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- Andrew R. Bailey (2007). Qualia and the Argument From Illusion: A Defence of Figment. Acta Analytica 22 (2).This paper resurrects two discredited ideas in the philosophy of mind. The first: the idea that perceptual illusion might have something metaphysically significant to tell us about the nature of phenomenal consciousness. The second: that the colours and other qualities that ‘fill’ our sensory fields are occurrent properties (rather than representations of properties) that are, nevertheless, to be distinguished from the ‘objective’ properties of things in the external world. Theories of consciousness must recognize the existence of what Daniel Dennett mockingly labels ‘figment,’ but this result—though metaphysically and epistemologically significant—is not incompatible with either physicalism or naturalized semantics.In my reading list | Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
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"Qualia" is an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us. As is so often the case with philosophical jargon, it is easier to give examples than to give a definition of the term. Look at a glass of milk at sunset; the way it looks to you--the particular, personal, subjective visual quality of the glass of milk is the quale of your visual experience at the moment. The (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: cogprints.org cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk portal.acm.org cogprints.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: cogprints.org cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk portal.acm.org cogprints.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org | Scholar | More.. This essay is a defence of the traditional notion of qualia - as properties of consciousness that are ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehensible - against the eliminative attempts of Daniel Dennett in the influential article "Quining Qualia." It is suggested that a thorough exploration of the concept is an appropriate starting point for future explanations of qualia, and the essay ends with some possible explanations of the four traditional properties.
In my reading list
| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org lu-research.lub.lu.se cogprints.org | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org lu-research.lub.lu.se cogprints.org | Scholar | More.. This essay is a defence of the traditional notion of qualia - as properties of consciousness that are ineffable, intrinsic, private and immediately apprehensible - against the eliminative attempts of Daniel Dennett in the influential article "Quining Qualia." It is suggested that a thorough exploration of the concept is an appropriate starting point for future explanations of qualia, and the essay ends with some possible explanations of the four traditional properties.
Philosophers have adopted various names for the things in the beholder (or properties of the beholder) that have been supposed to provide a safe home for the colors and the rest of the properties that have been banished from the "external" world by the triumphs of physics: "raw feels", "sensa", "phenomenal qualities" "intrinsic properties of conscious experiences" "the qualitative content of mental states" and, of course, "qualia," the term I will use. There are subtle differences in how these terms have (...)
Phenomenal knowledge usually comes from experience. But it need not. For example, one could know what it’s like to see red without seeing red—indeed, without having any color experiences. Daniel Dennett (2007) and Pete Mandik (forthcoming) argue that this and related considerations undermine the knowledge argument against physicalism. If they are right, then this is not only a problem for anti‐physicalists. Their argument threatens to undermine any version of phenomenal realism— the view that there are phenomenal properties, or qualia, that (...)
It is widely accepted that conscious experience has a physical basis. That is, the properties of experience (phenomenal properties, or qualia) systematically depend on physical properties according to some lawful relation. There are two key questions about this relation. The first concerns the strength of the laws: are they logically or metaphysically necessary, so that consciousness is nothing "over and above" the underlying physical process, or are they merely contingent laws like the law of gravity? This question about the strength (...)
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| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: consc.net cogprints.org cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk u.arizona.edu cogprints.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: consc.net cogprints.org cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk u.arizona.edu cogprints.soton.ac.uk citebase.eprints.org | Scholar | More.. In my reading list
| Discuss this article | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: transactionpub.metapress.com springerlink.com | Scholar | More..
| | Other links: transactionpub.metapress.com springerlink.com | Scholar | More.. 
