The Hard Problem & Its Explanatory Targets

Ratio 29 (3):298-311 (2015)
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Abstract

Two decades in, whether we are making any progress towards solving, or even explaining away, what David Chalmers calls the ‘hard’ problem of consciousness is as controversial as ever. This paper aims to argue that there are, in actual fact, two explanatory targets associated with the hard problem. Moreover, this in turn has repercussions for how we assess the explanatory merits of any proposed solution to the problem. The paper ends with a brief exposition of how the present distinction goes beyond similar ones already made by respondents to Joseph Levine's explanatory gap.

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Raamy Majeed
University of Manchester

References found in this work

Facing up to the problem of consciousness.David Chalmers - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):200-19.
A Materialist Theory of the Mind.D. M. Armstrong - 1968 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Ted Honderich.
Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.
Physicalism, or Something Near Enough.Jaegwon Kim - 2005 - Princeton University Press.

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