‘Reduction, Qualia, and the Direct Introspection of Brain States’

DO the phenomenological or qualitative features of our sen­sations constitute a permanent barrier to the reductive aspi­rations of any materialistic neuroscience? I here argue that they do not. Specifically, I wish to address the recent anti-reduc­ tionist arguments posed by Thom as Nagel,1 Frank Jackson,2 and Howard Robinson.3 And I wish to explore the possibility of human subjective consciousness within a conceptual environment constituted by a matured and successful neuroscience.