THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS
This discussion of the problem of human nature is drawn from a working paper titled The Major Problematics of Interdisciplinary Social Theory. (D. H. Bowles 2023)
There are four principal, persistent “problematics” (or more simply, “problems”) that recurrently present themselves for solution in interdisciplinary social theory. They are:
- The problem of human nature
- The problem of relativism
- The problem of distribution
- The problem of consciousness
Not surprisingly, the four problems are not independent of one another, but are inter-related. The purpose here is to provide a conceptual introduction to each of these problems in turn, followed by a brief introduction to the ‘global social theory’ framework for the comparative analysis of interdisciplinary social theory paradigms.
The last of these four problems to be discussed here is the problem of consciousness.
The Problem of Consciousness
The problem with consciousness is that it is a mystery, a philosophical puzzle with which social theory has largely declined to engage, either assuming or asserting–perhaps also hoping– that such speculative inquiry lies outside its purview. “If we ignore the problem, perhaps it will go away. Or perhaps someone else will solve it.”
But the problem will not go away, if only because it is integrally conjoined to the problem of human nature and social ontology. Anyone wishing to either assert or deny a social ontology of autonomous individual identity and interest (and that’s pretty much everybody in the world of social theory) no matter how much they may wish to, cannot ignore the necessity of providing a plausible, if not convincing, account of the phenomena of individual self-consciousness.
The ‘Hard Problem’
In his 2018 book How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan explains the problem rather succinctly from the perspective that prevails within the psychologically-oriented disciplines, for whom we may suppose the charge to investigate this problem is actually operative:
What neuroscientists and philosophers and psychologists mean by ‘consciousness’ is the unmistakable sense we have that we are, or possess, a self that has experiences. Let us call this ‘the subjective quality of experience.’ It is frequently referred to as ‘the hard problem,’ or ‘the explanatory gap’: how do you explain mind–the subjective quality of experience–in terms of the physical structures or chemistry of the brain? (293-94)
Here, we have the definition of a problem that is clearly, integrally related to the problem of human nature and social ontology. We could even call it the problem of self-consciousness or, as Pollan refers to it, the ‘hard problem.’[1] It could also be usefully and succinctly characterized as ‘the problem of the subjective quality of experience’ (or, perhaps, ‘the subjective quality of the experience of self.’)
For neuroscientists, the ‘hard problem’ is to identify and explain the neural correlates of consciousness. For our purpose as social theorists, the problem could perhaps be better expressed with a question: what is the ontology of consciousness? It is a fundamental question with which social theory must inevitably be concerned, but it is usually addressed with implicit rather than explicit ontological commitments.
The Problem of Consciousness in Social Theory
The problem of consciousness is a central concern in specialty fields of both philosophy and psychology, including philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and phenomenology. The field of philosophy of mind developed within the Anglo-American analytic tradition, and is consequently more aligned with a positivist meta-theoretical perspective. Philosophical phenomenology, originating with Edmund Husserl, takes the subjective experience of self-consciousness as its point of departure, and represents an important thread of development in the Continental (vs. the Anglo-American) philosophical tradition; it is primarily aligned with hermeneutic, or interpretive meta-theoretical perspectives. Early psychological phenomenology developed in opposition to behaviorist psychology, but that contrast is currently more appropriately made with schools of cognitive psychology.
In terms of its explicit incorporation into social theory, only philosophical phenomenology can be said to make any significant appearance, serving as the meta-theoretical basis for variants of the hermeneutic, or interpretive paradigm. For further explanation of this, see discussion of the comparative analysis of interdisciplinary social theory paradigms in What is ‘Global’ Social Theory?
Footnotes
[1] The ‘hard problem of consciousness,’ or simply ‘the hard problem,’ is widely recognized within the fields of consciousness studies. Its widespread recognition can be traced back to the publication of David Chalmers (1995), “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness,” Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 2 No 3, 200-19.
What is ‘Global’ Social Theory?
Download working paper: The Major Problematics of Interdisciplinary Social Theory (D. H. Bowles 2023). See paper for References.