qualia

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

The subjective, first-person qualities of conscious experience — what it is like to see a particular shade of red, to taste coffee, or to feel pain; the 'feel' of experience that seems irreducible to any physical or functional description; central to the 'hard problem of consciousness'

History and origin

Latin qualia, plural of quale (of what sort); introduced into modern philosophy of mind by C.I. Lewis (1929); popularised by Thomas Nagel's 1974 essay 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?'

Examples

• The qualia of seeing the colour blue cannot be fully conveyed to someone who has been blind from birth.
• Philosophers who deny qualia (eliminativists) argue that our intuitions about subjective experience are fundamentally mistaken.

Synonyms: phenomenal properties, what-it-is-likeness, felt qualities