Abstract

Philosophy of mind has long wrestled with the problem of the 'zombie', a being lacking self-consciousness, as a refutation to purely materialist ontologies. This article contends that this philosophical debate can be informed by: (1) a renewed discussion of matter and objects as generative and agentic, rather than passive and inert; and (2) the popular flesh-eating zombies of fiction and film. Attempting to synthesize the philosophical zombie debate leads to a position of epiphenomenalism, where consciousness may be materially determined but not materially explicable. Such a position describes the zombies in Robert Kirkman's ongoing graphic novel series The Walking Dead, which is very much concerned with the experience of 'what it is like' to be a zombie. This suggests both an innovation in the zombie genre, and highlights the speculative potential of fiction to work through philosophical problems.

Keywords

consciousness, materialism, mind, phenomenology, Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, zombies

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