Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia

Abstract

Abstract Two strong intuitions about visual experience seem to conflict radically. One is that visual experiences have discernible qualitative features, often called qualia. They are aspects of what it is like to have particular visual experiences, subjective or felt aspects of experiences. They present themselves as intrinsic and non-relational properties of visual experience, and they come in great detail. Almost all qualiphiles think of qualia as introspectable. The competing intuition is that visual experience is transparent: when you attend to a visual experience as it is going on, you will notice its objects, i.e. the things you see or apparently see, including their apparent properties and relations, and you will notice your (diaphanous) visual relation to those external objects and properties;1 and, representationists say, that is all.