Abstract
It is a plausible thought that we are acquainted with our own phenomenal states, and that there are special canonical concepts of those states – phenomenal concepts – that in some sense or another facilitate this acquaintance. Let Acquaintance be the claim that our most general concept of phenomenal consciousness – the concept consciousness – is such a canonical concept, facilitating acquaintance with the property of being phenomenally conscious. In ‘Orthodox Property Dualism + The Linguistic Theory of Vagueness = Panpsychism’, Phillip Goff attempts to put a version of Acquaintance to work. He first argues that Orthodox Property Dualists – those who accept Property Dualism on the basis of arguments from epistemic gaps to ontological gaps – are committed to his version of Acquaintance, which he dubs Phenomenal Transparency. He then argues that Phenomenal Transparency implies that consciousness is not a vague concept, and finally he argues that this means Orthodox Property Dualists should be Panpsychists.
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- 1.
Goff defines an Orthodox Property Dualist as one who on the basis of the standard arguments takes consciousness to be “…a basic property which arises from physical properties in accordance with fundamental psycho-physical laws of nature.” This loads much into the definition. For example, if one is persuaded by the standard arguments to think that consciousness does not supervene on the physical, but one also thinks that consciousness might be constructed out of some equally non-physical sort of proto-consciousness, then one does not count as an Orthodox Property Dualist. Also, Goff does not say which are the standard arguments, which is frustrating because he goes on to make a universal claim about what acceptance of them entails. For example, is the Max Black argument (discussed in Block 2006; Perry 2001; White 1983) a standard argument?
- 2.
Goff’s notion of Transparency is not to be confused with other notions of Transparency in the literature, for example the notion connected to the notion of Luminosity (Williamson 2000), or the notion connected to Diaphonousness in debates about Representationalism (Tye 2002), or the notion connected to the epistemic status of second order beliefs (Byrne 2005; Barnett forthcoming), or to the notion that deliberation about whether to believe that p gives way to deliberation about whether p is true (Shah and Velleman 2005).
- 3.
Goff, “A Posteriori Physicalists Get Our Phenomenal Concepts Wrong” p. 4.
- 4.
For a discussion of this and some related issues see Geoff Lee (forthcoming).
- 5.
Note the important difference between Goff’s Phenomenal Transparency thesis, and the similar principles at play in Johnston (1992), Lewis (1995), Byrne and Hilbert (2006) and Stoljar (2006) usually called Revelation principles. Those principles tell you that a token experience puts you in a position to know all of the essential truths about either it or its perceptual object. These theses are about something like perceptual content and perceptual justification, not about concept possession bestowing or enabling a priori justification. Nevertheless some of the points I make here in critique of Goff mirror points that Stoljar makes in critique of Lewis.
- 6.
- 7.
An example. Argument X implies, from premises of whatever justificatory status, that it is a priori that something is essentially true of consciousness if we can conceive of that thing being essentially true of consciousness. Argument Y implies, from premises knowable a priori, that something is essentially true of consciousness if we can conceive of it being essentially true of consciousness. I take it that the question on the table is whether any standard argument for Property Dualism is an argument of the latter sort – it is fairly obvious that none is an argument of the former sort.
- 8.
And we may presume he means solely in virtue, as it basically goes without saying that possession of the concept plays some supporting role here, assuming that concept possession plays a justificatory role at all.
- 9.
At least for the purposes of this paper. Elsewhere he indicates that he believes the metaphysics of mind can be adequately done solely by exploring our concept consciousness (see for example his ‘A Posteriori Physicalists Get Our Phenomenal Concepts Wrong.’). I also suspect that his views on the meaning-based a priori here somehow stand behind his faith that the Transparent-Translucent-Opaque distinction carves at the joints.
- 10.
See for example Jackson and Chalmers (2001).
- 11.
Though most who speak of Intuition as a legitimate epistemic method take it to be a priori, this depends on how exactly we understand Intuition, and how exactly we understand a priority.
- 12.
Though it is implausible that basic epistemic rules be a posteriori, derived ones may be. And the rules which make symmetry, elegance and parsimony out to be theoretic virtues may well be derived (from a combination of basic rules and experience). Had we repeatedly experienced the symmetric or parsimonious theory losing out, we might not think of these as theoretical virtues. Alternatively it might be a priori knowable that these virtues give a theory some prima facie justification, but call for further a posteriori evidence in order to get from prima facie to all things considered justification. Thanks to Daniel Nolan for discussion. Another possibility is that the relevant rules are a priori but the knowledge that a given theory has one of the virtues mentioned by the rules turns out to be a posteriori (and, for that matter, contingent).
- 13.
For example, it might be a priori knowable that these virtues give a theory some prima facie justification, but nevertheless a posteriori evidence might be required in order to get to all things considered justification.
- 14.
Regarding Epistemic Rigidity this may depend on how we understand the notion of conceivability at play in that thesis. If we understand it in terms of what is knowable a priori, then Epistemic Rigidity may follow from the Two-Dimensional argument. But if we understand conceivability in some more psychological and less epistemic way the matter is less obvious. See note 16 below.
- 15.
I take it that nothing I say in the below will hinge on how exactly we understand ‘essential’. My arguments are all compatible with the more restrictive reading of that notion suggested by Kit Fine (1994), where various modal facts about some property are not essential facts about that property. I shall focus on examples of facts that ought to be in the running for counting as essential facts, no matter what one’s analysis of essentiality. I also note that the more of a restricted notion of Essence Goff appeals to, the lower the likelihood that Phenomenal Transparency will make all of the facts a priori regarding how a concept may be sharpened if it is vague.
- 16.
This is ruled out by one analysis of Conceivability, the one Chalmers calls ‘Ideal Negative Conceivability’, which says that something is conceivable if it cannot be ruled out a priori. This means something is inconceivable if it can be ruled out a priori. If we define ‘ruling out a priori’ as a success term, we establish by definition that every possibility is conceivable. However, if we define ‘ruling out a priori’ as ‘a priori (conclusively) justifying disbelief’ then we leave the question open. Alternatively, we leave the question open if we embrace some other conception of Conceivability, for example the one Chalmers calls ‘Positive Conceivability.’ See Chalmers (2010).
- 17.
Incidentally, Phenomenal Transparency also does not imply Epistemic Rigidity or A Priori Surveyability so long as we make room for things to be both conceivable but a priori knowably false, and it does not imply A Priori Surveyability provided that the possible truth of at least one purely phenomenal proposition is not an essential fact about consciousness.
- 18.
Chalmers sometimes refers to this as the thesis that the 1-intension of consciousness is identical to its 2-intension. Chalmers points out that his argument does not rely on this claim. He has in mind the possibility that ‘Q’ turns out to rigidly designate a physical property, but one which itself has (second order) non-physical properties. Then a possible world might verify ‘P&∼Q’ even though strictly speaking ‘P&Q’ is true there. Nevertheless, on this picture in order for that world to verify ‘P&∼Q’, the physical property rigidly designated by ‘Q’ must not instantiate the second order non-physical properties that it actually instantiates. Hence Physicalism is still falsified. My point in this paragraph of the text illustrates a different way that the argument against Physicalism may succeed even if the 1-intension of consciousness is not identical to the 2-intension. But my central claim is that even granting that the 1-intension is the 2-intension, Phenomenal Transparency does not follow – for one thing because (as I argue above) the identity of 1- and 2-intensions might not be a priori knowable, for another thing because (as I argue below) even if this is a priori knowable, it does not follow that all essential facts about consciousness are.
- 19.
- 20.
Goff’s reasoning here seems to be influenced by two illicit assumptions: that translucent concepts denote complex properties, and that these factor into simple properties for which there are transparent and opaque concepts. Goff is perhaps assuming (without argument) that all a priori knowledge is knowledge had in virtue of possession of transparent concepts. This claim is implausible, and begs some of the central questions here. I conclude that the partition of concepts into Transparent, Translucent and Opaque, at least as Goff understands it, is not very dialectically effective – in particular, it does not carve at the battle lines in the Metaphysics of Mind. I also note that for all we have said here, there may well be some concept which is such that grasp of it puts you in a position to know all of the essential facts about consciousness – for example, some infinitary concept that encodes all of those facts. The implausible claim Goff makes is that our ordinary, everyday concept of consciousness has this feature.
- 21.
For example, we might be able to argue that the sharpenings of a transparent concept must themselves be transparent. This would narrow the pool of candidates significantly.
- 22.
Simon (2012).
- 23.
Very briefly: Conceptual Dualism ensures that no ordinary material concepts give us an adequate conception of a sharpening. But this leaves room for the wide range of what we might call ‘Protophenomenal’ concepts – concepts that are not material, but that give us conceptions of sharpenings, by showing us how clear cases of consciousness may be located on some sort of continuum with clear cases of non-consciousness. Many views that countenance protophenomenal concepts will not count as Orthodox Property Dualist, in Goff’s sense, even if they believe that phenomenal and protophenomenal reality do not supervene on material reality. Nevertheless, that is a view to which one might be led by the standard arguments, and it is puzzling that Goff does not spend more time addressing it. But Orthodox Property Dualists might also avail themselves of something like protophenomenal concepts: for example, concepts of properties that are related to consciousness the way red is related to green, even if these other properties are uninstantiated. There might still be vagueness in exactly how far up the hierarchy from infima species to maxima genera our concept consciousness lies, since there is no reason for its reference to be determined by the exact range of actual instances. Compare: our concept red would be vague even if there were no actual orange things. Alternatively, there might be some conceptual analysis in neutral terms that entailed some deep commonality between the physical and the phenomenal, while still respecting the claim that the phenomenal is every bit as fundamental as the physical. Goff points out that no one has yet successfully carried out the sort of conceptual analysis that these approaches require. But it is hard to see why that means we are entitled to assume no one will.
- 24.
Though I do not think we need to accept Supervaluationism, or the language of Sharpenings, to make the point. The Semantic Indecision theory does not imply Supervaluationism – especially if the latter is taken to be the view that sharpenings are supposed to extend the meanings of vague terms while preserving what they already mean, where this means rejecting that the vagueness of a vague term is bound up with what it means. For difficulties with this idea see Schiffer (2003). For example, it is unclear how this picture could apply in intensional contexts, where the vagueness is inherently a part of what is meant e.g. ‘She only likes bald men’. I defend my own proposal in my dissertation, The Sharp Contour of Consciousness.
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Simon, J. (2014). What Is Acquaintance with Consciousness?. In: Brown, R. (eds) Consciousness Inside and Out: Phenomenology, Neuroscience, and the Nature of Experience. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6001-1_9
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