- Comment 1:
Some philosophers have suggested that our difficulties with conceiving of borderline cases of consciousness stem from our temptation to accept a paradoxical demand. Specifically, when we try to conceive of a borderline case of consciousness, they claim that we try to conceive of what it would be like to be in such a state. However, if there is something it is like to be in a certain state, that state just is a determinate case of consciousness. So, according to this proposal, we are trying to conceive of a borderline case of consciousness in a way that prevents us from actually doing so, whether or not they are possible. But this proposal mischaracterizes the relevant situation. When we attempt to conceive of a borderline case of consciousness, we try to imagine a relation to (or a state that is related to) a borderline case of phenomenal character. This is not an attempt to conceive of a borderline case of consciousness in terms of what it is like. Therefore, the attempt does not present any paradoxical demand. On a related note, it may be true that, if we were in such a borderline state, we would not be able to determinately recognize it as such (because we would not be clearly conscious). But one can surely recognize the character of a state that one conceives of, even if one could not recognize the character of that state while the state was actually occurring.
- Comment 2:
According to some philosophers, in order to competently grasp a given concept, we must be able to conceive of determinate cases where the referent of that concept is present or absent and, if the concept is vague, borderline cases as well. Since we seem to be unable to conceive of relevant borderline cases for our Consciousness concept (which we seem to competently grasp), should we conclude that consciousness is sharp? I don’t think so. Consider the case of the concept Life. In the past, when people took our Life concept to be sharp, it is plausible to suppose that they would not take any conceivable situation to involve a borderline case of life. However, it seems wrong to suggest that they did not competently grasp the relevant concept (if there is, in fact, such a thing as competence with respect to our “grasp” of concepts). Rather, these past subjects simply came to make discoveries about the nature of life that led them to realize that borderline cases of life are possible. Their prior inability to recognize borderline cases of life was caused by false beliefs about life, not conceptual incompetence. We could similarly imagine a subject who came to hold strange beliefs about the sufficient conditions for life that specified sharp boundaries for its presence. It seems that this subject would also take borderline cases of life to be inconceivable. Nevertheless, despite their strange beliefs, there is no reason to suppose that the subject would lack conceptual competence instead of simply having misleading beliefs. Consequently, we should deny that conceptual competence with vague concepts implies an ability to conceive of relevant borderline cases (or at least cases that one would recognize as borderline).
- Comment 3:
Normally, if a concept is vague, we can conceive of situations in which a borderline case of its referent is present. What explains why this is true? Without offering a general account, the following hypothesis suggests itself: When we have a competent grasp of a given empirical concept, we can conceive of the sorts of situations in which the evidence that leads us to apply that concept is present. If an empirical concept is vague, it will normally be the case that the evidence that leads us to apply that concept can come in greater or lesser degrees. Consequently, if we competently grasp a vague empirical concept, we should normally be able to conceive of a situation in which the relevant evidence is present to such a degree that we recognize a borderline case of that concept’s referent. This proposal provides a satisfying explanation of why we view the inconceivability of borderline cases as evidence for their metaphysical impossibility: If we can conceive of the sorts of situations in which the evidence that leads us to apply a vague empirical concept is present, in most if not all cases, that evidence will come in greater or lesser degrees. So if we are unable to conceive of such evidence in greater or lesser degrees that would lead us to recognize a borderline case, this is a defeasible reason to conclude that the concept is sharp. However, this principle runs into trouble when we consider the case of consciousness.
When we conceive of conscious experiences, we apply our Consciousness concept on the basis of the phenomenal character of our experience. Crucially, we do not use this concept to refer to the phenomenal character of our experience. Rather, when we recognize the phenomenal character of our experience, this is our evidential basis for concluding that we are having some kind of conscious experience. In this sense, our introspective judgments about consciousness are displaced insofar as they are made on the basis of something we are conscious of rather than an awareness of consciousness itself. Unlike ordinary cases, however, it is not obvious that we should expect this evidential basis to come in greater or lesser degrees. For example, suppose that strong property representationalism is true. In this case, the phenomenal character of an experience will be an abstract property complex that the experience represents. Can an abstract property complex be present in greater or lesser degrees? It is hard to even make sense of this suggestion. First, a property complex is an abstract object, so the degree to which it is present cannot vary between situations. Second, abstract objects are plausibly fundamental in a sense that precludes being present to a certain degree at all. Perhaps it could be argued that, when there is a borderline case of the representation relation, an experience only makes a property complex somewhat present for the subject. In this scenario, it might be claimed, we have a borderline case of a property complex. However, a borderline presentation of a property complex does not entail any presentation of a borderline property complex. As argued above, there are no possible borderline property complexes to be presented. Consequently, according to at least one theory of phenomenal character, we should not expect our evidential basis for applying our Consciousness concept to come in greater or lesser degrees. Most importantly, this would be true even if borderline cases of consciousness are, in fact, possible. Because the absence of variation by degrees in our evidential basis for applying our Consciousness concept does not imply that consciousness itself is sharp, our inability to conceive of situations where we recognize a borderline case of consciousness is not a good reason to conclude that borderline cases of consciousness are metaphysically impossible.
- Comment 4:
According to the explanatory proposal offered above for the conceivability of borderline cases, when we competently grasp a vague concept, we should normally be able to conceive of situations in which our evidence for applying that concept is present in greater or lesser degrees. According to many non-representationalist theories of consciousness defended by contemporary physicalists, our Phenomenal Character concept is vague. Consequently, these proposals suggest that we should be able to conceive of situations where our evidence for phenomenal character is present to greater or lesser degrees. Tye, Antony, and others have persuasively argued that this is not the case. Furthermore, unlike in the case of consciousness, the absence of variation by degrees in our evidential basis for applying our Phenomenal Character concept is not compatible with its being vague. This is because, if we apply our Phenomenal Character concept on the basis of our direct acquaintance with phenomenal character itself (or some underlying physical property) and phenomenal character admits borderline cases, we should be able to imagine situations where our evidence establishes the presence of phenomenal character to a greater or lesser extent. Therefore, if we endorse the explanatory proposal described above, we should conclude that phenomenal character is sharp and reject any physicalist proposal that suggests otherwise (this would include the views proposed by David Papineau and Ned Block among others). As noted previously, this implication does not threaten strong property representationalism.
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