Abstract

Open peer commentary on the article “Consciousness as Self-Description in Differences” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: I join Gasparyan’s discussion on a possibility of having a theory of consciousness without ignoring the intrinsic self-referentiality of such an endeavour. My questions are: If we acknowledge the primacy of consciousness, is a theory of consciousness even possible? If so, what purpose would it serve? Explaining consciousness “from the inside” leads to some epistemological and methodological dilemmas, one of which is the encounter of phenomenal modalities that might not be accessible to explication. Gasparyan suggests that one such modality is the experience of differentiation. I try to clarify the terminology and suggest further research in this direction.