Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 New work for a theory of universals
- 2 Putnam's paradox
- 3 Against structural universals
- 4 A Comment on Armstrong and Forrest
- 5 Extrinsic properties
- 6 Defining ‘intrinsic’ (with Rae Langton)
- 7 Finkish dispositions
- 8 Noneism or allism?
- 9 Many, but almost one
- 10 Casati and Varzi on holes (with Stephanie Lewis)
- 11 Rearrangement of particles: Reply to Lowe
- 12 Armstrong on combinatorial possibility
- 13 A world of truthmakers?
- 14 Maudlin and modal mystery
- 15 Humean Supervenience debugged
- 16 Psychophysical and theoretical identifications
- 17 What experience teaches
- 18 Reduction of mind
- 19 Should a materialist believe in qualia?
- 20 Naming the colours
- 21 Percepts and color mosaics in visual experience
- 22 Individuation by acquaintance and by stipulation
- 23 Why conditionalize?
- 24 What puzzling Pierre does not believe
- 25 Elusive knowledge
- Index
19 - Should a materialist believe in qualia?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 New work for a theory of universals
- 2 Putnam's paradox
- 3 Against structural universals
- 4 A Comment on Armstrong and Forrest
- 5 Extrinsic properties
- 6 Defining ‘intrinsic’ (with Rae Langton)
- 7 Finkish dispositions
- 8 Noneism or allism?
- 9 Many, but almost one
- 10 Casati and Varzi on holes (with Stephanie Lewis)
- 11 Rearrangement of particles: Reply to Lowe
- 12 Armstrong on combinatorial possibility
- 13 A world of truthmakers?
- 14 Maudlin and modal mystery
- 15 Humean Supervenience debugged
- 16 Psychophysical and theoretical identifications
- 17 What experience teaches
- 18 Reduction of mind
- 19 Should a materialist believe in qualia?
- 20 Naming the colours
- 21 Percepts and color mosaics in visual experience
- 22 Individuation by acquaintance and by stipulation
- 23 Why conditionalize?
- 24 What puzzling Pierre does not believe
- 25 Elusive knowledge
- Index
Summary
Should a materialist believe in qualia? Yes and no. ‘Qualia’ is a name for the occupants of a certain functional role that is spelled out in our tacitly known folk psychology. If materialism is true, there are no perfect occupants of the role, and hence no perfect deservers of the name. But in all probability there are imperfect occupants of the role, imperfect deservers of the name. Good enough deservers of the name? May they just be called ‘qualia’? I say yes.
But I take this to be a case of semantic indecision. There is no settled answer to the question ‘how good is good enough?’. In part, maybe, it is a political question. The foe (or friend) of materialism who wants to make it out to be something radical and bizarre is entitled to say that materialist ‘qualia’ are bogus, ersatz qualia; whereas a conservative materialist like me may say with equal right that qualia exist but are not quite as we take them to be.
‘Qualia’ isn't a term of ordinary language. Neither is ‘phenomenal character’ nor ‘raw feel’ nor ‘subjective quality’. ‘What it's like’ or ‘how it seems’ are ordinary enough - but when used as terms for qualia, they are used in a special technical sense. You can say what it's like to taste New Zealand beer by saying what experience you have when you do, namely a sweet taste.
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- Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology , pp. 325 - 331Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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