The Phenomenal Concept Strategy and Chalmers’s Dilemma

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses the phenomenal concept strategy, which explains the epistemic gap in terms of special features of phenomenal concepts, rather than in terms of properties those concepts pick out. Chalmers argues that any such explanation of the epistemic gap either fails to explain our epistemic situation with respect to consciousness or cannot itself be explained in physical terms. He concludes that the phenomenal concept strategy cannot succeed. The chapter defends Chalmers’s argument against a detailed response by Balog. And it argues that his argument extends to three strategies related to the phenomenal concept strategy: one by Howell, one by Prinz, and one by Kirk, Montero, and others.