Symposium on Evan Thompson’s Mind in Life, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18, No. 5–6, 2011.
ABSTRACT: Thompson’s Mind in Life aims to provide new resources for addressing the explanatory gap by recognizing a category of “comportment” or embodied consciousness that falls outside the usual schemes for conceptualizing consciousness and its place in nature. I consider how this distinguishes Thompson’s view from more familiar approaches to the problem of the gap. I then raise a challenge for his approach, and his “phenomenological critique of zombies.” I suggest a response to this challenge, by arguing that there are basic phenomenological concepts of experiential movement that cannot be factored into purely phenomenal and purely behavioral components—such as the concept of looking at something. Finally, I raise a question about how Thompson views the relationship between two kinds of “inwardness”: the sort he says is a “precursor” to consciousness and can be found even in fairly primitive organisms, and the sort of “inwardness” that suffices for actual consciousness, and makes an entity a suitable focus of empathy.