Explanatory Relevance of Ineffable Qualia

Qualia—the ineffable, qualitative properties of conscious experience—are often dismissed as unscientific and irrelevant to psychology. This paper argues that some complex human behavior cannot be explained without accepting qualia as traditionally understood. In art research, aesthetic properties are acknowledged to depend partly on their resistance to structural analysis, and the same logic applies to sensory qualia. There is no sharp boundary between simple qualia and complex artistic properties. Both should be accepted as legitimate objects of special sciences, perhaps reducible in an idealized sense but indispensable in certain explanatory contexts.

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Abstract

Abstract The notion of qualia is often seen as a suspicious philosophical invention that bears no relevance to the research of psychological and cognitive mechanisms that govern our behavior. The idea of “ineffable” phenomenal qualities has been criticized, inter alia, as unscientific and empirically unsupported. Against that popular conception, it is here argued that some complex human behavior cannot be explained without accepting the existence of qualia as more or less traditionally understood: ineffable, structurally unanalyzable, and distinctively qualitative properties of our conscious experiences. It is first pointed out that in the domain of art research, it is common to acknowledge the existence of aesthetic properties whose perceived value depends partly on the very fact that they cannot be analyzed in precise structural terms (at least not in the context where their value is recognized). It is then argued that the infamous sensory qualia can have similar psychological effects and significance and that there is no sharp boundary between “simple” qualia and more complex artistic properties. According to the resulting view, qualia and the corresponding artistic properties ought to be accepted as legitimate objects of special sciences—perhaps reducible in some heavily idealized sense, yet indispensable in certain explanatory contexts.