In existographies, Paul Carus (1852-1919) (CR:7) was a German-born American philosopher, editor, panpsychist (Skrbina, 2005), and comparative religion scholar, noted for []
Panbiotism
In 1892, Carus defined “panbiotism”, a term identical to hylozoism (Skrbina, 2015), as the view that everything is fraught with life; it contains life; it is the ability to live”. [3]
Atomic souls?
See main: Do atoms have souls?
In 1907, Carus, in his “Goethe’s Soul-Conception”, printed a number of quotes by Goethe in immortality (see: Goethe on the soul) conjoined with views by Ernst Haeckel. [1]
In 1910, Carus, in his “Have Atoms Souls?”, cites German-born American philosopher Johannes Barandun’s article “Excursion Into the Infinitely Small”, who outlined views similar to "Goethe's monadology of the soul", as Carus refers to things, wherein he outlines a modification of Ernst Haeckel's "animate atoms" theory and Wilhelm Wundt's "animated will-centers" theory. [2]
Panpsychism
Carus has been classified, by David Skrbina (2005), as a panpsychist whose work was read by Charles Peirce. [3]
Religion
Carus, supposedly, characterized himself as an “atheist who loved god”, where the word god, as a cosmic order, was a name comprising "all that which is the bread of our spiritual life." (Ѻ)
Associations
Carus sent and received letters from: Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Booker T. Washington, Elizabeth Stanton, Ernst Mach, Ernst Haeckel, and John Dewey, to name a few.
References
1. Carus, Paul. (1907). “Goethe’s Soul-Conception”, The Open Court, 21:745-51.
2. (a) Carus, Paul. (1907). “Goethe’s Soul-Conception”, The Open Court, 21:745-51.
(b) Barandum, J. (1910). “Excursion Into the Infinitely Small”, The Open Court, 24:114-18.
(c) Carus, Paul. (1910). “Have Atoms Souls?” (pdf), The Open Court, 24:119-22.
3. (a) Skrbina, David. (2005). Panpsychism in the West (thermodynamics, pgs. 13, 151; panpsychist philosophers, pg. 155). MIT Press.
(b) Skrbina, David. (2017). Panpsychism in the West: Revised Edition (Carus, 4+ pgs; panbiotism, pg. 14; read by Peirce, pg. 190). MIT Press.
External links
● Paul Carus – Wikipedia.
