Talk:Transparency of experience

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Transparency of experience/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Shapeyness (talk · contribs) 23:48, 22 July 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Vestrian24Bio (talk · contribs) 02:54, 27 August 2026 (UTC)

• @Vestrian24Bio: Reminder ping. Z1720 (talk) 04:23, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

  Got it, will post tomorrow.. Vestrian24Bio 11:30, 3 September 2026 (UTC)

Comments

Transparency of experience (as of this rev)

• Add an appropriate ENGVAR template to the page.
• Add the {{Use dmy dates}} or {{Use mdy dates}} template as well.

Done both the above. Shapeyness (talk) 16:52, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• ResearchGate is marked as an unreliable source in the source guide... replace or remove it.

ResearchGate is just a repository of papers/pre-prints, I have included some links to increase the accessibility of sources to readers. None of these are cited to the ResearchGate version, they are all cited to the published versions in reliable sources, this is just an alternative identifier similar to a doi or jstor link. I think these should be ok to keep. Shapeyness (talk) 16:52, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• The page shows Category:CS1: long volume value; fix it..

This is due to the Stoljar 2004 source, it has "volume=Supplementary Volume 30" which is needed to properly identify the source. I have checked in the CS1 talk page archives and this category is not exclusively an error category and can sometimes appear even when sources are formatted properly (as in this case). Shapeyness (talk) 16:52, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

For example, see: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 68#Bogus long volume. Shapeyness (talk) 16:57, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Source spot-check

This table lists 8 random passages from throughout the article (9.6% of 83 total passages). These passages contain 8 inline citations (9.6% of 83 in the article). Reference numbers refer to this revision. Generated with the Veracity user script. Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
Transparency
Philosophers sometimes use specific examples to explain this idea. For example, Jaegwon Kim states:
13		Kim 2002, pp. 289–290.			The full quote is included in the article below this sentence.
The transparency of experience is distinct from various other ideas also labelled transparency within the philosophy of mind and related areas. One view famously associated with René Descartes, called epistemic transparency or "the transparency of mind to itself", claims that a person cannot be wrong about their own current mental state.
20				Kind 2003, p. 226; Mandik 2010, p. 125.	Kind 2002, p. 226: The notion of transparency has two quite distinct uses in discussions of the mind – one epistemic, one metaphysical. In its epistemic use, “transparency” describes the sort of incorrigibility or infallibility thesis inspired by Descartes. We can quite naturally summarize the claim that a person cannot be wrong in her judgments about her own mental states by saying that “the mind is transparent to itself.” This, however, is not the sort of transparency in which I am interested. The sort of transparency claim that will be my focus here involves a metaphysical claim about experience. Mandik 2010, p. 125: You should be able to access the Google books preview here including definitions of the transparency of experience and the transparency of the mind to itself.
Generality and scope
For example, it is possible to see that a coin is round and to feel its shape in one's hand. The represented feature of roundness is the same in both experiences, but it is possible to distinguish qualitatively between the sight and the touch.
31		Bayne 2022, p. 67; Kim 2002, p. 293.			Bayne 2022, p. 67: Suppose that you can both see and feel a coin. Your visual experience presents the coin as circular, as does your haptic experience. Intuitively, there is a clear contrast between what it’s like to see a coin as circular and what it’s like to feel it as circular. Kim 2002, p. 293: Second, even if within a sense modality, like vision, qualia differences and similarities amount to no more than differences and similarities in representational contents, surely there are intermodal qualia differences that are not merely differences in representational contents—for example, the qualitative differences between visual experiences and tactual experiences. We can form a belief—a representation of an external state of affairs, say, “My cat has just jumped on my lap’— on the basis of both a visual experience and a tactual experience. Isn’t it obvious that there is a qualitative difference between these experiences even though the representation to which each of them leads is identical?
The transparency argument
There are a number of different ways to interpret this argument. One way is to view it as an inference to the best explanation. According to this approach, transparency claims that experience presents represented properties of objects, and the best explanation for this is that experience is fundamentally representational (intentionalism).
45		Bordini 2026, pp. 376–377; Maund 2003, pp. 171–173.			Maund 2003, some quotes from pp.171-173: Some of the strongest arguments in favour of the intentionalist thesis are those provided by Tye and Harman. These arguments involve appeals to the phenomenology of perceptual experience, principally to the well-known “transparency” or the “diaphanous nature” of perceptual experience. ... The argument is that our perceptual experiences do have phenomenal character: there is “something it is like” to have these experiences. The phenomenal character is revealed when we introspect our experiences. But, so the argument runs, when we reflect on what such introspection reveals, and discover the transparency of perceptual experience, the only viable explanation is that it is the content of the experiences that is revealed. ... The best (and only remaining) hypothesis, [Tye] suggests, is that visual phenomenal character is representational content of a certain sort: content into which certain external qualities enter. ... Tye does not claim that transparency requires the intentionalist theory: it is the best explanatory hypothesis.
Another counterargument claims that the transparency argument relies on introspection to draw highly theoretical conclusions, but introspection is not reliable enough to support highly theoretical claims.
50		Stoljar 2004, pp. 364–365.			Block's first objection is that the argument represents "an error in philosophical method." He goes on: "Looking at a blue wall is an easy thing to do, but it is not easy (perhaps not possible) to answer on the basis of introspection alone the highly theoretical question of whether in so doing I am aware of intrinsic properties of my experience" (1990, 689).
Transparency and introspection
One way of characterising the transparency of experience is as the idea that attention or awareness cannot be inward-directed. A question raised by this characterisation is how the transparency of experience can explain introspective awareness of inner experience.
62		Bordini 2026, pp. 377–378; Watzl 2026, p. 392.			Bordini 2026, pp. 377-378: TT [Transparency Thesis] claims that switching to an introspective mode makes us aware of no inner, intrinsically mental entities or features; nor does it consist in redirecting the focus of our attention from what is out there in the world to what is inside of us. ... An immediate question arises. Plausibly, based on introspection, we form beliefs and gain knowledge about our experiences and what it’s like for us to have them. Moreover, we self-ascribe experiences on the basis of what we introspect. But how can that be without introspective awareness of the experience and its properties? Watzl 2026, p. 392: As much as you may try to turn your attention inward, Harman suggests, you end up attending outward instead: you end up focusing on the world – not on your experience of a tree but on the tree, not on qualities of your own experience, but on qualities of the tree – its color, shape, and so on. Defenders of what I will call attention transparency believe that what Harman says about the experience of trees generalizes: it is not possible to direct attention in any interesting sense inward, to our own mind. Attention is always directed at the world (see also Ch. 24 on ‘Introspection and the Transparency of Experience’). The tension then is that introspection seems to be inward-directed attention (Introspection as Inward attention), and yet inward-directed attention can also seem to be impossible (Attention transparency).
History
The transparency of experience can be traced back to the early modern period in the writings of the common sense philosopher Thomas Reid. Reid claimed that "our attention is commonly employed about that which is the object of our thought, and rarely about the thought itself" and said sensations like the feeling of hardness are "never attended to, but [pass] through the mind instantaneously".
70		Copenhaver 2007, p. 622; Kind 2003, p. 240.			Copenhaver 2007, p. 622: Indeed, Reid holds that fully developed, properly functioning human adults rarely attend to their own mental operations: 'our attention is commonly employed about that which is the object of our thought, and rarely about the thought itself' (EIP, p. 42). Reid holds a moderate version of the transparency thesis Kind 2003, p. 240: Further support for weak transparency comes from some key figures in the history of philosophy. In addition to Moore, whom we have already seen is best interpreted as endorsing weak transparency, Thomas Reid too can plausibly be interpreted as a proponent of weak transparency (included on this page is also the quote from Reid about sensations of hardness)
Notes
Not to be confused with indirect realism, which is sometimes also referred to as representationalism.
4		Graham 2015.			Under the definition for representationalism: the theory that perceptual experience involves representations of the object(s) perceived. The three most prominent versions of the theory differ regarding both what elements in perceptual experience do the representing and how they do this. Perhaps the oldest version of representation (attributed to Locke) is a form of indirect realism on which we directly (“immediately”) perceive internal, mind-dependent mental representations as of outer physical, mind-independent objects and properties, and only indirectly perceive external, physical objects such as tables, trees, and textures. This view – also called “representative realism,” “indirect realism,” and “the sense-datum theory” – is supported by the arguments from illusion and from the relativity of perception.

@Shapeyness: could you transcribe the source texts for the above statements into the Notes column. Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi Vestrian24Bio, thanks for reviewing! I have included replies above and added quotes for the spotcheck. Let me know if you need additional quotes, some of these are hard to condense down but I've tried to include the most relevant passages. Shapeyness (talk) 18:46, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• Source spot-check: Pass. Vestrian24Bio 09:35, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Final review

• EARWIG shows 28.6% - violation unlikely. Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)
• According to link-dispenser (permalink),
  • 38 refs may need archive URLs.

  Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

  I checked through these and most are identifier links (e.g. doi links) in sources where an archive link is either not possible or not useful. Let me know if you think I missed any that should be archived. Shapeyness (talk) 21:23, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

• Media usage:
  • File:Blue Sky with Clouds Wallpaper (5080737587).jpg
  • File:Transparency of experience diagram.svg
  • File:Inverted qualia of colour strawberry.jpg
  • File:G. E. Moore c. 1903.jpg
  • File:Gilbert Harman 1960 yearbook photo (cropped).jpg

  All files have proper copyright tags, captions and alt texts. Vestrian24Bio 11:03, 7 September 2026 (UTC)

All else good, passing for GA. Vestrian24Bio 09:35, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Peer review

Transparency of experience

I've listed this article for peer review because I am planning to take it to FAC and want feedback on how it can be improved to meet the FA criteria. I'm also interested to improve the accessibility of the article, it is a difficult topic so any feedback on what parts others find the most confusing/least accessible would be really helpful!

Thanks, Shapeyness (talk) 16:17, 13 September 2026 (UTC)

Prezbo

I took a philosophy of mind class in college so I gave this a shot. It's tough, there's some kernel of the idea that I'm not getting. Maybe if I read it three or five times. I can tell that you've worked hard to make it as accessible as possible, I think it's just a very slippery topic, for me. I'm sorry I can't give specific feedback.Prezbo (talk) 23:01, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look anyway Prezbo, it's useful to know that the basic idea needs clarifying. I'll try to work on the first few sections a bit more. Shapeyness (talk) 22:15, 21 September 2026 (UTC)