Subjective character of experience - Your Art History Reference Guide!

ArtHistoryClub Information Site on Subjective character of experience Art History Art History Search        Art History Browse             News        Gallery        Forums        Articles        Weblinks        welcome to our free resource site for all art history lovers!

Subjective character of experience

That all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view is called the subjective character of experience. The term was coined and illuminated by Thomas Nagel in his famous paper "What is it like to be a bat?"

Because bats are apparently conscious mammals with an entirely different way of perceiving their environments than the way in which human beings do, we can conclude that we know that there is something that it is like to be a bat, but not what it is like for a bat. While the example of the bat is particularly illustrative, any conscious species might fit. Further, any organism would work, as each organism has a unique point of view from which no other organism can gather experience.

Nagel claims that the subjective character of experience implies the cognitive closure of the human mind to some facts, specifically the way in which physical states create mental ones.

External links

Last updated: 01-04-2007 01:18:57
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the
GNU Free Documentation License. See original document.
Art History Search | Art History Browse | Contact | Legal info