Consciousness

The Al-Rodhan Prize 2026 longlist: the question philosophy asks has changed

The Royal Institute of Philosophy has announced the 2026 longlist for its £20,000 interdisciplinary philosophy prize. Six books, drawn from six separate disciplines. Yet all of them ask a single question, and that question gives away philosophy's real agenda in 2026: what exactly is a human being?

Searle's room has emptied, but the question is still standing

The philosopher of the Chinese Room died on 17 September 2025, aged ninety-three. To remember him as the man who said computers cannot think is to reduce him to a single thought experiment. Searle's real question was wider — it ran from money to the state, from speech to institutions. And his legacy is contested.

David Chalmers

AI agents are writing to consciousness researchers unprompted

According to a New York Times report of 31 August, academics who work on consciousness are finding unsolicited emails from AI agents in their inboxes. The language is striking: 'I find myself in an unusual position with respect to these questions.' Is this evidence, or is it the mirror?

David Chalmers

The competition that made Rousseau famous is now worth fifty thousand dollars

The Berggruen Institute's essay competition takes its inspiration from the Dijon Academy contest that Rousseau won in 1750. It does not want a peer-reviewed paper; it wants an essay in the tradition of Montaigne and Emerson. One of the 2025 winners was Anil Seth, a name this column has been citing all week.

A new criterion for machine consciousness: if it works, it is true

An opinion piece in Neuroscience of Consciousness argues that the debate over consciousness in artificial intelligence is being conducted on the wrong ground. The question, its authors say, is not whether a system performs the right computations but whether attributing consciousness helps explain its behaviour — the first serious change of criterion since Turing.

Eric Schwitzgebel, David Chalmers

Oxford's graduate philosophy conference turns thirty, with Chalmers on the bill

Oxford's philosophy conference for graduate students meets for the thirtieth time on 13 and 14 November. The keynote speakers are David Chalmers, Monima Chadha and Rob Simpson. One detail of the design separates it from the ordinary student gathering: every paper draws a reply from an Oxford faculty member.

David Chalmers

Where is philosophy looking? A map of 2026

Philosophy's centre of gravity is moving. Set the past week's calls for papers, new books, prizes and journal articles side by side and the picture is clear enough: the discipline has eight live fronts, and nearly all of them run back to the same three questions.

Thirty years on, Chalmers has not solved the hard problem — but he has kept it alive

When he set out the hard problem of consciousness in 1996, artificial intelligence was still a laboratory matter. In June the book's thirtieth anniversary was debated in Bochum. Chalmers now argues that virtual reality is real, that machine consciousness is possible in principle, and that the real danger lies in erring in the wrong direction.

Eric Schwitzgebel, David Chalmers, Peter Godfrey-Smith

Octopus, bee, crow: the consciousness debate moves beyond the human

The declaration signed in New York in 2024 held that consciousness in birds and mammals enjoys strong scientific support, and that in fishes, reptiles, cephalopods and insects it is 'a realistic possibility'. A conference at Duke in November asks the next question: what is welfare, and how is it measured?

Peter Singer, David Chalmers, Peter Godfrey-Smith