“The 'phenomenal concept' issue is rather different, I think. Here the question is whether there are concepts of experiences that are made available to subjects solely in virtue of their having had those experiences themselves. Is there a way of thinking about seeing something red, say, that you get from having had those experiences, and so isn't available to a blind person?” ThinkingWayPersonsMadeDifferentVirtueIssuesSeeingSubjectsConceptsRedBlindAvailableWay Of ThinkingPhenomenalBlind Person Author:David Papineau
“After all, in supporting phenomenal concepts I am in a sense siding with introspection against the more behaviourist Wittgensteinians. But even so I don't think that introspection is powerful enough to resolve the specific issue about how many colours you can see.” ThinkingEnoughPowerfulIssuesConceptsColourResolveIntrospectionPhenomenalSiding Author:David Papineau
“I rather incline towards 'conceptualism', in line with my view of colour perception - I don't think that we can represent objects and properties for which we have no concepts, not even in perceptual experience. In this sense I differ from those who defend 'non-conceptual content' like Michael Tye and Chris Peacocke.” ThinkingLinesViewsObjectsPerceptionConceptsPropertyColourIncline Author:David Papineau
“I don't have much use for the concept of innateness. The everyday concept incorporates a number of different notions that can come apart in in many ways, and as a result encourages a range of dangerously fallacious inferences.” WayDifferentUseResultsNumbersConceptsNotionEverydayRangeInference Author:David Papineau
“I do have quite a lot of sympathy for Fodor's picture of concepts as information-free atomic entities which get locked onto their referents causally, and to that extent they needn't involve anything much in the way of learning. But even so it seems perverse to call them 'innate'. Here we see again the oddity of treating 'not learned' as sufficient for innate.” WaySeemsInformationConceptsSufficientLockedEntityInnateOddities Author:David Papineau
“Even if no learning to speak of was involved in locking my mental term onto doorknobs, it is odd to say that therefore my possession of a doorknob concept is innate, just as it is odd to say that my head-injury-caused singing is innate.” IfsSpeakTermInvolvedSingingConceptsPossessionOddInjuryInnateHead Injuries Author:David Papineau
