THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION

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10448836 - MA - Mehmet Özketen.pdf

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2022-2-21

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Özketen, Mehmet

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This thesis is devoted to critically examining the Argument from Consciousness. The Argument from Consciousness takes consciousness as its datum to arrive at the conclusion that there is a god. Accordingly, one of the premises of the argument draws either on the very existence of consciousness or the correlations between the mental and physical states. There are some different versions of the argument that have been proposed by different philosophers. These different versions of the argument are classified into two in the thesis. Accordingly, while the versions that deny a naturalist explanation of consciousness are classified into the first type, the versions that allow a naturalist explanation of consciousness are classified into the second type. Although the versions of the argument in the second type are stronger than the ones in the first type, both types of the argument have serious liabilities. Hence, in the thesis it is argued that the Argument from Consciousness is not a satisfactory justification for the belief that there exists a god.

Subject Keywords

god, consciousness, naturalism, theism, atheism

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/96077

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

M. Özketen, “THE ARGUMENT FROM CONSCIOUSNESS: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2022.