The Cosmos and I

Could it be the case that all of us as individual human subjects stand to one another as Caeiro stands to Reis and Reis to Campos: just as they are the multiple heteronyms of one and the same subject, Fernando Pessoa, so too we are all heteronyms of one and the same subject, a single cosmic subject? There is a famous line in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad which might be interpreted as saying something of the sort—tat tvam asi: you are that, that single cosmic subject, brahman. For the eighth-century Vedāntic philosopher Śaṅkara, whose reading of the Upaniṣads would much later establish itself in the popular imagination, the similarity is further reinforced because he provides a context of phenomenological simulation similar to dreaming and imagining, namely, māyā, ‘cosmic illusion’. Let me call the view that individual human subjects are heteronyms of a single cosmic self ‘heteronymic cosmopsychism’. Heteronymic cosmopsychism is different from the comparatively more common variety of cosmopsychism according to which the grounding relation between the single cosmic self and the multiplicity of individual selves is mereological, not heteronymic. Heteronymic cosmopsychism agrees with priority monism in rejecting a monistic existence thesis, differing from it only as to the nature of the grounding relation, sidestepping the problems that bedevil priority cosmopsychism because its grounding relation is not one of decomposition.

Accounting for the Whole: Why Pantheism is on a Metaphysical Par with Complex Theism

Pantheists are often accused of lacking a sufficient account of the unity of the cosmos and its supposed priority over its many parts. I argue that complex theists, those who think that God has ontologically distinct parts or attributes, face the same problems. Current proposals for the metaphysics of complex theism do not offer any greater unity or ontological independence than pantheism, since they are modeled on priority monism. I then discuss whether the formal distinction of John Duns Scotus offers a way forward for complex theists. I show that only those classical theists who affirm divine simplicity are better off with respect to aseity and unity than pantheists. Only proponents of divine simplicity can fairly claim to have found a fully independent ultimate being.

Nothing Else

"Jewish Nothing-elsism" is the school of thought according to which there is nothing else besides God. This school is sometimes and erroneously interpreted as pantheistic or acosmic. In this paper I argue that Jewish Nothing-elsism is better interpreted as a form of “panentheistic priority holism”, and still better interpreted as a form of “idealistic priority monism”. On this final interpretation, Jewish Nothing-elsism is neither pantheist, panentheist, nor acosmic. Jewish Nothing-elsism is Hassidic idealism, and nothing else. Moreover, I argue that Jewish Nothing-elsism follows from some very basic assumptions common to almost every theist. All theists should be Nothing-elsers.

Priority Monism Beyond Spacetime

I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer’s priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer’s priority monism by being identified with the fundamental structure, namely the cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumption, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition.

A Conscious Universe

This chapter explores and defends a form of cosmopsychism: the combination of panpsychism and priority monism (the latter being the view that there is only one fundamental individual). The crucial advantage of cosmopsychism is that it offers a solution to the Subject Irreducibility Problem, discussed in the last chapter. After developing the view in response to various challenges, an empirical argument is advanced against emergentism. If this argument is sound, then it leads to cosmopsychism as the only anti-emergentist view that can solve the Subject Irreducibility Problem. Finally, the chapter responds to “the incredulous stare”: the sense that cosmopsychism is just too crazy to be believed. It is argued that this reaction is due to cultural associations; in fact, both comospychism and physicalism are motivated by the same anti-emergentist instincts.