Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Needlessness of Adverbialism, Attributeism and its Compatibilty with Cognitive Science

  • Published:
Philosophia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Although adverbialism is not given much attention in current discussions of phenomenal states, it remains of interest to philosophers who reject the representationalist view of such states, in suggesting an alternative to a problematic ‘act-property’ conception. We discuss adverbialism and the formalization Tye once offered for it, and criticize the semantics he proposed for this formalization. Our central claim is that Tye’s ontological purposes could have been met by a more minimal view, which we dub “attributeism”. We then show that there is no incompatibility between the ontology of attributeism and the postulation of pictorial representations in the brain.

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

Notes

  1. Tye 1984a. Tye published a number of other “adverbialist” papers that we know of, namely his 1975, 1984b, 1984c, and Horgan and Tye 1985.

  2. Many of these objections are due to Frank Jackson’s 1975 and his 1977. For a detailed presentation of these objections, see Jackson 1977, pp. 65–66.

  3. With the publication of Ten Problems of Consciousness in 1995 and his subsequent Color, Content and Consciousness in 2000, Tye abandoned the adverbialist account of subjective qualities for a “representationalist” account. In these books he defended a version of strong content representationalism, according to which the phenomenal character of a mental state is one and the same as its poised, nonconceptual, existential content. In his recent Consciousness Revisited (2009), Tye has endorsed a version of strong property representationalism, according to which the phenomenal character of an experience is one and the same as the complex of properties represented by the experience. What is retained from adverbialism is the rejection of the idea that in experience subjects are related to mental entities. Instead, on Tye’s representationalists accounts, subjects are intentionally related to clusters of physical properties.

  4. Although instructive for some purposes, Block’s “mental paint” metaphor encourages this interpretation.

  5. See, e.g., Lycan (2008).

  6. Actually, Tye seems to think that the views are incompatible. In his (2013), Tye says that adverbialism is a form of qualia realism. Also, he now thinks that adverbialism is incompatible with transparency.

  7. As mentioned above (see fn. 3), in Ten Problems of Consciousness (1995), and subsequently in Consciousness, Color, and Content (2000), Tye abandoned the “psysico-chemical property” account of qualia for a representationalist account.

  8. Reichenbach (1938), p. 165.

  9. Ibid, p. 172.

  10. Ibid, p. 164.

  11. Tye (2002), p. 138.

  12. The term “qualia” was first used in its modern sense by C.I. Lewis, in his (1929) Mind and the World Order.

  13. Tye (1984a), p.199. Tye does not think the need for “meaning-rules” is a fatal defect of the unstructured predicate version of adverbialism, but he does think that it does have other logical defects which his “structured predicate” theory resolves.

  14. “The adverbial analysis we have presented…is hardly a straightforward theory. After all, it has a nonstandard logic and a metaphysics which requires persons, properties, and functions” (Tye 1984a, p. 224).

  15. Otherwise put, R carries the proposition Sj (“Jones senses”) onto the proposition R(Sj), “Jones senses redly”.

  16. “Syntactically, these operators precede well-formed formulas thereby forming more complicated well-formed formulas. Semantically, they can be viewed as functions which take the properties expressed by the well-formed formulas they modify onto new properties.” Ibid, p. 210.

  17. Ibid, p.218.

  18. The same two rules apply to an operator “Conj” which takes the pair < redly, circularly > onto redly & circularly. After a long disuscussion, Tye concludes (ibid, p. 217) that RconjC doesn’t capture the “certain way” in which redly and circularly are “united” when one has a visual experience which is qualitatively identical with that of seeing a red circular object, and accordingly introduces the notion of “coincidence”, and the operator corresponding to that notion. That RConjC and RCoinC both satisfy (Rule 1) and (Rule 2) as well as a further “modifier detachment rule” is stated by Tye on p. 218 (ibid).

  19. Ibid, p. 211, n.21.

  20. “This latter operator [“Sep”] stands for a function whose character may be explained by saying that it maps sensory modes or functions, such as redly, onto further functions which themselves map the property of sensing onto sensing properties of a kind typically instantiated in normal perceivers as a result of their viewing, in standard circumstances, real physical objects which are spatially separated from one another.” (Ibid, p. 222)

  21. Reichenbach, op. cit. p. 174. Reichenbach has already said that impressions are states of organisms and not mental objects two pages earlier.

  22. Reichenbach, op. cit., p. 169.

  23. Some of these ways have already been quoted in these notes, but we repeat them at greater length above to bring out their common element, the “comparative normal cause” account of sensory properties and operators to which Tye was committed in the eighties.

  24. Tye writes “in first approximation”, because he goes on to reformulate his view in a way that avoids the event ontology – see below.

  25. We are indebted to Ori Beck for pointing out to us just how problematic they actually are.

  26. See Andrew T. Young, “Introduction to Color,” http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/optics/color/intro.html.

  27. See, e.g., Block 1999 and Block 2007a.

  28. Putnam 2013.

  29. See Block 1999, and Hardin 1988.

  30. See, e.g., Block 2007a. It should be emphasized that Block’s “ineffability” is only a contingent ineffability, which further knowledge of the neural basis of our phenomental states could remove.

  31. In a passage we have already quoted, Tye wrote that “On this view, the predicate ‘is a sensing redly’, for example, really means ‘is a sensing with the red qualitative character’ where ‘red’ is a concealed description with a comparative normal cause connotation…” (Tye 1984a, pp. 204–205).

  32. Plausibly, one should allow that a human being—a baby, for example—may be able to have what another speaker, Jones, would call red sense data (“sense redly”) without being able to perceive things to be red. Thus one could modify our proposal to read: Definition: X senses F-lyJones (senses redlyJones, for example) if and only if X’s perceptual state is one that would be caused by Jones’s viewing objects that are F and that would be perceived by Jones to be F on the relevant occasions of Jones’ viewing them.

  33. Tye (1984c).

  34. See the beginning of section I above.

  35. He now believes that they are forms of “information”.

  36. Putnam 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013; and forthcoming a; and forthcoming b.

  37. Block 1983.

  38. Ibid., p. 515.

  39. Tye, op. cit., p. 678.

  40. Ibid, 679.

  41. See Tye 1984a.

  42. For example, see Block 1983, p. 516.

  43. It is not clear whether imaging attributes are supposed to be a subset of sensory attributes or a separate set of attributes.

  44. Block 1983, p. 523.

  45. See, e.g., Pylyshyn 1981a and Pylyshyn 1981b.

  46. A term coined by Dennett. See, e.g., Dennett (1989).

  47. Block (2007b).

  48. Ibid, p. 482.

References

  • Block, N. (1983). Mental pictures and cognitive science. The Philosophical Review, 92(4), 499–541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (1999). Sexism, racism, ageism and the nature of consciousness. Philosophical Topics, 26, 39–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (2007a). Wittgenstein and qualia. Philosophical Perspectives, 21(1), 73–115.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Block, N. (2007b). Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 481–548.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D. C. (1989). The intentional stance. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ducasse, C. J. (1942). Moore's refutation of idealism. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The philosophy of G. E. Moore. Open Court.

  • Hardin, L. (1988). Color for philosophers: unweaving the rainbow (1st ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horgan, T. E., & Tye, M. (1985). Against the token identity theory. In B. P. McLaughlin, & E. LePore (Eds.), Action and events. Blackwell

  • Jackson, F. (1975). On the adverbial analysis of visual experience. Metaphilosophy, 6, 127–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, F., (1977). Perception: A representative theory, Cambridge UP.

  • Kosslyn, S. (1980). Image and mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, C. I. (1929). Mind and the world-order: Outline of a theory of knowledge. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  • Lycan, W. (2008). Representational theories of consciousness. In. E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition) http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/consciousness-representational/

  • Putnam, H. (2009). How to be a sophisticated “naïve realist”. In M. De Caro & D. Macarthur (Eds.), Philosophy in an age of science: physics, mathematics and skepticism (pp. 624–639). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (2010). Corresponding with reality. In M. De Caro & D. Macarthur (Eds.), Philosophy in an age of science: physics, mathematics and skepticism (pp. 72–90). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (2012). Sensation and apperception. In S. Miguens & G. Preyer (Eds.), Consciousness and subjectivity (pp. 39–50). Berlin: Ontos Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (2013). Comments on Ned block’s “Wittgenstein and Qualia”. (pp. 319–321). In M. Baghramian (Ed.), Reading putnam. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. (forthcoming a). Naïve realism and qualia. In A. Pautz & D. Stoljar (Eds.), Themes from Block. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Putnam, H. (forthcoming b). Perception without sense data. In M. Frauchiger & W. K. Essler (Eds.), Themes from Putnam in the series “Lauener library of analytical philosophy”. Berlin: Ontos Verlag.

  • Pylyshyn, Z. (1981a). Imagery and artificial intelligence. In N. Block (Ed.), Readings in philosophy of psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 170–194). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pylyshyn, Z. (1981b). The imagery debate: analog media versus tacit knowledge. Psychological Review, 88, 16–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reichenbach, H. (1938). Experience and prediction. An analysis of the foundations and the structure of knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Reichenbach, H. (1947). Elements of symbolic logic. Elements of symbolic logic. New York: Macmillan Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, S. (2013). The contents of perception. In. E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition) http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/perception-contents/.

  • Tye, M. (1975). The adverbial theory: a defence of Sellars against Jackson. Metaphilosophy, 6, 136–143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1984a). The adverbial approach to visual experience. The Philosophical Review, 93(2), 195–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1984b). Pain and the adverbial theory. American Philosophical Quarterly, 21, 319–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1984c). The debate about mental imagery. The Journal of Philosophy, 81, 678–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1986). The subjective qualities of experience. Mind, 95, 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1991). The imagery debate. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (1995). Ten problems of consciousness: a representational theory of the phenomenal mind. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (2000). Color, content and consciousness. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (2002). Representationalism and the transparency of experience. Noûs, 36(2), 137–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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

    Google Scholar 

  • Tye, M. (2013). Transparency, qualia realism and representationalism. Philosophical Studies. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0177-8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, A. T. (accessed May, 2014) Introduction to color. http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/explain/optics/color/intro.html.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

    Hilla Jacobson

  2. Harvard University, Boston, USA

    Hilary Putnam

Authors
  1. Hilla Jacobson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hilary Putnam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hilla Jacobson.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jacobson, H., Putnam, H. The Needlessness of Adverbialism, Attributeism and its Compatibilty with Cognitive Science. Philosophia 42, 555–570 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9539-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-014-9539-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation