The possibility of a science of experience: An examination of some conceptual problems facing the study of consciousness

Abstract

This paper addresses some of the chief conceptual problems associated with the study of conscious experience. (1) Conceptual confusion and lack of clarity of the term ‘consciousness’ itself, including doubts as to whether it constitutes a natural kind, and confusion between different types. (2) Privacy: the claim that conscious experience cannot be studied scientifically on account of its subjectivity. The distinction between subjective and objective is re‐examined and the universally inferential nature of scientific statements stressed. Methods for the study of pain are examined in detail, exemplifying the objectification of a prototypically subjective experience. (3) Epiphenomenalism: the view that an adequate account of mental life can be given without reference to consciousness because the latter plays no causal role in the control of behaviour. The primacy of conscious experience is stressed as is its centrality to mental health. It is concluded that the study of conscious experience is both possible, even if from a third person perspective and necessary, on account of its importance for psychological well‐being.

Consciousness, mental imagery and action

“…However, following the imageless-thought controversy and the advent of behaviourism, the study of imagery and the imagination was left for 50 years to psychotherapists, yogis and mystics. With the re-awakening of interest in cognition in the 1960s, it was still generally assumed that the subjectivity and privacy of consciousness were such big hurdles that research on consciousness of any acceptable scienti®c kind was an impossibility (see Valentine, 1999). These aspects are still considered by some to be an insurmountable hurdle but others have sought to overcome the hurdle by theoretical argument, methodological innovation and empirical demonstration (see Velmans, 1999).…”

“…Nelson (1996) suggests that Comte's ®rst problem is not a serious obstacle because empirical associations between Arrow 1 and Arrow 2 data contribute to psychological understanding. Verbal reports have always been accepted as a legitimate method for studying perception and psychophysics throughout the history of these ®elds (see Valentine, 1999 ;Velmans, 1999). Verbal reports are also indispensable to doctors, dentists, nurses and psychologists who routinely rely on patients' introspective reports as valid and reliable indicators of a wide range of somatic and mental conditions including pain.…”

When perception becomes conscious

“…That said, external correlates of conscious experience, e.g. functional dissociations between`subjective' and objective ' thresholds, can provide greater con®dence in subjective reports (see also Valentine, 1999) ; if they turn out to be reliable, they may eventually become accepted indicators of subjective eåects ; in principle, they also allow subjective experience to be related to its functional correlates, speci®ed in information processing terms.…”

The Role of Moral Reasoning on Socioscientific Issues and Discourse in Science Education

“…The subjective aspects involved in almost any moral-ethical phenomenon or quality -honesty, kindness, or selflessness, for example -may be highly differentiated and subtle and may vary enormously both within the same person across different periods in life as well as from one person to another. It is true that there has been growing support for a "reinstatement of the subjective as a core topic in psychology", in the sense that "description, interpretation, explanation and facilitation of experience should play a more central role in psychology..." (Henry, Pickering, Stevens, Valentine & Velmans, 1997, p.117;Valentine, 1999). But qualitative research -which traditionally deals with subjective experience -rarely focuses on describing the subjective aspects of moral and ethical experience.…”