Abstract
Strawson (1994) and Peacocke (1992) introduced thought experiments that show that it seems intuitive that there is, in some way, an experiential character to mental events of understanding. Some (e.g., Siewert 1998, 2011; Pitt 2004) try to explain these intuitions by saying that just as we have, say, headache experiences and visual experiences of blueness, so too we have experiences of understanding. Others (e.g., Prinz 2006, 2011; Tye 1996) propose that these intuitions can be explained without positing experiences of understanding. Call this the debate between Realism and Anti-Realism about experiences of understanding. This paper aims to advance that debate in two ways. In the first half, I develop more precise characterizations of what Realists and Anti-Realists propose. In the second half, I distinguish the four most plausible versions of Anti-Realism and argue that Realism better explains the target intuition than any of them does.
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Notes
This case is based on Galen Strawson’s Jack and Jacques example (Strawson 1994, pp. 5–6). If you think that Bart doesn’t speak French, you haven’t seen the episode titled ‘The Crepes of Wrath’ (The Simpsons Episode 11, 1990).
This example is based on one involving Cyrillic texts from Peacocke (1992, p. 89).
I have no particular account in mind of the awareness under discussion. But the operant sense of ‘aware’ is intended as relatively thin. For example, ‘awareness’ in this sense is more minimally involving than most senses of ‘judges’. The latter term suggests an active reflective engagement, but the former suggests a more passive monitoring.
Prinz is actually speaking about both our target intuition and related intuitions about other ‘phenomenal contrast’ thought experiments. Realists are an example of what Prinz calls expansionists, and Anti-Realists are an example of what he calls restrictivists—so ‘Anti-Realists’ replaces ‘restrictivists’ in the quote. Realists and Anti-Realists are also, respectively, examples of what Bayne (2009) calls phenomenal liberals and phenomenal conservatives.
Bayne and Montague (2011, p. 22) give one reason why some may want to deny the target intuition. It is possible to hold that the target intuition does not arise if we are careful to not mistake a non-experiential difference for an experiential difference, perhaps because of not mistaking non-experiential seemings for experiential seemings. Schwitzgebel (2008) discusses this general conceptual point about seemings, but the distinction dates to Chisholm (1957).
I develop my view in Dodd (ms.).
For example, Pitt (2004) categorizes them as cognitive experiences and Siegel (2006) as high-level sensory experiences. Bayne and Montague (2011) summarize this categorization issue as follows: “Insofar as it is unclear just where (and how) to draw the line between thought and high-level perception… it will also be unclear whether a particular contrast argument [for Realism] would establish the existence of ‘cognitive phenomenology’ even if successful…. Opinions might differ as to whether understanding speech qualifies as a form of perception or thought” (p. 23).
As an example of the latter: presumably no one really has experiences of the Fates smiling on them.
See Hardin’s (1988, pp. 40–45) discussion of the structure of phenomenal hues for interesting experiments about assessments of qualitative similarity amongst colours.
Kriegel (2009) argues that what it is like for someone to have a conscious experience is partly constituted by a feeling of for-me-ness. The idea is that what it is like for S to have, say, an experience of joy is partly constituted by S’s feeling that this joy is her own. Kriegel’s theory is notable because it implies that there is a sense in which all of S’s experiences have a similar experiential character: they all share a feeling of for-me-ness. I will leave Kriegel’s proposal aside. Readers who wish to can take my talk of similarity as talk of similarity beyond feelings of for-me-ness.
The concept of exclusive experiential character is closely related to Pitt’s concept of proprietary phenomenology: any given type of conscious mental state has a proprietary phenomenology iff what it is like to be in it is “different from what it is like to be in any other sort of conscious mental state” (Pitt 2004, p. 4). These concepts are also both related to Andre Gallois’ concept of distinctive phenomenology: “Let us say that a psychological feature Φ has a distinctive phenomenology if and only if it satisfies the following condition. It is impossible for there to be no difference between what it is like to be x and what it is like to be y at some t unless x and y both have or lack Φ at t” (Gallois 1996, p. 18).
Hardin gives some other useful (and surprising) examples of experiences that fail to share an exclusive experiential character: “At very low frequencies, tactual feeling and hearing become so similar that in the 20 Hz region one is readily confused with the other. And when small puffs of air on the forehead are used to facilitate the subjective location of clicks that are fed to a subject through earphones, the puff is sometimes taken to be the click itself” (Hardin 1988, p. 133).
I am assuming, for simplicity, that a type is the set of its tokens. But for difficulties with this assumption, see Wetzel (2006).
As an aside, here is another feature of basic types of conscious experience. As we saw, we can distinguish broader and narrower kindred experiential characters: (more broadly) pain experiences share a kindred experiential character and (more narrowly) so do headache experiences. We can also distinguish broader and narrower basic types of conscious experience, since the concept of basic experiential character is built on the concept of kindred experiential character. The same examples show this: (more broadly) pain experiences are a basic type of conscious experience and (more narrowly) so are headache experiences. This flexibility seems in keeping with our ordinary way of talking of what types of conscious experience we really have.
I am not suggesting my conceptual work supplants Siewert’s. Among other things, there is space between our efforts since Siewert begins by reconsidering the concept of there-is-something-it-is-like-ness.
Siewert is discussing what I call Multitude Anti-Realism.
It is less clear that it constitutes the full explanandum for theories of conscious experience. For example, if the concept of basic types of conscious experience is a restrictive interpretation of which types of conscious experience we really have, then theories of conscious experience need to explain more than the basic types of conscious experience.
We can, of course, theorize particular areas of conscious experience without giving a general theory of conscious experience. But many theories—e.g., many representationalist and higher-order theories—aim to be general theories of conscious experience.
Prinz puts this general point nicely in application to his own theory of conscious experience. Speaking of views like Realism, he writes: “If they are right, theories of consciousness that have been developed to explain how perceptual states become conscious may not be adequate for explaining all aspects of consciousness. This would be a major setback for those of us who have invested in theories of perceptual consciousness with the hope that these theories can explain consciousness in general” (Prinz 2011, p. 174).
Although Prinz is a proponent of Multitude Anti-Realism (see later), sometimes his remarks gesture to Overestimation Anti-Realism. For example, when trying to explain why some are attracted to Realism, he writes: “the explanation on offer here is that introspection is subject to certain kinds of illusions, which lead us to posit features in experience that are not actually there” (Prinz 2011, p. 192).
Ability Anti-Realism does not propose that we have different experiences when we exercise the relevant epistemic abilities. That tactic is compatible with both Realism and Anti-Realism. It is compatible with Realism if the experiences are said to be experiences of understanding. It is compatible with Anti-Realism if Anti-Realism is developed as either Singular or Multitude Anti-Realism. For example, it is compatible with Singular Anti-Realism if the experiences are said to be, say, experiences of familiarity.
This metaphor is from the poem ‘The Sea’ by James Reeves.
We might add William Robinson (2005). But I read Robinson as suggesting a hybrid of Ability Anti-Realism and Multitude Anti-Realism that faces an amalgam of the problems for those views.
Tye makes similar remarks to Prinz in Tye (1996, p. 422).
As with the first quote from Prinz in this paper, I changed this passage to focus on our debate. Prinz’s literal interest is the broader debate between (in his terminology) restricitivism and expansionism about conscious experience. The debate between Realism and Anti-Realism is an instance of that debate. Prinz’s challenge applies as directly to our debate as to any region of the broader debate. The changes made are: ‘Realists’ for ‘expansionists’ and ‘understanding’ for ‘thought’.
Other phrases we could use to the same end include: ‘Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine’ (from Emily Dickeson’s ‘Safe in their alabastair chambers’) or ‘Love is the coal that makes this train roll’ (from The Black Keys’ ‘Everlasting Light’, Album: Brothers).
Earlier I said one criterion to complete the Singular Anti-Realist explanation is that candidate experiences must fit the target intuition. A similar point applies here. Multitude Anti-Realism cannot appeal to just any difference in canonical experiences, since it is not clear that doing so would speak to the target intuition. So Prinz seems mistaken when he says that to satisfy his challenge we need cases that, for example, “rule out the possibility of changes in non-verbal imagery” (Prinz 2011, p. 189, my italics). Perhaps that is needed for a full-stop proof against Multitude Anti-Realism, but not for challenging its fit and plausibility.
Siewert gives extensive responses to the ‘silent speech’ idea in his 1998 and 2011. I address it only briefly because of his discussion, and because the move seems untenable for the given reason. But I wonder whether part of what lies behind disagreement over the ‘silent speech’ idea is differences from person to person in how active our inner monologues are.
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Acknowledgments
This paper descends from material in my Ph.D. dissertation at Syracuse University. Thanks to Bob Van Gulick, Bence Nanay, Kris McDaniel, Andrew Brook, and André Gallois for their support during my dissertation process. I presented an earlier version of this paper at the departmental colloquium at Carleton University. Thanks to those present, especially Dave Matheson, for helpful discussion. And, of course, thanks to Matt Groening (the creator of The Simpsons) for his cast of characters.
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Dodd, J. Realism and Anti-Realism about experiences of understanding. Philos Stud 168, 745–767 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0155-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0155-1