Abstract :
What is the role of conscious visual experience in the control and guidance of human
behaviour? According to some recent treatments, the role is surprisingly indirect.
Conscious visual experience, on these accounts, serves the formation of plans and
the selection of action types and targets, while the control of ‘online’ visually guided
action proceeds via a quasi-independent non-conscious route. In response to such
claims, critics such as (Wallhagen [2007], pp. 539–61) have suggested that the notions
of control and guidance invoked are unacceptably vague, and that that the image of
‘zombie systems’ guiding action fails to take account of the possibility that there is
genuine but unconceptualized, unnoticed, and/or unreportable experience taking place
and guiding or controlling the actions. I address both sets of concerns. I try to show
that refining and clarifying the key notions of control and guidance leaves the original
argument intact, as does the appeal to unconceptualized, unnoticed, or unreportable
experiences. The exercise serves, however, to highlight an important complex of
considerations concerning the relations between control, agency, and experience. Better
understanding these relations is, I suggest, an important source of insights concerning
the nature of phenomenal experience.
