Does sentience come in degrees?
Animal Sentience August 3, 2026 Andrew Y. Lee
This commentary is about whether sentience, or what philosophers call “phenomenal consciousness,” comes in degrees.
Andrew Y. Lee
5 papers in the library · 57 citations · publishing 2022-2026
Papers
A Theory of Sense‐Data
Analytic Philosophy February 11, 2026 Andrew Y. Lee
ABSTRACT I develop and defend a sense‐datum theory of perception. My theory follows the spirit of classic sense‐datum theories: I argue that what it is to have a perceptual experience is to be acquainted with some sense‐data , where sense‐data are private particulars that have all the properties they appear to have, that are common to both perception and hallucination, that constitute the...
DOI: 10.1111/phib.70000 (opens in new tab)
Philosophy of mind
Perception
Virtue
Key lock
+3
Structuralism in the science of consciousness. Editorial introduction
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences February 9, 2026 Sascha Benjamin Fink, Andrew Y. Lee
Conscious experiences have many structural features. Consider how your color experiences have dimensions of variation corresponding to hue, saturation, and brightness, how your visual acuity decreases in precision from the center of your visual field to the periphery, how your pain experiences come in different magnitudes, or how your temporal experience seems to flow in a continuous stream....
DOI: 10.33735/phimisci.2025.12733 (opens in new tab)
Consciousness
Ontic
Field mathematics
Foundation evidence
+2
The Gradability of ‘Conscious’
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research January 14, 2026 Andrew Y. Lee, Poppy Mankowitz 1 citation
ABSTRACT Are some creatures “more conscious” than others? A number of consciousness researchers have aimed to answer this question. Yet some have claimed that this question does not even make sense. They claim that “conscious” (in the phenomenal sense) never occurs as a gradable adjective , meaning an adjective that permits degree expressions (“more f than,” “slightly f ,” etc.) and that is...
Degrees of consciousness
Noûs August 4, 2022 Andrew Y. Lee 56 citations
Abstract Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it's oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are...