Sensory phenomenology and perceptual content

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 61, Issue 244, 2011, Pages 558-576

  Millar, Boyd ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 79959743016     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: 14679213     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.696.x     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. E. Husserl, Logical Investigations [1900], tr. J.N. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 565.
2. See, e.g., D. Chalmers, 'The Representational Character of Experience', in B. Leiter (ed.), The Future for Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), pp. 153-81, at p. 167.
3. See F. Dretske, Naturalizing the Mind (MIT Press, 1995);
4. M. Tye, Ten Problems of Consciousness (MIT Press, 1995).
5. For the distinction between Russellian and Fregean representationalism, see Chalmers, 'The Representational Character of Experience', pp. 167-74;
6. B. Thompson, 'Colour Constancy and Russellian Representationalism', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 84 (2006), pp. 75-94, at pp. 75-7.
7. See C. Siewert, The Significance of Consciousness (Princeton UP, 1998);
8. T. Horgan and J. Tienson, 'The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality', in D. Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 520-41;
9. U. Kriegel, 'Intentional Inexistence and Phenomenal Intentionality', in J. Hawthorne (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives, 21: Philosophy of Mind (Malden: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 307-40.
10. The label 'separatism' is used this way by Horgan and Tienson, p. 520, and by Graham, Horgan and Tienson, in their 'Consciousness and Intentionality', in M. Velmans and S. Schneider (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness (Malden: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 468-84, at p. 468.
11. Husserl (pp. 564-7) also defends moderate separatism by pointing to examples of ordinary perceptual experiences. Peacocke, a more recent defender of this view, presents an example of this sort as well: see C. Peacocke, Sense and Content (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), p. 16.
12. See, e.g., G. Strawson, Mental Reality (MIT Press, 1994), ch. 1;
13. Siewert, The Significance of Consciousness, ch. 8;
14. Kriegel, 'Consciousness as Sensory Quality and as Implicit Self-Awareness', Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2 (2003), pp. 1-26.
15. See Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (MIT Press, 1992), pp. 89-90;
16. S. Siegel, 'Which Properties are Represented in Perception?', in T. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds), Perceptual Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. 481-503, at pp. 490-1. Auditory versions of this type of example are presented by Husserl (pp. 566-7), Strawson (pp. 5-13), Siewert (pp. 275-6) and Horgan and Tienson (p. 523).
17. Whether there is such a thing as cognitive phenomenology continues to be controversial. For the present state of the debate, see the papers in T. Bayne and M. Montague, Cognitive Phenomenology (Oxford UP, forthcoming).
18. A number of writers have claimed that when the 'interpretation' of such ambiguous figures changes one's visual sensations change as well. See, e.g., C.D. Broad, Scientific Thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923), p. 260;
19. Tye, Ten Problems, p. 140;
20. F. MacPherson, 'Ambiguous Figures and the Content of Experience', Noûs, 40 (2006), pp. 82-117, at pp. 87-93.
21. Kriegel, 'Consciousness as Sensory Quality', p. 8, disagrees; but for my purposes it will be preferable to stick with the present broader conception of sensory qualities.
22. Looking at a pillar in a mirror is a famous example of Grice's: see H.P. Grice, 'The Causal Theory of Perception', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 35 (1961), pp. 121-52, at p. 142.
23. The fact that looking at an object reflected in a mirror can often be phenomenally similar to looking at an object through a window has been noted by at least two different philosophers. Broad (pp. 317-18) says that a visual experience of a light source reflected in a mirror possesses precisely the same 'sensa' as an experience of a similar light source viewed through a thin pane of glass (assuming the light source is in the right position). Robert Stalnaker, 'On a Defense of the Hegemony of Representation', in E. Villanueva (ed.), Philosophical Issues, 7: Perception (Atascadero: Ridgeview, 1996), pp. 101-8, at p. 107, points out that a situation in which you are looking at trees through a window could produce an illusory experience of trees reflected in a mirror.
24. See A. Clark, 'Three Varieties of Visual Field', Philosophical Psychology, 9 (1996), pp. 477-95, at pp. 489-90
25. and R. Gregory, Mirrors in Mind (New York: Freeman, 1997), pp. 77-8.
26. L. Jones and M. Bertamini, 'Through the Looking Glass: How the Relationship Between an Object and its Reflection Affects the Perception of Distance and Size', Perception, 36 (2007), pp. 1572-94.
27. One might suggest that in such situations individuals are subjected to the visual illusion that there is more than one object in front of them, but none the less on the basis of that illusory experience are able to make more accurate judgements about the size and distance of the relevant object based on their knowledge of the relationship between objects and mirror reflections. However, this explanation is less plausible than the alternative, given that it has been well documented that most people's knowledge of the relationship between objects and their mirror reflections is seriously flawed, and given that they make simple mistakes when reasoning about mirror reflections: see C. Croucher et al., 'Naive Optics: Understanding the Geometry of Mirror Reflections', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28 (2002), pp. 546-62;
28. M. Bertamini and T. Parks, 'On What People Know about Images on Mirrors', Cognition, 98 (2005), pp. 85-104;
29. H. Hecht et al., 'Naive Optics: Acting on Mirror Reflections', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31 (2005), pp. 1023-38.
30. Researchers sometimes talk in terms of the perception of virtual objects or images in mirrors (for example, A. Higashiyama and K. Shimono, 'Mirror Vision: Perceived Size and Perceived Distance of Virtual Images', Perception & Psychophysics, 66 (2004), pp. 679-91;
31. B. Thompson, 'The Spatial Content of Experience', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 81 (2010), pp. 146-84.
32. As Thompson, 'Senses for Senses', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87 (2009), pp. 99-117, at pp. 111-12, makes clear, it would also be problematic for the Fregean representationalist to claim instead that viewing conditions represented to obtain by the subject can deal with this sort of example (Thompson is discussing the content of colour experience, but analogous points would apply to the present case).
33. This paper is based on material from my dissertation A Defence of Separatism. I would like to thank Mohan Matthen and Evan Thompson for their comments on the relevant material. I owe special thanks to Benj Hellie and Bill Seager for their comments and advice on both the material included in the present paper and my dissertation as a whole.