The Difficult Problem of Consciousness in the Dimension of Cultural-Historical Psychology

The contemporary philosophy of consciousness is in crisis because the 'hard problem' reduces consciousness to basic sensory qualia, ignoring complex mental processes not derivable from individual sensory experience or neurophysiology. This natural-scientific approach frames the mind-brain relationship as an absolute opposition between internal/external and mental/physical. An alternative cultural-historical approach, rooted in L.S. Vygotsky's theory of higher mental functions, reframes the psychophysical problem as the relationship between thought and speech rather than psyche and brain. This approach offers high heuristic potential and opens new perspectives for constructing a monistic theory of the human psyche.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The article examines the fundamental causes of the crisis in the contemporary philosophy of consciousness. The most important of these is the formulation of the difficult problem of consciousness as a question about the nature of subjective experience (qualia), which results in the reduction of consciousness to elementary sensations - visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. More complex mental processes, the origins of which cannot be directly deduced from individual sensory experience and its neurophysiological basis, remain outside the scope of scientific research. The focus is on the relationship between consciousness and the brain, reduced to an absolute opposition between the internal and the external, the mental and physical. This approach to the psychophysical problem presupposes the need to describe mental phenomena in the language of cognitive and neuroscience. It can be called a natural and scientific approach to human consciousness. An alternative approach to the problem of consciousness is formed within the framework of a cultural and historical approach. At its origins lies the theory of development of higher mental functions of a person by L.S. Vygotsky. According to him, the fundamental question of the psychophysical problem lies not in the relationship between the psyche and the brain, but in the relationship between thought and speech. In the current crisis, the cultural and historical approach possesses high heuristic potential and opens up new perspectives for the study of consciousness. It offers the potential for constructing a monistic theory of the human psyche.