Understanding sensory qualities
Fictionalism versus limited illusionism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21591969 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Roger Christan Schriner (independent scholar, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09515089.2025.2567502 |
| OpenAlex | W4414843420 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
In several areas of academic inquiry, including mathematics and moral theory, certain entities these disciplines discuss may well be nonexistent. If they are, this could cause serious practical and conceptual problems. For example, if numbers do not exist, how can mathematics work? One way to address such issues is by treating these states and properties as useful fictions, and some have applied this approach to philosophy of mind. One of the main problems in philosophy of mind has been the difficulty of naturalizing the qualitative character of sensory experiences. Some say this difficulty shows that we cannot naturalize qualitative character; it is nonphysical. Others dispense with this problem by endorsing eliminativism; qualitative experiences do not exist. This paper discusses ways that fictionalism has been employed by qualia-eliminativists such as Dennett and Frankish, and concludes that the value of their fictionalist approach is counterbalanced by conceptual confusions and difficulties communicating with the public. The paper then presents a non-fictional way to solve puzzles about qualitative experiences, through a limited, non-eliminativist form of illusionism. It concludes by comparing the way fictionalism and limited illusionism deal with two challenging conundrums about consciousness: Jackson’s knowledge argument and Levine’s explanatory gap
Cognition · Metaphor · Perception · Sensory system · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy and Theoretical Science
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |