“Yes, Mr Dennett, qualia are unscientific… and real”

by Paul Austin Murphy (December 2015)
 

[Others] note that my “avoidance of the standard philosophical terminology for discussing such matters” often creates problems for me; philosophers have a hard time figuring out what I am saying and what I am denying. My refusal to play ball with my colleagues is deliberate, of course, since I view the standard philosophical terminology as worse than useless—a major obstacle to progress since it consists of so many errors. – Daniel Dennett (in ‘The Message is: There is No Medium’, 1993).

I‘m going to start with an ad hominem and say that the real reason why Daniel Dennett is against qualia (or believes that the word ‘qualia’ is ‘a philosopher’s invention’) is because they’re unscientific; not because he thinks that they don’t exist (or aren’t real).  more>>>