The Possibility of Consciousness : Unifying Transcendental Phenomenology and Ontic Structural Realism while Dissolving the Problem of Other Minds

Recent scholarship has begun to explore intriguing affinities between Structural Realism (SR) and Phenomenology. Yet both traditions remain hampered by a fundamental ontological deficit. SR struggles to account for how structure itself is possible, and lacks the fundamental ontological constraints needed to fully defuse the Newman objection plaguing both Epistemic and Ontic Structural Realism, leaving physical structures vulnerable to collapsing into arbitrary mathematical sets. Conversely, phenomenology remains unable to provide an ontological ground for consciousness and hyle; historical attempts to regress beyond consciousness have frequently culminated in ineffability or obscure metaphysical commitments. To break this impasse, this paper develops a minimal generative ontology. Explicitly aligning with the non-egological tradition, this framework methodologically suspends dense phenomenological terminologies to isolate a primordial operational core: the pure encounter between consciousness and hyle via the operation of demarcation. Rooted in the indubitable fact that consciousness is occurring—and grasping intentionality as the fundamental structural unit of all consciousness—it performs a transcendental regress in the reverse direction of intentionality itself. It systematically examines the fundamental structural limitations consciousness encounters when attempting to intend its own ontological ground. From these limitations, the core properties of this ground—termed the Possibility of Consciousness (POC)—are deduced. In this way, this ontology supplies the missing ontological constraints that secure SR’s non-arbitrariness while offering radically simplified operational primitives for phenomenological constitution—achieving a foundational unification of these two major traditions. Keywords: Structural Realism; Phenomenology; consciousness; Generative Ontology; Non-egological Phenomenology.