The Scrutinization and Transparency Checking of External Transparency Thesis
摘要
In the naturalisation project of the phenomenal qualitative character of experience, the phenomenal realist thesis has been posited as one of the contemporary challenges against the external transparency thesis. The current paper will begin with delineating the debate between the external and internal transparency thesis. The paper is going to show the implausibility of the external transparency thesis argument through three primary grounds. Firstly, the paper will defend the epistemic role of cognitive attention against Harman and Tye’s external transparency thesis. Secondly, the paper will provide the counter-argument through the genealogical method of investigation against external transparency theorists’ primary claim that the transparency thesis is compatible with the external transparency thesis. Moore’s transparency thesis (i.e., externalists like Harman and Tye relied upon Moore’s diaphanousness argument for justifying their thesis) is itself grounded on epistemic foundationalism based on common sense, as most naturalists try to avoid such kind of position. Thirdly, the paper will argue that the issue of transparency will remain unresolvable until epistemic foundationalism is accepted in the first place and attempt to resolve the transparency conflict through a demystification strategy. The paper will also show that the external transparency thesis and epistemic foundationalism are incompatible; however, the phenomenal transparency thesis, as a synthesiser of the debate of internal-external transparency thesis, is at least compatible with epistemic foundationalism and transparent enough to provide the epistemic justification for transparency of phenomenal experience itself as well as in plausibly explaining the object of experience.