Raw Feeling: A Philosophical Account of the Essence of Consciousness

by Robert Kirk

Consciousness is a perennial source of mystification in the philosophy of mind - how can processes in the brain amount to conscious experiences? Robert Kirk uses the notion of "raw feeling" to bridge the intelligibility gap between our knowledge of ourselves as physical organisms and our knowledge of ourselves as subjects of experience. He argues that there is no need for recourse to dualism or private mental objects. The task is to understand how the truth about raw feeling could be "strictly implied" by narrowly physical truths. Kirk's explanation turns on an account of what it is to be a subject of conscious perceptual experience. He offers analyses of the problems of cnsciousness, and suggests novel solutions which, unlike their rivals, can be accepted without gritting one's teeth. His sustained defence of non-reductive physicalism shows that the reader need not abandon hope of finding a solution to the mind-body problem. Robert Kirk is the author of "Translation Determined".

260 pages, Hardcover

First published March 10, 1994

About the author

Robert Kirk (born 1933) is an emeritus professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He is known for his work on philosophical zombies—putatively unconscious beings physically and behaviourally identical to human beings.