Abstract
Many philosophers have tried to defend physicalism concerning phenomenal consciousness, by explaining dualist intuitions within a purely physicalist framework. One of the most common strategies to do so consists in interpreting the alleged “explanatory gap” between phenomenal states and physical states as resulting from a fallacy, or a cognitive illusion. In this paper, I argue that the explanatory gap does not rest on a fallacy or a cognitive illusion. This does not imply the falsity of physicalism, but it has consequences on the kind of physicalism we should embrace.
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Notes
Here I take phenomenal properties to be properties of mental states. Some philosophers prefer to think about them as properties of subjects (experiencing subjects). I do not think anything substantial for my paper bears on this distinction; what I say in this paper could be restated in this alternative framework.
An anonymous reviewer pointed out the fact that the explanatory gap/intuition of distinctness does not arise with the same force (if it arises at all) with some physicalist theories of consciousness, such as, for example, Tye’s representationalist theory (Tye 1995) which states that the instantiation of phenomenal greenness by one of my mental states is nothing but the instantiation (by one of my brain states) of the property of non-conceptually representing green, in a way that makes this representation available for my executive and thought system. I agree that the intuition of distinctness does not arise as strongly (if it arises at all) when we identify phenomenal properties with representational properties (compared to what happens when we identify phenomenal properties with low-level physiological properties of brain states, for example), but I do think that the intuition of distinctness arises in all its force when we specify that the concerned representational properties are physical properties. For example, I do think that the intuition of distinctness arises in all its force when we try to identify the instantiation of phenomenal greenness with the instantiation of a complex physical property which causally covariates in the appropriate way (or has causally covariated in the appropriate way through the evolutionary history of my ancestors) with such and such reflectance property of surfaces, and plays the appropriate functional role in my cognitive system (to take standard examples of the way in which physicalists conceive of representational properties). So, in my view, identifications of phenomenal properties with representational properties only escape the explanatory gap (if they do) when these representational properties are not explicitly conceived of as physical properties. I want to thank the anonymous reviewer for pointing out this difficulty.
By using this term, Papineau makes a reference to the “Pathetic Fallacy”, described by the critic John Ruskin – the fallacy by which we tend to falsely attribute mental states that are our own to inanimate objects. When we commit the “Antipathetic Fallacy” described by Papineau, on the other hand, we (falsely) reject to attribute phenomenological properties to purely physical states.
Loar describes this illusion as something that arises during “our philosophical ruminations”, which seems to confirm that what he has in mind is a cognitive illusion, rather than a perceptual one. It is perhaps less clear in Balog’s writing, as she sometimes seems to understand the illusion of the explanatory gap as something similar to a perceptual illusion. However, she does not take a clear stance on that question, and she does not explicitly analyze the explanatory gap as resulting of a kind of perceptual-like illusion (with everything that comparison implies).
This caveat is important, because theories which endorse this explanation could try to say that phenomenal concepts have a dual content, following Chalmers’ distinction between edenic and ordinary content (Chalmers 2006). That’s exactly what Derk Pereboom suggests (Pereboom 2011). On this view, only phenomenal states understood as states satisfying phenomenal concepts’s edenic content would be distinct from physical states – while in some other understanding phenomenal states (understood as states satisfying merely phenomenal concepts’s ordinary content) could very well be identical with physical states.
I want to thank an anonymous for attracting my attention to this kind of view.
According to this kind of account, the primary root of the intuition of distinctness lies in the fact that we lack the adequate concepts to think about the relation between consciousness and the physical, and not in the fact that we commit a fallacy when reflecting on such a relation. However, there are interpretations of such accounts that combine both explanations For example, it could be that, because we lack the adequate concepts to think about the relation between consciousness and the physical, we tend to manipulate the concepts we do have in a way that is inadequate and mistaken, which in turn gives rise to the intuition of distinctness – so that in some sense a kind of reasoning mistake plays an important role in the birth of the intuition. On such interpretations of Lack of Understanding Accounts, they are harder to distinguish from Fallacy Accounts – even though a distinction can still be drawn between views that think of fallacies as the ultimate source of the intuition (Fallacy Accounts properly speaking), and views that see them as just one element amongst others in the chain that leads to the intuition, the first element of the chain being our lack of the adequate concepts (Lack of Understanding Accounts so interpreted). Given that Lack of Understanding Accounts are not my primary topic here, I will not go further into the discussion of this kind of interpretations. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for attracting my attention to this point.
And, of course, some physicalists simply deny that we face an explanatory gap in the sense in which I used the term. For example, some deny its existence (or at least its persistence on reflection) while others think that the explanatory gap does not exist as I understand it, given that it consists in nothing but the absence of a priori derivation of phenomenal truths from physical truths.
Illusionism does not strictly speaking imply eliminativism (at least in a certain sense of “eliminativism”), as an illusionist can always suppose that phenomenal concepts do refer, in the sense that their ordinary content is satisfied (even though their edenic content is not).
Perhaps she has this hallucination because she just took (without knowing it) some very elaborate psychoactive drug which causes visual hallucinations, while leaving her reasoning capacity intact; or perhaps because she has been secretly equipped with a sophisticated TMS device that directly stimulates her visual cortex. It does not really matter here.
Of course, there is another step between the perceptual illusion and the valid reasoning that leads to the conclusion that it is false that there is nothing in the room but a white chair: the step by which Anne “endorses” her (illusory) perception, and judges, on the basis of this perception, that there is a black cat in the room. However, I think that it is clear that this step cannot be seen as consisting in a kind of reasoning mistake – arguably, we commit no reasoning mistake when we endorse the content of our perception (as long as we do not have reasons to doubt our perceptions). Therefore, the existence of this step does not endanger the following point, which is crucial for my argument: in the case described, Anne commits no fallacy, and falls prey to no cognitive illusion.
I have only anecdotal evidence supporting this claim: when I teach philosophy of mind to undergraduates, I find that, even if many of them are intuitive dualists, they are rarely dualists for reasons specifically related to the hypothetical irreducibility of phenomenal states. They are often reluctant to accept physicalism simply because it seems to them that, by treating human minds as “machines”, physicalists cannot account for the creativity and the freedom that human beings possess. However, after some teaching and some thought experiments, which I think aim at triggering careful reflection on the objects considered, students often start to be puzzled by physicalism concerning phenomenal consciousness in particular, and they begin to encounter the intuition of distinctness as I understand it (even though they may very well accept physicalism for other reasons). I think that this anecdotal evidence weighs in favor of the claim that the intuition of distinctness is produced by, and only by, careful reflection on the concerned entities.
It is important to note that these two psychological facts are quite distinct. Indeed, being strongly disposed to believe that P and having difficulties understanding how not-P could be true, are two different things and the former does not imply the latter. Consider for example the following fact: my current visual experience of my two hands very strongly disposes me to believe that I have two hands. However, I have no difficulty understanding how, in spite of what I experience, I may not have two hands (for example, I can picture a situation in which I am hallucinating); I have no problem apprehending this possible situation (Kammerer 2016).
This is why many people find that the most tempting thing to say when facing physicalism is simply, as Joseph Levine wrote in conclusion of his review of Christopher Hill’s (materialist) book on consciousness: “believe it if you can” (Levine 2011).
Of course, physicalists reject the conclusion of such arguments, which mean that they have to say that something is wrong with these arguments. However, I think that the overwhelming majority of physicalists will grant that the problem with these arguments can hardly be understood as being simply a matter of fallacy, or cognitive illusion. Physicalists who reject these arguments have to reject one of the premises of these arguments (and they often go as far as to admit that these false premises still have some kind of prima facie rational plausibility).
I want to thank the anonymous reviewer who inspired this objection.
The defender of Fallacy Accounts may suggest a view in which the fallacy does not arise at the level of the question “are phenomenal states identical with physical states?”, but at another (slightly different) level which concerns questions such as “can these features which introspection ascribes to phenomenal states, such as subjectivity, or “qualitative-ness”, be purely physical features?” In this view, we would commit indeed no fallacy when we judge that phenomenal states cannot be physical, from the premise that they are qualitative and subjective and the premise that subjectivity and qualitative-ness cannot be physical features. However, the fallacy emerged “earlier”, when we judged (fallaciously), when reflecting on subjectivity and qualitative-ness, that subjectivity and qualitative-ness cannot be physical features. However, I think that this view could be targeted by an argument extremely similar to the one I just gave in this paper. Indeed, it could be argued similarly that the kind of process by which we come to think that subjectivity or qualitative-ness cannot be purely physical features, for as much as it involves reasoning and the manipulation of conceptual representations, is much more similar to a process of valid reasoning than to a process of fallacy (cognitive illusion), pretty much in the same respect as the process by which we come to think that phenomenal states cannot be identical with physical states (which I examined in detail in the paper). Indeed, (1) the process by which we come to judge that subjectivity and qualitative-ness cannot be physical is indeed the product of careful reflection; (2) it is very hard for us to understand how the content of the judgments at hand could be false (how subjectivity, for example, given the introspective grasp we have of it, could be a purely physical feature); (3) the same conclusion (that subjectivity or qualitative-ness cannot be physical) could be reached through several various arguments (we could reason on the categorical, modal, epistemological, properties of subjectivity or qualitative-ness, etc.). Thanks to Joseph Levine for raising this point in correspondence.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Samuel Webb and Sonia Paz Higgins for their help, as well as Joseph Levine and Uriah Kriegel for their remarks.
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Kammerer, F. Does the Explanatory Gap Rest on a Fallacy?. Rev.Phil.Psych. 10, 649–667 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-018-0424-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-018-0424-1