6533b862fe1ef96bd12c5db2

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Il vincolo di affinità profonda. Verso una filosofia ambientale panpsichista

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The article provides some arguments in favour of a panpsychist turn in environmental philosophy. It first explains why dualism remains a favoured polemical target for many environmental activists and theorists, even though the scientific/metaphysical paradigm of reference is now generally physicalist. It then points to some of the tribulations of environmental philosophy in juggling dualism and physicalism. It goes on to describes some of the strategies adopted by environmental philosophers to establish an axiologically-relevant ontological affinity between humans and non-humans, and notes how these strategies punctually (and more or less explicitly and plausibly) return to the recognition (or attribution) of mind or mental characteristics to non-humans. Such recognition is easy in the case of non-human animals, revisionist in the case of plants and living non-sentient entities in general, and mostly left unattended in the case of non-human, non-living entities like rocks. This leaves us with a patchy result whereby humans have a deep ontological affinity with only small and selected portions of the non-human. The paper then articulates the contours of an alternative panpsychist cosmos, in which everything has mind or mental characteristics, and thus has a most profound bond with humans. Finally, it sketches some questions for a panpsychist research program in environmental philosophy.