Abstract
‘The mind-body problem’ is the problem of how to understand conscious awareness within a world made up of physical things. But I argue that any view according to which it is meaningful to use different terms to refer to ‘the mind’ and ‘the body’ must be a dualist view; and that dualism is not a satisfactory metaphysical position. A strong case can be made for the claim that even those who profess to be opposed to dualism can often still be described as ‘closet’ dualists. Much typical ‘consciousness’ research concerns what David Chalmers calls ‘the easy problems of consciousness’. My own view is that almost all of Chalmers’ ‘easy problems’ could better be characterized as ‘problems to do with (‘conscious’) sense perception, and with cognition’. However, perception and cognition are very often not ‘conscious;’ therefore, I argue, approaching conscious experience by means of investigating perception or cognition is problematic...
D.Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)