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.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Chapter
Finkelstein, Gabriel;
(2014)
Emil du Bois-Reymond's Reflections on Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001214145/)
Chapter
Smith, Christopher Upham Murray;
(2014)
Herbert Spencer: Brain, Mind and the Hard Problem
(/isis/citation/CBB001214143/)
Article
Richard Leblanc;
(2019)
The White Paper: Wilder Penfield, the Stream of Consciousness, and the Physiology of Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB650149989/)
Article
Stahnisch, Frank W.;
(2010)
Der Rosenthal'sche Versuch oder: Über den Ort produktiver Forschung---Zur Exkursion des physiologischen Experimentallabors von Isidor Rosenthal (1836--1915) von der Stadt aufs Land
(/isis/citation/CBB001021506/)
Chapter
Emden, Christian J.;
(2004)
Metaphor, Perception, and Consciousness: Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Neurophysiology
(/isis/citation/CBB000450140/)
Book
John Preston;
(2021)
Interpreting Mach: Critical Essays
(/isis/citation/CBB070616818/)
Article
Sutton, Emma Kate;
(2012)
Interpreting “Mind-Cure”: William James and the “Chief Task…of the Science of Human Nature”
(/isis/citation/CBB001250203/)
Article
Lazar, J. Wayne;
(2012)
Brain Physiology and the Mind in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001211259/)
Article
Greenwood, John;
(2010)
Whistles, Bells, and Cogs in Machines: Thomas Huxley and Epiphenomenalism
(/isis/citation/CBB001250186/)
Article
Philippe Fontaine;
(2016)
Walking the Tightrope: The Committee on the Behavioral Sciences and Academic Cultures at the University of Chicago, 1949–1955
(/isis/citation/CBB188601454/)
Book
Lyons, William E.;
(2001)
Matters of Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000102285/)
Book
Michael Tye;
(2016)
Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?
(/isis/citation/CBB386080684/)
Book
Perry, John;
(2001)
Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB000631011/)
Book
Globus, Gordon G.;
(2003)
Quantum Closures and Disclosures: Thinking-Together Postphenomenology and Quantum Brain Dynamics
(/isis/citation/CBB000320266/)
Book
Schroeder, Severin.;
(2000)
Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000102193/)
Book
Thomas W. Polger;
Lawrence A. Shapiro;
(2016)
The Multiple Realization Book
(/isis/citation/CBB840684441/)
Book
Thau, Michael;
(2002)
Consciousness and Cognition
(/isis/citation/CBB000201716/)
Book
Livingston, Paul M.;
(2004)
Philosophical History and the Problem of Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB000471054/)
Book
Walsh, D. M.;
(2001)
Naturalism, Evolution and Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000102539/)
Article
Young, Allan;
(2012)
The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy
(/isis/citation/CBB001251568/)
Be the first to comment!