Explaining Consciousness-Foundational and Methodological Issues in the Philosophical Investigation of Conscious Experience

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The explanatory gap thesis (GAP) claims that cognitive science cannot explain why neural activity gives rise to subjective conscious states, such as pain and visual sensations (Levine 2006, Chalmers 2009). Proponents of GAP argue that this "explanatory gap" is unique, as there are no parallel explanatory gaps attaching to other metaphysical questions, such as why arrangements of particles give rise to ordinary material objects. However, GAP seems to presuppose that it is a substantive (non-conceptual) question whether neural states give rise to consciousness, while apparently treating other contested metaphysical questions as merely conceptual, to avoid the emergence of many parallel explanatory gaps (Schaffer 2017). Thus, proponents of GAP appear to "deflate" the majority of metaphysical questions, while simultaneously "inflating" those concerning consciousness, thereby making ad hoc assumptions about the substantiality of metaphysical questions. This line of argument opens up new connections between GAP and metametaphysics, i.e. the inquiry into the significance and methodology of metaphysics. Whether these connections exist and how they are to be understood will be the main topic of my doctoral thesis. Understanding the nature of the explanatory gap is crucial to answering questions about the metaphysics of consciousness and the possibility of explaining conscious states in terms of the underlying physical processes. This project will examine the metametaphysical assumptions underlying GAP. It will focus primarily on the unexplored connections between debates on the explanatory gap and debates on whether metaphysical questions are substantive ("inflationism"), as opposed to merely conceptual ("deflationism"). The overarching aim is to demonstrate that GAP does not rely on ad hoc metametaphysical assumptions and, hence, that the explanatory gap is not the mere by-product of a parochial approach to metaphysics. The project will make three main contributions: (1) Determine whether current formulations of GAP (especially Chalmers 2009 and Levine 2006) rely on ad hoc metametaphysical assumptions. (2) Demonstrate that, although "inflating" most metaphysical questions (by considering them to be substantive) would create explanatory gaps all over, these gaps would be importantly different from the explanatory gap between neural states and consciousness. (3) Illustrate how deflating the question of whether neural states give rise to consciousness (by classifying it as merely conceptual) would not undermine GAP. This project will bridge two prominent debates in contemporary philosophy (one concerning consciousness and one concerning the substantiality of metaphysical questions) whose connections are largely unexplored, thereby presenting a new approach to an enduring philosophical problem. Consensus is lacking regarding the nature of the explanatory gap: some claim it is metaphysically and scientifically inconsequential (Dennett 2016, Frankish 2016), while others hold that its existence challenges naturalism and calls for radical revisions in cognitive science (Chalmers 2009, Levine 2018). This shows that the issue of the nature of the explanatory gap is crucial, and touches upon the very relation between the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. By clarifying GAP, the project could thus also contribute to illuminating the relation between theoretical and empirical approaches to the mind.