Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
David J. Chalmers
95 citations
Abstract Philosophers have reacted in different ways to the apparent explanatory gap between physical processes and consciousness. Some deny that any explanatory gap exists at all. Some hold that there is an explanatory gap for now, but that it will eventually be closed. Some hold that the explanatory gap corresponds to an ontological gap in nature. This chapter explores another reaction to the...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
Daniel C Dennett
91 citations
AbstractThis chapter further develops a line of argument Daniel Dennett presented in his 1991 book, Consciousness Explained, where he argued that we should reject the intuition that Mary gains knowledge when she leaves the room. In his view, this intuition derives from a failure to appreciate the implications of knowing all the physical facts. Dennet gives a more detailed account of his case....
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...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
Torin Alter
52 citations
AbstractThe knowledge argument aims to refute physicalism — the view that the world is entirely physical. The argument first establishes the existence of facts (or truths or information) about consciousness that are not a priori deducible from the complete physical truth, and then infers the falsity of physicalism from this lack of deducibility. Frank Jackson gave the argument its classic...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
John Hawthorne
10 citations
AbstractThis chapter argues that there is a tension in the semantic views held by certain antiphysicalists. These philosophers accept Fregean arguments against direct-reference theories of ordinary proper names but maintain that phenomenal concepts refer directly. Against this semantic package, it is argued that the thought experiments that motivate a sense-reference distinction for ordinary...
Phenomenal Concepts and Phenomenal Knowledge
2007
Laurence Nemirow
AbstractThis chapter focuses on the objective grounds for and against the ability hypothesis (AH), which was developed as a response to the Knowledge Argument (KA) — a purported proof of the existence of “phenomenal information”. It argues that while KA capitalizes on the mysticism inspired by “So this is what it's like” and embraces the existence of propositional knowledge that cannot be put...