Abstract
In this paper I present an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond's thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I reconsider du Bois-Reymond's speech "On the limits of natural science" (1872) in the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy and neurophysiology, pointing out connections and analogies with contemporary arguments on the "hard problem of consciousness." Du Bois-Reymond's position turns out to be grounded on an epistemological argument and characterized by a metaphysical skepticism, motivated by the unfruitful speculative tendency of contemporary German philosophy and natural science. In the final sections, I show how contemporary research can benefit from a reconsideration of this position and its context of emergence, which is a good vantage point to trace open problems in consciousness studies back to their historical development.
Highlights
Research on the neural correlates of consciousness has made significant progress in the last 20 years, stimulating philosophy to respond in a number of ways
David Chalmers, who has introduced the phrase “the hard problem of consciousness” in order to characterize the problem of explaining the relation between subjective experience and brain activity, has examined the progressive revival of a whole range of alternatives over the course of his philosophical career: first, he formulated a critique of functionalism and materialism as inadequate to explain subjective experience; second, he reconsidered different kinds of dualism; third, since the 2000s, he examined the revival of kinds of panpsychism, and, more recently, of kinds of idealism (Chalmers 2019; see Chalmers 1996 and 2016)
Some scholars and philosophers have acknowledged that contemporary problems of philosophy of mind were formulated in similar terms by important scientists of the nineteenth century, including Thomas Huxley, John Tyndall, and Emil du Bois-Reymond
Summary
Research on the neural correlates of consciousness has made significant progress in the last 20 years, stimulating philosophy to respond in a number of ways. Some scholars and philosophers have acknowledged that contemporary problems of philosophy of mind were formulated in similar terms by important scientists of the nineteenth century, including Thomas Huxley, John Tyndall, and Emil du Bois-Reymond.
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