ABSTRACT
We have characterized the qualitative character of experience in terms of what it is like for its subject to have the experience. This formulation is due to Thomas Nagel,1 who employs it to introduce a strikingly different conception of qualitative character-or what he calls “subjective character”—from those we have encountered so far. Nagel raises the question, “What is it like to be a bat?” in the light of the fact that bats experience their environment through a system of echo-location whereby the echoes of their high-pitched shrieks are picked up and processed to provide information about the objects around them. Since we have nothing corresponding to this sensory system, Nagel concludes that we do not know what it is like to have the experiences generated by it. He uses this as an argument against physicalism, for the physical facts about bats can be known even though we do not know what it is like to be them. Thus, he argues, the character of their experiences cannot be revealed by such facts.
