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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Consciousness Research
Volume 15 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1422050
This article is part of the Research Topic The End of Qualia. Do We Still Need Phenomenology in the Science of Consciousness? View all 4 articles
Is Phenomenal Consciousness really a Special Case in Science?
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
- 2 Center for Philosophy of Sciences at the University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
In the metaphysics of science, it is often held that higherlevel properties are grounded in micro-physical properties. According to many philosophers, however, phenomenal consciousness resists this view. Many famous arguments in Philosophy of Mind have been given to reject this notion. In this paper, we argue that there is something odd about the idea that phenomenal consciousness is a special case for science and give a constructive proposal on how consciousness can fit in the natural world. To do so, we will first introduce a general notion of what grounding is. Then, we will briefly explain how the arguments for the specialness of phenomenal consciousness work by considering two famous examples, namely the zombie and the knowledge argument. In a further step, we will briefly discuss two cases from other areas in science, i.e. in particle physics and chemistry. We will demonstrate that the standard view about the reductive relation does not hold, even in these paradigm cases of the natural sciences. If what we argue is true, we think that most arguments from phenomenal consciousness cannot defeat physicalism per se. Finally, we will introduce an alternative way to naturalize phenomenal consciousness.
Keywords: Phenomenal consciousness, grounding, Ontological naturalism, Micro-Physicalism, Quasi-particles, molecule structure
Received: 23 Apr 2024; Accepted: 09 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Gärtner and Cordovil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Klaus Gärtner, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
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