TRANSCENDENTAL NATURALISM IS SUPERNATURALISM IN DISGUISE: A RESPONSE TO COLIN MCGINN

Christian Nnabuike Onoja

Department of Philosophy, University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt shall be made to outline some arguments that render Colin McGinn’s transcendental naturalism as a solution to the problem of consciousness untenable. McGinn argues that naturalism of consciousness is possible – it is in virtue of some natural property (of the brain) that organisms are conscious. On the contrary, he admits that whatever it is, it is forever unknowable. He argues that it is in the strength of its unknowability that naturalism is admissibly possible. He rejects any “supernatural” solution and argues that consciousness is largely a natural phenomenon. This is not only contradictory but also conflationary. It is this conflation evident in his insistence that we have to naturalize consciousness and his consequent admittance that we cannot come up with a natural solution to the consciousness problem because it contains a hidden structure that tends to support the argument of the paper: transcendental naturalism is supernaturalism in disguise. In this paper, it is shown that if we hold unto the hidden as the explanatory property for the emergence of consciousness, then McGinn fails in his quest for naturalism of consciousness. It is the position of this paper that McGinn’s position is an offshoot of supernaturalism, or supernaturalism in disguise. To sustain McGinn’s naturalistic position, the study proposes a rejection of the postulation of the hidden and exploration of the prospects of science of consciousness.

Keywords: Consciousness, Naturalism, Supernaturalism, Brain, Hidden Structure/Property, Science.