David J. Chalmers
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195311105
- eISBN:
- 9780199870851
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195311105.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All ...
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Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. This chapter first isolates the truly hard part of the problem of consciousness, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. It critiques some recent work that uses reductive methods to address consciousness and argues that these methods inevitably fail to come to grips with the hardest part of the problem. Once this failure is recognized, the door to further progress is opened. The second half of the chapter argues that, if we move to a new kind of nonreductive explanation, a naturalistic account of consciousness can be given.Less
Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. This chapter first isolates the truly hard part of the problem of consciousness, separating it from more tractable parts and giving an account of why it is so difficult to explain. It critiques some recent work that uses reductive methods to address consciousness and argues that these methods inevitably fail to come to grips with the hardest part of the problem. Once this failure is recognized, the door to further progress is opened. The second half of the chapter argues that, if we move to a new kind of nonreductive explanation, a naturalistic account of consciousness can be given.
