•  88
    Author's response
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (1). 1997.
    The distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness arises from the battle between biological and computational approaches to the mind. If P = A, the computationalists are right; but if not, the biological nature of P yields its scientific nature.
  •  1764
    Consciousness
    In R. L. Gregory (ed.), R. Gregory Oxford Companion to the Mind, Second Edition 2004, Oxford University Press. 2004.
    There are two broad classes of empirical theories of consciousness, which I will call the biological and the functional. The biological approach is based on empirical correlations between experience and the brain. For example, there is a great deal of evidence that the neural correlate of visual experience is activity in a set of occipetotemporal pathways, with special emphasis on the infero-temporal cortex. The functionalist approach is a successor of behaviorism, the view that mentality can be…Read more
  •  545
    " -- "New Scientist" Intended for anyone attempting to find their way through the large and confusingly interwoven philosophical literature on consciousness, ..
  •  836
    Philosophical issues about consciousness
    In L. Nadel (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Nature Publishing Group. 2003.
    There are a number of different matters that come under the heading of ‘consciousness’. One of them is phenomenality, the feeling of say a sensation of red or a pain, that is what it is like to have such a sensation or other experience. Another is reflection on phenomenality. Imagine two infants, both of which have pain, but only one of which has a thought about that pain. Both would have phenomenal states, but only the latter would have a state of reflexive consciousness. This entry will start …Read more
  •  517
    If perception is probabilistic, why doesn't it seem probabilistic?
    Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 373 (1755). 2018.
    The success of the Bayesian approach to perception suggests probabilistic perceptual representations. But if perceptual representation is probabilistic, why doesn't normal conscious perception reflect the full probability distributions that the probabilistic point of view endorses? For example, neurons in MT/V5 that respond to the direction of motion are broadly tuned: a patch of cortex that is tuned to vertical motion also responds to horizontal motion, but when we see vertical motion, foveal…Read more
  •  744
    Mental paint and mental latex
    Philosophical Issues 7 19-49. 1996.
  •  467
    Is experiencing just representing? (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (3): 663-670. 1998.
    The first problem concerns the famous Swampman who comes into existence as a result of a cosmic accident in which particles from the swamp come together, forming a molecular duplicate of a typical human. Reasonable people can disagree on whether Swampman has intentional contents. Suppose that Swampman marries Swampwoman and they have children. Reasonable people will be inclined to agree that there is something it is like for Swampchild when "words" go through his mind or come out of his mouth. F…Read more
  •  453
    Measuring away an attentional confound?
    with Jorge Morales, Yasha Mouradi, Claire Sergent, Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel, David Rosenthal, Piercesare Grimaldi, and Hakwan Lau
    Neuroscience of Consciousness 3 (1): 1-3. 2017.
    A recent fMRI study by Webb et al. (Cortical networks involved in visual awareness independent of visual attention, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2016;113:13923–28) proposes a new method for finding the neural correlates of awareness by matching atten- tion across awareness conditions. The experimental design, however, seems at odds with known features of attention. We highlight logical and methodological points that are critical when trying to disentangle attention and awareness.
  •  1056
    Comparing the major theories of consciousness
    In Michael Gazzaniga (ed.), The Cognitive Neurosciences IV, . pp. 1111-1123. 2009.
    This article compares the three frameworks for theories of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists, the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the global workspace perspective and an account in terms of higher order states. The comparison features the “explanatory gap” (Nagel, 1974; Levine, 1983) the fact that we have no idea why the neural basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather than another experience or no experience at …Read more
  •  390
    Readings in Philosophy of Psychology: 1 (edited book)
    Harvard University Press. 1980.
    ... PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY is the study of conceptual issues in psychology. For the most part, these issues fall equally well in psychology as in..
  • The Harder Problem of Consciousness
    Disputatio 1 (15): 5-49. 2003.
  •  127
    Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap
    Philosophical Review 108 (1): 1-46. 1999.
  •  561
    Max Black's objection to mind-body identity
    Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 2 3-78. 2006.
    considered an objection that he says he thought was first put to him by Max Black. He says.
  •  204
    The Anna Karenina Principle and Skepticism about Unconscious Perception
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2): 452-459. 2015.
  •  325
    Representationism 1, as I use the term, says that the phenomenal character of an experience just is its representational content, where that representational content can itself be understood and characterized without appeal to phenomenal character. Representationists seem to have a harder time handling pain than visual experience. I will argue that Michael Tye's heroic attempt at a representationist theory of pain, although ingenious and enlightening, does not adequately come to terms with the r…Read more
  •  285
    How not to find the neural correlate of consciousness
    In João Branquinho (ed.), The Foundations of Cognitive Science, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 1. 2001.
    There are two concepts of consciousness that are easy to confuse with one another, access-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. However, just as the concepts of water and H2O are different concepts of the same thing, so the two concepts of consciousness may come to the same thing in the brain. The focus of this paper is on the problems that arise when these two concepts of consciousness are conflated. I will argue that John Searle’s reasoning about the function of consciousness goes wrong …Read more
  •  157
    Semantics, conceptual role
    In [Book Chapter] (Unpublished), Routledge. pp. 242--256. 1997.
    According to Conceptual Role Semantics ("CRS"), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, e.g. in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well known "use" theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just…Read more
  •  33
  •  203
    Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness”
    with J. Kevin O’Regan
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 3 (1): 89-108. 2012.
    Discussion of J. Kevin O’Regan’s “Why Red Doesn’t Sound Like a Bell: Understanding the Feel of Consciousness” Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s13164-012-0090-7 Authors J. Kevin O’Regan, Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, CNRS - Université Paris Descartes, Centre Biomédical des Saints Pères, 45 rue des Sts Pères, 75270 Paris cedex 06, France Ned Block, Departments of Philosophy, Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 5 Washington Place, New York,…Read more
  •  117
    Functional role and truth conditions
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 88 (1): 157-181. 1988.
    Ned Block, John Campbell; Functional Role and Truth Conditions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 273–292, https:/
  •  99
    Ridiculing social constructivism about phenomenal consciousness
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1): 199-201. 1999.
    Money is a cultural construction, leukemia is not. In which category does phenomenal consciousness fit? The issue is clarified by a distinction between what cultural phenomena causally influence and what culture constitutes. Culture affects phenomenal consciousness but it is ridiculous to suppose that culture constitutes it, even in part.
  •  136
  •  604
    Wittgenstein and Qualia
    Philosophical Perspectives 21 (1): 73-115. 2007.
    endorsed one kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis and rejected another. This paper argues that the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis that Wittgenstein endorsed is the thin end of the wedge that precludes a Wittgensteinian critique of the kind of inverted spectrum hypothesis he rejected. The danger of the dangerous kind is that it provides an argument for qualia, where qualia are contents of experiential states which cannot be fully captured in natural language. I will pinpoint the difference …Read more
  • Reply: Causation and Two Kinds of Laws
    In Cynthia Macdonald & Graham Macdonald (eds.), Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation, Blackwell. pp. 78--83. 1995.
  •  207
    There has been considerable debate among philosophers and psychol- ogists about whether the internal representations of imagery represent in the manner of pictures or in the manner of language. One side, pictorialism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is like a picture of Reagan. The other side, descriptionalism,holds that an internal imagery representation of Reagan is more like a string of words denoting or describing Reagan. My aim here is to expose a widespread fallacy o…Read more
  •  645
    The higher order approach to consciousness attempts to build a theory of consciousness from the insight that a conscious state is one that the subject is conscious of. There is a well-known objection1 to the higher order approach, a version of which is fatal. Proponents of the higher order approach have realized that the objection is significant. They have dealt with it via what David Rosenthal calls a “retreat” (2005b, p. 179) but that retreat fails to solve the problem.