Consciousness

• seCtIon one: tHe PRoBLem
  problem: life itself ’ (1996a, p. 4). ‘Chalmers’s “Hard Problem” is a theorist’s illusion
  [.  .  .] not a real problem to be solved with revolutionary new science’ (2001a, p.
  223; also 2005, pp. 134–135). When asked ‘But what about the actual phenom-
  enology?’, Dennett replies: ‘There is no such thing’ (1991, p. 365). This is not
  because he denies that we are conscious, but because he thinks we misconstrue
  consciousness. It only seems as if there is actual phenomenology – what we need
  to explain is not the phenomenology itself but how it comes to seem this way.
  These are versions of what, in consciousness studies, has come to be called ‘illu-
  sionism’ (see Chapter 3). This is ‘the view that phenomenal consciousness, as usu-
  ally conceived, is illusory’ (Frankish, 2016b, p. 11). For the illusionist, what needs to
  be explained is not phenomenality or qualia or ‘the experiences themselves’ but
  our illusory ideas about experience. This means we can avoid the hard problem
  altogether and replace it with ‘the illusion problem’.
  All possible responses to the hard problem are still hotly disputed, and there are
  many more theories than we have mentioned here (for helpful reviews, see Seth
  [2007] and Seager [2016]). There is no doubt that the idea of subjectivity – what
  it’s like to be – lies at the heart of the problem of consciousness. But beyond that
  there is plenty to doubt.

‘Chalmers’s “Hard

Problem” is a theorist’s

illusion’

(Dennett, 2005, p. 134)

Churchland, P. S. (1996). The Hornswoggle prob-

lem. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3 , 402–408.

Dissects various bad reasons why we might put con-

sciousness in a different class from all other problems.

Kirk, R. (2015). Zombies. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2015

edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/

entries/zombies/

Outlines the arguments for and against zombies and

how zombies relate to conceivability and possibility,

mental causation, and the function of consciousness.

Ludlow, P., Nagasawa, Y., and Stoljar, D.

(Eds.) (2004). There’s something about Mary: Essays

on phenomenal consciousness and Frank Jackson’s

knowledge argument. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Groups responses to Jackson (and his later replies) into

categories: what, if anything, does Mary learn, and

could she really know everything physical?

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? Philo-

sophical Review, 83 , 435–450.

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