Inspecting Images

Abstract

The inspectability of after-images has been denied. A typical claim is Ilham Dilman's: ‘I cannot say my apprehension of the after-image I see has changed but not the after-image itself’, for, he says, appearance and reality are one as regards the after-image. His reason is that this is a logical consequence of the fact that other people have no possible basis for correcting what I say about the after-image I see.

Two more proofs of present qualia

“…He does not begin with objects; he rejects the Gricean Causal Theory (Grice, 1967;Heffner, 1981) which makes objects the cause of inner sensings. This allows him to meet the Pre-Phenomenal Processing Objection, much favoured by the Gibsonian ecological psychologists, the claim that there cannot be an 'inner photograph' because so much internal processing goes on as to make the idea of representation suspect (Wright, 1983~). So the New Representationalist can fairly claim to have met all the major points of opposition, including this latest one.…”

“…Anyone who now produces the Homunculus Objection (Ryle's Vicious Regress Argument) against inner sensings (a recent example is that of Stuart Katz [Katz, 19831) can now be referred elsewhere if he is not to waste his time straw-manning (Wright, 1986b). Similarly with the Speckled Hen Objection, the Solipsism Objection, and Austin's Illusion/Delusion Objection (Ward, 1976;Lowe, 1981;Wright, 1983a). The Achilles' Heel of these objections lies in a subtle petitio, in that the Object is assumed at the start of the argument and hence the Representationalist is accused of all manner of unnoticed ambiguities, all built on the ridiculous Laputalike notion of objects in the head.…”

“…The underrating of private experience has proceeded very far, to the point where public agreement is taken to be the final canon without consideration of its intersubjective base; but arguments are now being mounted to show that these fears are misplaced and that it is possible to retain a physicalist explanation and yet keep qualia within the system. The purpose of this article is not to reproduce the substantive case for qualia, for this has been made out elsewhere (Pepper, 1961;Sellars, 1963Sellars, , 1967Sellars, , 1981aSellars, , 1981bSellars, , 1982Hooker, 1978;Aldrich, 1979Aldrich, , 1980Maund, 1975Maund, , 1976aMaund, , 1976bMaund, , 1977Maund, , 1981Maund, , 1986Fitzgerald, 1979;Perkins, 1983;Wright, 1983aWright, , 1983bWright, , 1984Wright, , 1985aWright, , 1985bWright, , 1986aWright, , 1986cWright, , 1987Wright, , 1990, but to take up two special considerations concerning qualia which could be persuasive in showing that the concept of their empirical presence and the possibility of an ultimate physical expla-nation of them are not so counter-intuitive as has been thought. A word, first, about the opposing views.…”

Transparency and Representationalist Theories of Consciousness

“…As Block has suggested, afterimages ‘don’t look as if they are really objects or as if they are really red. They look … illusory.’ (Block 1996, 32; ellipsis in original; see also Wright 1983, 57–8)…”

Afterimages and Sensation

“…See also : Wright 1983;Baldwin 1992;Brown 2009Brown , 2010 See also : Langsam 2006;cf. Burge 2009;Block 2010. account of visual experience.…”