Episode 37: Rainbow in the Dark (with Jacob Berger)

Get ready to interrogate some mind colors! Can the so-called qualitative aspects of consciousness be explained in holistic and functionalist terms that undermine anti-physicalist critiques? Can the consciousness of a mental state be wholly explained in terms of a non-conscious thought about it? To find out, Pete Mandik talks to Jacob Berger (Lycoming College) about Jake’s work on consciousness within the Higher-Order Thought approach. Pete and Jake also get into the closely related quality-space view of sensory qualities that Jake defends.

• Video discussion from which this episode’s audio is taken: https://youtu.be/I1p2MnXnvzc

• Jake’s webpage: https://jfberger.wixsite.com/home

• Jacob Berger & Richard Brown (2021) Conceptualizing consciousness, Philosophical Psychology, 34:5, 637-659. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515089.2021.1914326

• Berger 2 A Defense of Holistic Representationalism, Mind & Language 33(2): 161-176. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mila.12163

• David Rosenthal, There’s Nothing about Mary. https://www.davidrosenthal.org/DR-Mary.pdf

Additional info and credits:

• Intro narration: Rachelle Mandik rachellemandik.com

• Movie clip quote from: Star Odyssey (1979) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Odyssey

• SpaceTimeMind Theme Song, Intro Version: Richard Brown on Drums and Pete Mandik on everything else.

• Mid-episode break music: Diesel by Pete Mandik

• SpaceTimeMind Theme Song, Outro Version: Pete Mandik