I have given an interpretation of Dennett’s theory of why there seems to be something more to consciousness than science can explain. My aim was to thereby address crucial questions, while sticking as closely to Dennett’s philosophy as possible. The answer is a just-so story that shows how (plausible) selection pressures lead to beings that cannot help but believe that they are more than just “moist robots” (Dennett 2013a, p. 49)—because some important entities seem to be missing from the scientific description.
This story answers the questions why and how beings like us monitor their dispositions, and how this ability could have evolved. It also offers an answer as to why we don’t recognize them as representations of our dispositions and why qualia are unlike other theoretical entities in that they are important for what we consider ourselves to be. The notion of an intermediate between first- and second-order intentional systems was introduced as a new conceptual instrument for satisfying the acquisition constraint and to lay the fundaments for the belief in mind-independent simple properties that directly cause the behavior of agents. This in turn is the basis for the belief in qualia as intrinsic properties of experience.
This story might not provide an “insight into necessity” (cf. Dennett 1991, p. 401), but I am happy if it contributes to showing and clarifying a possibility: although it may seem that our best hypothesis for accounting for our belief in qualia is that they actually exist, this hypothesis might still be explained away.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank Thomas Metzinger and Jennifer Windt for the unique opportunity to participate in this project. I am also very grateful for the helpful remarks they and two anonymous reviewers gave to an earlier version of this paper.