Modeling, localization and the explanation of phenomenal properties

philosophy and the cognitive sciences at the beginning of the millennium

Steven Horst

pp. 477-513

in: John Bickle (ed), Neuroscience and its philosophy, Synthese 147 (3), 2005.

Abstract

Case studies in the psychophysics, modeling and localization of human vision are presented as an example of “hands-on” philosophy of the cognitive sciences. These studies also yield important results for familiar problems in philosophy of mind: the explanatory gap surrounding phenomenological feels is not closed by the kinds of investigations surveyed. However, the science is able to explain some sorts of phenomenological facts, such as why the human color space takes the form of the Munsell color solid, or why there is a phenomenologically-pure yellow but not a phenomenologically-pure orange.