自然主义泛心论被构想为未来意识科学的可能的形而上学基础,认为自然自有其心智,心智是自然中的现实存在者的根本性质。称泛心论是“自然主义的”,意味着在这个形而上学体系建构的过程中,对于宏观个体的心智能力,在存在论上必须基于微观现实存在者及其动力学关系作出一致和完整的解释,而不必诉诸超自然的要素。对泛心论者而言,尽管每一个微观现实单元皆具有心智,但是,不是每一个由微观现实单元构成的现实事物皆具有心智;确切地说,唯有那些由微观现实单元以“恰当的方式”构成的现实事物(即合成物)才能被合理地认为具有心智乃至意识,而至于那些仅仅由微观现实单元以聚集的方式集合而组成的任何层次的现实事物(即聚合物)则不能合理地说它们是有心智的。自然主义泛心论的整个思路是从体系内既定的现实存在者开始直到作为整体的心智现象,自下而上地确定适用体系内更受限的整分论构成原则。对于被泛心论者称作最难问题的“结合问题”,我们把客体的构成问题转化为泛心论的主体的构成问题。通过对整分论构成原则的分析,我们实际上得到一个较微弱的结论——某一充分条件的实现必然使某一特定层次的合成物在其整体上显现出特定丰度的心智。除了意识形而上学的共时性进路,我们最后在第五节从历时性进路讨论了一个来自怀特海的结合问题解决方案——意识作为高级主体性形式的“演变”。
Naturalistic panpsychism is to be conceived as one possible metaphysical foundation of future consciousness science. It claims that the nature has its own mind; and mind is the fundamentality of actual entities of nature. The fact that panpsychism is defined as "naturalistic" implies that the mental capacity of macroscopic individuals must be construed consistently and completely by microscopic actual entities and their dynamical relations ontologically, without resorting to supernatural elements. For panpsychists, although every fundamental actual unit has a mind, not each actual object being composited by the former can be asserted in the same way. To be precise, it is the actual objects (compounds) that is composited by these actual entities "in a proper way" can be regarded as having a mind, even consciousness reasonably, in contrast, the other type of objects (aggregates) that is composited merely in an aggregational way at any levels, cannot be judged indiscriminately to have a mind. The overall approach of naturalistic panpsychism is to identify more restricted composition principles of mereology which are applicable for the metaphysical system, from the actual entities (as parts) within the system to the consciousness phenomenon (as a whole) in a bottom-up way. The combination problem, which is referred to as the most difficult problem of panpsychism, is now turned from the composition problem of objects into the composition problem of subjects of panpsychism. In the end, via the analysis of composition principles of mereology, a conclusion is reached, though not strong enough, that at least one category of compounds from a certain level must show specific "abundances" of mind, by means of the realization of a certain sufficient condition. Apart from the synchronic approach to metaphysics of consciousness, one solution to the combination problem is discussed from Whitehead's panpsychism in the fifth section from the diachronic approach, the "transmutation" of consciousnes