Are There Brute Facts about Consciousness?

Anti-materialist arguments such as the knowledge argument, the conceivability argument, and the explanatory gap argument do not establish the existence of brute phenomenal facts about consciousness. First, those arguments work by exploiting specific features of the physical, which some nonphenomenal entities might lack. Even if the arguments establish an ontological gap between the physical and the phenomenal, they do not establish a gap between the nonphenomenal and the phenomenal. But they would have to establish such a gap to show that there are brute phenomenal facts. Second, the arguments do not rule out certain views on which there are no such facts. The chapter’s conclusion leaves open the possibility that combining the anti-materialist arguments with other considerations would establish the existence of brute phenomenal facts. However, whether that strategy can succeed is unclear. That and other considerations are used to support agnosticism about the existence of brute phenomenal facts.