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PHENOMENAL CONCEPTS 241
Kind-Inferences 9 , for they are the product of identifying some object with a Kind whose
members share many properties. Clearly, Kinds can be more and more specific. However
notice the important fact that S would not be able to produce informative non-default
inferences entailing for example definite descriptions or even more concrete specifications
like Beech is part of the ecosystem Forest, That there is a Beech. I think Ball is too quick in
saying that CP is just invalid in cases of extreme confusion or insanity.
This point is not irrelevant because as it turns out Mary is going to be able to deploy
phenomenal concepts like Redphen in Kind-Inferences or via linguistic report. However she
would not be able to deploy the co-extensional but fine-grained demonstrative PCs, because
the required mode of presentation would not be available.
There are no PC
Following this line of reasoning and extending CP to PC, the mentioned opponents of the PCS
will claim to have established the truth of the following thesis:
Anti PC
Mary does possess PC in her room prior to the release.
She could, they argue, for example come to posses PC in her room through interaction with
her experienced colleagues or through the lecture of different reports of normal speakers. 10 In
order to see if this thesis holds, let us analyze what Mary learns when she comes out of the
room and sees a red object. Mary would express her alleged new knowledge in the following
way:
(1) That is what it’s like to see red. (Where ’that’ refers to an experience of red, to which
Mary is attending in introspection, or to some feature of such an experience.)
The debate concerning whether PC are deferential or not will be highly dependent of what we
claim PC are in the above sentence. As(Ball, 2009) mentions the plausible candidates in (1)
are ‘that’, ‘red’, or ‘what it’s like to see red’. Surprisingly he very quickly dismisses the
demonstrative ’that’, arguing that Mary could possess such an indexical concept in her room.
He then runs an argument that is supposed to refute the PCS claiming that the PC in question
is the word red. I will argue that his refutation of the PCS does not apply if we sustain that the
PC in question is the demonstrative ’that’ and not the public color word red 11 . Deferentialists
give the following sentences as proof by demonstration of PC that Mary could have possessed
prior to her release:
(1) Ripe tomatoes typically cause experiences of red.
(2) What it’s like to see red resembles what it’s like to see black more than it resembles
what it’s like to hear a trumpet playing middle C.
(3) If x is a number then x is not what it’s like to see red.
9
This concept is not supposed to be concrete and simple definable. Indeed it is very vague too. However
it will do the work since it requires just a simple understanding of what a Kind is. If the reader is
extremely bothered with this concept, he might use a priori inferences in the sense proposed by (Stoljar,
2005), I claim that this conception does also the work.
10
Notice that according to this view she could also possess PC prior to her release through scientific
investigations. However we will just concentrate on acquisition through the community. My critique is
however applicable to the other cases mutatis mutandis.
11
However, I grant him that if we hold that ’red’ is the PC in question, we would have to give up PCS.
Since Mary could have indeed posses that concept prior to her release as we explained before. But it as
we showed above red is not a PC.