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abstract: 'The study of consciousness in modern science is hampered by deeply ingrained, dualist presuppositions about the nature of consciousness. In particular, conscious experiences are thought to be private and subjective, contrasting with physical phenomena which are public and objective. In the present article, I argue that all observed phenomena are, in a sense, private to a given observer, although there are some events to which there is public access. Phenomena can be objective in the sense of intersubjective, investigators can be objective in the sense of truthful or dispassionate, and procedures can be objective in being well-specified, but observed phenomena cannot be objective in the sense of being observer-free. Phenomena are only repeatable in the sense that they are judged by a community of observers to be tokens of the same type. Stripped of its dualist trappings the empirical method becomes if you carry out these procedures you will observe or experience these results - which applies as much to a science of consciousness as it does to physics.'
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creators_name:
  - family: Velmans
    given: Max
    honourific: ''
    lineage: ''
date: 1999
date_type: published
datestamp: 1999-07-12
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/03/87
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eprintid: 387
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/387/1/intsci.html
full_text_status: public
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keywords: 'intersubjectivity, objective, subjective, empirical method, reflexive, dualism, reductionism, private, public,'
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:52
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: ~
number: 2/3
pagerange: 299-306
pubdom: FALSE
publication: Journal of Consciousness Studies
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refereed: TRUE
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reportno: ~
rev_number: 8
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status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:27:13
subjects:
  - phil-epist
  - phil-sci
succeeds: ~
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title: Intersubjective Science
type: journalp
userid: 156
volume: 6
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