In a previous post I questioned whether or not Categorical Phenomenalism—the view that phenomenal properties are the categorical bases of the dispositional properties studied by the physical sciences—is an “according to Hoyle” physicalist position. In this post I want to raise a related worry: that Categorical Phenomenalism in the end is committed to epiphenomenalism.
In his recent book “Ignorance and Imagination,” (Oxford 2006) Daniel Stoljar attempts to defuse anti-physicalist arguments (such as the knowledge argument and zombie-style conceivability arguments) by arguing that they are only plausible because we are ignorant of important physical truths. In an effort to flesh out the ignorance hypothesis, then, Stoljar flirts with the view—which I will call Categorical Phenomenalism—that our ignorance of the categorical bases of physical properties explains our ignorance about the way the physical features of our world determine the experiential features of our world. In this post, I want to question Stoljar’s strategy, not by attacking the basic plausibility of Categorical Phenomenalism, but by questioning whether Categorical Phenomenalism is in the end a physicalist position.