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How to study Folk Intuitions about Phenomenal Consciousness

Sytsma, Justin and Machery, Edouard (2008) How to study Folk Intuitions about Phenomenal Consciousness. [Preprint]

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Abstract

The assumption that the concept of phenomenal consciousness is pretheoretical is often found in the philosophical debates on consciousness. Unfortunately, this assumption has not received the kind of empirical attention that it deserves. We suspect that this is in part due to difficulties that arise in attempting to test folk intuitions about consciousness. In this article we elucidate and defend a key methodological principle for this work. We draw this principle out by considering recent experimental work on the topic by Joshua Knobe and Jesse Prinz (2008). We charge that their studies do not establish that the folk have a concept of phenomenal consciousness in part because they compare group agents to individuals. The problem is that group agents and individuals differ in some significant ways in terms of functional organization and behavior. We propose that future experiments should establish that ordinary people are disposed to ascribe different mental states to entities that are given behaviorally and functionally equivalent descriptions.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Sytsma, Justin
Machery, Edouard
Additional Information: To appear in Philosophical Psychology, 22(1): 21-35 (2009).
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Depositing User: Justin Sytsma
Date Deposited: 17 Jun 2008
Last Modified: 07 Oct 2010 18:50
Item ID: 4074
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Cognitive Science
Date: June 2008
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/4074

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