Does Vedānta Concern the Hard Problem of Consciousness? Part I: A Critical Examination of the Perennial Idealist Reading of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta

Abstract

In a series of papers, Miri Albahari (2019; 2020; 2022; 2024) has articulated and defended perennial idealism (PI), a view she associates with Śakara’s Advaita Vedānta. She argues that PI offers a solution to the hard problem of consciousness (HPC). In this work, I distinguish the HPC, which occupies contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, from the hard problem of the self (HPS), which occupied classical Indian philosophy. I then critically evaluate Albahari’s use of non-dual universal consciousness to solve the HPC. I focus on her response to a set of objections to the view that non-dual universal consciousness is fit for grounding subject‐level phenomenal‐intentional consciousness – the target of the HPC. I argue that because Śakara’s metaphysics of non-dual universal consciousness as the ground of all being is not fit to ground, it cannot solve the HPC.