Phenomenology, Objectivity, and the Explanatory Gap

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-50
Author(s):  
Donnchadh Ó Conaill
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Explanatory Gap

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.

Touching Brains in the Neuronovel

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Tougaw
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Explanatory Gap ◽  
Considerable Detail ◽  
Made In ◽  
Literary Phenomenon

In contemporary fiction, the appearance of a physical brain leads swiftly to explicit focus on questions that proliferate from the explanatory gap. Writers don’t use the term, but they explore and contextualize its implications in considerable detail. In this chapter, Tougaw examine the portrayal of those three pounds of intricately designed flesh in five novels: Thomas Harris’s Hannibal (1999), Ian McEwan’s Saturday (2006), Siri Hustvedt’s The Sorrows of an American (2009), John Wray’s Lowboy (2010), and Maud Casey’s The Man Who Walked Away (2014). These novels are representative of a common literary phenomenon: the dramatization of a fantasy whereby touching brains may reveal the stuff of which self is made. In each of these novels, the representation of physical brains provokes questions about the relationship between physiology and the self that become central to narrative closure.

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