Illusionism is no trick

Abstract

Paul Stenner is not persuaded by the illusionist view presented in my interview with Katarína Sklutová. In fact, he thinks I am a trickster, who is not only defending a position I call ‘illusionism’ but perpetrating an intellectual illusion myself. He suggests that my arguments against qualia are a piece of misdirection, designed to deceive readers into accepting that we should eliminate the notions of mind and consciousness altogether and think of ourselves (if only we could think!) as unfeeling machines. Stenner thinks I am motivated in this aim by a desire to defend a crude form of materialism, which ignores modern physics. I’m puzzled. I don’t recognize Stenner’s account of what I am doing or why I am doing it. Indeed, after reading Stenner’s reply, I wasn’t sure whether he disagrees with my actual views, as opposed to the caricature he presents. Rather than speculate about this, I shall use this reply to clarify my position and the background to it. Perhaps I didn’t express myself carefully enough in the interview. If so, let me try to do better.1 I shall begin by making some preliminary points about the background to my view of consciousness and then sketch both the view I endorse and the one I reject. Perhaps this will pinpoint the substantive issues on which Stenner and I disagree and help readers decide where their own sympathies lie.