content and modality themes from the philosophy of robert stalnaker dec 2006

[...]... qualitative similarity and difference as relations amongst experiences, so it can say what it is for the experiences in the one case (of things of the same color, one in shadow and the other not) to be different and for the experiences in the other case (of things of different colors, one in shadow and the other not) to be the same But it cannot say that these samenesses and differences in the experiences... in the series of color inversions So there is no basis for the claim that at the end of the latter series, when the color quality space of the subject has the same structure it did before the series of inversions began, the phenomenal character of experiences of red is different from what it was earlier But on examination the analogy breaks down The relativity of location goes with a certain sort of. .. experiences of red and green Now the claim that qualia are relational cannot mean simply that in virtue of having the qualia they do experiences stand in relations of similarity and difference; it is, of course, part of the standard view of qualia as intrinsic properties that the qualia of experiences ground the qualitative similarity and difference relations amongst experiences What the standard view... properties of them, qualia, that these are the primary relata of the relations of qualitative similarity and difference, and that these relations are internally related to the qualia, in the sense that fixing the qualia of experiences fixes the relations of qualitative similarity and difference amongst them I thought, for reasons to be considered later on, that, given certain plausible assumptions, combining the. .. i.e., the conjunction of what I earlier called the ‘‘standard view of qualia’’ and physicalism But I think it is important when speaking of realization to distinguish core realizers and total realizers.⁸ In the above example, Px, Py, Pz, and Pw are core realizers of qualia The total realizers would bring in the way the systems are connected and, what Stalnaker emphasizes, the memory systems of the subjects... only in the experiences of a single person These, it could be held, are intrinsic properties of experiences and the primary relata of the relations of qualitative similarity and difference, and are such that these relations are internal to them This would imply, of course, that experiences of different persons are qualitatively different; but they would not be different in the way experiences of red... experience’’ (p 234), and appeals to the fact that Alice and Bertha (in 2–4, Clara and Bertha, Dorothy and Clara, Dorothy and Alice) are in the same physical state at the time of the experience In support of 5 is the fact that there is no introspectable difference for Bertha between being in the Px state and being in the Py state It follows from 1–5 that Q(D,x) = Q(D,z) But this is incompatible with the fact that... Hilbert and Mark Kalderon, and also in a recent book by Austen Clark, that the qualitative character of color experiences is determined by their position in the subject’s color experience space, i.e., by their similarities and difference from other experiences in the repertoire of the subject.⁵ This is a view that rules out the possibility of a symmetrical color experience space, and so the possibility of. .. ‘‘Alice and Bertha are in the same state, physically, at the time of the experience’’ (p 234) Whether or not Px&X and Px&C are realizers of the same quale, they are not the same realizer of it My response to the argument in my 1996 was to argue that we can deny that 1–4 (modified so that they speak of total realizers) all hold without calling into question the functionalist view of qualitative similarity and. .. particular, the similarity (or difference) of an experience at time t1 and an experience at time t2 does not constitutively involve the synchronic similarity and difference relations between the first experience and other experiences at t1 and between the second experience and other experiences at t2 If I am in a darkened room, and you flash two colored lights one after the other, I can say whether the experiences . x0 y0 w0 h1" alt="" CONTENT AND MODALITY This page intentionally left blank Content and Modality Themes from the Philosophy of Robert Stalnaker Edited by JUDITH THOMSON and ALEX BYRNE CLARENDON. Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Content and modality : themes from the philosophy of Robert Stalnaker / edited by Judith Thomson and Alex Byrne. p. cm. Includes. externalism about mental content, of which he has been one of the major defenders. These ideas and their consequences have been at the heart of contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, and Bob has been