In this study, Austen Clark examines the strategy used in psychophysics, psychometrics, and sensory neurophysiology to explain qualitative facts. He argues that this strategy could succeed, its structure is sound, and it can answer the various philosophical objections lodged against it.

Drawing on the findings of neuroscience, this text proposes and defends the hypothesis that the various modalities of sensation share a generic form that the author, Austen Clark, calls feature-placing .

Many philosophers doubt that one can provide any successful explanation of the sensory qualities - of how things look, feel, or seem to a perceiving subject. Clark addresses this apparently intractable problem and suggests that a solution is in fact possible.