Martine Nida-Rümelin

Subjective character (mine-ness, for-me-ness) is supposed to be a property of experiences. To use the term is to adopt the experience property framework. I assume that all one can truthfully say within the experience property framework is translatable into the subject property framework, into talk about experiencing subjects and their properties. I suggest four translations of the claim that experiences have subjective character into the more fundamental subject property framework: (a) there is a subject for whom it is like something to undergo the experience; (b) the subject undergoing the experience is aware of having the experience; (c) the subject undergoing the experience is aware of itself as the one who undergoes the experience; (d) the subject is under the impression that the experience it undergoes belongs to it. The chapter explores these readings and their conceptual and ontological interrelations.

According to subject–body dualism the experiencing subject is neither identical nor constituted by its body. It is argued that a weak version of subject–body dualism is deeply incorporated into our thought. The purpose of the paper is to describe the conceptual origin of subject–body dualism and to thereby uncover a deep intuition according to which we are perfect individuals. A perfect individual is not constituted by any of its properties, or by being composed of a specific concrete stuff. The intuitive appeal of subject–body dualism can be explained by the insight that we naturally conceive of conscious beings as perfect individuals; this conception can be detected in features of counterfactual thought about ourselves and other beings that we take to be conscious. The conceptual explanation proposed of the dualist intuition does not, however, undermine the dualist view which is based on that intuition.

This chapter presents an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property _P_ via a concept _C_, then _C_ is a concept of _P_. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a property, then your cognitive relation to that property is more intimate than if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in. To have a concept of a property is to have a concept one can use to attribute the property to something. If you have the concept of water, then you can use it to attribute the property of being water to liquids. You then have a concept of the property of being water. But you may have the concept of water without knowing that being composed of H 2 O is essential for being water — without knowing what having the property of being water consists in. In that case, your concept would not enable you to grasp the property. An account of grasping properties is proposed.

We discuss two modal claims about the phenomenal structure of color experiences: (i) violet experiences are necessarily experiences of a color that is for the subject on that occasion phenomenally composed of red and blue (the modal claim about violet) and (ii) no subject can possibly have an experience of a color that is for it then phenomenally composed of red and green (the modal claim about reddish green). The modal claim about reddish green is undermined by empirical results. We discuss whether these empirical results cast doubt on the other modal claims as well. We argue that this not the case. Our argument is based on the thesis that the best argument for the modal claim about violet is quite different from the best argument for the modal claim about reddish green. To argue for this disanalogy we propose a reconstruction of the best available justification for both claims

In November 2003, the University of Fribourg hosted a symposium on the ontology of colors. The invited participants included Justin Broackes, Alex Byrne, David Chalmers, Larry Hardin, Joe Levine and Barry Maund. The points of view presented by the participants in their thought-provoking papers were highly divergent. The presentation of each paper was followed by a long and intense discussion. Despite the divergence of the views proposed, the discussion during the symposium was highly focused. Several specific issues came up repeatedly in the debate and illuminated the puzzle about the nature of colors in a thought provoking way from different angles. We include these papers in our brief description in the present introduction to present to the reader all the different viewpoints that have nourished the debate throughout the symposium. We are glad to be able to include one further invited paper by Jonathan Cohen in the present volume. In an attempt to transfer some of the atmosphere of the meeting to the reader and in order to make this collection still more stimulating we invited each participant to contribute comments on the other papers.

The property which perceptual experiences of a given phenomenal kind enable the subject to track is not always identical with the property objects appear to have (in a phenomenally manifest manner) in the kind of experience at issue. Tracked properties and apparent properties come apart in colour perception but they are identical in the perception of three-dimensional shape. In order to defend these claims, this chapter proposes a criterion for the identity of tracked property and apparent property in a given experience. The view developed leads to an account of the traditional distinction between primary and secondary qualities. In order to capture what it is to instantiate a given secondary quality, one must specify the phenomenal kind of perceptual experience an instantiation of the property would render veridical.

The article introduces two kinds of belief-phenomenal belief and nonphenomenal belief---about color experiences and examines under what conditions the distinction can be extended to belief about other kinds of mental states. A thesis of the paper is that the so-called Knowledge Argument should not be formulated---as usual---using the locution of ‘knowing what it’s like’ but instead using the concept of phenomenal belief and explains why ‘knowing what it's like’ does not serve the purposes of those who wish to defend the Knowledge Argument. The article distinguishes two rival accounts of the phenomenal/nonphenomenal distinction and explains how the result of the Knowledge Argument depends upon which of these accounts one wishes to accept.

Unser natürliches Verständnis der transtemporalen Identität bewusstseinsfähiger Wesen unterscheidet sich grundlegend von unserem Verständnis der transtemporalen Identität von Dingen, die wir nicht für bewusstseinsfähig halten. Der Unterschied beruht letztlich auf begrifflichen Besonderheiten unseres selbstbezogenen Denkens. Wir haben ein von Kriterien der transtemporalen Identität freies Verständnis der eigenen transtemporalen Identität und diese Kriterienfreiheit überträgt sich auf unsere Gedanken über andere bewusstseinsfähige Wesen. Diese begrifflichen Besonderheiten werden beschrieben und als angemessen verteidigt. Ihre Angemessenheit impliziert allerdings einen Subjekt-Körper-Dualismus nach welchem erlebende Subjekte einer eigenen ontologischen Kategorie zuzurechnen sind

A central thesis of Frankish's argument for illusionism is the claim that illusionism is possibly true. This is what the realist about phenomenal consciousness must deny. Frankish's argument for that premise is based on a widely shared understanding of phenomenal consciousness as being a matter of certain events instantiating special properties. I argue that the illusionist's reasoning is difficult to avoid if one accepts this common account. A positive argument for the thesis that the mere possibility of illusionism can be excluded is developed. It uses a proposal about how the notion of phenomenal consciousness should be taken to pick out the phenomenon it refers to. Given that account it becomes obvious that the illusionist cannot be understood as seriously accepting his own theory. The belief in illusionism thus turns out to be an illusion.

According to the realist view, conscious beings are perfect individuals: their Identity across time (what it takes for them to continue existing) and their individuality (what it takes for them to exist under counterfactual circumstances) has no informative explication. Nonetheless we can understand, engaging in a specific mode of thought (conceptually taking the perspective of others) what the identity and individuality of a given conscious individual consists in. This particular version of realism about the identity and individuality of conscious beings can be used to motivate a non-materialist view about conscious individuals. The argument is based on the premise (to be justified) that thinking about others in the specific mode at issue is to manifest genuine understanding of what being a conscious individual amounts to.

Is a subject who undergoes an experience necessarily aware of undergoing the experience? According to the view here developed, a positive answer to this question should be accepted if ‘awareness’ is understood in a specific way, - in the sense of what will be called ‘primitive awareness’. Primitive awareness of being experientially presented with something involves, furthermore, being pre-reflectively aware of oneself as an experiencing subject. An argument is developed for the claims that pre-reflective self-awareness is the basis of our understanding of what it is to be an experiencing subject and that that understanding reveals what being an experiencing subject consists in and what it is for experiences to belong to one single experiencer. Claim is used in an argument in favor of the so-called simple view with respect to synchronic and diachronic unity of consciousness.