also be individuatednarrowly, in abstraction from the actual objects and
properties of the thinker’s environment, particularly when contents are
being individuated for the purposes of psychological explanation. Indeed,
the legitimacy and appropriateness of narrow content for psychology was
defended at length in chapter 6 above. And if it turns out that the person
retains (narrow) colour-concepts and intentional colour-contents un-
changed on Inverted Earth, then it is not true that he is completely inverted
in respect of intentional contents. And so the argument for the distinctness
offeelfrom intentional contents will collapse. For it will notjustbe the feel
which remains the same on Inverted Earth; it will also be his narrowly
individuated colour-concepts and narrowly individuated perceptual states.
The person on Earth began with a recognitional concept ofblue, among
others. This concept can be individuated widely for some purposes, invol-
ving a relation to worldly blueness, or it can be individuated narrowly. The
narrow concept can be speciWed thus: it is the recognitional concept which
he could apply whenever undergoing analog colour-experiences of a sort
which, in normal circumstances in the actual world, are caused by blue
objects. On Inverted Earth, even after the wide-content of his concepts has
shifted to take account of his new external surroundings, he still deploys
that very same narrowly individuated concept. We can say that if he were
transported back to Earth and had the colour-inverters removed from his
eyes, it would be that very recognition-concept which he would apply in
relation to percepts of blue sky. And we can now identify thefeelof an
experience of blue as thatrepresentationalperceptual state which would
activate a recognitional application of the narrowly individuated concept
blue. So there is nothing in the Inverted Earth argument to force us to
recognise qualia as non-representational properties of experience.
In the case of Inverted Earth, it is the person’s behaviour and widely
individuated mental states which are inverted. But as we have seen, that
need not stop us from characterising thefeelof his experiences as the same
in (narrowly individuated) intentional terms. In the case of intra-personal
inversion, in contrast, the person’s behaviour and widely individuated
states remain the same, post amnesia, as they were prior to the insertion of
the colour-inverters. But a functionalist can think that there are functional
diVerences which do not show up on the outside – in this case diVerences in
the narrow-content of the intervening perceptual states. So we can say that
it is the contents (narrowly individuated) of his perceptual experiences
which have undergone inversion, despite there being no diVerence in his
behaviour.
Mysterianism 245