The foregoing discussion serves to highlight the theoretical importance of views that
consistently avoid Dennett’s strategy. It shouldn’t be surprising if a committed non-reductive realist rejects any case whatsoever for Dennettian Dissolution premised upon considerations drawn from physics, or any other empirical theory. Such realists, in classic Cartesian fashion, take the existence of their own consciousness to be more certain than the existence of
anything else, including anything thrown up by ‘empirical’ investigation. They are also likely to believe any such theories to be parasitic, epistemically speaking, upon the more primordial epistemic relationship borne to consciousness. Let us call acquaintance based phenomenal realism that outrightly rejects the Dennettian move in this way Robust Realism.
Robust Realism – Realism about phenomenal properties that (1) cites unmediated access to instances of such properties, rather than conceptually inflected reasons, as its justificatory grounds, and, (2) rejects outright all attempts to explain away aspects of phenomenology by way of Dennettian Dissolution.
This thesis is dedicated to the exploration and evaluation of this form of phenomenal realism. Although not often explicitly discussed, it is not a novel view. The work of a significant minority of contemporary philosophers is seemingly robust realist in spirit, whether or not they have ever explicitly formulated their view in such a manner,53 and even if they
occasionally mischaracterise phenomenology in a manner that might suggest otherwise (as
53 A list of prominent robust realists writing within the analytic tradition would plausibly include David
Chalmers, Barry Dainton, Charles Siewert and Galen Strawson. Many, perhaps most, of those working within the phenomenological tradition would also qualify.
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Chalmers seemingly does with respect to attention). One can think experience is exactly how it immediately seems to be without thinking one will inevitably make correct judgements about how it thus seems, or doing so for that matter. I will now provide a brief summary of the content of the subsequent chapters.
In Chapter 2, I make the case that the project undertaken in this thesis should be of interest, not just to members of the robust realist minority, but also to their deflationist rivals. The qualia debate, at present, comprises a dialogical standoff between two factions who are divided on fundamental issues relating to the norms of ontological commitment. While one privileges acquaintance-based certainty, the other places a premium on theoretical virtues. Members of each faction tend to base the case for their own allegiances, and against those of the opposing faction, upon considerations reflecting their own preferred norms. Each faction, in turn, has well rehearsed reasons for dismissing, or considering its position impervious to, arguments premised upon the norms favoured by the opposing faction. But members of each faction occasionally allow considerations referable to their preferred norms to be trumped by those referable to the norms of the opposing faction. This suggests a dialogical strategy, one carrying the potential to put an end to the standoff. It involves showing that strict adherence to such norms of the opposing faction comes at an undesirable cost. I point to the fact that there is already some reason to think Robust Realism might incur such undesirable costs, so deflationists would do well to abandon the championing of their own norms and start exploring the implications of those championed by robust realists.
In Chapter 3, I argue that the definitive commitments of Robust Realism entail the
Constitution Thesis, a thesis regarding the constitutive nature of experiences. According to the Constitution Thesis, the constitutive nature of experiences is exhausted by their
experienced nature. The argument I invoke in defence of this thesis has recently been
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the premises in an implausibly ‘intellectualist’ way. The more natural ‘phenomenal’
interpretation allows for a successful demonstration of the Constitution Thesis’s entailment by fundamental robust realist tenets.
Spatiotemporal inclusion and causal interaction are the two principal means by which non- deflationary realists attempt to forge connections between experiences, as they characterise them, and a metaphysically real world. In Chapter 4, I argue that Robust Realism rules out both of these possibilities. First, I use the Constitution Thesis to argue that given some relatively commonplace assumptions about the nature of objective space and objective time, Robust Realism rules against experiences being located in such dimensions. I then explore more outré conceptions of the nature of space and time, and of the potential relations experiences might bear to these dimensions, arguing that the more plausible ideas here are ruled out by phenomenological considerations that the robust realist is forced to take
seriously. Finally, I then turn my attention to causal interaction, arguing that given the lack of any prior spatiotemporal relations, two available accounts of causation remain, sustaining causation and a counterfactual theory premised upon a primitive conception of modality. I argue that the former is incoherent and the latter is queer enough to warrant dismissal pending any plausible arguments in its favour. The conclusion of the chapter is, then, that robust realism entails both that experiences are not located within a metaphysically real world, and that they cannot causally interact with such a world from without.
In chapter 5, I argue for a second thesis that will be used to draw further consequences for Robust Realism. According to the Relations Thesis, the pertaining of any relation must involve, for each relatum, something that would suffice as a truthmaker for the claim that it exists, or, if one’s ontology allows non-existent things, that there is such a relatum.
In Chapter 6, I then use the Relations Thesis to argue against the central tenet of the recently emergent Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program, that experiences are possessive of a
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kind of narrow world-representing content qua experienced. An upshot of this is that
cognitive phenomenology cannot constitute the transcendentally truth-apt representations of phenomenal facts that Robust Realism is premised upon. I therefore turn to an evaluation of the plausibility of the claim that the immediate acquaintance relation underwriting Robust Realism is a relation borne to experience by a constitutively extrinsic intellect. The Relations Thesis, in combination with results argued for in Chapter 4, likewise rules out this possibility. In a brief afterword, I discuss how the robust realist might respond to the arguments I have presented. I suggest that a path of resistance to Dennett might still be open, but it requires abandonment of transcendental realism regarding qualia for a kind of Kantian non-
cognitivism.