Print
DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-V029-1
Versions
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-V029-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/qualia/v-1

3. Our knowledge of qualia and other issues

It is often argued that we have special epistemic access to the qualitative properties of our own mental states: it is claimed that our knowledge of them is infallible, or at least that our beliefs about them have a kind of special authority, and also that these properties are transparent or self-intimating to the minds that experience them. To have infallible knowledge of a class of properties is for it to be logically or conceptually impossible for our (sincere) beliefs about them to be false; to have special authority about a class of properties is for it to be logically or conceptually necessary for most of our (sincere) beliefs about them to be true. A property is transparent or self-intimating if an individual (with adequate conceptual sophistication) cannot help but form accurate beliefs about it whenever it is present. Insofar as they bear these special epistemic relations to those (and only those) who experience them, qualitative properties are importantly different from physical (and classically objective) properties such as shape, temperature and length, about which beliefs may be both mildly and radically fallible. The question naturally arises whether qualitative properties, if they have the above-described epistemic features, could be physical, functional or otherwise objective nonetheless.

Functionalists can accommodate infallibility or special authority and transparency, since according to (at least some versions of) this doctrine, states with qualitative properties and the beliefs they produce are interdefined. Thus, as a matter of conceptual necessity, no state will count (for example) as an instance of pain unless it produces (either always or for the most part) the belief that one is in pain, and, conversely, no state will count as a belief that one is in pain unless it is actually produced by pain.

Nonfunctionalist physicalists, on the other hand, cannot point to a definitional connection between qualitative properties and an individual’s beliefs about them. Thus, some theorists merely reject infallibility and transparency, arguing that we can and do make sincere and unambiguous errors about our experiences (and fail to notice some of their properties) when we are tired and inattentive, or when misinformation skews our expectations about the experiences we are soon to have. It is more difficult, however, to argue that one can make such mistakes in the absence of these mitigating factors. Thus, many physicalists have attempted to show that at least some sort of special epistemic access to qualia is compatible with their metaphysical views.

For example, some philosophers have argued that a certain sort of introspective accuracy is insured by the proper operation of our cognitive faculties, and thus that, as a matter of law, we cannot be mistaken about (or fail to notice certain properties of) our mental states. On a view such as this, the claim that we are infallible about our mental states (or that they are transparent to us) will be nomologically necessary, but not necessary in any stronger sense. However, on nonfunctionalist physicalist views that treat qualitative concepts as demonstrative, certain statements of infallibility can be logically or conceptually necessary, in that one cannot be wrong, on any particular occasion, to think that one’s current mental state feels like that. Even so, one cannot be sure, on these views, that all states that appear to be of the same phenomenal type are in fact of that same phenomenal – that is, physical – type. Since this sort of infallibility does not guarantee that one has re-identified a single phenomenal type on different occasions, it cannot provide any substantive assurances about the nature or reality of our mental states.

There are other interesting issues about qualia which are worth mentioning, though their full discussion is beyond the scope of this entry. One involves the range or extent of their occurrence. Bodily sensations and perceptions, the most common examples of states with qualia, are often contrasted with beliefs and desires, in that the former are taken to be essentially qualitative, the latter essentially intentional (that is, purporting to be about items or events in the world) (see Bodily sensations; Perception; Intentionality; Propositional attitudes). Some theorists dispute this distinction, arguing that true intentional states must have qualitative properties as well. But whether or not intentional states must also be qualitative, it certainly seems (for occurrent beliefs and desires) that there is something it is like for us, if not all creatures, to have them. If so, then the issues raised in giving a physicalistic account of sensations and perceptions will be relevant for intentional states as well.

A related issue is whether all sensations and perceptions are indeed essentially qualitative, or whether, instead, there could be perception without qualia; that is, whether there could be bona fide perceptual states that are unconscious, such that there is nothing it is like to be in them at all.

Yet another question is whether (and if so, how) the myriad qualia we seem to experience at any given time are bound together at a given moment, and continuous with our experiences at previous and subsequent times, or whether the common sense view that we enjoy a unity of consciousness and a stream of consciousness is rather an illusion to be dispelled.

Print
Citing this article:
Levin, Janet. Our knowledge of qualia and other issues. Qualia, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-V029-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/qualia/v-1/sections/our-knowledge-of-qualia-and-other-issues.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.

Related Searches

Topics

Related Articles