A New Perspective on Phenomenal Holism

Abstract

Conscious experiences tend to involve a variety of features ? sights, sounds, scents, emotions. How is it that these different features, distinct though they are, can come to be unified in a single, coherent experience? In other words, what is the nature of the unity of consciousness? Phenomenal atomists, such as Timothy Bayne, David Chalmers, and Barry Dainton, claim that each of the features in a complex experience is an experience in itself. Their theories, therefore, seek to discover what it is that binds these experiences together. However, the atomistic approaches have some shortcomings in that they tend to posit a complex ontology of experience and often lead to tricky implications, such as the double-instantiation of qualia, when explored in depth. In my paper, I argue that phenomenal holism is a plausible alternative to phenomenal atomism because it does not run into the same difficulties. Phenomenal holism is the view that we only have one experience at a given point in time, even if this experience has a variety of features. It is the multiplicity of simultaneous qualia instantiations that give rise to a complex experience. This allows for a simpler ontology than the atomistic alternative, which has up till now been considered the ?received view?.