II. Panexperientialism as a Form of Physicalism

Given the widespread equation of materialism and physicalism, or at least the idea that to be a physicalist is to be a materialist, the idea of a nonmaterialist physicalism will seem strange, at least initially. There is, however, no consensus as to exactly what physicalism means, partly because, as Kim points out, there "appears to be no generally accepted account of exactly what it means to say that something is 'physical'" (SM, 340). I will here show that panexperientialism (as articulated in this book) concurs with physicalism as portrayed by Kim on most of its basic points, although the two positions give somewhat different formulations of the various underlying intuitions. Of course, it does not agree with the other form on all the points; if it did, there would be no reason to present it as an alternative. My twofold argument will be that (1) while panexperientialism shares most of the basic intuitions of materialist physicalism, (2) it differs with regard to precisely those aspects that led materialist physicalism to a dead end on the mind-body problem. The second part of this argument will be reserved for the next section. In the present section, I will show the similarity of the two positions, while also pointing to some of their basic differences, in terms of eleven more or less distinct points.

1. Perhaps the basic claim of physicalism is that every actuality is physical, in the sense that it has a physical aspect. In this regard, Kim quotes Donald Davidson's statement that "all events are physical; that is, every event has some physical property" (SM, 279). This definition permits at least some actualities also to have a mental aspect. What is ruled out is the notion of things, such as Cartesian souls, that are purely mental (SM, 126, 340). Whitehead's panexperientialism agrees: Every actual entity has a physical pole. There can be no purely mental actual entities.

2. In a closely related formulation, Kim speaks of "ontological physicalism" as "the claim that all that exists in spacetime is physical" (SM, 266). Panexperientialism agrees, in that space-time is constituted by actual entities, all of which have a physical pole. Panexperientialism does also speak

of "eternal objects," or "pure possibilities," which are not physical. But such objects, such as the number 2 or the color red, exist outside space-time. Although they, of course, become ingredient in some spatiotemporal loci, they are essentially outside the space-time continuum, being no more bound to one spatiotemporal locus than another. These wholly nonphysical entities, accordingly, do not contradict the point that spatiotemporal entities have a physical aspect.

3. Materialist physicalism also claims that, in actualities having a mental as well as a physical aspect, the physical is prior to the mental. Kim speaks, for example, of the "thesis of primacy, or basicness, for physical properties in relation to mental properties " (SM, 340). Panexperientialism agrees: The mental pole is always derivative from the physical.

4. In relation to his statement that "there appears to be no generally accepted account of exactly what it means to say that something is 'physical'," Kim suggests that one necessary feature of a definition would be that "a physical entity must have a determinate location in space and time" (SM, 340). Panexperientialism agrees. In Whitehead's system every actual occasion has a determinate spatiotemporal location relative to all others (PR, 25, 195).^[*] This point is applicable to the "dominant occasions" belonging to a human mind as much as to any other actual occasions.

5. One of the conditions often given for being a "physical entity" is that of being an embodiment of energy. That Kim presupposes this condition is suggested by his proposal that "physical" be defined by reference to current theoretical physics, perhaps in conjunction with chemistry and biology (SM, 340). Panexperientialism, by virtue of its hierarchy of actual entities, could not, of course, accept such a reductionistic approach. It does agree, however, that all actual entities are capable of affecting, and being affected by, the entities studied by these sciences. This universal interactionism is possible because all actual entities are embodiments of "creativity," which, as explained in chapter 8, is an enlargement of the notion of energy as embodied in current physics. So, although some "physical entities" do not embody any of the forms of energy currently recognized by contemporary

[*] This aspect of Whitehead's philosophy, according to which every actual entity and therefore every occasion in the life history of every elementary particle is fully determinate, which involves its having a definite position relative to other particles (PR, 25), has been used as an argument against it. Abner Shimony has said that this element of Whitehead's philosophy is contradicted by quantum theory, according to which elementary particles have no definite position apart from being observed ("Quantum Physics and the Philosophy of Whitehead," chapter 19 of Shimony's Search for a Naturalistic World View [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 2:291–309, esp. 298–99, 304. That indeed has been the dominant interpretation of quantum theory. Now, however, we have the ontological interpretation provided by Bohm and Hiley, which is equivalent mathematically and superior philosophically, in which a well-defined position is an intrinsic property of every particle (UU, 2, 110, 113).

physics, they all do embody creative power that can be converted from or into the creative power embodied in the entities studied by physicists. In this sense the physical is defined by reference to the entities of theoretical physics.

6. While claiming that there are no purely mental actualities, materialist physicalism says that some spatiotemporal things have no mentality. Kim says, for example, that "there can be, and presumably are, objects and events that have only physical properties" (SM, 340). Again, panexperientialism agrees—with one (all-important) proviso, that such things are not individual actualities but aggregates or aggregational societies of individuals. In such things (such as a rock) or events (such as a rock concert), there is no overall experience, therefore no mentality.

7. Because many materialists in speaking of "mentality" mean conscious mentality, the prior point could be taken simply to mean that some spatiotemporal things have no conscious mentality. Panexperientialism agrees with this point even with regard to individual entities, as the experience of the vast majority of them is said not to be conscious.

8. I cited earlier Kim's formulation of physicalism as the view that "what is physical determines all the facts of the world" (SM, xv). Given panexperientialism's view that all actual entities have a physical pole, it agrees. Indeed, at the center of Whitehead's philosophy is his "ontological principle," according to which only actual entities can act. All explanations must finally be in terms of actual entities: "to search for a reason is to search for one or more actual entities" (PR, 24).

This point holds true even with regard to aggregational societies of actual entities, as Whitehead says that they are efficient only by means of the causal efficacy of their component actual entities (PR, 91). The panexperientialist version of physicalism would, to be sure, resist what Kim, as a "robust materialist," assumes to be an alternative formulation of the same point, namely, "that what is material determines all that there is in the world" (SM, 63). That is, given the distinction that I am making between physicalism and materialism, the latter would mean that "vacuous actualities," devoid of experience, exert all the causal efficacy in the world (which is one of the basic points that led Kim into insuperable difficulties in 'affirming the reality of the mental). But the two kinds of physicalism do agree that all causal efficacy is exerted by "physical entities," as characterized in points 1 through 5 above.

9. One of the central tenets of Kim's physicalism, as we have seen, is the thesis of the closed character of the physical domain. This tenet is, in fact, virtually equivalent to the previous point, because this tenet insists that the actual world consists of a nexus of cause-effect relations among physical things that is not open to influence from alleged nonphysical agents. This point is affirmed not only by Whiteheadian panexperientialism's insistence

on the "ontological principle" but also by its rejection of both dualism and supernaturalism. Of course, in the panexperientialist version of physicalism, all individual actual entities are physical-mental actualities, and it would resist Kim's assumption that to say that every event has a physical cause must mean "that this physical cause, in virtue of its physical property, causes the physical event" (SM, 280; emphasis added). Panexperientialism holds that the physical-mental cause can exert causal efficacy on subsequent events in virtue of its mental as well as its physical aspect. But both views agree that there can be no occasional interruptions of the universal causal nexus among physical things.

10. Closely related is Kim's assertion of universal causal determinism, according to which "every event has a cause" or, more precisely put, "every occurrence has a temporally earlier determinative condition" (SM, 22, 76). Panexperientialism resists the completely deterministic interpretation of this idea, according to which the temporally prior condition fully determines every present event: When the event in question is an individual occasion of experience, it has a mental pole, which is partly self-determining. Given that (very important) qualification, however, panexperientialism agrees that every event is (more or less) determined by antecedent conditions. In fact, in line with the Einsteinian definition of the "past" for any event as everything that causally affects it, Whitehead says: "The whole [past] world conspires to produce a new creation" (RIM, 109). To be sure, he also recognizes, in line with the common distinction between "conditions" and "causes," that some past events are far more important in determining the character of a present event than others. In any case, panexperientialism accepts the assumption, which lies behind the scientific search for explanations in terms of efficient causes, that all events are causally conditioned by antecedent events. It even agrees that some events (namely, those devoid of experiential unity) are fully determined by antecedent events. There are no events that have no causes; there are no events that have purely nonphysical causes; and there are no events that are fully self-caused. In all this, there is agreement.

11. Besides holding that only physical things can exert causal influence, Kim's physicalism also maintains that all physical things do exert causal efficacy. This principle is contained in his endorsement of Alexander's dictum, "To be real is to have causal powers" (SM, 348). This point is central to the panexperientialism of Whitehead, who, although he was also influenced by Alexander, traces the point back to Plato, citing his statement that "the definition of being is simply power" (AI, 129). Accordingly, besides the fact that every occasion begins by being an effect of the past universe, every occasion also ends by being a cause (an "object" or "superject"), exerting causal power on future events. Each actual occasion is physical, accordingly, in the twofold sense that it begins with a physical pole, which means as an

effect of prior events, and concludes by becoming a causal ingredient in the physical poles of subsequent events.

Given all of these points of agreement or at least similarity, accordingly, thinking of panexperientialism as a version of physicalism would not seem to involve an implausible extension of the meaning of "physicalism" as established by prior usage. Of course, nothing of substance hangs on this point. Construing panexperientialism as a type of physicalism, however, may be helpful by showing how ranch more materialism and panexperientialism have in common than might otherwise be readily apparent. In any case, having made this point, I will, in the next section, show how Kim's problems, being rooted in the materialist version of physicalism, would be avoided in the panexperientialist version.