Abstracts Philosophy, Religion, and Theology

Contra Chalmers : on consciousness and conceivability

by Jennifer-Wrae Primmer

This thesis presents and evaluates David Chalmers’ argument that the existence of phenomenal conscious experience constitutes a permanent barrier to the reductive aspirations of a purely materialistic neuroscience. My aim is to defend the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness, and argue that continued research in neuroscience and neurophysiology can result in a successful materialistic or reductive solution to the hard problem of consciousness. My argument against Chalmers is two-fold. First, I challenge Chalmers’ claim that consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. And second, I argue that his conceivability argument is implausible.