Abstract

In my dissertation, I argue for three theses: color realism is correct; material objects have color; a prevalent position in the philosophy of mind---one that is externalist about thought yet internalist about experience---is unavailable; and certain brain-in-the-vat scenarios commonly employed in service of epistemological skepticism are ineffective. In each of these cases , contemporary philosophy has failed to appreciate the full significance of the following fact: being aware of a particular psychological state---whether of one's own phenomenal experience or an attitude of one's peer---requires the possession and exercise of substantial psychological capacities. ;Kant was perhaps first to emphasize the potential implications of a study of the necessary conditions upon certain psychological phenomena. By identifying what must be true about the "independent" or "non-psychological" world in order for particular psychological phenomena to be possible, he could infer from the fact that there are such phenomena truths about the independent world. ;I examine the conditions on a psychological phenomenon of a specific sort: psychological-state attribution. Psychological-state attribution is that mental activity wherein one person conceives of another person as having a certain thought, experience, belief, desire, etc. I watch Jones' frantic shuffling of papers, and I "attribute" to her in my mind a state of anxiety. We attribute psychological states to people all the time. ;The conditions I emphasize in my dissertation, however, are themselves psychological. A necessary condition on my attributing to Jones a state of anxiety, for example, is that I have some understanding of what such a state is. Understanding is a psychological phenomenon. All of the arguments I focus upon see considerable potential in the following question: What must be true of one person's mental make-up in order for that person to think of another person's mental make-up in a certain way?