ABSTRACT
Standard sensible realism, the thesis that some sense-qualia have an ultimate and distinctively physical realization, can be developed in two quite different ways, as either a form of naive realism or a supplement to scientific theory. If colour-qualia are capable of an ultimate realization in physical space, physical space must have a distinctively visual character. As intrinsic qualia, which form the content of gustatory awareness, flavours are simply the determinate sensation-types of which gustatory sensations are the tokens. Now the fact that the confinement-thesis holds for complete qualia does not entail that it holds for all qualia. Sense-qualia are distinguished from other qualitative items by the fact that we can have a transparent conception of them only by knowing what it is like to sense them. For if sense-qualia are physically realized, it is only if their realization is non-sensory – outside the content of sense-awareness – that it falls within the scope of physical description in the relevant sense.
