Vagueness and zombies: why ‘phenomenally conscious’ has no borderline cases

Abstract

I argue that there can be no such thing as a borderline case of the predicate 'phenomenally conscious': for any given creature at any given time, it cannot be vague whether that creature is phenomenally conscious at that time. I first defend the Positive Characterization Thesis, which says that for any borderline case of any predicate there is a positive characterization of that case that can show any sufficiently competent speaker what makes it a borderline case. I then appeal to the familiar claim that zombies are conceivable, and I argue that this claim entails that there can be no positive characterizations of borderline cases of 'phenomenally conscious'. By the Positive Characterization Thesis, it follows that 'phenomenally conscious' can not have any borderline cases.

Non‐human consciousness and the specificity problem: A modest theoretical proposal

“…As Carruthers (2018a) puts it, “[o]ne can be semi‐conscious, or only partly awake. But some of the states one is in when semi‐conscious are fully (unequivocally) phenomenally conscious nonetheless” (p. 53; see also Simon, 2017). Such familiar examples, then, do not help us make sense of the idea of what it would mean for a creature to have some (non‐total) degree of consciousness.…”

The hatching of consciousness

“…Godfrey-Smith pushes against the widespread intuition that consciousness must be present or absent, on or off: that a particular state of a particular animal either determinately feels like something or does not. Anthony ( 2006 ) has called this the “intuition of sharpness” (see also Simon, 2017 ). I’ve written elsewhere about the absurdity of the suggestion that a cat neither determinately does feel nor determinately does not feel (Birch, 2020a ).…”

On the axiomatic foundations of the integrated information theory of consciousness

“…Although some theorists have argued on a priori grounds that consciousness is not vague (e.g. Antony 2006 , 2008 ; Simon 2017 ), that view is controversial and is rejected by a number of other theorists (e.g. Papineau 1993 ; Tye 1996 ).…”