1/ Thomas Nagel famously speculated about an “objective phenomenology,” or a method of describing conscious experiences in a form graspable from any point of view. A paper of mine—just published—argues that an objective phenomenology is indeed possible!

@victormverdejo Thanks, Victor!

@buffalosentence Thank you!

@Philip_Goff Thanks!!!

@JohannesKleiner Thank you!

@MishaRogov I'm not a reductionist. And the view expressed in the paper is compatible with both physicalism and non-physicalism.

@brandtsk There are also some other philosophers (e.g. Howard Robinson) who defend versions of sense-datum theory today. (Fun fact: Frank Jackson read an earlier draft of this paper!)

@ArgonGruber That does indeed strike me as both unpopular and implausible! :)

@ArgonGruber What is resemblance theory?

@gualtieropicc I agree that's what many people have in mind when they hear 'representationalism'. But the standard definitions (in phil perception) make a much stronger claim. And many discussions vacillate between the weak claim and the strong claim, which I find philosophically pernicious.

@cpassosf Thank you!

@gualtieropicc If 'representationalism' is defined more loosely, then my view is compatible with representationalism. But I think there are reasons to restrict 'representationalism' to the stronger thesis (and I think the unclarity of the term engenders a lot of confusion in the literature).

@gualtieropicc To simplify: 'representationalism' is most standardly defined as the view that perceptual experience is a matter of contents (rather than vehicles). But the paper itself (§3: "Representation") discusses this in more detail.

@PhilosophyBayou I basically agree. That's part of what led me to start working on this, and I express some similar thoughts in the paper itself.

The prize announcement is here:

RT @GPIOxford: @andrewyuanlee's working paper, Consciousness makes things matter, which is forthcoming at Philosophers' Imprint, is now ava…

And here's the original article, which is now forthcoming in a new Routledge coursebook (edited by @dsc_wv and Louise Daoust):