Qualia and Color Concepts
Philosophical Issues 1996 DOI: 10.2307/1522893 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 9 |
| Key points | Harman argues that he does not deny direct awareness of representational features of experience; his point is that we can be aware of such features without being aware of the "mental paint" by virtue of which experience represents what it does. He takes Block's question about mental paint to concern whether perception involves mental representations, a question he says separates a cognitive-science approach from connectionism and behaviorism. |
Abstract
Obviously we can become directly aware of intentional of certain intentional or representational features of our experiences, e.g. that given is visual of red tomato. Ned Block appears to believe that I deny this. He says, In Harman's lingo, representational feature of is feature of what is represented, not what is doing the representing. So let me insist that by a representational feature of experience I mean feature of experience. My point was that we can be aware of such features of without being aware of the paint by virtue of which the represents what it represents. Block says that there is question, namely, whether there is such thing as mental paint. I take it he means the question whether perception involves mental representations, the answer distinguishing certain approach to cognitive science from certain kind of connectionism, on the one hand, and from behaviorism, on the other hand. Of course, this is prior question only for someone who holds, as Block does, that we can directly introspect men-