Riddhish Thakare

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of contemporary theories of consciousness, focusing on their capacity to address the 'hard problem' of subjective experience. Drawing upon Robert Lawrence Kuhn's taxonomy as a framework, the analysis systematically evaluates a diverse theoretical landscape, including materialism, non-reductive physicalism, dualism, panpsychism, and idealism. Each framework is critically examined for its ability to bridge the explanatory gap between physical processes and phenomenal states, highlighting key philosophical tensions such as the interaction problem in dualism and the combination problem in panpsychism. The paper argues that Daniel Stoljar's Russellian Monism presents the most compelling framework for a solution. This position is defended on the grounds that it integrates phenomenal properties as the intrinsic nature of what physics describes structurally. In doing so, it avoids the causal challenges of dualism while taking subjective experience seriously in a way that reductive materialism does not. By aligning with Stoljar's Ignorance Hypothesis, this approach maintains a physicalist ontology while acknowledging that a future, more complete physics may be required to fully grasp the nature of these intrinsic properties.