Phenomenology and the Physical Reality of Consciousness

Consciousness is not merely a product of brain activity, as most philosophers and scientists believe, but a phenomenon that exists throughout the body. The book argues that consciousness is fundamentally self-disclosing, revealing itself to the conscious being, regardless of intentionality or self-awareness. By focusing on this self-disclosing character, the work proposes a specific account of consciousness as a bodily field phenomenon, aiming to break the philosophical stalemate over its physical reality.

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Abstract

The predominant positive view among philosophers and scientists alike is that consciousness is something realized in brain activity. This view, however, largely fails to capture what consciousness is like according to how it shows itself to conscious beings. What this work proposes instead is that consciousness is a phenomenon that exists in and throughout the body. Apart from whether or not it involves intentionality and apart from whether or not it involves awareness of the self, consciousness is self-intimating, self-revealing, self-disclosing. Self-disclosure is the definitive phenomenological character of consciousness in all its forms. Taking this stance as a point of departure, the book presents a specific account of what bodily field phenomenon consciousness is. In this way, the current stalemate in philosophy over the question of the physical reality of consciousness is broken. Series A