concepts, and modes of presentation of those facts). In addition to the
facts concerning the spatial layout of objects in my oYce, there is not any
furtherfact in the world, namely that the desk istherewhile I amhere.
Rather, these are just further ways of representing, from the standpoint
of a particular subject, some of the very same worldly facts. Equally, it
might be thought, there may be no facts in addition to those concerning
the brain-processes of someone perceiving red, namely the facts of what
that experienceis like. Rather, the subjective feel of the experience may
merely be the mode of presentation of those brain-events to the subject.
There need not betwofacts here (the brain-event and the phenomenal
feel), but only one fact variously represented – namely, objectively, from
the standpoint of science, and subjectively, from the standpoint of the
subject to whom the brain-event occurs.
Now admittedly, representations, or the existence of modes of presen-
tation, are themselves a species of fact. Besides facts about the world,
represented by us in various diVerent ways, there are also facts about our
representation of the world. So in addition to the facts about the spatial
layout of the room, therearefurther facts concerning how I represent that
layout from my particular perspective. But no reason has yet been given
why these cannot be characterised objectively. An observer can describe
the standpoint from which I perceive the room, and the way in which the
room will appear to me from that standpoint. (In one sense, this is really
just a question of geometry.) There is nothing here to suggest the existence
of a special category of fact which must be invisible to science.
(Note that essentially the same response, to that given here, can be made
to Nagel’s claim that there are also irreducible and inexplicablemyness-
facts, involved in characterising perspectives and mental states asmine
(1986, ch.4). Nagel may be correct that I-thoughts are irreducible to other
types of representation, feeding into behaviour-control, in particular, in a
distinctive and irreplaceable way. But this shows nothing about the exis-
tence of any special category of fact.)
2.2 What Mary didn’t knowWe have replied to an argument purporting to show that the diVerent
perspectives on the world adopted by diVerent subjects must elude any
objective description or scientiWc explanation. Jackson (1982, 1986) has
presented a variation on this argument, designed to show that the subjec-
tive aspect of experience (the phenomenal feel), in particular, is a genuine
factabout experience which cannot be captured in either physicalist or
functionalist terms.
Jackson imagines the case of Mary, who has lived all her life in a
Mysterianism 235