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A Critique of Epistemic Subjectivity

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Abstract

John R. Searle argues that consciousness is a biological problem, and that the subjective feature of consciousness doesn’t exclude the scientific study thereof. In this paper I attempt to show that Searle’s identification of the subjectivity of conscious experience as being merely ontologically subjective, but not epistemically subjective is problematic, as it confuses epistemic subjectivity with axiological subjectivity. Since Searle regards the distinction between epistemic subjectivity and ontological subjectivity as an important basis for scientific studies of consciousness, the unsoundness of his argument weakens his advocacy of Biological Naturalism.

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Notes

  1. Searle draws a distinction between the state of being ontologically subjective and epistemically subjective. He has elaborated on this distinction in many writings over the last 20 years. He first expressed his view in his book The Rediscovery of Mind in 1992. Since then, Searle has reiterated the distinction in various writings. See: Searle 1997: 113–114, 122; Searle 1998: 42–45; Searle 2002: 11, 22–23, 43; Searle 2007: 83; Searle 2008: 11–12, 167; Searle 2010a: 17–18; Searle 2010b: 26–27; Searle 2013: 10344.

  2. For various instances of this argument, see also: Searle 1997: 113; 1998: 44; 2013: 10344, and others.

  3. Searle uses the concepts “ontologically subjective”, “ontological subjectivity,” and “first-person ontology” interchangeably in his writings.

  4. Brukamp et al. also remain skeptical about Searle’s separation of ontological subjectivity from epistemic subjectivity, since this gives the impression that epistemic facts are irrelevant in the ontological sense. On the contrary, Brukamp et al. claim that “the core of the phenomenon of ontological subjectivity is exactly that it is not possible to apply ontological and epistemic categories independently of each other to certain entities.” (Brukamp 2013: 51.)

  5. Searle 2002: 43. In different writings, Searle also uses “Van Gogh is a better artist than Matisse”(1992: 94), “Rembrandt was a better painter than Rubens” (1998: 44; 2002: 23) and “Van Gogh was a better painter than Renoir” (1997: 113) and “Van Gogh was a better painter than Manet” (2007: 83) as various instances of epistemically subjective statements.

  6. The ‘illusion’ of consciousness is identical with consciousness, and appearance is reality in the case of consciousness. So even though a brain scanner might shows that Peter feels happier eating apples than bananas, his illusion of feeling happier when eating bananas is in fact his actual feeling. Searle also suggests that there is no appearance-reality distinction for conscious states. But he views appearance-reality as a matter related to the ontology of consciousness, rather than epistemology. (1997: 112; 1998: 56; 2002: 33)

  7. In saying that consciousness is epistemically subjective, we suggest that a person relates to his own conscious feelings directly, immediately, privately and incorrigibly. Only the agent has the privilege to access his own conscious feeling. This phenomenal experience is like a kind of ‘acquaintance’ that is achieved rather than merely remaining on the level of conceptual or linguistic description. It is for this reason that Bertrand Russell made the famous distinction between ‘knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description’. (Russell 1912: 25–38) The distinction between the easy and hard problem of consciousness by David Chalmers has similar implications. (Chalmers 1995)

References

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Correspondence to Chien-Te Lin.

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Lin, CT. A Critique of Epistemic Subjectivity. Philosophia 44, 915–920 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9724-9

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