Problem Consciousness

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THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS:MENTAL APPEARANCE AND MENTAL REALITY

by

JOSH WEISBERG

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty inPhilosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City

University of New York

2007


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2007

JOSH WEISBERG

All Rights Reserved


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This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty inPhilosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor

of Philosophy.

_________Michael Levin____________

________________ ________________________________Date Chair of Examining Committee

_______John D. Greenwood_________

________________ ________________________________Date Executive Officer

____David M. Rosenthal________________

____Michael Devitt_____________________

____Douglas Lackey___________________Supervisory Committee

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK


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Abstract

THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: MENTAL APPEARANCE AND

MENTAL REALITY

by

Josh Weisberg

Adviser: Professor David M. Rosenthal

Consciousness is widely seen as posing a special explanatory problem for

science. The problem is rooted in the apparent gulf between consciousness as it

appears from the first-person perspective and consciousness as it is

characterized in scientific theory. From the first-person perspective it seems that

we directly access intrinsic qualities of conscious experience, qualities

immediately known, but isolated and indescribable. But scientific theory seems

ill-equipped to explain such qualities.

That is how things appear from the first-person perspective. However, in

this dissertation I argue that we have no reason to accept that these

appearances reflect the underlying nature of the conscious mind. I begin by

examining attempts by David Chalmers, Joseph Levine, and Ned Block to

characterize the problem of consciousness. I argue that all three fail to establish

anything more than the claim that consciousness appears to have intrinsic

qualities. If we can explain these appearances without endorsing the reality of

intrinsic qualities, the way is open to a satisfying materialist theory of

consciousness.


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The key, I argue, is to provide a feasible model of first-person access. I

consider a popular model of first-person access, the "phenomenal concepts"

approach, but I argue that this model either fails to explain the appearances or it

posits an undischarged mysterious element, undermining the proposed

explanation. I then defend a model of first-person access that avoids these

pitfalls. I propose that we access our conscious states by way of an

automatically applied nonconscious theory. We are unaware of the theory's

application, so the access seems direct. Further, we are unaware of the rich

relational descriptions the theory employs. It therefore seems to us that we are

accessing intrinsic, indescribable qualities. I then present empirical evidence for

my model, including the phenomenon of "expert perception" in chess, music,

wine tasting, and the appreciation of beauty; and a range of data suggesting that

introspection is not a reliable guide to the underlying nature of the conscious

mind. I conclude by countering the knowledge argument with a version of the

"ability hypothesis," in order to close off any lingering philosophical worries

concerning the problem of consciousness.


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Acknowledgments:

Portions of this dissertation were presented at the Association for the Scientific

Study of Consciousness, Towards a Science of Consciousness, The Society for

Philosophy and Psychology, The New Jersey Regional Philosophy Association,

and the CUNY Graduate Center Cognitive Science Symposium and Discussion

Group. My sincere thanks to audiences at those venues for helpful feedback and

comments.

This work has benefited from the help and support of a number of people.

First, my fellow students and colleagues who offered helpful and constructive

criticism throughout: Jared Blank, Gregg Caruso, Jim Hitt, Uriah Kriegel, Pete

Mandik, Roblin Meeks, Doug Meehan, Bill Seeley, and Liz Vlahos. Thanks also

to a number of professors who gave time and effort in support of this project:

Martin Davies, Michael Devitt, John Greenwood, Doug Lackey, Michael Levin,

and Barbara Montero. Special thanks to my thesis adviser, David Rosenthal.

Without his help and effort throughout my time in graduate school, I would not be

the philosopher I am today. Finally, thanks and love to my friends and family

who stuck with me through the long years, especially my wife Ashley Hope.

Without her wise counsel and timely motivation this project would never have

seen completion.

This dissertation is dedicated to my loving parents, Bob and Judy Weisberg.


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THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: MENTAL APPEARANCE ANDMENTAL REALITY

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: FIXING THE DATA, AND CHALMERS'SHARD PROBLEM.........................................................................................11.1 Fixing the Data ...........................................................................................4

1.1.1 The Need for a Neutral Method ...........................................................41.1.2 Does the Commonsense Approach Really Capture the Data?..........11

1.2 Chalmers's Hard Problem of Consciousness ...........................................241.2.1 A Model of Reductive Explanation .....................................................241.2.2 The Hard Problem .............................................................................331.2.3 Criticisms of Chalmers's view ............................................................41

CHAPTER 2: LEVINE AND BLOCK.................................................................52

2.1 Levine's Explanatory Gap.........................................................................522.1.1 Levine's Defense of Materialism........................................................522.1.2 The Explanatory Gap.........................................................................57

2.2 Block's Phenomenal Consciousness........................................................692.2.1 Kinds of Consciousness.....................................................................692.2.2 Block's Identity Thesis and the Harder Problem of Consciousness ...842.2.3 Block and Levine ...............................................................................89

2.3 Conclusion: What's the Problem?............................................................96

CHAPTER 3: THE APPEARANCES TO BE EXPLAINED AND THEPHENOMENAL CONCEPTS APPROACH ................................................99

3.1 What are the Appearances?.....................................................................993.1.1 Three Features of Conscious Experience..........................................993.1.2 Immediacy .......................................................................................1023.1.3 Independence..................................................................................1053.1.4 Indescribability .................................................................................1093.1.5 Are These Really the Appearances that Create the Problem? ........112

3.2 The Phenomenal Concepts Approach....................................................1153.2.1 What is the Approach?.....................................................................1153.2.2 Loar's Recognitional Concepts of Experience .................................1233.2.3 Papineau's Quotation Model............................................................1283.2.4 Perry's Humean Ideas .....................................................................133

3.3 Criticisms of the P-concepts Approach...................................................139

CHAPTER 4: A MODEL OF FIRST-PERSON ACCESS ................................1534.1 Descriptions and the Doctrine of Cartesian Modes of Presentation .......153

4.1.1 What are Descriptive Concepts? .....................................................1534.1.2 The Doctrine of Cartesian Modes of Presentation ...........................156

4.2 Expert Perception...................................................................................1664.2.1 Chess and Chunking .......................................................................167


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4.2.2 Music, Wine, Chick Sexing, and Attractiveness...............................1714.2.3 Expert Qualia and Dreyfus...............................................................180

4.3..A Descriptivist Model of First-Person Access.........................................1844.3.1 Conditions of Adequacy...................................................................1844.3.2 Characterizing the Model .................................................................186

4.3.3 Empirical Evidence ..........................................................................199

CHAPTER 5: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE, AND THEKNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT.....................................................................202

5.1 Evidence Against the Accuracy of Introspection.....................................2035.1.1 Common Sense and the Accuracy of Introspection .........................2035.1.2 Accepting the Evidence ...................................................................2105.1.3 The Empirical Results......................................................................2145.1.4 The Effect of the Empirical Results..................................................228

5.2 Empirical Evidence for a Descriptivist Model of First-Person Access.....2335.2.1 Chess Expertise...............................................................................233

5.2.2 Wine Tasting Expertise....................................................................2425.3 The Knowledge Argument......................................................................250

REFERENCES .................................................................................................259


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CHAPTER 1: FIXING THE DATA, AND CHALMERS'S HARD PROBLEM

It is widely accepted that consciousness poses a special explanatory problem for

science. In the 17th century, near the dawn of modern era, John Locke

expressed what has become a well-entrenched sentiment concerning the

mysterious nature of the conscious mind. He wrote

'Tis evident that the bulk, figure, and motion of several Bodies about us,

produce in us several Sensations, as of Colours, Sounds, Tastes, Smells,

Pleasure and Pain, etc. These mechanical Affections of Bodies, having

no affinity at all with those Ideas, they produce in us, ... we can have no

distinct knowledge of such Operations beyond our Experience; and can

reason no otherwise about them, then as effects produced by the

appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent, which perfectly surpasses our

Comprehensions.1

The quantifiable features of reality (bulk, figure, motion) seem utterly distinct from

the conscious ideas we experience. Locke despaired of ever grasping their

interconnection. Locke's contemporary Samuel Johnson concurred, writing,

"Matter can differ from matter only in form, bulk, density, motion and direction of

motion: to which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be

annexed?"2 In the latter part of the 19th century, even as modern science moved

from triumph to triumph, biologist Thomas Huxley wrote

1Locke, Essay, IV, iii, 28, 558-559.

2Quoted in Minsky 1985, 19.


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How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes

about as a result of irritating nerve tissue, is just as unaccountable as the

appearance of Djin when Aladdin rubbed his lamp (quoted in Tye 1995,

15).

While other facets of nature were illuminated, consciousness remained in the

dark.

The 150 years since Huxley have seen the establishment of scientific

psychology and neuroscience, of relativity theory and quantum mechanics, and

the advent of biochemistry and molecular genetics. But consciousness

apparently remains as perplexing as ever. In a recent work, David Chalmers

writes that

Consciousness is the biggest mystery. It may be the last outstanding

obstacle to our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe. ... We

have good reason to believe that consciousness arises from physical

systems such as brains, but we have little idea how it arises or why it

exists at all. ... We do not just lack a detailed theory; we are entirely in the

dark about how consciousness fits into the natural order (Chalmers 1996,

xi).

In a similar vein, Colin McGinn writes

We know that brains are the de facto causal basis of consciousness, but

we have, it seems, no understanding whatever of how this can be so. It

strikes us as miraculous, eerie, even faintly comic. Somehow, we feel,

the water of the physical brain is turned into the wine of consciousness,


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but we draw a total blank on the nature of this conversion (McGinn 1989,

529).

And with characteristic bluntness Jerry Fodor adds, "Nobody has the slightest

idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it

would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be

conscious" (Fodor 1992, 5).

What is it that inspires such pessimism about explaining consciousness,

despite the impressive scientific progress of the last half-millennium? Perhaps

we are too close to the subject matter to see it clearly. It seems that we know

our conscious minds differently then we know everything else. Our conscious

minds are directly and immediately available to us--nothing seems nearer to us,

or better known. Furthermore, consciousness makes up the experiential bedrock

of our world. Everything else is known through it, by reasoning from the

evidence that it brings. Descartes went so far as to hold that we cease to exist

without consciousness. There is seemingly no way to step back and peer at the

conscious mind from an objective distance.

But such distance is apparently required by science. Modern science

employs quantitative, mechanistic theories whose precision, scope, and

predictive power leave little doubt about their primacy in explaining our world. To

the extent that a phenomenon is brought under scientific theory, we count it as

explained. But consciousness seems to evade the systematic web of science.

From the inside, consciousness appears basic, indivisible, and unquantifiable.

We grasp consciousness more directly and with a greater feeling of certainty


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than we grasp anything else. But what we grasp doesn't seem to fit into the

orderly world of science.

This is how things appear. But what reason is there to accept this radical

dichotomy? Is it really so obvious that consciousness cannot fit into our scientific

world view? And can argument and evidence be brought to bear on this issue, or

are we simply at the mercy of brute intuition? Recently, a number of researchers

have worked to clearly demarcate the problem of consciousness, and to defend

the idea that there is more to the problem then mere intuition-mongering. In what

follows, I will present and criticize the efforts of David Chalmers, Joseph Levine,

and Ned Block, with the aim of distilling out the core of what must be explained

by a theory of consciousness. Then I will develop and defend a theory of the

access that we have to our conscious states, a theory fully amenable to a

scientific explanation of consciousness. But to begin, I will make some important

claims concerning how we should go about pinning-down the data that a theory

of consciousness must explain. This preliminary step is crucial if we are to avoid

the temptation to either operationalize away the alleged problem or to cloak the

explanatory data in unnecessary mystery.

1.1 Fixing the Data

1.1.1 The Need for a Neutral Method

Many important issues concerning the possibility of an explanation of

consciousness turn on how we pick out the phenomenon we are trying to explain.

Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we find a neutral way to fix the data a


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theory of consciousness must explain, one that both accurately captures just

what we wish to elucidate and avoids cloaking consciousness in terms that

antecedently beg the question against one view or another. There are difficulties

inherent in this process, however. On the one hand, we run the risk of defining

away our problem, of characterizing consciousness illicitly in terms that aid

scientific explanation at the expense of the very features that first attracted our

interest. On the other, we are in danger of characterizing consciousness as that

which is by nature inexplicable and beyond our intellectual reach. While this may

become apparent at the end of our inquiry, building it into the definition of the

phenomenon eliminates the possibility of progress at the outset. To paraphrase

David Chalmers, we could define "world peace" as a ham sandwich, and it would

be much easier to achieve world peace, though perhaps less than satisfying in a

geopolitical sense. But by the same token, we could define "ham sandwich" as

world peace, and go unnecessarily hungry at lunchtime. The trick, therefore, is

to find a way to fix the data in neutral terms, and to avoid prejudicial

misdescription of our subject matter.

A neutral method of data fixing has several requirements. One, it must

accurately capture the phenomenon in question. Two, it must do so in language

that is as neutral as possible, to avoid begging important theoretical questions.

And three, it must refrain, as much as possible, from delivering pronouncements

on the underlying nature of the phenomenon in question. What we desire is a

characterization of that which must be explained, not of the underlying processes

or materials that account for the explanandum. The last constraint should be


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handled with care in order to skirt the problem of operationalizing away the

subject in pursuit of scientific theory. But it also important to keep in mind that

what we want is a cataloging of how things appear at the outset of theorizing--

how things seem to be before we apply this or that theory to explain the data.

This requirement dictates that claims about the underlying nature of the

phenomenon should come at the end of a chain of reasoning, not at the

beginning. If the subject matter really does defy scientific explanation, this will

become apparent in the course of theory-building and empirical research.

Thus, as much as possible, we want a pretheoretic characterization of the

data, a description of how things appear prior to explicit theorizing. This is the

initial step in scientific theorizing generally. Among other things, Galileo's

principle of inertia explains why, pretheoretically, it appears that we and the

objects around us are not in rapid motion, despite the fact that the earth is

moving rapidly. This requires establishing how things appear at the start of

theorizing. In long-established scientific research programs, the data to be

explained is often explicitly the product of prior scientific theory. But at the outset

(and often in the final analysis as well) we require an explanation of the

pretheoretic appearances. How should we go about pinning down the

appearances? Mental state terms owe their meaning to their place in our

everyday practices of predicting and explaining each other's (and our own)

behavior. We all employ the terms "conscious," "sensation," "thought," etc. in

everyday discourse, and we recognize how to apply the terms to ourselves and

others. This is where our mental terms get their initial life, and this is where the


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factors fixing our intuitions about the subject-matter are ensconced and codified.

Indeed, employing terms like "thought" and "sensation" outside of common usage

invokes the very confusion that the proponents of a problem of consciousness

warn against. The sort of "bait and switch" they deride arguably involves starting

with the folk-meaning of a term, and offering a theory of something else. Thus,

we should look to our common, everyday usage of mental state terms in order to

pin down the data that must be explained.

David Lewis defends the idea that we should look to our commonsense

characterization to fix the initial data. He writes,

We have a very extensive shared understanding of how we work mentally.

Think of it as a theory: folk psychology... Folk psychology has evolved

over thousands of years of close observation of one another. It is not the

last word on psychology, but we should be confident that so far as it goes-

-and it does go far--it is largely right (1994, 298).

Folk psychology has the virtue of being free from abstract or technical language;

it is in everyday terms which are unlikely to carry heavy-duty metaphysical

commitments and presuppositions. For the same reason, it will not present a

characterization of the data in language tilted towards a particular scientific view,

or in terms operationalized to fit a specific research agenda. Finally, it arguably

respects our first-person access to the mind. Folk psychology certainly allows

that we know our own minds in a different way from which we know the mind's of

others. Further, it allows that we have introspective access to our conscious

states, and that this is part of what fixes our commonsense terms for the mind.


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That is not to say that folk psychology endorses an infallibility claim about the

mind; arguably, this is much stronger than the dictates of commonsense (see

below). But there is no barrier to including introspective data in a folk

characterization of the mental, and to granting that we know our own minds in a

distinctive way.

But haven't I already gone back on my claim that we need a pretheoretic

characterization of the data? If folk psychology itself is a theory, as Lewis urges,

won't its "hidden presuppositions" infect the data as much as any other theory? I

will address this point in more detail below, when I consider worries along these

lines presented by Paul Churchland. But already a case can be made that this is

the most neutral characterization we are going to get. Saying that folk beliefs

about a particular domain make up a theory is to say that the beliefs are geared

towards explaining a limited domain of facts, and that they provide the

background framework that lets us see certain types of claims as explanatory.

Saying that Mary went to the fridge because she wanted a beer is explanatory

because it falls under the general rule that people who want beer and believe

there is beer in the fridge will usually get a beer. The key point is that these are

everyday beliefs, and not the product of an abstract philosophical or scientific

theory. These beliefs constitute what people think about the mind in everyday

contexts. And what's more, there seems to be no better place to go for the

desired neutrality. Even careful attempts to "bracket" off the contributions of folk

psychology from the way mental phenomena appear to us require a

characterization of just what folk psychology adds, so that we appropriately


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cordon off its influence. Further, such a characterization requires a prior theory

about how the mind works, in order to justify the claim that we can bracket things

in this manner at all. But that is precisely what is at issue here. This sort of

justifying explanation will have to say what the mind is, what consciousness is,

etc. such that it could be bracketed. And how is that to be done, prior to

bracketing? Common sense may involve theory in the mild way sketched by

Lewis, but it does not make such substantial claims about the underlying

workings of the mind. Thus, it is neutral in the sense we require. In what follows,

I will at times use the term "pretheoretic," but it will always refer to our folk-

psychological characterization of the mind.

The commonsense approach does have the advantage over pure

introspective approaches of being publicly checkable, after a fashion. A pure

introspective method is one where a subject simply "peers" inward, and

characterizes the data according to what they introspect. However, if there is

disagreement over what is introspected, there is no higher court of appeal; we

are stuck with the contradictory results, and can't proceed further (witness the

disagreements by the early introspective psychologists over "imageless

thoughts"). The commonsense approach, on the other hand, requires at least

that the characterization fit with what most people would assent to if prompted.

Thus, the other members of the folk community provide a check upon the

characterization: if the claim is too controversial, it will not make it into the

common usage that defines folk psychology.


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Furthermore, folk psychology allows for third-person correction of first

person ascriptions, at least in certain cases. For example, it occasionally

happens that we may be in a mental state, perhaps a desire or emotional state,

and fail to recognize it ourselves. We may in fact deny that we are that state.

But it may be apparent to others that we desire X or are angry about Y, despite

our protestations. And we may later come to agree. There are even times when

we can be corrected about our self-attributions of sensations, like pain. This is

most obvious when we suggest to a frightened child that they are not hurt,

despite the presence of blood or because of a scary fall. As adults, we are open

to the suggestions of doctors or dentists (at least on occasion!) when they assure

us that a procedure really doesn't hurt, and instead, in our anxious state, we've

misinterpreted a stimulus as painful. This may not happen often, but it is familiar

enough, and it certainly does not elicit a sense that such scenarios are

impossible or contradictory. Thus, folk psychology disavows Cartesian infallibility

and transparency concerning the mind. Again, this is not to rule such claims out

of bounds; instead, it suggests that, according to the commonsense approach,

such claims require further argument.

Thus, the commonsense approach provides a neutral means of fixing the

data, one that captures our "pretheoretic" intuitions concerning the mind, but also

allows for a degree of crosschecking and public correction. Further, it delivers

mental terms in language that is as independent of theoretical commitment as

possible. It is not (at least overtly) weighed down with metaphysical claims and


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presuppositions, and it does not operationalize terms illicitly in the service of a

particular theory.

1.1.2 Does the Commonsense Approach Really Capture the Data?

However, the commonsense approach as I have laid it out already is open to

criticism, from more than one direction. The first line of criticism holds that the

approach does not take the first-person perspective seriously enough and

thereby fails to properly characterize the conscious mind. The second line of

complaint holds that the view privileges the prejudices and confusions of

common sense, and thereby limits the possibility of a scientific theory of

consciousness. I will address the concerns in turn.

The first worry holds that the commonsense approach puts too much

weight on third-person prediction and explanation of behavior. After all, the main

role of folk psychology in our lives as social animals is to predict and explain the

behaviors of our conspecifics. This accounts for the utility and ubiquity of folk

psychology; however, it seems to downplay our first-person access to the "feel"

of conscious states. Indeed, one of the main defenders of the approach, David

Lewis, argues the folk psychology generally defines mental states in functional

terms. Some argue that this leaves no room for consciousness.3

Furthermore, the approach has a close affinity with the method prescribed

by Daniel Dennett for fixing the data, the "heterophenomenological approach"

(Dennett 1991, chapter 4). That view dictates that we consider the reports of

3See Lewis 1972, 1980. See Block 1978 for the criticism of the view. But see also Lewis 1983a

for a response.


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subjects as part of the data; further, if we can explain why they make these

reports, we have provided an adequate explanation of the phenomenon. They

may make the reports because they are accurately describing their mental

states. But they may make the reports for other reasons, and therefore we are

not committed to accept the veracity of the reports, no matter what. Dennett

likens the task of the consciousness researcher to a field anthropologist

collecting data on a forest religion: we take the indigenous subjects' reports as

canonical on what they take the religion to be, but we withhold judgment on the

truth of their reports of gods and spirits. They are certainly correct that this is

how their religion is practiced, but it may well turn out that there is no omnipotent

forest god, despite the sincere reports and beliefs of the subjects. The situation

is the same in the case of the conscious mind. All reports must be independently

corroborated before they are accepted as indications of real phenomena.

Objectors to Dennett's view contend that it unfairly begs the question

against the existence of phenomenal consciousness (Block 1992; Chalmers,

website). If a phenomenon cannot be establish without third-person

confirmation, it will fail to qualify as a legitimate object of scientific study and its

very existence will be called into doubt. Furthermore, the view takes subject's

reports as the data to be explained, rather than taking the reports as evidence for

conscious states which are to be explained. Chalmers, in responding to a piece

of Dennett's, argues instead for a method of data fixing defended by Max

Velmans (1996, 2000). Velmans argues for what Chalmers terms a "critical

phenomenology" in which we


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accept verbal reports as a prima facie guide to a subject's conscious

experience, except where there are specific reasons to doubt their

reliability... On this view, we're not interested so much in reports as data to

be explained in their own rights (though we might be in part interested in

that). Rather, we are interested in them as a (fallible) guide to the first-

person data about consciousness that we really want to be explained

(Chalmers, website).

A similar complaint is lodged by Charles Siewert against Dennett's

position (Siewert 1998). He argues that first-person reports have a "distinctive

warrant" which renders them, as it were, innocent until proven guilty. He runs

through a number of cases that many take as empirical evidence that we are

often wrong about the contents of our minds. He considers work in social

psychology championed by Nisbett and others (e.g. Nisbett and Wilson 1977),

and argues that it fails to show systematic error concerning the contents of our

minds. Rather, it shows errors concerning the antecedent causes of our

occurent beliefs. But this indicates a lack of causal knowledge instead of a lack

of knowledge concerning our current mental states. He concludes that

since we have no adequate reason to deny what we pre-epistemologically

would judge about our knowledge of our minds, we are entitled to proceed

on the assumption that we do have a distinctively first-person knowledge

of our mind, and to rely on such knowledge in our inquiries about

ourselves, in lieu of the discovery of some compelling reason not to do so

(Siewert 1998, 23).


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Thus, first-person reports require no independent corroboration in the absence of

a compelling challenge, contrary to Dennett's approach.

For my purposes, it is important to note that both Chalmers and Siewert

take first-person reports as fallible, though prima facie acceptable in the absence

of good counterevidence. Also, both seem committed to a pretheoretic or "pre-

epistemological" status for our data-fixing claims. This is in line with the

commonsense approach, which holds that folk-theoretic claims fix the data. It is

clear that by "pretheoretic" and "pre-epistemological," neither theorist wishes to

rule out folk psychology in Lewis's sense. But to address their central worry,

there is no reason that to deny that reports are evidence for inner states or to

accept that they are the sole and exclusive data a theory must explain. Indeed,

folk psychology licenses this very evidential link: we take our reports and the

reports of other to indicate what mental states we are in. And the folk

characterizations that fix the data for a theory of consciousness are

characterizations of mental states themselves, not of reports.

But arguably the conflict between Dennett's heterophenomenology and

the views of Chalmers and Siewert is illusory. Dennett's view also allows that

reports are evidence of real states; he simply puts stress upon the idea that such

reports are fallible and require some kind of independent means of confirmation if

we are to step out of the trap that plagued introspectionist psychology. Later in

his 1991 book, Dennett does reject the notion of consciousness defended by

Chalmers, Block, and others, and this leads him to hold that all that remains to be

explained is subject's reports of such states. But this is an application of the


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method that can be challenged. In fact, one might argue that Dennett is too

quick to dismiss the possibility of additional evidence for the presence of a more

richly characterized phenomenon (See Rosenthal 1995; Akins 1996). Still, even

if one establishes that heterophenomenology begs the question against

phenomenal consciousness, I have argued that the commonsense approach is

free of that bias.

Finally, the commonsense method is defended by one of the early

defenders of a nonreductive view of consciousness, Frank Jackson.4 Jackson in

his 1998 book and in a work with David Braddon-Mitchell (1996) argues for the

commonsense approach to fixing the data, while contending that other

approaches that look more directly to the sciences fail to adequately capture

what we wish to explain. Such approaches tend to ignore specific difficulties

inherent in the subject matter, and operationalize away important phenomena.

While there are responses to this claim, I only wish to stress that Jackson did not

feel that such a method shortchanged consciousness or the first-person point of

view. Indeed, he collaborates with Chalmers on a piece that dovetails well with

the overall view (Chalmers and Jackson 2001). And it is arguable that Chalmers

himself employs the commonsense approach in the first chapter of his 1996

book, where he characterizes a number of concepts of consciousness and mind.

4Jackson has since rejected his anti-reductionist stance, and now holds that reduction is in

principle possible, despite his earlier worries. See Chalmers and Jackson 2001; Jackson 2003.


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If the method is acceptable to Jackson and Chalmers, it is hard to argue that it is

not able to take the phenomenon of consciousness seriously.5

However, this may appear to open up the commonsense approach to a

charge from the opposite direction, that the method overvalues the view of the

folk at the expense of a scientific approach to the mind. Why think the folk have

any real insight on the nature of the mind, or have anything useful to say about

fixing the data for scientific theory of consciousness? All we get from folk

psychology is a collection of loosely related intuitions, intuitions that are shaped

by ignorance about the real workings of the mind. Further, the method may

seem committed to a priori analyses of mental phenomenon, and such analyses

have proven a failure at grounding a science of the mind. Indeed, it may appear

that the commonsense approach endorses the idea that there are analytic truths

about the mind which trump scientific claims. Why think a method apparently

committed to these dubious notions has any role to play?

Block and Stalnaker (1999) present a multifaceted attack on the idea that

a priori conceptual analysis has any role to play in reductive scientific

explanation. They argue that the requisite analyses are never actually

5There is an additional position on fixing the data which I have bypassed. The phenomenological

tradition holds that we must be trained in taking a specialized kind of attitude towards our ownmental states; only then can we "bracket" the elements of our naive conception of mind and get atits true nature. Further, this view holds that mind is irreducibly subjective and distinct from theobjective. Thus, commonsense would have no real insight into the proper objects of study for a

theory of the mind. However, this approach has its troubles. One, it is not clear to me how wejustify the ability to bracket. Why not think that the bracketing is theory laden, and therefore, theresults of the investigation simply show us what we already believed? Further, the view suffersfrom a great difficulty in cross-checking and confirming its investigation. If the phenomena ofstudy are irreducible in this sense, is there any reliable intersubjective check on theoreticalclaims? Finally, the attitude or intuition that is taken towards introspection is questionable. Whythink our "inner eye" has the ability to see into the nature of the mind at all, particularly in thisunfettered manner? My discussion of this issue is prompted by Francisco Varela's interesting1996 piece "Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for the Hard Problem."


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forthcoming; further, even the sketchiest attempts at place-holders fall prey to

counterexamples. In addition, they argue that a number of theoretical constraints

which they lump under the heading of "simplicity" demonstrate that empirical

considerations are always present in data fixing, even in the simplest cases. The

real reason, they argue, that we posit theoretical identities is to simplify our

theories and increase their range of prediction and explanation. Further, this

shapes our decisions about the extension of the terms in question. We cannot

tell which moves will achieve these theoretical goals until we have empirical data.

Thus, empirical considerations are always at play in data fixing, undermining the

possibility of a priori analyses.

But, contrary to the views of some of its proponents, the commonsense

approach is not committed to a priori analyses or analytic truths. Instead, the

view is committed only to analyses that characterize phenomena relative to the

principles and assumptions of folk psychology. Given that our folk beliefs shift

over time in the face of new data, there is no reason to believe that we know in

principle that a term's meaning is fixed come what may. Even our everyday

terms for mental states are open to revision, and therefore are not analytic.

While at present it may seem just obvious that a particular change in the use of a

term would represent a change in its meaning, we cannot know beforehand how

we will react to new empirical data, especially when we take into account the

holistic nature of theory confirmation (Quine 1951). We may choose to alter our

weighting of the various factors that fix the meaning of a term, in order to

preserve some other aspect of our folk theory. It proves to be arbitrary whether


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to view this shift as a change in meaning or the falsification of certain empirical

beliefs. There is no further source of data to decide this question in a principled

manner. Thus, there is no supportable analytic/synthetic distinction, and it

cannot be invoked here. The meanings of our folk psychological terms are not

knowable independently of experience, and the process of ascertaining those

meanings is not disconnected from the rest of what we believe, both about the

mind and in other domains. However, this does not rob folk psychology of its role

in fixing the data. Instead, we must take into account that we are engaged in an

empirical study and that our data is only interpretable against the background of

the rest of our beliefs and theories. Still, the relatively stable common knowledge

of folk psychology provides the best place to fix the data for a scientific theory of

consciousness.

However, it may seem that our folk analyses are worked out "in the

armchair" and thus are plausibly counted as a priori in the relevant sense. They

appear to require no empirical support for justification. To access our folk theory,

all we need to do is reflect on our own beliefs, and this requires no outside help.

But why think that just because such a theory is active in our predictions and

explanations of behavior that it is evident upon private reflection just what the

principles of the theory are? Some may be better than others at unpacking the

principles implicit in the folk views, and the process of investigation generates

disagreement about the shape of the commonsense view. When difference over

interpretations occurs, it is reasonably settled by canvassing a variety of

subjects, and this is an empirical matter. The justification for such claims comes


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from how well they agree with the attitudes and response of the folk, not from a

nonexperiential source.6

Furthermore, our commonsense theory evolves and shifts under pressure

from a variety of sources, including changing cultural fashions and customs, and

scientific theories and opinions that get folded back into everyday knowledge.

While the rate of alteration may be slow, it does occur over time, undermining the

idea that all of our folk views on the mind are accessible a priori. Consider the

case of unconscious thought. Locke, in his Essay, holds that nonconscious

thought is impossible; indeed, it seems to him almost a contradiction in terms

(Locke 1979/1689). In these passages, he is in part appealing to a

commonsense use of the terms he has in mind; he presents little in the way of

argument, and instead appeals to the seeming absurdity of the claim. This

provides an indication that the idea of nonconscious thought may not have fit

particularly well with commonsense views in Locke's day. But with the

widespread popularity of the works of Sigmund Freud, the idea of nonconscious

thoughts and desires driving our behavior became commonplace. Freud's

theories, inspired by the goal of a scientific psychology, altered the folk view of

the mind. For my purposes, the main point is that these attitudes about the mind

fail to display the stability needed for a priori access. Such views are thus

learned, and therefore must be investigated from an empirical standpoint. Our

justification for the use of these terms traces back to a learnt public theory about

6In fact, this seems to correspond well to Block's approach to characterizing consciousness. He

employs a "pre-theoretic" paradigm, and then considers a variety of thought experiments tosharpen that conception. Finally, he argues that the empirical evidence for his characterization isnot conclusive, but provides a number of weak but potential lines of evidence, when taken as agroup and viewed in light of general theoretical principles (Block 2001). See chapter 2, below.


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whose principles we can be in error. A priori reflection provides no justification

for such claims.

The commonsense approach therefore is not committed to a priori

analyses or analytic truths. Instead, it relies on an empirical investigation of the

principles of an acquired public theory, one that is stable enough and accessible

enough to be termed common knowledge, but not one that is beyond revision

and known independent of experience. In this manner, the considerations that

Block and Stalnaker term "simplicity" are a central part of the method. We

develop our best interpretations of the folk theory, and in order to confirm our

picture, we run it up against folk responses and attitudes. But in adjudicating

between rival interpretations, considerations of simplicity and the like will always

be at play. Sometimes, this may be the only way to really decide between two

views: one view fits in with theoretical and empirical considerations better than

the other, despite the fact that both make plausible cases concerning

commonsense theory.

Still, this may seem to miss the force of the initial criticism. Why think that

folk psychology is a useful guide to the mind, at all? Paul Churchland (1981) has

argued that folk psychology is a relatively weak theory, when held up to the

promise of an advanced neuroscientific approach. He argues that over time we

will reject folk theory because it will be replaced by a better theoretical approach

to the mind. Clumsy folk notions like "belief" and "desire" will fade away in the

face of more precise and more informative neuroscientific replacements.

Therefore, the practice of mining the folk view for data is of no value. We are


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simply making precise terms in dying theory, like diehard vitalists making clear

what they mean by "lan vital."

But this criticism is wide of the mark. First, there is an intermediate

position between blind acceptance of folk psychology and its elimination.

Instead, it is reasonable to assume that the discoveries of a future neuroscience

will inform and sharpen our folk conceptions like "belief" and "desire." The mere

fact that certain commonsense characterizations are in error does not remove

the possibility that they may be revised in the face of new data. As noted in with

the case of nonconscious mental states, the folk view is certainly revisable as

new theoretical information disseminates into the common view. Further, to put

the point more directly, we need not think that when the ancients talked about

stars, they were referring to something different from what we do, despite a belief

that stars were holes in the sky (Rosenthal 1980; Stich 1996). Folk beliefs have

a malleable quality in the face of new evidence; this is plausibly the case

regarding beliefs about the mind.

However, this is not to say that the folk view is inviolate. If there is truly

compelling evidence that folk belief is radically incorrect about the mind, such a

belief should be rejected. But the prior option of revision must be ruled out first,

on the general theoretical principles that one should save the appearances and

minimize damage to our preexisting beliefs, if possible. Further, the strong track

record of folk psychology in predicting and explaining the actions of ourselves

and others supports the idea that the commonsense theory must accurately

capture aspects of our mental functioning. If not, what explains its success? So


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it is much more likely that a revisionary, rather than an eliminativist, strategy will

be appropriate.

In addition, if there is no plausible connection between the folk view and a

new theoretical claim, lingering open questions and doubts will pervade. To the

extent that a theory both respects neuroscientific results and explains folk

intuitions, it is to be favored. And one cannot forge this connection without a

clear idea of the phenomena as viewed from the folk perspective. In the final

analysis, we may be compelled to reject closely held folk principles in the face of

scientific progress; nothing rules out this possibility beforehand. But we should

certainly aim, at this point in inquiry, at a view that both respects and explains

folk-theoretic claims and incorporates modern neuroscientific results. Indeed,

one wouldn't know how to begin to evaluate the mind, from a neuroscientific or

any other point of view, without a clear delineation of our uses of folk

terminology. Interpreting an fMRI or a PET scan requires a background theory to

underwrite the interpretation. Folk psychology, either explicitly or implicitly,

provides that theory.

Taken together, all of these considerations suggest that the

commonsense approach is the best option for fixing that data and determining

the conditions of adequacy on a theory of consciousness. It respects the

importance of our commonsense notions in providing the initial meaning of our

mentalistic terms, it is in a position to "take phenomenology seriously," and it is

open to experimental input and theoretical change. The approach provides a


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stable enough platform to characterize consciousness in a non-question-begging

way, while leaving the door open to scientific explanation.

In the following three sections of the dissertation I will examine the

attempts of David Chalmers, Joseph Levine, and Ned Block to capture what is

distinctively problematic about consciousness. In light of my commonsense

approach to fixing the data, if a characterization deviates from our folk-

psychological conception, the burden is on the theorist offering the

characterization to support that proposal. If such support is lacking, the claim will

be rejected as begging the question. In particular, I will focus on the distinction

between the way the conscious mind appears to us from a commonsense point-

of-view, and the conscious mind's underlying nature. As I stressed above, folk

psychology does not license any sort of infallible access to the nature of the

mind--what we are aware of from a commonsense point of view is simply how

things appear to us. This is appropriate: what we desire is a characterization of

the everyday appearances. To the extent that a theorist, in fixing the initial data

to be explained, moves from these appearances to the underlying reality

substantial argument is required. This, of course, is not to claim that no such

argument can be made; rather, it is to highlight the burden of proof regarding

claims about the underlying nature of consciousness.


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1.2 Chalmers's Hard Problem of Consciousness

1.2.1 A Model of Reductive Explanation

In his 1996 book The Conscious Mind and in a series of related papers (1995,

1999, 2003), David Chalmers argues that consciousness poses a problem

different in kind from other scientific challenges. According to Chalmers,

consciousness cannot be explained in physical terms, and therefore fails to find

location in a materialist ontology. It is a brute and inexplicable feature of the

world. In Chalmers's terms, consciousness poses a "hard problem" for science.

Chalmers begins with an alleged folk-characterization of consciousness and then

argues that, given the nature of our concepts generally, we can conclude that

consciousness is explanatorily problematic. In what follows, I will reject

Chalmers's concept-based argument and I will question his initial characterization

of the data as well. However, at the end of the chapter I will isolate an important

element that any theory of consciousness must account for. Though I argue that

Chalmers is premature in proclaiming a hard problem of consciousness, his work

does help to clarify the burdens on any materialist theory. But to begin I will lay

out Chalmers's model of reductive explanation, which is central to his

antimaterialist project.

Materialism is the ontological thesis that holds that all things are ultimately

physical or made up of physical parts. The position matches up well with the

scientific worldview: according to the materialist picture, the basic constituents of

reality are fixed by our best scientific theory, and given that our best theory deals

in basic physical elements, materialism holds that at root, the universe is


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physical. To put the point in possible worlds talk, according to materialism, any

possible world that is physically just like ours is just like ours simpliciter.

Of course, there are numerous entities in the world that are not explicitly

mentioned in the physical sciences. To gain legitimacy in a materialist ontology,

it must be shown that such entities are ultimately nothing over and above the

arrangement of basic physical parts. According to Chalmers (following work by

David Lewis and Frank Jackson), this is achieved by showing that statements

about the presence of the entity in question are entailed by statements about

physical facts, where entailment means that "it is logically impossible for the first

[statement] to hold without the second" (Chalmers 1996, 36). Establishing this

entailment provides what Chalmers calls a reductive explanation of the entity in

question. A reductive explanation demonstrates how the presence of certain

physical conditions fully settles questions about the presence of the phenomenon

in question. This shows that, ontologically speaking, there is nothing more to the

phenomenon than the presence of the relevant physical conditions. If no such

entailment can be demonstrated, the phenomenon is not reductively explainable,

and thus can't be located in a materialist ontology. It either must be eliminated,

or it must, pace materialism, be accepted as a brute feature of reality.7

According to Chalmers, reductive explanations are available in principle

for most macroscopic phenomena. He writes

7The term "location" is taken from Jackson 1998. Jackson argues that the "location problem" can

only be solved by showing how a complete description of a "macro-level" entity is entailed by thephysical description of the world. See also Lewis 1983b, 1994; Horgan 1984; Kim 1998.


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For almost every natural phenomenon above the level of microscopic

physics, there seems in principle to exist a reductive explanation: that is,

an explanation wholly in terms of simpler entities. In these cases, when

we are given an appropriate account of lower-level processes, an

explanation of the higher-level phenomenon falls out (1996, 42, emphasis

in original).

Paradigm examples of reductive explanation are the explanation of the properties

of water in terms of the properties of H2O molecules and the explanation of

heredity in terms of the properties of DNA molecules. These explanations show

how complex macro-level phenomena can be explained in terms of simpler

entities that ultimately connect with basic physics.

Chalmers argues (again in accordance with Lewis and Jackson) that a

crucial step in reductive explanation is providing a conceptual analysis of the

explanandum. Conceptual analysis supplies the bridge that links facts presented

in one vocabulary to facts presented in another. In reductive explanation, we first

conceptually analyze the target, and then show how the lower-level facts satisfy

the analysis. In this way, we can deduce the existence of the target from a

description of the lower-level facts.

For example, consider the case of water. Chalmers argues that there is in

principle an analysis of water in terms of the way water looks and behaves, in

terms of the role, broadly conceived, that it plays in our lives. A rough sketch of

this analysis is "the clear, drinkable liquid that fills our lakes and rivers, comes out

of the tap, freezes at 0 degrees C, etc." Chalmers offers "the watery role" as a


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stand-in for a completed analysis. Chalmers holds that this sort of analysis is

available a priori to competent speakers of a language. We arrive at the analysis

by considering a variety of possible scenarios and seeing how we would apply

the term in question. We do not need to perform any empirical investigation to

arrive at the analysis; instead, we reason how the term applies from our

armchair.

Further, the analysis need not deliver strict necessary and sufficient

conditions for the application of the term. Instead, all that's required is a "rough

and ready" analysis that delivers the extension of a term in a variety of cases. In

fact, Chalmers allows that people would be hard pressed to come up with a

workable list to fill out the analysis for "the watery role." But the fact that people

make reasonably stable judgments over a range of cases shows that they grasp

the term's "intension," according to Chalmers. The intension of a term is a

function that delivers a term's extension in various situations. That we can

reliably make such judgments is evidence of our grasp of the intension.8

The analysis delivers a rough and ready set of conditions that allow us to

see, a priori, how various lower-level conditions might realize or constitute the

target phenomenon. For example, we can reason that, if H2O fills the watery

role, then water is H2O. Or, if XYZ fills the water role, then water is XYZ. This

specifies how a phenomenon might be reductively explained. The final step in

8Chalmers (and Jackson) hold that a term actually possess two intentions, one fixed by

application at the actual world, the other fixed by considering "other worlds as actual." Chalmerscalls these primary and secondary intensions; Jackson calls them A and C intensions. We arehere concerned with primary or A intensions, which are knowable a priori, according to bothChalmers and Jackson. See Chalmers 1996, chapter 2; Jackson 2003.


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reductive explanation is to discover empirically which lower-level stuff actually

fills the analysis in question. As it turns out, H2O fills the watery role. Thus,

water is H2O, and water gains acceptance in a materialist ontology by being

properly located with respect to physical phenomenon. H2O fits into atomic

chemistry, and thus can be unpacked in principle in terms of the most basic

elements of physics.9

The completed reductive explanation has the form of a deductive

entailment. The water case is reconstructed as follows:

1. Water is whatever fills the watery role (by analysis)

2. H2O fills the watery role (by empirical investigation)

3. Therefore, Water is H2O (by transitivity of identity)

It follows on this model that if materialism is true, all statements of macro-level

fact must be entailed by statements of what Chalmers calls the "microphysical

facts," facts stated in terms of "the fundamental entities and properties of

physics, in the language of a completed physics" (Chalmers and Jackson 2001,

2). The only way for entities above the microphysical level to gain legitimacy in a

materialist ontology is to be reductively explained in this manner.

It can be argued that Chalmers model does not yield explanations,

because deductive arguments are not in and of themselves explanatory.10

9Throughout this dissertation, I will be referring to this style of explanation as "reduction." I will

not address the issue of bridge laws and intertheoretic reduction, because the issue of reductiveexplanation has largely supplanted intertheoretic reduction as the focus of debate concerningconsciousness. See Kim, 1998, for a review of these issues, and a defense of a similar model ofreductive explanation.

10See, for example, criticisms of the deductive-nomological model of explanation, i.e. Achinstein

1981; Salmon 1989.


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Chalmers acknowledges the worry, and argues that, although reductive

explanations are not "illuminating explanations," they are "mystery-removing

explanations," that reduce "the bruteness and arbitrariness of the phenomenon in

question to the bruteness and arbitrariness of lower-level processes" (1996, 48-

49). In essence, such explanations show how an explanatory target connects

with more basic facts in a way that closes off certain ontological questions. We

can no longer meaningfully ask how water could be H2O: it just is H2O, because

water is characterized as the watery role, and H2O actually fills that role.11

Consequently, according to Chalmers, reductive explanation is a two step

process. The first is an a priori conceptual analysis of the explanandum. The

second is an empirical investigation to determine which lower-level entities

satisfy the analysis, and therefore realize the phenomenon in question. We are

left at the end with a description providing an entailment of the target by the

lower-level facts. Chalmers further argues that crucial elements in this process

are a priori. First, as noted, the conceptual analysis is a priori. The analysis

proceeds by considering various possible scenarios, and determining how a term

would be applied. This does not require any knowledge of which world we are

actually in. Therefore, the justification for the analysis is not empirical. Secondly,

the reductive explanation itself turns on a priori conditionals like "if H2O is the

watery stuff, then water is H2O." Chalmers calls these "supervenience

conditionals" (1996, 53). Our analysis delivers sets of these conditionals, and

they are the crucial linking premises in reductive explanations. Finally, once the

11Chalmers does not endorse a model of "illuminating explanation." See Chalmers 1996, 48-49.

The explication of this sort of explanation is vexed, and I will not address the issue here.


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empirical information is supplied telling us which antecedent of a supervenience

conditional is true in this world, the resulting argument is deductive, and requires

no further empirical justification. Therefore, Chalmers concludes that we are at

times in a position to determine a priori when a phenomenon is not reductively

explainable. If we cannot secure the requisite analysis, or if we cannot produce a

legitimate deductive argument, then we can conclude that a phenomenon is not

reductively explainable. This, according to Chalmers, is the case with

consciousness.

Chalmers spells out the relationship between the epistemology of

reductive explanation and ontology of materialism by introducing a

supervenience framework. Supervenience is a dependence relation between

two sets of properties or facts.12 Roughly, supervenience occurs when one set of

facts A fully determines another set of facts B. There are a number of ways to

unpack the dependence relations, yielding a variety of types of supervenience.13

Chalmers argues that for a phenomenon to gain location in a materialist

ontology, it must logically supervene on the physical. According to Chalmers, "B-

properties supervene logically on A-properties if no two logically possible

situations are identical with respect to their A-properties but distinct with respect

to their B-properties" (1996, 35, emphasis in original).

12Chalmers moves back and forth between talk of properties and talk of facts (and sometimes

talk of truths, i.e., in Chalmers and Jackson, 2001), but at bottom he sees the relationship asholding between properties. "The appeal to facts makes the discussion less awkward, but all talkof facts and their relations can ultimately be cashed out in terms of patterns of co-instantiations ofproperties..."(1996, 361n2). Arguably, the same ideas can be expressed using talk of predicatesinstead of properties. See Klagge 1988.

13See Kim 1993 for a detailed discussion of the varieties of supervenience.


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For Chalmers, a logically possible situation is one that is conceivable,

where the constraints on conceivability include not only the rules of formal logic,

but also conceptual or meaning constraints. Chalmers informally presents the

notion in the following way:

One can think of [logical possibility] loosely as possibility in the broadest

sense, corresponding roughly to conceivability, quite unconstrained by the

laws of our world. It is useful to think of a logically possible world as a

world that it would have been in God's power (hypothetically!) to create if

he had so chosen. God could not have created a world with male vixens,

but he could have created a world with flying telephones. In determining

whether it is logically possible that some statement is true, the constraints

are largely conceptual. The notion of a male vixen is contradictory, so a

male vixen is logically impossible; the notion of a flying telephone is

conceptually coherent, if a little out of the ordinary, so a flying telephone is

logically possible (1996, 35).

If two conceivable situations are the same with respect to the A-properties, but

differ with respect to the B-properties, B-properties do not logically supervene on

A-properties. If B-properties logically supervene on A-properties, all God has to

do to fix the B-properties is fix the A-properties. There is no extra work for her to

do. If logical supervenience does not hold, God has additional work to do to fix

the B-properties.

The precise relationship between logical supervenience and reductive

explanation is complex. Chalmers holds that logical supervenience is a


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necessary condition for reductive explanation. We evaluate claims of logical

supervenience by considering possible situations. If we can conceive of

situations that are microphysically identical, yet distinct with respect to the target

phenomenon, logical supervenience fails. The presence of this conceivable

situation means that the microphysical conditions do not decisively fix the

presence of the target. We can still meaningfully ask if the macro-phenomenon

is present, even when we know the microphysical conditions. It's thus not

entailed by the microphysical facts. If logical supervenience fails, there is no

entailment from the microphysical facts to the facts about the target

phenomenon. The a priori conditional required for reductive explanation on

Chalmers's model is absent. Thus, logical supervenience is necessary for

reductive explanation.

However, we evaluate claims of logical supervenience by considering if

there are residual meaningful ontological questions that remain open even when

we are given the microphysical facts. And this just is to consider if a reductive

explanation is available in principle for the phenomenon in question. So the

order of priority is not clear, and in fact, our intuitions concerning the failure of

supervenience seem to track our intuitions about the failure of reductive

explanation. With this in mind, Chalmers writes, "in areas where there are

epistemological problems, there is an accompanying failure of logical

supervenience, and ... conversely, in areas where logical supervenience fails,

there are accompanying epistemological problems" (1996, 74, emphasis in

original). Chalmers claims to argue from the failure of logical supervenience to


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the failure of reductive explanation for consciousness, but the same set of

intuitions is in play. In any event, the appearance of a gap between

consciousness and the physical blocks both possibilities, on Chalmers's view. It

is beside the point whether we view this as a move from the ontology of

supervenience to the epistemology of reductive explanation, or vice versa. The

same set of intuitions determines our conclusion in either case.

1.2.2 The Hard Problem

We are now in a position to detail Chalmers's argument for the "hard problem" of

consciousness. The first step involves a conceptual analysis of "consciousness."

Chalmers argues that we possess two distinct kinds of concepts that characterize

the mind, psychological concepts and phenomenal concepts. "On the

phenomenal concept, mind is characterized by the way it feels; on the

psychological concept, mind is characterized by what it does" (1996, 11,

emphasis in original). Psychological concepts characterize mental states in

functional terms, in terms of perceptual inputs, behavioral outputs, and relations

to other mental states. Phenomenal concepts characterize mental states in

terms of subjective experience, in terms of what it is like for the subject to be in

that state.14 Chalmers grants that many states can be characterized in both

ways, but he argues that reflection on hypothetical cases delivers distinct

psychological and phenomenal analyses. A typical psychological concept is

14See Nagel 1974, for the introduction of this locution into contemporary philosophical

discussions of consciousness.


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"learning."15 Learning can be characterized as a functional process wherein an

organism adapts its behavior over time in the face of environmental stimuli. This

characterization makes no mention of what it's like for the organism to undergo

the process. If an organism adapts its behavior over time in response to stimuli,

we would say it learned, even if there is nothing it's like for the organism to

undergo this process.

A typical phenomenal concept is "pain," understood as the state that feels

a particular way, namely painful. If an organism felt that particular painful feeling,

we would consider it in pain, even if it lacked the various behavioral responses

ordinarily associated with pain. Desire arguably is a mixed state, involving a

functional response profile, and a particular compelling feel. Note that "pain" can

also receive a psychological characterization, as a state that underwrites

aversion and avoidance behavior. Chalmers holds that this does not create a

conflict; rather, there are two concepts of pain, both of them valid, and both of

them licensed by analysis (Ibid. 16ff).

It is the phenomenally characterized mind that presents special problems

for explanation. To the extent that a mental state can be psychologically

characterized, it can be reductively explained, because psychological

characterizations provide the functional analyses necessary for reductive

explanation. According to Chalmers, there is no special problem in explaining

how a material being could learn, for example. Given that "learning" can be

analyzed as "the learning role," all we need to do is discover what physical

15Here, the quotes pick out a concept as opposed to a term. I will occasionally use quotes to

pick out concepts. The usage should be clear from the context.


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processes realize the learning role. There is no prima facie problem with this

project, and once we find what actually fills the learning role, we have an a priori

entailment to the claim that the role-filler is learning.

However, Chalmers claims the phenomenal cannot be fully captured in a

functional characterization. "The phenomenal element in the concept prevents

an analysis in purely functional terms" (1996, 23). This is demonstrated by

reflection on cases where the phenomenal feel of a particular mental state is

present, but the functional profile is absent. Again, consider pain. We can,

according to Chalmers, imagine a state that feels painful to a subject, but never

leads to any distinct behavioral responses. Chalmers holds that in such a case,

we would consider the state an example of pain, despite its lack of connection to

any functional role in the behavior of the organism. But this shows that the

intension of "pain" is independent of functional considerations, and thus the

phenomenal concept of "pain" is distinct from the psychological concept of "pain,"

which is characterized in functional terms of avoidance behavior and indication of

bodily damage.

Chalmers likewise argues that we possess a psychological and a

phenomenal concept of consciousness. "Consciousness" in the psychological

sense refers to various sorts of awareness and attention that can be given

functional role characterizations. "Consciousness" in the phenomenal sense

refers generally to states that there is something it is like for the subject to be in,

states with a distinct phenomenal feel or character. Chalmers calls the latter


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"phenomenal consciousness;" it is phenomenal consciousness that creates the

special problem of consciousness.16

Armed with this analysis, Chalmers presents five separate (though

arguably related) cases to demonstrate that phenomenal consciousness fails to

logically supervene on the microphysical, or even on the functional, makeup of

the organism. His first case involves the conceivability of "zombies," creatures

physically identical to us that nonetheless lack phenomenal consciousness.

Chalmers argues that zombies are conceivable because nothing in the zombie

case seems contradictory or incoherent. He writes,

I confess that the logical possibility of zombies seems... obvious to me. A

zombie is just something physically identical to me, but which has no

conscious experience--all is dark inside. While this is probably empirically

impossible, it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can

discern no contradiction in the description (1996, 96).

If zombies are conceivable, then they are logically possible in Chalmers's sense.

If zombies are logically possible, then the phenomenal does not logically

supervene on the physical, because fixing the physical facts fails to fix the

phenomenal facts. And if it does not logically supervene, it is not reductively

explainable. Furthermore, Chalmers argues that parallel considerations show

that phenomenal consciousness does not supervene on the chemical, the

biological, or even the psychological facts, functionally construed, because fixing

16Block defines a parallel notion of "phenomenal consciousness," though he uses a different

method to characterize the concepts. See chapter 2 below, sections 2.2.1-2.2.3.


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those facts does not close off the conceivability of zombies. Thus, phenomenal

consciousness is not reductively explainable.

Chalmers second argument focuses on the possibility of the "inverted

spectrum." The inverted spectrum is the possibility that two creatures can be

physically identical, and yet have systematically inverted phenomenal

experiences. Chalmers claims that it is conceivable that there could be physical

duplicates, one that experienced phenomenal red when stimulated by an apple

while the other experienced phenomenal green, despite the fact that the

stimulations and the perceivers were physically identical. If this is conceivable,

then by Chalmers's definition, it is logically possible. But, again, if it is logically

possible, then logical supervenience fails. Holding the physical facts steady does

not entail that the phenomenal facts are the same. And again, Chalmers claims

that it is likewise conceivable that the phenomenal can vary despite holding the

chemical, biological or the psycho-functional facts fixed. Thus, phenomenal

consciousness cannot be reductively explained.

The third case is somewhat different than the first two. Chalmers argues

that there is an epistemic asymmetry between our knowledge of consciousness

and our knowledge of other things, an asymmetry that is absent with reductively

explainable phenomena. We know consciousness in an apparently direct and

unmediated way. We don't seem to reason to its existence; it's simply given to

us. But we do not know the conscious minds of other creatures in this way, and

furthermore, we can reasonably wonder if they are conscious at all. The

asymmetry is reflected in the so-called problem of other minds. Chalmers writes,


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"Even when we know everything physical about other creatures, we do not know

for certain that they are conscious, or what their experiences are..." (1996, 102).

There is no parallel problem of "other lives" or "other economies." The physical

facts close off these possibilities. Chalmers argues that this shows that

consciousness does not logically supervene on the physical. If it did, there would

be no such asymmetry present; we would be able to infer the presence of other

minds from the physical facts. But there is no such logical entailment, logical

supervenience fails, and thus consciousness is not reductively explainable.

The fourth case involves the so-called "knowledge argument" against

physicalism (Nagel 1974; Jackson 1982). The argument features Mary, the

color-deprived super-scientist. By hypothesis, Mary knows all the facts of a

completed science, but has never seen red. Eventually, she gets her first

glimpse of red. The question is, does she learn anything new? Chalmers

argues that even though she has all the physical facts, Mary lacks the facts about

what it is like to see red. She learns these facts upon her release. Thus, the

physical facts do not entail facts about what it is like to see red. But these are

just the phenomenal facts about red. So the physical facts do not entail the

phenomenal facts, logical supervenience fails, and thus phenomenal

consciousness is not reductively explainable.

Finally, Chalmers argues that the absence of an analysis that seems in

any way amenable to reduction directly undermines logical supervenience. He

contends,


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For consciousness to be entailed by a set of physical facts, one would

need some kind of analysis of the notion of consciousness--the kind of

analysis whose satisfaction physical facts could imply--and there is no

such analysis to be had (1996, 104).

The natural candidate for a reductive analysis is a functional analysis. But

Chalmers argues that functional analyses of phenomenal consciousness all miss

the phenomenon, and so in effect change the subject. He notes that functional

analyses have the implausible effect of dissolving the problem of consciousness.

Indeed, if a functional analysis is correct, why did we think there was a problem

at all? Further, Chalmers argues that simply adopting a functional analysis for

the sake of avoiding the problem is ad hoc. He writes, "One might well define

'world peace' as 'a ham sandwich.' Achieving world peace becomes much

easier, but it is a hollow achievement" (1996, 105).

He also notes that functional analyses possess a degree of indeterminacy

that seems lacking in the phenomenal case. While there may be vague borders

for the extension of the functionally analyzable concept "life," for example,

Chalmers claims that phenomenal consciousness is plausibly an all or nothing

affair. To the extent that he is correct, functional analyses cannot capture the

phenomenal. Finally, Chalmers argues that it is unclear what other sort of

analysis could provide the needed link to the physical facts. Consciousness may

in fact be correlated with some biochemical property in us, but this fact does not

underwrite an analysis of "consciousness," nor does it illuminate how the


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physical might entail the phenomenal. Thus, consciousness does not logically

supervene on the physical, and thus cannot be reductively explained.

The failure of phenomenal consciousness to logically supervene on the

physical (or the chemical, biological, functional, etc.) leaves us with an

explanatory problem. No matter what we find out about the physical and

functional basis of the mind, we are still left with an open question: why are

these processes accompanied by phenomenal experience? There is an

explanatory gap between the physical and functional, and the phenomenal

(Levine 1983, 1993, 2001). Many features of the mind succumb to the kind of

reductive explanation detailed by Chalmers. Belief, desire, learning, and memory

are all arguably amenable to functional analysis and reductive explanation, when

considered as psychological concepts. However, phenomenal consciousness

can't be so explained. Therefore, Chalmers concludes that consciousness poses

a "hard problem" for scientific explanation. And, given the failure of

supervenience, it follows that consciousness cannot be located in a materialist

ontology.


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1.2.3 Criticisms of Chalmers's view17

Chalmers argues that materialism is committed to the claim that all the macro-

level facts are a priori entailed by the microphysical facts. Thus, when presented

with a possible microphysical description of the world, and armed with analyses

of the relevant concepts, we should be able to a priori deduce the macro-level

facts about that possible world. But any description in microphysical terms will

be unreadable in practice. It will be far too long and complex to be of any use as

a guide for us in deriving the relevant facts. Thus, Chalmers holds that such a

priori reasoning is idealized: an ideal rational observer, with unlimited time and

mental resources, could perform the derivation. This does not require any

additional rational abilities; it requires only additional computing power and

memory (Chalmers 1996, 68; Chalmers and Jackson 2001, 11).

Furthermore, Chalmers holds that the relevant physical description need

not be restricted to micro-level language. It can include

information about the structure and dynamics of the world at the

macroscopic level, at least insofar as this structure and dynamics can be

17I will not here address Kripke-style counterarguments from a posteriori necessities, nor

Chalmers's response employing 2-D modal logic. My criticisms are, I believe, independent ofthese issues, and apply even if Chalmers is correct about 2-D semantics. To briefly put thingsinto 2-D terms, I shall argue that the meaning of mental state terms like "consciousness" are opento revision, potentially altering the primary intension of those terms, This undermines theargument against reductive explanation, which relies on the primary intension of "consciousness"

being stable in the face of empirical results. Further, I shall challenge the particular interpretationof "consciousness" offered by Chalmers. It is not, pace Chalmers, a term possessing the sameprimary and secondary intension; instead, it functions in much the same way as otherfunctionally-defined terms. There is a large and ever growing literature on the topic of 2-D modalsemantics. See Chalmers 1999, and commentaries; Block and Stalnaker 1999; and the 2004Philosophical Studies on 2-Dimensionalism, edited by Davies and Stoljar, for a start. See alsoLevin 1995. My thanks to Michael Levin for help in clarifying these points, and for helpfulcomm

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Problem Consciousness