Sensory Awareness as Irreducible

This paper is a companion to “Sensory Awareness is not a Wide Physical Relation: An Empirical Argument against Externalist Intentionalism” (forthcoming, with a reply by Michael Tye, in Nous). I generalize the argument of that previous paper. I attempt to show that, given the mild form of Internalism argued for in the previous paper, it is not only the case that the awareness relation cannot be identified with a wide physical relation; it also cannot be identified with a narrow physical relation, for lack of any candidates with the right properties. This concludes my case for the Brentano/Meinong view that the awareness relation, or the sensory representation relation, is a primitive, non-physical relation. So, in my view, the case for Primitivism need not rest on the alleged conceivability of Zombies or the like. Primitivism about sensory consciousness may be proved on the basis of the Relational View of sensory consciousness together with a mild form of Internalism.