ABSTRACT
The representational content of an experiential state can often be described in public language partly in terms of qualities of objects that bear some salient relation to the state, for example, “looks red” or “feels like sandpaper” or “smells rotten,” but it is the contention of this chapter that public language terms including terms for such properties of objects do not fully capture the contents. Qualia in my terminology are ways things look red or feel like sandpaper or smell rotten. If things can look red in more than one way – as I will be arguing – “looks red” does not fully capture the content of the state. Qualia can be referred to in public language, for example as the quale I get when I see green things. But that reference to the quale does not fully capture its content – it does not capture the individuating particularity about the way that I see green that is different from the way others may see green. Similarly, I can refer to the content of a thought as “the content of the thought I had at 11:33 AM” without fully capturing its content. 2
