Does Vedānta Concern the Hard Problem of Consciousness? Part I: A Critical Examination of the Perennial Idealist Reading of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta
Journal of Consciousness Studies October 1, 2025 Anand Vaidya
This philosophical paper distinguishes the hard problem of consciousness (HPC), central to contemporary analytic philosophy of mind, from the hard problem of the self (HPS), which preoccupied classical Indian philosophy. It critically evaluates Miri Albahari's perennial idealism (PI), a view she associates with Śaṅkara's Advaita Vedānta, which proposes non-dual universal consciousness as a solution to the HPC. Focusing on Albahari's response to objections about whether such consciousness can ground subject-level phenomenal-intentional consciousness, the author argues that Śaṅkara's metaphysics of non-dual universal consciousness as the ground of all being cannot solve the HPC because it is not fit to ground that type of consciousness.