Abstract

In this paper I offer an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond's thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I argue first that late 19th C. Germany is the neglected context of the emergence of what David Chalmers has called the «hard problem of consciousness», and I show that many contemporary thought experiments and arguments find their first formulation in that very context. Then I examine du Bois-Reymond's position, which turns out to be grounded on an epistemological argument and to be characterized by a metaphysical skepticism, motivated by the speculative attitude of German philosophy and natural science. In the final sections I show how the revival of metaphysics in contemporary research on consciousness can benefit from a reconsideration of this position and from the context where it came out.