Representationalism, skepticism and phenomenal realism
Prometeica September 8, 2022 Manas Kumar Sahu 2 citations
The irreducibility of phenomenal consciousness can withstand skepticism and avoid solipsism only if it can coherently move from subjective certainty to objective knowledge. Skepticism about the relationship between the qualitative character of experience and the properties of the phenomenal object can be avoided by establishing the immediacy of experience. Phenomenal realism succeeds in establishing subjective certainty about phenomenal consciousness but fails to establish objective certainty, leading to epistemological problems such as skepticism about the external world, knowledge of external reality, and other minds—the harder problem of consciousness. Representationalism is not an ideal response to these skeptical attacks; it violates the principles of phenomenality by rejecting the immediacy of experience and commits a pragmatic contradiction by reducing phenomenal properties to representational properties, leaving no room for foundational knowledge about phenomenality.