Abstract
A popular defense of physicalist theories of consciousness against anti-physicalist arguments invokes the existence of ‘phenomenal concepts’. These are concepts that designate conscious experiences from a first person perspective, and hence differ from physicalistic concepts; but not in a way that precludes co-referentiality with them. On one version of this strategy phenomenal concepts are seen as (1) type demonstratives that have (2) no mode of presentation. However, 2 is possible without 1-call this the ‘bare recognitional concept’ view-and I will argue that this avoids certain recent criticisms while retaining the virtue of finessing the ‘mode of presentation’ problem for phenomenal concepts. But construing phenomenal concepts this way seems to not do justice to the phenomenology of conscious experience. In this paper I examine whether or not this impression can be borne out by a good argument. As it turns out, it is harder to do so than one might think. It can be done, but it involves somewhat more convoluted reasoning than one might have supposed necessary. Having shown that, I will end with a few brief remarks on what my argument means for attempts to preserve a physicalist account of consciousness.
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Notes
This typology of physicalist responses is due to Chalmers (2002a).
If this characterization seems to be somewhat convoluted and even to leave some questions open, that’s because the issue of how to characterize phenomenal concepts is complicated and not entirely settled. For a discussion of this see Balog (2009), Sect. 1 ii.
As is well known by now, Jackson no longer subscribes to this argument. See Jackson (1998).
This question assumes, of course, that the designators involved are rigid designators, but that’s hardly a controversial assumption anymore.
This assumes, of course, that it must be the phenomenal concept that has such a contingently related reference fixing property. But I don’t think it would help the physicalist any if it should be the physical-functional concept and not the phenomenal concept for which this is so. I would in fact contend (though I won’t try to defend this here) that this leads to something like a Russellian style panpsychism. (See Bertrand Russell (1927) for the classical inspiration behind this).
Strangely, at one place H & T disclaim this reading of their premise 2 (although one has to read the endnotes to find the disclaimer). In their n. 6 they say:
...premise 2 of the deconstructive argument does not say that when a phenomenal property is conceived under a phenomenal concept, this property is thereby conceived as it completely is in itself. The possibility is left open that there is more to a property P, as it is in its essence, than is revealed when P is directly grasped under a concept C. (p. 317)
They also say the following:
Note well that premise 1 does not say that phenomenal properties are conceived, under phenomenal concepts, as non-physical-functional properties. Conceiving the property otherwise than as a physical-functional property is different from, and weaker than, conceiving it as otherwise than a physical-functional property. (n. 4, p. 317)
But, as Brian McLaughlin (2001) points out in a critique of H & T (found in the same volume), these remarks render premise 3 of the argument just flat out wrong. Why H & T do this is unclear, and, it should be said, there are passages (found in the main body of the paper, for whatever that is worth) where H & T seem to be adopting the stronger reading I here propose. On that reading, premise 3 (appropriately clarified as 3a) turns out to be fine, but then the question becomes whether or not we must accept premise 2a. The main issue in this paper is whether or not what I will call the ‘bare recognitional concept’ (BRC) version of PCS shows that we need not. (Another way in which we might avoid premise 2a is broached in Sect. 5)
In order for this premise to be true, it has to be the case that if a property is physical-functional, then its being physical-functional constitutes part of its essential nature. But that seems to be a pretty safe assumption.
See also White (2007) for a brief exposition of the TD version of phenomenal concepts. I should add that it seems to me an open question whether or not Loar subscribes to the TD view of phenomenal concepts as Levin claims (or the BRC view I will later lay out). Certainly there is no consensus on how to read him on this.
Levin (2007, p. 89).
The sort of idea being advocated here is not new in discussions of the mind–body problem. Indeed, it is reminiscient of the following remark from J. J. C. Smart’s seminal 1959 article in defense of his topic neutral analysis of first person judgments about conscious states.
The strength of my reply depends on the possibility of our being able to report that one thing is like another without being able to state the respect in which it is like. I do not see why this should not be so. If we think cybernetically about the nervous system we can envisage it as able to respond to certain likenesses of its internal processes without being able to do more. It would be easier to build a machine which would tell us, say on a punched tape, whether or not two objects were similar, than it would be to build a machine which would report wherein the similarities consisted.
Cf. Austen Clark’s (2000) speculative account of how our visual systems record information about color.
One assumes that demonstration for types is parasitic, in one way or the other, on demonstration for tokens of that type. But this is an issue that soon will become moot in any case.
Thanks are due to a referee for alerting me to this article.
Of course, there could be other possibilities as well. In any case, as I indicate in n. 8, it seems to me that there is no consensus among commentators on Loar on exactly how to read him on this issue.
See also White (2007).
I have said that I am taking this to be the reading of Loar that Levin adopts (and an understanding of phenomenal concepts that she endorses). At one place she does say:
If phenomenal properties are identical with physical properties, then there will be physical differences between our experiences and the introspectively denoted neural states of a blindsight subject. Some of these physical properties, of course, will be “felt” by the subjects who have them, and some will not—but that’s just what it is for some, but not all, of them to be phenomenal. (2007, p. 92)
But talk about ‘feels’ here could just constitute the use of a tag for distinguishing phenomenal from nonphenomenal states; rather than a sign of backsliding from a purely BRC view.
It was my failure to see this in my earlier paper that was pointed out to me by Gene Witmer.
Of course, they could be both embedded in folk psychology and the product of philosophical theory. E.g., Daniel Dennett holds that there is a popular belief in qualia, but that this is a result of people assimilating a certain philosophical, or maybe philosophical-cum-scientific, view about what the science of color implies. See Dennett (1991, pp. 369–375).
Often (maybe usually) ‘eliminativism’ is restricted to views that require a major modification of folk psychology. On that usage, it would be a misnomer to apply the term if only the second of these alternatives holds—i.e., if it’s only philosophers who fall prey to these illusions.
Actually, this conclusion isn’t quite right, because one could contend that pre-release Mary did know about these properties; she just didn’t know their essential nature. Rather, she knew about them ‘by description’ or via certain of their contingent properties. However, I now refer back to my remarks in n. 5: This, I would maintain, ultimately leads to something like a Russellian style pan-psychism; hence it would be no help to the physicalist.
This, of course, could be one way of understanding the puzzling remarks H & T make that I cite in note 6, remarks that, as McLaughlin points out (and as I have here just pointed out), undermine their argument.
In Holman (2006) I argue that an appeal to functional role semantics cannot help the physicalist’s cause on this.
This paper has benefitted from comments and criticisms on the part of a referee, and, as indicated earlier, Gene Witmer.
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I realize this subtitle presumes to speak for other people. Perhaps ‘Harder to Debunk than I Thought’ would have been better. At any rate, this paper descends from an earlier one in which I thought I had a fairly quick and easy refutation of the view that phenomenal concepts can be bare recognitional concepts. Credit for getting me to see that things are not so simple goes to Gene Witmer.
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Holman, E.L. Phenomenal concepts as bare recognitional concepts: harder to debunk than you thought, …but still possible. Philos Stud 164, 807–827 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9904-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9904-9