User:Shapeyness/sandbox/Transparency of experience

The transparency of experience says that perception presents blueness as a feature of the sky, not a feature of our experience of the sky.^[1]

The transparency of experience, also called the transparency thesis, is the idea in the philosophy of mind that perception is phenomenally transparent. This means that perception presents properties of objects—like the redness of a tomato—but never the properties of experience itself. In this way, it is said that "we see right through" experience, making it difficult or even impossible for introspection to reveal its intrinsic properties.

This idea has been interpreted in many ways. Most commonly, it is used to argue for the idea that mental experiences are fundamentally representational, a view called intentionalism or representationalism.^[a] This argument is sometimes extended to claim that there are no purely phenomenal aspects of experience, or qualia, because all phenomenal experiences also have representational content. The transparency thesis has also been used to argue for direct realism, disjunctivism, and various other views in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception.

The transparency of experience arguably first arose in modern philosophy from figures such as Thomas Reid, but it became more prominent in twentieth century philosophy due to famous passages in the works of G. E. Moore and Gilbert Harman.

Test

Experience → Object

According to the transparency of experience, introspection does not reveal any features of experience, it only reveals the objects the experience is about.

The transparency of experience claims that the phenomenal character of experience is transparent to its representational content. That is, during introspection one can only perceive the properties of represented objects, not the phenomenal qualities of experience itself. Philosophers refer to this phenomenon as transparency because it suggests "we see right through" experience directly to external objects. Philosophers sometimes use specific examples to explain this idea.

Generality and scope

Need to cover colour realism debate somewhere?

Transparency and introspection

The transparency of experience is a philosophical thesis and has mainly been discussed by philosophers. However, philosophers have cited concepts and research from psychology and neuroscience in their arguments.

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Introspection and attention

Notes

↑ Not to be confused with indirect realism, which is sometimes also referred to as representationalism

References

Citations

↑ Gennaro 2018, §2.

Sources

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Bordini, Davide (2023). "Seeing Through Transparency". In Kriegel, Uriah (ed.). Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind. Vol. 3. Oxford University Press. pp. 263–296. ISBN 978-0-19-887946-6.
Bordini, Davide (2026). "Introspection and the Transparency of Experience". In Giustina, Anna (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Introspection. Routledge. ISBN 9781003393269.
Copenhaver, Rebecca (2007). "Reid on Consciousness: Hop, Hot or For?". The Philosophical Quarterly. 57 (229): 613–634. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.499.x. ISSN 0031-8094.
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Fish, William (2021). Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-48542-6.
Gennaro, Rocco J. (2018). "Representational Theories of Consciousness". In Gennaro, Rocco J. (ed.). The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness. Routledge. pp. 107–121. ISBN 978-1-315-67698-2.
Horgan, Terence; Tienson, John (2002). "The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality". In Chalmers, David (ed.). Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Oxford University Press. pp. 520–533. ISBN 978-0-19-514581-6.
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Kind, Amy (2003). "What's So Transparent About Transparency?". Philosophical Studies. 115 (3): 225–244. doi:10.1023/A:1025124607332. ISSN 0031-8116.
Kind, Amy (2010). "Transparency and Representationalist Theories of Consciousness". Philosophy Compass. 5 (10): 902–913. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00328.x. ISSN 1747-9991.
Lycan, William (2019). "Representational Theories of Consciousness". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
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Muñoz-Suárez, Carlos M. (2011). "The Transparency of Experience Argument". In Bruce, Michael; Barbone, Steven (eds.). Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy. Blackwell. pp. 142–145. ISBN 978-1-4443-4443-1.
Paul, Sarah K. (2014). "The Transparency of Mind". Philosophy Compass. 9 (5): 295–303. doi:10.1111/phc3.12126. ISSN 1747-9991.
Stoljar, Daniel (2009). "Transparency". In Bayne, Tim; Cleeremans, Axel; Wilken, Patrick (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Consciousness. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-172792-4 – via Oxford Reference.