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According to phenomenal particularism, external particulars are sometimes part of the phenomenal character of experience. Mehta (J Philos 111:311-331, 2014) criticizes this view, and French and Gomes (Philos Stud 173(2):451-460, 2016) have attempted to show that phenomenal particularists have the resources to respond to Mehta's criticisms. We argue that French and Gomes have failed to appreciate the force of Mehta's original arguments. When properly interpreted, Mehta's arguments provide a strong case in favor of phenomenal generalism, the view that external particulars are never part of phenomenal character.Keywords Phenomenal particularism Á Phenomenal generalism Á Phenomenal character Á Naive realism Á Particularity of experience Phenomenal particularism and phenomenal generalism are competing views about the phenomenal character of experience. According to phenomenal particularism, external particulars-perhaps including external objects, events, masses, surfaces, and property/relation instantiations-are sometimes part of the phenomenal character of experience. To say that a particular is part of the phenomenal character of an experience is to say that an exhaustive characterization of what the experience is like for the subject of the experience must reference that very

It is widely acknowledged that a complete theory of consciousness should explain general consciousness (what makes a state conscious at all) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular phenomenal quality). We defend first-order representationalism, which argues that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to the subject for action selection, belief formation, planning, etc. We provide a neuroscientific framework for this primarily philosophical theory, according to which neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while neural correlates of specific consciousness include sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. We suggest that recent data support first-order representationalism over biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.

Here I advance a unified account of the structure of the epistemic normativity of assertion, action, and belief. According to my Teleological Account, all of these are epistemically successful just in case they fulfill the primary aim of knowledgeability, an aim which in turn generates a host of secondary epistemic norms. The central features of the Teleological Account are these: it is compact in its reliance on a single central explanatory posit, knowledge‐centered in its insistence that knowledge sets the fundamental epistemic norm, and yet fiercely pluralistic in its acknowledgment of the legitimacy and value of a rich range of epistemic norms distinct from knowledge. Largely in virtue of this pluralist character, I argue, the Teleological Account is far superior to extant knowledge‐centered accounts.

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