The hard problem of consciousness as a crisis of rationalist metaphysics according to Lev Shestov
Studies in East European Thought June 23, 2026 Krzysztof Piętak
The hard problem of consciousness is not a new technical puzzle in analytic philosophy but the latest form of an ancient conflict between rational explanation and lived experience, a conflict the philosopher Lev Shestov captured as the opposition between the 'tree of knowledge' and the 'tree of life.' Contemporary responses to the knowledge argument, particularly eliminativist physicalism, reveal the same tensions Shestov diagnosed in systems that demand necessity and explanatory closure. Rather than offering a technical solution, Shestov provides a framework that illuminates the metaphysical stakes of the consciousness debate and challenges the assumption that reality must fit a unified theory of everything.