Representationalism and two theses of experience transparency

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of separation of representational (intentional) and phenomenal aspects of conscious experience. The aim of the work is to consider the advantages of reductive representationalism as a philosophical theory of consciousness, within which the phenomenal aspect is reduced to representational content. The novelty of this research is that the author considers one of the main arguments put forward in favor of representationalism, which has not a detailed analysis in the Russian-language literature. This is an argument from the “transparency of experience”. According to many thinkers, this argument is one of the main motivating factors for adopting a reductionist strategy to the phenomenal qualities of experience. This argument, based primarily on the case of visual perception, is aimed at showing the absence of some inner phenomenal aspect of our experience, not related to the qualities of external objects. The author introduces his own dichotomy of visual experience introspection, which can strengthen the position of reductive representationalists. He refers to the work of Amy Kind, in which she proposed her reading of this argument, highlighting his strong and weak version. Further, as a result of the Sydney Shoemaker`s position analysis, considered as the defender of the weak version of the argument, the author concludes that Shoemaker substitutes the epistemic simple concept of qualia by metaphysical, not grasped in the theoretically unloaded introspection of visual experience. In conclusion, the author suggests that, although representationalism is unlikely to be able to help in the naturalization of consciousness within the framework of an anti-physicalist debate, yet such a view of the mental can play the role of a bridge between the subjectivist ontology of consciousness and the objectivist ontology of the natural sciences.