Illusionism by Keith Frankish

Author:Keith Frankish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Consciousness, phenomenal consciousness, philosophy of mind, dennett, humphrey, givenness, realism, phenomenal surrealism, physicalism, materialism, eliminativism, the hard problem, qualia, phenomenology, awareness, split brain, functionalism, epistemology, metaphysics, science of consciousness
ISBN: 9781845409654
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2017
Published: 2017-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

The Illusion of Illusionism

Martine Nida-Rümelin

Correspondence: Martine Nida-Rümelin, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. [email protected]

Abstract: A central thesis of Frankish’s argument for illusionism is the claim that illusionism is possibly true. This is what the realist about phenomenal consciousness must deny. Frankish’s argument for that premise is based on a widely shared understanding of phenomenal consciousness as being a matter of certain events (experiences) instantiating special properties (phenomenal properties). I argue that the illusionist’s reasoning is difficult to avoid if one accepts this common account. A positive argument for the thesis that the mere possibility of illusionism can be excluded is developed. It uses a proposal about how the notion of phenomenal consciousness should be taken to pick out the phenomenon it refers to. Given that account it becomes obvious that the illusionist cannot be understood as seriously accepting his own theory. The (supposed) belief in illusionism thus turns out to be an illusion.

1. Introduction

According to illusionism about phenomenal consciousness, no living being is ever phenomenally conscious. This claim strikes many people as absurd and that reaction is perfectly adequate. There is so much to do in philosophy in search of the truth that one should not lose too much time with absurd theories. But Keith Frankish’s defence of illusionism goes wrong in an interesting and illuminating manner. It therefore undoubtedly deserves being seriously discussed.

Frankish identifies the claim that an animal is phenomenally conscious with the claim that it has experiences which instantiate a certain kind of qualitative properties which he calls phenomenal properties. He argues that experiences do not in fact have such properties. But he admits, or so I think we must understand him, that experiences appear to have such qualitative properties and that this is why we believe that they do. As will be explained below, these two assumptions lead into illusionism in a quite natural manner. One reason for my claim that Frankish goes wrong in an interesting manner is this: the two claims leading into illusionism are broadly shared or at least not explicitly denied by many realists about phenomenal consciousness. If this diagnosis is adequate then Frankish’s argument for illusionism shows that realists about phenomenal consciousness need to abandon central and widely shared presuppositions.

The notion of phenomenal properties so understood is a technical term. Therefore it may seem obvious that their reference must be fixed by theoretical assumptions about them. If the reference of the term ‘phenomenal properties’ is fixed by such theoretical assumptions and if, as Frankish presupposes, to be phenomenally conscious just is to have experiences with phenomenal properties then the question about the existence of phenomenally conscious animals turns into the question about whether experiences have properties satisfying the relevant theoretical assumptions. The realist about phenomenal consciousness should resist this crucial move. To escape the illusionist argument the realist must insist that reference to phenomenal consciousness (more precisely: to being phenomenally conscious where this is a property of individuals) is fixed in a totally different and, importantly, in a non-theoretical manner.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.