Presentational phenomenology

Abstract

You know what it is like to walk into a room and see how it is arranged. Now imagine a blindfolded clairvoyant. He walks into the same room and immediately knows the same things you do about how it is arranged. How does your experience differ phenomenally from the clairvoyant’s experience? In The Nature of Perception, John Foster proposes that “in the clairvoyant cases, as envisaged, there is no provision for the presentational feel of phenomenal experience for the subjective impression that an instance of the relevant type of environmental situation is directly presented.” 1.