Thomas

https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absurd%20-%20Thomas%20Nagel.pdf

I really liked this piece when I first read it, but I slowly began to think it was a (more palatable) example of all that is wrong with modern philosophy.

Oh yes, from Mortal Questions. Thanks, I'll think about your take on it.

There needs to be something about the sequence of questions that renders each of them somehow relevant to what they're asked, and the answer to be informative to what it's asked of. That is, the question has to be a "good" question in a nebulous sense and the answer has to be a "good" answer in a nebulous sense. — fdrake

What if we loosen Q ( X ) a little, so that it doesn't have to be, literally, "What is your justification for X?" each time. Thus, the response here:

If you asked "What is your justification for "I speak English?"?, one could very well answer "I speak English" as a demonstration — fdrake

could change to, "Could you explain how 'I speak English' provides a reasonable answer to my question?" This is still asking for a justification, but from a different angle or level. Which leads to this:

One way of fleshing that out [a guarantee that one would always end up in philosophy when asking justificatory questions] would mean at some point questions about justification always become philosophical. About the meaning of justification. — fdrake

It's an "up-a-level" question because it asks the interlocutor to justify why they believe that "I speak English" is a justification.

I think this gets closer to giving an account of how a call for justification is what the Q recursion is, but the more plausible our account gets, the less it seems to be formalizable. Or maybe the problem is with the "nebulous" terms like "good" (and perhaps "relevant") and not the form itself. And are we any closer to demonstrating that this characterizes what phil. is, or must be? Probably not, since so many divergent accounts of phil. are possible. But if phil. is understood as "rational discourse in a context of communicative action," then perhaps we've made an advance.

I'll say that a question is good when it reveals something about how what it is asked of is known or supplementary information about what it is asked of. And perhaps we should assume that the answerer plays nicely and just answers truthfully, directly and sincerely every time. No frame shifting on their part. — fdrake

I like this, though if the answerer tries any deception or frame-shifting, that doesn't really have any bearing on whether the question is a good one, does it? Nor does it demonstrate that the Q recursion is invalid, only that the answerer refuses to help demonstrate its validity. In contrast, if the answerer does play nicely, we have a Habermasian communicative-action situation, where all parties mutually ascribe rationality to each other and claim "unconditional validity" for what they say. This takes us rather far away from the "recursion as highest" question. But since this thread has sent a few fibers out in the direction of what proper argumentation consists of, I'll close with this:

These argumentative presuppositions [for communicative action] obviously contain such strong idealizations that they invite the suspicion that they represent tendentious description of argumentation. — Habermas,

"Communicative Action and the Detranscendentalized 'Use of Reason'," in Between Naturalism and Religion, p. 50

But Habermas goes on to argue against this suspicion, claiming that the idealizations are both necessary and actually efficacious for keeping argumentation philosophical.

Socrates doesn't offer a distinction among types of arguments, but among people who hear them or make them. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. That is a major reason why Plato wrote dialogues.

Another point is how radically different Socratic philosophy is from "the view from nowhere".

It also cuts across the division between philosophy and psychology that developed.

It's reminiscent of that Wittgenstein quote about "working on yourself." — Srap Tasmaner

A passage that I have quoted here several times.



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Another point is how radically different Socratic philosophy is from "the view from nowhere". — Fooloso4

In general I agree with your emphasis on the dialogical aspect of Platonic thought, but let's not get carried away. When Socrates asks for a definition of a term that he and all the interlocutors believe is important but disagree about, he is surely trying to find the view from nowhere, the place where we transcend doxa and perhaps, eventually, dianoia as well, and can see the Good itself. Now the ability to do this may indeed depend upon personal/subjective virtues, as opposed to simply being good at argumentation, but that's not the same thing as saying that Plato didn't think rationality was objective in a sense that strongly resembles our own.

When Socrates asks for a definition of a term that he and all the interlocutors believe is important but disagree about, he is surely trying to find the view from nowhere, the place where we transcend doxa and perhaps, eventually, dianoia as well, and can see the Good itself... — J

The beauty of Plato is that it's in the form of a dialogue. Socrates in the dialogue believes, perhaps, that there's an answer but that's not the view from nowhere. "the view from nowhere" is a more modern term, I think, though maybe I'm wrong there.

I'd go as far as to say that Plato's philosophy believes in The Forms, but that The Forms have a place.

Going with the Wiki here:

The Forms are expounded upon in Plato's dialogues and general speech, in that every object or quality in reality—dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love, and goodness—has a form. Form answers the question, "What is that?" Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or "really" the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary portrayals of the Form under different circumstances.

This gets along with the analogy of the cave, though it's hard for me to discern if the forms are the puppets making shadows or the sunlight above the puppet-masters.

But see how the analogy has a place, rather than being a "view from nowhere"?

"the view from nowhere" is a more modern term, I think, though maybe I'm wrong there. — Moliere

Yes, it is, and not everyone uses it the same way. I use it to refer to an ideal objective viewpoint, the convergence point for rational inquiry, from which we can see what is actually the case, as opposed to whatever various beliefs and opinions may present themselves to us in the "heteronomous" world (Kant). Obviously there are grave doubts among many philosophers about whether such a viewpoint even makes sense.

But see how the analogy has a place, rather than being a "view from nowhere"? — Moliere

In the sense that it's a visual analogy, sure. But when, as the Wiki has it, Plato tells us through Socrates that "the object was essentially or 'really' the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form," this is meant to be what I'm calling a view from nowhere. That is, we aren't supposed to think, "Well, that's how Plato sees it" or "That's a possible view" or even, "Humans have to see it that way" but rather "This is what is really the case, regardless of what you or I or Socrates believes." A God's-eye view, if you will. Again, these worries about idealized objectivity are modern, but I'm pretty sure Plato thought that what dianoia and noesis reveals is viewpoint-independent.

When Socrates asks for a definition of a term that he and all the interlocutors believe is important but disagree about, he is surely trying to find the view from nowhere, the place where we transcend doxa and perhaps, eventually, dianoia as well, and can see the Good itself. — J

There are a few points that I disagree with. Socratic philosophy is rooted in opinion. The examination of opinion does not mean the transcendence of opinion. I take seriously the Socratic notion of human ignorance.In Plato's Apology he says that he does not know anything noble (or beautiful) and good. (kalos kai agathos) (21d)

From the Phaedo:

One day I heard someone reading, as he said, from a book of Anaxagoras, and saying that it is Mind that directs and is the cause of everything. I was delighted with this cause and it seemed to me good, in a way, that Mind should be the cause of all. I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best. If then one wished to know the cause of each thing, why it comes to be or perishes or exists, one had to find what was the best way for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is best.

(97b-d)

Plato shifts between mind as the cause of the order of the cosmos and mind as what order and directs human inquiry. In our inquiry we must be guided by consideration of what is best. Accordingly, we accept those arguments that seem best. The question of what is best is inextricably linked to the question of the human good. About what is best we can only do our best to say what is best and why. The question of what is best turns from things in general to the human things and ultimately to the self for whom what is best is what matters most. The question of the good leads back to the problem of self-knowledge.

In another thread Socratic Philosophy I argued that because the Good is beyond being it cannot be known.

Nagel's ironic response to absurdity, — Count Timothy von Icarus

I reread the Nagel piece. I can't help thinking that "irony" was the wrong word for what he was trying to say. He writes that, after we've questioned how seriously we ought to take our lives, and human life in general, "We then return to our lives, as we must, but our seriousness is laced with irony." Doesn't he mean something more like "detachment" or "bemusement"? Irony generally refers to a quality of appearing to be one thing when actually being, or meaning, another, and I don't see that here. Unless he means that we can't take our seriousness seriously?

The final sentence of the essay is, "If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." This makes it sound like a Camusian creed, but it's in the context of his final point, which is that absurdity is only a problem if we make it so, by insisting that our concern about not mattering has to matter a great deal.

In any case, I'm curious why you think the piece deserves to be called "an example of all that is wrong with modern philosophy." It seems a rather innocuous early piece to me, not as good as Nagel usually is but hardly all that misguided.

In another thread Socratic Philosophy I argued that because the Good is beyond being it cannot be known. — Fooloso4

The expression 'beyond being' is frequently encountered in axial-age philosophies of both East and West. I think what it means is 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence' i.e. not subject to birth and death and arising and perishing. So I think it should be expressed as 'beyond existence' rather than as 'beyond being', as I think the latter is unintelligible. And as to how what is 'beyond existence' can be known, that is the object of transcendental wisdom:

Plato (Republic, 509b):

"The Good is not being existence, but is beyond being existence, exceeding it in dignity and power."

Upanishads (Katha Upanishad, 2.2.13):

"That which is beyond all is not born, does not die; it is not from anywhere, nor has it become anything. Unborn, eternal, everlasting, and ancient, it is not slain when the body is slain."

Plotinus (Enneads, VI.9.3):

"The One is all things and yet no one of them. It is the source of all things but not itself one of the things that come from it."

Shankara (Vivekachudamani, 239):

"Brahman is without attributes and actions, eternal, without any desire and stain, without parts, without change, without form, ever-liberated, and of unimaginable glory."

And from the Sufi tradition, the Master's Prayer:

O Parvardigar, the Preserver and Protector of All,
You are without Beginning and without End,
Non-dual, beyond comparison, and none can measure You.
You are without colour, without expression, without form and without attributes.
You are unlimited and unfathomable, beyond imagination and conception, eternal and imperishable.

I think what it means is 'beyond the vicissitudes of existence' i.e. not subject to birth and death and arising and perishing. — Wayfarer

The Forms do not come to be or pass away, but it is affirmed that they are. Unlike the Good they are all said to be.

But since this thread is not on Plato and the Good, I will leave it there.

The philosophical point of such aphorisms is the sense in which classical philosophy gestures towards something beyond. The role of philosophy is to take you to the border, so to speak.

Plotinus wishes to speak of a thinking that is not discursive but intuitive, i.e. that it is knowing and what it is knowing are immediately evident to it. There is no gap then between thinking and what is thought--they come together in the same moment, which is no longer a moment among other consecutive moments, one following upon the other. Rather, the moment in which such a thinking takes place is immediately present and without difference from any other moment, i.e. its thought is no longer chronological but eternal. To even use names, words, to think about such a thinking is already to implicate oneself in a time of separated and consecutive moments (i.e. chronological) and to have already forgotten what it is one wishes to think, namely thinking and what is thought intuitively together. — Classroom Notes on Plotinus

The unity of thinking and being described by Plotinus challenges the prevailing view that knowledge is a sequential accumulation of information. Instead, it suggests that the highest form of knowledge is a direct, intuitive apprehension of reality—an eternal 'now' that escapes chronological fragmentation (per Eric Perl, Thinking Being: Metaphysics in the Classical Tradition.)

The obvious objection will be that we're dragging theology into the frame, but I would prefer to think of it in terms of philosophical spirituality (and bearing in mind the fact that whilst the term 'spirituality' carries some regrettable connotations, the current English lexicon lacks any obvious synonyms.) While the objection is understandable, it reflects a dichotomy that the ancients did not recognize. For Plotinus and his heirs, philosophy was itself a spiritual discipline aimed at the apprehension of ultimate principles—what we might call today 'philosophical spirituality.' This is not theology in the dogmatic sense but the pursuit of wisdom that necessarily transcends the empirical and the discursive (in the sense conveyed in Pierre Hadot's books). Nevertheless, modern culture, post 'death of God', deprecates such ideas - guilt by association, as it were. But in so doing it also vitiates any sense of the higher good which was essential to every form of pre-modern philosophy. Hence, the scare quotes around "Highest"!

Which means science is only in the same position as philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

This seems straightforward to me. There are no hard and fast distinctions between science and philosophy or science and metaphysics.

As regards its modus operandi, then, all analysis is metaphysical analysis; and, since analysis is what gives its scientific character to science, science and metaphysics are inextricably united, and stand or fall together.
~R.G. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics — Pantagruel

Philosophy is fit for purpose.
But if ever it claims to provide direct access to ultimate or eternal truths, it has engaged in a dysfunctional misrepresentation. Thankfully, most often it doesn't.

I don't think it's a bad piece. Like I said, I initially liked it quite a bit because it seems to offer a salve to some of the harsher egocentrism that existentialism can slip into. Yet it falls into the common trap of: "wow, philosophy is hard and we don't get the same sort of certainty the early moderns decided should be the gold standard, thus nothing really matters."

Something along the lines of "A xor B, not-A, thus B," where the first premise seems pretty dubious (i.e., your standard false dichotomy).

Maybe it's just my sentiments having read it close to half a century after it was published, when a lot more writers have brought up the point: "maybe the frame developed in the early modern period is just wrongheaded?" For instance, a lot here (anything really meaning anything at all!) hinges on "objective meaning," and "objective value," the absolute as the objective, set over and against the non-substantial "subjective." But the absolute, to be properly "absolute," includes all appearances, and the transcendent is not absent from what it transcends, so in I would want to simply reject this distinction (which is historically quite recent, and the subject of fierce critique, e.g. Hegel).

And IIRC, Nagel only offers a cursory analysis of the appeal to the transcedent in terms of "the glory of God," which doesn't seem to actually get at how Neoplatonism, the Patristics, the Scholastics, Christian existentialists, Sufis, etc. actually think of this. (Reminds me a bit of Hume)

Anyhow, I find it hard to think that such sentiments don't have something to do with philosophy becoming largely irrelevant. I've seen academic philosophers, in their books, personal correspondence, blogs, etc. regularly decry how their field largely focuses on extremely narrow and often quite worthless (sometimes their word) analyses, or advice to potential graduate students that "being a true believer in philosophy," is a liability, while a "narrow technical focus" is what one should display in a good statement of purpose." "Sterile word games," is another phrase bandied about.

Now every field bitches about itself. City managers bitch about their city councils, their residents, and their unions, even if they actually like all three. Doctors joke about beating hospital administrators with the stacks of checklists they send their way. Mechanics decry the sadistic engineers who decided that changing regularly replaced parts should require hands the size of a toddler's. But they almost never remark that their field is useless (and not useless in the sense of "valuable for its own sake," but useless).

And I don't think this is just a more general problem for academia. Political scientists and economists might have some similar complaints, but they still see themselves as an integral part of a whole, not the equivalent of an appendix.

Perhaps this is off base, but it seems like the areas of philosophy most bound by this problem are precisely those who can't get away from the aforementioned presuppositions. I'm not a huge fan of existentialism, but specialists here seem more apt to avoid this malaise. Robert Solomon speaks with fire in his belly for instance. And the same is true for pre-modern specialists. Now this could also have to do with the extremely poor job prospects philosophy PHDs face, but this also isn't unique to philosophy or even academia (e.g lawyers in the 2010s.)

This is very much my own view too. I've often used the idea that philosophy leads us to a door we have to open by other means. My only concern is that, in this particular thread, we've gotten ourselves round to thinking that the claim of philosophy to be "highest" (sorry for the scare quotes!) must be opposed to other forms of knowledge. I tried to guard against this when I wrote, in the OP:

First, a clarification: The idea I’m referring to doesn’t denigrate poetry, or fiction, or prayer, or paying compliments, or any other non-discursive uses of language. Whether such uses represent anything “higher” than philosophical discourse is a separate question, though of course a related one, and interesting in its own right. Here I’m sticking to the discourses of rational inquiry. — J

I can weigh in, briefly, on that separate question: I think the languages of art and of faith (and the experiences which those languages attempt to capture) are, for me, higher in the sense that they take me closer to understanding who I am, and what is the source of my being. But there . . . such talk is no longer philosophical discourse, in my understanding, so I'll stop.

First, a clarification: The idea I’m referring to doesn’t denigrate poetry, or fiction, or prayer, or paying compliments, or any other non-discursive uses of language. Whether such uses represent anything “higher” than philosophical discourse is a separate question, though of course a related one, and interesting in its own right. Here I’m sticking to the discourses of rational inquiry. — J

Subject to the caveat that I am weighing in on the strength of structures I have stored in my memory up to this moment, and without delving deeper, 1. I understand and appreciate your clarification; 2. I tend to think that of the paths currently available to 'leading us to that door we have to open by other means', not only is it the highest, but perhaps the only such path which is essential if we want a decent chance at arriving at the door.

Thanks for clarifying

languages of art and of faith — J

I think also tools. If it is knowledge you're after, perhaps effective only after the philosophical prerequisites have been satisfied.

A lively response, thanks. We could go back and forth on how much of this is really attributable to Nagel, but I'm more interested in your overall picture of modern philosophy. I'll only say that IMHO Nagel could have made an important distinction between his other forms of transcendental service (to society, the state, the revolution, the progress of history, the advance of science) and the glory of God, but this wasn't germane to his argument. In the context of his essay, devoting one's life to serving God is open to the same objections as the other forms of service. It's worth noting that much of his later philosophy seeks to illuminate what, if anything, is special and important about the religious point of view.

But anyway. Do philosophers today really denigrate their work in the way you're saying? I move in circles that are more artistic than academic, so perhaps you're right. But when I read the current philosophers I admire -- Nussbaum, Sider, McDowell, Karen Bennett, Susan Haack, Kimhi, Plantinga, Habermas, Nagel himself -- that's not the impression I get. Could you say more about who exactly thinks their profession is useless?

Similarly, I think I know what you mean when you talk about the early-modern quest for certainty; there's no doubt that epistemological concerns have characterized much of philosophy since Descartes. But I don't see very many philosophers linking "anything meaning anything at all" with the concepts you listed: "objective meaning," and "objective value," the absolute as the objective, set over and against the non-substantial "subjective." Of course some philosophers talk that way, but a great many do not. If a civilian asked me what recent (not modern, in your sense) philosophy was most interested in, I might say something like "Trying to find a reasonable middle ground between unsustainable foundationalist claims about knowledge and the complete abandonment of rationality and values." And as you know, there are many such middle grounds on offer, in both analytic and Continental phil.

Maybe I just don't know what you mean by "the early modern period."

Similarly, I think I know what you mean when you talk about the early-modern quest for certainty; there's no doubt that epistemological concerns have characterized much of philosophy since Descartes. — J

Ever come across the expression 'the Cartesian anxiety?'

Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

Richard J. Bernstein coined and used the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis,

such talk is no longer philosophical discourse, in my understanding — J

For the greater part of Western cultural history, philosophy was woven into a fabric which included poetry, theology, fiction, art and drama. It's the 'fragmentation of being' which has given rise to the separation and specialisation charateristic of modern philosophy.

Unless he means that we can't take our seriousness seriously? — J

This.

The unity of thinking and being described by Plotinus challenges the prevailing view that knowledge is a sequential accumulation of information. — Wayfarer

The problem is that such a form of knowing cannot ever be discursively justified. So it remains ever a matter of faith, even for the supposedly enlightened ones.

As regards its modus operandi, then, all analysis is metaphysical analysis; and, since analysis is what gives its scientific character to science, science and metaphysics are inextricably united, and stand or fall together.
~R.G. Collingwood, Essay on Metaphysics — Pantagruel

This seems nonsensical to me. Science is justified only insofar as it is known to work. The same cannot be said for metaphysics. Science relies for its practice on no particular metaphysical beliefs.

Yet it falls into the common trap of: "wow, philosophy is hard and we don't get the same sort of certainty the early moderns decided should be the gold standard, thus nothing really matters." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I read the paper and I don't agree that it falls into that at all. The point as I read it is that if we stand apart from our lives and look at them in the abstract, so to speak, it appears as though our concerns are trivial. But he also makes the point that the 'mattering' of our lives needs no external justification, and that in fact, such justification could never work in any case.

Thanks for the shout-out to Richard J. Bernstein. Yes, I know his work well -- in fact, he was one of my teachers. "Cartesian anxiety" is a great phrase. But again, resolving a bad case of Cartesian anxiety is probably not on anyone's agenda, philosophically -- if by "resolving" we mean actually finding certainty of the sort Descartes longed for.

For the greater part of Western cultural history, philosophy was woven into a fabric which included poetry, theology, fiction, art and drama — Wayfarer

That's one way of putting it. We could also say, " . . . philosophy was desperately mired in a swamp of inchoate expressions which included poetry, theology . . . " etc. I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek here, but the point is serious. Different accounts of philosophy will offer different interpretations. There is no one obviously correct story.

But again, resolving a bad case of Cartesian anxiety is probably not on anyone's agenda, philosophically -- if by "resolving" we mean actually finding certainty of the sort Descartes longed for. — J

There's a section of The Embodied Mind, Thompson et al, named after it. It's not a matter of resolving it in the sense of providing the longed-for certainty, but critiquing the conceptual and cognitive framework which gave rise to it.

There is no one obviously correct story. — J

No 'meta-narratives'. I get that. Although one little-known book I read about five years does a great job explicating it, Defragmenting Modernity, Paul Tyson.

Science relies for its practice on no particular metaphysical beliefs. — Janus

If you're familiar with philosophy of science, E A Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, in particular, you will see that this is completely mistaken. The 'metaphysical belief' in question being early modern science's division of primary and secondary attributes, overlaid on the Cartesian separation of mind and matter. It's metaphysical through and through, but then 'metaphysics' is consigned to terra incognito, so the way in which it is metaphysical becomes one of the things we're enjoined to ignore.

I might say something like "Trying to find a reasonable middle ground between unsustainable foundationalist claims about knowledge and the complete abandonment of rationality and values." — J

Nice.

Science relies for its practice on no particular metaphysical beliefs. — Janus

Doesn't it rest upon a metaphysical presupposition that reality can be understood?

Doesn't it rest upon a metaphysical presupposition that reality can be understood? — Tom Storm

I don't see why it needs such a presupposition. Humans have found that nature is intelligible. Science has yielded a vast and coherent body of understanding which is both comprehensively internally consistent and coherent and is confirmed to work insofar as it has yielded countless technologies which obviously work.

Philosophy on the other hand has traditionally been faith-based, since no empirical confirmations are possible. Modern philosophy has two other faces though—those of philosophy as description and philosophy as critique or conceptual clarification and extension.

If you're familiar with philosophy of science, E A Burtt's Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, in particular, you will see that this is completely mistaken. The 'metaphysical belief' in question being early modern science's division of primary and secondary attributes, overlaid on the Cartesian separation of mind and matter. — Wayfarer

You are addressing a different point. It may well be historically true that the genesis and pre-modern rise of science was accompanied by metaphysical beliefs. It does not follow that those beliefs are necessary for the continued practice of science.

For other examples astronomy arguably grew out of astrological presuppositions and chemistry our of alchemy, but those earlier ideas have been left behind without any detriment to the practices of astronomy and chemistry.

I don't see why it needs such a presupposition. Humans have found that nature is intelligible. — Janus

Interesting. Does nature include quantum mechanics and consciousness?

I don't see why it needs such a presupposition. Humans have found that nature is intelligible. — Janus

Interesting. Does nature include quantum mechanics and consciousness? — Tom Storm

Give it time and it might explain these phenomena.

Philosophy of being versus philosophy of objects/stuff seems to be about as good a distillation as you are going to get. Other posters have intimated similar themes. Both can be pursued. It's when one fetishizes one for the other, that one may be not comprehensive.

I think there is something akin to "anxiety of usefulness". For example, I suppose someone studying "Philosophy of Science" and "Logic", thinks they are contributing something more useful than people who dare to philosophize on "being" or "the human condition" or the idea of "freedom". So, I guess it's about what people are insecure/anxious about when it comes to picking up philosophical endeavors.

As others have stated as well, academic pursuits, adds its own set of anxieties.. To conform to a certain preferred set of topics, etc.

Interesting. Does nature include quantum mechanics and consciousness? — Tom Storm

Quantum mechanics seems to be intelligible via mathematics and it certainly seems to be based on observations of phenomena. The fact that we cannot apply intuitive macroworld generated concepts in order to get a satisfying picture of what is going on in the microworld should come as no surprise. In fact it is a human metaphysical presumption that there should be one overarching explanatory paradigm which could explain everything.

Consciousness, not being an empirical object, can only be studied by observing behavior and by listening to subjective reports along with brain-imaging. We have intuitive notions of consciousness which cannot be (presently at least) explained or confirmed or disconfirmed by science. Again, I don't see why that should surprise us.