Comparing Phenomenal Character: Frege-Schlick View vs. Shoemaker's Paradox - Prof. Jeffrey, Study notes of Introduction to Philosophy

Download Comparing Phenomenal Character: Frege-Schlick View vs. Shoemaker's Paradox - Prof. Jeffrey and more Study notes Introduction to Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity! Interpersonal comparisons of phenomenal character phil 93507 Jeff Speaks September 14, 2009 We’re now going to turn to counterexamples directed specifically at interper- sonal intramodal intentionalisms. These will all be cases in which a pair of subjects have experiences which differ in phenomenal character, but have the same content. Accordingly, these sorts of cases presuppose that it makes sense to compare the phenomenal character of experiences across subjects. Shoemaker and Stalnaker call the denial of this view ‘the Frege-Schlick view.’ 1 Does the Frege-Schlick view make sense? No one (at least no one we are interested in right now) is denying that expe- riences have a phenomenal character. What is in question is whether it makes sense to compare the phenomenal characters of the experiences of distinct sub- jects. But one might think that one could not question this without denying that experiences have phenomenal character. If experiences have phenomenal char- acter, doesn’t this just imply that we can compare the phenomenal character of any pair of experiences? Stalnaker thinks not. The idea is that when we are talking about the phenome- nal character of experiences, we are talking about relations between experiences of a single subject, rather than about an intrinsic monadic property of individual experiences. One might worry that this makes no sense. Some examples from Stalnaker which indicate that it does: a relational theory of space; intrapersonal vs. interpersonal utility values.