Philosophy of Being and Knowledge

Philosophy of Consciousness

Critique of the Problem

The debate over the relationship between the physical and mental aspects of humanity is not confined merely to the dichotomy of dualism and monism but extends within these positions to various forms of both dualism and monism. Despite the vibrancy of these discussions and the considerable effort invested in seeking solutions to the problem of consciousness, clear answers remain elusive. It appears that this issue may be insurmountable and is heading toward a dead end. The failure to resolve this debate has elicited a bifurcated response from scholars. Some philosophers and psychologists are convinced that the complexity of the consciousness problem should motivate researchers to invest greater efforts in resolving it. Adherents of this view, both from the dualist and monist camps, are intensifying their scholarly pursuits. Conversely, other researchers have become disillusioned and lost hope of ever finding a well-founded resolution to the problem. They have criticized the very formulation of the problem and have called for abandoning attempts to solve it. In contemporary philosophy, two critical positions regarding the philosophy of consciousness have emerged.

The first position is grounded in analytic philosophy of language, particularly in the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who argued that numerous philosophical problems that have remained unresolved for centuries, if not millennia, stem not from the complexity of the issues themselves but from linguistic errors. Wittgenstein belonged to the analytic philosophy tradition known as logical atomism and was the proponent of the theory of pictorial representation. He believed that the world perceived by humans consists of atomic facts, or singular phenomena, which are expressed in language and thought through simple propositions. Wittgenstein referred to these simple propositions that reflect atomic facts as atomic propositions. People use various expressions in language. Wittgenstein, and many subsequent analytic philosophers, categorized these expressions into two types. The first type consists of atomic propositions, which reflect (or record) some atomic fact. The second type includes statements that are not related to any fact, or whose connection to an atomic fact and their truth value cannot be established. The use of such statements generates phantom problems—problems that arise not from the complexity of the subject matter but from improper use of language. Philosophy cannot resolve phantom problems because they do not actually exist; they are merely linguistic misunderstandings. If the philosophical community regards them as genuine problems, it will invest significant efforts into solving them, yet will never achieve results. Phantom problems should be discarded, thus clearing philosophy and science of questions that have fruitlessly consumed creative energy for centuries.

Wittgenstein considered the mind-body problem to be one such phantom problem. No matter how much effort the philosophy of consciousness invests in resolving this issue, it will never succeed. What is addressed in the statements used by the philosophy of consciousness does not correspond to any atomic fact, and thus such statements are not atomic propositions. Even if the mind-body problem has some relation to actual facts, this relation cannot be recorded. The only way out of the problem of consciousness is to reject it at the level of meta-language.

The second position, held by those who assert that the mind-body problem will never be solved by philosophy, is based on skepticism. Among skeptical concepts, two stand out. The first was formulated by British analytic philosopher Colin McGinn (b. 1950), who argued that each biological species has its limitations imposed by nature, which cannot be overcome. For instance, crows cannot write poetry, and horses cannot compose symphonies. Humans also have their limitations, which they will never transcend. Solving the problem of consciousness is one such limitation.

American analytic philosopher Thomas Nagel (b. 1937) proposed a different, less radical skeptical concept than McGinn's theory. Nagel argued that humans will never be able to study consciousness, not because this problem is a limitation inherent to humanity, but because any scientific knowledge requires maximal objectivity and a complete separation of subject and object, and in the case of studying consciousness, separating the subject from the object is impossible. Since consciousness cannot study itself in the same way it studies other subjects, the mind-body problem remains unsolvable.