Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Explaining What?

  • Published:
Topoi Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Hard Problem is surrounded by a vast literature, to which it is increasingly hard to contribute to in any meaningful way. Accordingly, the strategy here is not to offer any new metaphysical or ‘in principle’ arguments in favour of the success of materialism, but to assume a Type Q(uinian) approach and look to contemporary consciousness science to see how the concept of consciousness fares there, and what kind of explanations we can hope to offer of it. It is suggested that while they will be materialist explanations, they will not be of the form that many scientists and philosophers would have us believe, but instead prompt a very different set of expectations and research projects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baars BJ (1997) In the theatre of consciousness: global workspace theory, a rigorous scientific theory of consciousness. J Conscious Stud 4:292–309

    Google Scholar 

  • Balog K (2009) Phenomenal concepts. In: McLaughlin B, Beckermann A, Walter S (eds) Oxford handbook in the philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 292–312

    Google Scholar 

  • Balog K (2012) In defense of the phenomenal concept strategy. Philos Phenomenol Res 84:1–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bengson JJ, Hutchison KA (2007) Variability in response criteria affects estimates of conscious identification and unconscious semantic priming. Conscious Cogn 16:785–796

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block N (2001) Paradox and cross purposes in recent work on consciousness. Cognition 79:197–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block N (2007) Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience. Behav Brain Sci 30:481–548 (inc. responses)

    Google Scholar 

  • Bode BH (1913) The method of introspection. J Philos Psychol Sci Methods 10:85–91

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers D (1996) The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Chalmers D (2003) Consciousness and its place in nature. In: Stich S, Warfield F (eds) Blackwell guide to philosophy of mind. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Churchland PS (1996) The hornswoggle problem. J Conscious Stud 3:402–408

    Google Scholar 

  • de Gardelle V, Sackur J, Kouider S (2009) Perceptual illusions in brief visual presentations. Conscious Cogn 18:569–577

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dehaene S, Naccache L (2001) Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace theory. Cognition 79:1–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Del Cul A, Baillet S, Dehaene S (2007) Brain dynamics underlying the nonlinear threshold for access to consciousness. PLoS Biol 5(10):e260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dennett D (1991) Consciousness explained. Little, Brown, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett D (1995) The unimagined preposterousness of zombies. J Conscious Stud 2:322–336

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett D (2006) Sweet Dreams: philosophical obstacles to a science of consciousness (Jean Nicod Lectures). MIT press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Dixon NF (1971) Subliminal perception: the nature of a controversy. McGraw-Hill, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Dodge R (1912) The theory and limitations of introspection. Am J Psychol 23:214–229

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunlap K (1912) The case against instrospection. Psychol Rev 19:404–413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunn JC, Kirsner K (2003) What can we infer from double dissociations? Cortex 39:1–7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eriksen CW (1960) Discrimination and learning without awareness: a methodological survey and evaluation. Psychol Rev 67:279–300

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fisk GD, Haase SJ (2006) Exclusion failure does not demonstrate unconscious perception II: evidence from a forced-choice exclusion task. Vision Res 46:4244–4251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldiamond I (1958) Indicators of perception: 1. Subliminal perception, subception, unconscious perception: an analysis in terms of psychophysical indicator methodology. Psychol Bull 55:373–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodale MA, Milner AD (2004) Sight unseen: an exploration of conscious and unconscious vision. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Green DM, Swets JA (1966) Signal detection theory and psychophysics. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Holender D (1986) Semantic activation without conscious identification in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual masking: a survey and appraisal. Behav Brain Sci 9:1–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hollingworth A, Henderson JM (2002) Accurate visual memory for previously attended objects in natural scenes. J Exp Psychol 28:113–136

    Google Scholar 

  • Hulme OJ, Friston KF, Zeki S (2008) Neural correlates of stimulus reportability. J Cogn Neurosci 21:1602–1610

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Irvine E (2011) Rich experience and sensory memory. Philos Psychol 24:159–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Irvine E (2012) Consciousness as a scientific concept: a philosophy of science perspective. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacoby LL (1991) A process dissociation framework: separating automatic from intentional uses of memory. J Mem Lang 30:513–541

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koivisto M, Revonsuo A, Lehtonen M (2006) Independence of visual awareness from the scope of attention: an electrophysiological study. Cereb Cortex 16:415–424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kouider S, de Gardelle V, Sackur J, Dupoux E (2010) How rich is consciousness? The partial awareness hypothesis. Trends Cogn Sci 14:301–307

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamme VAF (2004) Separate neural definitions of visual consciousness and visual attention; a case for phenomenal awareness. Neural Netw 17:861–872

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamme VAF (2006) Towards a true neural stance on consciousness. Trends Cogn Sci 10:494–501

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lau H (2008) Are we studying consciousness yet? In: Weiskrantz L, Davies M (eds) Frontiers of consciousness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 245–258

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee TS (2002) Top-down influence in early visual processing: a Bayesian perspective. Physiol Behav 77:645–650

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levine J (1983) Materialism and qualia: the explanatory gap. Pac Philos Q 64:354–361

    Google Scholar 

  • Loar B (1990) Phenomenal states. Philos Perspect 4:81–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mandik P, Weisberg J (2008) Type-q materialism. In: Wrenn C (ed) Naturalism, reference and ontology: essays in Honor of Roger F. Gibson. Peter Lang Publishing Group, Bern

    Google Scholar 

  • Melloni L, Molina C, Pena M, Torres D, Singer W, Rodriguez E (2007) Synchronization of neural activity across cortical areas: correlates with conscious perception. J Neurosci 27:2858–2865

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milner AD, Goodale MA (1995) The visual brain in action. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Milner AD, Goodale MA (2008) Two visual systems re-viewed. Neuropsychologia 46:774–785

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mumford D (1992) On the computational architecture of the neocortex. II. The role of cortico-cortical loops. Biol Cybern 66:241–251

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Regan JK, Noë A (2001) A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness. Behav Brain Sci 24:939–1031

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliva A (2005) The gist of a scene. In: Itti L, Rees G, Tsotsos JK (eds) The neurobiology of attention. Academic Press, London, pp 251–256

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Papineau D (2001) The rise of physicalism. In: Gillett C, Loewer BM (eds) Physicalism and its discontents. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Papineau D (2006) Phenomenal and perceptual concepts. In: Alter T, Walter S (eds) Phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge: new essays on consciousness and physicalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 111–144

    Google Scholar 

  • Papineau D (2011) What exactly is the explanatory gap? Philosophia 39:5–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips IB (2011) Perception and iconic memory: what sperling doesn’t show. Mind Lang 26:381–411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pins D, Ffychte D (2003) The neural correlates of conscious vision. Cereb Cortex 13:461–474

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reingold EM (2004) Unconscious perception and the classic dissociation paradigm: a new angle? Percept Psychophys 66:882–887

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rensink RA, O’Regan JK, Clark JJ (1997) To see or not to see: the need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychol Sci 8:368–373

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt T, Vorberg D (2006) Criteria for unconscious cognition: three types of dissociation. Percept Psychophys 68:489–504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel E (2011) Perplexities of consciousness. A Bradford Book, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Sergent C, Baillet S, Dehaene S (2005) Timing of the brain events underlying access to consciousness during the attentional blink. Nat Neurosci 8:1391–1400

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seth AK, Dienes Z, Cleeremans A, Overgaard M, Pessoa L (2008) Measuring consciousness: relating behavioural and neurophysiological approaches. Trends Cogn Sci 12:314–321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shea N, Bayne T (2010) The vegetative state and the science of consciousness. Br J the Philos Sci 61:459–484

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons DJ, Levin DT (1998) Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction. Psychon Bull Rev 5:644–649

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simons DJ, Rensink RA (2005) Change blindness: past, present, and future. Trends Cogn Sci 9:16–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sloman A, Chrisley R (2003) Virtual machines and consciousness. J Conscious Stud 10:113–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Snodgrass JM, Lepisto SA (2007) Access for what? Reflective consciousness. Behav Brain Sci 30:525–526

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Snodgrass JM, Bernat E, Shevrin H (2004) Unconscious perception: a model-based approach to method and evidence. Percept Psychophys 66:846–867

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan J (2009) The multiplicity of experimental protocols: a challenge to reductionist and non-reductionist models of the unity of neuroscience. Synthese 167:511–539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Supèr H, Spekreijse H, Lamme VAF (2001) Two distinct modes of sensory processing observed in monkey primary visual cortex (V1). Nat Neurosci 4:304–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Systma J (2010) Folk psychology and phenomenal consciousness. Philosophy Compass 5:700–711

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Systma J, Machery E (2010) Two conceptions of subjective experience. Philos Stud 151:299–327

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tye M (2009) Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Ungerleider LG, Mishkin M (1982) Two cortical visual systems. In: Ingle DJ, Goodale MA, Mansfield RJW (eds) Analysis of visual behavior. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 549–586

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Gulick R (1993) Understanding the phenomenal mind: are we all just armadillos? In: Davies M, Humphreys G (eds) Consciousness: philosophical and psychological aspects. Blackwell, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Rullen R, Thorpe S (2001) The time course of visual processing: from early perception to decision making. J Cogn Neurosci 13:454–461

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Visser TAW, Merikle PM (1999) Conscious and unconscious processes: the effects of motivation. Conscious Cogn 8:94–113

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg J (2011) The zombie’s cogito: meditations on type-Q materialism. Philos Psychol 24:585–605

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkes Kathleen V (1984) Is consciousness important? Br J Philos Sci 35:223–243

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkes KV (1988) Yishi, duh, um and consciousness. In: Marcel AJ, Bisiach E (eds) Consciousness in contemporary science. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the editors for organising this special issue, and to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. Thanks also to Dave Chalmers, and many ANU graduate students, for helping me think about these issues again.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Coombs Building, Coombs Drive, Canberra, 2601, Australia

    Elizabeth Irvine

  2. School of Philosophy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Elizabeth Irvine

Authors
  1. Elizabeth Irvine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth Irvine.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Irvine, E. Explaining What?. Topoi 36, 95–106 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-014-9273-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-014-9273-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation