Abstract

As many have said before, consciousness is not a thing. They retort: it is a process, a function, a seeming. I argue, instead, that it is a relation—a relation between a subject and their world. This new metaphysics of consciousness provides a way forward on the problem of consciousness and resolves old puzzles: the non-localizability issues of consciousness, for example, are also true of relations. What follows is reasoning aimed at upending what I take to be a deep misconception, with the hope of better understanding and progress. (Contact for draft)