Objective foundations for the study of mental qualities

Abstract

Quality spaces promise to represent mental qualities objectively. That objectivity is compromised, however, if quality spaces are constructed by subjective introspective access, which is impressionistic. But mental qualities also have a robust and objective connection to perceptual discrimination. So quality spaces can be constructed in a fully objective way by appeal to their role in perceiving. In addition, the subjective appearances of mental qualities also bear a constitutive relation to perceptual role, since each subjective appearance consists in its subjectively appearing as it does when one perceives some specific type of object. So quality spaces constructed from perceptual role can also be used to characterize those subjective appearances. And since subjective appearance depends on perceptual role, the tie mental qualities have to perceptual role is more fundamental than that with subjective appearance. Quality spaces are useful in the first instance for objectively representing discriminable stimuli, and derivatively for objectively representing the corresponding mental qualities in respect of both their perceptual roles and their subjective