Qualia, Quale and Peirce

Posted on April 29, 2008
Filed Under Philosophy | 2 Comments

Qualia pop up a lot in discussion of philosophy of mind. If you’re not familiar with the term the SEP on qualia is a great place to start. What’s weird is that several papers I’ve read the past few weeks have attributed the origin of the term or at least idea to C. S. Peirce. I don’t think this is correct. So far as I know the modern sense in analytic philosophy arises primarily from C. I. Lewis in his 1929 book Mind and the World Order. (Which, for the record, I’ve not read)

As I see it the big problem with qualia as discussed within analytic philosophy is that I think Peirce would say it is too Cartesian. I posed the question over at Peirce-L and there was some interesting discussion.

First I should note that to understand Peirce’s pragmatism one should realize that one has to think in terms of his three categories. These are similar to Hegel’s but with a slightly different twist. (The differences are actually a matter of debate) In any phenomena, for Peirce, there is the category of firstness or the phenomena as it is in itself; secondness or the phenomena as it is in relation to something else (sometimes called strife, struggle or opposition); and thirdness which is phenomena in relation to two things often considered as phenomena in terms of signs or as mediated. Miss that aspect of Peircean pragmatism and you might as well be reading William James. (grin)

Firstness or the phenomena as it is without relation to anything else is a kind of experiential quality.

Now Peirce uses the term “quale” to mean the thing or object with a quality. Elsewhere Peirce uses it as “the ultimate psychic fact.” That’s quite different from contemporary use which is more about quality.

So the difference can be seen that for Peirce the focus is on the thing experienced of which one aspect is it’s unrelated experiential quality whereas for contemporary philosophy it is primarily about the quality as experienced.

Peirce actually uses the plural form of quale, qualia, only once that we could find.

If a man is blind to the red and violet elements of light and only sees the green element, then all things appear of one color to him, and that color is a green of colorific intensity beyond anything that we with normal eyes can see or imagine. Such is the color that all things look to him. Yet since all things look alike in this respect, it never attracts his attention in the least. He may be said to be dead to it. If the man is at the same time deaf, without smell and taste, and devoid of skin sensations, then it is probable the green will be still more chromatic; for I suppose colors are for us somewhat diluted by skin sensations. But for the very reason that it is his own kind of sensation, he will only be the more completely oblivious of its quale. Yet for all that, that is the way things look to him, more intensely green than any scarlet or magenta is red to us.

This illustration puts into a high light the distinction between two kinds of consciousness, the quale-consciousness and that kind of consciousness which is intensified by attention, which objectively considered, I call vividness, and as a faculty we may call liveliness.

The quale-consciousness is not confined to simple sensations. There is a peculiar quale to purple, though it be only a mixture of red and blue. There is a distinctive quale to every combination of sensations so far as it is really synthetized — a distinctive quale to every work of art — a distinctive quale to this moment as it is to me — a distinctive quale to every day and every week — a peculiar quale to my whole personal consciousness. I appeal to your introspection to bear me out in this.

Each quale is in itself what it is for itself, without reference to any other. It is absurd to say that one quale in itself considered is like or unlike another. Nevertheless, comparing consciousness does pronounce them to be alike. They are alike to the comparing consciousness, though neither alike nor unlike in themselves.

And now I enunciate a truth. It is this. In so far as qualia can be said to have anything in common, that which belongs to one and all is unity; and the various synthetical unities which Kant attributes to the different operations of the mind, as well as the unity of logical consistency, or specific unity, and also the unity of the individual object, all these unities originate, not in the operations of the intellect, but in the quale-consciousness upon which the intellect operates. (CP 6:225)

Related posts:

  1. Peirce and Consciousness
  2. Ereignis and Peirce
  3. Gary and Peirce on Mind and Functionalism
  4. Physics *is* Understood
  5. Virtual Peirce
  6. Consciousness Goes Away?

Comments

2 Responses to “Qualia, Quale and Peirce”

Hi Clark.

You wrote: “. . . and thirdness which is phenomena in relation to two things often considered as phenomena in terms of signs or as mediated. Miss that aspect of Peircean pragmatism and you might as well be reading William James. (grin)”

I’ve read and enjoyed much of James’ work, but am not very familiar with Peirce’s work. Would you elaborate a bit on this distinction you’ve drawn? I didn’t follow. Thanks.

Central to everything Peirce did were his categories of 1stness, 2cdness, and 3rdness. These are basically anything considered in terms of unity, difference or mediation. They apply to logic (logic with one element, two elements or three elements), phenomenology, and pretty much everything else. Originally he developed them while reading Kant (who had 12 categories). While much of what he did was focused on logic his later work was focused on general semiotics and phenomenology.

James adopted a lot of Peirce’s thought but never really got into the logic or the categories. But without that categorical understanding one loses a lot of the rigour of how to conceive of philosophy and science.

To add you might find this paper on Peirce and phenomenology rather interesting. I’d linked to it on the sidebar last week. It probably does a better job than most at explaining the categories.

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