On self-contradiction of antiphysicalism in David Chalmers' theory of consciousness

An urgent task of modern philosophy is the interpretation of the ontological status of consciousness in the physicalism and antiphysicalism opposition. Physicalism postulates the possibility to explain the phenomena of consciousness through the concepts of the physical world; antiphysicalism denies this. The most discussed antiphysicalism project in the present-day theory of consciousness is the naturalistic dualism, or dualism of properties. Naturalistic dualism states a holistic causal closed world, represented by non-reducible physical and non-physical properties in which consciousness shall be given the status of a fundamental property of the universum that is not reducible to physical properties. Thus, a presumption about the psychophysical nature of reality is formulated, and the need to review the physicalistic doctrine given the possibility of non-reductive explanation of mental experience is stated. A concrete example of naturalistic dualism in the contemporary philosophy of mind is David Chalmers' theory. In his work The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (1996), Chalmers comes to a conclusion that the facts of consciousness are associated with the physical world, but they are not reducible to them. Our understanding of the essence of matter requires a fundamental revision. The argument about the representability and logical possibility of the world without conscious experience is given as defending this thesis; therefore, an assumption is made that consciousness in our world has a supermaterial nature. This article analyzes the formal, conceptual-ontological and language contradictions in Chalmers' theory of consciousness. The idea of the supermaterial supervenient nature of consciousness has been criticized, and it is stated that the factual statement of the qualitative content of experience is impossible. In summary, a conclusion is made that antiphysicalism in the philosophy of consciousness contradicts itself.

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