Ten Problems of Consciousness A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind

by Tye, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780262700641
• ISBN10: 0262700646
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-01-22
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

Can neurophysiology ever reveal to us what it is like to smell a skunk or to experience pain? In what does the feeling of happiness consist? How is it that changes in the white and gray matter composing our brains generate subjective sensations and feelings? These are several of the questions that Michael Tye addresses, while formulating a new and enlightening theory about the phenomenal "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. The test of any such theory, according to Tye, lies in how well it handles ten critical problems of consciousness. Tye argues that all experiences and all feelings represent things, and that their phenomenal aspects are to be understood in terms of what they represent. He develops this representational approach to consciousness in detail with great ingenuity and originality. In the book's first part Tye lays out the domain, the ten problems and an associated paradox, along with all the theories currently available and the difficulties they face. In part two, he develops his intentionalist approach to consciousness. Special summaries are provided in boxes and the ten problems are illustrated with cartoons. A Bradford Book. Representation and Mind series

Author Biography

Michael Tye is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Ten Problems of Consciousness (1995), Consciousness, Color, and Content (2000), and Consciousness and Persons (2003), all published by the MIT Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Ten Problems

Phenomenal Consciousness Introduced

The Problem of Ownership

The Problem of Perspectival Subjectivity

The Problem of Mechanism

The Problem of Phenomenal Causation

The Problem of Super Blindsight

The Problem of Duplicates

The Problem of the Inverted Spectrum

The Problem of Transparency

The Problem of Felt Location and Phenomenal Vocabulary

The Problem of the Alien Limb

Why the Problems Run So Deep

Must the Physical Be Objective?

Perspectival Subjectivity and the Explanatory Gap

Physicalism and Phenomenal Causation

On the Denial of Perspectival Subjectivity

The Paradox of Phenomenal Consciousness

The Available Strategies

The Way Ahead II

Can Anyone Else Feel My Pains?

The Repudiation of Phenomenal Objects

Publicizing the Phenomenal: Split Brains

Phenomenal Objects as Events

A Closer Look at Events

The Intentionality of Feelings and Experiences

Intentional States and Intentional Content

How Perceptual Sensations Represent

Afterimages

The Problem of Ownership Revisited

Pains

Other Bodily Sensations

The Format of Sensory Representations

Background Feelings

Emotions

Moods

What What It's Like Is Really Like

Why Be an Intentionalist?

Phenomenal Content: The PANIC Theory

Colors and Other ''Secondary Qualities"

Can Duplicate Brains Differ Phenomenally?

Some Putative Counterexamples

The Tale of Mary and Mechanism: A Theory of Perspectival Subjectivity

The Real Nature of the Phenomenal

Perspectival Subjectivity and the Paradox

Mary's Room

Some of Mary's Philosophical Relatives

The Explanatory Gap

Can You Really Imagine What You Think You Can?

The Status of the PANIC Theory

Imaginability and Perception: A Parallel

Troublesome Possibilities?

Zombie Replicas and Other Duplicates

Inverted Experiences

Inverted Earth

Appendix: Blindsight

Three Sorts of Visual Agnosia

An Empirical Proposal

Notes

References

Name Index

Subject Index

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