House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness has been published in the summer 2026 at Oxford University Press. The book is open access and can be downloaded for free by everyone. It is also available on Oxford Academic
Printed copies can be ordered on OUP’s website.
Below, you will find the cover, a summary, and news related to the book.
News:
October 2026: The Asian Journal of Philosophy will host a symposium on the book, edited by Takuya Niikawa (Kobe University) and Taiga Shinozaki (Keio University). Keith Frankish, Hedda Hassel Mørch, and Eric Schwitzgebel have already accepted to contribute a piece. The Call for Papers is open until September 2027.
October 2026: I was on Richard Brown’s podcast, Consciousness Live, to talk about House of Mirrors:
July 2026: Strong endorsements of the book on Bluesky by Keith Frankish and Hakwan Lau!
June 2026: I participated in an afternoon book symposium dedicated to House of Mirrors at the Universit of Kobe (Japan)
Summary:
Seeing a red spot, feeling back pain, imagining the sound of a harp: all these states seem to feel like something, in a distinctive sense of “feel.” Philosophers categorize them as part of phenomenal consciousness. This form of consciousness appears mysterious, as it resists scientific explanation and seems irreducible to brain processes. Our phenomenally conscious experiences are presented to us intimately and directly when we have them, while remaining imperceptible to others.
House of Mirrors defends a radical view cutting through these mysteries and known as illusionism: the idea that phenomenal consciousness is not real and only seems real because we are under an introspective illusion generated by our brains. This illusion is unique: it is stronger and much harder to grasp than other illusions, such as perceptual illusions.
François Kammerer argues for illusionism and proposes a novel framework called Meta-Cartesianism, which explains why the illusion of phenomenal consciousness is unique and almost inextricable. Kammerer also maps the implications of illusionism across various domains: if phenomenal consciousness is illusory, what happens to the cognitive science of consciousness? What happens to ethics, given that phenomenal experiences appear crucial to well-being and moral status? What happens to epistemology, given that these experiences seem key to justification?