_____________________________________________________________________________
Colour
Irrealism and the Formation of Colour Concepts (Australasian Journal of Philosophy
83.1,
March 2005)
According to color irrealism, material objects do not have color; they
only appear to have color. The appeal of this view, prominent
among philosophers and scientists alike, stems in large part from the
conviction that scientific explanations of color facts do not ascribe
color to material objects. To explain why objects appear to have
color, for instance, we need only appeal to surface reflectance
properties, properties of light, the neurophysiology of observers, etc.
Typically attending color
irrealism is the error theory of ordinary color judgment: ordinary
judgments in which color is ascribed to a material object are, strictly
speaking, false. In this paper, I claim that color irrealists who
endorse the error theory cannot explain how we acquire color concepts (yellow, green, etc.), concepts they must
acknowledge we do possess. Our basic color concepts, I argue,
could not be phenomenal concepts that we acquire by attending to the
color properties of our experience. And all other plausible
explanations, I explain, render color concepts such that our ordinary
color judgments involving them are often true. Given the explanatory
considerations upon which the irrealist’s position is based, this is a
severe problem for color irrealism.
Context, Indexicals and the Sorites
(Analysis 64.4, October 2004)
I defend contextualist solutions to the sorites paradox (according
to which vague terms are indexicals) from a recent objection
raised by Jason Stanley. Stanley's argument depends on the claim
that indexical expressions always have invariant interpretations in
"Verb Phrase" ellipsis. I argue that this claim is false.
Color, Error, and
Explanatory Power (forthcoming in Dialectica)
I critically
assess Barry Stroud's recent claim that error theorists concerning
ordinary color judgments cannot consistently maintain both that people
have beliefs in which color is ascribed to material objects and that
all such beliefs are erroneous.
| Can an Externalist
about Concepts Be an Internalist about Phenomenal Character? Many philosophers of mind claim that what concepts a subject possesses does not depend entirely on a subject’s physical constitution: physically identical subjects could have different concepts. On the contrary, most philosophers find quite implausible a similar thesis as applied to the phenomenal character of experience. Even if physically identical beings could have different concepts, if one of them has a headache or a tingly sensation, so must the other. It is not an exaggeration to say that the prominent position in the philosophy of mind is one that is “externalist” about concepts yet “internalist” about phenomenal character. I argue that this position is in fact untenable. My argument turns on two ideas: (1) in some cases, introspection requires the employment of phenomenal concepts; (2) internalism about consciousness presupposes that phenomenal qualities are introspectively accessible. If phenomenal qualities are accessible, and if this access requires the employment of concepts, then what concepts a subject can form is a constraint on what phenomenal qualities her experience can have. Given recent accounts of phenomenal concepts (such as those of Chalmers 2003, Loar 1997, Papineau 2002, Perry 2001, et al.), the standard arguments for conceptual externalism imply that physical duplicates could have phenomenal concepts different enough that the duplicates could not be phenomenally identical. I am an externalist about concepts. Thus, the arguments I provide in the paper convince me that we should likewise be externalist about phenomenal character. However, in this paper, I do not argue for or presuppose externalism about concepts. And so, for everything I say, my arguments could be adopted by an internalist about concepts and employed in a reductio against externalism about concepts. My arguments should thus be of interest to conceptual externalists and internalists alike. Content Externalism and Phenomenal Character: A New Worry about Privileged Access A central question in contemporary epistemology concerns whether content externalism threatens a common doctrine about privileged access. If the contents of a subject’s thoughts are in part determined by environmental factors, it is argued, then the subject could not know the contents of these thoughts independently of empirical investigation. A related doctrine holds that a subject’s access to the phenomenal character of her experience is independent of empirical investigation. It is typically assumed that content externalism does not threaten this latter doctrine. I argue that, if content externalism is in tension with privileged access to content, it is also in tension with privileged access to phenomenal character. This is not because content externalism implies externalism about phenomenal character (though elsewhere I argue that it does); my argument here is compatible with internalism about phenomenal character. Rather, my argument turns on the idea that content externalists must be externalist about phenomenal concepts, i.e., concepts we apply to the phenomenal quality of our experience (e.g., tingly). On a natural conception of phenomenal concepts, they are formed through a demonstrative process, whereby the subject demonstrates a phenomenal quality of her experience. But demonstration involves a cognitive background. And for certain phenomenal qualities, a subject’s demonstration of it would employ concepts that are themselves explicitly in the purview of the standard externalist arguments about content (e.g., Burge 1979). I show that, if the concepts employed are externally determined, so (in some cases) will the concepts formed be. On the widely held assumption that introspective access to phenomenal character involves the employment of phenomenal concepts, I argue that content externalism is thus in no less tension with privileged access to phenomenal character than it is with privileged access to content. Perceptions and Objects of Hume's Appendix to the Treatise More than two and a half centuries after Hume published the Appendix to the Treatise, in which he expresses a deep discontent with his account of personal identity, there is little consensus on the source of his worry. Novel interpretations of Hume’s dissatisfaction continue to surface, especially in recent years. The text of the Appendix is notoriously ambiguous and, at first glance, lends itself to many readings. However, I believe there are substantial clues in the text of the Treatise to which sufficient attention has still not been paid. I introduce and discuss some intricate aspects of the text (mostly of Appendix 20 and 1.4.6.16) and explore how they bear upon many of the interpretations in currency. The lessons we draw from this discussion help me subsequently explicate and support my own interpretation of the Appendix. I argue that Hume has realized that his account of personal identity in 1.4.6 depends on a distinction between perceptions and objects, a distinction in which Hume neither believes nor, at the very least, could ever employ in the right way. If I am right, the sort of mistake Hume thinks he has made in 1.4.6 is closely related to a mistake philosophers continue to make today. Stroud's Modest Transcendental Argument Barry Stroud is well known as a critic of philosophers who purport to answer, or otherwise deflate, the threat of skepticism of the external world. Stroud has addressed philosophers as varied as Kant, Moore, Austin, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Strawson, Cavell, Shoemaker, and Sosa, in each case claiming that the anti-skeptical argument on offer could not ultimately work. It is surprising, then, that in several recent papers Stroud appears himself to be arguing that we face no threat of skepticism after all. I subject Stroud’s anti-skeptical argument to careful scrutiny and conclude that it rests on an unmotivated assumption about the conditions upon successful production of a skeptical challenge. There is a particular feature of Stroud’s general strategy, however, that I believe does bear considerable anti-skeptical promise. In the final section of the paper, I underscore this feature and propose one way of developing it. |
|
| |
|
____________________________________________________________________________