scholarly journals Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap

2007 ◽  
pp. 167-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Chalmers
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
First Person ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concept ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Phenomenal Concept Strategy ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Here I address the “phenomenal concept strategy” for addressing anti-materialist intuitions, such as the explanatory gap, by appealing to the special nature of phenomenal concepts. I look in depth at several proposals, including John Perry’s influential presentation in Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, and argue that they all fail in meeting what I call the “materialist constraint”, which is the principle that no property or relation that is not realizable in physical properties or relations be appealed to in the account. I conclude that some relation such as acquaintance must be invoked to explain our first-person access to conscience experience, and that currently no materialist model for such a relation exists.

scholarly journals The explanatory gap problem and Papineau’s phenomenal concepts strategy

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-109
Author(s):  
Sanela Ristic-Rankovic
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Phenomenal Properties ◽  
Perceptual Model ◽  
Modes Of Presentation ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

The main purpose of this article is to analyze David Papineau?s influential perceptual model of phenomenal concepts in order to respond to the explanatory gap problem. Those are special kind of concepts which we use to refere to phenomenal properties of our own experience. Such concepts are formed when the subjects initially perceive relevant entities, they get stored into memory, and become re-activated at each coming encounter. Their distinctive feature is the non-existence of a priori connection with other concepts we possess. When we think in non-phenomenal concepts we do not have the same feeling as when we think in phenomenal concepts. This is the cause of our assumption that feelings are somehow different than physical properties. This situation of two different modes of presentation of the same entity which develop the illusion of two different entities Papineau calls the antipathetic fallacy: It is the source of the dualist intuitions which encourage the impression of an explanatory gap and lead us to persistently reject the identity of mental and physical. Once we grasp the structure of phenomenal concepts we will understand the origin of those intuitions as well as the fact that they do not give us enough reasons for doubt in physicalism.

Touching Brains in the Neuronovel

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Tougaw
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
Considerable Detail ◽  
Made In ◽  
Literary Phenomenon

In contemporary fiction, the appearance of a physical brain leads swiftly to explicit focus on questions that proliferate from the explanatory gap. Writers don’t use the term, but they explore and contextualize its implications in considerable detail. In this chapter, Tougaw examine the portrayal of those three pounds of intricately designed flesh in five novels: Thomas Harris’s Hannibal (1999), Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2006), Siri Hustvedt’s The Sorrows of an American (2009), John Wray’s Lowboy (2010), and Maud Casey’s The Man Who Walked Away (2014). These novels are representative of a common literary phenomenon: the dramatization of a fantasy whereby touching brains may reveal the stuff of which self is made. In each of these novels, the representation of physical brains provokes questions about the relationship between physiology and the self that become central to narrative closure.

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