The Consciousness Deniers

Some thinkers have denied the existence of consciousness: conscious experience, the subjective character of experience, the “what-it-is-like” of experience. The Denial began in the twentieth century and continues today in a few pockets of philosophy and psychology and, now, information technology. It had two main causes: the rise of the behaviorist approach in psychology, and the naturalistic approach in philosophy. These were good things in their way, but they spiraled out of control and gave birth to the Great Silliness.