Welcome welcome, kind friends! And thank you for joining me for today’s episode of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents. Today we are getting a little scientific, and a little philosophical, so strap yourselves in and prepare to think hard as we discuss today’s word: hylozoism.

Hylozoism is ‘the doctrine that all matter has life’ or ‘any system that views all matter as alive, either in itself or by participation in the operation of a world soul or some similar principle.’ I told you we were getting deep today! This view dates back as early as 5th and 6th century Greek philosophers, who considered the magnet to be alive because of its attractive powers, or air as divine because of its spontaneous power of movement, or because of its essentiality for life in animals. The word itself comes from the late 17th century, from ‘hylo’ meaning ‘matter’ and the Greek ‘zōē’ meaning ‘life’.

Hylozoism is distinguished from the concept of ‘hylopsychism’ or possessing a mind. This is also known as ‘panpsychism’, which is ‘the view that the mind or mind-like feature is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.’ These two concepts become hard to distinguish in practice, however, because ancient hylozoists regarded the ‘spirits’ of plants and materials alive, and thus conscious. ‘Panpsychism’ comes from the Greek ‘pan’ meaning ‘all, everything, whole’, and ‘psyche’ meaning ‘soul, mind’. The use of psyche is sometimes regarded as controversial in this context because it is often synonymous with ‘soul’, which also gives supernatural connotations. More commonly found words to describe psyche include mind, mental properties, mental aspect, and experience.

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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