Editing Experience (section)

== Debates about the nature of experience ==
=== Intentionality ===
Most experiences, especially the ones of the perceptual kind, aim at representing reality. This is usually expressed by stating that they have [[intentionality]] or are about their intentional object.<ref name="Representation in Mind">{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Frank |title=Representation in Mind |date=1 January 2004 |publisher=Elsevier |pages=107–124 |chapter-url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080443942500099 |language=en |chapter=Chapter 6 - Representation and Experience|doi=10.1016/B978-008044394-2/50009-9 |isbn=9780080443942 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pitt |first1=David |title=Mental Representation |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=24 September 2021 |date=2020}}</ref> If they are successful or veridical, they represent the world as it actually is. But they may also fail, in which case they give a false representation. It is traditionally held that all experience is intentional.<ref name="Smith"/> This thesis is known as "intentionalism".<ref name="Crane">{{cite book |last1=Crane |first1=Tim |title=The Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind |publisher=Oxford: Oxford University Press |pages=474–93 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/CRAI-17 |chapter=Intentionalism|year=2009 }}</ref><ref name="Siewert">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Siewert |first1=Charles |title=Consciousness and Intentionality |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-intentionality/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |date=2017}}</ref> In this context, it is often claimed that all mental states, not just experiences, are intentional. But special prominence is usually given to experiences in these debates since they seem to constitute the most fundamental form of intentionality.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Strawson |first1=Galen |title=Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-927245-7 |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272457.001.0001/acprof-9780199272457-chapter-3 |chapter=Intentionality and Experience: Terminological Preliminaries}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kriegel |first1=Uriah |title=Phenomenal intentionality |date=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=9780199764297 |chapter=Chapter 1: The Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program}}</ref> It is commonly accepted that all experiences have phenomenal features, i.e. that there is something it is like to live through them. Opponents of intentionalism claim that not all experiences have intentional features, i.e. that phenomenal features and intentional features can come apart.<ref name="Siewert"/><ref name="Chalmers">{{cite book |last1=Chalmers |first1=David J. |title=The Future for Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=153–181 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/CHATRC |chapter=The Representational Character of Experience|year=2004 }}</ref> Some alleged counterexamples to intentionalism involve pure sensory experiences, like pain, of which it is claimed that they lack representational components.<ref name="Siewert"/> Defenders of intentionalism have often responded by claiming that these states have intentional aspects after all, for example, that pain represents bodily damage.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Park |first1=Thomas |title=Pain, Perception, and the Appearance-Reality Distinction |journal=Philosophical Analysis |date=2017 |volume=2017 |issue=38 |pages=205–237 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PARPPA-6}}</ref> [[Mystical experience|Mystical states of experience]] constitute another putative counterexample. In this context, it is claimed that it is possible to have experiences of ''pure consciousness'' in which awareness still exists but lacks any object. But evaluating this claim is difficult since such experiences are seen as extremely rare and therefore difficult to investigate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Forman |first1=Robert Kc |title=The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=8 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/FORIMC-2 |chapter=Introduction: Mysticism, Constructivism, and Forgetting|year=1990 }}</ref>

=== Conceptuality and myth of the given ===
Another debate concerns the question of whether all experiences have conceptual contents.<ref name="SeanKelly">{{cite journal |last1=Kelly |first1=Sean Dorrance |title=Demonstrative Concepts and Experience |journal=Philosophical Review |date=2001 |volume=110 |issue=3 |pages=397–420 |doi=10.1215/00318108-110-3-397 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KELDCA|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[Concepts]] are general notions that constitute the fundamental building blocks of thought.<ref name="Concepts">{{cite web |last1=Margolis |first1=Eric |last2=Laurence |first2=Stephen |title=Concepts |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=28 September 2021 |date=2021}}</ref> Conceptual contents are usually contrasted with sensory contents, like seeing colors or hearing noises. This discussion is especially relevant for perceptual experience, of which some empiricists claim that it is made up only of [[sense data]] without any conceptual contents.<ref name="SeanKelly"/><ref name="Alston">{{cite journal |last1=Alston |first1=William P. |title=Sellars and the "myth of the given" |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2002 |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=69–86 |doi=10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00183.x |jstor=3071107 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3071107|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The view that such a type of experience exists and plays an important role in epistemological issues has been termed the "myth of the given" by its opponents.<ref name="Alston"/><ref>{{cite web |title=myth of the given |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100220488 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=29 September 2021 |language=en }}</ref> The "given" refers to the immediate, uninterpreted sensory contents of such experiences. Underlying this discussion is the distinction between a "bare" or "immediate" experience in contrast to a more developed experience.<ref name="Borchert"/> The idea behind this distinction is that some aspects of experience are directly given to the subject without any interpretation. These basic aspects are then interpreted in various ways, leading to a more reflective and conceptually rich experience showing various new relations between the basic elements.<ref name="Borchert"/> This distinction could explain, for example, how various faulty perceptions, like perceptual illusions, arise: they are due to false interpretations, inferences or constructions by the subject but are not found on the most basic level.<ref name="Borchert"/> In this sense, it is often remarked that experience is a product both of the world and of the subject.<ref name="Gupta2012"/> The distinction between immediate and interpreted aspects of experience has proven contentious in philosophy, with some critics claiming that there is no immediate given within experience, i.e. that everything is interpreted in some way.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hicks |first1=Michael R. |title=Sellars, Price, and the Myth of the Given |journal=Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy |date=2020 |volume=8 |issue=7 |doi=10.15173/jhap.v8i7.4270 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HICSPA-2|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alston |first1=William P. |title=Sellars and the "Myth of the Given" |journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research |date=2002 |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=69–86 |doi=10.1111/j.1933-1592.2002.tb00183.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ALSSAT|url-access=subscription }}</ref> One problem with this criticism is that it is difficult to see how any interpretation could get started if there was nothing there to be interpreted to begin with.<ref name="Borchert"/>

Among those who accept that there is some form of immediate experience, there are different theories concerning its nature. Sense datum theorists, for example, hold that immediate experience only consists of basic sensations, like colors, shapes or noises.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hatfield |first1=Gary |title=Sense Data |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sense-data/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=22 September 2021 |date=2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Coates |first1=Paul |title=Sense-Data |url=https://iep.utm.edu/sense-da/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=22 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=E. M. |title=The Nature of the Sense-Datum Theory |journal=Mind |date=1958 |volume=67 |issue=266 |pages=216–226 |doi=10.1093/mind/LXVII.266.216 |jstor=2251112 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251112 |issn=0026-4423|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This immediate given is by itself a chaotic undifferentiated mass that is then ordered through various mental processes, like association, memory and language, into the normal everyday objects we perceive, like trees, cars or spoons. [[Naïve realism|Direct realists]], on the other hand, hold that these material everyday objects themselves are the immediate given.<ref>{{cite web |title=Epistemology – Perception and knowledge: Realism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology/Perception-and-knowledge#ref309072 |website=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=22 September 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Borchert"/> Some philosophers have tried to approach these disagreements by formulating general characteristics possessed by the contents of immediate experience or "the given". It is often held that they are private, sensory, simple and [[Incorrigibility|incorrigible]].<ref name="Borchert"/> Privacy refers to the idea that the experience belongs to the subject experiencing it and is not directly accessible to other subjects. This access is at best indirect, for example, when the experiencer tells others about their experience.<ref name="Sandkühler"/> Simplicity means, in this context, that what is given constitutes basic building blocks free from any additional interpretations or inferences. The idea that the given is incorrigible has been important in many traditional disputes in epistemology.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Crane |first1=Tim |last2=French |first2=Craig |title=The Problem of Perception |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=23 September 2021 |date=2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Lyons |first1=Jack |title=Epistemological Problems of Perception |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=23 September 2021 |date=2017}}</ref> It is the idea that we cannot be wrong about certain aspects of our experience. On this view, the subject may be wrong about inferences drawn from the experience about external reality, for example, that there is a green tree outside the window. But it cannot be wrong about certain more fundamental aspects of how things seem to us, for example, that the subject is presented with a green shape.<ref name="Borchert"/> Critics of this view have argued that we may be wrong even about how things seem to us, e.g. that a possibly wrong conceptualization may already happen on the most basic level.<ref name="Borchert"/>

=== Transparency ===
There is disagreement among theorists of experience concerning whether the subjective character of an experience is entirely determined by its contents. This claim has been called the "transparency of experience".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Siewert |first1=Charles |title=Is Experience Transparent? |journal=Philosophical Studies |date=2004 |volume=117 |issue=1/2 |pages=15–41 |doi=10.1023/B:PHIL.0000014523.89489.59 |jstor=4321434 |s2cid=170961261 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4321434 |issn=0031-8116|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It states that what it is like to undergo an experience only depends on the items presented in it. This would mean that two experiences are exactly alike if they have the same contents.<ref name="Crane"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chediak |first1=Karla |title=Intentionalism and the Problem of the Object of Perception |journal=Trans/Form/Ação |date=2016 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=87–100 |doi=10.1590/S0101-31732016000200005 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/CHEIAT-5|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Gupta2012"/> Various philosophers have rejected this thesis, often with the argument that what matters is not just ''what'' is presented but also ''how'' it is presented. For example, the property of roundness can be presented visually, when looking at a sphere, or haptically, when touching the sphere.<ref name="Crane"/><ref name="Mitchell">{{cite journal |last1=Mitchell |first1=Jonathan |title=Another Look at Mode Intentionalism |journal=Erkenntnis |date=12 September 2020 |volume=87 |issue=6 |pages=2519–2546 |doi=10.1007/s10670-020-00314-4 |language=en |issn=1572-8420|doi-access=free }}</ref> Defenders of the transparency-thesis have pointed out that the difference between the experiences in such examples can be explained on the level of content: one experience presents the property of visual-roundness while the other presents felt-roundness.<ref name="Mitchell"/> Other counterexamples include blurry vision, where the blurriness is seen as a flawed representation without presenting the seen object itself as blurry.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pace |first1=Michael |title=Blurred Vision and the Transparency of Experience |journal=Pacific Philosophical Quarterly |date=2007 |volume=88 |issue=3 |pages=328–354 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0114.2007.00296.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/PACBVA|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It has been argued that only the universals present in the experience determine the subjective character of the experience. On this view, two experiences involving different particulars that instantiate exactly the same universals would be subjectively identical.<ref name="Gupta2012"/>