Selected Problems in Consciousness Studies: Some Suggested Solutions

Contemporary consciousness studies are a field that presents us with a multiplicity of more or less fundamental empirical and theoretical problems. Of these, the most basic concerns the lack of an unambiguous characterization of consciousness itself. There is no universal description of the phenomenon in question, or at least no widely accepted definition, while most working applications of the concept in articles, research projects or empirical trials vary significantly. A closely linked question concerns the relationship between consciousness and subjectivity: are the conscious states of an organism or system coextensive with its subjective states? Such an assumption, though by no means self-evidently valid, seems to be operative in many influential conceptions and theories of consciousness today. Yet another important issue within the current debate concerns the question of whether consciousness is a graded or an all-or-none phenomenon. This problem is particularly interesting because some researchers insist that it is very difficult to justify ascribing such gradedness to consciousness given its manifold dimensions. The aim of this article is to present and justify these solutions in a condensed form, while at the same time pointing out their consequences and related issues worthy of further study