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?

[barilosopher]

Yikes. Honestly, I don't feel qualified to answer these questions about Chris's own views. I know that he's a staunch naturalist about pretty much everything; beyond that, I'd want to read some more of his stuff, or talk to him about his views, before I went around attributing views to him.

I don't know whether he's a process reliabilist about epistemic justification, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Yes, that seems like a fairly good example of an externalist view.

Again, I haven't read the paper, but I'm not sure why you think from my description of his view that he's an eliminativist about phenomenal experience or about pain. As I understand it and described it, he's giving an account of pain. He does think there's pain -- it's bodily damage. So no, I don't think he's an eliminativist.

But like I said, I'm feeling like I've ventured too far out into the murky waters. The best person to ask about Chris's views is Chris.

[paulhope]

Just to motivate what I was saying, without pressing you to guess about Chris any further, I thought you were saying he was an eliminivist about phenomenal experience when you said "The pain IS the cut in your finger. It's not a phenomenal experience, it's damage to your body." (emphasis mine)

[barilosopher]

Oh, good call. Right you are. Yeah, I don't know which way he'd go -- probably, you have to say either that there are no phenomenal experiences after all, or that some phenomenal experiences, like pain, are bodily damage. So definitely not an eliminativist about pain, maybe or maybe not an eliminativist about phenomenal experience.