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240 MERGENTHALER CANSECO
4. Deferentialism about PC
Before going into more details about demonstrative reference of qualitative experiences, let us
go through the arguments that question the existence of phenomenal concepts and claim that
the Experience Thesis is false by arguing that Mary could have possessed PC by means of
deference prior to her release. This critical strategy has been recently developed by Ball
(2009) and Tye (2009) and is based in the results of semantic externalism, which was
famously defended by Putman (1975) and Burge (1979). Oversimplified, this theory states
that ’meanings’ just ain’t in the head but that the semantic content is rather constituted
externally by the social and factual nature of the external world, by means of social, cultural
and/or linguistic interactions. In order to discuss the argument against the PCS it suffices to
define what the externalist understands under content, concepts and conception. Contents
are the objects of de dicto propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires, and thoughts.
Concepts under this account are those mental representations of which internal beliefs and
other mental representations with an internal structure say propositional attitudes, are
composed. And the Conception of a concept is the collection of beliefs associated with it.
One of the most significant consequences of semantic externalism, is that someone may
possess a concept although her conception is not completely right or exact. One does not need
concept mastery to possess a concept. Although I agree generally with this conclusion of
semantic externalism I will argue that some concepts, i.e. demonstrative PC, are significantly
different. Let us state, however, the externalist thesis about concept possession which
grounds the critique against the PCS:
Concept Possession (CP)
S possesses the concept C if s is able to exercise (even if vaguely or incorrectly) C in her
thoughts.
CP amounts to the claim that it is sufficient to possess a concept if one is able to grasp
propositions that contain the concept, or think contents of which the concept is a component.
Concept possession is rather liberal. To exemplify CP let us go over the famous case of Alfred
(Burge, 1979). Alfred possesses the concept ARTHRITIS, but Alfred does not know what is
medically common knowledge, namely, that arthritis is pain in the joints and not in the limbs,
as Alfred thinks when he claims that he has arthritis in the thigh. Since ARTHRITIS is a
medical term, doctors have a more sophisticated and complete conception of the concept
ARTHRITIS. The ‘‘experts’’, to which laymen like Alfred defer, often possess conceptual
mastery or at least show a more accurate conception of the concept. However one can possess
a concept and still be grossly wrong about its extension, and even about its constitutive a
priori truths. On the contrary, conceptual mastery excludes such a vague conception (see
Sundström, 2008). If CP holds for every concept without exception, it is obvious that the PC
Strategy is condemned to fail.
At this point I would like to make a general criticism of CP. It seems intuitively clear that
Alfred possesses the concept Arthritis. However one could think of many cases where it is not
clear if a subject possesses a concept. For example if someone says that Beeches are pebbly
and sandy, we would not agree that S possess the concept Beech. The criterion to decide if
someone possesses a concept is vague. It seems that if the subject is able to give a critical
amount of default inferences we would agree that he possesses the concept. However it seems
unclear what this critical mass is. Notice further that there are some conceptions (default
inferences) that S would be able to make about his concept Beech (he actually means Beach)
that are correct for the actual concept Beech. For example Beech belongs to nature, Beech is a
study object of some scientists, If something is a Beech then it has a mass, Beech is an
essential part of some ecosystems. For lack of a better name, let’s call this kind of inferences