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12New troubles for the qualia freakIn Brian P. McLaughlin & Jonathan D. Cohen (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell. 2007.The phenomenal character of an experience is what it is like subjectively to undergo the experience. Experiences vary in their phenomenal character, in what it is like to un- dergo them. Think, for example of the subjective differences between feeling a burning pain in a toe, experiencing an itch in an arm, smelling rotten eggs, tasting Marmite, having a visual experience of bright purple, running one’s fingers over rough sandpaper, feeling hungry, experiencing anger, feeling elated. Insofar as …Read more
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95Speaks on strong property representationalismPhilosophical Studies 170 (1): 85-86. 2014.Strong property representationalism, as applied to visual experience, is the thesis that the phenomenal character of a visual experience is one and the same as the property complex or ‘sensible profile’ represented by that experience. Speaks discusses the following argument against this thesis:Let ‘RED’ stand for the phenomenal character of the experience of red.(1) Red = RED (strong property representationalism).(2) My pen has no representational properties, but is red.Hence,(3) My pen has a ph…Read more
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105Blindsight, the absent qualia hypothesis, and the mystery of consciousnessIn Christopher Hookway (ed.), Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, Cambridge University Press. pp. 19-40. 1993.One standard objection to the view that phenomenal experience is functionally determined is based upon what has come to be called ‘The Absent Qualia Hypothesis’, the idea that there could be a person or a machine that was functionally exactly like us but that felt or consciously experienced nothing at all . Advocates of this hypothesis typically maintain that we can easily imagine possible systems that meet the appropriate functional specifications but that intuitively lack any phenomenal consci…Read more
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9Visual qualia and visual contentIn Tim Crane (ed.), The Contents of Experience, Cambridge University Press. pp. 158--176. 1992.
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302A theory of phenomenal conceptsIn Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, Cambridge University Press. pp. 91-105. 2003.1) There is widespread agreement that consciousness must be a physical phenomenon, even if it is one that we do not yet understand and perhaps may never do so fully. There is also widespread agreement that the way to defend physicalism about consciousness against a variety of well known objections is by appeal to phenomenal concepts (Loar 1990, Lycan 1996, Papineau 1993, Sturgeon 1994, Tye 1995, 2000, Perry 2001) . There is, alas, no agreement on the nature of phenomenal concepts.
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4"Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception" by Richard A. Fumerton (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48 (2): 347. 1987.
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3Another Look At Representationalism About PainIn M. Aydede (ed.), Pain: New Essays on its Nature and the Methodology of its Study, The Mit Press. Bradford Books. pp. 99-120. 2005.
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30The Problem of Common SensiblesErkenntnis 66 (1-2): 287-303. 2007.Our experience of the qualities Locke classified as secondary qualities generates a problem, a version of which Aristotle raised. I call this problem “the problem of common sensibles.” The problem, as I discuss it, concerns cross-modal experienced togetherness or unity. On the view that we undergo distinct sense-specific experiences as we hear, smell, taste, see, and touch things, there seems no room for cross-modal unity at the experiential level. But cross-modal unity is real and it necessitat…Read more
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18Is Content-Externalism Compatible with Privileged Access?Philosophical Review 107 (3): 349-380. 1998.
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20On the nonconceptual content of experienceSchriftenreihe-Wittgenstein Gesellschaft. 2005.I suppose that substantive philosophical theses are much like second marriages. The philo- sophical thesis I wish to discuss in this paper is the thesis that experiences have nonconceptual content. I shall not attempt to argue that _all_ experiences have nonconceptual content nor that the only contents experiences have are nonconceptual. Instead, I want to ? esh out the thesis of nonconceptual content for experience in more detail than has been offered hithertofore and to provide a variety of mo…Read more
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748Qualia ain't in the headNoûs 40 (2): 241-255. 2006.Qualia internalism is the thesis that qualia are intrinsic to their subjects: the experiences of intrinsic duplicates have the same qualia. Content externalism is the thesis that mental representation is an extrinsic matter, partly depending on what happens outside the head. 1 Intentionalism comes in strong and weak forms. In its weakest formulation, it is the thesis that representationally identical experiences of subjects have the same qualia. 2
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55Scientific reduction and the synonymy principle of property identityPhilosophical Studies 40 (2). 1981.
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61Representationalist Theories of ConsciousnessIn B. McLaughlin & A. Beckermann (eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind, Oxford University Press. 2009.This essay surveys representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness as well as the major arguments for them. It also takes up two major objections. The essay is divided into five sections. Section I offers some introductory remarks on phenomenal consciousness. Section II presents the classic view of phenomenal consciousness to which representationalists are opposed. Section III canvasses various versions of representationalism about consciousness. Section IV lays out the main arguments f…Read more
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19Review: On the Virtue of Being Poised: Reply to Seager (review)Philosophical Studies 113 (3). 2003.