Qualism

Consciousness has always been the subject of philosophical and scientific inquiry but never more so than today. Perhaps this is because, in an age where so much of nature has been explained in precise scientific terms, consciousness continues to be as mysterious as ever. A fundamental source of this mystery is the very concept of consciousness intself. In Qualism, Todd Hughes subjects the concept of consciousness to philosophical scrutiny, arriving at a sensible and intuitive way to conceive of consciousness. Hughes reveals the confusions held by many philosophers and scientists (including the curious view that the term “consciousness” really does not mean anything at all) arguing that we simply have not looked carefully enough at how various conscious phenomena are conceptually related to each other. Hughes concludes that phenomenal consciousness is the most fundamental type of consciousness, and demonstrates how all other types of consciousness are derivative of phenomenal consciousness in interesting and revealing ways.