Grasping Phenomenal Properties

1 Grasping Properties I will present an argument for property dualism. The argument employs a distinction between having a concept of a property and grasping a property via a concept. If you grasp a property P via a concept C, then C is a concept of P. But the reverse does not hold: you may have a concept of a property without grasping that property via any concept. If you grasp a property, then your cognitive relation to that property is more intimate then if you just have some concept or other of that property. To grasp a property is to understand what having that property essentially consists in. To have a concept of a property is to have a concept one can use to attribute the property to something. If you have the concept of water then you can use it to attribute the property of being water to liquids. You then have a concept of the property of being water. But you might have the concept of water without knowing that being composed of H 2 0 is essential for being water—without knowing what having the property of being water consists in. In that case, your concept would not enable you to grasp the property. I will propose an account of grasping properties. It is quite easy to find examples where we do not grasp the property at issue. But it might be less obvious that we sometimes do grasp properties via concepts. I think that we sometimes do and that a clear case is provided by our understanding of phenomenal properties via phenomenal concepts. To have a particular phenomenal property is to have an experience of a specific subjective feel. If you have a phenomenal concept of a phenomenal property, then you know what it is to have an experience with that subjective feel. You thereby know what it is to have that property: you grasp the phenomenal property via your phenomenal concept. This idea seems natural. But some work needs to be done to explicate the idea within a theoretical framework that relates concepts and properties. I will call the claim that we can grasp phenomenal properties via phenomenal concepts the thesis of phenomenal essentialism. Phenomenal essentialism may seem to trivially imply property dualism. The property dualist denies that to have a phenomenal property consists in having physical features. This denial may appear to follow directly …