The Speckled Hen

Obviously, you see the speckles. Everyone agrees about that.

The question is whether you see each and every speckle that is in view.

Tye says, "No. You see the speckles, but you don't see each and every speckle, at least not at the same time."

Dretske says, "Yes, you do. You see each and every speckle."

So, who is right, and why? (Note that both agree that you do not see the hen as having, say, thirty six speckles (or however many there are in view).)

Tye on Tye

In Chapter Three of Consciousness Revisited, Tye criticizes his earlier "phenomenal concepts" approach to introspection.

First, let's try to get clear about the nature of this approach. What is a phenomenal concept supposed to be?

Second, why exactly does Tye abandon the phenomenal concept strategy? Do you think he's right to do so?

Phenomenal Information?

Lewis's "Ability Hypothesis" (AH) is an alternative to what he calls "The Hypothesis of Phenomenal Information" (HPI). Both of these hypotheses offer to explain what Mary learns on leaving the black and white room. According to HPI, what Mary learns is information about the phenomenal character of certain types of color experience. According to AH, what Mary learns is how to do something--namely, recognize, remember, and imagine certain types of color experience.

So, here are some questions for you: Do you think that there is such a thing as phenomenal information? Why or why not? What sort of thing is phenomenal information supposed to be, and why does Lewis think it's so weird?

In thinking about these issues, it might be worth thinking about the phenomenology of color vision: What do you think it would be like for Mary on seeing red for the first time? Do you think that she would be inclined to say that this was like learning a new fact?

The Knowledge Argument and the Ability Hypothesis

In Consciousness, Color, and Content, Tye criticizes the "Ability Hypothesis" (AH) that David Lewis offers in response to Frank Jackson's "Knowledge Argument." Let's consider how this criticism is supposed to work.

First, since AH identifies knowledge of what an experience E is like with the abilities to remember, imagine, and recognize E-type experiences (call these 'Lewis abilities with respect to E'), then AH is true if and only if:

S knows what it is like to undergo experience E if and only if S has the Lewis abilities with respect to E.

This means that, if we can find cases in which either

1. S knows what it is like to undergo E but lacks the relevant Lewis abilities,

or

2. S has Lewis abilities with respect to E but does not know what it is like to undergo E,

then AH is false.

Now, Tye's claim is that we can easily find cases of both kinds:

1. S introspectively attends to the experience of a particular shade of, say, red (and so, knows what it is like), but cannot later recognize or imagine or remember this experience. (After all, we don't have concepts for all of the different shades of color that we can experience--right?) (See CCC, pp. 11-13)

2. S has Lewis abilities with respect to E, but S isn't paying attention to E, so she doesn't know what E is like. (See CCC, pp. 13-15)

Are these criticisms convincing?