For a time during the 19th century it seemed like Pantheism was the religion of the future, attracting figures such as Wordsworth and Coleridge in Britain; Fichte, Schelling and Hegel in Germany; Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau in the USA. Seen as a threat by the Vatican, it came under attack in the notorious Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX.
Whatever underlies consciousness in a material sense, i.e., whatever it is about the brain that gives rise to consciousness, must necessarily be present to some degree in any other material thing.
Berkeley stated that individuals cannot think or talk about an object’s being, but rather think or talk about an object’s being perceived by someone. That is, individuals cannot know any “real” object or matter “behind” the object as they perceive it, which “causes” their perceptions. He thus concluded that all that individuals know about an object is their perception of it.
Phenomenology, in Husserl’s conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and analysis of the structures of consciousness, and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness. Such reflection was to take place from a highly modified “first person” viewpoint, studying phenomena not as they appear to “my” consciousness, but to any consciousness whatsoever. Husserl believed that phenomenology could thus provide a firm basis for all human knowledge, including scientific knowledge, and could establish philosophy as a “rigorous science”.
Compatibilists often continue and argue that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it. If one’s actions aren’t determined by one’s beliefs, desires, and character, then it seems that they aren’t one’s real actions…