Abstract

This paper addresses John Searle's criticism of the integrated information theory of consciousness. Among other things, Searle claimed that, since information is a syntactic notion, IITC cannot account for the content of consciousness. He also argued that IITC cannot explain consciousness in causal terms. In this paper, I demonstrate that the original formulation of IITC is compatible with a structuralist reading. After that, I explain how a structuralist reconstruction of IITC could deal with the objections that Searle raised. Among other things, I argue that IITC could provide genuine scientific explanations of consciousness, but the explanations are to be presented in structural, rather than causal, terms.