The Developmental Gap in Phenomenal Experience: A Comment on J. G. Taylor's “Cortical Activity and the Explanatory Gap”

1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-164
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Cortical Activity ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Phenomenal access: A moving target

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Moving Target ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

AbstractBasically agreeing with Block regarding the need for a distinction between P- and A-consciousness, I characterize the problem somewhat diflerently, relating it more directly to the explanatory gap. I also speculate on the relation between the two forms of consciousness, arguing that some notion of access is essentially involved in phenomenal experience.

Phenomenal Concepts and the Materialist Constraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Levine
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
First Person ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Phenomenal Concept ◽  
Phenomenal Concepts ◽  
Phenomenal Concept Strategy ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

Here I address the “phenomenal concept strategy” for addressing anti-materialist intuitions, such as the explanatory gap, by appealing to the special nature of phenomenal concepts. I look in depth at several proposals, including John Perry’s influential presentation in Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, and argue that they all fail in meeting what I call the “materialist constraint”, which is the principle that no property or relation that is not realizable in physical properties or relations be appealed to in the account. I conclude that some relation such as acquaintance must be invoked to explain our first-person access to conscience experience, and that currently no materialist model for such a relation exists.

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