Análise da teoria da superveniência da consciência

Abstract

Certainly consciousness is something extremely familiar and, at the same time, enigmatic for us. Its phenomenal aspect, called phenomenal consciousness, imposes a number of barriers to reductionist approaches proposed by physicist/functionalist framework. Such are the difficulties raised by phenomenal consciousness to that reductionist approaches that the problem concerning that aspect of consciousness is the “hard problem of consciousness”. Considering its apparent irreducibility, it is necessary to analyze a framework which have as core an attempt to conciliate the phenomenal consciousness with a minimum commitment with physicalism, insofar as the necessity of a physical substrate that instantiates our conscious experiences is presupposed. Given that impasse the supervenience of consciousness theory arises with the aim of demonstrating a relation of dependence/determination established between the set of consciousness proprieties and the set of physical proprieties of the brain without, however, necessarily entailing a reduction of the former to the last set. Thus, the aim established in this work consist in analyzing in details the supervenience of consciousness theory and the framework which it inserts and, posteriorly, arguing about the reasons that make that theory unable to provide a substantial relation between consciousness and its physical substrate.