Philosophical Studies 104: 143-162 (2001)

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Qualia Realism[1]

Philosophical Studies 104: 143-162 (2001)

Amy Kind

Claremont McKenna College

ABSTRACT: Recent characterizations of the qualia debate construe the point at issue in terms of the existence of intrinsic properties of experience. I argue that such characterizations mistakenly ignore the epistemic dimension of the notion of qualia. Using Ned Block’s distinction between representationism and phenomenism as my point of departure (Block 1996), I attempt to bring the epistemic constraint to the forefront and thereby clarify what is involved in a commitment to qualia.

The last few decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in qualia, with a heated debate being waged over their existence and nature. As philosophers on both sides of the debate would agree, the stakes are high; no less than the fate of functionalism hangs in the balance. Though issues relating to qualia had arisen in connection with the identity theory, it was with the emergence of functionalism in the 1970s that qualia were brought into the limelight. In particular, it was through the inverted and absent qualia thought experiments that qualia were ushered onto the philosophical stage. These thought experiments, both of which purport to establish that there can be beings who are functionally identical to one another yet different qualitatively, have continued to pose a major threat to functionalist theories. In response, functionalists have had to argue that qualia are functionalizable, a counterintuitive claim that has often seemed tantamount to the denial of the existence of qualia.

Much of the contemporary qualia debate has in this way grown out of, and been framed by, functionalist concerns.[2] And this, I will suggest, has had unfortunate consequences for our understanding of qualia. Insofar as philosophers have come to the question of the existence of qualia by way of consideration of the plausibility of functionalism, they have been so focused on metaphysical considerations that they have lost sight of an important fact, namely, that there is an epistemic dimension to the notion of qualia.

In recent years the term ‘qualia’ has been claimed and reclaimed by such a large variety of authors to pick out their own favorite phenomenal properties that my claim that there is an epistemic dimension to qualia might seem immediately objectionable. One could argue that the term ‘qualia’ can no longer be employed with any unambiguous meaning; there is no such thing as ‘the notion of qualia’ to bear any philosophical weight. A survey of the recent qualia literature would no doubt support this objection, showing that for every philosopher who has defined ‘qualia’ in epistemic terms, there is another who has not. But it is this trend among philosophers to use the term ‘qualia’ to pick out properties specified purely metaphysically that makes up the very problem that I want to discuss. Whether the fact that the term has come to be used in such a way should be seen as a symptom or as a cause, the epistemic considerations that should be (and, at least initially, were) a part of the debate about qualia have gotten lost.[3] This paper thus aims to restore the epistemic dimension to the qualia debate. In doing so, I will also recommend how we can best draw the dividing line between pro-qualia and anti-qualia views – however the philosophers involved would themselves characterize their views. As might already be clear, my own sympathies lie on the pro-qualia side, although I will not here attempt to defend the existence of qualia. Rather, by refocusing attention on the epistemic considerations, I hope to make clear what such a defense requires.

I. Block’s Characterization of the Debate

The philosopher perhaps most responsible for framing the current qualia debate against a backdrop of functionalist concerns is Ned Block.[4] Not only was he influential in originating discussion of the inverted and absent qualia thought experiments in his seminal papers “What Psychological States are Not” (Block and Fodor 1972) and “Troubles with Functionalism” (1978), but he has also repeatedly characterized the locus of controversy in the qualia debate at least partly in terms of the compatibility of functionalism with the existence of qualia. Such a characterization is naturally read into papers of his such as “Are Absent Qualia Impossible?” (1980)[5] and “Inverted Earth” (1990) and is made most explicit in his recent papers, “Qualia” (1994) and “Mental Paint and Mental Latex” (1996):

Qualia are experiential properties of sensations, feelings, perceptions and, in my view, thoughts and desires as well. But, so defined, who could deny that qualia exist? Yet, the existence of qualia is controversial. Here is what is controversial: whether qualia, so defined, can be characterized in intentional, functional or purely cognitive terms. (Block 1994, p. 514)

The greatest chasm in the philosophy of mind – maybe even all of philosophy – divides two perspectives on consciousness. The two perspectives differ on whether there is anything in the phenomenal character of conscious experience that goes beyond the intentional, the cognitive and the functional. A convenient terminological handle on the dispute is whether there are “qualia” …. The debates about qualia have recently focused on the notion of representation, with issues about functionalism always in the background. (Block 1996, p. 19)

It is this most recent paper – and the divide it sets up between the two views phenomenism and representationism – on which I want to focus in what follows. Following Block’s lead in the above quotation, I will use “phenomenal character” as a neutral term, not synonymous with the term “qualia.” The issue between the phenomenists and the representationists can thus be said to concern the nature of the phenomenal character that they all agree exists.

The representationists, the group that Block locates on the anti-qualia side of the debate, claim that the representational content of experience exhausts the phenomenal character of experience. Here Block seems to have in mind the view of someone like Gilbert Harman, whose arguments for representationism are put forth largely to defend functionalism against qualia-oriented objections.[6] According to Harman, “[t]wo perceptual experiences with the same intentional content must be psychologically the same.” (Harman 1990, p. 49) In other words, there are no nonrepresentational properties of the experience that could make a difference psychologically.

On the pro-qualia side of the debate Block locates the phenomenists; the members of this group, including Block himself, claim that the phenomenal character of experience is not exhausted by its representational content.[7] As I will suggest in a moment, there is an important ambiguity in the notion of “representational content,” but for now let me simply note that the phenomenists’ claim that there is more to phenomenal character than its representational content amounts to the claim that there are some mental properties that are intrinsic to an experience.[8]

To get a sense of what such properties are supposed to be, an analogy to paint and paintings is useful. Consider a painting of Santa Claus. In the painting, Santa Claus is represented as having certain properties: wearing a red suit and hat, having a big belly, having a white mustache and beard, etc. Importantly, these are properties of what the painting represents and not properties of the painting itself – the painting certainly does not wear a red suit, have a big belly, etc. (And the fact that these properties are properties of what is represented is unaffected by the fact that what is represented does not exist, that is, even though what is represented is only an intentional object.) But in addition to the properties of what is represented by the painting, there are also properties of the painting itself: being flat, being square, being covered with paint, etc.

Next consider an experience with the same intentional content as that of the painting: a mental image of Santa Claus. In the mental image, Santa is represented as having certain properties, and as is the case with the painting, they are properties of what the image represents, not properties of the image itself. Does the image also have mental properties analogous to the intrinsic properties of the painting – its flatness, its squareness, its being covered with paint? Representationists say ‘no’ – the only mental properties of the mental image, or of any experience, are its representational properties. In contrast, phenomenists say ‘yes.’ This is not to say that phenomenists must think that experience has mental properties analogous to all of the painting’s intrinsic properties; they need not claim, for example, that experience has properties analogous to the painting’s flatness or squareness. But they must think that experience has properties analogous to the painting’s being covered in paint; in fact, such properties are often referred to as mental paint.[9]

Attention to the property of being covered in paint, however, reveals an ambiguity in the notion of representational property. As we have said, being covered with paint is a property of a painting itself and not of the object represented by a painting. This property is thus nonrepresentational in the sense just described. But there is another sense in which this property is representational, namely that it plays a role in representing the object represented. The fact that a painting of Santa Claus has red paint at a certain location, for example, plays a representational role in the depiction of Santa Claus. It is in this respect that the property of being composed in part of red paint is different from the properties of squareness and flatness.

The same ambiguity arises with respect to experience, so to avoid confusion, it will be useful to separate the two different senses of “representational.” Properties that are representational in virtue of being properties of what is represented by the experience (rather than properties of the experience itself) I will call representationalR (“R” for representationism – since the representationists think that all phenomenal properties of experience are such properties). Properties that are properties of the experience itself (and thus are not representationalR) but that play a role in representing the intentional object of the experience, I will call representationalP (“P” for phenomenism – since it is only the phenomenists who would countenance any such properties). Note that while phenomenists can recognize the existence of representationalR properties, representationists must deny the existence of any representationalP properties.[10]

Armed with this distinction between these two senses of “representational,” I want briefly to revisit and clarify Block’s characterizations of phenomenism and representationism. As stated above, the representationists believe that phenomenal character is exhausted by its representational content, whereas phenomenists do not. It should now be clear that the sense of “representational” at play in these characterizations is representationalR. Furthermore, it should also be clear that the acceptance of mental paint constitutes a denial of representationism.

Importantly, however, while the acceptance of mental paint is sufficient for an embrace of phenomenism, we should not assume that phenomenism simply equates phenomenal character with mental paint. Mental paint is by definition a representationalP property of experience, but a phenomenist might well claim that experience has intrinsic properties that are nonetheless not representationalP. In theory, a phenomenist could even deny that there is any such thing as mental paint; it would be consistent with phenomenism (at least phenomenism as defined by Block) to claim that phenomenal experience never has properties that are representationalP. In practice, of course, the phenomenists typically do accept the existence of mental paint, but in doing so, they also typically claim that experience has at most only some properties that are representationalP or that only some experiences have properties that are representationalP.

Such is Block’s own position – although he thinks that pains and mental images can plausibly be understood to be intentional, he also thinks that there are other experiences that cannot. He often uses the example of an orgasm to illustrate this point.[11] If there is some experience, orgasmic or otherwise, that is not intentional, that does not purport to represent anything at all, then its phenomenal character cannot be explained in terms of mental paint. Mental paint, like actual paint, plays a representational role. To capture nonrepresentationalP phenomenal character, Block introduces the notion of mental latex. Insofar as some properties of experience are nonrepresentationalP, he suggests that they be thought of like the latex base in latex paint: “Paint has pigment – that differs from color to color – and also has a base that can be common to many colors. One such base is latex. The pigment represents the color, the latex represents nothing.” (Block 1996, p. 28)

The discussion of mental paint and mental latex permits one last clarification of Block’s characterization of the qualia debate. For Block, this debate – the “greatest chasm in the philosophy of mind” – comes down to the question of whether there are such properties of experience as mental paint and mental latex. Those who deny the existence of both sorts of properties, the representationists, fall on the anti-qualia side of the chasm, whereas those who recognize the existence of at least one of these sorts of properties, the phenomenists, fall on the pro-qualia side.

Given this understanding of the qualia debate, it would seem that the concepts of mental paint and mental latex, either jointly or separately, should map onto the concept of qualia. Now as I have already noted, philosophers use the term ‘qualia’ in a variety of ways, and so one might very well object at this point that there is no single concept of qualia onto which mental paint and mental latex could map. But I think this is a mistake. Generally speaking, when philosophers differ in their usage of the term ‘qualia,’ it seems to me that it is at the level of theory – with different philosophers giving us different theories as to how such properties are to be understood. Still, such theories should be seen as attempts, with varying degrees of success, to capture the same concept. This concept recurs throughout the qualia literature, reflected in the works of philosophers with very different theoretical treatments of qualia: