The Consequences of
Intentionalism*
Daniel Stoljar
Australian National University
Draft of 19/6/02
for NEH Summer Seminar, Santa Cruz, CA.
I
Most of the
recent discussion in philosophy of mind concerning intentionalism—the thesis,
roughly, that the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on its
intentional character—has focused, naturally enough, on whether the thesis is
true.[1] I think enough has been said on this topic
to demonstrate that, whether or not it is actually true, intentionalism is at
the very least plausible, a thesis that pleasingly integrates the idea of
phenomenal character into the dominant picture of cognition as a matter of
information flow. But less has been
said about the further consequences of intentionalism. One suggestion which is common in the
literature is that, if it were true, intentionalism would have a significant
impact on the ‘hard problem’ (Chalmers 1996) of phenomenal character, the problem
of explaining whether and how the phenomenal character of an experience
supervenes on its physical character.[2] But does intentionalism have this
consequence in fact?
In
the first part of this paper, I argue that it does not. In the second, I ask what
the consequences of intentionalism might be if the doctrine does not impact on
the hard problem in the way it is widely thought to. I suggest that at least
one major philosophical import of intentionalism lies, not with the hard
problem, but with the secondary qualities, and in particular with the error
theory, the doctrine that experiences of color are systematically
illusory.
II
The relation
of intentionalism to the hard problem is an abstract issue, even by the
standards of philosophy of mind. So, to
focus matters, I will concentrate on an argument which tells us that if
intentionalism is true, the phenomenal must
supervene on the physical—I call it the transitivity argument. Our working
assumption is that intentionalism has an impact on the hard problem if, but
only if, the transitivity argument is persuasive.[3]
The
first premise of the transitivity argument is the supervenience of the
phenomenal on the intentional, a thesis implied by intentionalism:[4]
(1) For
any subjects S1 and S2, and possible worlds W1 and W2, if S1 in W1 is having an
experience and S2 in W2 is having an experience then if the two experiences are
identical in all intentional respects, they are identical in all phenomenal
respects.
The second
premise is the supervenience of the intentional on the physical—physicalism
about the intentional, as I will call this view:
(2)
For any
subjects S1 and S2, and possible worlds W1 and W2, if S1 in W1 is having an
experience and S2 in W2 is having an experience then if the two experiences are
identical in all physical respects, they are identical in all intentional
respects.
If these two
supervenience theses are right, then, by the transitivity of supervenience, we
have no choice but to believe physicalism about the phenomenal, i.e. the
supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical:
(3)
For any
subjects S1 and S2, and possible worlds W1 and W2, if S1 in W1 is having an
experience and S2 in W2 is having an experience then if the two experiences are
identical in all physical respects, they are identical in all phenomenal
respects.
But this last
claim is precisely the claim—or is a version of the claim—that is at issue in
discussions of the hard problem. In
short, if intentionalism is true, and if physicalism about the intentional is
true, there is no choice but to adopt physicalism about the phenomenal. So how could
intentionalism fail to have an impact on the hard problem?
In
§4, I take up the evaluation of the transitivity argument. I will not be concerned with its conclusion.
To answer the question of whether the phenomenal does supervene on the physical would be to start on the road to a solution to the hard problem and not simply to comment on the relation between
it and intentionalism. I will do nothing of the sort here. But what I will suggest is that the
transitivity argument is unpersuasive in the following sense: there is no
interpretation of its central terms according to which both of its premises are
true or at least plausible. Given our
working assumption, this entails that intentionalism has no impact on the hard
problem. Before turning to the
transitivity argument proper, however, it will be useful to review three points
concerning the formulation of intentionalism.
First,
intentionalism is or entails a thesis about the phenomenal character of
experience, viz., that the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on
its intentional character. But
understood this way, it needs to be distinguished from another thesis,
according to which every psychological state or episode has, in some sense, an
intentional aspect or character.
Somewhat confusingly, this thesis is sometimes also called
intentionalism (Crane 2002). To avoid
confusion, and to honor the historical background of the thesis, I will call
this thesis Brentano’s Thesis
At least
on natural assumptions, intentionalism entails Brentano’s Thesis but not vice
versa.[5] Brentano’s Thesis does not entail
intentionalism because it would be quite possible to hold that every mental
state has some intentional character and deny that its phenomenal character
supervenes on this intentional character—the phenomenal character and the
intentionality might in this sense be only contingently related. That intentionalism entails Brentano’s
thesis can be brought out by demonstrating that the falsity of Brentano’s
thesis yields the falsity of intentionalism, or at least does so given natural
assumptions. Suppose that Brentano’s
thesis is false. Then, presumably, there are two possible experiences e and e*
such that e and e* differ in phenomenal character but both lack intentional
content outright. But if two
experiences both lack intentional content outright they are the same with
respect to intentional content. So if
Brentano’s Thesis is false it is possible that two experiences are distinct
with respect to phenomenal character but are the same with respect to intentionality. But that contradicts intentionalism. Hence, if Brentano’s thesis
is false, so too is intentionalism.
Second,
intentionalism says that the phenomenal character of an experience supervenes
on its intentionality. But there are at
least two things one might mean when one speaks of the intentionality of an
experience. First one might mean only
the semantic or informational content of the experience, how it represents the
world as being. Second one might mean both the informational
content of the experience and in addition various features of its functional
role.
To bring
out the difference, contrast the case of visual imagination and visual
perception. At the moment I am having a
certain visual experience, and we might suppose that there is some proposition
p which completely characterizes the informational content of the
experience. (Perhaps we would not be
able to express this proposition in language, but let us set that aside.) If I
were adept enough at visual imagination I might be able to conjure up in
imagination a counterpart experience, i.e. one that is also characterized
completely by p. Now, are these two experiences,
the imagination and the perception, intentionally identical or not? If by ‘intentional’ we mean simply the
semantic or informational content, the answer is yes, for both represent the
world as being a world in which p is true.
On the other hand, if by ‘intentional’ we mean not only the
informational or semantic content of the experience but also their functional
roles, they will not count as intentionally identical. For imagination has a very different
functional role from perception having to do with the fact that imagination is
an act of will in the way that perception is not—perception, as it sometimes
put, forces belief in some contingent fact in a way that imagination does
not.
Should an intentionalist operate with the
more restricted or the more liberal conception of intentionality? The answer is that they should adopt the
more liberal conception, for otherwise their position would be too easily
refuted. For consider: it is natural to
say that the phenomenal character of visual imagination is distinct from that
of visual impression: because of its different functional role, imagination
feels different from perception. But if
so, the imagination/perception contrast presents a straightforward objection to
intentionalism. So it seems that intentionalism in its strongest form is going
to make reference not only to informational content but also to functional
role. There are in fact two distinct
ways in which we might include the notion of the functional role of an
experience in a claim such as (1). On
the one hand, we might insist that the idea of the intentionality of an
experience does not simply include the informational or semantic content of the
state, but rather includes both the informational content and it functional
role. On the other hand, we might
insist that the intentionality of an experience just is its informational
content, and simply adjust (1) so that it is true only of experiences of the
same functional character. I will
operate here with the first option rather than the second, but I take this to
be a matter of theoretical decision more than anything else.
Finally, intentionalism entails that the
phenomenal character of an experience supervenes on its intentionality. But does the reverse entailment hold? That is, can we say that intentionalism is
true only if the supervenience of the phenomenal on the intentional is
true? In part of course the question is
terminological: if someone wants to use
the phase ‘intentionalism’ to denote the supervenience thesis, there is in one
sense no point criticizing them. However, there are a number of positions which, while agreeing
with the supervenience thesis, are most plausibly distinguished from
intentionalism, or at least from intentionalism in its purest form.
A
position in this general class is what Shoemaker (1996) calls literal
projectivism. Literal projectivism
starts by assuming that experiences have qualia, construed as non-intentional
and intrinsic properties of experiences of which we are directly aware. It then says that experiences represent
objects in the world as instantiating these qualia, and also that an experience
represents an object as instantiating a
particular quale Q just in case the experience itself instantiates Q. This sort
of view is quite consistent with the supervenience of the phenomenal on the
intentional—indeed, it entails such a supervenience thesis—and yet it is
difficult to classify this position as a bona fide version of
intentionalism.
What
justifies the claim that literal projectivism and related views are not bona
fide versions of intentionalism? The distinction here is elusive, but I think
the main point might be brought out by noting that intentionalism is usually
developed within the context of what is in effect a certain sort of
reductionism, according to which the difference between psychological states is
a matter of variation along two dimensions, informational content and
functional role. Every psychological
state is to be distinguished on this view, depending on its informational
content and functional role. So, for example,
on this view, the difference between belief and desire, and between one belief
and another, is a difference that is capturable somehow or other in a
difference between informational content and functional role. Similarly, the difference between experience
and belief, and between one experience and another, is a difference that is
capturable somehow or other in a difference between informational content and
functional role. The problem with
literal projectivism is that it is most naturally understood as appealing to a third dimension of difference, namely,
whether there are qualia or not, and this justifies us in regarding it as not a
version of intentionalism.
In setting aside some positions as ‘not bona
fide’ versions of intentionalism, I am not suggesting that the assessment of
these views is simple or straightforward. Nor do I mean to suggest that they
are in any sense less plausible than intentionalism. It might certainly be that
adopting one or other of these compromise views can be justified by
argument. Still, in investigating the
consequences of intentionalism I mean to be investigating the consequences, not
of these compromise positions, but of bona fide intentionalism. So it follows that one possible response to
our inquiry is to abandon intentionalism in favor of one or another of these
compromise views.[6]
IV
So far I have
been concerned simply to review some central ideas associated with
intentionalism. But, returning to our main theme, what of the transitivity
argument and the impact of intentionalism on the hard problem? I said earlier that my own approach will be
to suggest that the argument involves a fallacy of equivocation. But we will have a deeper understanding of
the issue if we appreciate the different possibilities before us.
The
first possibility is to deny the first premise. One version of this option is to adopt the view that as a matter
of fact every experience has both intentional and phenomenal aspects, but it is not the case that the former
supervenes on the latter, or at least does not do so with metaphysical
necessity. Another version explores the possibility of weakening the
supervenience thesis that intentionalism invokes. If the supervenience thesis at issue were a ‘within a world’
thesis or a natural supervenience thesis, then we would not be able to derive
the troubling conclusion. Notice that
both positions are consistent with Brentano’s Thesis which says only that every
psychological state has some intentionality or other.
The
problem with denying the first premise is that there is considerable
theoretical reason to adopt intentionalism (or at least the supervenience
thesis it implies) in some form or other. Suppose we agree that there are two
features of an experience, its intentionality and its phenomenal
character. Now the question to be asked
is, what is the relation between them?
Considerations of theoretical economy suggest that we should suppose
that there is a dependency relationship here.
It
is sometimes said that there are reasons beyond theoretical economy for
supposing that intentionalism is true. For example, one argument here is the
so-called argument from diaphanousness.
The starting point of this argument is the thesis of diaphanousness, the
phenomenological point that one attends to the phenomenal character of one’s
experience by attending the objects and properties presented in that
experience. For example, when I focus
on the phenomenal character of my experience of looking at the gray filing cabinet,
I apparently do so by focusing on the gray filing cabinet. From this it is concluded that a state with
phenomenal character must also exhibit intentionality—experiences with
phenomenal character seem by their nature something that we have introspective
access to, and if one has access to experiences by concentrating on their
intentionality, it is reasonable to say that every experience has
intentionality. The final step of the
argument is to draw the conclusion that intentionalism is true.
However,
the problem with this argument is that it does not establish the supervenience
thesis in the strong form that is required by intentionalism. All it establishes is that every phenomenal
state or event is a state or event with intentional content—all that is
established, in other words, is a version of Brentano’s thesis. But in order to
move from Brentano’s thesis to supervenience one will need a consideration such
as theoretical economy. I am not
suggesting that this consideration is absent or implausible—quite the
contrary. But I am suggesting that it is necessary component in any case for
intentionalism.[7]
The
second possibility is to deny the second premise and deny that the intentional
supervenes on the physical. From this
point of view, the supervenience of the intentional on the physical is as
problematic as the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical and for the
same reasons.
One
thing to say about this possibility is that, in the form that I have been
discussing it, the supervenience of the intentional on the physical is certainly
questionable. For in the form that I
have been discussing it, the thesis is true of any two experiences in any two worlds. While this is a
reasonable assumption when the focus is on intentionalism, it is much less
reasonable when the focus is on physicalism, as it is in the second premise and
the conclusion of the argument.
However, as I noted previously (fn. 4) this is only a
simplification. Horgan, Lewis and
others have developed proposals about how to transform a supervenience thesis
which applies to any two worlds into a supervenience thesis that applies to our
world in particular, and there is no reason why those proposals could not be
implemented in the present case. Of
course, in order for the argument to remain valid, the supervenience thesis in
the conclusion will likewise need to be adjusted but there appears to be no
special problem in doing so.
Apart
from the issue of the formulation of the supervenience thesis, however, the
general idea that we should abandon premise two is surely an overreaction to
the argument. At any rate we should certainly not adopt the position that in
the case of intentionality that has no connection to the standard examples that
motivate the hard problem—mere
intentionality, as I will call it—we have reason to suspect a failure of
supervenience on the physical. For it
is simply not the case that the relation between mere intentionality and the
physical presents us with the same sort of problem as the relation between the
phenomenal and the physical. In the
latter case, we have a series of arguments, such as the knowledge argument and
the conceivability argument, which make it plausible that the relation between
the phenomenal and the physical is contingent, and so not a matter of
supervenience. But we do not have
analogues of these arguments in the case of intentionality as such.
This
is not to say that there are no puzzles about the relation between the merely
intentional and the physical. For
example, Kripke’s (1992) Wittgenstein provides precisely such a puzzle. But discussions of problems such as those
posed by Kripke’s Wittgenstein standardly proceed on the assumption that the
intentional does supervene on the physical.
These problems raise what are sometimes called vindication
questions—i.e., questions about explaining or justifying a supervenience thesis
which is presumed to be true. But in the phenomenal case we are not faced with
a vindication project, or at least are not in the first instance. We are not worried about vindicating a
supervenience thesis which we agree to be true. We are rather attempting to
defend the truth of a supervenience thesis in the first place.
The
final possibility is to accept that the transitivity argument is sound, and
therefore that its conclusion is true.
I have already said that I will not be concerned with the truth of the
conclusion, but I do think that we should be suspicious of any attempt to
endorse the soundness of the transitivity argument.
One
problem is that the transitivity argument presents a route to materialism about
the phenomenal which is altogether too quick.
One may see this if one notices that neither of the premises of the
transitivity argument have by themselves any connection to the arguments that
people typically discuss in the course of discussing the hard problem, such as
the knowledge argument or the conceivability argument. It is easy enough to
imagine philosophers who suppose that the knowledge argument (for example) is
sound, and yet accept the first premise the transitivity argument. And then
again it is easy enough to imagine philosophers who suppose that the knowledge
argument is sound in the case of phenomenal properties, think that nothing of
the sort is true in the case of the intentional properties, and so accept the
second premise of the argument.
Of
course, one might say that the transitivity argument is simply another argument
for the conclusion that one should support the supervenience of the phenomenal
on the physical, an argument that is quite independent of the knowledge argument. In this sense it is fruitfully compared to
causal arguments which suggest that, regardless of the persuasiveness of the
knowledge and conceivability arguments, one should accept that the phenomenal
supervenes on the physical, the reason being that the supervenience of the
phenomenal on the physical is the best way of legitimating the causal efficacy
of the phenomenal.
However,
there is a difference between any version of the causal argument and the
transitivity argument. It is true that causal arguments of one or
another variety present the possibility of a completely independent line of
argument in favor of the supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical. But—as I will argue in more detail in a
moment—it is not clear that the considerations lying behind the transitivity
argument are in this sense independent.
Suppose that one has reasons to deny the conclusion of the transitivity
argument, say on the basis of the knowledge argument. It seems very plausible to suppose that those very reasons or at
least closely related reasons are going to give you reasons to deny at least
one of the premises of the transitivity argument. But if so, it is mistaken to invoke the transitivity argument as
an independent route to the denial of the conclusion of the knowledge argument.
V
If we are
faced with a formally valid argument which looks too good to be sound, and we
cannot see a straightforward way to deny either of its premises, the only other
option is to suggest that there is a fallacy of equivocation in the reasoning,
and so that the argument is in that sense unpersuasive. In this section I want
to argue that this is in fact the case.
(i) The objection stated.
The reason for
supposing that the transitivity argument is unpersuasive can be stated in
outline very simply. Suppose first that
there is a certain sort of information which is the informational content of an
experience—call it, without prejudice, experiential information. If experiential information has the
resources to ground the phenomenal character of experience, then—the objection goes—it is very likely
that the hard problem of phenomenal character will simply be transposed into
the hard problem of experiential information, a problem which is the direct
counterpart of the original hard problem.
On the other hand, if experiential information is such that it does not on its own give rise to the hard
problem, or to a counterpart problem, then it is very plausible to suppose that
experiential information does not ground phenomenal character, and that
intentionalism is false.
If this objection can be made good,
it follows that the transitivity argument is unpersuasive. For that argument implicitly invites us to
consider a notion of experiential information which, first, supports the phenomenal
character of experience, but, second, does not raise the problems of phenomenal
character. On the other hand, if the
objection we just stated is correct, it follows that there is no such notion:
the notion of experiential information presupposed in the first premise is
distinct from that presupposed in the second.
In
order to bring out this objection in further detail, we may concentrate on a
particular example. Thus, suppose that
(4) reports a particular visual experience.
(4) It appears to John that the book on the
table is red.
Of course, the
suggestion involves a considerable amount of idealization. For one thing, not
everyone accepts the propositional form of (4) as appropriate to the nature of
experience. In addition, any genuine experience will be considerably richer in
respect of informational content that one would predict from (4). Nevertheless,
it is reasonable to abstract away from these issues for purposes of discussion.
We may think of (4) a microcosm of the debate, and therefore a useful example
with which to work.
Now,
the question I want to ask about (4) is this:
how is the occurrence of ‘red’ here to be interpreted? The informational
content of the experience reported by (4) is presumably encoded in the
proposition denoted by its constituent ‘that’-clause. So—to put our question differently—what is that proposition? What
I want to suggest is that however one answers the question, the transitivity
argument fails.
(ii)The physicalist interpretation.
One answer to
our question is suggested by the physicalist account of color. According to this account, the property red
is to be identified with some physical property, say a spectral reflectance
property of some sort—to fix ideas, let us say that, according to physicalism,
red = ref, where ‘ref’ is some spectral
reflectance property. If we answer our
question in the light of this account, we might say that (4) is to be
understood as (4-phys):
(4-phys) It appears to John that the book is
ref.
In saying that
this is an interpretation suggested by physicalism about color, I do not mean
to suggest that physicalists about
color would necessarily endorse it. In
fact, one cannot derive (4-phys) from (4) without helping oneself to
significant and controversial premises from the philosophy of language. It is not at all clear that a physicalist
about color need or should endorse those premises.[8] So the point at this stage is not that this
is the interpretation of the occurrence of ‘red’ favored by the physicalist,
nor that this interpretation is particularly plausible. The point is only the weaker one that this
is a possible interpretation of that occurrence.
Suppose
then that (4) is in interpreted as (4-phys). How does this suggestion bear on
the premises of the transitivity argument?
Well, on this interpretation what the first premise of the argument says
or implies is that if two experiences are the same in representing physical
properties such as ref, then they are the same in terms of phenomenal
character. And what the second premise
says or implies is that if two experiences are the same in terms of physical
character, they are same in terms of whether they represent the world as
instantiating these physical properties.
But
on this version of the argument, while it seems plausible to say that the
second premise is true, the first premise is false.
The
reason for rejecting the first premise has been set out by Ned Block (1990,
2000). One example he uses is the inverted, acclimatized, amnesiac, Fred (as we
may call him). Poor Fred proceeds through
four stages. At stage 1, Fred is
normal: he sees green grass, his
experience has a phenomenal character of the green variety—i.e., the phenomenal
character normally associated with experiences as of grass—and his verbal
behavior is of a kind that is usual for a subject presented with green grass,
i.e., he is disposed to say ‘that’s green’, &c. At stage 2, Fred is
fitted (never mind how) with an inverter:
he sees green grass, his experience has a phenomenal character of the red variety—i.e., the phenomenal
character normally associated with experiences as of tomatoes—and he says
`that's red'. At stage 3, thirty years
later, Fred is acclimatized: he sees
green grass, his experience has phenomenal character of the red variety, he is
disposed to say ‘that’s green’, but he is also disposed to say ‘I remember when
green things produced an experience with a different character’. At stage 4, Fred loses his memory: he sees green grass, his experience has
phenomenal character of the red variety, he is disposed to say ‘that's
green’. What Block points out is that
the experience that Fred has at stage 4 would seem to be different in the
relevant respects from the experience he is having at stage 1. Nevertheless, the informational content of
the experience is the same, so long as one interprets that content in the way
suggested by the physicalist account of color. To put matters in our terms,
what Block argues is that that if one interprets (4) as (4-phys) then it is
very plausible to deny intentionalism on the basis of examples such as Fred. So
Fred constitutes a decisive counterexample to intentionalism, so long as
experiential information is understood in this way.
Now,
Block himself wants to draw the more general moral from this conclusion that
intentionalism is false. In light of
the fact that there are other interpretations of the occurrence of ‘red’ in
(4), and so other versions of intentionalism, that conclusion looks premature. But the important point for us is that on
the first interpretation we have considered, intentionalism, and so the first
premise of the transitivity argument, is false.
(iii) The dispositionalist
interpretation.
The
main rival to the physicalist account of color is the dispositionalist or
Lockean account. According to this
account, being red is to be identified with the disposition to look red to
normal observers in normal contexts—to fix ideas, let us suppose that on this
interpretation, red = disp, where is the disposition on the part of an object
to look red in the right circumstances.
If we answer our question in the light of this account, we can say that
(4) is to understood as (4-disp):
(4-disp) It appears to John that the book is
disp.
Again, in
saying that this is an interpretation suggested by dispositionalism about
color, I am not suggesting that dispositionalists
about color would necessarily endorse it. Once again, one cannot derive
(4-disp) from (4) without helping oneself to significant and controversial
premises from the philosophy of language.
It is not at all clear that a dispositionalist about color need or
should endorse those premises.[9] So again the point at this stage is not
that this is the interpretation of the occurrence of ‘red’ favored by the
dispositionalist, nor that this interpretation is particularly plausible. The point is only the weaker one that this
is a possible interpretation of that occurrence.
Suppose
then that (4) is understood as (4-disp).
How does that bear on the transitivity argument? Well, on this interpretation, the first premise
of the argument says or implies that if two experiences are identical in terms
of representing objects as being disp, then they are identical in terms of
phenomenal character. And what the
second premise says or implies is that if two experiences are identical in
physical respects, they are identical in respect of representing objects as
being disp.
But
interpreted this way the situation is the reverse of that which obtained in the
case of the physicalist interpretation:
while the first premise seems plausible, the second premise is
implausible, or rather is as implausible as the conclusion of the transitivity
argument, and for the very same reasons.
The
reason for the implausibility of the second premise comes out when we notice
that, unlike (4-phys), (4-disp) includes an occurrence of ‘red’—at least it
does so when we recall that ‘disp’ simply abbreviates ‘disposed to look red in
the right circumstances’. There is
notoriously a question for the dispositionalist about how to interpret this
occurrence, but on any way of interpreting it, what the dispositionalist is
saying is that objects which are red are disposed to produce experiences which
have a certain phenomenal character.
Understood this way, the second premise says that if two experiences are
identical in physical respects they are identical in respect of representing
objects as being disposed to produce this phenomenal character. But if that is what the second premise says
it is vulnerable to the very same lines of argument that challenge the
conclusion.
One
of these lines of argument, for example, is the knowledge argument, which
begins by pointing out that one could know all the physical truths about an
experience without knowing about its phenomenal character. The conclusion is then drawn that the
phenomenal truths cannot be wholly a matter of the physical truths concerning
an experience. Of course, there are a
number of questions about whether such a conclusion could be drawn from this
premise. However, whatever one thinks
of the details of the argument, surely the very same line of argument, or at
least a counterpart of the argument, could now be used to threaten the second
premise of the transitivity argument in the sense that we are intending it. For
consider: to the extent that it seems plausible to say that one might know all
the physical truths concerning an experience and not know the phenomenal
truths, it is equally plausible that one might know all the physical truths
about an experience without knowing if
or whether it represents objects as being disposed to produce this
phenomenal character. To make the case
vivid, imagine someone who has forgotten what the phenomenal character of an
experience of red is. According to the
knowledge argument, such a person could not work out for himself what the
experience is like, no matter how much physical information he had at his
disposal. Similarly, imagine someone
who has forgotten whether an experience of red represents objects has producing
this phenomenal character—again, that person could not work this out from
physical information alone. In short,
if (4) is interpreted as (4-disp), the second premise of the transitivity
argument is as controversial as its conclusion, and for precisely the same
reasons.
It
is important to note that in saying that, on this interpretation, the second
premise of the transitivity argument is implausible in the way that the
conclusion of the argument already is, I am not saying that the premise is
implausible sans phrase, still less
that it is false. What I am saying is that, on this interpretation, the
argument could not be persuasive because the reasons for doubting the
conclusion of the argument are the very same as the reasons for doubting one of
its premises. It is in this sense that
the transitivity argument is implausible.
(iv) The primitivist interpretation.
The
final of interpretation I will consider is that suggested by primitivism about
color. It is often argued against
dispositionalism that colors do not appear to be dispositional properties of an
object (e.g. McGinn 1996). Rather, the
color of an object appears to be an intrinsic or non-relational feature of an
object, rather like its size or shape, a property that is smoothly and
homogeneously distributed across the surface of objects, and one that is
irreducible to other physical properties that qualify objects. According to primitivism, this appearance
should be taken at face value: colors are irreducible and intrinsic properties
of physical objects—to fix ideas, let us say that, on this view, red = prim,
where ‘prim’ is some primitive property. On this view (4) is interpreted as
follows:
(4-prim) It
appears to John that the book on the table is prim.
Now, while
primitivism is attractive from a phenomenological point of view, according to
many philosophers it cannot be the truth about what colors actually are.[10] We know enough about the physics of the
situation, they say, to know that objects do not have primitive homogenous
intrinsic properties. So on this interpretation (4-prim) attributes an
erroneous experience to John. Once
again, however, my interest here is not so much with (4-prim) as what it tells
us about the transitivity argument
Suppose then that (4) is interpreted as
(4-prim); how does this bear on the
argument? On this interpretation, the
first premise of the transitivity argument says that two experiences identical
in representing an object as prim are phenomenally identical. And the second premise says that two
experiences which are physically identical are identical in respect of whether
they represent objects as prim.
So interpreted, however, our response to
the argument should parallel our response to the argument on its
dispositionalist interpretation: while
the first premise now looks plausible, the second is implausible, and for the
very same reasons that the conclusion of the argument looks implausible. Once again, suppose someone rejects the
conclusion of the argument on the basis of the knowledge argument; such a person would likewise reject the second
premise of the argument interpreted in the light of the primitivist account of
color. If physical knowledge about an
experience does not suffice for knowledge of what the phenomenal character of
an experience is, then it likewise does not suffice for knowledge of whether
the experience represents objects as being prim, as opposed to anything else.
As before, I am not saying here that the
knowledge argument presents a good reason to reject the conclusion of the
transitivity argument. I am simply
saying that, if one thought that it did, one would likewise think one had a
good reason to reject the second premise of the argument. As before, therefore, the argument is
unpersuasive.
(v) Objections and replies.
My
overall objection to the transitivity argument is that there is no way to
interpret its two premises so that they are both plausible. If the physicalist interpretation is
adopted, the first premise of the argument is false. If the dispositionalist or primitivist interpretation is adopted,
then while the first premise is true, or seems true, the second premise looks
no more plausible than the conclusion of the argument. On no interpretation, therefore, is the
argument plausible.
How might one respond to this line of
argument? First, one might wonder
whether the argument has covered all the cases. Perhaps there are theories of color which I have not
considered? I grant that this is a
possibility. But philosophers have been
discussing color for a long time, and these three accounts seem to be the ones
they have converged on. So it is
plausible to suppose that these three accounts exhaust our options, or at least
our relevant options.[11]
Second, one might object that the argument is being distorted by the
formal mode in which I have put the question.
The semantic question of how one understands the word ‘red’ as it occurs
in (1) seems quite unlike the questions about the intentionality of the
experience that are my main concern.
I myself am somewhat skeptical of the
methodology lying behind this objection, but nevertheless I think there is a
way of putting the point that abstracts away from the semantic issues. For
suppose we introduce the notion of a visual world, i.e. the world (or, better,
set of worlds) as it is presented in visual experience. We can now ask: what is the theory of color that is true at the visual
world? This is of course not the
question of what theory of color is true at the actual world. It is open to
someone to say that the theory of color true at the actual world is not the
theory that is true at the visual world.
Typically, when people describe themselves as (e.g.) physicalists about
color, they are saying that physicalism about color is true at the actual
world. However, that commitment leaves
open what theory of color is true at the visual world. What I have been saying is that if
physicalism is the theory of color that is true at the visual world, then
intentionalism is false; if either
dispositionalism or primitivism is true
at the visual world, then intentionalism is true but the hard problem remains
untouched.
Third, one might object that the
versions of intentionalism suggested by the interpretation of (4) as either
(4-disp) and (4-prim) are not bona fide version of intentionalism. We noted in §3 that some positions, while
agreeing with the supervenience of the phenomenal on the intentional should not
be thought of as genuine versions of intentionalism on the grounds that they do
not comfortably sit with the reductionist approach to mental states according
to which the difference between any two psychological state is to be accounted
for as a difference between informational content and functional role. Perhaps it might be thought that to construe
(4) as (4-prim), say, is to take up one of those positions.
However, in considering the
possibility that (4) be rendered as (4-prim), we have not departed from the
root idea of intentionalism. The primitivist conception provides us with a
particular picture of what the world is like, in fact it presents an account of
colors that are is wholly separable from one’s experience. We might believe or want the world to be
that way, and we might represent the world to be that way in experience. But none of this suggests that the
difference between mental states is not to be explained ultimately in terms of
a differences along the dimensions of informational content and functional
role.
Finally, one might object that my
suggestion in the case of the dispositionalist or primitivist interpretation of
the argument is too quick. The intentionality of a mental state is often
understood in relational terms—to be in an intentional state is a matter of
being related in such and such a way to a property or a proposition. However, we noted previously that, the
knowledge argument, for example, could not be developed against the mere
intentionality of a mental state in the same way as it could be developed
against its phenomenal character. This
suggests that, so far as physicalism is concerned, there is no problem about my
merely being related in the intentional way to a property or a proposition
consistently. However, that conclusion
is apparently independent of what precisely are
the relata of the relation, i.e. of what sort of properties or propositions
constitute the relata of the relation.
And one might infer from this, that just as we apparently have no
problem as far as physicalism goes when the relata of the relation are
properties such as ref, we should likewise have no problem when the relata of
the relation are properties such as prim.
However,
the problem with this suggestion is the inference from ‘there is no problem
about standing intentional relation to some property as such’ to ‘there is no
problem about standing in an intentional relation to some property where doing
so involves some phenomenal character’.
In general, we know that there were certain aspects of the psychological
realm that are the subject matter of the hard problem. The observation that that these aspects are
intentional and that there is no problem in general about intentional states,
does not entail that there is no problem about phenomenal character.
VI
My interest in
the transitivity argument is driven by a background interest in the relation
between intentionalism and the hard problem.
My assumption has been that if the transitivity argument is persuasive
then intentionalism would certainly have an impact on the hard problem. But I
have argued that it is not persuasive – there is no interpretation of its
central terms which allow for the joint truth of both premises. To that extent, I think it is reasonable to
conclude that intentionalism is going to have a minimal impact on the hard
problem.[12]
At
this point, there are two distinct directions in which the discussion might
proceed. First, taking to heart the
idea that intentionalism will have a minimal role in a solution to the hard
problem, one might go on to ask what would
play a role in such a solution. Second,
one might go on to ask what the consequences of intentionalism are, if the
doctrine does not impact on the hard problem. To discuss the first issue would
be to take up the question of what the solution to the hard problem is. I have already sworn off any such ambitions
for this paper. So what I want to do in
the remainder of the paper is explore a suggestion about what the other
consequences of intentionalism might be.
For it seems to me that, while intentionalism has a minimal impact on
questions of phenomenal character, what we have said so far suggests that its
impact is surprisingly large in an area which is to some extent a close cousin
of the issue of phenomenal character,
namely, the issue of the secondary qualities. In particular, I want to suggest that intentionalism implies the
truth of the error theory, the doctrine that experience of color is
systematically false.
The
relation of intentionalism to the question of color realism is an abstract
issue, even by the standards of philosophy of mind. So, to focus matters, I will concentrate on an argument which
tells us that if intentionalism is true, then projectivism must be true also—I
will call it the dual role argument.
The dual role argument starts with the
observation that concepts of color play a dual role in our thought and
talk. On the one hand, color concepts can
be used to attribute properties or qualify physical objects (including volumes
and lights), as when one says that the table is red. Let us call this the qualifying role of concepts of color. On
the other hand, color concepts can be used to characterize the content of an
experience, as when one says that one is having an experience as of red. Let us call this the characterizing role of concepts of color. Of course, to some extent the distinction is a general one. One could say the same thing about concepts
of furniture or trees.
Now,
so far my concentration has been on the characterizing side of
characterizing/qualifying distinction.
Earlier, when we considered the idea that ‘red’ in (4) might be
understood in accordance with the physicalist, dispositionalist or primitivist
conception of color, this was a suggestion about whether these conceptions of
color could play the characterizing role.
In effect our suggestion was that only some of these conceptions of color
could plausibly be drawn on to play the characterizing role, compatibly with
the assumption of intentionalism.
But
this point raises another more basic issue, namely, is there a concept of color that can play both roles?
Reflection on this question seems to confront us with a dilemma, a dilemma
which comes out most clearly if we concentrate initially on the contrast
between physicalism and primitivism.
Resolving this dilemma will lead, I think, to the conclusion that
intentionalism and error theory go together.
Suppose
it is thought that the primitivist conception of color is the one that can play
these two roles. This suggestion is
plausible if one is concentrating on the characterizing role of the concept of
color. But it is not plausible if one
is concentrating on the qualifying role. For it is not clear that physical
objects have any of the properties attributed to them by the primitivist
account, so an error theory of color seems to be the only answer on this
conception. In short, on this horn of
the dilemma, we get the result that intentionalism is true, and yet error
theory is also true.
Suppose on the other hand it is
thought that the physicalist conception of color is the one that plays both
roles. This suggestion is plausible if one is concentrating on the qualifying
role of the concept of color—for it seems clear that physical objects do have
the properties attributed to them by the physicalist conception, and so an
error theory is avoided. But it is not
plausible if one is concentrating on the characterizing role. For if the physicalist conception plays the
characterizing role we lose the plausibility of intentionalism. In short, on this horn of the dilemma, we
get the result that projectivism is false, and yet intentionalism is false also.
The contrast between physicalism and
primitivism is certainly suggestive of the conclusion of the dual role
argument, namely intentionalism and error theory go together. However before
this conclusion is established we need to consider two obvious responses. The first response is dispositionalism. The second response is to give up a
presupposition of the argument, namely that there is a single conception of
color which plays both roles. I will
argue that the second response to the argument is the best one, but that this
second response leaves an important grain of truth in the error theory. But first we need to consider
dispositionalism
VIII
The most
straightforward way to respond to the dual role argument is to propose that a
dispositionalist conception of color can play both the qualifying role and the
characterizing role. There seems to be
no particular question about physical objects having the dispositional
properties discussed in the dispositionalist conception, and so there seems no
problem in its playing the qualifying role.
However, there are at least two objections to the idea that the
dispositionalist account plays the characterizing role, or at least can do so
without a revision of the notion of experience.[13]
The
first objection is the phenomenological objection that, as it is sometimes put,
‘colors do not look like dispositions’.
In some cases this objection is presented as showing directly that
colors are not dispositions, and so cannot play the qualifying role. So understood, the objection is mistaken
(cf. Byrne 2001a). The mere fact that colors do not look like dispositions does
not entail that they are not dispositions.
However, there is another way to state the objection, according to which
it is much more powerful and much more pertinent to our concern. On this interpretation, the phenomenological
objection shows, not that colors might not be
dispositions, but that they are not represented as such in the content of
visual experience. This would show
that the dispositional conception of color cannot play the characterizing role,
for if it did then colors should look like dispositions.
The
second objection is the circularity objection (cf. Boghossian and Velleman
1989). We noted earlier that there is famously a question for the
dispositionalist, namely, how to account for the occurrence of red in ‘It
appears to John that the book is disposed to look red’. One possibility here is to construe ‘red’ in
this context as denoting a sensory property (Peacocke 1983). But this position is of course unavailable
to the intentionalist. Another
possibility is to refuse to say what the occurrence means at all, and simply
reiterate that ‘red’ means red. But now
it is unclear what the difference is between it appearing to John that the book
is red and its appearing to him that the book is green. An intentionalist needs to say what the
difference between these two states, and the problem is that dispositionalism
seems to be incapable of explaining this difference.
Lying behind these objections is the fact
that dispositionalism is usually developed against the background of theory of
perceptual experience other than intentionalism. If one can appeal to a notion
of sensation which is theoretically in good standing, then it is easy to define
up the property of being caused to produce that sensation. But if one is operating with an
intentionalist conception of experience, it is not so clear that
dispositionalism can be developed, or at least can be developed as a conception
which is intended to play the characterizing role.
It
might perhaps be that dispositionalism can be developed in such a way that it
avoids the phenomenological and the circularity objections. But I think that taken together these
objections strongly motivate the search for an alternative response to the dual
role argument. And in fact, there is a response available. The alternative is to reject a
presupposition of the argument, namely that a single concept can play both the
qualifying role and the characterizing role.[14] If one adopts the hypothesis that the primitivists
conception plays the characterizing role, and the physicalist conception (or
the dispositionalist conception) plays the qualifying role, one may avoid the
dual role argument.
Motivation for this sort of
ambiguity-based account[15]
can be brought out as follows. A lesson
of much recent literature on color is that not everything that we spontaneously
or naturally believe about color can be true simultaneously. Mark Johnston brings out the point vividly
by suggesting that, when it comes to color, we need to speak less inclusively
in order to speak truly. The problem
that we are facing here is similar in structure to that faced by Johnston,
namely, there is a conflict between two things we would like to say about color
experience, first that intentionalism is true, and second that color experience
is in general veridical, and so that there are in fact properties of physical
objects which deserve the name ‘color.
What the ambiguity theory reminds us is that the conflict arises because
we tacitly believe something further, namely that the conception of color that
plays the qualifying role is the same as that which plays the characterizing
role. If that belief is overcome or
resisted, then the conflict is effectively quarantined, since the conception of
color appropriate to characterizing experience is distinct from the conception
appropriate to qualifying objects.
Of course the ambiguity view does not completely defeat the dual
role argument. For it remains true that
color experience remains illusory, and moreover does so in a systematic
way. Instead of saying that the
ambiguity view defeats the dual role argument, therefore, it is better to say
that the view provides us a way to re-interpret our talk about color in such a
way that it comes out true, at least most of the time. In Johnston’s terms it
provides a strategy for speaking ever less inclusively about the colors, in
such a way that color talk comes out generally as true.
X
I have been
considering two lines of argument designed to bring out the consequences of
intentionalism. The first line of
argument, summarized as the transitivity argument, purported to show that
intentionalism would directly have an impact on the hard problem. I argued that
the transitivity argument was unpersuasive, and drew the more general
conclusion that intentionalism has no impact on the hard problem. The second line of argument, summarized as
the dual role argument, purported to show that intentionalism would directly
have an impact on the issue of the
secondary qualities, and in particular that it entails that the error theory is
true. I suggested that the dual role
argument is persuasive, but sought to minimize the impact of the argument by
providing an ambiguity view.
I
want now to close the paper by considering an objection that brings together
the two lines of argument I have examined.
The objection is that there is an asymmetry in our response to the two arguments. When responding to the transitivity argument I never once took
seriously the possibility that one might provide a revisionary or eliminativist
account of experience. On the other
hand, when discussing the dual role argument, I endorsed an eliminativist or
revisionist conception of color. What
justifies this asymmetry in attitude?
Why is eliminativism about color a view to be taken seriously while
eliminativism about color experience is not?
One
response says that eliminativism about experience is an incoherent position
while eliminativism about color is not.
This line of argument goes roughly as follows. The question of whether experience exists raises a question
concerning a contingent matter of fact.
But in raising a question of contingent matter of fact we have no
recourse but to involve ourselves in empirical enquiry. But empirical enquiry by
its nature relies on experience. It
follows—or so the argument goes—that there is no possibility that the outcome
of an empirical enquiry could be that there are no experiences. We would be involved in a pragmatic or
perhaps methodological contradiction, if not a formal contradiction, if one
thought that one could have an empirical argument for the conclusion that
experiences don’t exist.
The problem with this argument is
that it does not allow the eliminativists a distinction that is available to
them both here and elsewhere, a distinction between various different
conceptions of experience. On the one
hand, there is what I will call the
target conception—the conception of experience according to which, there
are no experiences, if eliminativism is true.
Then there is what I will call the
replacement conception—the conception according to which there are experiences. When confronted with the paradoxical aspect
of their position, eliminativists are quick to point out that they are not
denying experience in every sense of the word.
They emphasize that from their point of view, experience does exist in the only sense
possible: according to the replacement
conception. In short, while it would be
certainly convenient for my position to say that it is incoherent to eliminate
experience, while not incoherent to eliminate color, to say that also seems to
be indefensible in general.
If
one should not respond to the objection with the response that eliminativism
about experience is incoherent how should one respond? In my view, the crucial difference between
eliminativism about color and eliminativism about experience emerges when we
notice that any argument to eliminativism must at some point appeal to an
empirical premise. In the case of
eliminativism about color, for example, the premise in question has to do with
the empirical facts concerning the objects, light and volumes that are
colored. It seems reasonable in those
cases to say that we know enough about that situation to know that such things
do not have the properties attributed to them by experience. In the case of eliminativism about
experience, on the other hand, no parallel claim is plausible. We simply do not know enough about the
physical facts underlying experience to be able to draw the inference that
eliminativism about experience is true.
A
common metaphor when thinking about the secondary qualities and the mind, at
least as these were thought of in the seventeenth century, is ‘the dustbin of
the mind’—the general idea is that various aspects of the world are simply
projections of our minds rather than real aspects of the world. This metaphor went along with a conception
of the mind that was metaphysically dualist, and so I think should be rejected.
Nevertheless, the dustbin metaphor is in many ways apt, for it reminds us that
there is our ignorance of these matters is so profound, so profound that it can
sometimes seem like a metaphysical mystery.
What I have been suggesting is that, while the issue is mysterious
alright, there is no reason to view it as metaphysical.
References:
Armstrong,
David. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Boghossian,
P. and Velleman, D. 1989. ‘Colour as a Secondary Quality’, Mind, 98 (1989) pp. 81-103.
Block,
N. 1990. ‘Inverted Earth’, in
Tomberlin, J. (ed.) 1990 Philosophical
Perspectives, Vol. 4, Ridgeview, pp.52-79.
Reprinted in Block et alia, (eds.) 1997 The Nature of
Consciousness: Philosophical
Debates, MIT Press.
Block, N.
2000: ‘Mental Paint’. In Hahn, M and Ramberg, B (eds.) Essays in Honor of Tyler Burge, MIT Press.
References are to the PDF version.
Byrne, Alex
and Hilbert, D. 1997. ‘Introduction’. In Byrne, A and Hilbert, D. (eds.) 1997. Readings
On Color Volume I: The Philosophy of Color. MIT Press.
Byrne,
Alex. 2001. "Intentionalism
Defended", Philosophical Review
110, 2001
Byrne,
Alex. 2001a. "Do
Colours Look Like Dispositions? Reply to Langsam and Others." Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2001)
Chalmers,
David. 1996. The Conscious Mind. Oxford.
Crane,
Tim. 2002. Elements of Mind. Oxford.
Davies,
M. 1997. ‘Externalism and Experience’.
In Block et alia, (eds.) 1997 The
Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates, MIT Press.
Dretske,
Fred. 1995. Naturalizing the Mind. MIT Press.
Evans, Gareth. REF.
‘A Commentary on Chapter One of Strawson’s Individuals’. In Evans,
Gareth. 1985. Collected Papers. Oxford.
Harman,
G. 1990: ‘The Intrinsic Quality of Experience’, Philosophy of Mind and Action Theory: Philosophical Perspectives. 4:31-52.
Harman, G.
1996: ‘Explaining Objective Color in
terms of Subjective Reactions’. In
Villanueva, E. (ed) 1996 , Atascadero, CA:
Ridgeview.
Horgan,
T. 1982. ‘Supervenience and Microphysics’. Pacific Philosophical
Quarterly, 63, 1982, 29-43.
Johnston, M. 1992.
‘How to Speak of the Colors’. Philosophical Studies. 68 (1992) pp.
221-63.
Kripke,
S. 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and
Private Language. Harvard.
Lewis, D. 1983.
New Work for a Theory of Universals’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61, 1983. Pp. 343-77.
Lycan,
William. 1996. Consciousness
and Experience. MIT Press.
McGinn, Colin.
1996. ‘Another Look at Color’, Journal of Philosophy, 93: 537-53.
Peacocke, C.
1983 . Sense and Content. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Tye,
M. 1995. Ten Problems of Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Tye, M
2000. Color, Content and Consciousness, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shoemaker, S. 1994.
'Phenomenal Character', Nous, 28
(1994), pp.21-38
Shoemaker,
S. 1996: The First Person Perspective and Other Essays, Cambridge University Press.
Shoemaker, S.
2001: ‘Introspection and Phenomenal
Character’. MS.
Stoljar,
D. Forthcoming. ‘The Argument from Diaphanousness’. In Stainton, R. and Escurdia, M. Language,
Mind and World. Oxford??
* Acknowledgements:
[1] For very good recent discussions of
intentionalism, see Byrne 2001, Crane 2002 and the references therein. It is important to note that that the
statement of intentionalism in the first sentence of the paper is rough—it is
clearly true that intentionalism entails the supervenience of the phenomenal on
the intentional, but the reverse entailment is more controversial. See fn. 4 and §3.2 for more discussion.
[2] Philosophers such Harman (1990, 1996),
Dretske (1995), Tye (2000) and Lycan (1996) defend intentionalism in the course
of defending various approaches to the hard problem. Ned Block (2000), a central critic of intentionalism, notoriously
says that the division between intentionalists and their opponents constitutes
“the greatest chasm in philosophy of mind”.
Byrne 2001 is more circumspect about this consequence, noting that one
easily enough divorce the issue of intentionalism from the hard problem, or at
least from questions about ‘naturalizing the mind’. But even Byrne says that when considering intentionalism, ‘it is
easy to see that the stakes are high’, and intentionalism “holds out the
promise of a ‘representational theory of consciousness’—it is difficult to put
these remarks in context without assuming that Byrne thinks intentionalism has
some impact on the hard problem.
[3] The idea of formulating these issues in
terms of the transitivity of various supervenience theses I take from Davies
(1998), who discusses a similar argument in a related context.
[4] My presentation of the transitivity
argument simplifies matters in at least two directions. First, as I have already noted (fn.1) and
will return to in § 3, intentionalism is better viewed as entailing (1) rather
than being identified with it. Second
both (2) and (3) are logically necessary whereas, as noted in §4, I take it
that the most plausible versions of materialism is contingent. Neither simplification affects the main
argument, however, and so for the time being they can be ignored.
[5] The assumption in question is that there
are more than two experiences which are different in phenomenal character. The reason for the assumption can be
brought out as follows. Brentano’s thesis is false if only one experience has
phenomenal character and yet no intentionality. But no trouble for
supervenience follows if only one experience has phenomenal character. However, I will set aside this
complication, for it is difficult to see what would motivate the restriction to
the single case here.
[6] It is worth stress at this point that
the impact of these compromise views on the hard problem seems to be the same
as the impact of bona fide intentionalism.
However, the consequences for the secondary qualities that I will
discuss in the second part of the paper are different. (Question:
Is that right?)
[7] For a much more comprehensive discussion
of the argument from diaphanousness, see Stoljar 2002 and the references
therein. (Question: Does the argument in Byrne 2001 suffer similarly?)
[8] In brief, what is
required is that from ‘It appears to S that the book is F’ and ‘F = G’ one may
derive ‘It appears to S that the book is G’.
In view of the fact that ‘It appears…’ contexts are plausibly
hyperintensional, it is not clear at all that this inference is valid. I will not make a judgement on the validity
of the inference however.
It should perhaps be noted in addition that
there are some problems with (4-phys) which are extracurricular in the present
context. The problem derives from the
fact that reports of the general form of (4)—appearance reports—may report
beliefs or experiences depending on how the basic notion of appearance is
interpreted. On the phenomenal
understanding of ‘appearance’, (4) reports a experience; on the epistemic understanding, (4) reports
a belief. Now, it is an assumption of
our discussion that the occurrence of ‘appearance’ in (4) and its ilk should be
interpreted phenomenally. But while it
is certainly possible that John believes that the book is ref, it is not clear
that it is so much as possible, as (4-phys) says, that it phenomenally appears
to him that the book is ref. To put
the point differently, it is not clear that the proposition that the book is
ref is a proposition that can characterize states of experience as opposed to
belief.
[9] The premise at issue
here is the same mentioned in fn. 8. It
should be noted that it is more plausible to suppose that the dispositionalist
conception plausibly provides the sense of the expression ‘red’, that it is
that the physicalist conception, which affects the issue of substitution. (Question:
can this be made more precise?)
[10] The issue of whether the sorts of
properties that the primitivist talks about are instantiated in the physical
world is a complicated issue. Many
primitivists do not hold an error theory, opting instead for a supervenience
based account. I think that this sort
of view is implausible but I cannot argue for that here.
It should also be noted that some philosophers argue that the
primitivist account is mistaken even from a phenomenological point of
view. Gareth Evans 1980, for example,
objects, first that the primitivist is committed to the idea that it cannot
explain the colors of objects in the dark, and, second, that it is guilty of
the same mistake as those who would think, in Wittgenstein’s example, that
portions of the world are in pain. I think that both objections rest on a
misunderstanding. On the issue of objects in the dark, a primitivist is
entitled to say that it a priori that red is the color disposed to look red,
and so there seems to be no trouble for objects in the dark as there is for
anybody else. On the issue of the pain
patches, the reason it is mistaken to apply pain to objects in the world is
that it is an a priori truth that pains are bodily sensations, so just as things
which are red are apples and not numbers, so thinks which are in pain are feet
and not apples. But primitivists are
allowed to say this as much as anyone else.
[11] It might perhaps be that Armstrong’s
account is a different account
here. He says (1968, p. xx) that the
concept of color s a ‘blank or gap’ in it. But I think this account is going to
face the same problem that the physicalist account, namely that it gets the
phenomenology wrong.
[12] It is important not to overstate this
conclusion. The hard problem, as I
understand it, is focused on the apparently contingent relation between
conscious experience an anything physical. But there are other aspects of the
overall question of consciousness—e.g. epistemological aspects—and
intentionalism might well make those aspects easier to solve.
[13] There is also a third objection that
might be mentioned. Some experiences are non-conceptual in the sense that one
can have an experience as of an F without knowing what an F is (in the sense of
‘knowing what’ demanded by concept possession). But it is unclear that this is true in the case of experiences as
of a disposition to F (cf. Byrne 2001a).
On the other hand, one can clearly have an experience as of red, without
knowing what red is (in that relevant sense).
So an experience as of red is simply not an experience as of disposition
to look red. This does not strictly
entail that they are phenomenologically different, for it is possible that the
phenomenal character of an experience is multiply realized in its
intentionality.
[14] This is a suggestion made by Boghossian
and Velleman 1989 but they do not develop it.
[15] It is important to notice that the
ambiguity view really does indeed import an ambiguity in the picture. One might miss this for one of two reasons. First, one might take the ambiguity theory
as suggesting only that ‘red experience’ does not quite mean what ‘red
ball’—‘red ball’ attributes redness to a particular ball, but ‘red experience
does not attribute redness to anything.
However, the difference between ‘red ball’ and ‘red experience’ is not
owing to an ambiguity in ‘red’, it is owing the structural ambiguity between
the two expressions. What the ambiguity
theory is suggesting on the other hand is that ‘red’ in ‘the ball is red’ and
‘red’ in ‘It appears to John that the book is red’ do not quite mean the same
thing. Second, one might take the
ambiguity theory as suggesting only ‘red’ is associated with two semantic
values, a sense and a reference, and that in (1) it is should be understood as
expressing its sense rather than its referent. This suggestion turns on whether
the primitivist account of color can be thought of as a proposal about the
sense of the expression ‘red’, while the physicalist or dispositionalist
account can be thought of a proposal about the reference. The problem is that, on the usual
interpretation of the sense/reference
distinction, the sense of an expression formulates or is associated with a
condition which is then satisfied by the reference. But colors-as-the-physicalist construes them precisely do not
satisfy the condition associated with the primitivist conception.