Abstract

In C. I. Lewis's epistemology, qualia are taken to be directly intuited and inherently recognizable. He distinguishes sharply between qualia and that which C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell refer to as “sensa" or “sense-data." Where Broad and Russell appear to allow for the possibility of unsensed, incompletely sensed, or inaccurately sensed sensa, Lewis regards qualia as given--to be is to be sensed and certain. Lewis finds the Broad-Russell view to be incredible and says of sensa so construed that they are “neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring."I argue that the Broad-Russell view is at least as plausible as Lewis's and, indeed, that to adequately describe and explain mental phenomena, it may be necessary to distinguish the phenomenal aspect of consciousness from the accessing function of consciousness. In arguing the pIausibilityof this distinction, I draw upon work from both cognitive science and phenomenology. I also argue that, in principIe, experimental evidence could be adduced to decide the issue between the Broad-Russell and the Lewis views. In a concluding section I suggest implications of the view developed here for Lewis's epistemology.