Personhood, consciousness, and god how to be a proper pantheist

In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal for philosophy of religion Vol. 85; no. 1; pp. 77 - 98
Main Author Coleman, Sam
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Science + Business Media 01.02.2019
Springer Netherlands
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Consciousness
Education
God
Non-Western Philosophy
Pantheism
Personhood
Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion
Religious Studies
Unconsciousness
Universe
Pantheism
Panqualityism
Consciousness
Panpsychism
Russellian monism
Panentheism
Self
Unconscious
God
Personhood
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Summary:In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical to episodes of consciousness. Through a critique of this experiential approach to personhood, I develop a theory of self as constituted of qualitative mental contents, but where these contents are also capable of unconscious existence. On this theory, though we can be conscious of our selves, consciousness turns out to be inessential to personhood. This move, I then argue, provides resources for responding to the pantheist’s problem of God’s person.
ISSN:0020-7047
1572-8684
DOI:10.1007/s11153-018-9689-7