Czech Physicalists on Phenomenal Consciousness

This study evaluates the concept of phenomenal consciousness in Tomas Marvan and Michal Polak's monograph Consciousness and its Theories (Vedomi a jeho teorie, Plzen-Praha, Vysehrad and Tiskarna Bily slon 2015) and in Tomas Hribek's book What's It Like, or What's It About? The Place of Consciousness in the Material World (Jake to je, nebo o cem to je? Misto vedomi v materialnim svete, Praha, Filosofia 2017). The author focuses on the question of how the conceptions presented in these monographs address Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness. He shows that while Marvan and Polak propose dividing this difficult problem into two easier sub-problems, Hribek considers it to be a pseudo-problem whose genesis lies in a mistaken understanding of consciousness. The text critically analyzes Marvan and Polak's defense of the identity theory and Hribek's argumentations directed against the existence of qualia. Contrarily, it praises Marvan and Polak's formulation of a hypothesis of unconscious phenomenality and, in Hribek's monograph, the reflection of Dennett's approach to consciousness in the light of Kripke's puzzle about belief.