Problem świadomości i modalny racjonalizm

Karol Polcyn

doi:10.18290/rf25734.5

Published : 2025-12-29

Vol. 73 No. 4 (2025)

The Problem of Consciousness and Modal Rationalism

Karol Polcyn

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2892-4048

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rf25734.5

Abstract

Crucial to the debate about the nature of consciousness is the question about the relation between what is conceivable and what is possible. One cannot rule out a priori that our physical duplicates lack consciousness. Does this mean that there are possible worlds with such duplicates, which would entail that materialism is false? David Chalmer’s two-dimensional argument answers this question positively on the basis of an analysis of the reasons that lead us to believe in modality in the first place. This analysis is supposed to show that scenarios understood as maximally coherent hypotheses about the actual world always correspond to possible worlds. I argue that the analysis of the notion of possibility does not justify the above thesis. While this sort of analysis may explain why there are good reasons to think that scenarios from outside the mind-body domain correspond to possible worlds, it does not justify the claim that scenarios about the distribution of phenomenal properties and physical properties (such as zombie scenarios) correspond to possible worlds.

Keywords:

consciousness, materialism, modality, rationality, phenomenal concepts, epistemic situation

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Polcyn, K. (2025). The Problem of Consciousness and Modal Rationalism. Roczniki Filozoficzne, 73(4), 75–93. https://doi.org/10.18290/rf25734.5

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