(Never)minding the gap? Integrated information theory and philosophy of consciousness

The aim of the article is to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness, and challenge it through contemporary issues in philosophy of mind and phenomenology. I argue that some objectivist theories of consciousness underestimate the constitutive role of the subjective perspective and seem to face the same problems of the dualism that contemporary sciences would like to avoid. IIT faces the hard problem of consciousness from the axioms of experience to the postulates of its physical substrate and considers the phenomenal aspect not as an illusory property to be reduced, rather as the theoretical starting point of the research. The aim of IIT is to account for both quantity and quality of consciousness in a non-reductive way. However, despite the potential relevance in the empirical domain, this theory presents some theoretical limitations, which are here discussed from a metaphysical, epistemological and phenomenological perspective. Based on this critical discussion it will be suggested to recalibrate IIT in order to redefine its ontological and epistemological grounds.