Ten Problems of Consciousness: Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind(Representation and Mind Series)

Can neurophysiology ever reveal to us what it is like to smell a skunk or to experience pain? In what does the feeling of happiness consist? How is it that changes in the white and grey matter comprising our brains generate subjective sensations and feelings? These are several of the questions that Michael Tye addresses, while formulating a theory about the phenomenal "what it feels like" aspect of consciousness. The test of any such theory, according to Tye, lies in how well it handles ten critical problems of consciousness. Tye argues that all experiences and all feelings represent things, and that their phenomenal aspects are to be understood in terms of what they represent. He develops this representational approach to consciousness in detail with great ingenuity and originality. In the book's first part Tye lays out the domain, the ten problems and an associated paradox, along with all the theories currently available and the difficulties they face. In part two, he develops his intentionalist approach to consciousness. Special summaries are provided in boxes and ten problems are illustrated with cartoons.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 The ten problems - phenomenal consciousness introduced, the problem of ownership, the problem of perspectival subjectivity, the problem of mechanism, the problem of phenomenal causation, the problem of super blindsight, the problem of duplicates, the problem of the inverted spectrum, the problem of transparency, the problem of felt location and phenomenal vocabulary, the problem of the alien limb; why the problem run so deep - must the physical be objective? perspectival subjectivity and the explanatory gap, physicalism and phenomenal causation, on the denial of perspectival subjectivity, the paradox of phenomenal consciousness, the available strategies, the way ahead. Part 2 Can anyone else feel my pains? - the repudiation of phenomenal objects, publicising the phenomenal: split brains, phenomenal objects as events, a closer look at events; the intentionality of feelings and experiences - intentional states and intentional content, how perceptual sensations represent, afterimages, the problem of ownership revisited, pains, other bodily sensations, the format of sensory representations, background feelings, emotions, moods; what what it's like is really like - why be an intentionalist? phenomenal content: the PANIC theory, colours and other 'secondary qualities', can duplicate brains differ phenomenally? some putative counterexamples; the tale of Mary and mechanism - a theory of perspectival subjectivity - the real nature of the phenomenal, perspectival subjectivity and the paradox, Mary's room, some of Mary's philosophical relatives, the explanatory gap; can you really imagine what you think you can? - the status of the PANIC theory, imaginability of perceptions - a parallel, troublesome possibilities? zombie replicas and other duplicates, inverted experiences, inverted Earth. Appendices: blindsight - three sort of visual agnosia; an empirical proposal.