Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T18:18:15.602Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explaining the Qualitative Dimension of Consciousness: Prescission Instead of Reification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

Marc Champagne
Marc Champagne*
Affiliation:
York University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block (rightly) calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability to prescind qualities from occurrences.

RÉSUMÉ : Cet article suggère que «le fossé dans l’explication» qui tracasse la réflexion sur la conscience depuis le renouveau instauré par T. Nagel est dû en grande partie à un défaut de distinctions notionnelles. En modifiant l’affirmation controversée de Ned Block que nous devrions accepter la présence d’une «conscience-phénoménale» ayant une existence propre, nous soutenons qu’il est possible de récupérer les intuitions qui sous-tendent cette proposition sans pour autant endosser une trop coûteuse réification de la facette en question. En recouvrant la trichotomie complète en «type/token/tone» développée par C. S. Peirce, nous croyons que la spécificité sur laquelle Block attire (avec justesse) l’attention peut être conçue comme découlant non pas d’un quelconque module opérant furtivement dans l’esprit, mais bien de notre capacité de préscinder les qualités des occurrences.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 145 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, David M. 1989 Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. San Francisco, London, and Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Block, Ned [1992] 1997 “Begging the Question Against Phenomenal Consciousness.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 175-179. Originally published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15, 2 (1992): 205-206.Google Scholar
Block, Ned 1995 “Mental Paint and Mental Latex.” In Philosophical Issues, vol. 7 (“Perception”), Edited by Villanueva, Enrique. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, pp. 19-49.Google Scholar
Block, Ned [1995] 1997 “A Confusion About a Function of Consciousness.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 375-415. Originally published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 2 (1995): 227-247.Google Scholar
Block, Ned 2000 “How Not To Find the Neural Correlate of Consciousness.” Intellectica, 2, 31: 125-136.Google Scholar
Block, Ned 2002 “The Harder Problem of Consciousness.” Journal of Philosophy, 99, 8: 391-425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, Ned 2007 “Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh between Psychology and Neuroscience.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 5–6: 481-499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Block, Ned, Flanagan, Owen, and Güzeldere, Güven, eds. 1997 The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boler, John F. 1963 Charles Peirce and Scholastic Realism: A Study of Peirce’s Relation to John Duns Scotus. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Bornstein, Robert F., and Pittman, Thane S., eds. 1992 Perception without Awareness: Cognitive, Clinical, and Social Perspectives. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Brandt, Per Aage 2007 “On Consciousness and Semiosis.” Cognitive Semiotics, 1: 46-64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brent, Joseph 1998 Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life. Second edition, revised and augmented. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David J. 1997 “Availability: The Cognitive Basis of Experience?” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 421-424. Originally published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 1 (1997): 148-149.Google Scholar
Champagne, Marc 2006 “Some Convergences and Divergences in the Realism of Charles Peirce and Ayn Rand.” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, 8, 1: 19-39.Google Scholar
Champagne, Marc Forthcoming a “Some Semiotic Constraints on Metarepresentational Accounts of Consciousness.” In Semiotics 2008, Proceedings of the 33rd annual meeting of the Semiotic Society of America. New York, Ottawa, and Toronto: Legas.Google Scholar
Champagne, Marc Forthcoming b “Schopenhauer and the Feasibility of a ‘Phenomenology of Agency.’” Cognitive Semiotics.Google Scholar
Churchland, Paul M. 1988 Matter and Consciousness. Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Churchland, Paul M. [1989] 1997 “Knowing Qualia: A Reply to Jackson.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 571-577. Originally published in the author’s A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science, pp. 67-76. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.Google ScholarPubMed
Churchland, Paul M. 1996 The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dahlbom, Bo, ed. 1993 Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Deely, John N. 1990 Basics of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Deely, John N. 2001 Four Ages of Understanding. Toronto, London and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deely, John N. 2005 “Defining the Semiotic Animal: How the Postmodern Understanding of Human Being Supersedes the Modern Definition ‘Res Cogitans.’” In The Semiotic Animal, by Deely, John, Petrilli, Susan, and Ponzio, Augusto. New York, Ottawa, and Toronto: Legas, pp. 145-186.Google Scholar
Deledalle, Gerard 2000 Charles S. Peirce’s Philosophy of Signs: Essays in Comparative Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Deledalle, Gerard 2001 “À la source de la sémiotique triadique.” Recherches sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry, 21, 1–3: 211-227.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel C. 1991 Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel C. 2001 “Are we Explaining Consciousness Yet?” Cognition, 79, 1–2: 221-237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eco, Umberto 1986 Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto, and Marmo, Costantino, eds. 1989 On the Medieval Theory of Signs. Translated by Kelly, Shona. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flanagan, Owen [1992] 1997 “Conscious Inessentialism and the Epiphenomenalist Suspicion.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 357-373. Originally published in the author’s Consciousness Reconsidered, pp. 129-152. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Foulquié, Paul, and Saint-Jean, Raymond, eds. 1962 Dictionnaire de la langue philosophique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Gamble, Denise 1997 “P-Consciousness Presentation / A-Consciousness Representation.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, 1: 149-150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gracia, Jorge J. E., and Noone, Timothy B., eds. 2006 A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Guttenplan, Samuel, ed. 1995 A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutting, Gary 1998 “ ‘Rethinking Intuition’: A Historical and Metaphilosophical Introduction.” In Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry. Edited by DePaul, Michael R. and Ramsey, William. New York and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 3-13.Google Scholar
Güzeldere, Güven 1997 “The Many Faces of Consciousness: A Field Guide.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, pp. 1-67.Google Scholar
Hardwick, Charles S., ed. 1977 Semiotic and Significs: the Correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby. With the editorial assistance of James Cook. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Irvine, Martin 1988 “Review of John Poinsot, Tractatus de Signis.” Speculum, 63, 3: 704-707.Google Scholar
Jackson, Frank [1986] 1997“What Mary Didn’t Know.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 567-570. Originally published in Journal of Philosophy, 83, 5 (1986): 291-295.Google Scholar
Jordan, Michael J. 1984 Duns Scotus on the Formal Distinction. Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul A. [1980] 1997 “The Identity Thesis.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 445-450. Originally published in the author’s Naming and Necessity, pp. 144-155. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James, David Spurrett, Don Ross, and Collier, John 2007 Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, Joseph 1983 “Materialism and Qualia: The Explanatory Gap.” Pacific Philosophical Quaterly, 64: 354-361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, Joseph [1993] 1997“On Leaving Out What It’s Like.” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 543-555. Originally published in Consciousness: Psychological and Philosophical Essays. Edited by Davies, Martin and Humphreys, Glyn W., pp. 121-136. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.Google Scholar
McGinn, Colin [1989] 1997“Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 529-542. Originally published in Mind, 98, 891 (1989): 349-366.Google Scholar
Milner, A. David, and Rugg, Michael D., eds. 1992 The Neuropsychology of Consciousness. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas [1974] 1997 “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” In The Nature of Consciousness. Edited by Block, et al. , pp. 519-527. Originally published in Philosophical Review, 83, 4 (1974): 435-450.Google Scholar
Nelkin, Norton 1996 Consciousness and the Origins of Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nöth, Winfried 1995 Handbook of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ogden, Charles K., and Richards, Ivor A. [1923] 1989 The Meaning of Meaning. With an introduction by Umberto Eco. New York: Harcourt.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1931 -58 Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Vols. 1–6. Edited by Hartshorne, Charles and Weiss, Paul, vols. 7 and 8. Edited by Burks, Arthur W.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1992 The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 1 (1867–1893). Edited by Houser, Nathan and Kloesel, Christian. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles S. 1998 The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Vol. 2 (1893–1913). Edited by the Peirce Edition Project. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Poinsot, John (a.k.a. “John of St-Thomas”) [1632] 2009 Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotic of John Poinsot. Revised second edition, with a new foreword. Translated and Edited by Deely, John N., with Powell, Ralph A.. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Roland, Robering, Klaus, and Sebeok, Thomas A., eds. 1997 Semiotics: a Handbook on the Sign-Theoretic Foundations of Nature and Culture. Bilingual German-English edition. Vol. 1. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Ramsey, Frank P. 1923 “Critical Notice of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.” Mind, 32, 128: 465-478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ransdell, Joseph 1978 “A Misunderstanding of Peirce’s Phenomenology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 38, 4: 550-553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, Douglas B. 1994 “The Significance for Cognitive Realism of the Thought of John Poinsot.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 68, 3: 409-424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rellstab, Daniel H. 2008 “Peirce for Linguistic Pragmaticists.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 44, 2: 312-345.Google Scholar
Rowlands, Mark 2003 Externalism: Putting Mind and World Back Together Again. Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Savan, David 1987 An Introduction to C. S. Peirce’s Full System of Semeiotic. Toronto: Toronto Semiotic Circle.Google Scholar
Schacter, Daniel L. 1989 “On the Relation Between Memory and Consciousness: Dissociable Interactions and Conscious Experience.” In Varieties of Memory and Consciousness: Essays in Honour of Endel Tulving. Edited by Roediger, Henry L. and Craik, Fergus I. M.. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 355-389.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1992 The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sebeok, Thomas A., ed. 1994 Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics. 3 vols. Second edition. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Short, Thomas L. 1986 “Life Among the Legisigns.” In Frontiers in Semiotics. Edited by Deely, John N., Williams, Brooke, and Kruse, Felicia E.. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 105-119.Google Scholar
Spiegelberg, Herbert 1981 The Context of the Phenomenological Movement. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spinks, Cary W. 1991 Peirce and Triadomania: A Walk in the Semiotic Wilderness. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Todorov, Tzvetan 1992 Theories of the Symbol. Translated by Porter, Catherine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tye, Michael 1995 “Blindsight, Orgasm and Representational Overlap.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18, 2: 268-69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael 1996 “The Function of Consciousness.” Noûs, 30, 3: 287-305.Google Scholar
Williams, Thomas, ed. 2003 The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wright, Edmond, ed. 2008 The Case for Qualia. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar