Thomas Nagel introduces his conception of consciousness in his piece “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?” beginning with the important foundational proposal that if an organism has conscious experience at all, that means that there is something it is like to be that organism (436). Nagel provides that this fact is not analyzable through any explanatory system of functional states (neuroscience) or causal role (phenomenology) of experience but doesn’t deny that conscious mental states and events have functional characteristics and can cause behavior. Next, he brings bats into the conversation, explaining that since bats “present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem is especially vivid” (438) and goes on to present his problem: humans can imagine what it is like to be a bat by performing a range of bat-like activities, such as hanging from the ceiling by our feet, becoming nocturnal, and using echolocation in order to maneuver the world, but do those actions really suggest that we know what it is like to be a bat? It is impossible for humans to fully understand what being a bat is like because human experience provides the basis for human imagination; thus, humans are restricted to the resources of their own mind and cannot form more than a schematic conception of the subjective character of experience of a bat.

This problem is not limited to bats and can be applied to humans as well. People who have full visual and auditory abilities cannot imagine what it is like to be blind or deaf; the subjective character of experience of a blind or deaf human is completely inaccessible because it is beyond the ability of a human with full access to all the senses to conceive. The act of imagining oneself undergoing a certain experience is called sympathetic imagination, and Nagel uses this concept to explain that humans can never expect to accommodate a description of the phenomenology of a bat, just as a person with 20/20 vision cannot expect to understand or explain what it is like to be blind -- just because we can perform bat-like actions and close our eyes for extended periods of time does not mean we know what it is like to be them. Realism about facts such as these about the domain of subjective experience in all forms--ranging from bat to human--implies that there is a belief in distinct existence of the realm of fact that is beyond human concept. This is all to say that there are facts which are above human comprehension because our makeup does not allow us to operate with “concepts of the requisite type” (441) - it’s impossible for us to conceive any organism’s subjective character of experience because if the facts of experience are only accessible from one point of view (such as a bat’s or a blind person) it is a mystery how true character of experience for any organism can be studied or understood.

Owen Flanagan proposes a different theory on studying consciousness that he calls “the natural method.” Flanagan’s natural method provides that phenomenology, cognitive science, and neuroscience can all be meshed together and brought to reflective equilibrium as a way to explain subjective experience. The appeal of this particular method is that it addresses the shortcomings of each of these analytical methods used alone. For example, phenomenology doesn’t include how events and processes are involved in experience, cognitive science is completely constrained by knowledge about the brain and doesn’t include discussion of experience, and neuroscience lacks the aspects that phenomenology and cognitive science bring to the table of consciousness while giving us a detailed neurophysiological look at the brain (what the brain physically does) during periods of both phenomenological and psychophysical observation. The natural method hopes that neuroscience can be used to link phenomenological states with distinct types of neural activity -- a proposal that doesn’t answer all the questions of consciousness but outlines a way to explain subjective experience as thoroughly as humans are capable. Flanagan presents the example of splitting auditory attention and puts it through the explanation systems of phenomenology, psychology, and neuroscience -- concluding that subjective awareness can be studied by drawing together information gathered at different levels by these three distinctive techniques. The premise is this: Analyze the phenomenological data, psychological data, and neuroscientific data together and one will find that certain information about brain processes will subserve perceptual experience and psychological knowledge. Flanagan’s method does not provide answers but provides that if an answer were to arise, neuroscience must advance so that the data from all specific forms of analysis can be used in conjunction to create a sort of all-encompassing explanation of subjective experience, assuming that cognitive science has no further room to advance.

Nagel does not believe that an explanation of experience will come from neuroscience and rather suggests that humans must devise a method of expressing phenomenology in objective terms (more than we can at present) and this will give us greater precision with which to study consciousness, even if we will inevitably hit a wall. Essentially, if humans were to objectively describe aspects of experience, questions of consciousness may assume a more intelligible form and the aspects that were under objective scrutiny may be better candidates for objective explanation. As far as the natural method goes, Nagel says enough when explicitly stating that any theory of the mind is unlikely to be contemplated until his posed subjective vs. objective ideology is considered because the mind/body problem, in his opinion, cannot be considered without sidestepping it. The natural method is the most sensible theory for the study of consciousness; it gives all analytical techniques their due and instead of using each technique’s explanation as a means of choosing which is most reasonable, it seeks to mesh each explanation together in order to create a comprehensible theory that can be easily followed and understood. To those without philosophical background and who have been given only the basic rundown of each theory, the natural method would be seen as the most reasonable as it gives respect to all aspects of each theory and analyzes them side by side to try and give the most comprehensive explanation of experience; that is to say, rather than striking forward, the natural method has built an inarguable and well-composed base knowledge of experience that is fully prepared to accommodate advances in the field of neuroscience (and psychology, for that matter) in order to even more fully illuminate it’s already well laid-out research ideology.

Sources:

Flanagan, Owen. "Chapter 1." Consciousness Reconsidered. Cambridge, Mass. U.a.: MIT, 1992. 11-16. Print.

Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" The Philosophical Review 83.4 (1974): 435-50. Web.