Velmans, M. (1991). Consciousness from a first-person perspective, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14(4), 702-719.
Note:
Reply to commentaries on Velmans, M. (1991), Is human information processing conscious? BBS, 651-669.
[Citing Place (1956)]
Citing Place (1956) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Section 7. Philosophical implications.
Subsection 7.3 Functionalist reductionism.
* However, it should be clear from the target article and the commentaries, that many psychologists are concerned to capture consciousness; and Hardcastle's old reductionist argument (see, for example, Place, 1956) is based on a simple error. It assumes that if C is shown to cause E, then E reduces to C. A sensation of redness might be caused by certain electromagnetic wavelengths interacting with
the colour coding mechanisms of the visual system, but that is not to say that the resulting sensation is nothing more than "electromagnetic radiation." On the contrary, such cases exemplify the need to incorporate first- and third person perspectives into any complete cause-effect description. From a third-person perspective, electromagnetic energy can be observed to innervate the eye and
visual system; but there is no way of knowing that this results in a "red" sensation, without incorporating the subject's point of view. And the same applies to all other contents of consciousness.