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10.4324/9780415249126-V029-1
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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

2. Physicalist responses

Physicalists, in turn, have attempted to deny both (1) and (2). Those denying (1) have argued that, on the contrary, there is a conceptual or epistemic connection between qualitative concepts and physicalist concepts. The candidates here are usually causal, functional or otherwise topic neutral concepts that have at least some claim to be part of our common-sense understanding of these states, since it seems quite implausible to think that physical, neurophysiological or other scientific characterizations could serve as explications of our qualitative concepts (see Mind, identity theory of §3). For example, the concept throbbing headache might be characterized in terms such as ‘the state typically caused by a certain range of physical syndromes, and which produces certain desires and (perhaps) behaviour directed towards the abatement of that state’, and the concept appearing blue might be characterized in terms such as ‘the state typically caused by certain visual stimulations and which typically results in certain similarity judgments and sorting behaviour’ (see Functionalism).

Other theorists, however, have doubted that these common-sense causal or functional characterizations could be necessary or sufficient to capture qualitative concepts. The problem with sufficiency is that the attribution of such a characterization to an individual does not seem to close the question of whether they have the quale in question; this is often referred to as the ‘absent qualia’ objection. The problem with necessity is that some sensations or sensory features of perception seem to have no distinctive causal or functional roles that are sufficiently accessible to be part of our common sense concepts of those states: consider, for example, the strange, though mild, twinge in one’s scalp that one felt for the first time yesterday. This leaves two alternatives for physicalists who accept premise (2) and thus wish to argue that there is some sort of conceptual connection between physicalistic and qualitative concepts: they can weaken the constraints on conceptual analysis, so that information from the sciences that may help to individuate sensations and perceptions can make a contribution to the explication of qualitative concepts, or they can deny that there is determinate, coherent content to our qualitative concepts over and above that which can be explicated by classical functionalist or topic neutral characterizations, and thus maintain that there are no corresponding qualitative properties at all (see Eliminativism).

The problem for the first alternative is that it is difficult to make a principled distinction between information that is relevant to conceptual explication and that which is not; defenders of this alternative respond that an important goal of explication in this case is to preserve the intuitive distinctions we make among our mental states, and that any additions to our common lore that enable us to do this (while preserving the bulk of our other commonly held beliefs about these states) will count as relevant to this project. The problem for the second alternative is that it seems counterintuitive to ignore (what seem to be) intuitively evident distinctions among qualitative states just because they cannot be captured in functional or topic-neutral terms that are part of our common knowledge. Defenders of this alternative counsel that we must be wary of judging the worth of a theory in the light of our current intuitions, since intuitions are at least partially shaped by theory and can change over time; they also point to the counterintuitive consequences of accepting a non-physicalist account of the qualitative features of our mental states, and argue that it is not clear which side has the greater burden.

On the other hand, there are many physicalists who agree that at least some qualitative concepts are ineffable, in that they cannot be captured by physical or functional descriptions, or anything other than a demonstrative such as ‘feels like that’ or ‘seems this way to me now’. Nonetheless, they argue, one cannot draw the anti-physicalist conclusion, since the irreducibility of qualitative to physicalistic concepts does not entail the irreducibility of qualitative to physicalistic properties; that is, while accepting premise (1) of the argument against the identity of qualitative and physical or functional properties, they reject premise (2).

Physicalists using this strategy deny the Cartesian claim that our modes of conception can, even under special circumstances, be definitive guides to the nature of things. Properties exist, and are distinct or identical, by virtue of mind-independent facts about the world; the ways we conceive of properties, even clearly and distinctly, have little to do with these facts. So stated, the argument denies that our conceptualizing has significant metaphysical import. It can be responded, however, that premise (2) is a consequence of the very possibility of reference: that non-equivalent concepts can denote the same item only by picking out different, irreducible, properties of it, and thus that even if ‘pain’ and ‘C-fibre stimulation’ did indeed denote the same property, it could only be by virtue of introducing higher-order properties that were themselves distinct. This view of how reference is determined has been considered as received wisdom since its introduction by Frege. But the argument can be countered by challenging the picture of reference it presupposes, and suggesting that the reference of qualitative concepts is determined directly, much as current causal or historical theories of reference propose for the cases of demonstratives, natural kind terms, and proper names (see Reference §4; Proper names). Anti-physicalists, in response, can mount a general challenge to these current theories of direct reference. They can also argue that qualitative concepts are a special case, one in which there is a tighter link between the concepts and the properties they pick out, but such a claim must be argued carefully, so as not to seem ad hoc. Alternatively, anti-physicalists can argue that, without some link between concepts (or at least clear and distinct conceptions) and the properties they denote, it would be impossible to have knowledge of metaphysical necessity and possibility at all, and thus, to preserve such knowledge, we must concede that there is at least some presumption that properties clearly and distinctly conceived to exist apart really do so.

Though all physicalists are committed to giving a physicalistic account of sensations and perceptions, those who deny that there are conceptual connections between physicalistic and qualitative concepts can concede that there is something in the realm of the qualitative that may be ineffable or irreducibly subjective, namely, the content of those qualitative concepts. In their view, however, the conceptual irreducibility of qualitative concepts implies neither the ontological irreducibility of the properties they denote nor of the concepts, as mental states, themselves; thus, this conceptual ineffability does not conflict with the physicalist requirement that all mental states and properties be fully describable in the vocabulary of the objective sciences.

Sometimes, in the post-1970s literature on this topic, anti-physicalists claim that it is only by having certain experiences that one can learn new facts about the mental. If this claim is taken to mean that experience alone provides access to a special realm of qualitative properties, then no physicalist can accept it; however, if it is taken to mean that experience affords qualitative concepts with novel content, then physicalists who accept the irreducibility of qualitative to physicalistic concepts can agree. On the other hand, physicalists who believe that qualitative concepts can be given a functional explication maintain that any knowledge we gain uniquely from experience is merely a kind of practical knowledge, or knowing how – a matter of gaining new imaginative or recognitional abilities, rather than concepts that one previously lacked.

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Citing this article:
Levin, Janet. Physicalist responses. 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/physicalist-responses.
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