Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness

by Joseph Levine

Conscious experience presents a deep puzzle. On the one hand, a fairly robust materialism must be true in order to explain how it is that conscious events causally interact with non-conscious, physical events. On the other hand, we cannot explain how physical phenomena give rise to conscious experience.
In this wide-ranging study, Joseph Levine explores both sides of the mind-body dilemma, presenting the first book-length treatment of his highly influential ideas on the "explanatory gap," the fact that we can't explain the nature of phenomenal experience in terms of its physical realization. He presents a careful argument that there is such a gap, and, after providing intriguing analyses of virtually all existing theories of consciousness, shows that recent attempts to close it fall short of the mark. Levine concludes that in the foreseeable future consciousness will remain a mystery.

Genres: Philosophy

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Levine argues a) Consciousness must be a physical phenomenon, and b) We have no idea how consciousness could be a physical phenomenon. Levine's justification for the former claim is a discussion of property dualism (interactionism is rejected from the start), with the conclusion that, because mental states are causally efficacious, property dualism must be false. Because mental states have physical effects, materialism must be true, for only physical causes could have physical effects. Regarding the latter claim, Levine argues that conceivability arguments show that there is a substantive explanatory gap between understanding neurological states and understanding mental states. That is, questions such as "How could redishness arise from neuronal firing?" are intelligible.

Levine concludes this book by writing, "The mind/body problem is still a problem." Levine's work can be considered a primarily negative project--he tears down far more than he builds up. The sticky problems is of the form: P must be Q, but there is no way to explain how P could possibly be Q.

[Leonardo]

Comentado en El Instinto de la conciencia.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A PHILOSOPHY PROFESSOR CONCLUDES THAT THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM IS "STILL A PROBLEM"

Joseph Levine is Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2001 book, "Why is there a mind-body problem? This book is an attempt to answer that question. It is not my intention to present a solution to the problem. On the contrary, I hope to demonstrate that there really is a problem here, and that we are far short of the conceptual resources required for its solution... I will briefly, and without much argument, present my case... [then] I will try to convince you of its merit." (Pg. 3)

He states, "What I want to argue in this book is that the mind-body problem, at least with respect to the issue of conscious experience, presents us, in a way, with a Kantian antinomy. We have excellent reasons for thinking that mental phenomena, including conscious experience, must be a series of physical/natural phenomena. On the other hand, we also have excellent reasons for thinking conscious experience cannot be captured in physical/natural terms. The total physical/natural story seems to leave out conscious experience... I argue that the explanatory gap is primarily an epistemological problem, not necessarily a metaphysical one." (Pg. 9-10)

He says, "I claimed... that if materialism is true we have reason to expect that any phenomenon can be explained by reference to the physical laws and principles that govern nature as a whole... it follows that we should be able to show how a description of the phenomenon to be explained can be deduced from an ideal explanatory text ... Thus, what we should expect is bottom-up necessity, both metaphysically and epistemologically." (Pg. 76)

He suggests, "I've argued that there is an explanatory gap between the physical and the mental, at least with respect to conscious experience. The argument has been based largely on considerations of what's conceivable." (Pg. 93) Later, he adds, "I have examined various reductive strategies for removing the explanatory gap and found them all wanting. Qualia appear to be intrinsic properties of experience, but, if they are, it's hard to see how to make sense of them in physical terms." (Pg. 125)

He concludes, "My aim in this book was to establish that, when it comes to conscious experience, we face a kind of Kantian antinomy... My argument for the materialist side of the antinomy was based primarily on the fact that mental states had both physical causes and physical effects. I argued that only if conscious experiences were realized in physical states could we make sense of their causal relevance... On the anti-materialist side, I do not claim to have an argument that conscious experience absolutely could not be a physical phenomenon... I do claim that we can't really understand how it could be." (Pg. 175) He closes on the note, "I hope to have established that... we really do continue to face a genuine puzzle. The mind-body problem is still a problem." (Pg. 177)

This book will be of interest to those studying the philosophy of mind.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't recommend anyone that hasn't had training in analytical philosophy and some significant amount of philosophy of mind to even attempt reading this book. Having said that, it's a rigorous and thorough piece of analytical philosophy. Of course, I'm not convinced that I agree with Levine, but he does an amazing job at surveying the different positions, the relationships between them, and raising interesting objections.