Deflationism about qualia

Dave Ward, University of Edinburgh (1 Jul 2005)

Mind2005 Graduate Conference, University of Edinburgh (30 Jun 2005-1 Jul 2005)

Chalmers (1996) and others contend that the problems of consciousness can be divided into easy and hard categories. "Easy" problems include the analyses of memory, reportability, and attention, all believed to be amenable to explanation in structural and functional terms. "The Hard Problem" consists in explaining phenomenal consciousness - the subjective character of experience which is thought to elude the structural and functional explanations appropriate for the "Easy" problems.

Here are three possible responses to this dichotomy:
1) Accept it - phenomenal consciousness is not amenable to the sorts of reductive explanation we use to answer the "Easy" questions (dualists, mysterians).
2) Deny it - there is no such thing as phenomenal consciousness, and therefore nothing left to explain once the "Easy" questions are answered (eliminativists).
3) Deny it - though there is such a thing as phenomenal consciousness, it can be explained by answering sufficiently many "Easy" questions about cognitive processes and processing, and the relationships between these processes. The apparent difference in kind between "Easy" and "Hard" questions is illusory (deflationists).

In my paper, I examine how a story of the third (deflationist) type could be told about qualia, the elements of experience which constitute phenomenal consciousness. I argue that the existing work of various deflationists (Clark, Dennett, Pettit) contains sufficient resources to suggest a schema which deflationists can use to answer "Hard" questions about phenomenal consciousness.

In the first part of the paper, I characterise the properties of qualia that are held to make them "special" features of experience (and thus unsuitable for the "Easy" methods of explanation): Ineffability, Privacy, Introspectability, Intrinsicality and Simplicity.

Firstly, I argue that these properties should be the explanatory targets for the deflationists. Secondly, I argue that since the list of properties is arrived at by appeal to introspection, it is open to a deflationist to hold for any property on the list that:
i) There is a feature of our experience with this property, but we need not gloss the property in a way that ensures it eludes reductive explanation, OR
ii) There is no feature of our experience with this property, but we can explain the introspective evidence which leads us to posit it.

The main part of the paper focuses on the case of the perceptual qualia of colour experience, and shows how recent deflationist work (of Clark, Dennett and Pettit) suggests that, for such cases, each of the problematic properties can be dealt with in one of the above two ways. I argue that the insights of these theorists can be made to both cohere and support each other, suggesting a schema which can explain the phenomenal aspects of colour experience and promises to be generalisable to instances of qualia other than those considered.

In the final part of the paper, I consider some objections which might be levelled against such a deflationist account, and sketch some ways in which the account might afford explanations of some other puzzling cases of phenomenal experience.

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