Dimensions of Thinking about Consciousness and the Origins of Dualistic Intuition

Philosophical discussions on the mind-body problem has recently advanced to the reflection on the cognition of "mind" and "consciousness. " Currently there exist multiple accounts of how we think about conscious states and how the intuition of dualism arises. Based on some observation of this state of research, I point out and describe two dimensions in the thinking about consciousness, namely the dimension of "conscious subjects" and that of "conscious qualities. " Thinking along the dimension of subjects means to treat other entities as conscious subjects. Thinking along the dimension of qualities means to understand what the relevant conscious state is like. Both dimensions can be found in the actual accounts of consciousness and the intuition of dualism in the literature. Therefore, if the intuition of dualism is the psychological foundation of the philosophy of dualism, this psychological foundation might not be unitary, but involves multiple mechanisms to be accounted for.