Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
October 16, 2019
F. Kammerer
18 citations
Illusionists argue that phenomenal consciousness does not exist but merely seems to exist. This view faces a normative challenge concerning the intuitive link between phenomenality and value—for instance, situations seeming good or bad because of the conscious experiences they involve. Illusionists must decide whether to accept or deny this link. Accepting it may lead to revisionary normative consequences, some uncomfortable; denying it requires giving reasons against the link, which is not trivial. The challenge does not disprove illusionism but shows it may have important normative implications that need clarification.
Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
February 18, 2025
Andy Mckilliam
7 citations
Detecting errors in people's introspective reports about their own conscious experiences is often considered nearly impossible, posing a major challenge for consciousness science. Some researchers argue introspection should be abandoned as evidence, while others claim key questions cannot be answered empirically. The author argues these challenges can be overcome by using natural kind reasoning—iteratively applying inference to the best explanation to identify and exploit regularities in nature. This approach can detect introspective errors even in difficult cases like judgments about mental imagery. The conclusion is that worries about intractable methodological problems in consciousness science are misguided.
Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
February 18, 2025
Markus Pantsar
2 citations
The paper evaluates whether a radically enactive (embodied) account of cognition, which rejects mental representations for basic minds, can explain arithmetical cognition. It first examines whether empirical data on evolutionarily developed proto-arithmetical abilities support this view, concluding that while more research is needed, the radical enactivist position can be developed consistently with current evidence. It then addresses whether this account can explain the objectivity of arithmetical knowledge, arguing against a realist interpretation and instead proposing that objectivity arises from universal proto-arithmetical abilities that shape the development of arithmetical cognition.
Ergo, An Open Access Journal of Philosophy
February 18, 2025
Amit Chaturvedi
1 citation
The paper examines whether the classical Buddhist philosophers Vasubandhu and Sthiramati, writing in Sanskrit, actually hold an illusionist view of phenomenal consciousness—the claim that conscious qualia do not really exist but only seem to. The author finds that their concept of the mind as the 'imagination of what is non-existent' aligns with contemporary illusionism: an unconscious causal basis generates the illusion of representational states with phenomenal content. The paper considers three candidates for what might seem to be real phenomenality—mental appearances, affective sensory experience, and intrinsic luminosity—and concludes that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati indeed appear to be strong illusionists, especially if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational.