The hard problem of consciousness as a crisis of rationalist metaphysics according to Lev Shestov

The hard problem of consciousness is not a new technical puzzle in analytic philosophy but the latest form of an ancient conflict between rational explanation and lived experience, a conflict the philosopher Lev Shestov captured as the opposition between the 'tree of knowledge' and the 'tree of life.' Contemporary responses to the knowledge argument, particularly eliminativist physicalism, reveal the same tensions Shestov diagnosed in systems that demand necessity and explanatory closure. Rather than offering a technical solution, Shestov provides a framework that illuminates the metaphysical stakes of the consciousness debate and challenges the assumption that reality must fit a unified theory of everything.

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Abstract

Abstract This article argues that the contemporary debate surrounding the hard problem of consciousness confirms Lev Shestov’s structural critique of rationalist philosophy. First, it shows that the hard problem should not be understood as a merely recent technical difficulty within analytic philosophy, but as a new configuration of a much older conflict between rational explanation and lived experience—a conflict Shestov articulated through the opposition between the “tree of knowledge” and the “tree of life.” Second, it contends that contemporary responses to the knowledge argument, especially eliminativist tendencies within physicalism, bring into sharp relief the tensions Shestov diagnosed in systems governed by the demand for necessity and explanatory closure. Far from offering a technical solution, Shestov provides a philosophical framework that illuminates the metaphysical stakes of current debates over consciousness and challenges the assumption that reality must be exhaustively subsumed under a unified theory of everything.