SWIF Philosophy of Mind, 29 May 2002 http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/mind/forums/carruthers5.htm

Forums Forum 2 Bermúdez's commentary Bermúdez's reply

Reply to José Luis Bermúdez

Peter Carruthers

University of Maryland, College Park

 

My thanks to José Bermúdez for his kind comments on my book (Carruthers, 2000). I shall focus here on his three main criticisms.

1 Mysterianism and the nature of properties

Bermúdez notes that one of my main points against those in general who are ‘mysterian’ about phenomenal consciousness, and against Chalmers (1996) in particular, turns on a distinction between two ways of thinking of properties. I claim that Chalmers relies on a ‘thin’ notion of property (roughly: a function from worlds to extensions), where properties are individuated in terms of the concepts which we use to express them. Would-be naturalizers, in contrast, can legitimately (and characteristically do) work with a ‘thick’ conception of properties-as-worldly-entities, such that one and the same property might be picked out by a number of distinct concepts. Given such a conception, we can claim that the properties which we pick out using phenomenal concepts can also be characterized in terms of physical or functional concepts. And we can, moreover, claim that the teeth can be drawn from the familiar zombie conceivability experiments. For from the fact that we can conceive of phenomenal concepts failing to apply to a creature despite all physical and functional facts remaining the same, it doesn’t follow that those concepts don’t in fact pick out (some subset of) those very facts.

Now Bermúdez claims that this move involves denying that the concept having an experience of red picks out a phenomenal feel. Rather, I am said to hold that the concept in question is really just the concept of whatever property it is which makes it the case that we have an experience of red. But this is just wrong; and what Bermúdez says here misses the point.

I repeatedly allow – indeed, insist – that we have available to us purely recognitional concepts for our phenomenally conscious experiences. Such concepts pick out a phenomenal feel, and (so far as their content goes), they do nothing but pick out a phenomenal feel. My point is just that, given a thick construal of ‘property’, it is perfectly consistent to claim that such concepts pick out a property which can also be characterized in physical or functional terms. And while the zombie thought-experiments can show that the thin properties such-and-such a feel and such-and-such a physical state are distinct (this is obvious: in general where concepts are distinct, the thinly-individuated properties picked out by those concepts are distinct also), those thought-experiments do nothing to show that these are distinct properties thickly understood.

2 The case against first-order representationalism

Bermúdez gives a sketch of the initial case I set out against first-order representationalist accounts of phenomenal consciousness (of the sort defended by Dretske, 1995, and Tye, 1995, 2000). Roughly, the case is that there exist forms of first-order perceptual content which aren’t phenomenally conscious; and so it must be something else (something higher-order, I claim) which explains why some perceptual states are phenomenally conscious. Bermúdez rightly points out that in many of the examples of non-conscious perception which I discuss, it isn’t obvious that we have states which are fully first-order-equivalent to conscious perception. More specifically, in most such cases it is doubtful whether we have perceptual contents which are available to conceptual thought and reasoning (as opposed to being available to guide movement). In which case it is open to the first-order theorist to insist that it is the former sort of availability which is distinctive of phenomenal consciousness.

This is a perfectly reasonable point; but it is one which I myself make and elaborate on at some length, in chapter 6:3.3 of my 2000. The challenge which I present to the first-order theorist in reply, is to say what it is about presence to conceptual thought which makes the difference. I claim that there is nothing illuminating which can be said, here; in which case we don’t yet have a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness. In contrast, I claim that my own higher-order account can explain why contents which are available to higher-order concepts should become different: it is because they acquire, at the same time, a higher-order perceptual content (hence giving them a dimension of seeming, or of subjectivity), resulting from the truth of some form of consumer semantics.

Of course my overall case against first-order representationalism ‘is far from watertight’, as Bermúdez points out. Nothing is watertight in this domain, in my view, since our task is to find the best overall explanation of the phenomena. There will always be other choices which can be made, with their attendant costs and benefits. My point is just that first-order theories don’t achieve all that one might hope for in the way of an explanation, whereas higher-order theories fare significantly better.

3 Do reinforcers need to be phenomenal?

Finally, Bermúdez thinks that he has a knock-down argument that non-human animals have to be regarded as phenomenally conscious, at least in so far as conditioning theory applies to them. This is because (he says) positive and negative reinforcers (such as pain) have to be phenomenal in order to be effective. I quote, ‘It is impossible to divorce pain’s status as a negative reinforcer from its feeling the way it does.’

There are two distinct mistakes here. The first is that it might well be possible, on the contrary, for the motivational effects of pain to be achieved in the absence of any felt quality. As is now well known, pain perception is subserved by two distinct neural pathways: the old path, which projects primarily to the limbic system, and which is responsible for the awfulness of pain; and the new path, which has multiple projection points throughout the cortex, and which is responsible for fine discrimination and feel. It is also well known that certain types of morphine, and certain kinds of neurological damage, can suppress the old path while leaving the new path intact. In such circumstances people say that their pains feel just the same as they did, but that they no longer care about them. Although unlikely in practice, in principle it might then be possible to secure the reverse effect in humans: to suppress the feel of pain while leaving the motivational side intact.

Much more importantly, however, Bermúdez doesn’t seem to realize the extent of the resources available to representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness. I (like Tye, 1995) am a first-order representationalist about pain perception. I think that feeling a pain is a matter of being in a state which represents a certain secondary quality (pain) as being distributed in a region or surface of one’s body, just as seeing red is a matter of being in a state which represents a secondary quality (redness) as distributed in a certain region or surface of the external world. Neither of these kinds of state is intrinsically phenomenally conscious, for me. Just as I think that there can be percepts of red which aren’t phenomenally conscious (in blindsight, for example), so I think that there can be percepts of pain which aren’t phenomenally conscious (this would be true of most animals, on my account). (See my 2000, chapter 7:3.5.) So conditioning theory can perfectly well apply to non-human animals: we can say that the reason why the rat learns not to touch its food-dish when a light is on (or whatever), is because it feels pain if it does. But it is entirely consistent to claim that the pains which the rat feels are nevertheless not phenomenally conscious ones. (Of course this isn’t intuitive; but then who ever thought that a scientific account of phenomenal consciousness – or of anything else, for that matter – should be intuitive?)

 

References

Carruthers, P. (2000). Phenomenal Consciousness: a naturalistic theory. Cambridge University Press.

Chalmers, D. (1996). The Conscious Mind. Oxford University Press.

Dretske, F. (1995). Naturalizing the Mind . MIT Press.

Tye, M. (1995). Ten Problems of Consciousness. MIT Press.

Tye, M. (2000). Consciousness, Color and Content. MIT Press.

© 2002 Peter Carruthers