| In recent times, the studies of human consciousness, mind and cognition have formed a wide range interdisciplinary researching area. In this area, we achieved a lot both in the ideaistic and empirical research. And all of these are benefit from the improvement of scientific researching methods.However The ’hard problem’ of consciousness is always the most essential and rough part of the studies of consciousness. In all ages, to find out what is consciousness, and how the human experience occurs appealing to so many philosophers and scientists. However, the result is not good enough for our curiosity. As a part of them, Max Velmans put forward his own theory of consciousness, and enlighten the direction for consciousness studies.Velmans believes that the reason we fail to achieve is the wrong way we take, and we did it for a very long time.we always do the studies consulting predecessors such as dualism, which was got into trouble. Especially at the time when science come to us, the consciousness was treated in an inappropriate way. The scientific method of the third person could not give us the right answer about consciousness. So Velmans emphasizes a change of the method for consciousness research. We must pay more attention on the reflexive relation of experience and the world.So in this paper I will follow the train of Velmans’ thoughts to retell the history of consciousness studies. Then we will pay attention to analyze the Reflexive Monism, which is the center of his thoughts. I sum up five major points of reflexive monism in this paper. First, human beings (mind and body) rooted in the universe. Second, human beings is a differentiation part of the universe. Third, the experience of human have a unique perspective, for it is a kind of reflexively interaction of entity, event and process with the perception and cognition system of each person. Forth, on the contrary, the perception and cognition system represent those entity, event and process. Fifth, human being is a part of the universe and participate in the reflexive process of the universe observing and experiencing itself. The universe is the subject and the object either.There is no discussion about reflexive monism inland at present. However, there are much debates in foreign countries. Especially for the materialism, who regard reflexive monism as obscure and hard to understand. In short, they think this theory cannot give a good explanation for consciousness problem. Given that, I show support to reflexive monism in this paper and make my own understanding and judgment, hoping that I can do something right for promoting consciousness studies in our country. |
