- 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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