Consciousness Studies: Which Consciousness? What Studies?

The essay supplies a – necessarily selective – overview of the state of Consciousness Studies. It outlines various concepts of ‘consciousness’ in East – mainly India – and West, and in different academic disciplines, and focuses on methodological problems concerning key-terms like experience, experiment, first-person reports, representation, and interpretation. Addressing the problems ensuing from the fact that Western sciences presuppose a hierarchy between various knowledge formations depending on the conditions of their production, Karen Barad’s model of ‘diffractive’ knowledge production might open up a possibility to acknowledge seemingly incompatible knowledge traditions for the benefit of comprehensive Consciousness Studies.