The problem with the "Phenomenal Concept Strategy"

The phenomenal concept strategy is the best materialist argument in the philosophy of mind. But you need to know that it does not argue for materialism, but assumes that it is correct. (When I say materialism, I mean the position that consciousness just is a neural configuration.) Indeed in the philosophy of mind, the battleground is entirely in the a priori realm. In this essay I try to show that the phenomenal concept strategy is the wrong approach because it assumes something to be true, a priori, on unjustifiable grounds.(Not because what it assumes to be true is unjustifiable, yet. I was making a theoretical critique, but of course it ultimately converges with a substantive one. The lesson was, for me, that what does not work substantively will not work theoretically either, and that the materialist position is deeply biased.)

The Knowledge Argument starts with a thought experiment. Imagine a topnotch neuroscientist, Mary, who has all of the neurophysiological knowledge of color (what happens inside the brain when one sees the color red) and that of the physical properties of color. Yet, Mary has lived her life in a black and white room with no mirror; she has never seen the color red. Finally, she leaves the room, and encounters a rose. For the first time in her life, she sees the color red. The dualist argues that Mary learns a new fact—namely, what the experience of seeing the color red is like. Since Mary has already learned all the physical facts about red, it follows that physical facts do not exhaust all the facts in the world. Since materialism is the view that reality is fundamentally physical—namely, that physical facts do exhaust all the facts in the world—materialism is false. David Chalmers puts it this way:

“It follows that if Mary gains any factual knowledge that she previously lacked…then there must be some truly novel fact that she gains knowledge of… Given that she already knew all the physical facts, it follows that materialism is false. The physical facts are in no sense exhaustive” (Chalmers, 142).

To defend the view that there are no non-physical facts of the world at all—that reality is fundamentally physical and physical only—the materialist must deny that Mary “makes any discovery about the world at all” (144). The materialist makes this move by using the “Phenomenal Concept Strategy” (PCS). A phenomenal concept is a concept of a conscious experience, referring to phenomenal properties, i.e., “qualia.” The goal of the strategy is to argue that it is because of the nature of phenomenal concepts that we falsely believe that Mary makes a new discovery of the world, while she really does not.

In Mary’s example, she could not have inferred what it is like to see red based on the neurophysiological knowledge that she had—there is an epistemic gap. It is this gap that makes the dualist think that how it is like to see red is a new fact. Interestingly, while the materialist accepts the epistemic gap, he wishes to deny that there is a new (non-physical) fact. The materialist does so by arguing that the gap can be explained by an appeal to “the nature of phenomenal concepts” rather than to “the nature of non-physical phenomenal properties” (Balog, 1). In other words, the gap is due “not to the nature of qualia but rather the nature of the concepts in terms of which we think about qualia” (6). The materialist assumes that the nature of qualia is physical and argues that it is because of the nature of the phenomenal concepts that there is an epistemic gap that misleads the dualist into thinking that there is an ontological separation, while there really is not. In order to do so, the materialist must also assume that an epistemic gap does not necessarily entail an ontological distinction.

What is the unique nature of phenomenal concepts? A phenomenal concept presents its referent in an immediate and direct way. Katlin Balog argues that there is an “intimate relation” between phenomenal concepts and their referents. “Token experiences,” i.e., neural configurations, serve as “modes of presentation” of the referents, i.e., the phenomenal properties that the token experiences instantiate. In a word, a phenomenal concept is itself constituted by a token experience that instantiates the concept’s referents and being thus constituted is what enables the concept to refer to any phenomenal properties at all. In simpler terms, to use a phenomenal concept—to think about a conscious experience—is to undergo an actual (token) conscious experience: “Undergoing an experience that instantiates the referent reveals something essential about the referent in a particularly vivid manner, namely, it reveals what it is like to have it” (8). As such, the nature of phenomenal concepts is simulational. To simulate a token brain state is to grasp a phenomenal concept. To think about what it is like to see red, for example, is to undergo a token experience of seeing red, which is to say, to simulate a certain neural configuration in the brain.

Alternatively, on the PCS picture, there are theoretical concepts whose relations with their referents are not “intimate” but mediated by functional or physical modes of presentation. For example, we grasp the theoretical concept of water by grasping a theory of water: e.g. its functional and physical descriptions, and not by simulating a token brain state. Between theoretical concepts, there are no epistemic gaps. The neuropsychological knowledge of redness relies on theoretical concepts and is epistemically “closed.” But what it is like for Mary to see red is a phenomenal concept that presents qualia by being directly constituted by certain token neural configurations, and this makes it impossible to “sync up” with any theoretical concepts that are grasped through theories. The epistemic gap is a result of the theoretical concept and the phenomenal concept having different natures, rather than the physical and the phenomenal having different natures.

The materialist denies that Mary makes any new discovery about the world when she sees red and argues that it only appears as such because of the simulational nature of phenomenal concepts. Ultimately, the materialist affirms that phenomenal properties are physical, and all phenomenal concepts still refer to physical properties, assuming that an epistemic gap does not necessarily entail an ontological gap.

The proponent of PCS assumes that phenomenal properties are physical properties. Only based on this can the materialist argue that there is not necessarily an ontological gap even though there is an epistemic gap. The simulational nature of the phenomenal concept alone is not enough to justify this conclusion. For Mary to not have made a new discovery of the world when she sees red, the phenomenal concept must refer to physical properties already. In other words, the phenomenal must be assumed to be physical already for PCS to work. Based on this, some may argue that this strategy is subject to the charge of circularity, that it defends materialism based on the assumption that materialism is true. But I have a different objection in mind.

The epistemic gap would have been enough grounds to challenge the a priori materialist assumption—i.e., the phenomenal is physical—that PCS uses, if the materialist does not deny that an epistemic gap necessarily entails an ontological gap. The materialist will justify his move by saying that there are no a priori reasons to reject his denial. However, it seems that it has always been the case that epistemic consistency and ontological consistency go hand in hand. We have never encountered a gap between the two. True, the burden of proof is on the dualist, since the dualist holds the positive position that an epistemic gap necessarily entails an ontological gap, while the materialist the negative position.

Still, to be convincing, the materialist also needs to provide some reasons for rejecting this long-held position—reasons that are independent of the a priori materialist assumption that the phenomenal is the physical. The a priori materialist assumption is challenged by the position that an epistemic gap necessarily entails an ontological gap (especially since the proponent of PCS accepts that there is an epistemic gap in principle between the phenomenal and the physical.) But the materialist’s response is to simply reject that position without providing some reasons for it, and without explaining why it always seemed as if that position was right, while it is in fact wrong.

A natural thought is that the materialist can try to provide some other instances where there is also, in principle, an epistemic gap without an ontological gap. However, it is not clear how the materialist can do that with PCS, especially with its binary framework of theoretical and phenomenal concepts, where all theoretical concepts sync up perfectly and without any gap. Alternatively, the materialist may point to instances where the initial impression of an epistemic gap was debunked by scientific advancements to suggest that an epistemic gap does not necessarily entail an ontological gap. However, that is to abandon PCS, since PCS is only needed if the materialist concedes that there is an epistemic gap in principle, rather than merely apparently, between the phenomenal and the physical. Or the materialist can develop some theory for why epistemic consistency has been falsely seen as a good guide for ontological consistency for all this time.

To conclude, with PCS, the materialist successfully explains why the dualist can be misled to think that there is an ontological distinction, assuming that materialism is true. However, that a priori assumption is challenged by the long-held position that epistemic consistency and ontological consistency go hand in hand. To defend that a priori assumption, the materialist should at least provide some reasons for rejecting the position or why people have been mistaken before. Instead, the proponent of PCS gets it backward, by rejecting that position in order to defend the assumption that it challenges. This is logically permissible but renders his argument unconvincing.

Works Cited

Balog, Katalin. “In Defense of the Phenomenal Concept Strategy.” Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchLXXXIV, no. 1 (Jan 2012): 1-23.

Chalmers, David. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2014.