Ned Block (in Block Reference Block1990; Reference Block1995b; Reference Block and Chalmers2002; and the present target article) has made a conceptual distinction between the phenomenality of a mental state (a.k.a. its phenomenal character or the quale it instantiates) and access consciousness of the same state. There is a view – Block calls it “epistemic correlationism” – according to which the metaphysical relationship between these two is not scientifically tractable. While cognitive accessibility is intrinsic to our knowledge of phenomenology, it might not be constitutive of the phenomenal facts themselves. According to the epistemic correlationist, there is no possible empirical evidence that could tell us one way or another. This view is Block's main target. His thesis is that the issue of the relationship between phenomenal and access consciousness is an empirical one; and that moreover, the issue is approachable by the same empirical methods we employ in science in general. Block's aim is to show that by looking at the relevant data, and employing the method of inference to the best explanation, we can mount an argument for the specific thesis that access consciousness is not constitutively necessary for phenomenality. If this is so, he has given reasons to reject “metaphysical correlationism” as well – that is, the view that the cognitive access relations that underlie reportability are constitutive of phenomenology.

Block's thesis needs further clarification. A phenomenal state can be access conscious in two radically different ways. Its content (or part of its content) can be access conscious, or its phenomenal character can be access conscious. Say, I am having a visual experience of a red circle in an orange background. In this case, both the content and the phenomenal character of this experience can be access conscious. I can be aware that I am seeing a red circle in an orange background, and I can also be aware that my experience has such and such a phenomenal character. However, in the experiments that Block discusses in his article, the two kinds of access come apart. As a result, although Block's thesis holds if understood as involving the first notion of access, there is an alternative thesis involving the second sense of access that is untouched by Block's arguments. After clarifying Block's thesis, I will briefly sketch this alternative hypothesis.

Consider the following kind of experiment, which provides crucial support for Block's thesis. Following Sperling's (1960) famous experiments, Landman et al. (Reference Landman, Spekreijse and Lamme2003) showed subjects eight rectangles in different orientations for half a second. The resulting experience e has a – presumably non-conceptual (pictorial or iconic) – representational content r, and, according to the introspective reports of subjects, a phenomenal character p.Footnote ¹ Given the model of access consciousness assumed in Block's paper as broadcasting of conceptual representations in a global workspace (Baars Reference Baars1988; Reference Baars1997), Block takes e to be access conscious if and only if conceptual representations of e's content are present in the global workspace. In other words, e is access conscious if and only if there are conceptual representations in the global workspace that extract the content of e (e.g., “There were rectangles of the following orientations…”).

That typically we are not access conscious, in the sense described above, of all aspects of a phenomenal experience's content is convincingly shown by the Landman et al. (Reference Landman, Spekreijse and Lamme2003) experiments. After the brief exposure, subjects are only able to report on the precise orientation of up to four of these rectangles. These experiments show, to my mind conclusively, that access consciousness of this sort – that is, the existence of conceptual representations in global workspace that extract all the relevant content of e – is not constitutively necessary for the phenomenality of the experience. This finding is further supported by the neurophysiological data Block cites, which show the neural implementation of sensory representations and the neural implementation of global access to be physically separate and independent from each other.

However, these experiments – which comprise the bulk of Block's supporting evidence – do not show that no access is constitutively necessary for phenomenality. Notice that the aforementioned interpretation of these experiments crucially relies on the subjects' introspective report of the phenomenality of their entire visual experience, including those aspects of the experience whose content is not access conscious. Introspective access to the phenomenality of the entire experience was part of the evidence in the Sperling and the Landman et al. experiments for why access to the conceptualized content of the experience is not necessary for phenomenality. But these data leave room open for the hypothesis that access to the phenomenality of the experience is constitutively necessary for that phenomenality. How exactly should we think about access to the phenomenality of the experience if it is not access to its conceptualized content?

Notice that the representations in the global workspace that are not constitutively necessary for phenomenality are separate from the representations whose phenomenality is in question. Phenomenal experience quite plausibly involves non-conceptual representation; representations that enter the global workspace, on the other hand, are conceptual representations. There are different representations involved. What about access to the phenomenality of the experience itself? It seems plausible that the relationship between phenomenality and the representation of it that is in the global workspace is more intimate. Here is an idea: Perhaps phenomenality requires that a conceptual representation of the phenomenal character of the experience, more precisely, a judgment to the effect that the relevant phenomenal experience occurs, itself is in the global workspace. Plausibly, this would not involve any old conceptual representation of the phenomenality of the experience, but a phenomenal representation involving phenomenal concepts. There is a plausible account of phenomenal concepts, the constitutional account (see, e.g., Papineau Reference Papineau2002), according to which phenomenal concepts – in their canonical, first person, present tense applications relevant to these experiments – are partly constituted by the experience they refer to. That is, the first-person, present-tense judgment that e has phenomenal character p is partly constituted by e itself. Notice that here the experience whose phenomenality is at issue and the state in the global workspace that constitutes access to it are not separate and independent. The conceptual representation in the global workspace involves e itself and this adds to the plausibility of the idea that this kind of access is intrinsic to phenomenality.

Unlike the thesis Block is criticizing (let's call it the Access_c thesis), this thesis (let's call it the Access_p thesis) seems to be a viable hypothesis. None of the data discussed by Block rule it out, or even make it implausible. But if the Access_p thesis is true, then some interesting consequences follow – for example, that despite suggestions to the contrary by Block, activations in the “fusiform face area” of “visuo-spatial extinction” patients, or any other early visual state that is not access_p conscious, could not be phenomenal.