Comments on Ned Block's "Wittgenstein and Qualia"

• Published in: Reading Putnam pp. 319 - 321
• Main Author: Putnam, Hilary
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2013
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Qualitative Character; Putnam 2004b; Vice Versa; Mind Brain Identity Theory; Inverted Spectrum Hypothesis; Partial Denotation; Follow; Model Theoretic Argument; Analytic Synthetic Distinction; Subject's Visual Experience; Duhemian Holism; Quine 1981a; Putnam's Critique; Pale Shade; Natural Kind Term; Good Epistemic Conditions; Sandy; Bright Sunlight; Sandy Beach; Relevant Causal Structures; Wo; Block's Argument; Putnam's Characterization; Brain In A Vat; Moral Images
• ISBN: 0415530075; 0415530067; 9780415530071; 9780415530064
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203117095-26

Ned Block writes that "Hilary Putnam mentioned that he sees colors differently in different eyes" (p. 290 in this volume). Actually, I already noticed when I was a college student that when I looked at a sandy beach in bright sunlight, the exact color of the sand looked different if I looked with my right eye shut and if I looked with my left eye shut. Later I discovered that I can get other people to have a similar experience, if I tell them to go outside and find a white wall (or a wall some pale shade of gray or yellow) some distance away and try looking at it with their left eye closed and then with their right eye closed. As Block mentioned, the explanation turns out to be very simple: the maculae of the two eyes are not identical with respect to pigmentation. But that doesn't mean that the macula of one eye is "normal," nor that the macula of the other eye is abnormal. This is not a hypothetical case, and it does not depend on a thought experiment.