Real Acquaintance and Physicalism
Open accessAbstract
‘Real acquaintance’ is a special kind of intimate relationship subjects bear to their phenomenal qualities, in virtue of which: (i) a psychologically normal subject can know the real nature of one of her phenomenal qualities by attending to that quality, (ii) a psychologically normal subject is able to put herself into a situation in which, with respect to one of her phenomenal qualities, she is justified in being certain that that quality is instantiated. Our phenomenal qualities do not seem to have a physical nature when we attend to them; hence, if subjects do bear the real acquaintance relationship to their phenomenal qualities, we have strong reason to think that physicalism is false. This chapter argues for real acquaintance on the grounds that its existence explains certain facts about our epistemic situation with respect to our phenomenal qualities. Tghe chapter then argues against physicalism, with particular reference to the phenomenal concept strategy.
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Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism
Millikan, R. G. (1984) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4124.001.0001 · Cited by 4,758 · see citing works
The Intrinsic Quality of Experience
Harman, G. (1990) · Philosophical Perspectives · doi:10.2307/2214186 · Cited by 1,409 · see citing works
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Can you believe it? Illusionism and the illusion meta-problem
Kammerer, F. (2018) · Philosophical Psychology · doi:10.1080/09515089.2017.1388361 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
Cosmopsychism, Micropsychism and the Grounding Relation
Goff, P. (2019) · The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism · doi:10.4324/9781315717708-13 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Goff, P.
- Corresponding author
- Goff, Philip
- ORCID
- Goff, Philip
- Venue
- Phenomenal Qualities
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2015-08-01
- Pages
- 121-143
- OpenAlex
- W2501398877
- Cited by
- 79
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 11.80
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Keywords
- physicalism, phenomenal qualities, phenomenal concept strategy, self-reflection, epistemic justification, phenomenal experience, anti-physicalism
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