Chapter 1
Visual Awareness
Stephen E. Palmer
1.1 Philosophical Foundations
The first wor kon virtually all scientific problems was done by philosophers,
and the nature of human consciousness is no exception. The issues they raised
have framed the discussion for modern theories of awareness. Philosophical
treatments of consciousness have primarily concerned two issues that we will
discuss before considering empirical facts and theoretical proposals: Themind-
body problemconcerns the relation between mental events and physical events
in the brain, and theproblem of other mindsconcerns how people come to believe
that other people (or animals) are also conscious.
1.1.1 The Mind-Body Problem
Although there is a long history to how philosophers have viewed the nature of
the mind (sometimes equated with the soul), the single most important issue
concerns what has come to be called themind-body problem: What is the relation
between mental events (e.g., perceptions, pains, hopes, desires, beliefs) and
physical events (e.g., brain activity)? The idea that there is a mind-body prob-
lem to begin with presupposes one of the most important philosophical posi-
tions about the nature of mind. It is known asdualismbecause it proposes that
mind and body are two different kinds of entities. After all, if there were no
fundamental differences between mental and physical events, there would be
no problem in saying how they relate to each other.
Dualism The historical roots of dualism are closely associated with the writ-
ings of the great French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist Rene ́
Descartes. Indeed, the classical version of dualism,substance dualism,inwhich
mind and body are conceived as two different substances, is often calledCarte-
sian dualism. Because most philosophers find the notion of physical substances
unproblematic, the central issue in philosophical debates over substance dual-
ism is whether mental substances exist and, if so, what their nature might be.
Vivid sensory experiences, such as the appearance of redness or the feeling of
pain, are among the clearest examples, but substance dualists also include more
abstract mental states and events such as hopes, desires, and beliefs.
The hypothesized mental substances are proposed to differ from physical
ones in their fundamental properties. For example, all ordinary physical matter
From chapter 13 inVision Science :Photons to Phenomenology(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 618–
- Reprinted with permission.