Key Idea: Topic 1.3 is about the one thing you can never switch off: consciousness — the raw inner feel of being you. Can science ever fully explain it, or is there a part it can't reach? Consciousness is one of the strongest issues to reach for in Paper 1 Section A, the 25-mark essay on what it is to be human. This whole topic feeds it.
🧠 The five big questions, one card each
Topic 1.3 at a glance
- 1.3.1 · What is consciousness? — The 'what-it's-like' feel of experience — qualia. Nagel: you can't know what it's like to be a bat. Mary's Room: she knows every physical fact about colour yet learns something NEW on seeing red — so experience isn't just physical facts.
- 1.3.2 · Consciousness and the world — Consciousness is always ABOUT something (intentionality). Phenomenology: you live in a world, not sealed in a skull. Advaita Vedanta adds a silent 'witness' behind every experience.
- 1.3.3 · The mind–body problem — Are you one thing or two? Descartes' dualism: you can doubt your body but not your thinking, so mind and body are separate. The interaction problem: how could a non-physical mind push a physical body?
- 1.3.4 · The problem of other minds — You know only ONE mind directly — your own. The argument from analogy infers others from behaviour. But generalising from a single case is weak, which keeps scepticism about other minds alive.
- 1.3.5 · Neuroscience and consciousness — Churchland: brain science will explain everything, even replacing 'folk psychology'. Chalmers: the EASY problems yield to science, but the HARD problem — WHY there's any inner feel at all — stays untouched.
Keep the easy problems apart from the hard problem (Chalmers). Easy problems — how the brain sorts information, controls attention, wakes up — are still hard, but science can crack them. The hard problem is WHY any of that comes with an inner feel at all. Every 'can science explain consciousness?' answer turns on this line.
✍️ Bring it together — a Section A question
Stimulus — A neuroscientist writes: "I can show you the exact brain activity behind your joy — every cell, every signal, mapped in full colour. What I still can't show you, and never will, is what your joy actually feels like from the inside." With explicit reference to the stimulus and your own knowledge, explore a philosophical issue related to what it is to be human.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Important: Describing views instead of arguing them. Don't just say 'Churchland thinks X, Chalmers thinks Y.' Give each view a reason, test it with an objection, then decide. A name earns nothing without its argument — and a top answer always reaches a reasoned conclusion, never 'it's just opinion'.
✅ Check yourself
If you can answer these six, you have the spine of the whole topic.
What are qualia? The raw 'what-it's-like' feel of an experience — the redness of red, the sting of pain — the part that seems left out of a purely physical account.
What does Mary's Room show? Mary knows every physical fact about colour yet learns something new on first seeing red — so experience isn't captured by physical facts alone.
What is intentionality? The 'aboutness' of the mind: a thought or experience is always OF or ABOUT something — your fear is fear of something.
Descartes' interaction problem? If mind and body are separate kinds of thing, how does a non-physical decision push a physical hand? A push seems to need something physical.
The argument from analogy? In my own case behaviour goes with an inner feel; you behave the same, so I infer you have an inner feel too. Weak because it rests on one case.
Easy vs hard problem (Chalmers)? Easy: how the brain processes information, attention, waking. Hard: WHY there's any inner feel at all — the part science seems unable to reach.
Exam Tips
- Section A is a 25-mark essay on the core theme — consciousness is a strong issue, and this whole topic feeds it.
- Turn the stimulus into a question about conscious experience, then explore → evaluate → conclude.
- Name a thinker ONLY with their argument — a name on its own earns no marks.
- Always weigh at least two views and end on a reasoned conclusion, not a list.