Fred Dretske, a philosopher, was one of the most influential epistimologists of his time. A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ...
Dretske's "phenomenal externalism" is externalist on two counts: the properties of a perceptual experience, insofar as it is mental, are determined entirely by the properties it represents things as having, and which properties it represents things as having is not determined by the perceiver's physical state.
Dretske claims not only that "experiences have their representational content fixed by the functions of the sensory systems of which they are states," but that "the quality of a sensory state-how things look, sound, and feel at the most basic (phenomenal) level-is thus determined phylogenetically" (15).
Dretske need not rely on the model of displaced perception to formulate a conception of introspection of experience that is consistent with his view that the character of an experience consists in the properties it represents its objects as having.
FredDretske (1995) is perhaps the best-known proponent of the COLD position.
Dretske (1997), for instance, writes that "[w]hat makes [mental states] conscious is not S's awareness of them, but their role in making S conscious -- typically (in the case of sense perception), of some external object" (p.
Dretske's argument, then, appears to assume that state consciousness is not an extrinsic property, and such an assumption, it would appear, begs the question against the very idea behind the truth of proposition 1.
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