The Criterion of Structural Fundamentality and Its Application to David Chalmers' Philosophy of Mind.

A criterion for structural fundamentality is proposed: a term is fundamental if it cannot be derived from previously defined concepts and is necessary for building further structure. Four tests—necessity, independence, localization, and generative—are applied to physical primitives like mass and charge, which pass all. Applied to David Chalmers’ terms experience, phenomenal consciousness, and qualia, the analysis finds that Chalmers accepts their fundamentality based on failed reductive explanation, but that impossibility of reduction does not prove ontological fundamentality. All three terms can be decomposed using a minimal seven-definition system. The zombie argument relies on an internal contradiction. The hard problem is relocated from why phenomenal experience exists to under what conditions being gives rise to consciousness as the capacity to perceive one’s own reflection.

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Abstract

This paper proposes a criterion of structural fundamentality for philosophical terms and applies it to the central concepts of David Chalmers’ philosophy of mind. A term is considered fundamental if it cannot be derived from previously defined concepts and is necessary for the construction of further structure. Four operational tests follow from this criterion: the necessity test, the independence test, the localization test, and the generative test. The criterion is first demonstrated on physical primitives — mass, charge, spacetime — which pass all four tests. It is then applied to Chalmers’ key terms: experience, phenomenal consciousness, and qualia. The analysis shows that Chalmers accepts the fundamentality of experience after the failure of reductive explanation without formulating a verification procedure. The impossibility of reductive derivation does not entail ontological fundamentality. After applying the criterion, all three terms admit coherent structural decomposition through previously defined concepts drawn from a minimal seven-definition system (Kablukov 2026a–d). The zombie argument is shown to rely on a contradiction internal to its own conditions. The hard problem of consciousness is not dissolved but relocated: from the question of why phenomenal experience exists to the question of under what conditions being gives rise to consciousness as the capacity to perceive one’s own reflection. This is a structurally different question at a different level of the system.