Important preliminaries

Abstract

This chapter does some initial—but important—ground-clearing and foundation-building. It starts by drawing a number of distinctions, more precisely delineating the target, and setting the terms for the debates that follow. It explains some of the different things that people mean by “consciousness,” in particular, as well as some of the claims that have been made about the nature of consciousness. The chapter also argues in support of a pair of substantive theses on the topic that will be relied upon later. Specifically, it argues that phenomenal consciousness is exclusively nonconceptual in nature, and that it doesn’t admit of degrees: it is either categorically present or categorically absent. Finally, the chapter situates the topic in relation to the traditional problem of other minds.