The Hard Problem of Consciousness was formulated in 1995 by David Chalmers: why does subjective experience exist at all? Why is there “something it is like” (Thomas Nagel) to have a particular experience — the taste of coffee, the redness of red, the pain of a prick? Even if all the neural correlates of an experience were fully described, the question would remain open as to why these processes are accompanied by experience.
Chalmers distinguishes the Hard Problem from the so-called Easy Problems — questions concerning the functional organisation of the brain, attention, wakefulness, or information processing. These are methodologically difficult, but in principle solvable with the means of natural science. The Hard Problem, by contrast, concerns the existence of subjective experience itself and eludes any purely functional explanation.
Place in the History of Philosophy
The problem is not new. Josef Seifert and Realist Phenomenology have always regarded the irreducible datum of experience as the starting point of philosophical analysis. Consciousness is a Archphenomenon — a basic given that cannot be derived any further and that precedes every reduction.
In the language of personal ontology: the Hard Problem arises because consciousness belongs to the Second Actuality (deutera energeia) of the Person and is rooted in the First Actuality (prote energeia) — in Personhood itself. Whoever seeks to reduce experience to physical processes overlooks the ontological difference between the being of the person and the measurable processes in the brain.
The Hard Problem thus poses a fundamental challenge to any Scientism that admits only what is measurable by natural science as real. If subjective experience is real — and no one who has it doubts this — then there is a reality that in principle eludes the empirical method.
Ontological Classification
Ontological relations:
- presupposes: Consciousness
- calls into question: Scientism
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What is Human Personhood? (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Chalmers, David J. (1995): “Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3), pp. 200–219.
- Nagel, Thomas (1974): “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83(4), pp. 435–450.
- Levine, Joseph (1983): “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64(4), pp. 354–361.
- Seifert, Josef (1987): Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.