Jackson’s Representationalism and the Knowledge Argument
Philosopher Frank Jackson develops a representationalist view about perceptual experience. “That experience is diaphanousness (or transparent) is a thesis about the phenomenology of perceptual experience. It is the thesis that the properties that make an experience the kind of experience it is are properties of the object of experience.”
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Frank Jackson
Philosopher
Frank Jackson is an Australian philosopher known for the Knowledge Argument in philosophy of mind. He held posts at Monash and ANU, and received the Order of Australia in 2006.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Conscious experience is nothing over and above how it represents the world—its phenomenal character is representational.
How It Works
We access the experience itself only by accessing the properties of what we’re perceiving—experience is transparent.
Distinguishing Idea
Jackson uses this view to reject his earlier anti-physicalist Knowledge Argument by showing Mary gains no new truths.
Raises the Question
If phenomenal experience is fully representational, why does it feel like something more?
Challenges & Tensions
Critics argue representationalism still can’t explain Mary’s “aha” moment when she sees red.
Jackson’s Representationalism and the Knowledge Argument
Philosopher Frank Jackson develops a representationalist view about perceptual experience. “That experience is diaphanousness (or transparent) is a thesis about the phenomenology of perceptual experience. It is the thesis that the properties that make an experience the kind of experience it is are properties of the object of experience.” In other words, “accessing the nature of the experience itself is nothing other than accessing the properties of its object” (Jackson, 2007).
Diaphanousness and Representationalism
Jackson uses his Diaphanous Representationalism theory to undermine his own prior argument against materialism/physicalism based on the famous thought experiment of Mary the brilliant neurophysiologist who is forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor, and who acquires all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see colors. “What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not? It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it. But then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete. But she had all the physical information. Ergo there is more to have than that, and Physicalism is false” (Jackson, 1982).
Jackson argues that “although the diaphanousness thesis alone does not entail representationalism, the thesis supports an inference from a weaker to a stronger version of representationalism. On the weak version, perceptual experience is essentially representational. On the strong version, how an experience represents things as being exhausts its experiential nature.”
The Knowledge Argument and Critiques
This means that there is nothing else needed to bring about phenomenal consciousness (qualia). Hence, according to Jackson, “strong representationalism undermines the claim that Mary learns new truths when she leaves the room”—which would defeat the defeater of materialism/physicalism (Jackson, 2007).
Philosopher Torin Alter disagrees, arguing that representationalism provides no basis for rejecting the knowledge argument, because even if representational character exhausts phenomenal character, “the physicalist must still face a representationalist version of the Mary challenge, which inherits the difficulty of the original (Alter, 2003).
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