| Summary: | The article focuses on the doctrine of "panpsychism" perpetuated by theologist Charles Hartshorne. Hartshorne's formulation is an adaptation deduced from philosopher Alfred North Whitehead's "process and reality." Hartshorne repeatedly emphasizes that as one descends to more primitive natural bodies, the form of mentality one attributes becomes more attenuated. In extending attributions of mentality beyond pets and domestic animals, panpsychism is not introducing some special descriptions of natural bodies any differently from those provided by the sciences, but instead affirming the appropriateness in attenuated form of attitudes one has towards those with which one socially interacts.
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