What ‘Science of Consciousness’? A Phenomenological Take on Naturalizing the Mind

JVF Conference Papers

The problem of how to conceptualize the subjective aspects of human experience has been one of the centrepieces of any philosophical theory of the mind ever since Descartes. Following decades of ignorance in the wake of behaviourism and, simultaneously, the postmodernist farewell to the Cartesian heritage, the problem of subjective consciousness has once more become a focal point of attraction both in comtemporary philosophy of mind and in the cognitive neurosciences. By now, debates about the conceptual boundaries and the empirical possibilities of explaining consciousness within the best available framework of the natural sciences are reaching far beyond the narrow academic frontiers of traditional epistemology.

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