Dan Zahavi and John Searle on Consciousness and Non-Reductive Materialism
July 18, 2017 A. Lombardi
The paper examines Dan Zahavi's phenomenological approach to self and consciousness as presented in his 2005 book Subjectivity and Selfhood, evaluating whether it can overcome the materialist tendencies in John Searle's philosophy of mind. Searle rejected Benjamin Libet's dualist testing of mind-brain interaction, arguing instead for a non-reductive materialism that treats consciousness as a biological yet first-person ontology preserving its subjective, qualitative, and unified features. Zahavi, engaging with neuroscience and cognitive science, contends that consciousness cannot be fully understood without reference to the self. The analysis assesses whether Zahavi's perspective opens a non-reductive comprehension of human beings.