Sensory Qualities (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) - Softcover

Clark, Austen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198236808 ISBN 13: 9780198236801

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA, 1996

Synopsis

Many philosophers doubt that one can provide any successful explanation of sensory qualities - of how things look, feel, or seem to a perceiving subject. To provide such an explanation, one would need to explain qualitative facts in non-qualitative terms. Attempts to construct such explanations have seemed, in principle, doomed. Austen Clark examines the strategy used in psychophysics, psychometrics, and sensory neurophysiology to explain qualitative facts. He argues that this strategy could succeed: its structure is sound, and it can answer the various philosophical objections lodged against it. On this basis Professor Clark presents an analysis of senosry qualities that offers the possibility of explaining at least some qualia, and he sketches how this scheme might eventually reduce to neurophysiology. If he is correct, we are not doomed to an eternity of mere acquaintance with our qualia.

About this title

Product Description:

Many philosophers doubt that one can provide any successful explanation of those qualities characterizing how things look, feel, or seem to a perceiving subject. To do so one would need to be able to explain qualitative facts in non-qualitative terms, and attempts to construct such an explanation seem doomed to failure. In this book Austen Clark presents an analysis of sensory qualities that refutes such skepticism and offers the possibility of a solution to the problem of qualia. Drawing on work in psychophysics, psychometrics, and sensory neurophysiology, he analyzes the character and defends the integrity of psychophysical explanations of qualitative facts, arguing that the structure of such explanations is sound and potentially successful.

Review:

clearly written, informative and stimulating . . . Its major contribution ... is to have presented a fruitful and interesting way to think about the qualitative character of experience. It may not change minds about the standard arguments against physicalistic theories of qualia, but, in my view, it should. (Mind)

Besides offering us the most useful account of sensory qualities to have yet appeared, Clark shows himself to be a clear and sure-footed expositor of the empirical and theoretical apparatus he employs ... This is truly psychophysics for philosophers. It will appeal particularly to veterans of the qualia wars who hunger and thirst after real data, worked-out examples, and minimal hand-waving. (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0198236808
• ISBN 13: 9780198236801
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 268