This diploma thesis is concerned with the question of the right conceptual approach towards consciousness. It opens up with the thesis that the crucial characteristic of consciousness - its subjective aspect - is profoundly elusive. To understand the nature of this elusiveness we get a loose inspiration from Karl Jaspers (of the continental tradition) and his idea of "subject-object dichotomy" whose main point is a realisation that the conscious subject is in principle unobjectifiable and can never be properly grasped by objectifying thinking. This main idea is then applied to various modern theories of consciousness (coming from the analytical tradition) in order to explore and demonstrate to what extend each of the theories misses or acknowledges the specific irreducibility of consciousness to objectively describable phenomena. Thus we observe that J. J. C. Smart omits subjectivity from his identity theory altogether since he understands reality as objectively graspable in all its aspects. Colin McGinn comes with an interesting explanation of our problems with grasping consciousness as part of the physical world and asserts that we are "cognitively closed" with respect to the solution of the mind-body problem. However, he concludes that a possible solution delivered in objectifying terms exists...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:339992 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Košová, Michaela |
| Contributors | Hill, James, Karásek, Jindřich |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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