Phenomenal
Properties
A phenomenal property is a property of feeling or sensing. I analyze sensing as a property of being directly aware of
something. The idea is that sensing is just what it’s like (or what it is) to be aware of something. (In dreams,
I’m aware of arrangements of colors, shapes, and sounds, though they aren’t
exemplified.) I might be wrong about that, though. Others may analyze sensing
differently, or else leave sensing unanalyzed.
Phenomenal properties are exemplified by mental substances.
Are
They Physical?
No. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t exemplifiable by physical things—things that also exemplify
physical properties. What I mean here is that no phenomenal property is itself
a shape, a color, a quantity, or any property built from shapes or
quantities, such a dispositional, dynamic, or higher-order functional property (see
discussion of complex properties). If there are
physical properties besides these, I think they would have to be intrinsic
properties of which we have no direct awareness. We can call some of them both ‘phenomenal’ and ‘physical’ if we wish. But
if we wish to have insight into the nature or structure of phenomenal
properties, it won’t help in the slightest to simply call them physical. At any rate, when I use the term ‘physical’, I
mean a property built from shape, color, and/or quantity.
I used to suspect or hope that phenomenal properties
could be analyzed in terms of physical ones. But after studying philosophy of
mind, I believe that we can just see
that phenomenal properties are not themselves physical properties—properties
built from (analyzable in terms of) shape and/or quantity. For example, I can
just see—be aware—that my feeling of contentment is not itself built out of any
shapes or quantities. By contrast, being
a C-fiber firing, for example, is analyzable in terms that express
geometric and quantitative properties. So my feeling of contentment isn’t being
a C-fiber firing.
Some have replied that what we have here are two
different ways of apprehending the same thing. There’s the phenomenal way of
apprehending the physical properties, and then there’s the external, scientific
way. Both ways can give us knowledge of one and the same property but from
different perspectives. But that reply only leads me to ask, “What is a perspective?” And, “What is a way of apprehending?” They are
properties, I say. And so if there are truly two different ways of apprehending
a property, then the two ways are themselves two different properties. So now
the question is this: is a phenomenal, introspective way of knowing identical
to a physical property. The original situation has only been pushed back a
step. And at this step, too, I think I can just see that my introspective
awareness (phenomenal property) is not built from geometric and quantities
properties.
Some have replied that the relationship between a
phenomenal property and a physical property is like the relationship between
water and H20. They are identical, though the identity cannot be recognized a priori. I have two replies to this.
First, although water is H20, I doubt that being
water is identical to being H20.
I can grasp the non-structural property of being water without thereby grasping
the structural property of being H20. The difference between being water and
being H20 is a kin to the difference between
being the thing that feels wet when touched and being the thing whose structure is H20. (Note: on twin-earth ‘being the thing that feels wet when touched’
would pick out a slightly different property than that expression it picks out
on earth, given that the thing that
feels wet would be different.) These properties are not identical because they
have different properties as parts. Of course, they may be necessarily
co-extensive, which leads me to my second reply: we may not know whether or not
the thing that exemplifies being water is one and the same as the thing that
exemplifies being H20 because we are not directly aware of that very thing
exemplifying those properties. The idea is that we infer that H20 molecules are one and the same as water molecules on
the basis of what we are aware of. But it seems to me that the situation is
much different when it comes to phenomenal properties in that we can be
directly aware of phenomenal properties. (Recall Kripke
making this sort of observation when discussing whether felt-pain was identical
to a firing of c-fiber.) This is what allows us to see directly that phenomenal
properties are not one and the same as complex functional properties, say.
Are
They Emergent and/or Supervenient?
If phenomenal properties are not analyzable in terms
of physical properties, then you may wonder how things came to exemplify
phenomenal properties in the first place. Some philosophers have proposed that
phenomenal properties are emergent properties—meaning basically that they are
novel, unpredictable-in-principle properties that are exemplified when a
complex substance comes to exemplify the right physical properties. This may
lead us to think that phenomenal properties supervene upon physical properties
even though they are not reducible to them. I’d like to distinguish between two
kinds of supervenience:
Nomological
supervenience: For every intrinsic phenomenal property P, there is a physical
property Q, such that anything that exemplifies Q, exemplifies P [I talk of
‘intrinsic’ phenomenological properties to avoid having to account for various
kinds of content externalisms…]
Logical supervenience: Necessarily, for every
intrinsic phenomenal property P, there is a physical property Q, such that
anything that exemplifies Q, exemplifies P.
A disadvantage of logical supervenience is that it
may seem too strong. If phenomenal properties are not reducible to physical
ones, then it may seem unlikely that a phenomenal property should entail a
physical property. Aren’t disembodied minds, like God or ghosts, metaphysically
possible? Of course, there is debate
on both sides here. But for a variety of reasons, I find myself skeptical of
logical supervenience.
A disadvantage of nomological
supervenience is that we are left wondering why,
if it isn’t a necessary truth, does it happen to be the case that phenomenal
properties depend upon physical ones? Why do
psychophysical laws hold?