Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 740–741

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Consciousness and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate /concog

Reply

Response to Montague q

Matthew ConductDurham University, Philosophy Department, 50 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, UK

Michelle Montague (2011) raises two objections, one metaphysical and the other phenomenological, in response to mypaper (Conduct, 2011) ‘Naïve realism without disjunctivism about experience.’ I shall deal with each in turn.

1. The metaphysical problem

It is true that on my account the individuation conditions of hallucinatory experiences are different from those of percep-tual experiences, but this fact alone does not necessitate a disjunctive conception of experience. The individuation conditionsof experiences of pears are different from the individuation conditions of experiences of apples, but this does not mean thatthe experiential nature (considered apart from the nature of the objects of experience) of the two kinds of experience isdifferent.

What makes the difference between the two kinds of experience is not the nature of the experience but the nature of theobject of experience (that which is apparently present in experience). What individuates the two kinds of experience ispurely the nature of the objects of experience. Likewise for the difference between hallucinatory and perceptual experience,on my naïve realist account. The nature of the experience, considered apart from the nature of the object of experience, is thesame in hallucinatory and perceptual experience. It is the presentation of a mind independent object (and here by ‘presen-tation of mind independent object’ I do not mean by ‘object’ an entity that falls in a particular ontological category, but rathersomething, of whatever ontological category, that is the object of experience). And so my account should not be considered aform of experiential disjunctivism.

To better illustrate this compare the combination of a naïve realist view of perceptual experience with a sense datumview of hallucinatory experience. Here it is possible to distinguish perceptual experiences from hallucinatory experiencesby the characteristics of the experiences themselves, independent of anything present within them. A perceptual experienceis one in which something mind independent is presented to the experiencing subject. A hallucinatory experience is one inwhich that which is presented to the experiencing subject depends for its existence upon being so presented. So in fact theexperience (considered apart from that which is present in the experience) is different in nature from any perceptual expe-rience. For hallucinatory experience in some sense brings about that which is present in experience but perceptual experi-ence does not. So a naïve realist view of perceptual experience combined with a sense-datum view of hallucinatoryexperience provides a disjunctive conception of experience in general.

2. The phenomenological problem

My purpose in talking about the awareness of three-dimensional objects by being aware of their facing surfaces was notto provide direct support for my claim that awareness of universals does not get in the way of awareness of particulars.Rather I was trying to point out that when faced with a question of what plays a role in constituting phenomenal characterthe naïve realist need not fear the ‘by’ locution. If I perceive x by perceiving f, it does not follow that x is not contributing to

1053-8100/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.concog.2011.06.017

q Reply to ommentary on Montague, M. (2012). The metaphysics & phenomenology of perceptual experience: A reply to Conduct. Consciousness andCognition, 21, 737-739. This article is part of a special issue of this journal on Standing on the Verge: Lessons and Limits from the Empirical study ofConsciousness.

E-mail address: m.d.conduct@durham.ac.uk

M. Conduct / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 740–741 741

the phenomenal character of experience. This depends upon the connection between x and f. In the case of perceiving threedimensional objects by perceiving their facing surfaces it is because of the relation (of whole to part) between three dimen-sional objects and their facing surfaces that the naïve realist can still claim that the three dimensional objects and their facingsurfaces contribute to the phenomenal character of experience. Bearing this moral in mind, we can then ask whether therelation between universal and object, when the object instantiates the universal, is such that if I perceive an object by per-ceiving the universal it instantiates then this means that the object is not contributing to the phenomenal character of expe-rience. And I claim that I perceive an object, x, by perceiving the instantiation of a universal, f, by x. The connection betweenuniversal and object is that of instantiation. In perceptual experience the object of experience is the instantiation of a uni-versal by an object. One is aware of a universal, and this is the same universal one would be aware of in a causally matchinghallucination, and one cannot be aware of the object without being aware of the universal. But nevertheless in the perceptualcase one is presented with the object, for what one is presented with, fundamentally, is not a universal that is instantiated byan object but the instantiation of a universal by an object.

As long as we bear in mind the distinction between the awareness of a universal that is instantiated, and the awareness ofan instantiation of a universal, we can understand how in the presentation of the latter one is presented with both universaland object.

Connected to this is my rejection of the phenomenal bottleneck principle, which Montague believes I endorse. Accordingto this principle ‘if two acts of awareness are qualitatively indistinguishable for their subject then objects of the very sametype are directly presented in each act of awareness’ (Johnston, 2004, p. 151). A commitment to the claim that the objectsthat we see make a phenomenological contribution to our experience of those objects does not require one to accept thisprinciple. Two experiences can be qualitatively indistinguishable even though their phenomenal natures are different. Anexperience of a lemon and an experience of a piece of soap crafted to look like a lemon may be qualitatively indistinguishableeven though, according to the naïve realism I am advocating, they have different phenomenal natures. The experience of thelemon has the lemon playing a constitutive role in determining phenomenal character, while the experience of the piece ofsoap has the piece of soap playing this role.

The lemon and the piece of soap each make a qualitative difference to the subject’s awareness, but not a distinguishabledifference. The subject cannot distinguish, on the basis of their experience alone, between experiences of the two kinds ofobjects. But nevertheless the objects so experienced make a qualitative difference to the subject’s awareness, in that theymake a contribution to the qualitative character of the awareness.

It is in fact crucial to the kind of account that I am advocating that two experiences can be subjectively indiscriminable yetdiffer in phenomenal characteristics. One may be in a position where one cannot discriminate a hallucinatory experiencefrom a perceptual experience, yet there is more to the phenomenal nature of the latter kind of experience than the former.Objects, as well as universals, contribute to the phenomenal nature of the latter.

References

Conduct, M. (2012). Naïve realism without disjunctivism about experience. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(2), 727–736.Johnston, M. (2004). The obscure object of hallucination. Philosophical Studies, 120, 113–183.Montague, M. (2012). The metaphysics and phenomenology of perceptual experience: A reply to Conduct. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(2), 737–739.