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202A Simple View of ConsciousnessIn Robert C. Koons & George Bealer (eds.), The waning of materialism, Oxford University Press. pp. 25--66. 2010.Phenomenal intentionality is irreducible. Empirical investigation shows it is internally-dependent. So our usual externalist (causal, etc.) theories do not apply here. Internalist views of phenomenal intentionality (e. g. interpretationism) also fail. The resulting primitivist view avoids Papineau's worry that terms for consciousness are highly indeterminate: since conscious properties are extremely natural (despite having unnatural supervenience bases) they are 'reference magnets'.
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1Why Explain Visual Experience in Terms of Content?In Bence Nanay (ed.), Perceiving the world, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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22Perception and illusion: replies to Sethi, Speaks and CutterInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.I reply to comments on my book Perception (Routledge 2021) by Umrao Sethi, Jeff Speaks and Brian Cutter. Sethi objects to my representational view of perception on the ground that that having an experience of a color or shape can enable you to know what that color or shape is like only if it is actually present in the experience. Speaks has a very interesting discussion of my puzzle of the laws of appearance for the representational view. And Cutter asks what I have against 'neural sense datum t…Read more
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Poise, Dispositions, and Access Consciousness: Reply to Daniel Stoljar (edited book)MIT Press. 2019.
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11What are the Contents of Experiences?In Fiona Macpherson (ed.), The Admissible Contents of Experience, Wiley-blackwell. 2011.I address three interrelated issues concerning the contents of experiences. First, I address the preliminary issue of what it means to say that experiences have contents. Then I address the issue of why we should believe that experiences have contents. Finally, I address the issue of what the contents of experiences are.
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How do brains in vats experience a spatial world? a puzzle for internalistsIn Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness, Mit Press. 2019.
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65The Perceptual Representation of Objects and Natural Kinds: Comments on SpeaksPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (2): 470-477. 2017.
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56Hardin argues that Reflectance Physicalism about color fails because it cannot accommodate color structure. David Lewis and others have replied that the Reflectance Physicalist may explain color structure in terms of color experience. I argue that this reply fails
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102I am going to develop an argument against Physicalism concerning qualitative mental properties. Unlike most arguments against Physicalism, it is not based on the usual _a priori_ considerations, such as what Mary learns when she comes out of her black and white room or the apparent conceivability of Zombies. Rather, it is based on two broadly _a posteriori_ premises about the structure of experience and its physical basis