Branches of Philosophy Podcast · Philosophy Cognitive Science

[207] Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory By Peter Carruthers

July 9, 2025·24 min·1 clip

The episode opens by asking what it is like to see red, feel pain, or hear a trumpet blast.

1. Branches of Philosophy Podcast episode 207 examines Peter Carruthers's book, Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory, around the question of what it is like to see red or feel pain. 2. The hosts frame Carruthers as the author defending a naturalistic theory, and they contrast that with the familiar sense that phenomenal consciousness is a private inner world. 3. The episode asks whether the hard problem of consciousness can be explained in scientific and reductive terms, rather than treated as permanently mysterious. 4. The discussion distinguishes phenomenal consciousness from access consciousness, with access tied to reasoning, planning, and verbal report, and phenomenal consciousness tied to the raw what-it-is-like aspect. 5. The hosts also separate active mental events from standing states, using examples like a present perception versus the stored belief that Paris is the capital of France. 6. First-order representationalism is presented as the idea that phenomenal consciousness comes directly from first-order mental states, such as seeing a red apple. 7. The episode then uses absent-minded driving, blindsight, and damage to visual cortex V1 to show that information can be processed without conscious awareness. 8. Milner and Goodale's two-systems hypothesis appears as a contrast between the temporal-lobe what-where system and the parietal-lobe how-to system. 9. The Miller-Lyer illusion is used to show that conscious perception can be fooled while grasping movements still track the actual line length. 10. Carruthers's dispositionalist higher-order thought theory is then introduced through the C-box, where experiences are available to generate higher-order thoughts about themselves. 11. The N-box marks non-conscious processing, and the episode argues that blindsight-like states are excluded from phenomenal consciousness because they are not in the C-box. 12. The hosts explain that Carruthers rejects intrinsic qualia and instead uses recognitional concepts to explain why redness and pain seem private and ineffable. 13. Mary in the black-and-white room is used to argue that learning red is learning a new concept, new abilities, and new know-how rather than new propositional facts. 14. Zombies and inverted-spectrum cases are discussed as examples that may be conceivable without being metaphysically possible. 15. The episode also raises the theory's implications for dogs, chimps, infants, and some people with autism, since higher-order thought may depend on theory of mind capacities. 16. Carruthers responds by questioning evidence for animal phenomenal consciousness and by grounding moral status in first-order desires, goals, preferences, and frustration. 17. The tone is analytical and explanatory, with the hosts moving carefully through definitions, objections, and replies. 18. The format is a philosophy discussion built around objections, examples, and conceptual distinctions rather than a conversational personal story. 19. Listeners interested in philosophy of mind and consciousness theories. 20. Listeners wanting narrative storytelling or light entertainment.

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