Philosophical IssuesVolume 13, Issue 1 p. 113-129 Qualia, Properties, Modality Brian Loar, Brian Loar Rutgers UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Brian Loar, Brian Loar Rutgers UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 12 January 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/1533-6077.00008Citations: 14AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat References David Chalmers 1999. “Materialism and the Metaphysics of Modality.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59.2, 473–496. 10.2307/2653685 Web of Science®Google Scholar Joseph Levine 1983. “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 64, 354–361. 10.1111/j.1468-0114.1983.tb00207.x Web of Science®Google Scholar Brian Loar 1999. “David Chalmers’The Conscious Mind.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59.2, 465–472. 10.2307/2653684 Google Scholar Brian Loar 1997. “Phenomenal States”(revised version), in The Nature of Consciousness, ed. N. Block, O. Flanagan, and G. GuzeldereMIT Press. Google Scholar Thomas Nagel 1974. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 82, 435–450. 10.2307/2183914 Web of Science®Google Scholar Diana Raffman 1995. “On the Persistance of Phenomenology,” in Thomas Metzinger (ed.), Conscious Experience. Schoningh Verlag. Web of Science®Google Scholar Citing Literature Volume13, Issue1October 2003Pages 113-129 ReferencesRelatedInformation

According to externalism about reference, the reference of externally directed concepts consists in externally determined (e.g. causal) relations between those concepts' possessors and objects, kinds, properties etc. According to externalism about concepts, concepts are constituted (in part) by their externally determined references, either their own references or those of semantically connected concepts. One externalist might hold that the concept expressed by 'water' must stand in a certain external relation to water or else it is

John Campbell proposes a radical externalist thesis about shape perceptions and their phenomenal character. The central issue is is any difference between visual and tactual experience of shape itself; whether the shape perception itself has a different phenomenal character in sight than in touch. Campbell's thesis is that shape perception is amodal: have to think of experience of shape as a single phenomenon, in whatever modality it occurs, individuated by the external geometrical property. Now from these remarks alone one does not get a firm grip on what is being individuated. When should we count two perceptions as instances of a single phenomenon or as having the same phenomenal character? It is difficult to evaluate radical externalism merely as a phenomenological thesis about how to type-individuate experiences of shape or phenomenal character. For, as Campbell notes, even on a radical externalist view there may still be further phenomenal differences between sight and touch, and the question is why these differences do not matter in determining sameness of experience or phenomenal character. Campbell's point is that those differences do not introduce elements of doubt into inferences between visual and

In this paper I wish to address two questions about reference that are among the most fundamental issues in the theory of meaning and intentionality. They are 1) what makes different external (e.g. causal) relations count as semantic relations, count as reference; and 2) whether reference is objectively indeterminate or inscrutable and whether a positive answer subverts our commonsense conceptions of semantic facts. It appears to me that the two matters are deeply connected, and I will propose a more or less simple idea that permits a unifying answer.

Suppose that psychological properties -pain or the belief that there are tigers in China or the desire to eat an artichokeare not reducible to physical properties or to specific functional or 'topic-neutral' properties. Suppose also that we reject 'property dualism', that is, the metaphysical independence of psychological properties from physical properties. Can we nevertheless hold psychological properties to be real? Or does denying dualism and reduction commit us to their being second-string, mere manners of speaking, useful in systematizing and predicting other people's behavior while not objectively out there over and above that systematizing success? Evidently many regard the failure of reduction as leaving psychological properties intact, for they suppose that an unfanatical physicalism can be content with such properties' supervening on the physical facts, determined by them in some strong metaphysical sense even though irreducible, that is, not identical with physical-functional properties. This is the natural stance of naturalistic philosophers who regard common sense about the mental as immune to reductionist leveling.