Tales from Shopping Period: PL152 Consciousness

[paulhope]

This happened today. It was awesome. Paraphrased:

Professor Chris Hill: The paradigmatic example of a qualia is a kind of bodily sensation, like pain

Comments

[barilosopher]

Awesome. Yeah, Chris is a fun guy. Although he has an absolutely nutty theory about pain.

[paulhope]

He seems to be unafraid of taking slightly nutty positions on things (all the only data point I have on that is his externalism about epistemology, which I gather from discussions on the philosophy communities is a kind of fringe position).

What does he think about pain?

[barilosopher]

Depending on what you mean by externalism about epistemology, that's a pretty mainstream view. The view about pain is much nuttier, I think. But I should preface my remarks by admitting that I haven't read Chris's paper myself; I've heard that this is his view, but it's third or fourth hand now, and it's quite possible that the details are wrong. But here's my understanding of the view.

Like many contemporary philosophers, Chris is pretty nervous about qualia. But pain is definitely for real; what's a naturalist to do? Chris's solution is to identify pain with bodily damage. Yes, identify them. You cut your finger and you have pain. The pain IS the cut in your finger. It's not a phenomenal experience, it's damage to your body.

Here's the paper:
"Ouch! An Essay on Pain," in Rocco Genarro (ed.), Higher Order Theories of Consciousnss (Benjamins, 2004)

[paulhope]

By externalism about epistemology, I was thinking of a process reliabilist account of epistemic justification, which I think Chris holds or held when I took epistemology from him. Is that a good representative of externalism account generally?

It's interesting that you are making Chris out to be (I guess?) an eliminivist about phenomenal experience (or at least pain experience) given the way he was talking in class about how robust the commonsense view of qualia is. Something's creepy here.

Do you think he's an identity theorist about mentality, generally?

[paulhope]

If I get the chance, I'll let him know.

I've been reading some more Putnam (The Threefold Cord), this time on perception, and apparently he espouses direct realism although he hates the name and wants to call it natural realism. He taking shots at Cartesians left and right and singing about how John Austin is the most underrated philosopher ever.

I'm not sure I buy it yet--I can't see how it solves the things he's trying to solve, or understand the direct/natural realists account of non-veridical experience (he seems to want to just deny that, for example, a realistic dream that convinces one that they are in it is possible or is a real case of perception). But in any case, I thought of you.

[paulhope]

All the direct realist need to claim is that these aren't veridical, and to posit a very real difference between the quality of these two experiences.

I'm glad you came out and said this, since Putnam seems to want to both not commit himself to this position and take stabs at those who think they have similar enough quality at the same time. It's confusing.

If you've ever hallucinated or had a dream, it's very easy and intuitive to understand that there is a difference between even your most realistic dream and your everyday perceptions.

I don't think the debate would exist if it were that easy. It seems to me that the major difference between the phenomena of realistic dreams and those of veridical perception (to the extent that it can be described that way, which is questionable, IMHO, but that's a tangent) is one discovered retrospectively and has to do with coherence with other experiences. (It's a relational, not intrinsic, property) There have been times in my life, however, when I've had very real confusion over whether

[awwh_snap]

Hehe. I raise my clenched fist in approval.

not quite a regret

[anonymous]

I am so sad that I didn't get to take his class. I can't call it a regret, exactly, since what I did instead led pretty directly to a couple of years of happy, gainful employment. But I'm still really sad.

- Louisa Hope

Re: not quite a regret

[paulhope]

He's still one of my favorite professors here. I'm not sure if I'll take this class, another he's co-teaching with a cog sci professort, or neither yet.

[thebird]

BRILLIANT