I Feel Like I Am Unable to Talk-Is Phenomenal Concept Effeable?
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
This paper is developed to shed light on the old perspective that language is never enough to grasp the feeling, and no matter how much we express, there is always something ineffable about it. A concept is an umbrella term that can be described in a number of ways. In section 1, I discussed different notions of concepts. Section 2 will address the ineffability of the phenomenal mental states, specifically focusing on Wittgenstein’s (1953/2009) notion of the use of words and private language. In section 3, I will shed light on pure phenomenal concepts (Chalmers 2010). Finally, I will show why the language categories cannot adequately capture the phenomenal concepts. I will conclude that language is never enough to grasp what one feels.
Downloads
References
Aydede, Murat, and Güven Güzeldere. “Cognitive Architecture, Concepts, and Introspection: An Information-Theoretic Account of Phenomenal Concepts.” Noûs 39, no. 2 (2005): 197–255.
Carruthers, Peter. “Phenomenal Concepts and Higher‐Order Experiences.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68, no. 2 (March 2004): 316–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00343.x.
Chalmers, David John. The Character of Consciousness. Philosophy of Mind Series. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010.
Demircioglu, Erhan. “Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 165, no. 1 (2013): 257–77. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42920177.
Garver, Newton. “Wittgenstein on Private Language.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 20, no. 3 (1960): 389–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/2105058.
Hunter, J. F. M. “Wittgenstein on Language and Games.” Philosophy 55, no. 213 (1980): 293–302. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3750812.
Jackson, Frank. “What Mary Didn’t Know.” The Journal of Philosophy 83, no. 5 (1986): 291–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/2026143
Levine, Joseph. Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Linsky, Leonard. “Wittgenstein on Language and Some Problems of Philosophy.” The Journal of Philosophy 54, no. 10 (1957): 285–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/2022691.
Loar, Brian. “Phenomenal States.” Philosophical Perspectives 4 (1990): 81–108. https://doi.org/10.2307/2214188.
Ludlow, Peter, Yujin Nagasawa, and Daniel Stoljar, eds. There’s Something About Mary: Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2004.
Montague, Michelle. The given: Experience and Its Content. First edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4, 1974. https://doi.org/10.2307/2183914.
Papineau, David. Thinking about Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Perry, John. Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Russell, Bertrand. “Vagueness.” The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy 1, no. 2, 1923.
Tye, Michael. “Representationalism and the Transparency of Experience.” Noûs 36, no. 1 (March 2002): 137–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0068.00365
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte. 4th ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles published in our journal are licensed under CC-BY 4.0, which permits authors to retain copyright of their work. This license allows for unrestricted use, sharing, and reproduction of the articles, provided that proper credit is given to the original authors and the source.