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Gappiness and the case for liberalism about phenomenal properties
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McClelland, Tom (2016) Gappiness and the case for liberalism about phenomenal properties. Philosophical Quarterly, 66 (264). pp. 536-558. doi:10.1093/pq/pqv128 ISSN 0031-8094.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqv128
Abstract
Conservatives claim that all phenomenal properties are sensory. Liberals countenance non-sensory phenomenal properties such as what it's like to perceive some high-level property, and what it's like to think that p. A hallmark of phenomenal properties is that they present an explanatory gap, so to resolve the dispute we should consider whether experience has non-sensory properties that appear ‘gappy’. The classic tests for ‘gappiness’ are the invertibility test and the zombifiability test. I suggest that these tests yield conflicting results: non-sensory properties lend themselves to zombie scenarios but not to inversion scenarios. Which test should we trust? Against Carruthers & Veillet, I argue that invertibility is not a viable condition of phenomenality. In contrast, being zombifiable is credibly necessary and sufficient for phenomenality. I conclude that there are non-sensory properties of experience that are ‘gappy’ in the right way, and that liberalism is therefore the most plausible position.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Consciousness, Perception | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Philosophical Quarterly | ||||||||
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd. | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0031-8094 | ||||||||
Official Date: | July 2016 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 66 | ||||||||
Number: | 264 | ||||||||
Number of Pages: | 23 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 536-558 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1093/pq/pqv128 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 9 September 2016 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 9 September 2016 | ||||||||
Funder: | European Research Council (ERC) | ||||||||
Grant number: | 313552 (ERC) |
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