Neurophenomenal structuralism as a general theory of consciousness?
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences October 6, 2025 Jakub Mihálik, Tomáš Marvan 1 citation
Neurophenomenal structuralism (NPS) is usually taken to explain why a conscious experience has a specific feel, but Sascha Fink proposes it can also explain why one has any experience at all. Fink argues that the structures determining an experience's character are embedded in larger meta-structures that make those structures conscious and add their own Gestalt phenomenology. This paper examines Fink's generalized NPS+ and raises three objections: unconscious Gestalten exist, some experiences like Ganzfeld lack Gestalt-structures, and one-factor NPS+ faces a mirroring dilemma between regress and loss of methodological promise. Two further challenges for two-factor NPS+ concern why adding structures makes features conscious and why only some neural structures are selected for consciousness.