Weisberg’s Explanatory Optimism

In Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness, Josh Weisberg tries to debunk the hard problem of consciousness. In his view, although consciousness appears to have DISC (directly accessed, indescribable, simple, contingently connected) properties, it does not: the appearance is better explained by automation, ‘a quick and seemingly spontaneous kind of cognitive processing, one whose underlying mechanistic activity is subjectively inaccessible to us’ (p. 92). I raise two problems for Weisberg’s argument. First, even if automation explains why consciousness appears DISCy, that is not enough to explain the hard-problem intuitions. Second, neither methodological naturalism nor the impressive track record of scientific explanations suffices to justify ascribing presumptive status to the claim that consciousness can be fully explained in structural-dynamic terms.