Abstract

The qualia theory says that experiences’ phenomenal properties can come apart from and completely outrun their representational properties and that phenomenal properties are to be accounted for in terms of “qualia,” intrinsic nonrepresentational mental properties of experience. In Consciousness and Cognition Michael Thau argues that QT is incoherent. Thau’s argument fails. It rests on an illegitimate assimilation of phenomenal differences to differences in “the way things seem.” It begs the question by assuming that representational content can suffice for phenomenal character. And it overlooks a crucial difference between two very different versions of QT. The upshot is that QT is much more plausible than representationalist critics like Thau have supposed.