Xxxxx’x Dispositional Argument. Xxxxx Xxxxxx Xxxxx (2018) offers a strong argument for panpsychism based on dispositionalism. She argues that the only fundamentally dispositional properties that we can positively conceive of are phenomenal properties, in particular those associated with agency, intention, and/or motivation (Mørch 2018: 1073). Her argument from the experience of causation rests on: a) non-reductionism, or the claim that all physical things have causal powers, b) the already mentioned idea that the only causal powers whose nature we can positively conceive of are mental powers, and c) non-skeptical realism, which is the notion that the nature of the causal powers of physical things is knowable or positively conceivable (Mørch 2020: 276). In very simple terms, when I observe what I am doing, such as when raising my hand, I notice that the cause for the hand-raising is mental – my intention caused it. Why should I postulate that other causes are different11? This view, if correct, leads to the notion that dispositionalism entails panpsychism or, at the very least, that dispositionalism can be used to present an argument for panpsychism. If so, 11 This very basic line of reasoning, as I see it, is tied to the attitude of giving primacy to phenomenal consciousness when building an ontology. It seems more parsimonious to assume that all causes are of the same fundamental kind, collapsing the intentionality of the mental and the directedness of the dispositional into one unified category. the force of dispositionalism as an objection or alternative to panpsychism will be weakened. Xxxxx starts from the original argument for Russellian panpsychism and then builds an analogous argument for panpsychism from dispositionalism. If the original argument is at least valid, then the dispositional one should be as well. Her proposal goes as follows (Mørch 2018: 1080): The original arguments share the following two premises:
