I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “first-person perspective”, but strong illusionists might not deny that it exists, if understood in functionalist terms, say.
Frankish says it is like something to be a bat, in terms of a bat’s first-order responses or reactive patterns to things, but a bat can’t know what it’s like to be a bat, because they don’t have (sufficiently sophisticated) introspection on those first-order responses. Dennett says even bacteria have a kind of “user-illusion”, because they can discriminate, but only “particularly reflective” humans are subject to the theorists’ illusion and worry about things like the hard problem of consciousness. So, we could define first-person perspective in terms of responses or discriminations, and in a way compatible with strong illusionism. This would attribute first-person perspectives extremely widely, e.g. even to bacteria.
If by first-person perspective, you mean introspection, then illusionists wouldn’t deny that humans have it.
If by first-person perspective, you mean classic qualia (private, ineffable, intrinsic, etc.), then an illusionist would deny that this exists.
Strong illusionists would also deny phenomenality, of course, in case that’s different from classic qualia, but some attempted definitions of phenomenality (including what specific physicalist theories define consciousness as, e.g. broadcasting to a global workspace) actually could be understood as defining quasi-phenomenal states, and so compatible with illusionism.
A theory-neutral defintion of quasi-phenomenal states could be that they’re real things, processes or responses (physical or otherwise) on which introspection (of the right kind) leads to beliefs in phenomenal properties, e.g. these quasi-phenomenal states appear epistemically to us as to be phenomenal. If introspection is reliable and can access phenomenal states, then these accessed phenomenal states would be quasi-phenomenal states under this definition. Illusionists would claim that introspection is not reliable, no phenomenal states actually exist, and so the beliefs in phenomenality are mistaken, hence illusions.
I think it would be wrong to take phenomenal properties as evidence that must be explained, and doing so begs the question against illusionism. What we have evidence of is the appearance of (our beliefs in) phenomenal properties, and illusionism tries to explain that without requiring the actual existence of phenomenal properties. Sometimes (maybe usually) appearances and beliefs are accurate instead of illusions, and the best explanation is based on what they represent actually existing.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “first-person perspective”, but strong illusionists might not deny that it exists, if understood in functionalist terms, say.
Frankish says it is like something to be a bat, in terms of a bat’s first-order responses or reactive patterns to things, but a bat can’t know what it’s like to be a bat, because they don’t have (sufficiently sophisticated) introspection on those first-order responses. Dennett says even bacteria have a kind of “user-illusion”, because they can discriminate, but only “particularly reflective” humans are subject to the theorists’ illusion and worry about things like the hard problem of consciousness. So, we could define first-person perspective in terms of responses or discriminations, and in a way compatible with strong illusionism. This would attribute first-person perspectives extremely widely, e.g. even to bacteria.
If by first-person perspective, you mean introspection, then illusionists wouldn’t deny that humans have it.
If by first-person perspective, you mean classic qualia (private, ineffable, intrinsic, etc.), then an illusionist would deny that this exists.
Strong illusionists would also deny phenomenality, of course, in case that’s different from classic qualia, but some attempted definitions of phenomenality (including what specific physicalist theories define consciousness as, e.g. broadcasting to a global workspace) actually could be understood as defining quasi-phenomenal states, and so compatible with illusionism.
A theory-neutral defintion of quasi-phenomenal states could be that they’re real things, processes or responses (physical or otherwise) on which introspection (of the right kind) leads to beliefs in phenomenal properties, e.g. these quasi-phenomenal states appear epistemically to us as to be phenomenal. If introspection is reliable and can access phenomenal states, then these accessed phenomenal states would be quasi-phenomenal states under this definition. Illusionists would claim that introspection is not reliable, no phenomenal states actually exist, and so the beliefs in phenomenality are mistaken, hence illusions.
I think it would be wrong to take phenomenal properties as evidence that must be explained, and doing so begs the question against illusionism. What we have evidence of is the appearance of (our beliefs in) phenomenal properties, and illusionism tries to explain that without requiring the actual existence of phenomenal properties. Sometimes (maybe usually) appearances and beliefs are accurate instead of illusions, and the best explanation is based on what they represent actually existing.