ABSTRACT
Dennett's project is to explain consciousness entirely in the language of content, representation and intentionality. Dennett denies the need to directly explain phenomenal consciousness from these resources because there is no such thing as phenomenal consciousness. The generation problem can be dodged, and consigned to the dustbin of misbegotten, purely philosophical pseudo-problems. Dennett's attack on qualia is the first move in the demolition of phenomenal consciousness. The elimination of phenomenal consciousness proceeds by showing that there could not be anything which satisfies the set of properties definitive of qualia. Dennett deploys a series of thought experiments aiming to show that putative facts about qualia dissolve into unverifiable pseudo-facts under the pressure of philosophical investigation. These thought experiments all depend upon a very suspect doctrine about facts in general: verificationism. It appears, contrary to Dennett, that a minimal but sufficiently substantial notion of qualitative experience can withstand this first assault.
