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Gappiness and the Case for Liberalism about Phenomenal Properties

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

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.

Description

Keywords

consciousness, cognitive phenomenology, high-level perception, the explanatory gap, conceivability argument

Journal Title

Philosophical Quarterly

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-8094
1467-9213

Volume Title

66

Publisher

OUP
Sponsorship
This paper was completed with the support of ERC grant 313552