Experience and its rational significance II: Replies to Brewer, McDowell, and Siegel

Abstract

BREWER ON PHENOMENOLOGY1. It is interesting, though not altogether unsurprising, that the element in my position Brewer finds problematic is the very one that corresponds to the element I objected to in my discussion of his position. I objected to Brewer's treatment of visual similarities. Brewer, in turn, objects to my treatment of phenomenology.Brewer takes me to affirm an "absolute" independence of phenomenology from presentation, and he thinks this entails (in light of the other things I accept) "objectionable consequences." One such consequence, according to Brewer, is that there is no determinate given for experience. Another consequence is what Brewer calls "the neutrality of perceptual rationality." 2. Now, I certainly do not accept the dependence Brewer affirms between phenomenology and presentation. Brewer thinks that, in "good" cases, phenomenology is constituted by objects and perceptible features presented in experience. And he thinks that this conception is required if phenomenology is to play a determinate rationalizing role (Brewer, 2019: 315). I, however, am unable to accept either of these theses.Let us think through the disagreement here with the aid of a simplified version of an example Brewer uses in framing his objections. Imagine that two subjects, X and X*, are shown a yellow cube, o, and thereby undergo visual experiences e y and * respectively. Let us suppose that because of the differences in their perceptual situations, or perhaps because of the differences in their sensory 378 GUPTA 379 constitutions, the presentations of o to X and X* are not subjectively identical in the color dimension. Let be the color phenomenology of e y , and let * (≠ ) be the color phenomenology of * . Let us suppose, finally, that the color phenomenology of * is identical to the color phenomenology of X's perception e r , in good viewing conditions, of a red object. Now, Brewer accepts the transparency of "good" experiences, and he takes the color phenomenology of e r to be constituted by the color quality red. 1 He thinks, therefore, that * is constituted by the quality red, and he thinks that this constitutional dependence is required if phenomenology is to play a determinate rational role. I, for my part, deny both theses. I do not think that there is any constitutional dependence of phenomenology on presentation, and I do not think that the lack of such dependence deprives phenomenology of a rational role in cognition. Unsurprisingly, I also reject the transparency idea that founds Brewer's theses. 3.Brewer and I agree, nonetheless, that there are "visual similarities" (in the color dimension) between X's experience e r and X*'s experience * . Also, we both use the notion of phenomenology to capture the "visual similarities": the two experiences possess the same (color) phenomenology. Furthermore, neither of us wishes to understand phenomenology in the manner of sense-datum theorists: neither of us wishes to explain the possession of color phenomenology in terms of the presence of an appropriately colored...