Panexperientialism, Cognition, and the Nature of Experience

This paper explores the plausibility of panexperientialism by an examination of Gregg Rosenberg's development of the view in A Place for Consciousness. By focusing on experience rather than mentality, panexperientialism can avoid some of the traditional objections to panpsychism. However, panexperientialism's commitment to the claim that experience outruns cognition, and its corresponding commitment to the existence of states of pure experience, opens the view to a charge of incoherence. As I suggest, it is not possible for us to make any real sense of the notion of non-conscious experience.