Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Phenomenal realists believe that any exhaustive description of reality would have to mention facts concerning the experiential aspects of our mental lives. Qualia freaks are phenomenal realists who believe that phenomenal facts are neither identical with nor grounded exclusively by physical facts. My goal in this paper is to offer advice to qualia freaks about how to do metaphysics in a world like the one they take themselves to inhabit– a world containing facts that only experience can teach. I start by considering the property-dualist account of phenomenal facts developed in the work of David Chalmers. According to this account, phenomenal consciousness is no more than just one additional ingredient in the basic furniture of the universe, beside matter, motion, space and time. I will argue that qualia freaks should be dissatisfied with this picture and that their primary concern should be adopting a realist stance towards subjectivity. Realism about subjectivity is the view that at least some of the propositions needed to state how things are in reality are such that their truth-value is capable of changing from one subject to another.