Affordances and Phenomenal Character in Spatial Perception (web)

According to intentionalism the phenomenal character (“what it’s like”) of a conscious experience is determined wholly by its representational content. In its strongest forms intentionalism offers the tantalizing prospect of a reduction of phenomenal character to representational content. Arguments based on Twin Earth-like scenarios have shown, however, that if phenomenal character supervenes on the internal configuration of the subject then it cannot be reduced to wide representational content.1 Consequently, most intentionalists have now divided into two main camps. Phenomenal externalists accept the reduction of phenomenal character to wide representational content but deny the supervenience of phenomenal character on the internal configuration of the subject.2 By contrast, phenomenal internalists accept the supervenience of phenomenal character on the internal configuration of the subject but hold that the representational content that determines the phenomenal character of an experience (known as its phenomenal content) is narrowly individuated. Existing phenomenal internalist theories have, however, been unable to specify the relevant narrow content without ineliminable reference to the phenomenal character of the experience. Such theories therefore abandon the reduction of phenomenal character to representational content. Both options have significant drawbacks. Phenomenal externalism is often found implausible because of the extent to which it requires loosening the connection between conscious states and brain states. On the other hand, insofar as it is nonreductive, phenomenal internalism is a weaker and thus less interesting claim than a reductive theory (which is not to say that it is of no interest at all). In any case, I shall