The Argument from Understanding for Dualism about Experiential Properties

Chairman : Michael Murez

Abstract

The argument from understanding defends a dualist view about experiential properties: their nature is non-physical. The premises of the argument are (a) phenomenal essentialism (that phenomenal concepts reveal the nature of certain experiential properties), (b) that physical concepts and certain phenomenal concepts are cognitively independent, (c) that two property concepts revealing the nature of the same property cannot be cognitively independent and that (d) a property having a nature which can be revealed by a phenomenal concept but by no physical concept cannot count as a physical property.