Consciousness and
biological
naturalism
Michael Lacewing
enquiries@alevelphilosophy.
co.uk
© Michael Lacewing
Searle on consciousness
• Creature consciousness:
some organisms are
conscious, some aren’t
• State consciousness:
conscious creatures have
conscious mental states,
in which the creature is
conscious of something
• Consciousness as a ‘field’,
states as ‘flux’ in the field
A functional account
• Searle must say what creature consciousness
is.
• An alternative is this:
– A creature is conscious if it has conscious mental
states.
– A mental state is conscious just in case it has
certain other (causal-functional) relations to
other states and behaviour.
• But functionalism faces the objection from
qualia.
The ‘first-personal’ nature
of consciousness
• Searle: the phenomena and reality of
consciousness is irreducibly ‘first-personal’,
known from the ‘inside’
• Conscious states are only available (as
conscious) to the person whose states they
are
• Functional analysis is ‘third-personal’, from
the ‘outside’, which is why it misses the
subjective perspective
Biological naturalism
• Consciousness is a biological
property, a ‘systemic’
property of the (working)
brain
• Systemic properties are
properties of a whole system
not possessed by its parts, e.g.
liquidity, transparency
– In these two cases, we can
explain the systemic property in
terms of molecular arrangements
Biological naturalism
• Neurones aren’t
conscious, but some
brain processes, as a
whole, are conscious
– Consciousness is caused
by neuronal processes
• So consciousness is a
natural, biological
property
Objection
• We can give scientific questions of why
liquids are liquid, why glass is transparent
• But the first-personal nature of
consciousness prevents us giving a scientific
(third-personal) explanation; so
consciousness is not a physical property (an
argument for property dualism)
Searle on reduction
• With the molecular explanation of liquidity, we
redefine liquidity as a particular arrangement of
molecules (ontological reduction)
• We could do the same with consciousness, but
we don’t, because it would miss out the firstpersonal aspect of consciousness
• But this doesn’t show consciousness isn’t
physical - we have already explained that it is a
systemic property of the brain
• The unwillingness to reduce is pragmatic, not
metaphysical
When are two things really
one thing?
• With liquidity, the explanation also shows
why, given how molecules interact, the
substance must be liquid; so we can’t think
of the two as separate
• Nagel: we can’t imagine an explanation that
would show why neuronal activity has to
produce consciousness; so it is natural to
suppose that consciousness is something
more than just neuronal activity
Searle’s response
• Neuroscience might yet produce such
an explanation
– But how can any third-personal
explanation account for first-personal
phenomena?
• Scientific theories don’t always show
why something must be the case, e.g.
e=mc2
Naturalism?
• Is Searle a property dualist? He says
‘no’
• But if consciousness is irreducibly firstpersonal, then if it is a biological
property, it is unique, not like any
other biological property