Abstract

Conceptual problems for consciousness are analogous to a Humean’s problem with scientific laws. Just as consciousness is often seen to involve further facts beyond the physical, laws would seem to involve reality beyond the Humean’s occurrent facts1. I will attempt to show that a Lewis-style best-system solution to the problem for laws should be applied to the related problem for consciousness. The leading idea of a best-system account is that law and chance claims are true in virtue of their place in ideal systematic treatment of the totality of occurrent fact. Nomic facts about law and chance, then, are not “further facts” beyond the occurrent; rather they are a matter of idealized scientific theory.