From the Transcendental Subject to the Causal Core

The relationship between subject and object has been the crystallization point of consciousness research since transcendental philosophy. From Kant to Husserl, attempts were made to understand the conditions of the possibility of knowledge from the structure of the subject. However, with the transition to empirical neuroscience, this question has not disappeared, but has merely been transformed. The transcendental framework continues to have an effect – as an implicit prerequisite of many theories that see themselves as naturalistic.

The present text pursues the goal of making this implicit framework visible and overcoming it. He traces the historical development from transcendental philosophy to today's neuro- and systems-theoretical models of consciousness, in order to finally propose an alternative concept: that of causal collapse and the causal core. These terms do not describe consciousness as an emergent product, but as a structural consequence of the self-binding of causal processes. In this way, the classic pair of opposites of spirit and nature is abolished without falling into reductionism.