Paul Coates - Phenomenal Qualities: Sense, Perception, and Consciousness

• PAUL COATES

  is Professor Emeritus of Mind and Metaphysics, Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, and Principal Investigator of the AHRC Phenomenal Qualities Project.

• SAM COLEMAN

  is Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, and Chief Co-Investigator of the AHRC Phenomenal Qualities Project.

• OPHELIA DEROY

  is Senior Researcher, Centre for the Study of the Senses, and Associate Director of the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, London University.

• PHILIP GOFF

  is Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool University, and was Post-Doctoral Researcher in the AHRC Phenomenal Qualities Project.

• MICHAEL MARTIN (M. G. F. MARTIN)

  is Professor of Philosophy at University College, London University, and Mills Adjunct Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley.

• MICHELLE MONTAGUE

  is Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin.

• JOHN M. NICHOLAS

  is Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, and Faculty Member, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University, Ontario.

• DAVID PAPINEAU

  is Professor of Philosophy at Kings College, London University and at the Philosophy Program, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

• RONALD A. RENSINK

  is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Computer Science, University of British Columbia.

• HOWARD ROBINSON

  is University Professor, Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest; Senior Fellow, Rutgers Center for the Philosophy of Religion, New Brunswick; and Recurrently Visiting Scholar, Fordham University, New York.

• DAVID ROSENTHAL

  is Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of Cognitive Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York.

• GALEN STRAWSON

  is holder of the Presidents Chair in Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin.

• (p.xii) MICHAEL TYE

  is the Dallas TACA Centennial Professor in Liberal Arts, Department of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin.

• Very sadly, one of our contributors, JONATHAN LOWE (E. J. LOWE), did not live to see this volume appear in print. He was Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, and will be dearly missed by all who knew him.

You are at this moment conscious of phenomenal qualities. In reading these words you are seeing black shapes against a white field, or you are hearing the sounds of the words being read aloud, or perhaps feeling them on a page of braille. Whichever way, there are certain qualitative features present to you in your experiencethe colours and shapes associated with the written text, or the particular auditory qualities arising when the words are spoken aloud, or the lumpy texture of the braille characters. Perceptual experiences of these kindsvisual, auditory, tactileare paradigmatic bearers of phenomenal qualities. Plausibly, several other sorts of conscious experience also possess them. Phenomenal qualities thus feature in much (if not all) of human mentality, and provide the immediate basis of a good deal of what goes on in daily life (for instance, the purchase of foods on account of their taste). Yet, for reasons soon to be broached, ascertaining the precise nature of phenomenal qualities, as well as their exact place in the structure of the world, has proved very difficult. The chapters in this volume, one way or another, all address these difficulties, which we explicate in outline form below.