SELF-AWARENESS AND THE MIND-BRAIN PROBLEM

The prima facie heterogeneity between psychical and physical phenomena seems to be a serious objection to psychoneural identity thesis, acco rding to many authors, from Leibniz to Popper. It is argued that this objection can be superseded by a different conception of consciousness . Consciousness, while being conscious of something, is always unconsc ious of itself. Consciousness of being conscious is not immediate, it involves another, second-order, conscious state. The appearance of men tal states to second-order consciousness does not reveal their true na ture. Psychoneural identity can thus be considered a valid hypothesis. Related views of Kant, Freud, Shaffer, Bunge and others are considere d ''Naive psychical realism'' is criticised. Consciousness of mental e vents is considered as the result of the action of a cerebral system t hat observes the neural events hypothetically identical to mental even ts. The theory combines a materialist view with a due consideration of subjective experience.