6 papers in the library · 65 citations · publishing 1995-2022
Cambridge University Press eBooks September 30, 2022 Joseph Levine 2 citations
Qualitative consciousness is conscious experience marked by the presence of sensory qualities, like the experienced painfulness of having a piano dropped on your foot or the consciousness of seeing the brilliant reds and oranges of a sunset. Over his career, philosopher David Rosenthal has defended an influential theoretical approach to explaining qualitative consciousness. This approach...
Oxford Scholarship Online April 19, 2018 Joseph Levine
This paper presents a sketch of a theory of phenomenal consciousness, one that builds on the notion of a “way of appearing,” and draws out various consequences and problems for the view. I unabashedly endorse a version of the Cartesian Theater, while assessing the prospects for making such a view work. As I treat phenomenal consciousness as a relation between a subject and what it is she is...
Oxford Scholarship Online April 19, 2018 Joseph Levine
In this paper I address the debate over the existence and nature of “cognitive phenomenology,” the alleged contribution to phenomenal consciousness made by non-sensory, cognitive states. I distinguish various versions of the position that there is cognitive phenomenology, evaluate what I take to be the two principal arguments for its existence, and then conclude that only one of the weaker...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge 2007 Joseph Levine 63 citations
AbstractThis chapter raises a problem for the phenomenal concept strategy. The problem is framed partly in terms of the explanatory gap, which is roughly the claim that the existence or nature of phenomenal consciousness cannot be completely explained in physical terms. As applied to the explanatory gap, the phenomenal concept strategy requires a physicalist account of phenomenal concepts on...
Consciousness January 23, 2003 Joseph Levine
Abstract Qualia, or phenomenal properties of experience, pose a deep and persistent problem for Materialism. Consider the particular throbbing character of a pain in one’s toe after stubbing it, or the way a gleaming red fire engine looks in the sunlight. In both cases there is a strong intuition that we are enjoying experiences—conscious, mental states—which can be typed by their qualitative...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995 Joseph Levine
AbstractBasically agreeing with Block regarding the need for a distinction between P- and A-consciousness, I characterize the problem somewhat diflerently, relating it more directly to the explanatory gap. I also speculate on the relation between the two forms of consciousness, arguing that some notion of access is essentially involved in phenomenal experience.