In the light of the multiplicity and plurality of theoretical frameworks and conceptions—each lacking in some aspects of its description and explanatory strength—with regard to consciousness and especially the resistance of such phenomenon even to concise and clear definition, it is rather understandable to come to the understanding that although many of these theories do capture interesting and real aspects of what it is to be conscious, they cannot be totalizing as to exhaust what it is and it remains in itself unknowable though not in the same way as mysterianism1, and we will elaborate more on what we mean by consciousness being unknowable in what it is in principle in itself and knowable in its effects, operations and functions.
Consciousness Per Se and Consciousness-in-Action
To do this we will embark first on an exploration of the proposed theories for consciousness and see where they do apply and where they fail to account for essential aspects of the phenomenon, and in doing so showing that we need not discard them wholesale but rather adapt our way of seeing things in a way that reflects the reality of consciousness which I will argue is unknowable in itself as to say that we are unable to put forward a neat conceptual framework which is equivalent to what it is2 and that it is knowable through our interactions with it and through what we can infer of how it operates and functions in persons, and through this it is not that those things we observe are not consciousness but they are consciousness-in-action but also not as to say that consciousness per se does not exist because if we deny the substantial being of it, all the knowledge of the multiple aspects which are captured by the theories lose grounding3, and it becomes arbitrary to say that the multiplicity of faculties—described by theories of consciousness—are unified in consciousness, and therefore they should be thought of as many and not as one, which will also lead to the dissolution of the unity of the person which is due to consciousness being the ground on which we say that this person is one person.
What I mean is that if we deny consciousness per se then we must say that what each theory of consciousness is describing something different entirely and not just a different aspect of consciousness4.
Now as to what this consciousness per se is, this is unknowable, yet knowable by unknowing what it is not5, it is the immaterial but bound up with the material, abstract yet concretizes the subject, beyond the passive and the active aspects of it and can still be there even if the subject is in a passive state—as in dreams in sleep, coma, near-death experiences6—neither memory nor attention nor anticipation, yet the condition that makes the three possible, it is neither transparent nor opaque to itself in that it neither achieves complete self-transparency nor suffers total self-opacity, nor one or many being both and none as it transcends both categories and reducing it to one or the other either nullifies its unity in which case it cannot be called consciousness or denies its multiplicity of aspects in which case it would serve no purpose as to warrant to be posited at all, neither subject nor object but can be both or one or the other as it can be both its own object and therefore the subject as well, as the recursive aspect of it, is required also; that of self-consciousness which is the experience of being conscious of being conscious in which consciousness is both the subject and the object7.
Although it is each of them in how it operates and functions in the subject and as the object of study and how it can be posited as one concept or phenomena capturing multiple aspects and accepting multiple definitions, and in that it can be explained through matter and through being immaterial and in that it can be both conceived of as passive or active and that it can be seen as operating in memories, attention and anticipation and in that one who is conscious can know himself fully but remain a mystery to himself and know others and not know them at once, and this is what might be said about consciousness per se in that anything one can say about it can be negated and doubly-negated as to transcend the mere dialectical tension8 but still it can be known precisely due to it operating in many ways which are itself and that we might call consciousness-in-action, though to be precise the method is indeed used in theology while I want to make clear that I am not making the conscious into the divine9 and I would rather say that consciousness is the reflection of its image.
Another thing I must clarify is that in this we must understand that consciousness is not split into “two–consciousness per se and in-action–things”10 but rather that this distinction is made to preserve the knowability and the unity of consciousness so as to protect against any reductionalism, dualism or complete mysterianism and not that this is but an epistemological or methodological trick but rather that by virtue of the apophatic transcendence I elaborated, it has a transcendent ontological status though is imminent in the fact that it is interactive and that it is in-action as well as per se.
Philosophical Frameworks
As for the current of thought and philosophical frameworks that are adopted to posit theories of consciousness that I will be handling as to affirm when they account for real consciousness-in-action manifestations and operations and to show the limitations they have especially when the claims are directed to consciousness per se, there are four approaches: Reductionist (eliminative materialism, reductive physicalism, strong functionalism), Anti-reductionist (property dualism, emergentism, non-reductive physicalism), Substance (substance dualism, idealism, panpsychism), Deflationary (illusionism, mysterianism).
Reductionist and Deflationary Approaches
Concerning the reductionist approaches—as the name suggests—entails a reductive view of what consciousness is, which reduces it to physical and computational processes and nothing else more than that, and an optimistic view of the ability of science to comprehend it.
As for the findings we can get from this theoretical framework, as far as it explains the physical manifestations and workings of consciousness-in-action, it can be taken and put to good use as far as our meta-theoretical framework is concerned, while also rejecting the identification of the effects to the cause or originator11.
This rejection is not arbitrary but rather because the identification leads to the failure to account for the unity of all those different cognitive configurations and processes under the name of consciousness and of personal unity and identity, as well as for the recursive elements of consciousness on purely physical and material ground, and for the fact that the identity and unity of the person is still conserved even under what those theories would consider a total lack of consciousness12.
There are also those approaches who, like the reductionist ones, attempt to get rid of the metaphysical and transcendent question of consciousness.
These are deflationary approaches, of which there are those who either are mysterianists—who, as opposed to us, claim the total unknowability of consciousness and impossibility of its solution—or illusionists—denying the existence of a consciousness as it is thought and that rather it is an illusion.
These might be both seen as a type of reductionism with the difference being that instead of reducing consciousness to physical processes, it is reduced either to nothing or to epistemic obscurity.
And of this it becomes apparent that anytime we approach consciousness seriously on its own terms, the situation becomes more complicated and often leaves the realm of science, though to be charitable this is not done out of ignorance or malice but rather due to hairy nature of when consciousness becomes a metaphysical topic as we shall see.
Anti-Reductionist and Substance Approaches
Having gone through how approaches that avoid metaphysical complexity fail, we shall turn to those who acknowledge this aspect and the irreductibility of consciousness but struggle to account for how it relates to the physical world.
These approaches fall under the categories of substance dualist approaches and anti-reductionist approaches, the latter being an attempt to counter reductionist approaches but without acknowledging duality.
They either claim that there is one substance of matter from which emerge mental properties which are not reducible to matter, or that the mental properties are fundamental to matter. The problem with the first one is the lack of a good account as to how smaller structures that lack any mental proprieties combine into one bigger structure from which emerges mental properties and thus consciousness and how come these are not of another substance.
This seems to be an attempt at smuggling substance dualism into the conversation without warrant13, since if those properties are not reducible to matter they must be a substance other than matter, not a property of matter—since if that is so, then there won’t be a problem with reductionism.
Therefore, it seems that the only thing being done by theories of property dualism, emergentism, or non-reductive physicalism is either verbally obscuring dualism or broadening the definition of what matter is.
Substance Dualism
It seems that the issue of consciousness is a serious one since it lends itself naturally to non-physical accounts that are not shy to avoid metaphysics and transcendence, no matter how socially antiquated that might be for the current philosophical environment, though it faces many challenges, especially ones that were and still are relevant from the moment Descartes decided to take an axe to split the person into two and later Kant decided to hide the monstrous piece that got split off14, and ever since that happened people were trying to make sufficient the one piece left, which is how we have the many issues discussed earlier.
Now the approaches I will be discussing fall under the category described above, which are ones who posit consciousness as a substance wholly different from matter, and as it is caricatured by physicalists and reductionalists, it is like conceiving of a homunculus inside the head of one who is either watching the scene of the material world or the activities of the mind itself15; this is because these approaches and conceptual frameworks reify the conscious—meaning conceive of it as a concrete thing—and this reification is what causes the many problems of substantive approaches because it opens it to critique that jumps on the opportunity to ask how come consciousness interacts with matter? or how can consciousness be causally efficient?16
And other than these, the traditional approaches in this current of positing another substance also open themselves up to questions of arbitrariness, which ask why put the consciousness only on the level of humans—as Descartes thought animals to be automata—which has led to the adoption of panpsychism, which is also vulnerable to the question of how do micro-conscious entities combine into unified consciousness17.
These, although more honest about the other-worldly nature of consciousness, combined with the problems we explored with physicalist and reductionalist approaches, shows the necessity of changing the way we see consciousness as to not be discussed in a restricted dialectical dualism between material-immaterial as well as transcendent-immanent, abstract-concrete and unity-multiplicity18.
The Apophatic Synthesis
This all being said, what we can say is that the box that we put the wide experiences of what we call consciousness is not adequate enough as to give us a good sophisticated understanding of what it is and often introduces more problems than it solves, although it is understandable since the movement of development of philosophy has been rather to make the arena of discussion smaller but under the same terms, which has made it less ambitious than the thoughts of antiquity and less adequate to account for the current questions posited by the ever-changing environment of the world, especially for consciousness and artificial intelligence. The question of whether machines can be conscious can only be asked if what we understand by consciousness is so reduced as to make it fit.
It is for this that the more open and higher view of the conscious must be reintroduced in an adequate way that also handles the issues of traditional dualist splitting that divorces consciousness from the embodied vessel of its dwelling, or rather the gather on which it stands and which gives the embodied its form, unity and identity without it having a definite form, unity or identity.
The current malaise of the mental experience of most is also a symptom of the problem; the depression and nihilism, the fragmentation of social aspects of man and general impotence of the modern mental health is due to the inadequacy of the explanations of consciousness, since they are confusing the causes and effects, treat effects as if they are causes, papering over the cracks of the fracture of personhood while leaving its sickness thriving. And this demands the restoration of personal unity by restoring its necessary grounding: existential meaning which always had the transcendent as its character, authenticity of selfhood beyond self-conceptions which ultimately leave one with a false-self, and wonder and mystery which leaves horizons open for the person to ascend to and in which he finds his own self.
Therefore, the condition that allows consciousness to retain all its phenomenological character and extend beyond itself and beyond shadows of concepts put upon it, is that of the negation of the concepts, which is what we have posited in the form of the apophatic consciousness which is both transcendent and immanent and beyond any dichotomy.
This being done while also leaving room for scientific mode of research through consciousness-in-action as well as opening the door for more pluralistic environment where we can draw from the findings of many paradigms, while keeping proper view of consciousness per se.
Implications and Remarks
It is worth noting that this is not a work of pure critique as to replace current theories but rather providing a meta-theoretical framework that would allow for genuine pluralism in both scientific research about consciousness and even in philosophy and theology, and I think that if this were to be adopted I envision science studying consciousness-in-action and such and philosophy and theology can handle the nature of consciousness per se, while also all of them doing that they would be doing the study on the same phenomenon. This being done without collapsing into pure relativism is another good thing for inquiry as it encourages debate and not unconditioned tolerance of any opinion that is.
As well as to discard the notions that narrows the horizon of man through seeing himself as nothing other than a reduced version of what he is, as this is the product of reductionist thinking whether in broad scientific discourse or in consciousness specifically, also as to keep the aspect of mystery which rather than what is conceived as a source of ignorance, it is the fuel of curiosity and enchantment of the world which is utterly stomped on nowadays.
Unlike mysterianism, which claims consciousness is permanently unknowable due to cognitive limitations, this position maintains consciousness can be known through its operations while remaining essentially apophatic. ↩︎
This echoes the apophatic tradition’s insight that ultimate realities exceed conceptual determination—consciousness per se cannot be captured by any theoretical framework, no matter how sophisticated. ↩︎
The transcendental argument: consciousness per se is the necessary condition that makes theoretical unity possible. Without it, theories would describe entirely different phenomena rather than different aspects of the same reality. ↩︎
This is the key insight—denying consciousness per se makes all consciousness theories incommensurable rather than complementary, destroying the coherence of consciousness studies as a unified field. ↩︎
The via negativa approach borrowed from theology—consciousness is known not through positive determination but through the systematic negation of inadequate characterizations. ↩︎
These altered states provide empirical evidence for consciousness per se—consciousness persists even when normal operational conditions are absent, suggesting a transcendent ground beyond particular manifestations. ↩︎
The recursive structure of self-consciousness reveals consciousness’s unique ontological status—it alone can be both subject and object of the same act without splitting into two entities. ↩︎
The dialectical structure moves beyond simple negation (consciousness is not X) to double negation (consciousness is not [not X]) which transcends the original opposition entirely. ↩︎
Important clarification—this uses theological methodology (apophatic approach) without making consciousness divine. Consciousness is a “reflection” of the divine, not divine itself. ↩︎
Crucial ontological clarification—this is not substance dualism creating two things, but recognition of consciousness’s unique transcendent-immanent ontological structure. ↩︎
The fundamental error of reductionism—mistaking the effects (physical processes) for the cause (consciousness per se) that makes them possible and unified. ↩︎
The empirical objection—personal identity persists through states (coma, deep sleep) that reductionism considers unconscious, revealing consciousness per se beyond operational consciousness. ↩︎
The logical trap—anti-reductionist approaches want irreducible mental properties without acknowledging they logically require distinct substances, making them crypto-dualist. ↩︎
A poetic but accurate description of philosophical history: Descartes created mind-body dualism, then Kant relegated the mental to the unknowable noumenal realm, leaving modern philosophy struggling with incomplete physicalism. ↩︎
The homunculus problem: if consciousness is a mental substance that observes, who or what observes within that mental substance? This leads to infinite regress. ↩︎
The classic interaction problem: if consciousness is non-physical substance, how can it causally interact with physical brain processes without violating physical causal closure? ↩︎
The combination problem in panpsychism: if fundamental particles have micro-conscious properties, how do these combine to create the unified conscious experience we actually have? ↩︎
This identifies the core insight: consciousness transcends all traditional dialectical oppositions rather than falling on one side or the other, requiring a fundamentally new philosophical approach. ↩︎