Knowledge Tree
Relations (1)
related 2.58 — strongly supporting 5 facts
Representationalism is fundamentally defined by its stance on qualia, either by rejecting them as non-representational mental properties {fact:1, fact:2, fact:5} or by reinterpreting them as objective properties of external objects [1], while also serving as a framework to bridge philosophical gaps regarding their nature [2].
Facts (5)
Sources
Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2025 ... plato.stanford.edu 4 facts
perspectiveThe Multiple Drafts Model (MDM) is representationalist because it analyzes consciousness in terms of content relations, and it rejects the existence of qualia as a means to distinguish conscious from nonconscious states.
perspectiveProponents of representationalism, including Dennett (1990), Lycan (1996), and Carruthers (2000), are motivated by the goal of accommodating facts about consciousness within a physicalist framework without requiring the existence of qualia or non-representational mental properties.
claimRepresentationalism functions as a qualified form of eliminativism because it denies the existence of mental properties that are not representational, such as qualia understood as intrinsic monadic properties of conscious states.
claimSome representationalists, such as Dretske (1995) and Lycan (1996), treat qualia as objective properties that external objects are represented as having, rather than as properties of mental states or representations.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimProposals made in the 2020s suggest that a cognitively inspired form of representationalism can reconcile neuroscience and the philosophy of mind by bridging gaps regarding concepts such as intentionality, emergence, consciousness, and qualia.