Defending Phenomenalism

Defending Phenomenalism

Michael Pelczar

According to phenomenalism, physical things are a certain kind of possibility for experience. This
paper clarifies the phenomenalist position and addresses some main objections to it, with the aim of
showing that phenomenalism is a live option that merits a place alongside dualism and materialism in
contemporary metaphysical debate.

Define the phenomenal field of our world as the hypothetical sum-total of phenomenology that would exist, if all the world’s phenomenal potential were realised. In order to count as a physical thing, a possibility of sensation must be a possibility for an experience or combination of experiences that coheres with the other experiences in the phenomenal field, in the sense of ‘cohere’ explained earlier. If I dream of surfing a mile-high wave, my dream realises a certain potential for experience, but there is no mile-high wave corresponding to that potential, since my dream experience fails to cohere with the rest of the phenomenal field.

In the dualist view, there’s no deep metaphysical connection between consciousness and the physical world. There are robust correlations between the physical processes that occur in our brains, and the conscious processes that
occur in our minds, but that’s the whole extent of the connection between mind and matter, according to dualism. To explain the correlations, or their robustness, dualists may posit natural laws requiring certain conscious states to
occur whenever certain brain states occur; but, if dualism is true, the existence of such laws is no less surprising or inexplicable than the existence of consciousness itself. From a dualist standpoint, nothing about the physical world gives us any reason to expect there to be such a thing as conscious experience at all: consciousness enters the picture as something completely new and beyond anything one could reasonably expect on the basis of physical information alone.

With phenomenalism, the situation is different...

Defending Phenomenalism

Michael Pelczar

The dictionary definition of phenomenalism is "...the doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses."
 
The problem with this philosophy is that it appears to be verging on physicalism in that it ties real knowledge to the evidence of the physical senses. It ignores a boatload of empirical evidence that human knowledge can derive from spiritual experiences - the many well-known instances of perception beyond the physical senses, perceptions made apparently by the immaterial soul or spirit during paranormal experiences such as veridical NDE OBEs and cases of the reincarnation type (CORTs). 

The dictionary definition of phenomenalism is "...the doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses."
 
The problem with this philosophy is that it appears to be verging on physicalism in that it ties real knowledge to the evidence of the physical senses. It ignores a boatload of empirical evidence that human knowledge can derive from spiritual experiences - the many well-known instances of perception beyond the physical senses, perceptions made apparently by the immaterial soul or spirit during paranormal experiences such as veridical NDE OBEs and cases of the reincarnation type (CORTs). 

I think the dictionary definition doesn't quite capture what Mill - who came up with the metaphysics - was aiming for.

That said, I think it feels more like a sketch of an idea than something that fully works. I wouldn't even go to the paranormal, I think it mistakenly conflates thoughts and reasoning with experiences.

The dictionary definition of phenomenalism is "...the doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses."
 
The problem with this philosophy is that it appears to be verging on physicalism in that it ties real knowledge to the evidence of the physical senses. It ignores a boatload of empirical evidence that human knowledge can derive from spiritual experiences - the many well-known instances of perception beyond the physical senses, perceptions made apparently by the immaterial soul or spirit during paranormal experiences such as veridical NDE OBEs and cases of the reincarnation type (CORTs). 

A dictionary definition by a random dictionary website can only so very poorly capture a complex subject. Better to look at actual websites centered around philosophy:

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_...alism.html

Phenomenalism is the view in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Perception that physical objects do not exist as things in themselves but only as perceptual phenomena or bundles of sense-data situated in time and in space. A phenomenon is any occurrence that may be perceived through a person's senses or with their mind, and the theory proposes that we cannot experience anything beyond the phenomena of our perceptions.

Phenomenalism, then, derives from the metaphysical view that objects are logical constructions out of perceptual properties. It is not so much the actual perception that counts, however, but the conditional possibility of perceiving, so that even when there is no one in a particular room to perceive a table, it is enough to say that if there were someone in that room, then that person would perceive the table.

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/phenomenalism/v-1

On its most common interpretation, phenomenalism maintains that statements asserting the existence of physical objects are equivalent in meaning to statements describing sensations. More specifically, the phenomenalist claims that to say that a physical object exists is to say that someone would have certain sequences of sensations were they to have certain others. For example, to say that there is something round and red behind me might be to say, in part, that if I were to have the visual, tactile and kinaesthetic (movement) sensations of turning my head I would seem to see something round and red. If I were to have the sensations of seeming to reach out and touch that thing, those sensations would be followed by the familiar tactile sensations associated with touching something round.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/phenomenalism

phenomenalism, a philosophical theory of perception and the external world. Its essential tenet is that propositions about [url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/matter-philosophy][/url]material objects are reducible to propositions about actual and possible sensations, or sense data, or appearances. According to the phenomenalists, a material object is not a mysterious something “behind” the appearances that people experience in sensation. If it were, the material world would be unknowable; indeed, the term matter itself would be unintelligible unless it somehow could be defined by reference to sense experiences. In speaking about a material object, then, reference must be made to a very large group or system of many different possibilities of sensation. Whether actualized or not, these possibilities continue during a certain period of time. When the object is observed, some of these possibilities are actualized, though not all of them. So long as the material object is unobserved, none of them is actualized. In this way, the phenomenalist claims, an “empirical cash value” can be given to the concept of matter by analyzing it in terms of sensations.

A dictionary definition by a random dictionary website can only so very poorly capture a complex subject. Better to look at actual websites centered around philosophy:

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_...alism.html


https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/phenomenalism/v-1


https://www.britannica.com/topic/phenomenalism

I wonder about the division between experiences [&] that which has the possibility to engender/produce experiences.

It seems this would be a division between mental and something like the "physical", but I think it actually puts a lot of mental stuff on the same side as "physical stuff".

If I am thinking about a memory it might, depending on my current state, bring about certain experiences.

A math proof can produce the experience of confusion, of frustration, and ideally at some point the experiential feeling of having understood the proof.

My decisions also produce experiences, for example deciding to face a fear might give me feelings of increased anxiety at first followed by some pride and satisfaction.

Honestly this is where I thought Phenomenalism would take us but the metaphysics seems to treat concepts, reasons, thoughts, and decisions as merely experiences which I think is wrong headed....