Phi 109-02
Fall 2013
(Site navigation is not working.)
Phi 109-02 F13
Reading guide for Thurs. 12/12: Chalmers, “The Puzzle of Conscious Experience” (pp. 90-100)—on the author’s site at http://consc.net/papers/puzzle.pdf and on EBSCO at AN 10684238

This article is intended to be accessible, so you probably don’t need much help to find your way through it. I’ll merely suggest some ideas to watch for because they are likely to play a significant role in our discussion.

the “hard problem” vs. easier ones

the “explanatory gap”

consciousness vs. awareness

psycho-physical laws

“dancing qualia”

Chalmers’ speculations about a theory of consciousness in the last section of the paper are related to the issue of epiphenomenalism. Chalmers, like Jackson, has argued against objections to this view. But he doesn’t exactly argue for it, either. He has said that he is open to either of two forms of dualism—interactionism and epiphenomenalism—but is most attracted by the sort of view he describes in this section (something he elsewhere labels “panprotopsychism”), which is a sort of monism.