The hard problem of Consciousness and the Conceivability Argument

SUZUKI Takayuki

doi:10.11439/philosophy1952.2004.193

Some anti-physicalists claim that the conceivability of zombies itself shows in an a priori way that physicalism about consciousness cannot be true. We have to see if this argument is successful before we start to build a physicalistic theory of con-sciousness. There are two popular physicalist objections to the argument. The ob-jection based on necessity a posteriori does not succeed because of the equivocality of the statements in question.Another objection, based on non-ascriptivism about meaning, fails because non-ascriptivism mistakenly thinks that conceivability is a quite empty notion. Despite the failure of these objections, we can object to the con-ceivability argument by emphasizing the possible inappropriateness of concepts. Our present concepts do not necessarily depict reality in an appropriate way. So, conceivability based on our present concepts has no consequences for metaphysical possibility if the concepts used are inappropriate ones. We have reason to think that our current concept of consciousness is inconsistent, so the conceivability of zom-bies is not a reliable guide to their metaphysical possibility. We may see that physi-calism about consciousness is true and zombies are inconceivable when we have the appropriate concept of consciousness.

The hard problem of Consciousness and the Conceivability Argument

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