Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many peo...

In this paper I propose a defense of a posteriori materialism. Problems with a posteriori identity materialism are identified, and a materialism based on composition, not identity, is proposed. The main task for such a proposal is to account for the relation between physical and phenomenal properties. Composition does not seem to be fit as a relation between properties, but I offer a peculiar w...

The question was raised whether the Gestalt law of grouping by proximity is based on proximity of stimuli on the retina or perceived proximity in phenomenal space. To tease apart these 2 possibilities an earlier experiment of Corbin was repeated in which the stimulus array is tilted back into the 3rd dimension. By including a measure of constancy for the perceived distance between points it was...

When an observer with a holistic viewing attitude perceives transparency in an achromatic two-dimensional pattern, some areas of the pattern form a single transparent phenomenal surface. In each of these areas the observer simultaneously perceives the gray color of the transparent surface and the gray color of the background that is visible through the transparent surface. With an analytic view...

How come we can represent Bigfoot even though Bigfoot does not exist, given that representing something involves bearing a relation to it and we cannot bear relations to what does not exist? This is the problem of intentional inexistence. This paper develops a two-step solution to this problem, involving (first) an adverbial account of conscious representation, or phenomenal intentionality, and...

Normally, when we notice a change taking place, our conscious experience has a corresponding quality of phenomenal change. Here it is argued that one’s experience can have this quality at or during a time when there is no change in which phenomenal properties one instantiates. This undermines a number of otherwise forceful arguments against leading metaphysical theories of change, but also requ...

In studying folk psychology, cognitive and developmental psychologists have mainly focused on how people conceive of non-experiential states such as beliefs and desires. As a result, we know very little about how non-philosophers (or the folk) understand the mental states that philosophers typically classify as being phenomenally conscious. In particular, it is not known whether the folk even t...