PUBLIC DEBATES ONTOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: NATURALISM VS. TRANSCENDENTALISM

This publication is a transcript of the open disputation dedicated to the theme Ontology of Consciousness: Naturalism vs Transcendentalism, which has been held at March 27, 2015 at the Institute of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University. Both positions, naturalism and transcendentalism, were presented by the teams of two experts, who offered to the public their vision of correlation between naturalism and transcendentalism as well as attacked the arguments of opposite side. Moreover, the audience had the possibility not only to put the questions to experts, but also to make short remarks on the subject of discussion. The following problems were discussed during the disputation time: the causal conditionality of the consciousness, constitution of the object of nature and belonging of consciousness to their realm, the possibility of the freedom inside the natural world, the perspectives of the naturalization of the phenomenology. But the consensus has not been reached. The range of opinions reached by the experts during the discussion was quite extensive: from the recognition that transcendentalism and naturalism are enemies, which fight each other until final victory, to the assumption of the possibility of mutual complementarity or at least a correction of its own thesis under the influence of criticism opposite side.