Consiousness

Abstract

There is no utterly clean, clear and neutral account of what exactly is covered by the concept of consciousness. The situation reflects, and is exacerbated by the fact that we speak of consciousness in many different ways in ordinary parlance. A consequence of our multifarious uses of the concept is that it has proved impossible to define its essential characteristics through conceptual analysis. We have nothing approaching a descriptively adequate philosophical consensus of what lies at the core of all and every form of consciousness in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions that would be accepted by all interested parties.