E Neurophilosophy of Consciousness

e topic of phenomenal consciousness concerns what it means for mental states to be conscious states (as opposed to unconscious mental states) and what it means for such states to have phenomenal character, that is, to have properties in virtue of which there is " something it's like " for a subject to be in such a state. Traditional philosophical issues that phenomenal consciousness raises involve the relation of phenomenal consciousness to the rest of the world, especially as that world is conceived of by the natural sciences. us much philosophical discussion concerns whether the world as conceived of by physical theory can adequately accommodate phenomenal consciousness or if instead we are le with a dualism that cleaves reality into, for example, a nonphysical phenomenal consciousness and a physical everything else. Even among philosophers who agree that phenomenal consciousness is consistent with physicalism, there is much disagreement, for there are several proposals for how best to spell out the consistency of a physicalistic worldview that makes room for phenomenal consciousness. One way of portraying this cluster of issues is in terms of which natural science is best suited to study phenomenal consciousness and how to conceive of the relation between that science and the sciences involving the most basic aspects of reality (the physical sciences). One major view is that psychology is the proper science for understanding phenomenal consciousness and furthermore, that psychological investigation of phenomenal consciousness should be regarded as autonomous from sciences such as the neurosciences. In opposition is the view that the proper science is neuroscience and whatever contributions come from psychology are only valid insofar as psychological theories are reducible to neuroscienti c theories. Increasingly, proponents of the latter view identify themselves as practitioners of neurophilosophy. Neurophilosophy is a sub-genre of naturalized philosophy – philosophy that embraces Quine's (1969) vision of philosophy as continuous with the natural sciences – wherein the natural science in primary focus is neuroscience. It is perhaps worth addressing here in further detail what is distinctive of neurophilosophy as opposed to other kinds of natural-ism. e role that neuroscience plays is, of course, key, but not just any mention of the brain in a philosophical theory will su ce to make it neurophilosophical. Neurophilosophical appeals to neuroscience involve explicit and detailed use of contemporary neuroscienti c literature. Furthermore, neurophilosophy is not to be distinguished from other forms of naturalism by the philosophical …