Can the Kantian brain explain consciousness?

The Predictive Processing (PP) Theory of Mind has emerged as a leading framework among philosophers, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists for understanding the brain's role in generating conscious experience. Under various names – Bayesian brain, predictive coding, active inference – this paradigm advances a core claim: the brain is a prediction machine, constantly generating models or hypotheses about the causes of sensory input and updating them through the minimization of prediction error (Friston, 2005; Clark, 2013; Hohwy, 2013). Though often presented as novel, PP draws philosophical depth from Kantian insights: in fact, Clark speaks of an “almost Kantian feel” to the framework (2013: 196), while Hohwy explicitly acknowledges a “distinct Kantian element” (2013: 5). At its heart lies a reversal of the classical mind-world relation: rather than the mind conforming to objects, objects are said to conform to our cognition (Kant, 1998: Bxvi). This chapter explores whether this Kantian brain (structured by prediction and error correction) can account for the phenomenal character of consciousness. Or, alternatively, whether a shift is required toward theories emphasizing the spatiotemporal coupling between brain and world, as suggested in more recent neurophilosophical work (Gouveia, 2020b: 105; Gouveia, 2022).