perspectiveGustav Fechner contrasted the "day-view" (a vibrant, open, panpsychist understanding of the world) with the "night-view" (materialism).
claimGustav Fechner (1801-1887) and Josiah Royce (1855-1916) developed panpsychist accounts of nature that did not necessarily attribute mental properties to the ultimate constituents of systems.
quoteIn his book 'The Little Book of Life After Death', Gustav Fechner asserts that 'the plant thinks it is in its place … to play with beetles and bees'.
claimGustav Fechner extended his panpsychism to all of nature in his 1851 work 'Zend-Avista', aligning with his dual-aspect metaphysics.
claimProminent exponents of distinctive forms of panpsychism in the nineteenth century included Gustav Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt, Rudolf Hermann Lotze, William James, Josiah Royce, and William Clifford.
claimGustav Fechner is recognized as one of the founders of scientific psychology.
claimGustav Fechner's panpsychism is classified as synecological, as it withholds mental attributes from some simple constituents of larger, enminded systems.
claimGustav Fechner's work in psycho-physics serves as an example of how philosophical perspectives can suggest fruitful new lines of empirical enquiry.
formulaGustav Fechner's metaphysical parallelism led to the birth of psycho-physics and the discovery of the law relating the strength of a sensation (S) to the strength of the physical stimulus (P), expressed as S = k log(P).
quoteRudolf Hermann Lotze wrote in 1852 regarding Gustav Fechner's 1848 work 'Nanna, or On the Mental Life of the Plants': “one cannot search for the mind arbitrarily in the plants, the darlings of our fantasy, and remain satisfied with the existence of dead matter in the rocks”.
claimFriedrich Paulsen (1846-1908) was a student of Gustav Fechner who extended Fechner's version of panpsychism.
claimGustav Fechner argued that plants are not mindless or unconscious because they possess complex teleological mechanisms for perseverance, similar to sleeping animals.
claimGustav Fechner's panpsychism was characterized by the endorsement of a 'world-soul' or 'world-mind' of which everything is a part, a view that shares similarities with the philosophy of Spinoza.
claimGustav Fechner relied on analogical arguments as the sole basis for attributing mental qualities to entities other than oneself.
claimGustav Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt, and William James are classified as "parallelist panpsychists" who endorse a Spinozistic parallelism between mind and matter, where every physical entity has mental attributes and vice versa.
quoteCharles Hartshorne remarked regarding Gustav Fechner's ascription of consciousness to plants: 'whatever can be said for this view must, it seems, have been said by Fechner'.
Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 18, 2017 4 facts
claimProminent historical exponents of distinctive forms of panpsychism include Gustav Fechner (1801–1887), Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817–1881), William James (1842–1910), Josiah Royce (1855–1916), and William Clifford (1845–1879).
claimGustav Fechner and Josiah Royce held that the ontological foundation of reality is a "world-soul" or "world-mind" of which everything is a part.
claimFriedrich Paulsen (1846–1908) was a student of Gustav Fechner who extended Fechner's version of panpsychism.
claimGustav Fechner and Josiah Royce developed panpsychist accounts of nature that did not attribute mental properties to the smallest bits of matter, which challenges the definition of panpsychism that mentality must be fundamental.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness plato.stanford.edu Nov 30, 2004 2 facts
Panpsychism - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimPsychologists Gustav Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt, and Rudolf Hermann Lotze promoted panpsychist ideas during the 19th century.
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness plato.stanford.edu Nov 30, 2004 1 fact
claimHistorical proponents of dual aspect or psychophysically neutral views include Baruch Spinoza, Gustav Fechner (1861), Wilhelm Wundt (1911), and Alfred North Whitehead (1978).