Why the Phenomenal Concept Strategy Cannot Save Physicalism

Abstract

Some physicalists take the phenomenal concept strategy (Stoljar 2005) to be one of
the most powerful responses to anti-physicalistic arguments such as the knowledge
argument (Jackson 1986) or the explanatory gap (Levine 1983). My presentation aims at
demonstrating that the target of the physicalist phenomenal conceptualist – namely,
to give a satisfactory account of dualistic intuitions without drawing ontological
dualistic conclusions – has to fail.