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3. Perception (Perception on PhilPapers)

• The Nature of Perceptual Experience [94]
• Sense-Datum Theories [16]
• Adverbialism and Qualia Theories [3]
• Intentionalist Theories of Perception [11]
• Belief Theories of Perception [2]
• Naive and Direct Realism [22]
• Disjunctivism [28]
• The Nature of Perceptual Experience, Misc [12]
• The Perceptual Relation [39]
• The Causal Theory of Perception [8]
• Direct and Indirect Perception [12]
• The Objects of Perception [12]
• The Perceptual Relation, Misc [7]
• The Contents of Perception [141]
• Conceptual and Nonconceptual Content [40]
• Color Experience [25]
• Spatial Experience [16]
• The Experience of Objects [14]
• The Experience of High-Level Properties [19]
• The Contents of Perception, Misc [27]
• Sensory Modalities [34]
• Distinguishing the Senses [9]
• Vision [10]
• Other Sensory Modalities [8]
• Molyneux's Problem [6]
• Sensory Modalities, Misc [1]
• Science of Perception [45]
• Modularity and Cognitive Penetrability [11]
• Ecological Approaches to Perception [10]
• Construction and Inference in Perception [4]
• Perception and Neuroscience [6]
• Psychophysics [6]
• Gestalt Theory [6]
• Science of Perception, Misc [2]
• Perception and the Mind [81]
• Perception and Thought [6]
• Perception and Action [53]
• Perception and Reference [5]
• Perception and Phenomenology [17]
• Perception and the Mind, Misc [0]
• Perceptual Knowledge [55]
• Dogmatism about Perception [4]
• Epistemic and Non-epistemic Perception [4]
• Perceptual Justification [11]
• Perception and Knowledge, Misc [4]
• Perception and Skepticism [4]
• The Given [8]
• Perceptual Qualities [36]
• Sound [17]
• Primary and Secondary Qualities [2]
• Perceptual Qualities, Misc [4]
• Discriminability [13]
• Color [138]
• Physicalist Theories of Color [19]
• Dispositionalist Theories of Color [6]
• Primitivist Theories of Color [6]
• Theories of Color, Misc [24]
• Color Realism [24]
• Color Irrealism [15]
• Color Terms [6]
• Color, Misc [13]
• Aspects of Perception [45]
• Illusion and Hallucination [16]
• Transparency [20]
• Perceptual Reports [2]
• Sensation and Perception [6]
• Aspects of Perception, Misc [1]
• Philosophy of Perception, General [19]

• William Child (1994). On the Dualism of Scheme and Content.   (More)
• G. E. Moore (1905). The nature and reality of the objects of perception.   (More)
• Nagarjuna G. (2006). Layers in the fabric of mind: A critical review of cognitive ontogeny.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The essay is critically examines the conceptual problems with the influential modularity model of mind. We shall see that one of the essential characters of modules, namely informational encapsulation, is not only inessential, it ties a knot at a crucial place blocking the solution to the problem of understanding the formation of concepts from percepts (nodes of procedural knowledge). Subsequently I propose that concept formation takes place by modulation of modules leading to cross-representations, which were otherwise prevented by encapsulation. It must be noted that the argument is not against modular architecture, but a variety of an architecture that prevents interaction among modules. This is followed by a brief argument demonstrating that module without modularization, i.e. without developmental history, is impossible. Finally the emerging picture of cognitive development is drawn in the form of the layers in the fabric of mind, with a brief statement of the possible implications.
• Bertrand Russell (1910). Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.   (More)

The Nature of Perceptual Experience

Sense-Datum Theories

• Audre Jean Brokes (2000). The argument from illusion reconsidered.   (More)
• Andrew Chrucky (online). The alleged fallacy of the sense-datum inference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Sense-data, if they exist, could conceivably provide foundations for empirical knowledge. Those who are opposed to empirical foundationalism are therefore also prone to reject sense-data and arguments for their existence, e.g., Rorty, Bonjour; while foundationalists are prone to accept the existence of sense-data, e.g., Russell, Ayer, Broad, Price, Lewis. An exception to this is the position of Roderick Chisholm who accepts empirical foundationalism but rejects the existence of sense-data
• Philippe Chuard & Richard Corry (ms). Looks non-transitive!   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose you are presented with three red objects. You are then asked to take a careful look at each possible pair of objects, and to decide whether or not their members look chromatically the same. You carry out the instructions thoroughly, and the following propositions sum up the results of your empirical investigation:

  i. red object #1 looks the same in colour as red object #2.

  ii. red object #2 looks the same in colour as red object #3
• Paul Coates (online). Sense-data.   (More)
• Derrick Farnell (ms). This is a simulation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article simply provides a very short introduction, aimed at non-philosophers, to the time-lag argument for the representational theory of perception.
• Eugen Fischer (2005). Austin on sense-data: Ordinary language analysis as 'therapy'.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The construction and analysis of arguments supposedly are a philosopher's main business, the demonstration of truth or refutation of falsehood his principal aim. In Sense and Sensibilia, J.L. Austin does something entirely different: He discusses the sense-datum doctrine of perception, with the aim not of refuting it but of 'dissolving' the 'philosophical worry' it induces in its champions. To this end, he 'exposes' their 'concealed motives', without addressing their stated reasons. The paper explains where and why this at first sight outrageous aim and approach are perfectly sensible, how exactly Austin proceeds, and how his approach can be taken further. This shows Austin to be a pioneer of the currently much discussed notion of philosophy as therapy, reveals a subtle and unfamiliar use of linguistic analysis that is not open to the standard objections to ordinary language philosophy, and yields a novel and forceful treatment of the sense-datum doctrine
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com//content/rodopi/gps/2006/00000070/00000001/art00004
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/gps/2006/00000070/00000001/art00004
  
• Benj Hellie (2007). That which makes the sensation of blue a mental fact: Moore on phenomenal relationism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I interpret the anti-idealist manoeuverings of the second half of Moore's 'The refutation of idealism', material as widely cited for its discussion of 'transparency' and 'diaphanousness' as it is deeply obscure. The centerpiece of these manoeuverings is a phenomenological argument for a relational view of perceptual phenomenal character, on which, roughly, 'that which makes the sensation of blue a mental fact' is a non-intentional relation of conscious awareness, a view close to the opposite of the most characteristic contemporary view going under the transparency rubric. The discussion of transparency and diaphanousness is a sidelight, its principal purpose to shore up the main line of argumentation against criticism; in those passages all Moore argues is that the relation of conscious awareness is not transparent, while acknowledging that it can seem to be.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2007.00253.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2007.00274.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2007.00274.x
  
• David R. Hilbert (2004). Hallucination, sense-data and direct realism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/x3m578hm43772833/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5143507&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/X3M578HM43772833.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2004/00000120/F0030001/05143507
  
• Michael Huemer (online). Sense-data.   (More)
• Michael G. F. Martin (ms). Austin's Sense and Sensibilia revisited.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When John Langshaw Austin died in ???? he had published only seven papers, together with a translation into English of Frege
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctymfm/Background Readings/Austin Sense and Sensibilia Revisited.pdf
  
• Michael G. F. Martin (2000). Beyond dispute: Sense-data, intentionality, and the mind-body problem.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctymfm/Background Readings/beyond dispute.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BrbWKLYa7SoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA195&dq=Beyond+dispute+Martin&ots=4V5y_Z2-cR&sig=M3Trb82bqxE3qieGoT6War4-980
  
• G. E. Moore (1903). The refutation of idealism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://fair-use.org/mind/1903/10/the-refutation-of-idealism
  http://www.lawrence.edu/fast/ryckmant/THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM.pdf
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423(190310)2:12:48<433:TROI>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423(190310)2:12:48<433:TROI>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2248251.pdf
  
• Patrick Spät (2008). Questioning idealism.   (More)
• Chuck Stieg (ms). Mental representations: The new sense-data?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The notion of representation has become ubiquitous throughout cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience and the cognitive sciences generally. This paper addresses the status of mental representations as entities that have been posited to explain cognition. I do so by examining similarities between mental representations and sense-data in both their characteristics and key arguments offered for each. I hope to show that more caution in the adoption and use of representations in explaining cognition is warranted. Moreover, by paying attention to problematic notions of representations, a less problematic sense of representation might emerge
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/6174/2/Mental_Reps_and_Sense_Data_Cog_P.pdf
  
• Michael Tye (2009). A new look at the speckled hen.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: (forthcoming in Analysis) We owe the problem of the speckled hen to Gilbert Ryle. It was suggested to A.J. Ayer by Ryle in connection with Ayer’s account of seeing. Suppose that you are standing before a speckled hen with your eyes trained on it. You are in good light and nothing is obstructing your view. You see the hen in a single glance. The hen has 47 speckles on its facing side, let us say, and the hen ap­ pears speckled to you. On Ayer’s view, in seeing the hen, you directly see a speckled sense-datum or appearance. Ryle wondered how many speckles there are on the sense-datum. After all, intu­ itively, the hen does not appear to you to have 47 speckles. And if this is the case, then it does not present to you an appearance with 47 speckles. Equally, however, the hen does not appear to you not to have 47 speckles. So, it does not present an appearance that lacks 47 speckles either
• Author unknown (online). Sense-data.   (More)

Adverbialism and Qualia Theories

• Panayot K. Butchvarov (1980). Adverbial theories of consciousness.   (More)
• Ted Honderich (1992). Seeing qualia and positing the world.   (More)
• Alan Thomas (2003). An adverbial theory of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper develops an adverbial theory of consciousness. Adverbialism is described and endorsed and defended from its near rival, an identity thesis in which conscious mental states are those that the mental subject self-knows immediately that he or she is "in". The paper develops an account of globally supported self-ascription to embed this neo-Brentanian view of experiencing consciously within a more general account of the relation between consciousness and self-knowledge. Following O'Shaughnessy, person level consciousness is explained as a feature of the bundle of mental capacities characteristic of persons: person level consciousness involves a capacity holism. Drawing on Kant, it is argued that if a person is in a mental state intentionally directed to an object then such a subject can "self token" such knowledge. The content of that self-knoweldge supervenes on the possession of a global set of capacities, and this capacity for self-ascription depends on the fact that our experience has a perspectival character with, as it were, nothing at the vanishing point of this perspective. The fact that one can attach the cogito to any one of one's representation shows a truth about the unity of the conscious life of a person that cannot be stated and this capacity is distinguished from self-conscious thinking about oneself. This approach is contrasted to Shoemaker's functionalist treatment of the self-tokening of conscious states and of "self-blindness". It is argued that to be fully consistent, Shoemaker has to abandon the claim that introspectionism is guilty of a self-scanning model or rational control as he seems committed to that model too
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.logical-operator.com/Adverbialtheory.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/r313388753k5440t/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5144699&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R313388753K5440T.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phen/2003/00000002/00000003/05144699
  

Intentionalist Theories of Perception

• Alex Byrne (2001). Intentionalism defended.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mit.edu/abyrne/www/Intentionalism.pdf
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/Intentionalism.pdf
  http://pellenes-shoshonensis.mit.edu/abyrne/www/Intentionalism.pdf
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(200104)110:2<199:ID>2.0.CO;2-N
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(200104)110:2<199:ID>2.0.CO;2-N
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2693675.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/citation/110/2/199
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/110/2/199.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/110/2/199
  
• John B. Dilworth (2007). Representationalism and indeterminate perceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Representationalists currently cannot explain counter-examples that involve _indeterminate _perceptual content, but a _double content_ (DC) view is more promising. Four related cases of perceptual imprecision are used to outline the DC view, which also applies to imprecise photographic content. Next, inadequacies in the more standard single content (SC) view are demonstrated. The results are then generalized so as to apply to the content of any kinds of non-conventional representation. The paper continues with evidence that a DC account provides a moderate rather than extreme realist account of perception, and it concludes with an initial analysis of the failure of nomic covariance accounts of information in indeterminacy cases
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/b08794103873435m/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/B08794103873435M.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phen/2007/00000006/00000003/00009050
  
• Kathrin Gluer (ms). Perception and justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 1. Introduction When it comes to perception, representationalism is all the rage. Representationalism is a claim about the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences: According to representationalism, phenomenal character is fully determined by the representational content of perceptual experiences (cf. Tye 2002, 45). In other words, phenomenal character, what it is like, for instance, to have an experience as of something red, is either supervenient upon or identical with that experience
• Benj Hellie (ms). Visual form, attention, and binocularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This somewhat odd paper argues against a representational view of visual experience using an intricate "inversion" type thought experiment involving double vision: two subjects could represent external space in the same way while differing phenomenally due to different "spread" in their double images. The spatial structure of the visual field is explained not by representation of external space but functionally, in terms of the possible locations of an attentional spotlight. I'm fond of the ideas in this paper but doubt I'll be returning to it soon.
• John Bengson, Enrico Grube & Daniel Z. Korman (forthcoming). A New Framework for Conceptualism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and representationalism, demonstrative thought, phenomenal character, and the speckled hen objection to modest foundationalism.
• Fiona Macpherson (1999). Perfect pitch and the content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://lgxserve.ciseca.uniba.it/lei/mind/texts/t0000004.htm
  
• Fiona Macpherson (2000). Representational Theories of Phenomenal Character.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/1893/25/1/Macpherson_Thesis_Complete.pdf
  
• Adam Pautz (2007). Intentionalism and perceptual presence.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: H. H. Price (1932) held that experience is essentially presentational. According to Price, when one has an experience of a tomato, nothing can be more certain than that there is something of which one is aware. Price claimed that the same applies to hallucination. In general, whenever one has a visual experience, there is something of which one is aware, according to Price. Call this thesis Item-Awareness
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00134.x
  
• Adam Pautz (2006). Sensory awareness is not a wide physical relation: An empirical argument against externalist intentionalism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/adamp/papers/sensory_awareness_not_wide.pdf
  https://webspace.utexas.edu/arp424/www/nous.pdf?uniq=o3o0eq
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/adamp/papers/abridged_pautz_sensoryawarenessnotwide.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2006.00607.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/nous/2006/00000040/00000002/art00001
  
• Ian Phillips (2005). Experience and Intentional Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Strong or Pure Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its Intentional content. Strong or Pure Anti -Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its non-Intentional properties
• Michael Tye (2007). Intentionalism and the argument from no common content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Disjunctivists (Hinton 1973, Snowdon 1990, Martin 2002, 2006) often motivate their approach to perceptual experience by appealing in part to the claim that in cases of veridical perception, the subject is directly in contact with the perceived object. When I perceive a table, for example, there is no table-like sense-impression that stands as an intermediary between the table and me. Nor am I related to the table as I am to a deer when I see its footprint in the snow. I do not experience the table by experiencing some- thing else over and above the table and its facing surface. I see the facing surface of the table directly

Belief Theories of Perception

• Kathrin Glüer (2009). In defence of a doxastic account of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Today, many philosophers think that perceptual experiences are conscious mental states with representational content and phenomenal character. Subscribers to this view often go on to construe experience more precisely as a propositional attitude sui generis ascribing sensible properties to ordinary material objects. I argue that experience is better construed as a kind of belief ascribing 'phenomenal' properties to such objects. A belief theory of this kind deals as well with the traditional arguments against doxastic accounts as the sui generis view. Moreover, in contrast to sui generis views, it can quite easily account for the rational or reason providing role of experience
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://people.su.se/~kgl/DoxExpFinalHP.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122445597/PDFSTART
  
• Kathrin Gluer-Pagin (online). Perception and justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Any adequate account of perceptual experience has to provide answers to the following questions: What kind, and form of, content do experiences have? What kind of mental states are they? Many, if not most philosophers of perception today agree that experiences have representational contents of the form x is F, where x ranges over material objects and F over sensible properties. I argue that such a "naive semantics" for experiences has to give the wrong answer to the second question. Because of their justificatory role for, and inferential integration into, a subject's belief system, experiences themselves have to be construed as a kind of belief. I also sketch a semantics that allows experiences to be beliefs.

Naive and Direct Realism

• Benjamin Bayer (ms). In Search of Direct Realist Abstractionism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Both traditional and naturalistic epistemologists have long assumed that the examination of human psychology has no relevance to the goal of traditional epistemology, that of providing first-person guidance in determining the truth. Without slipping into naturalism, I apply insight about the psychology of human perception and concept-formation to a very traditional epistemological project: the foundationalist approach to the epistemic regress problem. I argue that direct realism about perception can help solve the regress problem and support a foundationalist account of justification, but only if it is supplemented by an abstractionist theory of concept-formation, the view that it is possible to abstract concepts directly from the empirically given. Critics of direct realist solutions like Laurence BonJour are correct that an account of direct perception by itself does not provide an adequate account of justification. However a direct realist account of perception can inform the needed theory of concept-formation, and leading critics of abstractionism like McDowell and Sellars, direct realists about perception themselves, fail to appreciate the ways in which their own views about perception help fill gaps in earlier accounts of abstractionism. Recognizing this undercuts both their objections to abstractionism and (therefore) their objections to foundationalism, as well.
• Bill Brewer (2004). Realism and the nature of perceptual experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Realism concerning a given domain of things is the view that the things in that domain exist, and are as they are, quite independently of anyone
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QfAK39JN4tAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA61&ots=NWxYQM6YXt&sig=FmXSNtp0tOtclKxhn-Al2MZuwuk
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2004.00020.x/full/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2004.00020.x
  
• J. Dokic (2000). Perception as openness to the facts.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/32/80/PDF/ijn_00000108_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/32/80/PDF/ijn_00000108_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/01/08/ijn_00000108_00/ijn_00000108_00.pdf
  
• Matthew Kennedy, Explanation in Good and Bad experiential cases.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Michael Martin aims to affirm a certain pattern of first-person thinking by advocating disjunctivism, a theory of perceptual experience which combines naive realism with the epistemic conception of hallucination. In this paper I argue that we can affirm the pattern of thinking in question without the epistemic conception of hallucination. The first part of my paper explains the link that Martin draws between the first-person thinking and the epistemic conception of hallucination. The second part of my paper explains how we can achieve Martin’s ambition without Martin’s theory. One resource that I enlist for this purpose is a naive-realist friendly conception of first-person access to experience. The metaphysical theory that I enlist is a form of naive realism that endorses an intentionalist or representationalist “common-factor” approach to veridical and hallucinatory experience. The third part of my paper briefly develops this theory
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sites.google.com/site/matthewkennedyphilosophy/kennedyEXPL.pdf
  
• Benj Hellie (2006). Beyond phenomenal naivete.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The naive realist takes a veridical visual experience to be an immediate relation to external entities. Is this how such an experience is phenomenally, by its phenomenal character? Only if there can be phenomenal error, since a hallucinatory experience phenomenally matching such a veridical experience would then be phenomenally but not in fact such a relation. Fortunately, such phenomenal error can be avoided: the phenomenal character of a visual experience involves immediate awareness of a sort of picture of external entities, as on a representative theory of perception. The attraction of naive realism results from an erroneous projection of the immediacy of the subject's awareness of this picture onto the external entities pictured.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://quot.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0006.002
  
• Benj Hellie (2007). Factive phenomenal characters.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper expands on the discussion in the first section of 'Beyond phenomenal naivete'. Let Phenomenal Naivete be understood as the doctrine that some phenomenal characters of veridical experiences are factive properties concerning the external world. Here I present in detail a phenomenological case for Phenomenal Naivete and an argument from hallucination against it. I believe that these arguments show the concept of phenomenal character to be defective, overdetermined by its metaphysical and epistemological commitments together with the world. This does not establish a gappish eliminativism, but a gluttish pluralism, on which there are many imperfect deservers of the name 'phenomenal character'. Different projects in the philosophy of mind -- phenomenology, philosophy of conscious, metaphysics and epistemology of perception -- are concerned with different deservers of the name.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00128.x
  
• Benj Hellie (forthcoming). The multidisjunctive conception of hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Direct realists think that we can't get a clear view the nature of /hallucinating a white picket fence/: is it /representing a white picket fence/? is it /sensing white-picket-fencily/? is it /being acquainted with a white' picketed' sense-datum/? These are all epistemic possibilities for a single experience; hence they are all metaphysical possibilities for various experiences. Hallucination itself is a disjunctive or "multidisjunctive" category. I rebut MGF Martin's argument from statistical explanation for his "epistemic" conception of hallucination, but his view embeds in my view as a "reference-fixer".
• Paul Hoffman (2002). Direct realism, intentionality, and the objective being of ideas.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: My aim is to arrive at a better understanding of the distinction between direct realism and representationalism by offering a critical analysis of Steven Nadler
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0114.00141
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.00141
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2002/00000083/00000002/art00145
  
• Mark Eli Kalderon & Charles Travis, Oxford realism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A concern for realism motivates a fundamental strand of Oxford reflection on perception. Begin with the realist conception of knowledge. The question then will be: What must perception be like if we can know something about an object without the mind by seeing it? What must perception be if it can, on occasion, afford us with proof concerning a subject matter independent of the mind? The resulting conception of perception is not unlike the conception of perception shared by Cambridge realists such as Moore and Russell. Roughly speaking, perception is conceived to be a fundamental and irreducible sensory mode of awareness of mind-independent objects, a non-propositional mode of awareness that enables those with the appropriate recognitional capacities to have propositional knowledge concerning that subject matter. The difference between Oxford and Cambridge realism concerns the extent of this fundamental sensory mode of awareness. Whereas Oxford realists maintained that perception affords us this non-propositional mode of awareness, Cambridge realists maintained that this distinctive mode of awareness has a broader domain. Let experience be the genus of which perception is a species. Cambridge realists maintained that a experience, and not just perception, involves this non-propositional sensory mode of awareness. Cambridge realists are thus committed to a kind of experien- tial monism—the thesis that experience has a unitary nature. Specifically, all experience, perceptual and non-perceptual alike, involves, as part of its nature, a non-propositional sensory mode of awareness. Even subject to illusion or hallucination, there is something of which one is aware. And with that, they were an application of the argument from illusion, or hallucination, or conflicting appearances away from immaterial sense data and a representative realism that tended, over time, to devolve into a form of..
• Matthew Kennedy (forthcoming). Explanation in Good and Bad Experiential Cases.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Michael Martin aims to affirm a certain pattern of first-person thinking by advocating disjunctivism, a theory of perceptual experience which combines naive realism with the epistemic conception of hallucination. In this paper I argue that we can affirm the pattern of thinking in question without the epistemic conception of hallucination. The first part of my paper explains the link that Martin draws between the first-person thinking and the epistemic conception of hallucination. The second part of my paper explains how we can achieve Martin’s ambition without Martin’s theory. One resource that I enlist for this purpose is a naive-realist friendly conception of first-person access to experience. The metaphysical theory that I enlist is a form of naive realism that endorses an intentionalist or representationalist “common-factor” approach to veridical and hallucinatory experience. The third part of my paper briefly develops this theory.
• Matthew Kennedy (2009). Heirs of nothing: The implications of transparency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recently representationalists have cited a phenomenon known as the transparency of experience in arguments against the qualia theory. Representationalists take transparency to support their theory and to work against the qualia theory. In this paper I argue that representationalist assessment of the philosophical importance of transparency is incorrect. The true beneficiary of transparency is another theory, naïve realism. Transparency militates against qualia and the representationalist theory of experience. I describe the transparency phenomenon, and I use my description to argue for naïve realism and against representationalism and the qualia theory. I also examine the relationship between phenomenological study and phenomenal character, and discuss the results in connection with the argument from hallucination
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122683649/PDFSTART
  
• Matthew Kennedy (forthcoming). Naive Realism, Privileged Access, and Epistemic Safety.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Working from a naïve-realist perspective, I examine first-person knowledge of one’s perceptual experience. I outline a naive-realist theory of how subjects acquire knowledge of the nature of their experiences, and I argue that naive realism is compatible with moderate, substantial forms of first-person privileged access. A more general moral of my paper is that treating “success” states like seeing as genuine mental states does not break up the dynamics that many philosophers expect from the phenomenon of knowledge of the mind.
• Matthew Kennedy (2007). Visual Awareness of Properties.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I defend a view of the structure of visual property-awareness by considering the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. I argue that visual property-awareness is a three-place relation between a subject, a property, and a manner of presentation. Manners of presentation mediate our visual awareness of properties without being objects of visual awareness themselves. I provide criteria of identity for manners of presentation, and I argue that our ignorance of their intrinsic nature does not compromise the viability of a theory that employs them. In closing, I argue that the proposed manners of presentation are consistent with key direct-realist claims about the structure of visual awareness.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118493538/abstract
  
• Pierre le Morvan (2004). Arguments against direct realism and how to counter them.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since the demise of the Sense-Datum independent objects or events to be objects Theory and Phenomenalism in the last cenof perception; however, unlike Direct Retury, Direct Realism in the philosophy of alists, Indirect Realists take this percepperception has enjoyed a resurgence of tion to be indirect by involving a prior popularity.1 Curiously, however, although awareness of some tertium quid between there have been attempts in the literature the mind and external objects or events.3 to refute some of the arguments against Idealists and Phenomenalists agree with Direct Realism, there has been, as of yet, the Indirect Realists
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/APR_Proof.pdf
  
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• David Macarthur (2003). McDowell, scepticism, and the 'veil of perception'.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: McDowell has argued that external world scepticism is a pressing problem only in so far as we accept, on the basis of the argument from illusion, the claim that perceiving that p and hallucinating that p involve a highest common factor
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713659630~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/R6UQL9YKVWPUWNLW.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713659630.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/2003/00000081/00000002/art00175
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/2003/00000081/00000002/art00002
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oup/ajphil/2003/00000081/00000002/art00175
  http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/philosophy/documents/staff/DM_mcdowell.pdf
  
• David Macarthur (2004). Putnam's natural realism and the question of a perceptual interface.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In his Dewey Lectures,1 Hilary Putnam argues that contemporary philosophy cannot solve nor see its way past the traditional problem of how language or thought hooks on to
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713948718~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/KYM4R5B8X3HJNY77.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713948718.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rpex/2004/00000007/00000002/art00005
  http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/philosophy/documents/staff/DM_Putnam.pdf
  
• Ian Phillips (2005). Experience and Intentional Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Strong or Pure Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its Intentional content. Strong or Pure Anti -Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its non-Intentional properties
• Paul M. Pietroski (1996). Experiencing the facts (critical notice of mcdowell).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Paul Pietroski, McGill University The general topic of_ Mind and World_, the written version of John McDowell's 1991 John Locke Lectures, is how `concepts mediate the relation between minds and the world'. And one of the main aims is `to suggest that Kant should still have a central place in our discussion of the way thought bears on reality' (1).1 In particular, McDowell urges us to adopt a thesis that he finds in Kant, or perhaps in Strawson's Kant: the content of experience is conceptualized; _what_ we experience is always the kind of thing that we could also believe. When an agent has a veridical experience, she `takes in, for instance sees, _that things are thus and so_' (9). McDowell's argument for this thesis is indirect, but potentially powerful. He discusses a tension concerning the roles of experience and conceptual capacities in thought, and he claims that the only adequate resolution involves granting that experiences have conceptualized content. The tension, elaborated below, can be expressed roughly as follows: judgments must be somehow constrained by features of the external environment, else judgments would be utterly divorced from the world they purport to be about; yet our judgments must be somehow free of external control, else we could give no sense to the idea that we are responsible for our judgments
• Susanna Siegel (2006). Direct realism and perceptual consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/drpc.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00623.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2006/00000073/00000002/art00006
  
• Michael Sollberger (2008). Naïve realism and the problem of causation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the present paper, I shall argue that disjunctively construed naïve realism about the nature of perceptual experiences succumbs to the empirically inspired causal argument. The causal argument highlights as a first step that local action necessitates the presence of a type-identical common kind of mental state shared by all perceptual experiences. In a second step, it sets out that the property of being a veridical perception cannot be a mental property. It results that the mental nature of perceptions must be exhausted by the occurrence of inner sensory experiences that narrowly supervene on the perceiver. That is, empirical objects fail directly to determine the perceptual consciousness of the perceiver. The upshot is that not only naïve realism, but also certain further forms of direct realism have to be abandoned.
• Dan Zahavi (2004). Natural realism, anti-reductionism, and intentionality: The 'phenomenology' of Hilary Putnam.   (More)

Disjunctivism

• István Aranyosi (forthcoming). Silencing the argument from hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Ordinary people tend to be realists regarding perceptual experience, that is, they take perceiving the environment as a direct, unmediated, straightforward access to a mindindependent reality. Not so for (ordinary) philosophers. The empiricist influence on the philosophy of perception, in analytic philosophy at least, made the problem of perception synonymous with the view that realism is untenable. Admitting the problem (and trying to offer a view on it) is tantamount to rejecting ordinary people’s implicit realist assumptions as naive. So what exactly is the problem? We can approach it via one of the central arguments against realism – the argument from hallucination. The argument is intended as a proof that in ordinary, veridical cases of perception, perceivers do not have an unmediated perceptual access to the world. There are many versions of it; I propose the following1: 1. Hallucinations that are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptions are possible. 2. If two subjective states are indistinguishable, then they have a common nature. 3. The contents of hallucinations are mental images, not concrete external objects. 4. Therefore, the contents of veridical perceptions are mental images rather than concrete external objects. The key move is, I believe, from the fact that hallucinations that are subjectively indistinguishable from cases of veridical perception are possible to an alleged common element, factor, or nature, in the form of a mental state, in the two cases – that is, premise 2. Disjunctivism, at its core, can be taken as simply denying this move, and arguing that all that follows from the premise stating the possibility of hallucinations that are subjectively indistinguishable from cases veridical perception is that there is a broader category, that of “experience as of...”, which encompasses both cases..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://istvanaranyosi.net/resources/Web%20Silencing%20.pdf
  
• Bill Brewer (2008). How to account for illusion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The question how to account for illusion has had a prominent role in shaping theories of perception throughout the history of philosophy. Prevailing philosophical wisdom today has it that phenomena of illusion force us to choose between the following two options. First, reject altogether the early modern empiricist idea that the core subjective character of perceptual experience is to be given simply by citing the object presented in that experience. Instead we must characterize perceptual experience entirely in terms of its representational content. Second, retain the early modern idea that the core subjective character of experience is simply constituted by the identity of its direct objects, but admit that these must be mind-dependent entities, distinct from the mind-independent physical objects we all know and love. I argue here that the early modern empiricists had an indispensable insight. The idea that the core subjective character of perceptual experience is to be given simply by citing the object presented in that experience is more fundamental than any appeal to perceptual content, and can account for illusion, and indeed hallucination, without resorting to the problematic postulation of any such mind-dependent objects.
• Berit Brogaard, Disjunctivism by.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Naive realism is one of the oldest theories of perception. To a first approximation, naive realism is the view that perception is a direct relation between a subject and an object. Many historical philosophers (from Locke to Russell) argued that naive realism must be rejected on the grounds that hallucinations are perceptual experiences without an object. Contemporary philosophers have resurrected the theory by insisting that genuine cases of perception have a different structure or a different metaphysical status than non-genuine ones. This version of naive realism has come to be known as ‘disjunctivism’. Epistemological disjunctivism and disjunctivism about phenomenal belief, or what I shall call ‘Epistemological disjunctivism’, have also gained popularity in recent years. More recently disjunctivist accounts of bodily movements, abilities and reasons for action have entered the philosophical scene. This entry focuses on the contemporary debate about disjunctivism: its characterization, its motivation and its potential shortcomings
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://brogaardb.googlepages.com/MS8Disjunctivism.pdf
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/MS8Disjunctivism.pdf
  
• Berit Brogaard, Primitive knowledge disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that McDowell-style disjunctivism, as the position is often cashed out, goes wrong because it takes the good epistemic standing of veridical perception to be grounded in “manifest” facts which do not necessarily satisfy any epistemic constraints. A better form of disjunctivism explains the difference between good and bad cases in terms of epistemic constraints that the states satisfy. This view allows us to preserve McDowell’s thesis that good cases make facts manifest, as long as manifest facts must satisfy epistemic constraints
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/Disjunctivism_and_Primitive_Knowledg.pdf
  
• Alex Byrne & Heather Logue (2008). Either/or.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This essay surveys the varieties of disjunctivism about perceptual experience. Disjunctivism comes in two main flavours, metaphysical and epistemological.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/either-or.pdf
  
• Juan Comesana (2005). Justified vs. warranted perceptual belief: Resisting disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that one reason for being a disjunctivist advanced by McDowell (having to do with the indefeasibility of perceptual knowledge) fails because it ignores the distinction between justification and warrant.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/comesana/Disjunctivism.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00453.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2005/00000071/00000002/art00005
  
• Fabian Dorsch, Experience and introspection.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One central fact about hallucinations is that they may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Indeed, it has been argued by M. G. F. Martin and others that the hallucinatory experiences concerned cannot — and need not — be characterised in any more positive general terms. This epistemic conception of hallucinations has been advocated as the best choice for proponents of experiential (or ‘na¨ıve realist’) disjunctivism — the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their introspectible subjective characters. In this chapater, I aim to formulate and defend an intentional alternative to experiential disjunctivism called experiential intentionalism. This view does not only enjoy some advantages over its rival, but also can hold on to the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations. First of all, I try to spell out in a bit more detail in which sense hallucinations may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions, and why this leads us to erroneously judge them to be perceptions (cf. sections I–III and VIII). Then, I raise three challenges each for experiential disjunctivism and its orthodox intentionalist counterparts (cf. sections IV and V), notably in respect of the need to explicate why a perception-like hallucination still makes the same judgements reasonable from the subject’s perspective as the corresponding perceptions. And, finally, I propose my alternative both to experiential disjunctivism and to orthodox intentionalism. Experiential intentionalism takes perceptions and perception-like hallucinations to share a common character partly to be spelled out in intentional — and, hence, normative — terms (cf. sections VI and VII). The central thought is that the hallucinations concerned are intentionally — and erroneously — presented to us as perceptual relations to the world. I aim to show that the resulting view can meet all six challenges (cf. sections VI–VIII). I end..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sfhd.exre.org/files/ei.pdf
  
• Fabian Dorsch, Transparency and imagining seeing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One of the most powerful arguments against intentionalism and in favour of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences has been formulated by M. G. F. Martin in his paper The Transparency of Experience. The overall structure of this argument may be stated in the form of a triad of claims which are jointly inconsistent
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sfhd.exre.org/files/tis.pdf
  
• William C. Fish (2008). Disjunctivism, indistinguishability, and the nature of hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the eyes of some of its critics, disjunctivism fails to support adequately the key claim that a particular hallucination might be indistinguishable from a certain kind of veridical perception despite the two states having nothing other than this in common. Scott Sturgeon, for example, has complained that disjunctivism ‘‘offers no positive story about hallucination at all’’ (2000: 11) and therefore ‘‘simply takes [indistinguishability] for granted’’ (2000: 12). So according to Sturgeon, what the disjunctivist needs to provide is a plausible explanation of just how two mental states which have no common component might be indistinguishable for their subject and this in turn will require the telling of a positive story about hallucination. This is the goal of the present essay
• Anil Gomes (forthcoming). McDowell's Disjunctivism and Other Minds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: John McDowell’s original motivation of disjunctivism occurs in the context of a problem regarding other minds. Recent commentators have insisted that McDowell’s disjunctivism should be classed as an epistemological disjunctivism about epistemic warrant, and distinguished from the perceptual disjunctivism of Hinton, Snowdon and others. In this paper I investigate the relation between the problem of other minds and disjunctivism, and raise some questions for this interpretation of McDowell.
• Benj Hellie (2010). An externalist's guide to inner experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Let's be externalists about perceptual consciousness and think the form of veridical perceptual consciousness includes /seeing this or that mind-independent particular and its colors/. Let's also take internalism seriously, granting that spectral inversion and hallucination can be "phenomenally" the same as normal seeing. Then perceptual consciousness and phenomenality are different, and so we need to say how they are related. It's complicated!
  
  Phenomenal sameness is (against all odds) /reflective indiscriminability/. I build a "displaced perception" account of reflection on which indiscriminability stems from shared "qualia". Qualia are compatible with direct realism: while they generate an explanatory gap (and colors do not), so does /seeing/; qualia are excluded from perceptual consciousness by its "transparency"; instead, qualia are aspects of thought about the perceived environment.
  
  The asymmetry between my treatments of color and seeing is grounded in the asymmetry between ignorance and error: while inversion shows that normal subjects are ignorant of the natures of the colors, hallucination shows not that perceivers are ignorant of the nature of seeing but that hallucinators are prone to error about their condition. Past literature has treated inversion and hallucination as on a par: externalists see error in both cases, while internalists see mutual ignorance. My account is so complicated because plausible results require mixing it up.
• Benj Hellie (forthcoming). The multidisjunctive conception of hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Direct realists think that we can't get a clear view the nature of /hallucinating a white picket fence/: is it /representing a white picket fence/? is it /sensing white-picket-fencily/? is it /being acquainted with a white' picketed' sense-datum/? These are all epistemic possibilities for a single experience; hence they are all metaphysical possibilities for various experiences. Hallucination itself is a disjunctive or "multidisjunctive" category. I rebut MGF Martin's argument from statistical explanation for his "epistemic" conception of hallucination, but his view embeds in my view as a "reference-fixer".
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• Michael G. F. Martin (2006). On being alienated.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctymfm/Background Readings/oba1.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA354&ots=_nu_zktyAN&sig=kk0Ck3ocusFMFTazoErLekuc5Rk
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA354&ots=I-3FnJw7jx&sig=pPkgPzg4BAKsnX2adwwHcuIc7P0
  
• Michael G. F. Martin (2004). The limits of self-awareness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j67n647645555622/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J67N647645555622.pdf
  
• John McDowell (2008). The disjunctive conception of experience as material for a transcendental argument.   (More)
• Alan Millar (2008). Perceptual-recognitional abilities and perceptual knowledge.   (More)
• Duncan Pritchard (2007). How to be a neo-Moorean.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Much of the recent debate regarding scepticism has focussed on a certain template sceptical argument and a rather restricted set of proposals concerning how one might deal with that argument. Throughout this debate the ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism is often cited as a paradigm example of how one should not respond to the sceptical argument, so conceived. As I argue in this paper, however, there are ways of resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic. In particular, I consider the prospects for three such proposals in this regard: a classical epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, a classical epistemic externalist neo-Mooreanism, and a non-classical McDowellian epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, and maintain that the last two of these proposals (both of which make appeal to a disjunctivist account of perception, broadly conceived) merit further exploration. Indeed, I claim that a suitably qualified version of neo-Mooreanism would actually sit quite well with the general philosophical motivations behind other key anti-sceptical views and I argue that given this fact neo-Mooreanism is actually at a dialectical advantage relative to other views when it comes to dealing with the sceptical problem as it is typically conceived.
• Duncan Pritchard (2006). McDowellian neo-mooreanism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy-dev.stir.ac.uk/staff/duncan-pritchard/documents/McDowellianMooreanism.pdf
  
• Kieran Setiya (2009). Review of 'Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge'.   (More)
• Susanna Siegel (2004). Indiscriminability and the phenomenal.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/xp05760765436763/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/XP05760765436763.pdf
  
• Susanna Siegel (online). The dog and the zombie.   (More)
• Susanna Siegel (2008). The Epistemic Conception of Hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Early formulations of disjunctivism about perception refused to give any positive account of the nature of hallucination, beyond the uncontroversial fact that they can in some sense seem to the same to the subject as veridical perceptions. Recently, some disjunctivists have attempt to account for hallucination in purely epistemic terms, by developing detailed account of what it is for a hallucinaton to be indiscriminable from a veridical perception. In this paper I argue that the prospects for purely epistemic treatments of hallucinations are dim, and that this undermines the case for disjunctivism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/mseph.html
  
• Michael Sollberger (2008). Naïve realism and the problem of causation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the present paper, I shall argue that disjunctively construed naïve realism about the nature of perceptual experiences succumbs to the empirically inspired causal argument. The causal argument highlights as a first step that local action necessitates the presence of a type-identical common kind of mental state shared by all perceptual experiences. In a second step, it sets out that the property of being a veridical perception cannot be a mental property. It results that the mental nature of perceptions must be exhausted by the occurrence of inner sensory experiences that narrowly supervene on the perceiver. That is, empirical objects fail directly to determine the perceptual consciousness of the perceiver. The upshot is that not only naïve realism, but also certain further forms of direct realism have to be abandoned.
• Matthew Soteriou (online). The Disjunctive Theory of Perception.   (More)
• Justin Sytsma, Searching for evidence of phenomenal consciousness in ncc research.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recent scientific work aiming to give a neurobiological explanation of phenomenal consciousness has largely focused on finding neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). The hope is that by locating neural correlates of phenomenally conscious mental states, some light will be cast on how the brain is able to give rise to such states. In this paper I argue that NCC research is unable to produce evidence of such neural correlates. I do this by considering two alternative interpretations of NCC research—an eliminativist and a disjunctivist interpretation. I show that each of these interpretations is compatible with the scientific data and yet is more parsimonious than accounts involving the supposed phenomenon of phenomenal consciousness
• Alessandra Tanesini (2010). The Non-Conjunctive Nature of Disjunctivism.   (More)
• Crispin Wright (2008). Comment on John McDowell's "The disjunctive conception of experience as material for a transcendental argument".   (More)

The Nature of Perceptual Experience, Misc

• Elijah Chudnoff (forthcoming). What Intuitions Are Like.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument.
• Tim Crane (online). The problem of perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
  http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2005/entries/perception-problem/
  http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak_download&id_clanak_jezik=3888
  
• George Djukic & Vladimir B. Popescu (2003). A critique of Langsam's The Theory of Appearing Defended.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper we consider, and reject, Harold Langsams defenceof the Theory of Appearing, in this journal (1997), in the faceof three standard arguments against it. These arguments are:the argument from hallucination; the argument from the samecause-same effect principle; and the argument from perceptualtime-gap
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5107444&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L632W67347H636K1.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2003/00000112/00000001/05107444
  
• Jeffrey Galko (2004). Ontology and perception.   (More)
• Garc (1999). Searle on perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sammelpunkt.philo.at:8080/archive/00001207/01/carpintero.pdf
  
• Fiona Macpherson (2000). Representational Theories of Phenomenal Character.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/1893/25/1/Macpherson_Thesis_Complete.pdf
  
• Michael G. F. Martin (2003). Sensible appearances.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uctymfm/Background Readings/sensible appearances.pdf
  
• Michael G. F. Martin (1998). Setting things before the mind.   (More)
• Kevin Mulligan, Perception, particulars and predicates.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What sort of an episode is perception? What are the objects of such episodes? What is the grammatical and logical form of perceptual reports, direct and indirect? Each of these questions has been the subject of recent discussion. In what follows I set out one answer to each of them and explore some of the ways these answers support and complement each other. The answers adopted are: to perceive - and I shall normally only have in mind visual perception - is not to judge or to conceptualize but a sui generis mental mode or activity involving non-conceptual content; perception is of particulars only; the complements of perceptual verbs are, with one exception, non-propositional and indirect perceptual reports are made true by direct perceptual relations between subjects and particulars of various sorts
• Susanna Siegel (ms). Comments on David Chalmers' "perception and the fall from Eden".   (More)
• Gianfranco Soldati & Fabian Dorsch, Experience & reason.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper we shall address some issues concerning the relation between the content and the nature of perceptual experiences. More precisely, we shall ask whether the claim that perceptual experiences are by nature relational implies that they cannot be intentional. As we shall see, much depends in this respect on the way one understands the possibility for one to be wrong about the phenomenal nature of one's own experience. We shall describe and distinguish a series of errors that can occur in our introspective access to our perceptual experiences. We shall argue that once the nature of these different kinds of error are properly understood, the metaphysical claim that perceptual experiences are relational can be seen to be compatible with the view that they are intentional
• Charles S. Travis (2005). The face of perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=HHNrzP0kQYEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA53&ots=pD_bR1lRZF&sig=p9_02hoF56u6e5QFENXEbftBfKQ
  

The Perceptual Relation

The Causal Theory of Perception

• Istv Aranyosi (2008). Review of Roy Sorensen's Seeing Dark Things. The Philosophy of Shadows.   (More)
• István Aranyosi, The reappearing act.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In a recent article, Roy Sorensen proposed a very interesting puzzle involving shadows – The Disappearing Act puzzle (2006). It was left unsolved there. Nevertheless, in his latest book he has added a new thought in guise of a solution to it (2008: 73-75). In what follows I will argue that Sorensen’s solution has some shortcomings, and will offer an alternative to it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j7x3627874444hw2/fulltext.pdf
  http://sites.google.com/site/istvanaranyosi/thereappearingactactaanalytica.pdf
  http://www.istvanaranyosi.net/resources/the%20reappearing%20act%20acta%20analytica.pdf
  http://istvanaranyosi.net/resources/the%20reappearing%20act%20acta%20analytica.pdf
  
• John B. Dilworth (2005). A reflexive, dispositional approach to perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper will investigate the basic question of the nature of perception, as theoretically approached from a purely naturalistic standpoint. An adequate theory must not only have clear application to a world full of pre-existing biological examples of perception of all kinds, from unicellular perception to conscious human perception, but it must also satisfy a series of theoretical or philosophical constraints, as enumerated and discussed in Section 1 below. A perceptual theory invoking _reflexive dispositions_--that is, dispositions directed toward the very same worldly perceived objects or properties that caused them--will be defended as one legitimate such naturalistic theory
• John B. Dilworth (2004). Naturalized perception without information.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The outlines of a novel, fully naturalistic theory of perception are provided, that can explain perception of an object X by organism Z in terms of reflexive causality. On the reflexive view proposed, organism Z perceives object or property X just in case X causes Z to acquire causal dispositions reflexively directed back upon X itself. This broadly functionalist theory is potentially capable of explaining both perceptual representation and perceptual content in purely causal terms, making no use of informational concepts. However, such a reflexive, naturalistic causal theory must compete with well entrenched, supposedly equally naturalistic theories of perception that are based on some concept of information, so the paper also includes some basic logical, naturalistic and explanatory criticisms of such informational views
• John B. Dilworth (2005). Perceptual causality problems reflexively resolved.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Causal theories of perception typically have problems in explaining deviant causal chains. They also have difficulty with other unusual putative cases of perception involving prosthetic aids, defective perception, scientifically extended cases of perception, and so on. But I show how a more adequate reflexive causal theory, in which objects or properties X cause a perceiver to acquire X-related dispositions toward that very same item X, can provide a plausible and principled perceptual explanation of all of these kinds of cases. A critical discussion of David Lewis's perceptual descriptivist views is also provided, including a defense of the logical possibility of systematic misperception or perceptual error for a perceiver, in spite of its empirical improbability
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/1kxkvx3xd374g23p/fulltext.pdf
  http://transactionpub.metapress.com/index/1KXKVX3XD374G23P.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/1KXKVX3XD374G23P.pdf
  
• John B. Dilworth (2005). The reflexive theory of perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://homepages.wmich.edu/~dilworth/The_Reflexive_Theory_of_Perception.pdf
  
• H. P. Grice (1988). The causal theory of perception.   (More)
• Alva Noe (2003). Causation and perception: The puzzle unravelled.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-8284.00017
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8284.00017
  

Direct and Indirect Perception

• Tony Chemero (forthcoming). Information and direct perception: A new approach.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since the 1970s, Michael Turvey, Robert Shaw, and William Mace have worked on the formulation of a philosophically-sound and empirically-tractable version of James Gibson
• Rebecca Copenhaver (2004). A realism for Reid: Mediated but direct.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a714041662~fulltext=713240930
  http://legacy.lclark.edu/~rebeccac/RealReid.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a714041662~fulltext=713240930
  
• Rebecca Copenhaver (ms). Thomas Reid's direct realism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Thomas Reid thought of himself as a critic of the representative theory of perception, of what he called the ‘theory of ideas’ or ‘the ideal theory’.2 He had no kind words for that theory: “The theory of ideas, like the Trojan horse, had a specious appearance both of innocence and beauty; but if those philosophers had known that it carried in its belly death and destruction to all science and common sense, they would not have broken down their walls to give it admittance.”3 Many have supposed that his opposition to the representative theory was grounded in his direct realism.4 A direct realist theory of perception holds that perception of external objects is not mediated by any mental entity whose intrinsic character licenses a move from the mental entity to the external object presented in perception. Reid himself, in an oration of 1759, delivered at graduation ceremonies over which he presided as regent and professor of philosophy at King’s College in Aberdeen, said that he did not “understand what need there is of an intermediate object for thought about something to be possible.”5 Hence, if Reid was not a direct realist, philosophers and historians would have to ask whether and to what degree Reid was what he thought himself to be
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://legacy.lclark.edu/~rebeccac/DirectReal.pdf
  
• Hanne De Jaegher (2009). Social understanding through direct perception? Yes, by interacting.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper comments on Gallagher’s recently published direct perception proposal about social cognition [Gallagher, S. (2008a). Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(2), 535–543]. I show that direct perception is in danger of being appropriated by the very cognitivist accounts criticised by Gallagher (theory theory and simulation theory). Then I argue that the experiential directness of perception in social situations can be understood only in the context of the role of the interaction process in social cognition. I elaborate on the role of social interaction with a discussion of participatory sense-making to show that direct perception, rather than being a perception enriched by mainly individual capacities, can be best understood as an interactional phenomenon.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WD0-4V57Y1R-1&_user=10&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=21&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236752%232009%23999819997%231093079%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6752&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=27&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=751bf6f06e4c0778b9598820e8321943
  
• John B. Dilworth (2005). The perception of representational content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How can it be true that one sees a lake when looking at a picture of a lake, since one's gaze is directed upon a flat dry surface covered in paint? An adequate contemporary explanation cannot avoid taking a theoretical stand on some fundamental cognitive science issues concerning the nature of perception, of pictorial content, and of perceptual reference to items that, strictly speaking, have no physical existence. A solution is proposed that invokes a broadly functionalist, naturalistic theory of perception, plus a double content analysis of perceptual interpretation, which permits non-supervenient, culturally autonomous modes of reference to be generated and artistically exploited even in a purely physical world. In addition, a functionalist concept of broad or 'spread' reference replaces the traditional precise intentional concept of reference, which previously made reference to non-existent items theoretically intractable
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/45/4/388?ijkey=HzJtjHZFUOUWP8j&keytype=ref
  http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/4/388
  http://bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/45/4/388
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oup/aesthj/2005/00000045/00000004/art00388
  
• William C. Fish (2004). The direct/indirect distinction in contemporary philosophy of perception.   (More)
• Matthew Kennedy (2007). Visual Awareness of Properties.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I defend a view of the structure of visual property-awareness by considering the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. I argue that visual property-awareness is a three-place relation between a subject, a property, and a manner of presentation. Manners of presentation mediate our visual awareness of properties without being objects of visual awareness themselves. I provide criteria of identity for manners of presentation, and I argue that our ignorance of their intrinsic nature does not compromise the viability of a theory that employs them. In closing, I argue that the proposed manners of presentation are consistent with key direct-realist claims about the structure of visual awareness.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118493538/abstract
  
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• No (2002). Direct perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: experiences are qualitatively indistinguishable, experience by engaging in a constructive process then you are aware of one and the same thing of inference or conjecture. A perception, in the when you see a red tomato and hallucinate a red phrase of Helmholtz, is an `unconscious inference'. tomato. Hence, when you see a red tomato, you are Empirical research on perception focuses on under- aware not of a tomato but of a tomato-like sense standing the mechanisms, neural and psycho- datum. logical, that make up the brain's ability to perform 00170005 That perception is in this way indirect appears to
• No (2002). On what we see.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0114.t01-1-00140/abs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.t01-1-00140
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2008). The Situation-Dependency of Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that perception is necessarily situation-dependent. The way an object is must not just be distinguished from the way it appears and the way it is represented, but also from the way it is presented given the situational features. First, I argue that the way an object is presented is best understood in terms of external, mind-independent, but situation-dependent properties of objects. Situation-dependent properties are exclusively sensitive to and ontologically dependent on the intrinsic properties of objects, such as their shape, size, and color, and the situational features, such as the lighting conditions and the perceiver’s location in relation to the perceived object. Second, I argue that perceiving intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on representing situation-dependent properties. Recognizing situation-dependent properties yields four advantages. It makes it possible to embrace the motivations that lead to phenomenalism and indirect realism by recognizing that objects are presented a certain way, while holding on to the intuition that subjects directly perceive objects. Second, it acknowledges that perceptions are not just individuated by the objects they are of, but by the ways those objects are presented given the situational features. Third, it allows for a way to accommodate the fact that there is a wide range of viewing conditions or situational features that can count as normal. Finally, it makes it possible to distinguish perception and thought about the same object with regard to what is represented.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://rsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/Situation-DependencyOfPerception.pdf
  
• S. Ullman (1980). Against direct perception.   (More)

The Objects of Perception

• Marc Alspector-Kelly (2004). Seeing the unobservable: Van Fraassen and the limits of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I. Introduction “We can and do see the truth about many things: ourselves, others, trees and animals, clouds and rivers—in the immediacy of experience.”1 Absent from Bas van Fraassen’s list of those things we see are paramecia and mitochondria. We do not see such things, van Fraassen has long maintained, because they are unobservable, that is, they are undetectable by means of the unaided senses.2 But notice that these two notions—what we can see in the “immediacy” of experience and what is detectable by means of the unaided senses—are not the same. There is no incoherence in maintaining that the immediacy of experience is capable of disclosing to us truths concerning entities that are not detectable by the naked eye. And so, I claim, it does; science and technology provide us with the means to see things we have never seen before. Some of those things are van Fraassen’s unobservables. That suggestion is nothing new. Grover Maxwell long ago emphasized the continuity between seeing with and without instrumentation.3 Van Fraassen originally provided two responses to Maxwell’s arguments: some things that you can see with instruments you can also see without instruments (and those are the observables); and..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/g510817412644p75/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5127598&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/G510817412644P75.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2004/00000140/00000003/05127598
  
• Istv Aranyosi (2008). Review of Roy Sorensen's Seeing Dark Things. The Philosophy of Shadows.   (More)
• Radu J. Bogdan (1986). The Objects of Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Our perceptions, beliefs, thoughts and memories have objects. They are about or of things and properties around us. I perceive her, have beliefs about her, think of her and have memories of her. How are we to construe this aboutness (or ofness) of our cognitive states?' There are four major choices on the philosophical market. There is an interaction approach which says that the object of cognition is fixed by and understood in terms of what cognizers physically and sensorily interact with - or, alternatively, in terms of what the information delivered by such interaction is about. There is the satisfactional approach which says that the object of a cognitive state is whatever satisfies the representation constitutive of that state. There is also a hybrid approach which requires both physical/sensory interaction and representational satisfaction in the fixation of the object of cognition. And there is, finally, the direct acquaintance approach which says that only an immediate cognitive contact with things and properties can establish them as objects of cognition. The latter, as far as I can tell, goes the way perception goes, so only the remaining three approaches look like serious contenders
• Bill Brewer (2007). Perception and its objects.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Physical objects are such things as stones, tables, trees, people and other animals: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in. (1) therefore expresses a commonsense commitment to physical realism: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world we live in exist, and are as they are, quite independently of anyone
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/staff/brewer/po_apa_ps.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/y681h56t37847676/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/Y681H56T37847676.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2007/00000132/00000001/00009051
  
• John B. Dilworth (2006). A reflexive dispositional analysis of mechanistic perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The field of machine perception is based on standard informational and computational approaches to perception. But naturalistic informational theories are widely regarded as being inadequate, while purely syntactic computational approaches give no account of perceptual content. Thus there is a significant need for a novel, purely naturalistic perceptual theory not based on informational or computational concepts, which could provide a new paradigm for mechanistic perception. Now specifically evolutionary naturalistic approaches to perception have been—perhaps surprisingly—almost completely neglected for this purpose. Arguably perceptual mechanisms enhance evolutionary fitness by facilitating sensorily mediated causal interactions between an organism Z and items X in its environment. A ‘reflexive’ theory of perception of this kind is outlined, according to which an organism Z perceives an item X just in case X causes a sensory organ zi of Z to cause Z to acquire a disposition toward the very same item X that caused the perception. The rest of the paper shows how an intuitively plausible account of mechanistic perception can be developed and defended in terms of the reflexive theory. Also, a compatibilist option is provided for those who wish to preserve a distinct informational concept of perception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://homepages.wmich.edu/~dilworth/A_Reflexive_Dispositional_Analysis_of_Mechanistic_Perception.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/r47658w526155q2j/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R47658W526155Q2J.pdf
  
• Uriah Kriegel (2011). The Veil of Abstracta.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Of all the problems attending the sense-datum theory, arguably the deepest is that it draws a veil of appearances over the external world. Today, the sense-datum theory is widely regarded as an overreaction to the problem of hallucination. Instead of accounting for hallucination in terms of intentional relations to sense data, it is often thought that we should account for it in terms of intentional relations to properties. In this paper, however, I argue that in the versions that might address the problem of hallucination, this newer account is guilty of a vice similar to sense-datum theory’s: it draws a veil of abtracta over the concrete world.
• Gregory Minissale (2010). Beyond Internalism and Externalism: Husserl and Sartre's Image Consciousness in Hitchcock and. Buñuel.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Husserl and Sartre’s analyses of mental imagery and some of the latest cognitive research on vision provide a framework for understanding a number of films by Hitchcock (Psycho and Rear Window) and Buñuel (Un Chien Andalou), films which similarly probe the subtleties and uses of mental imagery. One of the many ways to enjoy these films is to see them as explorations of visual phenomenology; they allow us to enact, as well as reflect upon, mental images as part of the film experience.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Ram Neta (2007). Contextualism and a puzzle about seeing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Contextualist solutions to skeptical puzzles have recently been subjected to various criticisms. In this paper, I will defend contextualism against an objection prominently pressed by Stanley 2000. According to Stanley, contextualism in epistemology advances an empirically implausible hypothesis about the semantics of knowledge ascriptions in natural language. It is empirically implausible because it attributes to knowledge ascriptions a kind of semantic context-sensitivity that is wholly unlike any well- established type of semantic context-sensitivity in natural language
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/QP68708843542513.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2007/00000134/00000001/00009021
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (2007). Echoes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Echo experiences are illusory experiences of ordinary primary sounds. Just as there is no new object that we see at the surface of a mirror, there is no new sound that we hear at a reflecting surface. The sound that we hear as an echo just is the original primary sound, though its perception involves illusions of place, time, and qualities. The case of echoes need not force us to adopt a conception according to which sounds are persisting object-like particulars that travel through space.
• Casey O’Callaghan (2008). Object perception: Vision and audition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Vision has been the primary focus of naturalistic philosophical research concerning perception and perceptual experience. Guided by visual experience and vision science, many philosophers have focused upon theoretical issues dealing with the perception of objects. Recently, however, hearing researchers have discussed auditory objects. I present the case for object perception in vision, and argue that an analog of object perception occurs in auditory perception. I propose a notion of an auditory object that is stronger than just that of an intentional object of audition, but that does not identify auditory objects with the ordinary material objects we see
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00145.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120126412/PDFSTART
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (forthcoming). Ontological Minimalism about Phenomenology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I develop a view of the common factor between subjectively indistinguishable perceptions and hallucinations that avoids analyzing experiences as involving awareness relations to abstract entities, sense-data, or any other peculiar entities. The main thesis is that hallucinating subjects employ concepts (or analogous nonconceptual structures), namely the very same concepts that in a subjectively indistinguishable perceptual experience are employed as a consequence of being related to external, mind-independent objects or property-instances. Since a hallucinating subject is not related to any such objects or property-instances, the concepts she employs remain unsaturated. I argue that the phenomenology of hallucinations and perceptions can be identified with employing concepts and analogous nonconceptual structures. By doing so, I defend a minimalist view of the phenomenology of experience that (1) satisfies the Aristotelian principle according to which the existence of any type depends on its tokens and (2) amounts to a naturalized view of the phenomenology of experience.
• Roy Sorenson (2006). The disappearing act.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118607448/PDFSTART
  

The Perceptual Relation, Misc

• Tim Crane (2006). Is there a perceptual relation?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: P.F. Strawson argued that ‘mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as … an immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us’ (1979: 97). He began his defence of this very natural idea by asking how someone might typically give a description of their current visual experience, and offered this example of such a description: ‘I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of the elms; I see the dappled deer grazing in groups on the vivid green grass…’ (1979: 97). In other words, in describing experience, we tend to describe the objects of experience – the things which we experience – and the ways they are when we are experiencing them. Some go further. According to Heidegger
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mac.com/cranetim/Tims_website/Online_papers_files/Perceptual relation.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA126&ots=I0WFoJC5kp&sig=7fm5JVRwTNXmjIJZwSmJZGHOF9A
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA126&ots=_ol_AkzwBF&sig=5TzGaBNG_eCcPjXZ4HyUknK0fWE
  
• Mark Eli Kalderon (forthcoming). Color Illusion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As standardly conceived,an illusion is an experience of an object o appearing F where o is not in fact F. Paradigm examples of color illusion, however, do not fit this pattern. A diagnosis of this uncovers different sense of appearance talk that is the basis of a dilemma for the standard conception. The dilemma is only a challenge. But if the challenge cannot be met, then any conception of experience, such as representationalism, that is committed to the standard conception is false. Perhaps surprisingly, naïve realism provides a better account of color illusion.
• Elisabeth Pacherie (1995). Do we see with microscopes?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/33/66/PDF/ijn_00000240_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/33/66/PDF/ijn_00000240_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/02/40/ijn_00000240_00/ijn_00000240_00.pdf
  
• Dimitris Platchias (2004). The veil of perception and contextual relativism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ifs.csic.es/sorites/Issue_15/sorites15.pdf#page=78
  
• Susanna Siegel (2006). How does phenomenology constrain object-seeing?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Perception provides a form of contact with the world and the other people in it. For example, we can learn that Franco is sitting in his chair by seeing Franco; we can learn that his hair is gray by seeing the colour of his hair. Such perception enables us to understand primitive forms of language, such as demonstrative expressions
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/franco-nov.html
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a758270037~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/V1VV074862660453.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/758270037.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a758270037~fulltext=713240930
  
• Susanna Siegel (2002). The role of perception in demonstrative reference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Siegel defends "Limited Intentionism", a theory of what secures the semantic reference of uses of bare demonstratives ("this", "that" and their plurals). According to Limited Intentionism, demonstrative reference is fixed by perceptually anchored intentions on the part of the speaker
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.doaj.org/abstract?id=8642&toc=y
  http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=abstract&id=8642
  http://www.doaj.org/abstract?id=8642&year=2002&volume=2&issue=1
  http://www.umich.edu/~philos/Imprint/frameset.html?002001+21+pdf
  http://quot.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0002.001
  
• Roy A. Sorensen (1999). Seeing intersecting eclipses.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(199901)96:1<25:SIE>2.0.CO;2-#
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(199901)96:1<25:SIE>2.0.CO;2-#
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2564647.pdf
  

The Contents of Perception

Conceptual and Nonconceptual Content

• William P. Alston (1998). Perception and conception.   (More)
• Katalin Balog (2009). Jerry Fodor on Non-conceptual Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proponents of non-conceptual content have recruited it for various philosophical jobs. Some epistemologists have suggested that it may play the role of “the given” that Sellars is supposed to have exorcised from philosophy. Some philosophers of mind (e.g., Dretske) have suggested that it plays an important role in the project of naturalizing semantics as a kind of halfway between merely information bearing and possessing conceptual content. Here I will focus on a recent proposal by Jerry Fodor. In a recent paper he characterizes non-conceptual content in a particular way and argues that it is plausible that it plays an explanatory role in accounting for certain auditory and visual phenomena. So he thinks that there is reason to believe that there is non-conceptual content. On the other hand, Fodor thinks that non-conceptual content has a limited role. It occurs only in the very early stages of perceptual processing prior to conscious awareness. My paper is examines Fodor’s characterization of non-conceptual content and his claims for its explanatory importance. I also discuss if Fodor has made a case for limiting non-conceptual content to non-conscious, sub-personal mental states.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/mk8622l2554025q6/fulltext.pdf
  
• Jose Luis Bermudez & Fiona Macpherson (1998). Nonconceptual content and the nature of perceptual experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: [1] Recent philosophy of mind and epistemology has seen an important and influential trend towards accounting for at least some features of experiences in content-involving terms. It is a contested point whether ascribing content to experiences can account for all the intrinsic properties of experiences, but on many theories of experiences there are close links between the ascription of content and the ways in which experiences are ascribed and typed. The issues here have both epistemological and psychological dimensions. On the one hand, a theory of experiential content has a fundamental role in explaining how knowledge of the world can be acquired through experience. On the other hand, there are important psychological questions about the phenomenology of experiences and the conditions under which content ascriptions are made
• Bill Brewer (2005). Perceptual experience has conceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I take it for granted that sense experiential states provide reasons for empirical beliefs; indeed this claim forms the first premise of my central argument for (CC). 1 The subsequent stages of the argument are intended to establish that a person has such a reason for believing something about the way things are in the world around him only if he is in some mental state or other with a conceptual content: a conceptual state. Thus, given that sense experiential states do provide reasons for empirical beliefs, they must have conceptual content
• Alex Byrne (2005). Perception and conceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/percepandconcepcontent.pdf
  
• Ronald L. Chrisley (1994). Taking embodiment seriously: Nonconceptual content and robotics.   (More)
• Philippe Chuard (2006). Demonstrative concepts without reidentification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Conceptualist accounts of the representational content of perceptual experiences have it that a subject _S_ can experience no object, property, relation, etc., unless _S_ "i# possesses and "ii# exercises concepts for such object, property, or relation. Perceptual experiences, on such a view, represent the world in a way that is conceptual
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/v312521rj57448m3/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/V312521RJ57448M3.pdf
  
• Philippe Chuard (ms). Perceptual reasons.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to Conceptualists like John McDowell and Bill Brewer, the representational content of perceptual experiences is wholly conceptual. One of the main!and only!arguments they advance for this claim has to do with the epistemological role of perceptual experiences. I focus on Bill Brewers "1999# version of the argument. I show why Brewer fails to satisfactorily motivate the premises of his argument, and suggest that opponents of Conceptualism could accept these premises without thereby endorsing the conclusion. Finally, I consider whether the conclusion really supports Conceptualism
• Philippe Chuard (2007). The Riches of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose you see a red ball. Unless you happen to be in a psychologist
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com//content/imp/jcs/2007/00000014/F0020009/art00002
  
• Andy Clark (ms). Connectionism, nonconceptual content, and representational redescription.   (More)
• Tim Crane (1992). The nonconceptual content of experience.   (More)
• Adrian Cussins (1993). Nonconceptual content and the elimination of misonceived composites.   (More)
• Adrian Cussins (1990). The connectionist construction of concepts.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The character of computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation that derives from logic. But this has had the consequence that the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is

  _conceptualist_:

  psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations that hold between concepts, and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate for the Proper Treatment of Connectionism (Smolensky 1988)
• J. Dokic (2001). Shades and concepts.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://hal.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/36/35/PDF/ijn_00000594_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/36/35/PDF/ijn_00000594_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/36/35/PDF/ijn_00000594_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/32/93/PDF/ijn_00000137_00.PDF
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/01/37/ijn_00000137_00/ijn_00000137_00.PDF
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/05/94/ijn_00000594_00/ijn_00000594_00.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-8284.00294/pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8284.00294
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2001/00000061/00000271/art00004
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2001/00000061/00000271/art00294
  
• Laura Duhau (2009). Conceptuality and Generality: A Criticism of an Argument for Content Dualism.   (More)
• David Forman (2006). Learning and the Necessity of Non-Conceptual Content in Sellars's "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind".   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: For Sellars, the possibility of empirical knowledge presupposes the existence of "sense impressions" in the perceiver, i.e., non-conceptual states of perceptual consciousness. But this role for sense impressions does not implicate Sellars' account in the Myth of the Given: sense impressions do not stand in a justificatory relation to instances of perceptual knowledge; their existence is rather a condition for the possibility of the acquisition of empirical concepts. Sellars suggests that learning empirical concepts presupposes that we can remember certain past facts that we could not conceptualize at the time they obtained. And such memory presupposes, in turn, the existence of certain (past) non-conceptual sensory states that can be conceptualized
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/pozs/2007/00000092/00000001/art00006
  
• Hannah Ginsborg (2006). Empirical concepts and the content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2006.00230.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ejop/2006/00000014/00000003/art00002
  
• Stella Gonzalez Arnal (2006). Non-articulable content and the realm of reasons.   (More)
• York H. Gunther (2001). Content, illusion, partition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophers of mind have recently sought to establish a theoret- ical use for nonconceptual content. Although there is disagreement about what nonconceptual content is supposed to be, this much is clear. A state with nonconceptual content is mental. Hence, while one may deny that refrigerators and messy rooms have conceptual capacities, their states, as physical and not mental, do not have nonconceptual content. A state with nonconceptual content is also intentional, which is to say that it represents a feature of the world for a subject. It may be tempting to think of qualitative states as having nonconceptual content since they can be experienced by indi- viduals independently of their possession of the requisite concepts, e.g. someone could experience pains, itches or tingles without possessing the concept pain, itch or tingle. But on such a view, one would have to assume that qualitative states are representational since mental states cannot be candidates for nonconceptuality unless they have intentional properties.2
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=254434&PDF=1
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=254434&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J7172022QP642685.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2001/00000102/00000002/00254434
  
• Robert Hanna (2005). Kant and nonconceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://spot.colorado.edu/~rhanna/kant_and_content.htm
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0966-8373.2005.00229.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ejop/2005/00000013/00000002/art00004
  
• Richard G. Heck (2007). Are there different kinds of content?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In an earlier paper, "Non-conceptual Content and the 'Space of Reasons'", I distinguished two forms of the view that perceptual content is non-conceptual, which I called the 'state view' and the 'content view'. On the latter, but not the former, perceptual states have a different kind of content than do cognitive states. Many have found it puzzling why anyone would want to make this claim and, indeed, what it might mean. This paper attempts to address these questions
• Walter Hopp (2009). Conceptualism and the myth of the given.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121356096/PDFSTART
  
• Daniel D. Hutto (1998). Nonconceptual content and objectivity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Aristotle once developed the difference between man and animal in the following way: animals can understand each other by indicating to each other what excites their desire so they can seek it, and what injures them, so they can flee from it. To men alone is logos given as well, so that they can make manifest to each other what is useful and harmful, and therefore what is right and wrong. A profound thesis. -- Gadamer, "Man and Language"
• Sean D. Kelly, Articles.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I begin by examining a recent debate between John McDowell and Christopher Peacocke over whether the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. Although I am sympathetic to Peacocke’s claim that perceptual content is non-conceptual, I suggest a number of ways in which his arguments fail to make that case. This failure stems from an over-emphasis on the “fine-grainedness” of perceptual content – a feature that is relatively unimportant to its non-conceptual structure. I go on to describe two other features of perceptual experience that are more likely to be relevant to the claim that perceptual content is non-conceptual. These features are 1) the dependence of a perceived object on the perceptual context in which it is perceived and 2) the dependence of a perceived property on the object it is perceived to be a property of
• Frode Kjosavik (2003). Perceptual intimacy and conceptual inadequacy: A Husserlian critique of McDowell's internalism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nlh.no/ios/Publikasjoner/s2003/s2003-17.html
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Z4X9bVYupWMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA49&ots=EgeYVhmZ_b&sig=YNiELV4_RjuakOuTT0pFpwNkY9w
  
• John Bengson, Enrico Grube & Daniel Z. Korman (forthcoming). A New Framework for Conceptualism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and representationalism, demonstrative thought, phenomenal character, and the speckled hen objection to modest foundationalism.
• David Mark Kovacs (2009). Memory and Imagery in Russell's The Analysis of Mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to the theory Russell defends in The Analysis of Mind, ‘true memories’ (roughly, memories that are not remembering-hows) are recollections of past events accompanied by a feeling of familiarity. While memory images play a vital role in this account, Russell does not pay much attention to the fact that imagery plays different roles in different sorts of memory. In most cases that Russell considers, memory is based on an image that serves as a datum (imagebased memories), but there are other cases in which memory judgment requires an image without being based on it (answer-memories). A good example for the former is when a person, asked what the colour of the sea was last afternoon, recalls an image and forms a judgment on this basis. In the second case she may recognize the sea and entertain a memory image of it without ‘reading off’ the memory judgment from this picture. That is, the image does not prompt but itself is part of the propositional content of answer memories. Since in this latter case the feeling of familiarity is constitutive of the recollection but cannot serve as its explanans, answer memories do not conform to Russell’s account. According to Lindsay Judson this is not a vice of the theory, since Russell never meant to extend it to answer memories. Despite having a certain appeal of benevolence, Judson’s interpretation is not supported by textual evidence. Taking side with David Pears, I will argue that Russell did not properly differentiate between image-based memory and answer memory, and illegitimately extended his theory to the latter.
• Uriah Kriegel (2004). Perceptual experience, conscious content, and nonconceptual content.   (More)
• Hemdat Lerman (2010). Non-conceptual experiential content and reason-giving.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to John McDowell and Bill Brewer, our experiences have the type of content which can be the content of judgements - content which is the result of the actualization of specific conceptual abilities. They defend this view by arguing that our experiences must have such content in order for us to be able to think about our environment. In this paper I show that they do not provide a conclusive argument for this view. Focusing on Brewer's version of the argument, I show that it rests on a questionable assumption - namely, that if a subject can recognize the normative bearing of a mental content upon what she should think and do, then this content must be the result of the actualization of conceptual capacities (and in this sense conceptual). I argue that considerations regarding the roles played by experience and concepts in our mental lives may require us to reject this assumption
• Pete Mandik (ms). Color-Consciousness Conceptualism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The goal of the present paper is to defend against a certain line of attack the view that conscious experience of color is no more fine-grained that the repertoire of non- demonstrative concepts that a perceiver is able to bring to bear in perception. The line of attack in question is an alleged empirical argument - the Diachronic Indistinguishability Argument (DIA) - based on pairs of colors so similar that they can be discriminated when simultaneously presented but not when presented across a memory delay. My aim here is to show that this argument fails.
• Anders Nes (2006). Content in thought and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The dissertation addresses a debate in the philosophy of perception between conceptualists and nonconceptualists. Its principal thesis is that the intentional content of a perceptual experience is the content of a thought that a reflective subject is in a position to think if she has the experience. I call this claim, endorsed by conceptualists, the thesis of content congruence. Two principal lines of argument are put forward for it. The first, ‘simple’ argument contends that a perceptual experience is a state in which it perceptually appears to the subject that things are thus and so; that a reflective subject who has an experience is in a position to think that things are thus and so; and that the subject in question, in doing so, thinks a thought with the same content as her experience. The second line of argument appeals to the role of perceptual experience in intentional explanation of observational beliefs. It makes the case that such explanation presumes that there is a non-trivial, non-vacuous law linking perceptual experiences with observational beliefs, and argues that an adherent of content congruence is significantly better placed to formulate such a law (consistently with her view) than her ‘content nonconceptualist’ opponent. The thesis of content congruence has often been associated in the literature with the thesis of state conceptualism, i.e. the claim that the representational capacities in virtue of the activation of which a perceptual experience has the content it has are conceptual. I reject the latter, and explain why we should not expect the denial of that claim, i.e. state nonconceptualism, to be incompatible with content congruence. I defend moreover the thesis of content congruence against the objection that it confuses sense and reference, and the objection that it leads to a viciously circular or otherwise inadequate account of observational or demonstrative concepts.
• Alva Noe (ms). Perception, action, and nonconceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: profile deforms as we move about it. As perceivers we are masters of the patterns of sensorimotor contingency that shape our perceptual interaction with the world. We expect changes in such things as apparent size, shape and color to occur as we actively explore the environment. In encountering perspective-dependent changes of this sort, we learn how things are quite apart form our particular perspective. Our possession of these skills is constitutive of our ability to see (and generally to perceive). This is confirmed by the fact that we can disrupt a person
• Elisabeth Pacherie (2000). Levels of perceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/02/45/ijn_00000245_00/ijn_00000245_00.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/r878814402m16l50/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R878814402M16L50.pdf
  
• Ian Phillips (2005). Experience and Intentional Content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Strong or Pure Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its Intentional content. Strong or Pure Anti -Intentionalism is the claim that the phenomenal character of any perceptual experience can be exhaustively characterized solely by reference to its non-Intentional properties
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (ms). Visual indexes and nonconceptual reference.   (More)
• Susanna Schellenberg (2006). Sellarsian perspectives on perception and non-conceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/SchellenbergSellarsPerceptionNonConceptualContent.pdf
  
• Robert Stalnaker (2003). What might nonconceptual content be?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1998)9<339:WMNCB>2.0.CO;2-X
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1998)9<339:WMNCB>2.0.CO;2-X
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1522983.pdf
  
• Josefa Toribio (2002). Perceptual experience and its contents.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/research/paics/e-int/archives/2001-04-27.html
  
• Mark A. Wrathall (2005). Non-rational grounds and non-conceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak_download&id_clanak_jezik=3891
  
• Wayne Wright (2003). McDowell, demonstrative concepts, and nonconceptual representational content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In giving an account of the content of perceptual experience, several authors, including Fred Dretske, Gareth Evans, Christopher Peacocke, and Michael Tye, have employed the notion of nonconceptual representational content.[1]
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://disputatio.com/articles/014-3.pdf
  http://www.mindstuff.net/mcddemonconc.html
  http://www.mindstuff.net/McDDemonConcWTW.doc
  http://www.mindstuff.net/McDDemonConcWTW.PDF
  

Color Experience

• Berit Brogaard, Perceptual content and monadic truth: On Cappelen and Hawthorne's relativism and monadic truth.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: They call T1-T5 the ‘simple view’ or ‘Simplicity’ for short (I will use ‘Simplicity’ and ‘the monadic truth package’ synonymously). C & H say that Simplicity is neutral on what exactly propositions are. They may be Russellian or of some different variety. This, however, does not seem quite right. For example, it is not obvious that Simplicity and Fregeanism are compatible. The 1- intension of ‘That instantiates a property that normally gives rise to red sensations in me’ has a truth-value only relative to a centered world (or a triple of a world, an individual and a time) (Chalmers 2006b). So, Simplicity rules out a treatment of 1-intensions as propositions (and..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/ColorContentandMonadicTruth.pdf
  
• David R. Hilbert & Alex Byrne (web). How do things look to the color blind?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in Color Ontology and Color Science, ed. J. Cohen and M. Matthen (MIT)
• David J. Chalmers (2006). Perception and the fall from Eden.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the Garden of Eden, we had unmediated contact with the world. We were directly acquainted with objects in the world and with their properties. Objects were simply presented to us without causal mediation, and properties were revealed to us in their true intrinsic glory
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://consc.net/papers/eden.html
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/eden.html
  
• Paul M. Churchland (2005). Chimerical colors: Some phenomenological predictions from cognitive neuroscience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Hurvich-Jameson (H-J) opponent-process network offers a familiar account of the empirical structure of the phenomenological color space for humans, an account with a number of predictive and explanatory virtues. Its successes form the bulk of the existing reasons for suggesting a strict identity between our various color sensations on the one hand, and our various coding vectors across the color-opponent neurons in our primary visual pathways on the other. But anti-reductionists standardly complain that the systematic parallels discovered by the H-J network are just empirical correspondences, constructed post facto, with no predictive or explanatory purchase on the intrinsic characters of qualia proper. The present paper disputes that complaint, by illustrating that the H-J model yields some novel and unappreciated predictions, and some novel and unappreciated explanations, concerning the qualitative characters of a considerable variety of color sensations possible for human experience, color sensations that normal people have almost certainly never had before, color sensations whose accurate descriptions in ordinary language appear semantically ill-formed or even self-contradictory. Specifically, these "impossible" color sensations are activation-vectors (across our opponent-process neurons) that lie inside the space of neuronally possible activation-vectors, but outside the central 'color spindle' that confines the familiar range of sensations for possible objective colors. These extra-spindle chimerical-color sensations correspond to no reflective color that you will ever see objectively displayed on a physical object. But the H-J model both predicts their existence and explains their highly anomalous qualitative characters in some detail. It also suggests how to produce these rogue sensations by a simple procedure made available in the latter half of this paper. The relevant color plates will allow you to savor these sensations for yourself
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bpjAkBrkmu4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA309&ots=JljTspK-Zz&sig=bPi-xVEVBkAvYyvHEx5l3S0Zl54
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a727182509~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/L803131023766655.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/727182509.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000005/art00001
  
• Jonathan Cohen, Color relationalism and color phenomenology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Color relationalism is the view that colors are constituted in terms of relations between subjects and objects. The most historically important form of color relationalism is the classic dispositionalist view according to which, for example red is the disposition to look red to standard observers in standard conditions (mutatis mutandis for other colors).1 However, it has become increasingly apparent in recent years that a commitment to the relationality of colors bears interest that goes beyond dispositionalism (Cohen, 2004; Matthen, 1999, 2001, 2005; Thompson, 1995). Accordingly, it is an important project for those interested in the metaphysics of color to sort through and assess different forms of color relationalism. There is, however, a powerful and general cluster of objections that has been thought by many to amount to a decisive refutation of any and all forms of color relationalism. Although this idea has been developed in a number of ways, the basic thought is that relationalism — qua theory of color — is at odds with the manifest evidence of color phenomenology, and that this clash between theory and data should be resolved by giving up the theory
• Justin C. Fisher (online). Color representations as hash values.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The goal of this paper is to answer the following question: When we have mental states that represent certain things as being colored, what properties are our mental states representing these things as having?
• Zoltan Jakab (2003). Phenomenal projection.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v9/psyche-9-04-jakab.html
  
• Zolt Jakab (2006). Revelation and normativity in visual experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/canadian_journal_of_philosophy/v036/36.1jakab.html
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/canadian_journal_of_philosophy/v036/36.1jakab.pdf
  http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/canadian_journal_of_philosophy/v036/36.1jakab.pdf
  
• Mark Eli Kalderon, Color and the problem of perceptual presence.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Very often, objects in the scene before us are somehow perceived to be constant or uniform or unchanging in color, shape, size, or position, even while their appearance with respect to these features somehow changes. This is a familiar and pervasive fact about perception, even if it is notoriously difficult to describe accurately let alone adequately account for. These difficulties are not unrelated—how we are inclined to describ the phenomenology of perceptual constancy will affect how we are inclined to accoun for it
• Mark Eli Kalderon (forthcoming). Color Illusion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As standardly conceived,an illusion is an experience of an object o appearing F where o is not in fact F. Paradigm examples of color illusion, however, do not fit this pattern. A diagnosis of this uncovers different sense of appearance talk that is the basis of a dilemma for the standard conception. The dilemma is only a challenge. But if the challenge cannot be met, then any conception of experience, such as representationalism, that is committed to the standard conception is false. Perhaps surprisingly, naïve realism provides a better account of color illusion.
• Mark Eli Kalderon (2008). Metamerism, constancy, and knowing which.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When Norm perceives a red tomato in his garden, Norm perceives the tomato and its sensible qualities
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://markelikalderon.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/metamerism.pdf
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/117/468/935
  
• Mark Eli Kalderon (online). The multiply qualitative.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://markelikalderon.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/selectionproblem.pdf
  
• Matthew Kennedy (2007). Visual Awareness of Properties.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I defend a view of the structure of visual property-awareness by considering the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. I argue that visual property-awareness is a three-place relation between a subject, a property, and a manner of presentation. Manners of presentation mediate our visual awareness of properties without being objects of visual awareness themselves. I provide criteria of identity for manners of presentation, and I argue that our ignorance of their intrinsic nature does not compromise the viability of a theory that employs them. In closing, I argue that the proposed manners of presentation are consistent with key direct-realist claims about the structure of visual awareness.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118493538/abstract
  
• Joseph Levine (2006). Color and color experience: Colors as ways of appearing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I argue that color is a relational feature of the distal objects of perception, a way of appearing. I begin by outlining three constraints any theory of color should satisfy: (i) physicalism about the non-mental world, (ii) consistency with what is known from color science, and (iii) transparency about color experience. Traditional positions on the ontological status of color, such as physicalist reduction of color to spectral re?ectance, subjectivism, dispositional- ism, and primitivism, fail, I claim, to meet all three constraints. By treating color as a relational property, a way of appearing, the three constraints can be met. However, serious problems for this view emerge when considering the relation between illusory color experiences (particularly hallucinations) and veridical color experiences. I do not propose a solution to these problems
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01056.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00004
  
• Fiona Macpherson (2005). Colour inversion problems for representationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I examine whether representationalism can account for various thought experiments about colour inversions. Representationalism is, at minimum, the view that, necessarily, if two experiences have the same representational content then they have the same phenomenal character. I argue that representationalism ought to be rejected if one holds externalist views about experiential content and one holds traditional exter- nalist views about the nature of the content of propositional attitudes. Thus, colour inver- sion scenarios are more damaging to externalist representationalist views than have been previously thought. More specifically, I argue that representationalists who endorse externalism about experiential content either have to become internalists about the content of propositional attitudes or they have to adopt a novel variety of externalism about the content of propositional attitudes. This novel type of propositional attitude externalism is investigated. It can be seen that adopting it forces one to reject Putnam
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/archive/00001996/
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21953_en.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00508.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2005/00000070/00000001/art00005
  
• Fiona Macpherson (forthcoming). 'Cognitive penetration of colour experience: Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the states of one’s cognitive system, for example, one’s thoughts or beliefs? Ifone thinks that this can happen [at least in certain ways that are identWed in the paper] then one thinks that there can be cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks that perceptual experience is cognitivelv impenetrable. I claim that there is one alleged case ofcognitive penetration that cannot be explained away by the standard strategies one can typicallv use to explain away alleged cases. The case is one in which it seems subjects’ beliefs about the typical colour of objects ajfects their colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual experience is cognitivelv penetrable will be less opposed to the idea when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who are generallv sympathetic to the idea ofcognitive penetrability will welcome the elucidation ofthis plausible mechanism
• Fiona Macpherson (2003). Novel colours and the content of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore that one cannot fully explain the nature of the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences using a naturalistic conception of representation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21949_en.pdf
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/philosophy/Personnel/Fiona/nc.pdf
  http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/archive/00000581/01/macpherson_ppq84.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0114.00162/enhancedabs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.00162
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2003/00000084/00000001/art00004
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2003/00000084/00000001/art00162
  
• Mohan P. Matthen (1999). The disunity of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is color? What is color vision? Most philosophers answer by reference to humans: to human color qualia, or to the environmental properties or "quality spaces" perceived by humans. It is argued, with reference to empirical findings concerning comparative color vision and the evolution of color vision, that all such attempts are mistaken. An adequate definition of color vision must eschew reference to its outputs in the human cognition and refer only to inputs: color vision consists in the use of wavelength discrimination in the construction of visual representations. A color quality is one that is generated from such processing
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/897/00/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000897/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:897
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2998260.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/897/1/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.org/897/0/color.asc.txt
  
• Adam Pautz (web). Can color structure be explained in terms of color experience?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Hardin argues that Reflectance Physicalism about color fails because it cannot accommodate color structure. David Lewis and others have replied that the Reflectance Physicalist may explain color structure in terms of color experience. I argue that this reply fails
• Sydney Shoemaker (2006). On the way things appear.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA461&ots=I0WFpBw5kw&sig=C-dp1CGlSiowuFuHyZR4hXJgcuc
  
• Susanna Siegel (ms). Comments on David Chalmers' "perception and the fall from Eden".   (More)
• Jeff Speaks (forthcoming). Spectrum inversion without a difference in representation is impossible.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Even if spectrum inversion of various sorts is possible, spectrum inversion without a difference in representation is not. So spectrum inversion does not pose a challenge for the intentionalist thesis that, necessarily, within a given sense modality, if two experiences are alike with respect to content, they are also alike with respect to their phenomenal character. On the contrary, reflection on variants of standard cases of spectrum inversion provides a strong argument for intentionalism. Depending on one's views about the possibility of various other sorts of spectrum inversion, the impossibility of spectrum inversion without difference in representation can also be used as an argument against a wide variety of reductive theories of mental representation.
• Brad J. Thompson (2006). Color constancy and Russellian representationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Representationalism, the view that phenomenal character supervenes on intentional content, has attracted a wide following in recent years. Most representationalists have also endorsed what I call 'standard Russellianism'. According to standard Russellianism, phenomenal content is Russellian in nature, and the properties represented by perceptual experiences are mind-independent physical properties. I argue that standard Russellianism conflicts with the everyday experience of colour constancy. Due to colour constancy, standard Russellianism is unable to simultaneously give a proper account of the phenomenal content of colour experience and do justice to its phenomenology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://faculty.smu.edu/bthompso/colorconstancy.html
  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048400600571752
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/K4L115G818041722.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a743879523~fulltext=713240930
  http://faculty.smu.edu/bthompso/colorconstancy.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a743879523~fulltext=713240930
  
• Evan Thompson (1995). Colour vision, evolution, and perceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: b>. Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for 'externalism' about perceptual content (content is distal) and 'objectivism' about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticized the 'computational objectivist' position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundmental differences among the colour vision of animals and these differences do not converge on the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my 'comparative argument;' his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology; therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j022545851375504/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J022545851375504.pdf
  
• Wayne Wright (2003). Projectivist representationalism and color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper proposes a subjectivist approach to color within the framework of an externalist form of representationalism about phenomenal consciousness. Motivations are presented for accepting both representationalism and color subjectivism, and an argument is offered against the case made by Michael Tye on behalf of the claim that colors are objective, physical properties of objects. In the face of the considerable difficulties associated with finding a workable realist theory of color, the alternative account of color experience set out, projectivist representationalism, claims that the color properties we encounter in experience exist only in the representational contents of our experiences. Color experiences are caused by the physical structure of objects, but objects are never actually colored and color experiences systematically misrepresent objects as colored. However, despite being an error theory of color, projectivist representationalism does not do violence to our everyday use and understanding of color concepts and terms, nor does it undermine the role of color experience in aiding the perceiving subject in navigating through the world
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.mindstuff.net/ProjReprColorDraft.PDF
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713629985~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/MVFFBRX8KDQ28W8E.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2003/00000016/00000004/art00003
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713629985~fulltext=713240930
  

Spatial Experience

• Bill Brewer (1992). Unilateral neglect and the objectivity of spatial representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Patients may show a more-or-less complete deviation of the head and eyes towards the right (ipsilesional) side [that is, to the same side of egocentric space as the brain lesion responsible for their disorder]. If addressed by the examiner from the left (contralesional) side [the opposite side to their lesion], patients with severe extrapersonal neglect may fail to respond or may look for the speaker in the right side of the room, turning head and eyes more and more to the right. Frequently these patients will not pick up food from the left half of the plate. Given a crossword puzzle, they may complete only the squares to the right. If walking is not prevented by hemiparesis, neglect patients may lose their bearings, since they do not make use of left sided cues
• Robert Briscoe (forthcoming). Perceiving the Present: Systematization of Illusions or Illusion of Systematization?   (More)
• Robert Briscoe (2008). Vision, action, and make-perceive.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, I critically assess the enactive account of visual perception recently defended by Alva Noë (2004). I argue inter alia that the enactive account falsely identifies an object’s apparent shape with its 2D perspectival shape; that it mistakenly assimilates visual shape perception and volumetric object recognition; and that it seriously misrepresents the constitutive role of bodily action in visual awareness. I argue further that noticing an object’s perspectival shape involves a hybrid experience combining both perceptual and imaginative elements – an act of what I call ‘make-perceive.’
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://phonline.org/paper.php?keynum=902
  http://cogprints.org/5781/1/VAMP.MS397.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121387369/PDFSTART
  http://chn.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/documents/VAMP.MS397.doc
  http://chn.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/documents/VAMP.MS397.pdf
  
• Quassim Cassam (2005). Space and objective experience.   (More)
• Austen Clark (online). Location, location, location.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Forthcoming in Lana Trick & Don Dedrick (eds.), Cognition, Computation, and Pylyshyn. MIT Press. Presented at the Zenon Pylyshyn Conference (ZenCon), University of Guelph, 1 May 2005
• Rick Grush (1998). Skill and spatial content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: [1] It is well-known that Evans laid the groundwork for a truly radical and fruitful theory of _content_ -- a theory according to which content is a genus with at least conceptual and nonconceptual varieties as species, and in which nonconceptual content plays a very significant role. It is less well-recognized that Evans was also in the process of working out the details of a truly radical and groundbreaking theory of _representation_, a task he was unfortunately unable to bring to any satisfactory stage of fruition. I am here drawing the distinction between a theory of
• Rick Grush (2000). Self, world and space: The meaning and mechanisms of ego- and allocentric spatial representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: b>: The problem of how physical systems, such as brains, come to represent themselves as subjects in an objective world is addressed. I develop an account of the requirements for this ability that draws on and refines work in a philosophical tradition that runs from Kant through Peter Strawson to Gareth Evans. The basic idea is that the ability to represent oneself as a subject in a world whose existence is independent of oneself involves the ability to represent space, and in particular, to represent oneself as one object among others in an objective spatial realm. In parallel, I provide an account of how this ability, and the mechanisms that support it, are realized neurobiologically. This aspect of the article draws on, and refines, work done in the neurobiology and psychology of egocentric and allocentric spatial representation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u498k42km1u3230l/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=256895&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U498K42KM1U3230L.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/bram/2000/00000001/00000001/00256895
  
• Gary Hatfield (2003). Representation and constraints: The inverse problem and the structure of visual space.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Visual space can be distinguished from physical space. The ?rst is found in visual experi- ence, while the second is de?ned independently of perception. Theorists have wondered about the relation between the two. Some investigators have concluded that visual space is non- Euclidean, and that it does not have a single metric structure. Here it is argued (1) that visual space exhibits contraction in all three dimensions with increasing distance from the observer, (2) that experienced features of this contraction (including the apparent convergence of lines in visual experience that are produced from physically parallel stimuli in ordinary viewing con- ditions) are not the same as would be the experience of a perspective projection onto a fronto- parallel plane, and (3) that such contraction is consistent with size constancy. These properties of visual space are di?erent from those that would be predicted if spatial perception resulted from the successful solution of the inverse problem. They are consistent with the notion that optical constraints have been internalized. More generally, they are also consistent with the notion that visual spatial structures bear a resemblance relation to physical spatial structures. This notion supports a type of representational relation that is distinct from mere causal cor- respondence. The reticence of some philosophers and psychologists to discuss the structure of phenomenal space is diagnosed in terms of the simple materialism and the functionalism of the 1970s and 1980s.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nici.kun.nl/~peterh/reprints/actaspecial/hatfield.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14670704&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=14670704&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0001691803000957
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00016918/2003/00000114/00000003/art00095
  
• Benj Hellie (ms). Visual form, attention, and binocularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This somewhat odd paper argues against a representational view of visual experience using an intricate "inversion" type thought experiment involving double vision: two subjects could represent external space in the same way while differing phenomenally due to different "spread" in their double images. The spatial structure of the visual field is explained not by representation of external space but functionally, in terms of the possible locations of an attentional spotlight. I'm fond of the ideas in this paper but doubt I'll be returning to it soon.
• Fiona Macpherson (2006). Ambiguous figures and the content of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counter-example to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or to judge- ments to account for Gestalt switching. I then argue that experiences of certain ambiguous figures are problematic because they have different phenomenal characters but that no difference in the nonconceptual content of these experiences can be identified. I consider three solutions to this problem that have been proposed by both philosophers and psychologists and conclude that none can account for all the ambiguous figures that pose the problem. I conclude that the onus is on representationalists to specify the relevant difference in content or to abandon their position
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21954_en.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2006.00602.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/nous/2006/00000040/00000001/art00003
  
• Pete Mandik (2005). Phenomenal consciousness and the allocentric-egocentric interface.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I propose and defend the Allocentric-Egocentric Interface Theory of Con- sciousness. Mental processes form a hierarchy of mental representations with maxi- mally egocentric (self-centered) representations at the bottom and maximally allocentric (other-centered) representations at the top. Phenomenally conscious states are states that are relatively intermediate in this hierarchy. More speci
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/zif.pdf
  
• Pete Mandik (1999). Qualia, space, and control.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to representionalists, qualia-the introspectible properties of sensory experience-are exhausted by the representational contents of experience. Representationalists typically advocate an informational psychosemantics whereby a brain state represents one of its causal antecedents in evolutionarily determined optimal circumstances. I argue that such a psychosemantics may not apply to certain aspects of our experience, namely, our experience of space in vision, hearing, and touch. I offer that these cases can be handled by supplementing informational psychosemantics with a procedural psychosemantics whereby a representation is about its effects instead of its causes. I discuss conceptual and empirical points that favor a procedural representationalism for our experience of space
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/mandik99qualia.html
  http://www.petemandik.com/philosophy/papers/qsc.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713690369~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/JGB66KUYJTG37HVF.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/JGB66KUYJTG37HVF.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/1999/00000012/00000001/art00003
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (2010). Perceiving the locations of sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Frequently, we learn of the locations of things and events in our environment by means of hearing. Hearing, I argue, is a locational mode of perceiving with a robustly spatial nature. I defend three proposals. First, audition furnishes information about the locations of things and events in one's environment because auditory experience itself is spatial. Audition represents space. Second, we hear the locations of things and events by or in hearing locational information about their sounds. Third, we auditorily experience sounds themselves as having relatively stable distal locations. I reject skepticism about spatial audition tracing to Strawson's Individuals, and suggest that spatial audition supports the view that audition and vision share a dimension of perceptual content
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). The locations of sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When you hear the sound of a car drive by on the street outside your window, you learn not only whether the car has a hole in its muffler or has squealing brakes. You also learn something about the location of the car because hearing furnishes information about the locations of its objects. By listening, you learn not only about the character of the things and happenings around you, but also about where they are in the surrounding environment. The question I wish to address is this: Do we hear the locations of sounds themselves, or do we merely hear the locations of sound sources—the objects and events that produce sounds? I shall argue that frequently we do hear the locations of sounds themselves, and that this is required in order to hear and learn the locations of sound-producing sources. This feature of auditory experience has consequences for the metaphysics of sounds. If we veridically hear the locations of sounds, then the most prominent conception of sounds is mistaken and we must revise our ontology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/2209313/2007/00000001/00000001/art00003
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2007). Action and self-location in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I offer an explanation of how subjects are able to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects, given that subjects always perceive from a particular location. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, I argue that a conception of space is necessary to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects. This conception of space is spelled out by showing that perceiving intrinsic properties requires perceiving objects as the kind of things that are perceivable from other locations. Second, I show that having such a conception of space presupposes that a subject represent her location in relation to perceived objects. More precisely the thesis is that a subject represents her location as the location from which she both perceives objects and would act in relation to objects were she to act. So I argue that perception depends on the capacity to know what it would be to act in relation to objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/116/463/603
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/463/603
  
• Brad J. Thompson (2010). The spatial content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123477104/PDFSTART
  

The Experience of Objects

• Kent Bach (online). Searle against the world: How can experiences find their objects?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Here's an old question in the philosophy of perception: here I am, looking at this pen [I hold up a pen in my hand]. Presumably I really am seeing this pen. Even so, I could be having an experience just like the one I am having without anything being there. So how can the experience I am having really involve direct awareness of the pen? It seems as though the presence of the pen is inessential to the way the experience is
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~kbach/Searle.html
  
• Austen Clark (2004). Feature-placing and proto-objects.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper contrasts three different schemes of reference relevant to understanding systems of perceptual representation: a location-based system dubbed "feature-placing", a system of "visual indices" referring to things called "proto-objects", and the full sortal-based individuation allowed by a natural language. The first three sections summarize some of the key arguments (in Clark, 2000) to the effect that the early, parallel, and pre-attentive registration of sensory features itself constitutes a simple system of nonconceptual mental representation. In particular, feature integration--perceiving something as being both F and G, where F and G are sensible properties registered in distinct parallel streams--requires a referential apparatus. Section V. reviews some grounds for thinking that at these earliest levels this apparatus is location-based: that it has a direct and nonconceptual means of picking out places. Feature-placing is contrasted with a somewhat more sophisticated system that can identify and track four or five "perceptual objects" or "proto-objects", independently of their location, for as long as they remain perceptible. Such a system is found in Zenon Pylyshyn's fascinating work on "visual indices", in Dana Ballard's notion of deictic codes, and in Kahneman, Treisman, and Wolfe's accounts of systems of evanescent representations they call "object files". Perceptual representation is a layered affair, and I argue that it probably includes both feature-placing and proto-objects. Finally, both nonconceptual systems are contrasted with the full-blooded individuation allowed in a natural language
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/representation/papers/Clark.pdf
  http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/representation/papers/Clark_2col.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997456~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/VRYD00AUKDL45Y03.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/VRYD00AUKDL45Y03.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2004/00000017/00000004/art00001
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713997456~fulltext=713240930
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2004). Objects, places, and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In Clark (2000), Austen Clark argues convincingly that a widespread view of perception as a complicated kind of feature-extraction is incomplete. He argues that perception has another crucial representational ingredient: it must also involve the representation of "sensory individuals" that exemplify sensorily extracted features. Moreover, he contends, the best way of understanding sensory individuals takes them to be places in space surrounding the perceiver. In this paper, I'll agree with Clark's case for sensory individuals (
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/646/
  http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/perception/clark.pdf
  http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2229&context=postprints
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997454~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/L9TY67YMP01DNUXL.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/L9TY67YMP01DNUXL.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2004/00000017/00000004/art00002
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713997454~fulltext=713240930
  
• Michael G. F. Martin (2002). Particular thoughts and singular thought.   (More)
• Mohan Matthen (2010). On the diversity of auditory objects.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper defends two theses about sensory objects. The more general thesis is that directly sensed objects are those delivered by sub-personal processes. It is shown how this thesis runs counter to perceptual atomism, the view that wholes are always sensed indirectly, through their parts. The more specific thesis is that while the direct objects of audition are all composed of sounds, these direct objects are not all sounds—here, a composite auditory object is a temporal sequence of sounds (whereas a composite visual object is a spatial composite). Many composite objects are directly heard in the sense just mentioned. There is a great variety of such composite auditory objects—melodies, harmonies, sequences of phonemes, individual voices, meaning-carrying sounds, and so on. This diversity of auditory objects has an important application to aesthetics. Perceivers do not naturally or easily attend simultaneously to auditory objects that overlap in time. Yet, aesthetic appreciation depends on such an allocation of attention to overlapping objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p16277t0336m8877/fulltext.pdf
  
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (2001). Connecting vision with the world: Tracking the missing link.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: You might reasonably surmise from the title of this paper that I will be discussing a theory of vision. After all, what is a theory of vision but a theory of how the world is connected to our visual representations? Theories of visual perception universally attempt to give an account of how a proximal stimulus (presumably a pattern impinging on the retina) can lead to a rich representation of a three dimensional world and thence to either the recognition of known objects or to the coordination of actions with visual information. Such theories typically provide an effective (i.e., computable) mapping from a 2D pattern to a representation of a 3D scene, usually in the form of a symbol structure. But such a mapping, though undoubtedly the essential purpose of a theory of vision, leaves at least one serious problem that I intend to discuss here. It is this problem, rather than a theory of vision itself, that is the subject of this talk
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/pub/papers/lisbon.pdf
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/lisbon.pdf
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/lisbon.pdf
  http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=v030786
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Q-Je_1uJWigC&oi=fnd&pg=PA183&ots=dcNVYE5B0w&sig=fQgyfhp2kSYeKsbK0AbwwMFccdk
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QJcvqs3lYyoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA183&dq=Connecting+vision+with+the+world+Pylyshyn&ots=ibDldLflzh&sig=O3GYEt9ylq9KNVtoxsJme99Myuk
  
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (2001). Visual indexes, preconceptual objects, and situated vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper argues that a theory of situated vision, suited for the dual purposes of object recognition and the control of action, will have to provide something more than a system that constructs a conceptual representation from visual stimuli: it will also need to provide a special kind of direct (preconceptual, unmediated) connection between elements of a visual representation and certain elements in the world. Like natural language demonstratives (such as `this' or `that') this direct connection allows entities to be referred to without being categorized or conceptualized. Several reasons are given for why we need such a preconcep- tual mechanism which individuates and keeps track of several individual objects in the world. One is that early vision must pick out and compute the relation among several individual objects while ignoring their properties. Another is that incrementally computing and updating representations of a dynamic scene requires keeping track of token individuals despite changes in their properties or locations. It is then noted that a mechanism meeting these requirements has already been proposed in order to account for a number of disparate empiri- cal phenomena, including subitizing, search-subset selection and multiple object tracking (Pylyshyn et al., Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 48(2) (1994) 260). This mechanism, called a visual index or FINST, is brie
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/cognition2001-reprint.pdf
  http://taylor0.biology.ucla.edu/al/resource/reference/pylyshyn.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=11245842&dopt=citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11245842&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00100277/2001/00000080/00000001/art00156
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2007). Action and self-location in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I offer an explanation of how subjects are able to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects, given that subjects always perceive from a particular location. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, I argue that a conception of space is necessary to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects. This conception of space is spelled out by showing that perceiving intrinsic properties requires perceiving objects as the kind of things that are perceivable from other locations. Second, I show that having such a conception of space presupposes that a subject represent her location in relation to perceived objects. More precisely the thesis is that a subject represents her location as the location from which she both perceives objects and would act in relation to objects were she to act. So I argue that perception depends on the capacity to know what it would be to act in relation to objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/116/463/603
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/463/603
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (forthcoming). Perceptual content defended.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recently the thesis that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists. I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids the objections of austere relationalists. The main thesis of the paper is that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. I argue that most austere relationalist objections to the thesis that experience has content are objections only against accounts of perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But against austere relationalists, I will argue that it is fundamentally both relational and representational
• Susanna Siegel (ms). Particularity and presence in visual perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the difference between perception and mere sensation? Take a typical perceptual experience, such as an experience of seeing a fish or a table, and a merely sensory experience, such as the experience of
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/115/3/355
  
• Susanna Siegel (2002). Review of A Theory of Sentience, by Austen Clark.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: First, what it is for a sentient being to sense is for it to employ two distinct capacities: one for representing places-at-times; the other for representing "features" (60, cf. 70). Exercised together, the result is akin to feature-placing, which brings us to the second thesis: what sensory systems represent is that features are instantiated at place-times. Accordingly, sensory systems do not, for instance, attribute properties to objects, such as trees, tables, bodies, or persons (163)
• Susanna Siegel (2005). Subject and object in the contents of visual experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the difference between perception and mere sensation? Take a typical perceptual experience, such as an experience of seeing a fish or a table, and a merely sensory experience, such as the experience of ‘seeing stars’ or of enjoying a red phosphene (a phosphene is a kind of afterimage). One difference between these experiences is that in the first case, there is an external object that one sees. But this difference is not the only difference. On the face of it, typical perceptual experiences and mere sensations also differ in their phenomenal character. How can this difference be understood?
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/ppvpO04.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msocproofs.pdf
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msocproofs.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/citation/115/3/355
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/115/3/355
  
• Alan Thomas (online). Perceptual knowledge, representation and imagination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The focus of this paper will be on the problem of perceptual presence and on a solution to this problem pioneered by Kant [1781; 1783] and refined by Sellars [Sellars, 1978] and Strawson [Strawson, 1971]. The problem of perceptual presence is that of explaining how our perceptual experience of the world gives us a robust sense of the presence of objects in perception over and above those sensory aspects of the object given in perception. Objects possess other properties which are, one might say, phenomenologically present even though they are admittedly sensorily absent. The general form of the solution to this problem that Kant developed seems to me to be a neglected resource in contemporary work on perceptual consciousness. Kant solves the problem of perceptual presence by appealing to that which he called the productive use of the imagination. This faculty of mind supplies schematic representations of the object of perception that explains a phenomenological sense of perceptual presence even of those features that are not, in a sense to be further clarified,
• Michael Tye (2007). Intentionalism and the argument from no common content.   (More)

The Experience of High-Level Properties

• Tim Bayne, Perceptual experience and the reach of phenomenal content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The phenomenal character of perceptual experience involves the representation of colour, spatial and temporal properties, but does it also involve the representation of high-level categories? Is the recognition of an object as a tomato encoded in the phenomenology of perception? Proponents of a conservative view of the reach of phenomenal content say “no”, whereas those who take a liberal view of perceptual phenomenology say “yes”. This paper clarifies the debate between conservatives and liberals, and provides a case in favour of the liberal position: high-level content can inform perceptual phenomenology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/12842/perceptual_experience_web.pdf
  
• Tim Bayne, The sense of agency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Where in cognitive architecture do experiences of agency lie? This chapter defends the claim that such states qualify as a species of perception. Reference to ‘the sense of agency’ should not be taken as a mere façon de parler but picks out a genuinely perceptual system. The chapter begins by outlining the perceptual model of agentive experience before turning to its two main rivals: the doxastic model, according to which agentive experience is really a species of belief, and the telic model, according to which agentive experience is really a species of agency. I conclude by defending the perceptual model against a number of objections to it, and by briefly exploring its implications for the question of how to approach the study of perception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/12843/Sense_of_agency_web.pdf
  
• Jack Lyons (2007). Clades, Capgras and Perceptual Kinds.   (More)
• Fabian Dorsch, Higher-level perception: Sibley's case for aesthetic perception (draft).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One important issue in the philosophy of perception is the question of which features of objects are perceivable.1 Perhaps the only fairly uncontroversial claim in this debate is that we can perceive the traditional examples of what have been called ‘secondary qualities’ — such as colours, smells, or tastes.2 But even among those who accept that we are also able to perceive certain basic ‘primary qualities’ — notably shapes, distances, sizes, weights, and so on — there is disagreement about whether our access to more higher-level properties can likewise be perceptual. Thus, it is debated, for instance, whether we can see the sadness or intelligence of a friend, the kindness of an action, the elegance of a gait, the climbability of a wall, the fragility of a glass, the quality of a proof or of a move in chess, the content of a painting, or even simpler properties like being a bottle or being a cat. Some of our recognitions of such higher-level features have three things in common. First, they are immediate in the sense of being phenomenologically (or psychologically) immediate. We need not engage in a conscious inference or another form of reasoning in order to notice that someone is sad or that a certain chess move is bad. Second, our awareness of the higher-level features involves or is grounded in the — typically perceptual — recognition of relevant lower-level features which contribute to the realisation3 of the higher-level features in question. We notice that a friend is sad partly on the basis of perceiving the tone of his voice or the shape of his gestures. And we notice that a chess move is bad partly in response to perceiving the specific situation on the board. Third, we have an intelligible and reasonable practice of backing up our ascriptions of the higher-level features by highlighting the respective lower-level properties. When someone challenges our judgement that our friend is sad, or the move bad, we support our assessments by referring to the lower-level features just mentioned..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ideengeschichten.de/files/hlp.pdf
  http://sfhd.exre.org/files/hlp.pdf
  
• Curt J. Ducasse (1926). On the nature and the observability of the causal relation.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(19260204)23:3<57:OTNATO>2.0.CO;2-4
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2014377.pdf
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2014377
  
• Frank Hofmann (ms). Perception: Perspectival content and perceptual achievement.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to a classical causal account of perception, to perceive that object x is F is to fulfill the following conditions: (i) one has an experience as of x's being F, (ii) x is F, and (iii) one's experience of x's being F depends causally on x's being F. This is the core of Grice's causal theory of perception, and it is initially quite plausible (Grice 1961)
• Riccardo Luccio & Donata Milloni (2004). Perception of causality: A dynamical analysis.   (More)
• Fiona Macpherson (2006). Ambiguous figures and the content of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counter-example to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or to judge- ments to account for Gestalt switching. I then argue that experiences of certain ambiguous figures are problematic because they have different phenomenal characters but that no difference in the nonconceptual content of these experiences can be identified. I consider three solutions to this problem that have been proposed by both philosophers and psychologists and conclude that none can account for all the ambiguous figures that pose the problem. I conclude that the onus is on representationalists to specify the relevant difference in content or to abandon their position
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21954_en.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0029-4624.2006.00602.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/nous/2006/00000040/00000001/art00003
  
• William E. S. McNeill (forthcoming). On Seeing That Someone is Angry.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some propose that the question of how you know that James is angry can be adequately answered with the claim that you see that James is angry. Call this the Perceptual Hypothesis. Here, I examine that hypothesis.
  
  I argue that there are two different ways in which the Perceptual Hypothesis could be made true. You might see that James is angry by seeing his bodily features. Alternatively, you might see that James is angry by seeing his anger. If you see that James is angry in the first way, your knowledge is inferential. If you see that James is angry in the second way, your knowledge is not inferential. These are different ways of knowing that James is angry. So the Perceptual Hypothesis alone does not adequately answer the question of how you know that fact. To ascertain how you know it, we need to decide whether or not you saw his anger.
  
  This is an epistemological argument. But it has consequences for a theory of perception. It implies that there is a determinate fact about which features of an object you see. This fact is made true independently of what you come to know by seeing.
  
  In the final section of the paper, I seek to undermine various ways in which the claim that you see James’ anger may be thought implausible.
  
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ucl.academia.edu/WilliamMcNeill/Papers
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123574706/PDFSTART
  
• Alan Millar (2008). Perceptual-recognitional abilities and perceptual knowledge.   (More)
• Ian Phillips (online). Perception and context.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I develop a seeming antinomy in relation to the question, Do natural kind properties, strictly speaking, characterize the phenomenology of experience? Or, in Peacockean terms, Are natural kind concepts observational? On the one hand, na
• Jesse J. Prinz (2006). Beyond appearances: The content of sensation and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There seems to be a large gulf between percepts and concepts. In particular, con- cepts seem to be capable of representing things that percepts cannot. We can conceive of things that would be impossible to perceive. (The converse may also seem true, but I will leave that to one side.) In one respect, this is trivially right. We can conceive of things that we cannot encounter, such as unicorns. We cannot literally perceive unicorns, even if we occasionally
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA434&ots=_ol_BkrzBN&sig=zfUzmJ1ACP__8z5Fzqg5RZFXkqY
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA434&ots=I0WFpJu8kx&sig=0I74OWnDgtjtHBs7bm62OoUx5Wk
  
• Susanna Siegel (ms). Misperception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In discussions of perception and its provision of knowledge, it is common to distinguish what one comes to believe on the basis of perception from the distinctively perceptual basis of one's belief. The distinction can be drawn in terms of propositional contents: there are the contents that a perceiver would normally come to believe on the basis of her perception, on the one hand; and there are the contents properly attributed to perception itself, on the other. Consider the content
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msp/msp5_02.html
  
• Susanna Siegel (2005). Subject and object in the contents of visual experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the difference between perception and mere sensation? Take a typical perceptual experience, such as an experience of seeing a fish or a table, and a merely sensory experience, such as the experience of ‘seeing stars’ or of enjoying a red phosphene (a phosphene is a kind of afterimage). One difference between these experiences is that in the first case, there is an external object that one sees. But this difference is not the only difference. On the face of it, typical perceptual experiences and mere sensations also differ in their phenomenal character. How can this difference be understood?
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/ppvpO04.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msocproofs.pdf
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msocproofs.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/citation/115/3/355
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/115/3/355
  
• Susanna Siegel (2009). The visual experience of causation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How is causation represented in the mind? We often believe that one event has caused another. But can we visually experience two things as causally related? If so, then experiences represent causation. A different question in the vicinity is whether we can ever see that something is causing (or has just caused) something else to happen. In the relevant sense of ‘seeing’ here, seeing is factive – you can see that p only if p. By contrast, experiential representation of properties or relations is not factive, so you can represent that p even if p is not true
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/mscmay06.html
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/Siegel_Causation.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121596730/PDFSTART
  
• Susanna Siegel (2006). Which properties are represented in perception?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA481&ots=_ol_BkstEK&sig=TKVvhdgHEq_g7Im6rGbcMiYsBFo
  
• Joel Smith (forthcoming). Seeing Other People.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I present a perceptual account of other minds that combines a Husserlian insight about perceptual experience with a functionalist account of mental properties.
• Rebecca Copenhaver (forthcoming). Thomas Reid on Acquired Perception.   (More)
• James Woodward, Causal perception and causal cognition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper explores some issues having to do with the perception of causation. It discusses the role that phenomena that that are associated with causal perception, such as Michottean launching interactions, play within philosophical accounts of causation and also speculates on their possible role in development

The Contents of Perception, Misc

• István Aranyosi, The reappearing act.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In a recent article, Roy Sorensen proposed a very interesting puzzle involving shadows – The Disappearing Act puzzle (2006). It was left unsolved there. Nevertheless, in his latest book he has added a new thought in guise of a solution to it (2008: 73-75). In what follows I will argue that Sorensen’s solution has some shortcomings, and will offer an alternative to it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j7x3627874444hw2/fulltext.pdf
  http://sites.google.com/site/istvanaranyosi/thereappearingactactaanalytica.pdf
  http://www.istvanaranyosi.net/resources/the%20reappearing%20act%20acta%20analytica.pdf
  http://istvanaranyosi.net/resources/the%20reappearing%20act%20acta%20analytica.pdf
  
• John L. Bell (2000). Continuity and the logic of perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: If we imagine a chess-board with alternate blue and red squares, then this is something in which the individual red and blue areas allow themselves to be distinguished from each other in juxtaposition, and something similar holds also if we imagine each of the squares divided into four smaller squares also alternating between these two colours. If, however, we were to continue with such divisions until we had exceeded the boundary of noticeability for the individual small squares which result, then it would no longer be possible to apprehend the individual red and blue areas in their respective positions. But would we then see nothing at all? Not in the least; rather we would see the whole chessboard as violet, i.e. apprehend it as something that participates simultaneously in red and blue
• Bill Brewer (2006). Perception and content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is close to current orthodoxy that perceptual experience is to be characterized, at least in part, by its representational content, roughly, by the way it represents things as being in the world around the perceiver. Call this basic idea the content view (CV)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/staff/brewer/pc2.pdf
  http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/staff/brewer/pc.ejp.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2006.00220.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ejop/2006/00000014/00000002/art00001
  
• Berit Brogaard, Centered worlds and the content of perception: Short version.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 0. Relativistic Content In standard semantics, propositional content, whether it be the content of utterances or mental states, has a truth-value relative only to a possible world. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is sitting now’ is true just in case Jim is sitting at the time of utterance in the actual world, and the content of my belief that Alice will give a talk tomorrow is true just in case Alice will give a talk on the day following the occurrence of my belief state in the actual world. Let us call propositional content which has a truth-value relative only to a possible world ‘non-relativistic content’. Non-relativistic content can be treated as either structured or unstructured. On the unstructured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set of possible worlds and bears the truth-value true just in case the actual world is a member of that set. For example, the content of my utterance of ‘Jim is working now’ at time t is the set of worlds in which Jim is working at t, and this content is true just in case the actual world is among those worlds. On the structured-content view, non-relativistic content is a set or conglomeration of properties and/or objects, where properties are features which objects possess regardless of who considers or observes them and regardless of when they are being considered or observed. Such properties are said to be (or represent) functions from possible worlds to extensions. Relative to a possible world they determine a set of objects instantiating the property. For example, relative to the actual world the property of being human determines the set of actual humans. Not all content is non-relativistic. Let us say that propositional content is relativistic just in case it possesses a truth-value only relative to a centered world. A centered world is a possible world in which an individual and a time are marked, where the marked individual..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://brogaardb.googlepages.com/TheContentofPerception.pdf
  http://brogaardb.googlepages.com/CenteredWorldsandtheContentofPercept.pdf
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/CenteredWorldsandtheContentofPercept.pdf
  
• Berit Brogaard, Perceptual content and monadic truth: On Cappelen and Hawthorne's relativism and monadic truth.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: They call T1-T5 the ‘simple view’ or ‘Simplicity’ for short (I will use ‘Simplicity’ and ‘the monadic truth package’ synonymously). C & H say that Simplicity is neutral on what exactly propositions are. They may be Russellian or of some different variety. This, however, does not seem quite right. For example, it is not obvious that Simplicity and Fregeanism are compatible. The 1- intension of ‘That instantiates a property that normally gives rise to red sensations in me’ has a truth-value only relative to a centered world (or a triple of a world, an individual and a time) (Chalmers 2006b). So, Simplicity rules out a treatment of 1-intensions as propositions (and..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/ColorContentandMonadicTruth.pdf
  
• David J. Chalmers (2006). Perception and the fall from Eden.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In the Garden of Eden, we had unmediated contact with the world. We were directly acquainted with objects in the world and with their properties. Objects were simply presented to us without causal mediation, and properties were revealed to us in their true intrinsic glory
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://consc.net/papers/eden.html
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/papers/eden.html
  
• John B. Dilworth (2005). The double content of perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y?(X?) as a higher level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y?(X?) must be
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/g5445x30v2t81350/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5253108&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/G5445X30V2T81350.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2005/00000146/00000003/00006209
  
• John B. Dilworth (2005). The twofold orientational structure of perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that perceptual content involves representations both of aspects of objects, and of objects themselves, whether at the level of conscious perception, or of low-level perceptual processing - a double content structure. I present an 'orientational' theory of the relations of the two kinds of perceptual content, which can accommodate both the general semantic possibility of perceptual misrepresentation, and also species of it involving characteristic perceptual confusions of aspectual and intrinsic content. The resulting theoretical structure is argued to be a broadly methodological or logical one, rather than a substantive theory that is open to empirical refutation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://homepages.wmich.edu/~dilworth/The_Twofold_Orientational_Structure_of_Perception.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997476~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/K04WW38444V64337.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713997476.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000002/art00003
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713997476~fulltext=713240930
  
• J. Dokic (1998). The ontology of perception: Bipolarity and content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/05/33/95/PDF/ijn_00000277_00.pdf
  http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/05/33/95/PDF/ijn_00000277_00.pdf
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/02/77/ijn_00000277_00/ijn_00000277_00.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/t30547n48814v755/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=167060&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/T30547N48814V755.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/erke/1998/00000048/F0020002/00167060
  
• Frank Hofmann (ms). Perception: Perspectival content and perceptual achievement.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to a classical causal account of perception, to perceive that object x is F is to fulfill the following conditions: (i) one has an experience as of x's being F, (ii) x is F, and (iii) one's experience of x's being F depends causally on x's being F. This is the core of Grice's causal theory of perception, and it is initially quite plausible (Grice 1961)
• Michael Jacovides (ms). Do experiences represent?   (More)
• Fiona Macpherson (1999). Perfect pitch and the content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://lgxserve.ciseca.uniba.it/lei/mind/texts/t0000004.htm
  
• Christopher Mole (2009). The Motor Theory of Speech Perception.   (More)
• Carlos Mario Muñoz-Suárez (2009). Sensations, Perceptions and Conceptions. Remarks on Assessability for Accuracy.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I shall specify about what we are thinking when we are talking about regulating something by specifying accuracy conditions. The main thesis is that we couldn’t describe representational relations as perceptual relationships if we lack a normative conception of relationships between representing and represented. Hence, searching for what it is assessable for accuracy depends on specifying the kind of intentional content which is normatively individuated and attributed.
• Casey O'Callaghan (2008). Seeing what you hear: Cross-modal illusions and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Cross-modal perceptual illusions occur when a stimulus to one modality impacts perceptual experience associated with another modality. Unlike synaesthesia, cross-modal illusions are intelligible as results of perceptual strategies for dealing with sensory stimulation to multiple modalities, rather than as mere quirks. I argue that understanding cross-modal illusions reveals an important flaw in a widespread conception of the senses, and of their role in perceptual experience, according to which understanding perception and perceptual experience is a matter of assembling independently viable stories about vision, audition, olfaction, and the rest.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121417802/PDFSTART
  
• Simon Prosser (forthcoming). The two-dimensional content of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I put forward a representationalist theory of conscious experience based on Robert Stalnaker
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l45321u169680433/fulltext.pdf
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (forthcoming). Perceptual content defended.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recently the thesis that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists. I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids the objections of austere relationalists. The main thesis of the paper is that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. I argue that most austere relationalist objections to the thesis that experience has content are objections only against accounts of perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But against austere relationalists, I will argue that it is fundamentally both relational and representational
• Susanna Schellenberg (2006). Perception in Perspective.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How can perception yield knowledge of the world? One challenge in answering this question is that one necessarily perceives from a particular location. Thus, what is immediately perceptually available is subject to situational features, such as lighting conditions and one’s location. Nonetheless, one can perceive the shape and color of objects. My dissertation aims to provide an explanation for how this is possible. The main thesis is that giving such an explanation requires abandoning the traditional model of perception as a two-place relation between subjects and objects in favor of a model of perception as a three-place relation between subjects, objects, and situations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/1611/
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2010). The Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that any account of perceptual experience should satisfy the following two desiderata. First, it should account for the particularity of perceptual experience, that is, it should account for the mind-independent object of an experience making a difference to individuating the experience. Second, it should explain the possibility that perceptual relations to distinct environments could yield subjectively indistinguishable experiences. Relational views of perceptual experience can easily satisfy the first but not the second desideratum. Representational views can easily satisfy the second but not the first desideratum. I argue that to satisfy both desiderata perceptual experience is best conceived of as fundamentally both relational and representational. I develop a view of perceptual experience that synthesizes the virtues of relationalism and representationalism, by arguing that perceptual content is constituted by potentially gappy de re modes of presentation.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/SchellenbergParticularityPhenomenology.pdf
  http://rsss.anu.edu.au/%7Esusanna/SchellenbergParticularityPhenomenology.pdf
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2008). The Situation-Dependency of Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that perception is necessarily situation-dependent. The way an object is must not just be distinguished from the way it appears and the way it is represented, but also from the way it is presented given the situational features. First, I argue that the way an object is presented is best understood in terms of external, mind-independent, but situation-dependent properties of objects. Situation-dependent properties are exclusively sensitive to and ontologically dependent on the intrinsic properties of objects, such as their shape, size, and color, and the situational features, such as the lighting conditions and the perceiver’s location in relation to the perceived object. Second, I argue that perceiving intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on representing situation-dependent properties. Recognizing situation-dependent properties yields four advantages. It makes it possible to embrace the motivations that lead to phenomenalism and indirect realism by recognizing that objects are presented a certain way, while holding on to the intuition that subjects directly perceive objects. Second, it acknowledges that perceptions are not just individuated by the objects they are of, but by the ways those objects are presented given the situational features. Third, it allows for a way to accommodate the fact that there is a wide range of viewing conditions or situational features that can count as normal. Finally, it makes it possible to distinguish perception and thought about the same object with regard to what is represented.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://rsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/Situation-DependencyOfPerception.pdf
  
• Susanna Siegel, Do visual experiences have contents.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: If you want to know whether there is any mustard in the refrigerator, it is a good idea to open the door and look. If you see the mustard, you can end up knowing its whereabouts: it’s in the fridge. If instead of looking for the mustard, you pictured the fridge interior in a daydream, and then relied on your daydream to confirm whether the fridge contained mustard or not, you wouldn’t end up knowing anything about the mustard or the fridge. At best you would end up with a true belief. As the mustard example illustrates, it is part of common practice to regard perception as a special kind of input to belief that allows us to compare hypotheses with the world, so that we may assess whether those hypotheses are true. Even philosophers who were cautious about assigning perception more than a causal role in relation to knowledge regard perception as involving a special sort of input, different in kind from belief and judgment. For instance, Locke distinguished ideas of sensation from ideas of reflection, and Hume distinguished impressions from ideas. Both in common practice and in philosophy, perception is regarded as a distinctive kind of mental state that serves as an input to belief, and is distinct from it. It is one thing to regard perceptual states as distinct from belief, but another to say what is distinctive about them. What distinguishes perceptual states from beliefs, daydreams, and all other kinds of mental states? In this paper I address this question for a specific class of perceptual states: conscious visual experiences, where these are the kind of experience one typically has in seeing one’s environment, or are [1] introspectively indistinguishable from them. Conscious visual experiences thus include visual hallucinations that are introspectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptions. I argue that visual perceptual experiences share an important feature with beliefs: they have contents, in a sense to be explained. Given this similarity between visual experiences and beliefs, their distinctness from belief must be found either in a further structure from which their contents have been derived, from a special mode of entertaining contents (distinct from the mode found in belief). My discussion will focus on interpreting, developing and defending the following thesis: The Content View: All visual perceptual experiences have contents. The kind of content at issue meets two constraints: contents are true or false, and contents of experience are conveyed to the subject by her experience..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SPAWN_SIEGEL_7.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SPAWN_SIEGEL_3.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SPAWN_SIEGEL_2.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SPAWN_SIEGEL_postpo10.htm
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SPAWN_SIEGEL_Sept1509.html
  
• Susanna Siegel (2007). How can we discover the contents of experience?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I discuss several proposals for how to find out which contents visual experiences have, and I defend the method I
• Susanna Siegel (online). The contents of perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/SIEGEL_SAGE.htm
  http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2005/entries/perception-contents/
  
• Jeff Speaks (ms). A quick argument against phenomenism, Fregeanism, appearance property-ism and (maybe) functionalism about perceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A short paper which is pretty much what its title says it is.
• Konrad Talmont-Kaminski & John D. Collier (2004). Saving the distinctions: Distinctions as the epistemologically significant content of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: To account for a perceived distinction it is necessary to postulate a real distinction. Our process of experiencing the world is one of, mostly unconscious, interpretation of observed distinctions to provide us with a partial world-picture that is sufficient to guide action. The distinctions, themselves, are acorrigible (they do not have a truth value), directly perceived, structured, and capable of being interpreted. Interpreted experience is corrigible, representational and capable of guiding action. Since interpretation is carried out mostly unconsciously and in real time, the two aspects are present in experience together so that it is difficult to separate them out
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://bacon.umcs.lublin.pl/~ktalmont/pdf/Save distinctions.pdf
  
• Brad J. Thompson (2009). Senses for senses.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: If two subjects have phenomenally identical experiences, there is an important sense in which the way the world appears to them is precisely the same. But how are we to understand this notion of 'ways of appearing'? Most philosophers who have acknowledged the existence of phenomenal content have held that the way something appears is simply a matter of the properties something appears to have. On this view, the way something appears is simply the way something appears to be . This identification supports a Russellian theory of phenomenal content, according to which phenomenal content is exhausted by facts about what specific properties are represented by an experience. The present paper motivates and develops an alternative Fregean theory of phenomenal colour content. According to Fregean theories, the phenomenal content that is shared by any two phenomenally identical experiences is a matter of how the world is represented, and need not involve sameness in what is represented. It is argued that ways of appearing are modes of presentations of external properties and objects, and a detailed theory is presented about the nature of the modes of presentation involved in colour experience
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a905325479~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a905325479~fulltext=713240930
  
• Michael Tye (2007). Intentionalism and the argument from no common content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Disjunctivists (Hinton 1973, Snowdon 1990, Martin 2002, 2006) often motivate their approach to perceptual experience by appealing in part to the claim that in cases of veridical perception, the subject is directly in contact with the perceived object. When I perceive a table, for example, there is no table-like sense-impression that stands as an intermediary between the table and me. Nor am I related to the table as I am to a deer when I see its footprint in the snow. I do not experience the table by experiencing some- thing else over and above the table and its facing surface. I see the facing surface of the table directly
• John Zeimbekis (2010). Pictures and singular thought.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://zeimbekis.free.fr/PSTpenultimate.pdf
  

Sensory Modalities

Distinguishing the Senses

• Louw Feenstra & Johannes Borgstein (2003). The senses in perspective.   (More)
• Richard Gray (2005). On the concept of a sense.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Keeley has recently argued that the philosophical issue of how to analyse the concept of a sense can usefully be addressed by considering how scientists, and more specifically neuroethologists, classify the senses. After briefly outlining his proposal, which is based on the application of an ordered set of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for modality differentiation, I argue, by way of two complementary counterexamples, that it fails to account fully for the way the senses are in fact individuated in neuroethology and other relevant sciences. I suggest substantial modifications to Keeley
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p2v3w4134469106v/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P2V3W4134469106V.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2005/00000147/00000003/00001334
  
• Brian L. Keeley (2002). Making sense of the senses: Individuating modalities in humans and other animals.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mugwump.pitzer.edu/~bkeeley/work/PUBS/msos/msos.pdf
  http://mugwump.pitzer.edu/~bkeeley/work/PUBS/msos/MSOS_PAP.HTM
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(200201)99:1<5:MSOTSI>2.0.CO;2-M
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3655759.pdf
  
• Matthew Nudds (online). Is seeing just like feeling? Kinds of experiences and the five senses.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I am going to argue that two commonly held views about perceptual experience are incompatible and that one must be given up. The first is the view that the five senses are to be distinguished by appeal to the kind of experiences involved in perception; the second is the view
• Matthew Nudds (online). The senses as psychological kinds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The distinction we make between five different senses is a universal one.¹ Rather than speaking of generically perceiving something, we talk of perceiving in one of five determinate ways: we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste things. In distinguishing determinate ways of perceiving things what are we distinguishing between? What, in other words, is a sense modality?² An answer to this question must tell us what constitutes a sense modality and so needs to do more than simply describe differences in virtue of which we can distinguish the perceptions of different senses. There are many such differences
• Matthew Nudds (2004). The significance of the senses.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Standard accounts of the senses attempt to answer the question how and why we count ?ve senses (the counting question); none of the standard accounts is satisfactory. Any adequate account of the senses must explain the signi?cance of the senses, that is, why distinguishing different senses matters. I provide such an explanation, and then use it as the basis for providing an account of the senses and answering the counting question
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.0066-7373.2004.00080.x/abs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-9264.t01-1-00002/pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0066-7373.2004.00080.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9264.t01-1-00002
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/paso/2003/00000104/00000001/art00002
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/supa/2004/00000105/00000001/art00002
  
• John O'Dea (forthcoming). A Proprioceptive Account of the Senses.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Representationalist theories of sensory experience are often thought to be vulnerable to the existence of apparently non-representational differences between experiences in different sensory modalities. Seeing and hearing seem to differ in their qualia, quite apart from what they represent. The origin of this idea is perhaps Grice’s argument, in “Some Remarks on the Senses,” that the senses are distinguished by “introspectible character.” In this chapter I take the Representationalist side by putting forward an account of sense modalities which is consistent with that view and yet pays due regard to the intuition behind Grice’s argument. Employing J.J. Gibson’s distinction between exploratory and performatory behaviour, I point to a proprioceptive element in perceptual experience, and identify this as crucial in any account of what makes a particular way of perceiving a sense modality.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jodea.net/papers/senses-experience.html
  
• Peter W. Ross (2008). Common sense about qualities and senses.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There has been some recent optimism that addressing the question of how we distinguish sensory modalities will help us consider whether there are limits on a scientific understanding of perceptual states. For example, Block has suggested that the way we distinguish sensory modalities indicates that perceptual states have qualia which at least resist scientific characterization. At another extreme, Keeley argues that our common-sense way of distinguishing the senses in terms of qualitative properties is misguided, and offers a scientific eliminativism about common-sense modalities which avoids appeal to qualitative properties altogether. I’ll argue contrary to Keeley that qualitative properties are necessary for distinguishing senses, and contrary to Block that our common-sense distinction doesn’t indicate that perceptual states have qualia. A non-qualitative characterization of perceptual states isn’t needed to avoid the potential limit on scientific understanding imposed by qualia
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/18113h050r0x0185/fulltext.pdf
  
• P. Ross (2001). Qualia and the senses.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/private/ross-qualia-senses.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-9213.00243/enhancedabs/
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8094(200110)51:205<495:QATS>2.0.CO;2-U
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8094(200110)51:205<495:QATS>2.0.CO;2-U
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9213.00243
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3543030.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/phiq/2001/00000051/00000205/art00005
  

Vision

• Paul M. Churchland (1995). Machine stereopsis: A feedforward network for fast stereo vision with movable fusion plane.   (More)
• Austen Clark (1996). Three varieties of visual field.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The goal of this paper is to challenge the rather insouciant attitude that many investigators seem to adopt when they go about describing the items and events in their "visual fields". There are at least three distinct categories of interpretation of what these reports might mean, and only under one of those categories do those reports have anything resembling an observational character. The others demand substantive revisions in one's beliefs about what one sees. The ur-concept of a "visual field" is that of the "sum of things seen", but one can interpret the latter in very different ways. The first is the "field of view", or the sum of physical things seen. The second is an array of visual impressions, whose spatial relations are distinct from those of physical phenomena in front of the eyes. The third is an intentional object: the world as it is represented visually. These three categories are described, and various locutions of vision science--such as "optic array", "retinocentric space", "visual geometry", "virtual object" and others--are analyzed and variously located within them. Finally, a recent argument purporting to necessitate the existence of a version two visual field is examined and shown wanting
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://selfpace.uconn.edu/paper/ClarkAusVisall5.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a793914986~fulltext=713240930
  
• John B. Dilworth (2002). Varieties of visual representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Pictorial representation is one species of visual representation--but not the only one, I argue. There are three additional varieties or species of visual representation--namely 'structural', 'aspect' and 'integrative' representation--which together comprise a category of 'delineative' rather than depictive visual representation. I arrive at this result via consideration of previously neglected orientational factors that serve to distinguish the two categories. I conclude by arguing that pictures (unlike 'delineations') are not physical objects, and that their multiplicity and modal narrowness motivates a view of them as instead being (one kind of) 'delineatively' represented content or subject matter, as represented by those objects that are (commonly but wrongly, in my view) assumed to be pictures
• Vadim D. Glezer (1989). Vision and mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jmPO2RpoG-kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+Vision+and+mind+Glezer&ots=xGm9OsYuJM&sig=UaVC0fup5vfeEO7MY5x-WFuG2rU
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jmPO2RpoG-kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=+Vision+and+mind+Glezer&ots=xGlbLrXyFN&sig=OgwUY1UFR41ZyG5YE_Ke621xzng
  
• Christopher S. Hill (online). Visual awareness and visual qualia.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Department of Philosophy Brown University Providence, RI 02915
• Tomis Kapitan (1998). Vision, vector, veracity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: To experience is to undergo a process, to be in a state of receiving input which affords information about our environment. For highly developed beings like ourselves, the inputs determining states of conscious sensory perception are among the most important for our survival. At first glance, these states seem relational, each being a situation wherein a percipient X is passively conscious of something Y--its object, subject-matter, or content--without any apparent effort. Of course, the briefest reflection convinces us that despite a seemingly passive reception of data from without, a good deal of interpretation goes into the making of perceptual judgments, as evidenced by their wide variance in the face of like sensory stimulation. One person looking at the slope of a mountain notices a patch of whitish stones; another sees a flock of sheep grazing. They are distinguished by their different reactions to similar input, whether or not these are best construed as inferences, interpretations, or, simply, differing degrees of attentiveness
• Mohan Matthen (2007). Defining vision: What homology thinking contributes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The specialization of visual function within biological function is reason for introducing “homology thinking” into explanations of the visual system. It is argued that such specialization arises when organisms evolve by differentiation from their predecessors. Thus, it is essentially historical, and visual function should be regarded as a lineage property. The colour vision of birds and mammals do not function the same way as one another, on this account, because each is an adaptation to special needs of the visual functions of predecessors—very different kinds of predecessors in each case. Thus, history underlies function. We also see how homology thinking figures in the hierarchical classification of visual systems, and how it supports the explanation of visual function by functional role analysis
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/5795753306u46336/fulltext.pdf
  
• Dan Ryder (online). Explaining the "inhereness" of qualia representationally: Why we seem to have a visual field.   (More)
• Eric Schwitzgebel (online). When our eyes are closed, what, if anything, do we visually experience?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/EyesClosed070910.pdf
  
• Barry Smith (1999). Truth and the visual field.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Abstract The paper uses the tools of mereotopology (the theory of parts, wholes and boundaries) to work out the implications of certain analogies between the 'ecological psychology' of J. J Gibson and the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. It presents an ontological theory of spatial boundaries and of spatially extended entities. By reference to examples from the geographical sphere it is shown that both boundaries and extended entities fall into two broad categories: those which exist independently of our cognitive acts (for example, the planet Earth, its exterior surface); and those which exist only in virtue of such acts (for example: the equator, the North Sea). The visual field, too, can be conceived as an example of an extended entity that is dependent in the sense at issue. The paper suggests extending this analogy by postulating entities which would stand to true judgments as the visual field stands to acts of visual perception. The judgment field is defined more precisely as that complex extended entity which comprehends all entities which are relevant to the truth of a given (true) judgment. The work of cognitive linguists such as Talmy and Langacker, when properly interpreted, can be shown to yield a detailed account of the structures of the judgment fields corresponding to sentences of different sorts. A new sort of correspondence-theoretic definition of truth for sentences of natural language can then be formulated on this basis
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://wings.buffalo.edu/philosophy/faculty/smith/articles/tvf.html
  

Other Sensory Modalities

• Fiona Macpherson (1999). Perfect pitch and the content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://lgxserve.ciseca.uniba.it/lei/mind/texts/t0000004.htm
  
• Mohan Matthen (2010). On the diversity of auditory objects.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper defends two theses about sensory objects. The more general thesis is that directly sensed objects are those delivered by sub-personal processes. It is shown how this thesis runs counter to perceptual atomism, the view that wholes are always sensed indirectly, through their parts. The more specific thesis is that while the direct objects of audition are all composed of sounds, these direct objects are not all sounds—here, a composite auditory object is a temporal sequence of sounds (whereas a composite visual object is a spatial composite). Many composite objects are directly heard in the sense just mentioned. There is a great variety of such composite auditory objects—melodies, harmonies, sequences of phonemes, individual voices, meaning-carrying sounds, and so on. This diversity of auditory objects has an important application to aesthetics. Perceivers do not naturally or easily attend simultaneously to auditory objects that overlap in time. Yet, aesthetic appreciation depends on such an allocation of attention to overlapping objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p16277t0336m8877/fulltext.pdf
  
• Christopher Mole (2009). The Motor Theory of Speech Perception.   (More)
• Thomas H. Morton (2000). Archiving odors.   (More)
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Audition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Provides the theoretical and psychological framework to the philosophy of sounds and audition. I address auditory scene analysis, spatial hearing, the audible qualities, and cross-modal interactions.
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Introduction: The Philosophy of Sounds and Auditory Perception.   (More)
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). Pitch.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some sounds have pitch, some do not. A tuba’s notes are lower pitched than a flute’s, but the fuzz from an untuned radio has no discernible pitch. Pitch is an attribute in virtue of which sounds that possess it can be ordered from “low” to “high”. Given how audition works, physics has taught us that frequency determines what pitch a sound auditorily appears to have
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Sounds.   (More)
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). The world of sound.   (More)

Molyneux's Problem

• John Campbell (2005). Information-processing, phenomenal consciousness and Molyneux's question.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Ordinary common sense suggests that we have just one set of shape concepts that we apply indifferently on the bases of sight and touch. Yet we understand the shape concepts, we know what shape properties are, only because we have experience of shapes. And phenomenal experience of shape in vision and phenomenal experience of shape in touch seem to be quite different. So how can the shape concepts we grasp and use on the basis of vision be the same as the shape concepts we grasp and use on the basis of touch? I think this is the intuitive puzzle that underlies the question sent by the Dublin lawyer Molyneux to John Locke. This concerns a man born blind, who learns by the use of his touch to discriminate cubes from spheres. Suppose him now to gain the use of his sight. And suppose him to be presented with a cube and a sphere, of nighly the same bigness. Quaere, will he be able to tell, by the use of his vision alone, which is the sphere, and which the cube? (Locke 1975, II/ix/8.)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jcampbel/documents/MolyneuxEvans.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gVGw15zGdOwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA195&dq=Information-processing,+phenomenal+consciousness+and+Molyneux's+question+Campbell&ots=jnDCOCsEXb&sig=PiRFeI29ae6AKrBSNGN-enNxeZY
  
• John Campbell (1996). Molyneux's question.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: in Enrique Villanueva (ed.), Perception (Philosophical Issues vol. 7) (Atascadero: Ridgeview 1996), 301-318, with replies by Brian Loar and Kirk Ludwig
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<301:MQ>2.0.CO;2-3
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<301:MQ>2.0.CO;2-3
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1522914.pdf
  
• John Campbell (2005). Molyneux's question and cognitive impenetrability.   (More)
• Marjolein Degenaar (online). Molyneux's problem.   (More)
• Shaun Gallagher (forthcoming). The Molyneux problem.   (More)
• Kirk A. Ludwig (1996). Shape properties and perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<325:SPAP>2.0.CO;2-G
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<325:SPAP>2.0.CO;2-G
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1522916.pdf
  

Sensory Modalities, Misc

• Casey O'Callaghan (2008). Seeing what you hear: Cross-modal illusions and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Cross-modal perceptual illusions occur when a stimulus to one modality impacts perceptual experience associated with another modality. Unlike synaesthesia, cross-modal illusions are intelligible as results of perceptual strategies for dealing with sensory stimulation to multiple modalities, rather than as mere quirks. I argue that understanding cross-modal illusions reveals an important flaw in a widespread conception of the senses, and of their role in perceptual experience, according to which understanding perception and perceptual experience is a matter of assembling independently viable stories about vision, audition, olfaction, and the rest.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121417802/PDFSTART
  

Science of Perception

Modularity and Cognitive Penetrability

• William F. Brewer & Bruce L. Lambert (2001). The theory-ladenness of observation and the theory-ladenness of the rest of the scientific process.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200109)68:32.0.CO;2-H
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/392907
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3080944.pdf
  
• Jerome S. Bruner (1957). On perceptual readiness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8T3-Uieu&sig=L5s-oCRDxgkic2BBcwmD-wuNKuA
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcSpgE-WT&sig=Zx1pEHFnIysExAU0b4Y-Oj_QXik
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcRtfE0VV&sig=HqbT9fBp0uoNjVix-9VPh7eFkuI
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcSvgI2XW&sig=Hi2Jm1fi4MKSPtuK2SlALEOKkaE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcRneJ1WV&sig=3pCYDMawnBLOgwxxZeWYPb6QZ8U
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8S7-Pidt&sig=eYRJ1YGUR3P4ZeaR57lq2tbayTY
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcPvdLZWZ&sig=c8KwNTK5MiURUSJEJK7OYJNosDc
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8Rb_Weey&sig=1LLA7twrYXjTa_aMa4cZyXFnDHQ
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcTrgMWVT&sig=U-s20sUVpZLyokGdaq8pYHlb3tE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8Biuk1o1Z2wC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=9LcQreE1VU&sig=P4UjpnkeYnp7nCFSf8-FLh29Utg
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8U51Pges&sig=n8TI1kjx3B8sepmx36UWnoLJSTE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8V71Xbds&sig=Sdk0X6yvIiaV-wyREiihr_cRvLk
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=50dTR_X6V5AC&oi=fnd&pg=PA108&ots=Nb8Ub1Tjfv&sig=1qNmw4OA6TnDOfqI4-qTJ17HCII
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=13420288&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  
• Paul M. Churchland (1988). Perceptual plasticity and theoretical neutrality: A reply to Jerry Fodor.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(198806)55:2<167:PPATNA>2.0.CO;2-8
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(198806)55:2<167:PPATNA>2.0.CO;2-8
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/289425
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/187956.pdf
  
• William Cornwell (2004). Dr.   (More)
• Jerry A. Fodor (1984). Observation reconsidered.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(198403)51:1<23:OR>2.0.CO;2-T
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/289162
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(198403)51:1<23:OR>2.0.CO;2-T
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/187729.pdf
  
• Robert S. Lockhart (2000). Modularity, cognitive penetrability and the Turing test.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Turing Test blurs the distinction between a model and irrelevant) instantiation details. Modeling only functional modules is problematic if these are interconnected and cognitively penetrable
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000068/
  
• Fiona Macpherson (forthcoming). 'Cognitive penetration of colour experience: Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the states of one’s cognitive system, for example, one’s thoughts or beliefs? Ifone thinks that this can happen [at least in certain ways that are identWed in the paper] then one thinks that there can be cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks that perceptual experience is cognitivelv impenetrable. I claim that there is one alleged case ofcognitive penetration that cannot be explained away by the standard strategies one can typicallv use to explain away alleged cases. The case is one in which it seems subjects’ beliefs about the typical colour of objects ajfects their colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual experience is cognitivelv penetrable will be less opposed to the idea when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who are generallv sympathetic to the idea ofcognitive penetrability will welcome the elucidation ofthis plausible mechanism
• Zenon W. Pylyshyn (1999). Is vision continuous with cognition? The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Although the study of visual perception has made more progress in the past 40 years than any other area of cognitive science, there remain major disagreements as to how closely vision is tied to general cognition. This paper sets out some of the arguments for both sides (arguments from computer vision, neuroscience, Psychophysics, perceptual learning and other areas of vision science) and defends the position that an important part of visual perception, which may be called early vision or just vision, is prohibited from accessing relevant expectations, knowledge and utilities - in other words it is cognitively impenetrable. That part of vision is complex and articulated and provides a representation of the 3-D surfaces of objects sufficient to serve as an index into memory, with somewhat different outputs being made available to other systems such as those dealing with motor control. The paper also addresses certain conceptual and methodological issues, including the use of signal detection theory and event-related potentials to assess cognitive penetration of vision. A distinction is made among several stages in visual processing. These include, in addition to the inflexible early-vision stage, a pre-perceptual attention allocation stage and a post-perceptual evaluation, memory-accessing, and inference stage which provide several different highly constrained ways in which cognition can affect the outcome of visual perception. The paper discusses arguments that have been presented in both computer vision and psychology showing that vision is "intelligent" and involves elements of problem solving". It is suggested that these cases do not show cognitive penetration, but rather they show that certain natural constraints on interpretation, concerned primarily with optical and geometrical properties of the world, have been compiled into the visual system. The paper also examines a number of examples where instructions and "hints" are alleged to affect
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/149079.html
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/ZPbbs98.html
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/faculty/ZPbbs98.html
  http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mike/papers/Pylyshyn99.pdf
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/isvision38.html
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/isvision38.html
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ftp/pub/papers/bbs1999_reprint
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/94/index.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.pylyshyn.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.pylyshyn.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/94/bbs00000494-00/bbs.pylyshyn.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/94/bbs00000494-00/bbs.pylyshyn.html
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mapeters/MP Pubs/Peterson1999d.pdf?url=MP Pubs/Peterson1999d.pdf
  http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mapeters/MP Pubs/Peterson1999d.pdf?url=MP Pubs/Peterson1999d.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=30934&jid=BBS&volumeId=22&issueId=03&aid=30933
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11301517&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11301517&dopt=Citation
  http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=30934
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X99002022
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X99002022
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X99552023
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X99442025
  
• Susanna Siegel, Cognitive penetrability and perceptual justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is sometimes said that in depression, everything looks grey. If this is true, then mood can influence the character of perceptual experience: depending only on whether a viewer is depressed or not, how a scene looks to that viewer can differ even if all other conditions stay the same. This would be an example of cognitive penetrability of visual experience by other mental states. Here the influential cognitive state is a mood. Other putative examples of cognitive penetrability involve beliefs: to the reader of Russian, the sheet of Cyrillic script looks different than it looked to her before she could read it. When you know that bananas are yellow, this knowledge affects what color you see bananas to be (an achromatic banana will [2] appear yellowish). To the vain performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to pleased, but remarkably no one ever looks disapproving. To the underconfident performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to displeased, but remarkably no one ever looks approving. And in cases of suggestibility, the mere salience of a hypothesis seems to have an effect on how a given stimulus is experienced. Potential cognitive penetrators thus include moods, beliefs, hypotheses, knowledge, desires, and traits. In some cases, cognitively penetration can be epistemically beneficial. If an x ray looks different to a radiologist from the way it looks to someone lacking radiological expertise, then the radiologist gets more information about the world from her experience (such as whether there’s a tumor) than the non expert does from looking at the same x ray. If Iris Murdoch and John McDowell are right that having the right sort of character lets you see more moral facts than someone lacking that character sees when faced with the same situation, then there too your perceptual experience becomes epistemically better thanks to its being penetrated by your [3] character. In other cases, however, cognitive penetration seems to make experience epistemically worse..
• Stephen P. Stich & Shaun Nichols (1997). Cognitive penetrability, rationality, and restricted simulation.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0017.1997.tb00076.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119154908/PDFSTART
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0017.00050
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1997/00000012/00000003/art00050
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mila/1997/00000012/F0020003/art00004
  
• Dustin Stokes (ms). Perceiving and Desiring: A New Look at the Cognitive Penetrability of Experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper considers an orectic perception hypothesis which says that desires and desire-like states may influence perceptual experience in a non-externally mediated way. This hypothesis is clarified with a definition, which serves further to distinguish the interesting target phenomenon from trivial instances of desire-influenced perception. Orectic perception is an interesting possible case of the cognitive penetrability of perceptual experience. The orectic perception hypothesis is thus incompatible with the more common thesis that perception is cognitively impenetrable. It is of importance to issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, epistemology, and general philosophy of science. The plausibility of orectic perception can be motivated by some hypothetical cases, some classic experimental studies, and some new experimental research inspired by those same studies. The general suggestion is that orectic perception thus defined, and evidenced by the relevant studies, cannot be deflected by the standard strategies of the cognitive impenetrability theorist.

Ecological Approaches to Perception

• Anthony Chemero (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The primary difference between direct and inferential theories of perception concerns the location of perceptual content, the meaning of our perceptions. In inferential theories of perception, these meanings arise inside animals, based upon their interactions with the physical environment. Light, for example, bumps into receptors causing a sensation. The animal (or its brain) performs inferences on the sensation, yielding a meaningful perception. In direct theories of perception, on the other hand, meaning is in the environment, and perception does not depend upon meaning- conferring inferences. Instead the animal simply gathers information from a meaning- laden environment. But if the environment contains meanings, then it cannot be merely physical. This places a heavy theoretical burden on direct theories of perception, a burden so severe that it may outweigh all the advantages to conceiving perception as
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15326969ECO1502_5
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/S15326969ECO1502_5
  
• Anthony Chemero & Michael T. Turvey, Gibsonian affordances for roboticists.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Using hypersets as an analytic tool, we compare traditionally Gibsonian (Chemero 2003; Turvey 1992) and representationalist (Sahin et al. this issue) understandings of the notion ‘affordance’. We show that representationalist understandings are incompatible with direct perception and erect barriers between animal and environment. They are, therefore, scarcely recognizable as understandings of ‘affordance’. In contrast, Gibsonian understandings are shown to treat animal-environment systems as unified complex systems and to be compatible with direct perception. We discuss the fruitful connections between Gibsonian affordances and dynamical systems explanation in the behavioral sciences and point to prior fruitful application of Gibsonian affordances in robotics. We conclude that it is unnecessary to re-imagine affordances as representations in order to make them useful for researchers in robotics
• Tony Chemero (forthcoming). Information and direct perception: A new approach.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since the 1970s, Michael Turvey, Robert Shaw, and William Mace have worked on the formulation of a philosophically-sound and empirically-tractable version of James Gibson
• Tony Chemero (2003). Review of ecological psychology in context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the legacy of William James' radical empiricism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=m1Qb4EELzNIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&sig=iCPaX8v3lU-9RWH14uKxiV36PK4&prev=http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=
  
• Tony Chemero (2001). What we perceive when we perceive affordances: Commentary on Michaels (2000), Information, Perception and Action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In her essay --?Information, Perception and Action--, Claire Michaels reaches two conclusions that run very much against the grain of ecological psychology. First, she claims that affordances are not perceived, but simply acted upon; second, because of this, perception and action ought to be conceived separately. These conclusions are based upon a misinterpretation of empirical evidence which is, in turn, based upon a conflation of two proper objects of perception: objectively with properties and affordances
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  
• Gary Hatfield (1990). Gibsonian representations and connectionist symbol-processing: Prospects for unification.   (More)
• Erik Rietveld (2010). McDowell and Dreyfus on Unreflective Action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Within philosophy there is not yet an integrative account of unreflective skillful action. As a starting point, contributions would be required from philosophers from both the analytic and continental traditions. Starting from the McDowell-Dreyfus debate, shared Aristotelian-Wittgensteinian common ground is identified. McDowell and Dreyfus agree about the importance of embodied skills, situation-specific discernment and responsiveness to relevant affordances. This sheds light on the embodied and situated nature of adequate unreflective action and provides a starting point for the development of an account that does justice to insights from both philosophical traditions.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a920089795~fulltext=713240930
  
• Erik Rietveld (2008). The Skillful Body as a Concernful System of Possible Actions: Phenomena and Neurodynamics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: For Merleau-Ponty,consciousness in skillful coping is a matter of prereflective ‘I can’ and not explicit ‘I think that.’ The body unifies many domain-specific capacities. There exists a direct link between the perceived possibilities for action in the situation (‘affordances’) and the organism’s capacities. From Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions it is clear that in a flow of skillful actions, the leading ‘I can’ may change from moment to moment without explicit deliberation. How these transitions occur, however, is less clear. Given that Merleau-Ponty suggested that a better understanding of the self-organization of brain and behavior is important, I will re-read his descriptions of skillful coping in the light of recent ideas on neurodynamics. Affective processes play a crucial role in evaluating the motivational significance of objects and contribute to the individual’s prereflective responsiveness to relevant affordances.
• Andrea Scarantino (2003). Affordances explained.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I examine the central theoretical construct of ecological psychology, the concept of an affordance. In the first part of the paper, I illustrate the role affordances play in Gibson's theory of perception. In the second part, I argue that affordances are to be understood as dispositional properties, and explain what I take to be their characteristic background circumstances, triggering circumstances and manifestations. The main purpose of my analysis is to give affordances a theoretical identity enriched by Gibson's visionary insight, but independent of the most controversial claims of the Gibsonian movement
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001104/02/Affordances_Explained_Final_Version_May_2003.doc
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/377380
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/377380
  
• S. Ullman (1980). Against direct perception.   (More)

Construction and Inference in Perception

• Jüri Allik & Kenn Konstabel (2005). G. F. Parrot and the theory of unconscious inferences.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16196051&dopt=Citation
  http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/jhbs.20114
  
• Richard L. Gregory (1974). Perceptions as hypotheses.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/index/226W686672226774.pdf
  http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/students/resources/lecture_notes/PHIL2207/PHIL2207-Week 8.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6106237&dopt=Citation
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0080-4622(19800708)290:1038<181:PAH>2.0.CO;2-B
  
• Gary Hatfield (2002). Perception As Unconscious Inference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Consider for a moment the spatial and chromatic dimensions of your visual expe- rience. Suppose that as you gaze about the room you see a table, some books, and papers. Ignore for now the fact that you immediately recognize these objects to be a table with books and papers on it. Concentrate on how the table looks to you: its top spreads out in front of you, stopping at edges beyond which lies un?lled space, leading to more or less distant chairs, shelves, or expanses of ?oor. The books and paper on the table top create shaped visual boundaries between areas of different color, within which there may be further variation of color or visual texture. Propelled by a slight breeze, a sheet of paper slides across the table, and you experience its smooth motion before it ?oats out of sight
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://repository.upenn.edu/ircs_reports/9
  http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~hatfield/uncinf.pdf
  http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=ircs_reports
  
• Kirk A. Ludwig (1996). Explaining why things look the way they do.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How are we able to perceive the world veridically? If we ask this question as a part of the scientific investigation of perception, then we are not asking for a transcendental guarantee that our perceptions are by and large veridical; we presuppose that they are. Unless we assumed that we perceived the world for the most part veridically, we would not be in a position to investigate our perceptual abilities empirically. We are interested, then, not in how it is possible in general for us to perceive the world veridically, but instead in what the relation is between our environment and its properties, of which we have knowledge, on the one hand, and our perceptual mechanisms, on the other, that results in very many, even most of our perceptions being veridical in everyday life

Perception and Neuroscience

• M. Chirimuuta & I. Gold (2009). The Embedded Neuron, the Enactive Field?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The concept of the receptive field, first articulated by Hartline, is central to visual neuroscience. The receptive field of a neuron encompasses the spatial and temporal properties of stimuli that activate the neuron, and, as Hubel and Wiesel conceived of it, a neuron’s receptive field is static. This makes it possible to build models of neural circuits and to build up more complex receptive fields out of simpler ones. Recent work in visual neurophysiology is providing evidence that the classical receptive field is an inaccurate picture. The receptive field seems to be a dynamic feature of the neuron. In particular, the receptive field of neurons in V1 seems to be dependent on the properties of the stimulus. In this paper, we review the history of the concept of the receptive field and the problematic data. We then consider a number of possible theoretical responses to these data.
• Paul M. Churchland (2005). Chimerical colors: Some phenomenological predictions from cognitive neuroscience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Hurvich-Jameson (H-J) opponent-process network offers a familiar account of the empirical structure of the phenomenological color space for humans, an account with a number of predictive and explanatory virtues. Its successes form the bulk of the existing reasons for suggesting a strict identity between our various color sensations on the one hand, and our various coding vectors across the color-opponent neurons in our primary visual pathways on the other. But anti-reductionists standardly complain that the systematic parallels discovered by the H-J network are just empirical correspondences, constructed post facto, with no predictive or explanatory purchase on the intrinsic characters of qualia proper. The present paper disputes that complaint, by illustrating that the H-J model yields some novel and unappreciated predictions, and some novel and unappreciated explanations, concerning the qualitative characters of a considerable variety of color sensations possible for human experience, color sensations that normal people have almost certainly never had before, color sensations whose accurate descriptions in ordinary language appear semantically ill-formed or even self-contradictory. Specifically, these "impossible" color sensations are activation-vectors (across our opponent-process neurons) that lie inside the space of neuronally possible activation-vectors, but outside the central 'color spindle' that confines the familiar range of sensations for possible objective colors. These extra-spindle chimerical-color sensations correspond to no reflective color that you will ever see objectively displayed on a physical object. But the H-J model both predicts their existence and explains their highly anomalous qualitative characters in some detail. It also suggests how to produce these rogue sensations by a simple procedure made available in the latter half of this paper. The relevant color plates will allow you to savor these sensations for yourself
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bpjAkBrkmu4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA309&ots=JljTspK-Zz&sig=bPi-xVEVBkAvYyvHEx5l3S0Zl54
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a727182509~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/L803131023766655.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/727182509.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000005/art00001
  
• Walter H. Ehrenstein, Lothar Spillmann & Viktor Sarris (2003). Gestalt issues in modern neuroscience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We present select examples of how visual phenomena can serve as tools to uncoverbrain mechanisms. Specifically, receptive field organization is proposed as a Gestalt-like neural mechanism of perceptual organization. Appropriate phenomena, such as brightness and orientation contrast, subjective contours, filling-in, and aperture-viewed motion, allow for a quantitative comparison between receptive fields and their psychophysical counterparts, perceptive fields. Phenomenology might thus be extended from the study of perceptual qualities to their transphenomenal substrates, including memory functions. In conclusion, classic issues of Gestalt psychology can now be related to modern
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb05/psychologie/allgpsy1/forsch/bezugssysteme/pdf/GestaltIssues0.pdf
  http://www.psychologie.uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb05/psychologie/abteilungen_und_bereiche/allgpsy1/forsch/bezugssysteme/pdf/GestaltIssues0.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p8x6061785830614/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P8X6061785830614.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/axio/2003/00000013/F0020003/05121115
  
• Gary Hatfield (1999). Mental functions as constraints on neurophysiology: Biology and psychology of vision.   (More)
• Jaakko Hintikka & John Symons (2003). Systems of visual identification in neuroscience: Lessons from epistemic logic.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the "where" and "what" systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundamental levels of neuroscientific theory
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?PHOS700108PDF
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/367871
  
• Ken Mogi (1997). Response selectivity, neuron doctrine, and Mach's principle in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: manner. The construction of the space-time structure that describes the dynamics of the neural network in a causal manner is a non-trivial problem. I critically review the idea of response selectivity as is applied to
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.sonycsl.co.jp/person/kenmogi/Mach.pdf
  http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/kenmogi/Mach.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/l72r54057309lx56.pdf
  

Psychophysics

• Jeremy Butterfield (1998). Quantum curiosities of psychophysics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I survey some of the connections between the metaphysics of the relation between mind and matter, and quantum theory’s measurement problem. After discussing the metaphysics, especially the correct formulation of physicalism, I argue that two state-reduction approaches to quantum theory’s measurement problem hold some surprises for philosophers’ discussions of physicalism. Though both approaches are compatible with physicalism, they involve a very different conception of the physical, and of how the physical underpins the mental, from what most philosophers expect. And one approach exemplifies a a problem in the definition of physicalism which the metaphysical literature has discussed only in the abstract. A version of the paper has appeared in Consciousness and Human Identity, ed. John Cornwell, OUP 1998
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000193/00/QMCURIOFEB01.PDF
  http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/butterfield/Papers/QmCuriositiesPsychophysicsFeb01.pdf
  
• H. Eisler (1975). Subjective duration and psychophysics.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1187910&dopt=Citation
  
• J. T. Enns, R. A. Rensink & V. Di Lollo (2000). Competition for consciousness among visual events: The psychophysics of reentrant visual processes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Advances in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology have called attention to reentrant signalling as the predominant form of communication between brain areas. We propose that explicit use be made of reentrant processing in theories of perception. To show that this can be done effectively in one domain, we report on a series of psychophysical experiments involving a new form of masking, which defies explanation by current feed-forward theories. This masking occurs when a brief display of target plus mask is continued with the mask alone. We report evidence of two masking processes: an early process affected by physical factors such as adapting luminance and contour proximity, and a later process affected by attentional factors such as set size, target pop-out, and spatial pre-cuing. We call this later process masking by
• Steven Horst (2005). Phenomenology and psychophysics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Recent philosophy of mind has tended to treat
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://shorst.web.wesleyan.edu/papers/HorstPsychophysics.pdf
  http://www.wesleyan.edu/~shorst/papers/HorstPsychophysics.pdf
  http://www.wesleyan.edu/~shorst/papers/shorst.psychophysics.spp97.html
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/wg007jw15045555t/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/WG007JW15045555T.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phen/2005/00000004/00000001/00005852
  
• Tim Christian Kietzmann, Philosophical accounts of causal explanation and the scientific practice of psychophysics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophical accounts of causality and causal explanation can provide important guidelines for the experimental sciences and valid experimental setups. In addition to the obvious requirement of logic validity, however, the approaches must account for the generally accepted experimental practice to be truly useful. To investigate this important interconnection, the current paper evaluates different philosophical accounts of causation and causal explanation in the light of typical psychophysical experiments. In particular, eye-tracking setups will be used to evaluate Granger Causality, Probabilistic Accounts and Woodwardʼs manipulationist approach. Upon coarse reading, the manipulationist perspective seems most suitable for a practical application, but there are manifold problems hidden in the details of the definitions. However, with some adjustments via standard tools of experimental design, these problems can be overcome and leave Woodwardʼs account as the method of choice
• Max Wertheimer (1923). Laws of organization in perceptual forms.   (More)

Gestalt Theory

• Walter H. Ehrenstein, Lothar Spillmann & Viktor Sarris (2003). Gestalt issues in modern neuroscience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We present select examples of how visual phenomena can serve as tools to uncoverbrain mechanisms. Specifically, receptive field organization is proposed as a Gestalt-like neural mechanism of perceptual organization. Appropriate phenomena, such as brightness and orientation contrast, subjective contours, filling-in, and aperture-viewed motion, allow for a quantitative comparison between receptive fields and their psychophysical counterparts, perceptive fields. Phenomenology might thus be extended from the study of perceptual qualities to their transphenomenal substrates, including memory functions. In conclusion, classic issues of Gestalt psychology can now be related to modern
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb05/psychologie/allgpsy1/forsch/bezugssysteme/pdf/GestaltIssues0.pdf
  http://www.psychologie.uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb05/psychologie/abteilungen_und_bereiche/allgpsy1/forsch/bezugssysteme/pdf/GestaltIssues0.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/p8x6061785830614/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P8X6061785830614.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/axio/2003/00000013/F0020003/05121115
  
• Kurt Koffka (1922). Perception: An introduction to the gestalt theory.   (More)
• Steven Lehar (online). Computational implications of gestalt theory: The role of feedback in visual processing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Neurophysiological investigations of the visual system by way of single-cell recordings have revealed a hierarchical architecture in which lower level areas, such as the primary visual cortex, contain cells that respond to simple features, while higher level areas contain cells that respond to higher order features apparently composed of combinations of lower level features. This architecture seems to suggest a feed-forward processing strategy in which visual information progresses from lower to higher visual areas. However there is other evidence, both neurophysiological and phenomenal, that suggests a more parallel processing strategy in biological vision, in which top-down feedback plays a significant role. In fact Gestalt theory suggests that visual perception involves a process of emergence, i.e. a dynamic relaxation of multiple constraints throughout the system simultaneously, so that the final percept represents a stable state, or energy minimum of the dynamic system as a whole. A Multi-Level Reciprocal Feedback (MLRF) model is proposed to resolve the apparently contradictory concepts, by proposing a hierarchical visual architecture whose different levels are connected by bi-directional feed-forward and feedback pathways, where the computational transformation performed by the feedback pathway between levels in the hiararchy is a kind of inverse of the transformation performed by the corresponding feed-forward processing stream. This alternative paradigm of perceptual computation accounts in general terms for a number of visual illusory effects, and offers a computational specification for the generative, or constructive aspect of perceptual processing revealed by Gestalt theory
• Steven Lehar (2003). Gestalt isomorphism and the primacy of subjective conscious experience: A gestalt bubble model.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A serious crisis is identified in theories of neurocomputation, marked by a persistent disparity between the phenomenological or experiential account of visual perception and the neurophysiological level of description of the visual system. In particular, conventional concepts of neural processing offer no explanation for the holistic global aspects of perception identified by Gestalt theory. The problem is paradigmatic and can be traced to contemporary concepts of the functional role of the neural cell, known as the Neuron Doctrine. In the absence of an alternative neurophysiologically plausible model, I propose a perceptual modeling approach, to model the percept as experienced subjectively, rather than modeling the objective neurophysiological state of the visual system that supposedly subserves that experience. A Gestalt Bubble model is presented to demonstrate how the elusive Gestalt principles of emergence, reification, and invariance can be expressed in a quantitative model of the subjective experience of visual consciousness. That model in turn reveals a unique computational strategy underlying visual processing, which is unlike any algorithm devised by man, and certainly unlike the atomistic feed-forward model of neurocomputation offered by the Neuron Doctrine paradigm. The perceptual modeling approach reveals the primary function of perception as that of generating a fully spatial virtual-reality replica of the external world in an internal representation. The common objections to this picture-in-the-head concept of perceptual representation are shown to be ill founded. Key Words: brain-anchored; Cartesian theatre; consciousness; emergence; extrinsic constraints; filling-in; Gestalt; homunculus; indirect realism; intrinsic constraints; invariance; isomorphism; multistability; objective phenomenology; perceptual modeling; perspective; phenomenology; psychophysical parallelism; psychophysical postulate; qualia; reification; representationalism; structural coherence
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Lehar/Referees/
  http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/bubw3/bubw3.pdf
  http://cns-alumni.bu.edu/~slehar/webstuff/bubw3/bubw3.html
  http://www.dartmouth.edu/~psych/people/faculty/tse/bladerunnerNEW.pdf
  http://matrix.aklab.psych.ubc.ca/uploads/Christine_ConsciousExperience_TICS.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=208840&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=04&aid=208839
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=208872&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=04&aid=208871
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15067950&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=15067950&dopt=Citation
  http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=208840
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03000098
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X0326009X
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X03270096
  
• Steven M. Rosen (1999). Evolution of Attentional Processes in the Human Organism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article explores the evolution of human attention, focusing particularly on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic implications of the work of the American social psychiatrist Trigant Burrow. Attentional development is linked to the emergence of visual perspective, and this, in turn, is related to Burrow's notion of `ditention' (divided or partitive attention). Burrow's distinction between `ditention' and `cotention' (total organismic awareness) is examined, and, expanding on this, a threefold pattern of perceptual change is identified: prototention-->ditention-->cotention. Next, ditentive visual perspective is related to binocular convergence, and the author makes use of the perspectivally ambiguous, `non-convergent' Gestalt figure known as the Necker Cube to illustrate cotention. The paper concludes by proposing that the shift from the currently pervasive ditentive pattern of awareness to a cotentive mode could have a salutary effect on human society.

Science of Perception, Misc

• Diana Raffman (ms). Nontransitivity, Indiscriminability, and Looking the Same.   (More)
• Steven M. Rosen (1999). Evolution of Attentional Processes in the Human Organism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article explores the evolution of human attention, focusing particularly on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic implications of the work of the American social psychiatrist Trigant Burrow. Attentional development is linked to the emergence of visual perspective, and this, in turn, is related to Burrow's notion of `ditention' (divided or partitive attention). Burrow's distinction between `ditention' and `cotention' (total organismic awareness) is examined, and, expanding on this, a threefold pattern of perceptual change is identified: prototention-->ditention-->cotention. Next, ditentive visual perspective is related to binocular convergence, and the author makes use of the perspectivally ambiguous, `non-convergent' Gestalt figure known as the Necker Cube to illustrate cotention. The paper concludes by proposing that the shift from the currently pervasive ditentive pattern of awareness to a cotentive mode could have a salutary effect on human society.

Perception and the Mind

Perception and Thought

• Gl (2004). On perceiving that.   (More)
• Jack C. Lyons (2005). Perceptual belief and nonexperiential looks.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How things look (or sound, taste, smell, etc.) plays two important roles in the epistemology of perception.1 First, our perceptual beliefs are episte- mically justified, at least in part, in virtue of how things look. Second, whether a given belief is a perceptual belief, as opposed to, say, an infer- ential belief, is also at least partly a matter of how things look. Together, these yield an epistemically significant sense of looks. A standard view is that how things look, in this epistemically significant sense, is a matter of ones present perceptual phenomenology, of what nondoxastic experiential state one is in. On this standard view, these experiential states (a) determine which of my beliefs are perceptual beliefs and (b) are centrally involved in justifying these beliefs
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2005.00061.x
  
• Fiona Macpherson (forthcoming). 'Cognitive penetration of colour experience: Rethinking the issue in light of an indirect mechanism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the states of one’s cognitive system, for example, one’s thoughts or beliefs? Ifone thinks that this can happen [at least in certain ways that are identWed in the paper] then one thinks that there can be cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks that perceptual experience is cognitivelv impenetrable. I claim that there is one alleged case ofcognitive penetration that cannot be explained away by the standard strategies one can typicallv use to explain away alleged cases. The case is one in which it seems subjects’ beliefs about the typical colour of objects ajfects their colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual experience is cognitivelv penetrable will be less opposed to the idea when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who are generallv sympathetic to the idea ofcognitive penetrability will welcome the elucidation ofthis plausible mechanism
• Alva Noe (1999). Thought and experience.   (More)
• James Pryor (online). An epistemic theory of acquaintance.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: For example, suppose you believe squirrels can live an extremely long time, like parrots and tortoises. You think to yourself, The oldest mammal in this town is probably a squirrel. Contrast that case to:

  (2b) believing some animal you seean animal that happens to be the oldest mammal in
  townto be a squirrel

  I said theres a philosophically important di?erence between the (a) examples and the (b) examples. In fact these examples illustrate more than one di?erence. Lets try to disentangle the di?erent di?erences
• Dustin Stokes (ms). Perceiving and Desiring: A New Look at the Cognitive Penetrability of Experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper considers an orectic perception hypothesis which says that desires and desire-like states may influence perceptual experience in a non-externally mediated way. This hypothesis is clarified with a definition, which serves further to distinguish the interesting target phenomenon from trivial instances of desire-influenced perception. Orectic perception is an interesting possible case of the cognitive penetrability of perceptual experience. The orectic perception hypothesis is thus incompatible with the more common thesis that perception is cognitively impenetrable. It is of importance to issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, epistemology, and general philosophy of science. The plausibility of orectic perception can be motivated by some hypothetical cases, some classic experimental studies, and some new experimental research inspired by those same studies. The general suggestion is that orectic perception thus defined, and evidenced by the relevant studies, cannot be deflected by the standard strategies of the cognitive impenetrability theorist.

Perception and Action

• Robin Allott (2001). Language, perception and action: Philosophical issues.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The earlier part of this book has been concerned with very specific questions arising in the field of linguistics (phonetics, semantics and syntax), with the results of research into visual perception (physiological and neurological) and with rather wider speculation about the organisation of bodily action and the relation between the bodily processes underlying action, vision and speech. The hypotheses, arguments, evidence and conclusions reached have not depended to any significant extent on philosophical doctrine or concepts and the question may be asked why should a book essentially concerned with linguistics conclude with a chapter devoted to philosophy. To this question there is a broad answer and a more specific one; the broad answer is that there has been prolonged and difficult discussion between philosophers over many centuries of the subjects dealt with earlier in this book, the origin and nature of language, the relation of language to reality, perception as based on sense-experience and providing the main basis for veridical knowledge, and voluntary human action (the notions of free will and determinism, of reasons and causes of action). The narrower answer, as an occasion and justification for having a philosophical chapter, is that in some respects totally new broad and specific hypotheses are presented about the functioning of language, perception and action, and particularly about their interrelation in human behaviour, and it is worth considering what implications these hypotheses, if true, may have for traditional or current philosophical views. It may be that they ought to involve some radical review of current theory but, in any case, it would be unsatisfactory simply to present a whole range of ideas bearing on language, perception and action without having regard to what relevant to these subjects has been said by philosophers (as in the same way it would be unsatisfactory not to have regard to work that has been done on these subjects by experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence)
• Tim Bayne, The sense of agency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Where in cognitive architecture do experiences of agency lie? This chapter defends the claim that such states qualify as a species of perception. Reference to ‘the sense of agency’ should not be taken as a mere façon de parler but picks out a genuinely perceptual system. The chapter begins by outlining the perceptual model of agentive experience before turning to its two main rivals: the doxastic model, according to which agentive experience is really a species of belief, and the telic model, according to which agentive experience is really a species of agency. I conclude by defending the perceptual model against a number of objections to it, and by briefly exploring its implications for the question of how to approach the study of perception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/12843/Sense_of_agency_web.pdf
  
• Ned Block (2005). Review of Alva Noe, Action in Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This is a charming and engaging book that combines careful attention to the phenomenology of experience with an appreciation of the psychology and neuroscience of perception. In some of its aimsfor example, to show problems with a rigid version of a view of visual perception as an inverse optics process of constructing a static 3-D representation from static 2-D information on the retina--it succeeds admirably. As No points out, vision is a process that depends on interactions between the perceiver and the environment and involves contributions from sensory systems other than the eye. He is at pains to note that vision is not passive. His analogy with touch is to the point: touch involves skillful probing and movement, and so does vision, although less obviously and in my view less centrally so. This much is certainly widely accepted among vision scientistsalthough mainstream vision scientists (represented, for example, by Stephen Palmers excellent textbook²) view these points as best seen within a version of the inverse optics view that takes inputs as non-static and as including motor instructions (for example, involving eye movements and head movements).³ The kind of point that No raises is viewed as important at the margins, but as not disturbing the main lines of the picture of vision that descendswith many changesfrom the pioneering work of David Marr in the 1980s (and before him, from Helmholtz). But No shows little interest in mainstream vision science, focusing on non-mainstream ideas in the science of perception, specifically ideas from the anti-representational psychologist J.J. Gibson, and also drawing on Wittgenstein and the phenomenology tradition. There is a sense throughout the book of revolution, of upsetting the applecart. This is a review from the point of view of the applecart
• Robert Briscoe (2009). Egocentric spatial representation in action and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Neuropsychological findings used to motivate the “two visual systems” hypothesis have been taken to endanger a pair of widely accepted claims about spatial representation in visual experience. The first is the claim that visual experience represents 3-D space around the perceiver using an egocentric frame of reference. The second is the claim that there is a constitutive link between the spatial contents of visual experience and the perceiver’s bodily actions. In this paper, I carefully assess three main sources of evidence for the two visual systems hypothesis and argue that the best interpretation of the evidence is in fact consistent with both claims. I conclude with some brief remarks on the relation between visual consciousness and rational agency
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://phonline.org/paper.php?keynum=903
  http://cogprints.org/5780/1/ECSRAP.F07.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122594428/PDFSTART
  http://chn.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/documents/ECSRAP.F07.pdf
  
• Robert Briscoe (2008). Vision, action, and make-perceive.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, I critically assess the enactive account of visual perception recently defended by Alva Noë (2004). I argue inter alia that the enactive account falsely identifies an object’s apparent shape with its 2D perspectival shape; that it mistakenly assimilates visual shape perception and volumetric object recognition; and that it seriously misrepresents the constitutive role of bodily action in visual awareness. I argue further that noticing an object’s perspectival shape involves a hybrid experience combining both perceptual and imaginative elements – an act of what I call ‘make-perceive.’
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://phonline.org/paper.php?keynum=902
  http://cogprints.org/5781/1/VAMP.MS397.pdf
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121387369/PDFSTART
  http://chn.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/documents/VAMP.MS397.doc
  http://chn.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/documents/VAMP.MS397.pdf
  
• John Campbell (2008). Sensorimotor knowledge and naïve realism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2008.00162.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119395227/PDFSTART
  
• Tony Chemero (2001). What we perceive when we perceive affordances: Commentary on Michaels (2000), Information, Perception and Action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In her essay --?Information, Perception and Action--, Claire Michaels reaches two conclusions that run very much against the grain of ecological psychology. First, she claims that affordances are not perceived, but simply acted upon; second, because of this, perception and action ought to be conceived separately. These conclusions are based upon a misinterpretation of empirical evidence which is, in turn, based upon a conflation of two proper objects of perception: objectively with properties and affordances
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/S15326969ECO1302_3
  
• Andy Clark & Josefa Toribio (2001). Sensorimotor chauvinism?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: O'Regan and Noe present a wonderfully detailed and comprehensive defense of a position whose broad outline we absolutely and unreservedly endorse. They are right, it seems to us, to stress the intimacy of conscious content and embodied action, and to counter the idea of a Grand Illusion with the image of an agent genuinely in touch, via active exploration, with the rich and varied visual scene. This is an enormously impressive achievement, and we hope that the comments that follow will be taken in a spirit of constructive questioning. Overall, we have two main reservations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/noecomm.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=125135&jid=BBS&volumeId=24&issueId=05&aid=125134
  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X01290116
  
• Andy Clark (1999). Visual awareness and visuomotor action.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cogs.indiana.edu/andy/VisAwareVisAction.pdf
  https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1323?mode=simple
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/VisAwareVisAction.pdf
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/VisAwareVisAction.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1999/00000006/F0020011/987
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1999/00000006/F0020011/987
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1999/00000006/f0020011
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1999/00000006/f0020011
  
• Andy Clark (2006). Vision as dance? Three challenges for sensorimotor contingency theory.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In _Action in Perception _Alva No develops and presents a sensorimotor account of vision and of visual consciousness. According to such an account seeing (and indeed perceiving more generally) is analysed as a kind of skilful bodily activity. Such a view is consistent with the emerging emphasis, in both philosophy and cognitive science, on the critical role of embodiment in the construction of intelligent agency. I shall argue, however, that the full sensorimotor model faces three important challenges. The first is to negotiate a path between two prima facie unsatisfactory readings of the central claim that conscious perceptual experience is constituted by knowledge of patterns of sensorimotor dependence. The second is to convince us that the sensorimotor contribution, in such cases, is actually constitutive of perceptual experience rather than merely causally implicated in the origination of such experience.² And the third is to respond to the important challenge raised by what I will dub 'sensorimotor summarizing' models of the relation between conscious experience and richly detailed sensorimotor routines. According to such models³ conscious perceptual experience only rather indirectly reflects the rich detail of our actual sensorimotor engagements, which are instead lightly sampled as a coarse guide, optimized for planning and reasoning, and geared and filtered according to current needs and purposes
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/1444?mode=simple
  
• Andy Clark (2001). Visual experience and motor action: Are the bonds too tight?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How should we characterize the functional role of conscious visual experience? In particular, how do the conscious contents of visual experience guide, bear upon, or otherwise inform our ongoing motor activities? According to an intuitive and (I shall argue) philosophically influential conception, the links are often quite direct. The contents of conscious visual experience, according to this conception, are typically active in the control and guidance of our fine-tuned, real-time engagements with the surrounding three-dimensional world. But this idea (which I shall call the Assumption of Experience-Based Control) is hostage to empirical fortune. It is a hostage, moreover, whose safety is in serious doubt. Thus Milner and Goodale (1995) argue for a deep and abiding dissociation between the contents of conscious seeing, on the one hand, and the resources used for the on-line guidance of visuo-motor action, on the other. This ‘dual visual systems’ hypothesis, which finds many echoes in various other bodies of cognitive scientific research, poses a prima facie challenge to the Assumption of Experience-Based Control. More importantly, it provides (I shall argue) fuel for an alternative and philosophically suggestive account of the functional role of conscious visual experience
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/eafinal.pdf
  http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness/papers/clark.pdf
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(200110)110:4<495:VEAMAA>2.0.CO;2-2
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(200110)110:4<495:VEAMAA>2.0.CO;2-2
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3182592.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/110/4/495
  
• Shaun Gallagher (online). Perceiving others in action / la perception d'autrui en action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In a New York Times article last month, entitled Cells that read minds, the neuroscience reporter, Sandra Blakeslee (January 10, 2006) provided a list of all the things that mirror neurons can explain. As we know, mirror neurons, discovered by Rizzolattis group in Parma, are neurons that are activated when we engage in action, and when we perceive intentional movement in another person. According to Blakeslee and the scientists she interviewed, mirror neurons explain not only how we are capable of understanding another persons actions, but also language, empathy, how children learn, why people respond to certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may be harmful and why many men like pornography. Let me set aside the controversial questions about whether mirror neurons can explain all of these things, and accept that mirror neurons are clearly smart little cells. But let me ask whether Blakeslee and her scientists are expressing things in the right way
• Vittorio Gallese (2000). The inner sense of action: Agency and motor representations.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2000/00000007/00000010/1054
  
• Alva Noë (2006). Experience without the head.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some cognitive states — e.g. states of thinking, calculating, navigating — may be partially external because, at least sometimes, these states depend on the use of symbols and artifacts that are outside the body. Maps, signs, writing implements may sometimes be as inextricably bound up with the workings of cognition as neural structures or internally realized symbols (if there are any). According to what Clark and Chalmers [1998] call active externalism, the environment can drive and so partially constitute cognitive processes. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? If active externalism is right, then the boundary cannot be drawn at the skull. The mind reaches – or at least can reach --- beyond the limits of the body out into the world
• Melvyn A. Goodale & A. David Milner (1992). Separate visual pathways for perception and action.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRdWR4JnS&sig=3tPM_o4BKfAdIcDQlB7y6utqw2Q
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ei_hVW8BpQ&sig=3SYZjocbq5Y0cs3JpTBjZlraqEQ
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ei_hSSdInR&sig=_6iza5Fl7ywsh42Mo7-74sXLloQ
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ei_hXW8HpV&sig=2Z0Eq-nTSSO6rbjv6Gh49tZgH_M
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRhSTdDsV&sig=D8nM04pe2oCHKL_-KD-5E_wvZno
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRgWT9CoO&sig=4VLABY-gDRkeeDTuCHCnqreQbXs
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRf_T4GrW&sig=p4NgETSpnBneCCPlyJPuG63GGAU
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejReSR9GmX&sig=TadTjdBt-nLX--wqoi0UkwQnY5o
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRi_VbEmV&sig=WBV4ExTDai7tMrlTTIBUwtaWEHk
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejReYS4GqV&sig=1zty9sE2r9tYWXjfOG9cpuAoCoc
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRjWW5DrU&sig=0fVyRJXG5RyhaMArNn9ZyHNBVFQ
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRiUV7JmW&sig=ow96qNDPoT4wx9exRSvKMTwII9w
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=d5N4Ei9oqk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA395&ots=ejRhYU7KmU&sig=tqB-MhbjM_sDcjYga5VrBN7mp4o
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1374953&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=1374953&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  
• Rick Grush (forthcoming). Skill theory v2.0: Dispositions, emulation, and spatial perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach according to which perception is imbued with spatial content in virtue of certain kinds of connections between perceiving organism’s sensory input and its behavioral output. The most important aspect of the defense involves clearly distinguishing two kinds of perceptuo-behavioral skills—the formation of dispositions, and a capacity for emulation. The former, the formation of dispositions, is argued to by the central pivot of spatial content. I provide a neural information processing interpretation of what these dispositions amount to, and describe how dispositions, so understood, are an obvious implementation of Gareth Evans’ proposal on the topic. Furthermore, I describe what sorts of contribution are made by emulation mechanisms, and I also describe exactly how the emulation framework differs from similar but distinct notions with which it is often unhelpfully confused, such as sensorimotor contingencies and forward models
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/50478717314t6630/fulltext.pdf
  
• Ryan Hickerson, Knowing how to possibly act: Alva noë's action in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Alva Noë is a modern-day empiricist. His book Action in Perception is chockablock with contemporary cognitive science; its preface and notes (not to mention general erudition) point to on-going collaboration with Evan Thompson, Kevin O’Regan, and Susan Hurley. Their research investigates the sensorimotor bases of consciousness, and Action in Perception is offered as its philosophical backdrop. As such, the book presents a series of ideas and interpretations that constitute what Noë calls the “enactive approach” to perception, many of which are explicitly phenomenological in orientation. So those on the lookout for imaginative philosophy of mind will find Noë's work particularly compelling. (Noë would prefer "already feeling about for imaginative philosophy of mind," because on his account paradigmatic perceptual activity is tactile rather than visual.) In this review I will not address the empirical details concerning Noë and his compatriots, but will instead focus on the way Noë’s enactive approach should be situated vis-à-vis traditional phenomenology. Action in Perception is part of the grand project of a robustly scientific knowledge of human perceptual experience, but it is clearly also a philosophical theory, so I will address it philosophically. I address it as I take it to be: one of the best works in the philosophy of perception to appear in a very long time
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.wou.edu/~hickersr/Hickerson%20on%20Noe.pdf
  
• Susan L. Hurley (1998). Active perception and vehicle externalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Certain empirical results suggest a way of challenging two natural and widespread assumptions about the mind. One assumption is about the relations between perception and action. This shows up in the widespread conception of perception and action in terms of input and output, respectively. Perception is conceived as input from world to mind and action is conceived as output from mind to world. The other assumption is about the relations between mind and world. It influences various opposed views about whether the contents of the mind are in principle independent of the outside world
• Susan L. Hurley (online). Consciousness in action: Clarifications.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophy of neuroscience may seem an odd thing to do. What can a philosopher add to what neuroscience itself has to say, other than at some very abstract level, far removed from empirical details and the interests of scientists? At some point you take a deep breath, acknowledge the methodological questions, and just go ahead, spurred on by the sheer philosophical interest and excitement abroad in the neurosciences today. So it is very gratifying to a philosopher of neuroscience for such a distinguished neuropsychologist as Marcel Kinsbourne to find added value in the result
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/D4KR70P9T4D0BUT9.pdf
  
• Susan L. Hurley (2001). Perception and action: Alternative views.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   A traditional view of perception and action makestwo assumptions: that the causal flow betweenperception and action is primarily linear or one-way,and that they are merely instrumentally related toeach other, so that each is a means to the other.Either or both of these assumptions can be rejected.Behaviorism rejects the instrumental but not theone-way aspect of the traditional view, thus leavingitself open to charges of verificationism. Ecologicalviews reject the one-way aspect but not theinstrumental aspect of the traditional view, so thatperception and action are seen as instrumentallyinterdependent. It is argued here that a betteralternative is to reject both assumptions, resultingin a two-level interdependence view in whichperception and action co-depend on dynamicallycircular subpersonal relations and as a result may bemore than merely instrumentally interdependent. Thisis illustrated by reference to motor theories ofperception and control theories of action
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.warwick.ac.uk/staff/S.L.Hurley/papers/pa.pdf
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/hurley (2001) perception and action. alternative views.pdf
  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/mmm/readings/Hurley - Perception and Action.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l015777n34g15167/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=271323&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L015777N34G15167.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2001/00000129/00000001/00271323
  
• Daniel D. Hutto (2005). Knowing what? Radical versus conservative enactivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The binary divide between traditional cognitivist and enactivist paradigms is tied to their respective commitments to understanding cognition as based on knowing that as opposed to knowing how. Using O’Regan’s and No¨e’s landmark sensorimotor contingency theory of perceptual experience as a foil, I demonstrate how easy it is to fall into conservative thinking. Although their account is advertised as decidedly ‘skill-based’, on close inspection it shows itself to be riddled with suppositions threatening to reduce it to a rules-and-representations approach. To remain properly enactivist it must be purged of such commitments and indeed all commitment to mediating knowledge: it must embrace a more radical enactivism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/m02ltj7008017271/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/M02LTJ7008017271.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phen/2005/00000004/00000004/00009001
  
• Pierre Jacob (2005). Grasping and perceiving objects.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bpjAkBrkmu4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA241&ots=JljUmyR0Zu&sig=ng2uUGFbmB1iMyaNBn7tfnpX1Tw
  
• Pierre Jacob (2006). Why visual experience is likely to resist being enacted.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Alva Noë’s version of the enactive conception in _Action in Perception_ is an important contribution to the study of visual perception. First, I argue, however, that it is unclear (at best) whether, as the enactivists claim, work on change blindness supports the denial of the existence of detailed visual representations. Second, I elaborate on what Noë calls the ‘puzzle of perceptual presence’. Thirdly, I question the enactivist account of perceptual constancy. Finally, I draw attention to the tensions between enactivism and two trends in cognitive neuroscience: the two-visual systems model of human vision and the theory of internal forward models of action
• Thomas Johanson (online). Imprinted on the mind: Passive and active in Aristotle's theory of perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: B.Saunders and J. van Brakel (eds.), Theories, Technologies, Instrumentalities of Colour, University Press of America 2002, 169-188
• Sean D. Kelly (2002). Merleau-ponty on the body: The logic of motor intentional activity.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/rati/2002/00000015/00000004/art00198
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/rati/2002/00000015/00000004/art00004
  
• Colin Klein & Gabriel Love (2007). Kicking the Kohler habit.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Kohler's experiments with inverting goggles are often thought to support enactivism by showing that visual re-inversion occurs simultaneous with the return of sensorimotor skill. Closer examination reveals that Kohler's work does not show this. Recent work by Linden et al. shows that re-inversion, if it occurs at all, does not occur when the enactivist predicts. As such, the empirical evidence weighs against enactivism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a782009436~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/782009436.pdf
  
• David A. Leopold & Nikos K. Logothetis (1996). Activity changes in early visual cortex reflect monkeys' percepts during binocular rivalry.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psych.jwatch.org/cgi/content/full/1996/401/14
  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v379/n6565/abs/379549a0.html
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=8596635&ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8596635&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=8596635&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  
• Erik Lumer & Geraint Rees (1999). Covariation of activity in visual and prefrontal cortex associated with subjective visual perception.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/4/1669
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9990082&dopt=Citation
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-8424(19990216)96:4<1669:COAIVA>2.0.CO;2-7
  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=15554
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/47260.pdf
  
• William G. Lycan (2006). Enactive intentionality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Though Noë is concerned to emphasize that perceptual experiences are not per se internal representations, he does not really say why, and he is fairly quiet about what he takes intentionality and representation themselves to be. Drawing on a subsequent paper (Noë (forthcoming)), I bring out and criticize his in fact radically negative view of those fundamental mental capacities
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/symposia/noe/Lycan.pdf
  
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• Pete Mandik (2005). Action-oriented representation.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Often, sensory input underdetermines perception. One such example is the perception of illusory contours. In illusory contour perception, the content of the percept includes the presence of a contour that is absent from the informational content of the sensation. (By “sensation” I mean merely information-bearing events at the transducer level. I intend no further commitment such as the identification of sensations with qualia.) I call instances of perception underdetermined by sensation “underdetermined perception.” The perception of illusory contours is just one kind of underdetermined perception. The focus of this chapter is another kind of underdetermined perception: what I shall call "active perception". Active perception occurs in cases in which the percept, while underdetermined by sensation, is determined by a combination of sensation and action. The phenomenon of active perception has been used by several to argue against the positing of representations in explanations of sensory experience, either by arguing that no representations need be posited or that far fewer than previously thought need be posited. Such views include, but are not limited to those of Gibson (1966, 1986), Churchland
• Pete Mandik (forthcoming). Control consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Control consciousness is the awareness or experience of seeming to be in control of one’s actions. One view, which I will be arguing against in the present paper, is that control consciousness is a form of sensory consciousness. On such a view, control consciousness is exhausted by sensory elements such as tactile and proprioceptive information. An opposing view, which I will be arguing for, is that sensory elements cannot be the whole story and must be supplemented by direct contributions of nonsensory, motor elements. More specifically, I will be arguing for the view that the neural basis of control consciousness is constituted by states of recurrent activation in relatively intermediate levels of the motor hierarchy.
• Christopher Mole (2009). The Motor Theory of Speech Perception.   (More)
• Alva Noë (2001). Experience and the active mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   This paper investigates a new species ofskeptical reasoning about visual experience that takesits start from developments in perceptual science(especially recent work on change blindness andinattentional blindness). According to thisskepticism, the impression of visual awareness of theenvironment in full detail and high resolution isillusory. I argue that the new skepticism depends onmisguided assumptions about the character ofperceptual experience, about whether perceptualexperiences are ''internal'' states, and about how bestto understand the relationship between a person''s oranimal''s perceptual capacities and the brain-level orneural processes on which they depend. I propose aconception of perceptual experience as a form ofskillful engagement with the environment on the partof the whole person or animal
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n84kr20t22441086/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N84KR20T22441086.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2001/00000129/00000001/00271324
  
• Andy Clark (2002). Is seeing all it seems? Action, reason and the grand illusion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We seem, or so it seems to some theorists, to experience a rich stream of highly detailed information concerning an extensive part of our current visual surroundings. But this appearance, it has been suggested, is in some way illusory. Our brains do not command richly detailed internal models of the current scene. Our seeings, it seems, are not all that they seem. This, then, is the Grand Illusion. We think we see much more than we actually do. In this paper I shall (briefly) rehearse the empirical evidence for this rather startling claim, and then critically examine a variety of responses. One especially interesting response is a development of the so-called ‘skill theory’, according to which there is no illusion after all. Instead, so the theory goes, we establish the required visual contact with our world by an ongoing process of active exploration, in which the world acts as a kind of reliable, interrogable, external memory (Noe, Pessoa and
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/clark/pubs/jcsrev.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2002/00000009/F0020005/1276
  
• Alva Noe (ms). Perception, action, and nonconceptual content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: profile deforms as we move about it. As perceivers we are masters of the patterns of sensorimotor contingency that shape our perceptual interaction with the world. We expect changes in such things as apparent size, shape and color to occur as we actively explore the environment. In encountering perspective-dependent changes of this sort, we learn how things are quite apart form our particular perspective. Our possession of these skills is constitutive of our ability to see (and generally to perceive). This is confirmed by the fact that we can disrupt a person
• Alva Noë & Susan L. Hurley (2003). The deferential brain in action.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: binding of colour and alphanumeric form in synaesthesia. Nature 410
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/replytogray.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12757819&dopt=Citation
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1364661303000780
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/13646613/2003/00000007/00000005/art00078
  
• Alva Noë (2006). Précis of Action in Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: To be a perceiver is to understand, implicitly, the effects of movement on sensory stimulation. Examples are ready to hand. An object looms larger in the visual field as we approach it, and its profile deforms as we move about it. A sound grows louder as we move nearer to its source. Movements of the hand over the surface of an object give rise to shifting sensations. As perceivers we are masters of this sort of pattern of sensorimotor dependence. This mastery shows itself in the thoughtless automaticity with which we move our eyes, head and body in taking in what is around us. We spontaneously crane

  PSYCHE: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/

  our necks, peer, squint, reach for our glasses, or draw near to get a better look (or better to handle, sniff, lick or listen to what interests us). The central claim of what I call _the _ _enactive approach _is that our ability to perceive not only depends on, but is constituted by, our possession of this sort of sensorimotor knowledge.²
• J. Kevin O'Regan & Alva Noë (2001). A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Many current neurophysiological, psychophysical, and psychological approaches to vision rest on the idea that when we see, the brain produces an internal representation of the world. The activation of this internal representation is assumed to give rise to the experience of seeing. The problem with this kind of approach is that it leaves unexplained how the existence of such a detailed internal representation might produce visual consciousness. An alternative proposal is made here. We propose that seeing is a way of acting. It is a particular way of exploring the environment. Activity in internal representations does not generate the experience of seeing. The out- side world serves as its own, external, representation. The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the gov- erning laws of sensorimotor contingency. The advantage of this approach is that it provides a natural and principled way of accounting for visual consciousness, and for the differences in the perceived quality of sensory experience in the different sensory modalities. Sev- eral lines of empirical evidence are brought forward in support of the theory, in particular: evidence from experiments in sensorimotor adaptation, visual “filling in,” visual stability despite eye movements, change blindness, sensory substitution, and color perception
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/oregan.noe.pdf
  http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/oregan.noe.pdf
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/oregan.noe.pdf
  http://redwood.berkeley.edu/bruno/mindmachine/oregan.pdf
  http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/surprisesurprise.pdf
  http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/surprisesurprise.pdf
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/06/index.html
  http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kuipers/readings/ORegan-bbs-01.pdf
  http://www.cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/~NBP/PDFs_Publications/ORegan.BBS.01pdf.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=125085&jid=BBS&volumeId=24&issueId=05&aid=125084
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12239892&dopt=Abstract
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12239892&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=12239892&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=125085
  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X01000115
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X01630115
  
• J. Kevin O'Regan, Erik Myin & Alva Noë (2006). Skill, corporality and alerting capacity in an account of sensory consciousness.   (More)
• J. Kevin O'Regan (2001). What it is like to see: A sensorimotor theory of perceptual experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   The paper proposes a way of bridging the gapbetween physical processes in the brain and the ''''felt''''aspect of sensory experience. The approach is based onthe idea that experience is not generated by brainprocesses themselves, but rather is constituted by theway these brain processes enable a particular form of''''give-and-take'''' between the perceiver and theenvironment. From this starting-point we are able tocharacterize the phenomenological differences betweenthe different sensory modalities in a more principledway than has been done in the past. We are also ableto approach the issues of visual awareness andconsciousness in a satisfactory way. Finally weconsider a number of testable empirical consequences,one of which is the striking prediction of thephenomenon of ''''change blindness''''
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/nl361h8276502488/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=271326&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/NL361H8276502488.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/synt/2001/00000129/00000001/00271326
  
• Jesse J. Prinz (2006). Putting the brakes on enactive perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Alva Noë’s _Action in Perception _offers a provocative and vigorous defense of the thesis that vision is enactive: visual experience depends on dispositional motor responses. On this view, vision and action are inextricably bound. In this review, I argue against enactive perception. I raise objections to seven lines of evidence that appear in Noë’s book, and I indicate some reasons for thinking that vision can operate independently of motor responses. I conclude that the relationship between vision and action is causal, not constitutive. I then address three other contentious hypotheses in the book. Noë argues that visual states are not pictorial; he argues that all perception is conceptual; and he argues that the external world makes a constitutive contribution to experience. I am unpersuaded by these arguments, and I offer reasons to resist Noë’s conclusions
• Yves Rossetti (2001). Implicit perception in action: Short-lived motor representation of space.   (More)
• Mark Rowlands (2006). Sensorimotor activity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper explores the concept of _sensorimotor activity_ that is central to the enactive model of visual perception developed in Alva Noë’s book, _Action in Perception_. The appeal to sensorimotor activity is, I shall argue, subject to a dilemma. On one interpretation, such activity presupposes representational states, and therefore is unable to aid us in the project of understanding how an organism is able to represent the world. On the other interpretation, sensorimotor activity fails to accommodate the essential normativity of representational states, and is therefore also unable to aid us in the project of understanding representation. The solution, I argue, lies in a new conception of sensorimotor activity, according to which such activity is normative, but where this normativity is not inherited from prior representational states
• Susanna Schellenberg (2007). Action and self-location in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I offer an explanation of how subjects are able to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects, given that subjects always perceive from a particular location. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, I argue that a conception of space is necessary to perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects. This conception of space is spelled out by showing that perceiving intrinsic properties requires perceiving objects as the kind of things that are perceivable from other locations. Second, I show that having such a conception of space presupposes that a subject represent her location in relation to perceived objects. More precisely the thesis is that a subject represents her location as the location from which she both perceives objects and would act in relation to objects were she to act. So I argue that perception depends on the capacity to know what it would be to act in relation to objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/116/463/603
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/116/463/603
  
• Kieran Setiya (2009). Review of 'Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge'.   (More)
• Charles Siewert (2005). Attention and sensorimotor intentionality.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1xVtpfQ-8dQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA270&ots=CoKezPij3_&sig=aPQLrBJWpV0MYca1_nxxwypyeic
  
• Charles Siewert (2006). Is the appearance of shape protean?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This commentary focuses on shape constancy in vision and its relation to sensorimotor knowledge. I contrast “Protean” and “Constancian” views about how to describe perspectival changes in the appearance of an object’s shape. For the Protean, these amount to changes in apparent shape; for Constance, things are not merely judged, but literally appear constant in shape. I give reasons in favor of the latter view, and argue that Noë’s attempt to combine aspects of both views in a “dual aspect” account does not manage to avoid an unacceptable attribution of contradictory content to visual appearance. I argue also that my position here actually fits better with Noë’s critique of a “snapshot” conception of visual appearance than his own interpretation of visual constancy, and better supports his claim that experiential content is constituted by the exercise of sensorimotor understanding
• Cara Spencer (2007). Unconscious vision and the platitudes of folk psychology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since we explain behavior by ascribing intentional states to the agent, many philosophers have assumed that some guiding principle of folk psychology like the following, which I call intentional states and actions (ISA), must be true: "If A and B are different actions, then the agents performing them must differ in their intentional states at the time they are performed." Recent results in the physiology of vision present a prima facie problem for this principle. These results show that some visual information that guides spatial manipulation and fine motor control is unavailable for verbal report. Plausibly, this information is not consciously available to the agent, and as such, not available to inform the content of intentional states. Thus, it is hard to see how every difference in action is subject to intentional explanation, as (ISA) requires. I articulate the prima facie problem and argue that the most plausible solution requires us to reject (ISA)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://caraspencer.net/Cara_Spencer/Online_Papers_I_files/Unconscious_vision_PP.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a778813815~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/778813815.pdf
  
• Nigel J. T. Thomas (1999). Are theories of imagery theories of imagination? An active perception approach to conscious mental content.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi-pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the "traditional" symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recent *situated cognition* and *active vision* approaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non-discursiveness, creativity, and *seeing as*) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non-discursive and relates it closely to *seeing as*. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/1555/1/im-im-cp.htm
  http://www.imagery-imagination.com/im-im/im-im.pdf
  http://www.imagery-imagination.com/im-im/im-im.htm
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15516709cog2302_3
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/s15516709cog2302_3
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/1999v23/i02/p0207p0245/MAIN.PDF
  http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/thomas (1999) are theories of imagery.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/1555/1/im%2Dim%2Dcp.htm
  http://cogprints.org/5018/1/im%2Dim%2Dcp.htm
  
• Nigel J. T. Thomas (online). New support for the perceptual activity theory of mental imagery.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Since the publication of my "Are Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? An _Active Perception_ Approach to Conscious Mental Content," (Thomas, 1999 - henceforth abbreviated as ATOITOI on this page), a good deal of published material has appeared or has come to my attention that either provides additional support for the Perceptual Activity Theory PA theory) of mental imagery presented in ATOITOI, or that throws further doubt on the rival (picture and description) theories that are criticized there. Other relevant evidence was not mentioned in ATOITOI because I lacked the space for a proper explanation of its relevance. I hope eventually to write and publish a new account of

  PA

  theory, that will make use of much of this material. In the meantime this page provides citations (and, where possible, links) to the "new" support, and discussion sections that briefly explain the relevance of the cited material. Quite apart from presenting new lines of supporting evidence and argument, I hope this page will help to clarify many aspects of
• Evan Thompson (2005). Sensorimotor subjectivity and the enactive approach to experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The enactive approach offers a distinctive view of how mental life relates to bodily activity at three levels: bodily self-regulation, sensorimotor coupling, and intersubjective in- teraction. This paper concentrates on the second level of sensorimotor coupling. An account is given of how the subjectively lived body and the living body of the organism are related (the body-body problem) via dynamic sensorimotor activity, and it is shown how this account helps to bridge the explanatory gap between consciousness and the brain. Arguments by O'Regan, No¨e, and Myin that seek to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual consciousness in terms of 'bodiliness' and 'grabbiness' are considered. It is suggested that their account does not pay sufficient attention to two other key aspects of perceptual phenomenality: the autonomous nature of the experiencing self or agent, and the pre-reflective nature of bodily self-consciousness
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://individual.utoronto.ca/evant/PCSEnactive06pdf.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n2215w091335206r/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N2215W091335206R.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phen/2005/00000004/00000004/00009003
  
• Wayne Wright (2006). Visual stuff and active vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper examines the status of unattended visual stimuli in the light of recent work on the role of attention in visual perception. Although the question of whether attention is required for visual experience seems very interesting, this paper argues that there currently is no good reason to take a stand on the issue. Moreover, it is argued that much of the allure of that question stems from a continued attachment to the defective ‘inner picture view’ of experience and a mistaken notion that the ultimate goal of vision is to produce visual experience. The paper considers a promising general account of the content and structure of vision and presents reasons for not taking that account to be committed to any substantive claims about the experiential status of unattended visual stimuli. Also addressed are the active nature of vision and the role of vision in enabling our ecological success. These considerations highlight that visual experience is not the whole of vision and that a much more important question about unattended visual stimuli than whether they are consciously experienced is what contribution they make to how we interact with the world
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.mindstuff.net/VisualStuffActiveVision-WTW.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a743786467~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/G06W2176J8504261.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/743786467.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a743786467~fulltext=713240930
  

Perception and Reference

• John Campbell (web). Consciousness and reference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose your conscious life were surgically excised, but everything else left intact, what would you miss? In this situation you would not have the slightest idea what was going on. You would have no idea what there is in the world around you; what the grounds are of the potentialities and threats are that you are negotiating. Experience of your surroundings provides you with knowledge of what is there: with your initial base of knowledge of what the things are that you are thinking and talking about. But this connection between consciousness of the objects and properties around you, and knowledge of the references of the basic terms you use, has proven difficult to articulate. The connection cannot be recognized so long as you think of consciousness as a kind of glow with which representations are accompanied or enlivened. It is, though, also possible to think of perceptual experience as fundamentally a relation between the subject and the things experienced; and given such a conception, we can make visible the link between consciousness and reference
• John Campbell (1997). Sense, reference and selective attention.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1997), 55-74, with a reply by Michael Martin
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jcampbel/documents/SenseReferenceSelectiveAttention.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8349.00019
  
• Austen Clark (online). Sensing and reference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When I was revising _Sensory Qualities_ there was a period of about a year when I set the manuscript aside and did other things. When I returned to it I found that certain portions of the argument had collapsed of their own weight, like an old New England barn, and could be carted off the premises without compunction. Other parts were wobbling on their foundation, while some had weathered well and seemed nice and solid. My revision strategy was simple: I kept just the nice solid bits, thinking that I could go back and work on the wobbly portions later
• Adrian Cussins (1999). Subjectivity, objectivity, and theories of reference in Evans' theory of thought.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper explores some problems with Gareth Evans’s theory of the fundamental and non-fundamental levels of thought [1]. I suggest a way to reconceive the levels of thought that overcomes these problems. But, first, why might anyone who was not already struck by Evans’s remarkable theory care about these issues? What’s at stake here?
• Kevin Mulligan (1997). How perception fixes reference.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The answer I shall sketch is not mine. Nor, as far as I can tell, is it an answer to be found in the voluminous literature inspired by Kripke’s work. Many of the elements of the answer are to be found in the writings of Wittgenstein and his Austro-German predecessors, Martinak, Husserl, Marty, Landgrebe and Bühler. Within this Austro-German tradition we may distinguish between a strand which is Platonist and anti-naturalist and a strand which is nominalist and naturalist. Thus Husserl’s account of what he calls “directly referring” uses of singular terms invokes senses or individual concepts, albeit simple, not descriptive senses. But the account of reference fixing and reference given by Landgrebe, Bühler and Wittgenstein rejects senses.1 I confine further reference to these writers to footnotes since my aim here is to develop and unify some of their suggestions, in particular by comparing them with more recent work (cf. Mulligan 1997)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zw5bshc9D24C&oi=fnd&pg=PA122&ots=18wM5eN5NG&sig=0LQdBJr1syOSbcMr22NUG6iYkWs
  

Perception and Phenomenology

• Ansgar Beckermann (1995). Visual information processing and phenomenal consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As far as an adequate understanding of phenomenal consciousness is concerned, representationalist theories of mind which are modelled on the information processing paradigm, are, as much as corresponding neurobiological or functionalist theories, confronted with a series of arguments based on inverted or absent qualia considerations. These considerations display the following pattern: assuming we had complete knowledge about the neural and functional states which subserve the occurrence of phenomenal consciousness, would it not still be conceivable that these neural states (or states with the same causal r
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(de)/philosophie/personen/beckermann/phben_ww.pdf
  http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/(en)/philosophie/personen/beckermann/phben_ww.pdf
  
• Taylor Carman (2008). Review of Thomas Baldwin (ed.), Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception.   (More)
• Elijah Chudnoff (forthcoming). What Intuitions Are Like.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What are intuitions? According to doxastic views, they are doxastic attitudes or dispositions, such as judgments or inclinations to make judgments. According to perceptualist views, they are—like perceptual experiences—pre-doxastic experiences that—unlike perceptual experiences—represent abstract matters as being a certain way. In this paper I argue against doxasticism and in favor of perceptualism. I describe two features that militate against doxasticist views of perception itself: perception is belief-independent and perception is presentational. Then I argue that intuitions also have both features. The upshot is that intuitions are importantly similar to perceptual experiences, and so should not be identified with doxastic attitudes or dispositions. I consider a popular argument from the introspective absence of sui generis intuition experiences in favor of doxasticism. I develop a conception of intuition experiences that helps to defuse this argument.
• Christian Coseru (2009). Buddhist 'Foundationalism' and the Phenomenology of Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this essay, which draws on a set of interrelated issues in the phenomenology of perception, I call into question the assumption that Buddhist philosophers of the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti tradition pursue a kind of epistemic foundationalism. I argue that the embodied cognition paradigm, which informs recent efforts within the Western philosophical tradition to overcome the Cartesian legacy, can be also found– albeit in a modified form–in the Buddhist epistemological tradition. In seeking to ground epistemology in the phenomenology of cognition, the Buddhist epistemologist, I claim, is operating on principles similar to those found in Husserl’s phenomenological tradition.
• Mark Crooks (2008). The Churchlands' war on qualia.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The systematic phenomenology-denial within the works of Paul and Patricia Churchland is critiqued as to its coherence with the known elelmentary physics and physiology of perception. Paul Churchland misidentifies "qualia" with psychology's sensorimotor schemas, while Patricia Churchland illicitly propounds the intertheoretic identities of logical empiricism while rejecting the premises upon which those identities are based. Their analogies from such arguments to an identity of mind and brain thus have no inductive probability.
• Mr Tom Froese & Mr Adam Spiers, Toward a phenomenological pragmatics of enactive perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The enactive approach to perception is generating an extensive amount of interest and debate in the cognitive sciences. One particularly contentious issue has been how best to characterize the perceptual experiences reported by subjects who have mastered the skillful use of a perceptual supplementation (PS) device. This paper argues that this issue cannot be resolved with the use of third-person methodologies alone, but that it requires the development of a phenomenological pragmatics. In particular, it is necessary that the experimenters become skillful in the use of PS devices themselves. The "Enactive Torch" is proposed as an experimental platform which is cheap, non-intrusive and easy to replicate, so as to enable researchers to corroborate reported experiences with their own phenomenology more easily
• Jakob Hohwy, The sense of self in the phenomenology of agency and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The phenomenology of agency and perception is probably underpinned by a common cognitive system based on generative models and predictive coding. I defend the hypothesis that this cognitive system explains core aspects of the sense of having a self in agency and perception. In particular, this cognitive model explains the phenomenological notion of a minimal self as well as a notion of the narrative self. The proposal is related to some influential studies of overall brain function, and to psychopathology. These elusive notions of the self are shown to be the natural upshots of general cognitive mechanisms whose fundamental purpose is to enable agents to represent the world and act in it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.theassc.org/files/assc/2668.pdf
  
• Sean D. Kelly (2005). Seeing things in Merleau-ponty.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The passage above comes from the opening pages of Merleau-Ponty’s essay on Edmund Husserl. It proposes a risky interpretive principle. The main feature of this principle is that the seminal aspects of a thinker’s work are so close to him that he is incapable of articulating them himself. Nevertheless, these aspects pervade the work, give it its style, its sense and its direction, and therefore belong to it essentially. As Martin Heidegger writes, in a passage quoted by Merleau-Ponty:

  The greater the work of a thinker – which in no way coincides with the breadth
  and number of writings – the richer is what is un-thought in this work, which
  means, that which emerges in and through this work as having not yet been
  thought.²

  The goal of Merleau-Ponty’s essay, he says, is “to evoke this un-thought-of element in Husserl’s thought”.³
• Brian Lancaster (1997). On the stages of perception: Towards a synthesis of cognitive neuroscience and the buddhist abhidhamma tradition.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/1997/00000004/00000002/752?token=003712f1f168263c7b6f7e2a46762c47745d3e666725502e6e5f5f7
  
• Eric Lormand (2005). Phenomenal impressions.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA316&ots=_ol-wcvxAO&sig=w2fuz0p42C7KYUpUZgCqnay8MFM
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA316&ots=I0WGkBy6jy&sig=yEW2j3v7f6YumQj3VovotWnfvSQ
  
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• David Morris, Andrew Robinson & Catherine Duchastel (ms). Concordance of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This is a concordance of page numbers in the following editions of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: English editions prior to the Routledge Classics 2002; Routledge Classics edition, with the new pagination; the French edition from Gallimard, prior to 2005; the 2e edition from Gallimard, 2005, with new pagination.
• Ravi Prakash & Michele Caponigro (online). Inner Light Perception as a Quantum Phenomenon-Addressing the Questions of Physical and Critical Realisms, Information and Reduction.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Subjectivity or the problem of ‘qualia’ tends to make the accessibility and comprehension of psychological events intangible especially for scientific exploration. The issue becomes even more complicated but interesting when one turns towards mystical experiences. Such experiences are different from other psychological phenomena in the sense that they don’t occur to every one, so are difficult to comprehend even for their qualifications of existence. We conducted a qualitative study on one such experience of inner-light perception. This is a common experience reported by meditators of all kinds. However, we chose to study this phenomenon in Vihangam Yoga practitioners because of frequent occurrence of this experience in them as well as their reports of having it for hours at a stretch. During this study, it was noted that it arose many questions there we need to answer not only to explain such phenomena but also for having a better understanding of philosophy of science. In the search for these answers, we proceeded towards another complicated branch of science, quantum mechanics. Our present work is about creating an interface between a unique subjective phenomenon and principles of philosophy as well as of quantum mechanics. We explore the constructs of physical and critical realisms and their coincidence, quantum information theory and the measurement problem of Copenhagen interpretation and their possible applications in such an experience. In this endeavour, we also address the possibility that inner-light perception as experienced by Vihangam Yogis is a quantum event in brain. For this purpose, we specifically analyse the Zeilingers information concept and try to apply it to this phenomena.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://none
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (forthcoming). Ontological Minimalism about Phenomenology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I develop a view of the common factor between subjectively indistinguishable perceptions and hallucinations that avoids analyzing experiences as involving awareness relations to abstract entities, sense-data, or any other peculiar entities. The main thesis is that hallucinating subjects employ concepts (or analogous nonconceptual structures), namely the very same concepts that in a subjectively indistinguishable perceptual experience are employed as a consequence of being related to external, mind-independent objects or property-instances. Since a hallucinating subject is not related to any such objects or property-instances, the concepts she employs remain unsaturated. I argue that the phenomenology of hallucinations and perceptions can be identified with employing concepts and analogous nonconceptual structures. By doing so, I defend a minimalist view of the phenomenology of experience that (1) satisfies the Aristotelian principle according to which the existence of any type depends on its tokens and (2) amounts to a naturalized view of the phenomenology of experience.
• Susanna Schellenberg (2010). The Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that any account of perceptual experience should satisfy the following two desiderata. First, it should account for the particularity of perceptual experience, that is, it should account for the mind-independent object of an experience making a difference to individuating the experience. Second, it should explain the possibility that perceptual relations to distinct environments could yield subjectively indistinguishable experiences. Relational views of perceptual experience can easily satisfy the first but not the second desideratum. Representational views can easily satisfy the second but not the first desideratum. I argue that to satisfy both desiderata perceptual experience is best conceived of as fundamentally both relational and representational. I develop a view of perceptual experience that synthesizes the virtues of relationalism and representationalism, by arguing that perceptual content is constituted by potentially gappy de re modes of presentation.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/SchellenbergParticularityPhenomenology.pdf
  http://rsss.anu.edu.au/%7Esusanna/SchellenbergParticularityPhenomenology.pdf
  
• Gianfranco Soldati & Fabian Dorsch, The rational dimension of perceptual phenomenology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One influential focus of the recent debates about non-sensory aspects of the phenomenal character of our mental episodes has been on their intellectual elements. More specifically, it has been on what it is like to think or judge something in opposition to seeing or imagining it, as well as on the extent to which how we subjectively experience our thoughts and judgements depends on how they present the world as being.1 Other non-sensory aspects of character, by contrast, have been largely neglected, despite two significant facts about them. The first is that they pertain, not only to judgements and similar thoughts, but also to perceptions and other sensory episodes — thus not raising the general issue of whether the episodes concerned possess a phenomenal character in the first place. And second, they are, in several respects, more interesting and perhaps also more basic than the sensory and the intellectual aspects usually discussed. In particular, they reflect or manifest the general nature of the type of episode concerned, rather than the specific differences among its instances. And, as part of this, they render especially the rational dimension of our mental episodes first-personally salient. Our aim in this essay is to describe the non-sensory and non-intellectual phenomenal aspects of perceptions and to highlight their link to the rational role of the latter. This will also involve an attempt at characterising the three kinds of phenomenal aspects at issue. More specifically, it is part of our proposal that the difference between the sensory and the intellectual aspects can be spelled out in terms of the non-neutrality and the reason-insensitivity of the presentational elements concerned. The phenomenal aspects of the third type — which may be called the rational aspects — may then be distinguished from the other two by reference to the fact that only the former concern the type of non-neutrality involved in the respective episodes, rather than what these episodes are non-neutral about..
• Evan Thompson, Alva Noë & Luiz Pessoa (1999). Perceptual completion: A case study in phenomenology and cognitive science.   (More)

Perception and the Mind, Misc

Perceptual Knowledge

• Andrew R. Bailey (1998). Phenomenal Properties: The Epistemology and Metaphysics of Qualia.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  https://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/25916/1/34714Bailey.pdf
  
• David Barnett (2008). The simplicity intuition and its hidden influence on philosophy of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2008.00682.x
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119394834/PDFSTART
  
• Bill Brewer (1998). Experience and reason in perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The question I am interested in is this. What exactly is the role of conscious experience in the acquisition of knowledge on the basis of perception? The problem here, as I see it, is to solve simultaneously for the nature of this experience, and its role in acquiring and sustaining the relevant beliefs, in such a away as to vindicate what I regard as an undeniable datum, that perception is a basic source of knowledge about the mind- independent world, in a sense of basic which is also to be elucidated. I shall sketch the way in which I think that this should be done. In section I, I argue that perceptual experiences must provide reasons for empirical beliefs. In section II, I explain how they do so. My thesis is that a correct account of the sense in which perceptual experiences are experiences of mind-independent things is itself an account of the way in which they provide peculiarly basic reasons for beliefs about the world around the perceiver
• Bill Brewer (2001). Precis of Perception and Reason.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the role of conscious perceptual experience in making thought about the mind- independent empirical world possible? What is the role of such experience in the acquisition of empirical knowledge, about the way things are in that world? What is the relation between these two roles? My central argument is intended to establish that a proper account of the way in which perceptual experience is essential to our grasp of determinate thoughts about particular things in the world around us will at the same time yield a full explanation of the fundamental role which such experience plays in the acquisition of empirical knowledge, by providing us with reasons, which we recognize as such, to endorse the most basic thoughts about mind-independent things in belief
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205(200109)63:2<405:POPAR>2.0.CO;2-R
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00113.x
  
• Alex Byrne (1996). Spin control: Comment on McDowell's Mind and World.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We have justified beliefs about the external world, and some of these are formed directly on the basis of perception. I may justifiably believe that a certain dog is in certain manger, and I may have this belief because I can see that the dog is in the manger. So far, so good
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/spincontrol.html
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<261:SCCOJM>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=1533-6077(1996)7<261:SCCOJM>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1522911.pdf
  
• Clotilde Calabi (2005). Perceptual saliences.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QJ9PXantDdQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA253&ots=GI2GrS3tW4&sig=21Ut_v6a-mCM66m7ycOyHqjBfG0
  
• Philippe Chuard (ms). Perceptual reasons.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to Conceptualists like John McDowell and Bill Brewer, the representational content of perceptual experiences is wholly conceptual. One of the main!and only!arguments they advance for this claim has to do with the epistemological role of perceptual experiences. I focus on Bill Brewers "1999# version of the argument. I show why Brewer fails to satisfactorily motivate the premises of his argument, and suggest that opponents of Conceptualism could accept these premises without thereby endorsing the conclusion. Finally, I consider whether the conclusion really supports Conceptualism
• Kathrin Gluer-Pagin (online). Perception and justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Any adequate account of perceptual experience has to provide answers to the following questions: What kind, and form of, content do experiences have? What kind of mental states are they? Many, if not most philosophers of perception today agree that experiences have representational contents of the form x is F, where x ranges over material objects and F over sensible properties. I argue that such a "naive semantics" for experiences has to give the wrong answer to the second question. Because of their justificatory role for, and inferential integration into, a subject's belief system, experiences themselves have to be construed as a kind of belief. I also sketch a semantics that allows experiences to be beliefs.
• Mitchell S. Green (2005). "You perceive with your mind": Knowledge and perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A major theme in rap lyrics is that the only way to survive is to use your head, be aware, know whats going on around you. That simple idea packs a lot of background. The most obvious ideas about knowledge turn out if you look at them close up to be pretty questionable. For example: How do we get knowledge about the world? A natural and ancient answer to this question is that much if not all of our knowledge comes from our senses. So for example the nose gives us knowledge of what things smell like, and if all goes well, also indicates whether the thing were smelling is healthy, tasty, or noxious. Likewise, the eyes tell us the color and shape of things, and thereby give us information about whether those things are useful, dangerous, and so on. Like everybody else, rappers know all this. Or do they? Maybe some rappers know that this isnt really so
• A. Gupta (2006). Experience and knowledge.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA181&ots=_ol-vfuyEF&sig=XnMMRNe7lqhZl_dMUgTvh0hoCXU
  
• Susan L. Hurley (2001). Overintellectualizing the mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00115.x
  
• Pierre Jacob (online). Seeing, perceiving, and knowing.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://jeannicod.ccsd.cnrs.fr/documents/disk0/00/00/02/83/ijn_00000283_00/ijn_00000283_00.htm
  
• Daniel Laurier (2004). Reasons, contents, and experiences.   (More)
• Alan Millar (2008). Perceptual-recognitional abilities and perceptual knowledge.   (More)
• George Edward Moore (1918). Some judgements of perception.   (More)
• Daniel OBrien (online). The epistemology of perception.   (More)
• Christopher Peacocke (ms). Explaining perceptual entitlement.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: material that was later incorporated into The Realm of Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and into a paper of the same title in The Challenge of Externalism, ed. R. Schantz (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004)
• John L. Pollock & Iris Oved (2005). Vision, knowledge, and the mystery link.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Imagine yourself sitting on your front porch, sipping your morning coffee and admiring the scene before you. You see trees, houses, people, automobiles; you see a cat running across the road, and a bee buzzing among the flowers. You see that the flowers are yellow, and blowing in the wind. You see that the people are moving about, many of them on bicycles. You see that the houses are painted different colors, mostly earth tones, and most are one-story but a few are two-story. It is a beautiful morning. Thus the world interfaces with your mind through your senses. There is a strong intuition that we are not disconnected from the world. We and the other things we see around us are part of a continuous whole, and we have direct access to them through vision, touch, etc. However, the philosophical tradition tries to drive a wedge between us and the world by insisting that the information we get from perception is the result of inference from indirect evidence that is about how things look and feel to us. The philosophical problem of perception is then to explain what justifies these inferences. We will focus on visual perception. Figure one presents a crude diagram of the cognitive system of an agent capable of forming beliefs on the basis of visual perception. Cognition begins with the stimulation of the rods and cones on the retina. From that physical input, some kind of visual processing produces an introspectible visual image. In response to the production of the visual image, the cognizer forms beliefs about his or her surroundings. Some beliefs the perceptual beliefs are formed as direct responses to the visual input, and other beliefs are inferred from the perceptual beliefs. The perceptual beliefs are, at the very least, caused or causally influenced by having the image. This is signified by the dashed arrow marked with a large question mark. We will refer to this as the mystery link. Figure one makes it apparent that in order to fully understand how knowledge is based on perception, we need three different theories..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://oscarhome.soc-sci.arizona.edu/ftp/PAPERS/Perceptual-Representation.pdf
  http://oscarhome.soc-sci.arizona.edu/ftp/PAPERS/Perceptual-representation.pdf
  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/mmm/readings/Pollock - Vision, Knowledge, and the Mystery Link.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2005.00064.x
  
• Snjezana Prijic-Samarzija (2004). Some epistemological consequences of the dual-aspect theory of visual perception.   (More)
• Alan Thomas (online). Perceptual knowledge, representation and imagination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The focus of this paper will be on the problem of perceptual presence and on a solution to this problem pioneered by Kant [1781; 1783] and refined by Sellars [Sellars, 1978] and Strawson [Strawson, 1971]. The problem of perceptual presence is that of explaining how our perceptual experience of the world gives us a robust sense of the presence of objects in perception over and above those sensory aspects of the object given in perception. Objects possess other properties which are, one might say, phenomenologically present even though they are admittedly sensorily absent. The general form of the solution to this problem that Kant developed seems to me to be a neglected resource in contemporary work on perceptual consciousness. Kant solves the problem of perceptual presence by appealing to that which he called the productive use of the imagination. This faculty of mind supplies schematic representations of the object of perception that explains a phenomenological sense of perceptual presence even of those features that are not, in a sense to be further clarified,

Dogmatism about Perception

• Elijah Chudnoff (2010). The Nature of Intuitive Justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I articulate and defend a view that I call phenomenal dogmatism about intuitive justification. It is dogmatic because it includes the thesis: if it intuitively seems to you that p, then you thereby have some prima facie justification for believing that p. It is phenomenalist because it includes the thesis: intuitions justify us in believing their contents in virtue of their phenomenology—and in particular their presentational phenomenology. I explore the nature of presentational phenomenology as it occurs perception, and I make a case for thinking that it is present in a wide variety of logical, mathematical, and philosophical intuitions.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/13v4417kg0307233/fulltext.pdf
  
• Ram Neta (2004). Perceptual evidence and the new dogmatism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the epistemological value of perceptual experience? In his recently influential paper, “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist”1, James Pryor develops a seemingly plausible answer to this question. Pryor’s answer comprises the following three theses: (F) “Our perceptual justification for beliefs about our surroundings is always defeasible – there are always possible improvements in our epistemic state which would no longer support those beliefs.” (517) (PK) “This justification that you get merely by having an experience as of p can sometimes suffice to give you knowledge that p is the case.” (520) (D) “When it perceptually seems to you as if p is the case, you have a kind of justification for believing p that does not presuppose or rest on your justification for anything else, which could be cited in argument (even an ampliative argument) for p. To have this justification for believing p, you need only have an experience that represents p as being the case. No further awareness or reflection or background beliefs are required.” (519) Let’s use the phrase “fallibilist dogmatism” to refer to the conjunction of (F), (PK), and (D).2 Pryor does not argue for either (F) or (PK) in his paper; he simply shares the widespread and plausible assumption that (F) and (PK) are both true. But the conjunction of (F) and (PK) implies that we can have knowledge on the basis of defeasible justification. And this view leads to paradox. Consider the following individually plausible but jointly incompatible statements
• James Pryor (2000). The skeptic and the dogmatist.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Consider the skeptic about the external world. Let’s straightaway concede to such a skeptic that perception gives us no conclusive or certain knowledge about our surroundings. Our perceptual justification for beliefs about our surroundings is always defeasible—there are always possible improvements in our epistemic state which would no longer support those beliefs. Let’s also concede to the skeptic that it’s metaphysically possible for us to have all the experiences we’re now having while all those experiences are false. Some philosophers dispute this, but I do not. The skeptic I want to consider goes beyond these familiar points to the much more radical conclusion that our perceptual experiences can’t give us any knowledge or even justification for believing that our surroundings are one way rather than another
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0029-4624.00277
  
• Susanna Siegel, Cognitive penetrability and perceptual justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is sometimes said that in depression, everything looks grey. If this is true, then mood can influence the character of perceptual experience: depending only on whether a viewer is depressed or not, how a scene looks to that viewer can differ even if all other conditions stay the same. This would be an example of cognitive penetrability of visual experience by other mental states. Here the influential cognitive state is a mood. Other putative examples of cognitive penetrability involve beliefs: to the reader of Russian, the sheet of Cyrillic script looks different than it looked to her before she could read it. When you know that bananas are yellow, this knowledge affects what color you see bananas to be (an achromatic banana will [2] appear yellowish). To the vain performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to pleased, but remarkably no one ever looks disapproving. To the underconfident performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to displeased, but remarkably no one ever looks approving. And in cases of suggestibility, the mere salience of a hypothesis seems to have an effect on how a given stimulus is experienced. Potential cognitive penetrators thus include moods, beliefs, hypotheses, knowledge, desires, and traits. In some cases, cognitively penetration can be epistemically beneficial. If an x ray looks different to a radiologist from the way it looks to someone lacking radiological expertise, then the radiologist gets more information about the world from her experience (such as whether there’s a tumor) than the non expert does from looking at the same x ray. If Iris Murdoch and John McDowell are right that having the right sort of character lets you see more moral facts than someone lacking that character sees when faced with the same situation, then there too your perceptual experience becomes epistemically better thanks to its being penetrated by your [3] character. In other cases, however, cognitive penetration seems to make experience epistemically worse..

Epistemic and Non-epistemic Perception

• William E. S. McNeill (forthcoming). On Seeing That Someone is Angry.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some propose that the question of how you know that James is angry can be adequately answered with the claim that you see that James is angry. Call this the Perceptual Hypothesis. Here, I examine that hypothesis.
  
  I argue that there are two different ways in which the Perceptual Hypothesis could be made true. You might see that James is angry by seeing his bodily features. Alternatively, you might see that James is angry by seeing his anger. If you see that James is angry in the first way, your knowledge is inferential. If you see that James is angry in the second way, your knowledge is not inferential. These are different ways of knowing that James is angry. So the Perceptual Hypothesis alone does not adequately answer the question of how you know that fact. To ascertain how you know it, we need to decide whether or not you saw his anger.
  
  This is an epistemological argument. But it has consequences for a theory of perception. It implies that there is a determinate fact about which features of an object you see. This fact is made true independently of what you come to know by seeing.
  
  In the final section of the paper, I seek to undermine various ways in which the claim that you see James’ anger may be thought implausible.
  
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ucl.academia.edu/WilliamMcNeill/Papers
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123574706/PDFSTART
  
• John Turri (2008). Practical and Epistemic Justification in Alston's Perceiving God.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper clarifies and evaluates a premise of William Alston’s argument in Perceiving God. The premise in question: if it is practically rational to engage in a doxastic practice, then it is epistemically rational to suppose that said practice is reliable. I first provide the background needed to understand how this premise fits into Alston’s main argument. I then present Alston’s main argument, and proceed to clarify, criticize, modify, and ultimately reject Alston’s argument for the premise in question. Without this premise, Alston’s main argument fails.
• Tine Wilde (2008). Remodel[l]ing Reality. Wittgenstein's uebersichtliche Darstellung & the phenomenon of Installation in visual art.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Remodel[l]ing Reality is an inquiry into Wittgenstein's notion of uebersichtliche Darstellung and the phenomenon of installation in visual art. In a sense, both provide a perspicuous overview of a particular part of our complex world, but the nature of the overview differs. Although both generate knowledge, philosophy via the uebersichtliche Darstellung gives us a view of how things stand for us, while the installation shows an unexpected, exiting point of view. The obvious we tend to forget and the ambiguity of reality are related to each other in a dynamic way. It is in this reflexive dynamics that we constantly remodel our reality. Tools we use are our creative abilities and our powers of imagination. In our choices and solutions we show which aspects of reality we find important and how we communicate these values. The outcome of this investigation is a new perspective on the art of installation and a new insight in Wittgenstein's notion of uebersichtliche Darstellung. Because of this combination, the book is itself an artwork: an InstallationPackage.
  The book is distributed by Ideabooks, Amsterdam. Isbn 978 90 804240 3 6
• Edmond Leo Wright (ms). Sensing as non-epistemic.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A sensory receptor, in any organism anywhere, is sensitive through time to some distribution - energy, motion, molecular shape - indeed, anything that can produce an effect. The sensitivity is rarely direct: for example, it may track changes in relative variation rather than the absolute change of state (as when the skin responds to colder and hotter instead of to cold and hot as such); it may track differing variations under different conditions (the eyes' dark-adaptation; adaptation to sound frequencies can lower the difference threshold; the kinesthetic sense will shut down if a limb is held in a stationary position too long - the limb 'going to sleep'); it may be subject to distortion of the input from overloading (dazzle producing strong-after-images); it may not be confined to one channel of sensitivity (the retina is sensitive to pressure; the hands can feel some strong sound-vibrations, the tympanum of the ear records touch). Strictly speaking there is no limit as to what intensities and what ranges receptors could be sensitive. Sharks are sensitive to electrostatic fields, homing pigeons to magnetic fields; snakes to infra-red rays; bacteria to acid concentrations; perhaps there has even been a mutant organism sensitive to the passage of cosmic rays, even though that would hardly have bestowed any conceivable survival value. What is irrefutable is that individual receptors differ markedly from organism to organism, between different members of the species (one dog being better at tracing smells than another; one person being able to sense light-waves of 375 nanometres, another not; children able to hear 20,000 Hz, older persons not), and between receptors of the same kind within one organism (one eye being sensitive to 765 nm and the other not; one ear deaf to 15,000 Hz and over, the other not). There are also just-noticeable-differences (JND's), in that one person can see two shades of a colour where another sees only one; similarly with sounds
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/articles/sensing.html
  

Perceptual Justification

• Juan Comesana (2005). Justified vs. warranted perceptual belief: Resisting disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that one reason for being a disjunctivist advanced by McDowell (having to do with the indefeasibility of perceptual knowledge) fails because it ignores the distinction between justification and warrant.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philosophy.wisc.edu/comesana/Disjunctivism.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00453.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2005/00000071/00000002/art00005
  
• Kathrin Gluer (ms). Perception and justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: 1. Introduction When it comes to perception, representationalism is all the rage. Representationalism is a claim about the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences: According to representationalism, phenomenal character is fully determined by the representational content of perceptual experiences (cf. Tye 2002, 45). In other words, phenomenal character, what it is like, for instance, to have an experience as of something red, is either supervenient upon or identical with that experience
• Jack C. Lyons (2008). Experience, evidence, and externalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Can anything other than a belief confer epistemic justification on a belief? In particular, can nondoxastic experiential states do so? According to the standard taxonomy, _doxasticism _is the view that only beliefs can justify beliefs; _nondoxasticism _is simply the denial of this. The distinction between doxastic and nondoxastic theories is central to epistemology, but much of the debate surrounding it has been marred by an unnoticed ambiguity concerning the key concept of justification. Sorting out the ambiguity reveals an important division between externalist and internalist varieties of nondoxasticism and points the way toward a new argument for nondoxasticism of the externalist sort
• Jack Lyons (2008). Evidence, experience, and externalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Sellarsian dilemma is a famous argument that attempts to show that nondoxastic experiential states cannot confer justification on basic beliefs. The usual conclusion of the Sellarsian dilemma is a coherentist epistemology, and the usual response to the dilemma is to find it quite unconvincing. By distinguishing between two importantly different justification relations (evidential and nonevidential), I hope to show that the Sellarsian dilemma, or something like it, does offer a powerful argument against standard nondoxastic foundationalist theories. But this reconceived version of the argument does not support coherentism. Instead, I use it to argue for a strongly externalist epistemology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a792029255~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a792029255~fulltext=713240930
  
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• Ram Neta (2004). Perceptual evidence and the new dogmatism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the epistemological value of perceptual experience? In his recently influential paper, “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist”1, James Pryor develops a seemingly plausible answer to this question. Pryor’s answer comprises the following three theses: (F) “Our perceptual justification for beliefs about our surroundings is always defeasible – there are always possible improvements in our epistemic state which would no longer support those beliefs.” (517) (PK) “This justification that you get merely by having an experience as of p can sometimes suffice to give you knowledge that p is the case.” (520) (D) “When it perceptually seems to you as if p is the case, you have a kind of justification for believing p that does not presuppose or rest on your justification for anything else, which could be cited in argument (even an ampliative argument) for p. To have this justification for believing p, you need only have an experience that represents p as being the case. No further awareness or reflection or background beliefs are required.” (519) Let’s use the phrase “fallibilist dogmatism” to refer to the conjunction of (F), (PK), and (D).2 Pryor does not argue for either (F) or (PK) in his paper; he simply shares the widespread and plausible assumption that (F) and (PK) are both true. But the conjunction of (F) and (PK) implies that we can have knowledge on the basis of defeasible justification. And this view leads to paradox. Consider the following individually plausible but jointly incompatible statements
• Christopher Peacocke (2009). Perception, content and rationality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Anil Gupta's Empiricism and Experience is a stylish and stimulating contribution to our subject. My expectation is that those who disagree with some of its central theses will, like me, learn greatly from thinking through where and why they part company with Gupta's lucidly presented position. For the purposes of a Symposium, I select three points of disagreement. Each point in one way or another concerns the epistemic role of the content of experience
• Susanna Siegel, Cognitive penetrability and perceptual justification.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is sometimes said that in depression, everything looks grey. If this is true, then mood can influence the character of perceptual experience: depending only on whether a viewer is depressed or not, how a scene looks to that viewer can differ even if all other conditions stay the same. This would be an example of cognitive penetrability of visual experience by other mental states. Here the influential cognitive state is a mood. Other putative examples of cognitive penetrability involve beliefs: to the reader of Russian, the sheet of Cyrillic script looks different than it looked to her before she could read it. When you know that bananas are yellow, this knowledge affects what color you see bananas to be (an achromatic banana will [2] appear yellowish). To the vain performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to pleased, but remarkably no one ever looks disapproving. To the underconfident performer, the faces in the audience range in their expression from neutral to displeased, but remarkably no one ever looks approving. And in cases of suggestibility, the mere salience of a hypothesis seems to have an effect on how a given stimulus is experienced. Potential cognitive penetrators thus include moods, beliefs, hypotheses, knowledge, desires, and traits. In some cases, cognitively penetration can be epistemically beneficial. If an x ray looks different to a radiologist from the way it looks to someone lacking radiological expertise, then the radiologist gets more information about the world from her experience (such as whether there’s a tumor) than the non expert does from looking at the same x ray. If Iris Murdoch and John McDowell are right that having the right sort of character lets you see more moral facts than someone lacking that character sees when faced with the same situation, then there too your perceptual experience becomes epistemically better thanks to its being penetrated by your [3] character. In other cases, however, cognitive penetration seems to make experience epistemically worse..
• Chris Tucker (2009). Perceptual Justification and Warrant by Default.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As I use the term, ‘entitlement’ is any warrant one has by default—i.e. without acquiring it. Some philosophers not only affirm the existence of entitlement, but also give it a crucial role in the justification of our perceptual beliefs. These philosophers affirm the Entitlement Thesis: An essential part of what makes our perceptual beliefs justified is our entitlement to the proposition that I am not a brain-in-a-vat. Crispin Wright, Stewart Cohen, and Roger White are among those who endorse this controversial claim. In this paper, I argue that the Entitlement Thesis is false.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a906851085~fulltext=713240930
  
• John Turri (2008). Practical and Epistemic Justification in Alston's Perceiving God.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper clarifies and evaluates a premise of William Alston’s argument in Perceiving God. The premise in question: if it is practically rational to engage in a doxastic practice, then it is epistemically rational to suppose that said practice is reliable. I first provide the background needed to understand how this premise fits into Alston’s main argument. I then present Alston’s main argument, and proceed to clarify, criticize, modify, and ultimately reject Alston’s argument for the premise in question. Without this premise, Alston’s main argument fails.
• Ralph Wedgwood, Primitively rational belief-forming practices.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Intuitively, it seems that some belief-forming practices have the following three properties: 1. They are rational practices, and the beliefs that we form by means of these practices are themselves rational or justified beliefs. 2. Even if in most cases these practices reliably lead to correct beliefs (i.e., beliefs in true propositions), they are not infallible: it is possible for beliefs that are formed by means of these practices to be incorrect (i.e., to be beliefs in false propositions). 3. The rationality of these practices is basic or primitive. That is, the rationality of these practices is not due simply to the availability, by means of some process of reasoning that relies purely on other practices, of a rational or justified belief in the reliability of these practices. How can there be such practices? This paper offers an answer to that question.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mert1230/primitively.ltr.pdf
  

Perception and Knowledge, Misc

• Ingo Brigandt (2003). Gestalt experiments and inductive observations: Konrad Lorenz's early epistemological writings and the methods of classical ethology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Ethology brought some crucial insights and perspectives to the study of behavior, in particular the idea that behavior can be studied within a comparative-evolutionary framework by means of homologizing components of behavioral patterns and by causal analysis of behavior components and their integration. Early ethology is well-known for its extensive use of qualitative observations of animals under their natural conditions. These observations are combined with experiments that try to analyze behavioral patterns and establish specific claims about animal behavior. Nowadays, there is still disagreement about the significance of observation and experiments and their relation
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• Susanna Schellenberg (2006). Perception in Perspective.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How can perception yield knowledge of the world? One challenge in answering this question is that one necessarily perceives from a particular location. Thus, what is immediately perceptually available is subject to situational features, such as lighting conditions and one’s location. Nonetheless, one can perceive the shape and color of objects. My dissertation aims to provide an explanation for how this is possible. The main thesis is that giving such an explanation requires abandoning the traditional model of perception as a two-place relation between subjects and objects in favor of a model of perception as a three-place relation between subjects, objects, and situations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/1611/
  
• Susanna Schellenberg (2006). Sellarsian perspectives on perception and non-conceptual content.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/~susanna/SchellenbergSellarsPerceptionNonConceptualContent.pdf
  

Perception and Skepticism

• Marc Burock (ms). Falsehood: An Analysis of Illusion's Singularity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is a common tactic, going back to the beginnings of religion and philosophy, to presume that we are enveloped in a world of untruth and illusion, thereby fueling our movement toward truth. In more modern times, Descartes demonstrates this process clearly with his Meditations. This work extends the Cartesian skeptical position by challenging the concept of illusion itself, asking those who have ever called something ‘an illusion’ to question the meaning of these assertions. This broader skepticism partially annihilates itself without completely collapsing under the weight of self-contradiction.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/falsehood-an-analysis-of-illusions-singularity/5801929
  
• James Franklin (online). Healthy scepticism.   (More)
• Uriah Kriegel (2011). The Veil of Abstracta.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Of all the problems attending the sense-datum theory, arguably the deepest is that it draws a veil of appearances over the external world. Today, the sense-datum theory is widely regarded as an overreaction to the problem of hallucination. Instead of accounting for hallucination in terms of intentional relations to sense data, it is often thought that we should account for it in terms of intentional relations to properties. In this paper, however, I argue that in the versions that might address the problem of hallucination, this newer account is guilty of a vice similar to sense-datum theory’s: it draws a veil of abtracta over the concrete world.
• Jonathan Schaffer (2003). Perceptual knowledge derailed.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The tracking theory treats knowledge as counterfactual covariation of belief and truth through a sphere of possibilities. I argue that the tracking theory cannot respect perceptual knowledge, because perceptual belief covaries with truth through a discontinuous scatter of possibilities. Perceptual knowledge is subject to inner derailing: there is an inner hollow of perceptual incompetence through which the differences are too small to track. Perceptual knowledge is subject to outer derailing: there are outlying islands of perceptual competence that extend well past skeptical sinkholes
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/q686364578143r31/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5107445&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/Q686364578143R31.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2003/00000112/00000001/05107445
  

The Given

• Andrew R. Bailey (2004). The myth of the myth of the given.   (More)
• Robert B. Brandom (ms). The centrality of Sellars' two-ply account of observation to the arguments of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.   (More)
• Jerry A. Fodor (ms). Revenge of the given.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/forums/seminar5_spring06/fodor_revenge_given.doc
  http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/representation/papers/Fodor.pdf
  
• Robert H. Grimm (1959). A note on empiricism and the philosophy of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/R500M00677132267.pdf
  
• Ronald C. Hoy (1985). The given of the self-presenting.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-4624(198509)19:3<347:TGATS>2.0.CO;2-E
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-4624(198509)19:3<347:TGATS>2.0.CO;2-E
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2214946.pdf
  
• Wilfrid S. Sellars (1956). Empiricism and the philosophy of mind.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HivHDB57&sig=38GfTq4ec6ggVoDzZC1E1lAwL7k
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13IgrFDA78&sig=Rr5jFwE2YvFJMgfGPYutnAjdGGE
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13IgrFDA05&sig=SzYCATJQUa3VGAy2oXRKlx46XEU
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13IfqHFx17&sig=e7IpjpeCMEgUq8mnzAbO4hJyML0
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HivHDB03&sig=1UtxWoSpSfRzMN9SGscUXRDiLx8
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13IfqHFx01&sig=iiJlS6rYuYm8XJtao0I_-sFtBH4
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HiyICv23&sig=x627PbNjAaFE1miQWihY9-WrOWI
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HiyICv20&sig=bhsIEUQB0dWm6mT9gtxdUqtoWx4
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13IfqHFw55&sig=_5jZICOcpxkP1FALd2RQbxO6XmU
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HiyICv34&sig=i089WL0aBuR7zwGtTXODhmbbZuM
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X6MMZSCiVR8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=+Empiricism+and+the+philosophy+of+mind+Sellars&ots=13HivHDB08&sig=pgfabhB5uYcRLfnr-R2GZv8NIHM
  
• Wilfrid S. Sellars (1979). More on givenness and explanatory coherence.   (More)
• Gail Soffer (2003). Revisiting the myth: Husserl and Sellars on the given.   (More)

Perceptual Qualities

Sound

• Matthew Nudds (online). Auditory perception and sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It is a commonly held view that auditory perception functions to tell us about sounds and their properties. In this paper I argue that this common view is mistaken and that auditory perception functions to tell us about the objects that are the sources of sounds. In doing so, I provide a general theory of auditory perception and use it to give an account of the content of auditory experience and of the nature of sounds
• Jonathan Cohen, Sounds and temporality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is the relationship between sounds and time? More specifically, is there something essentially or distinctively temporal about sounds that distinguishes them from, say, colors, shapes, odors, tastes, or other sensible qualities? And just what might this distinctive relation to time consist in? Apart from their independent interest, these issues have a number of important philosophical repercussions. First, if sounds are temporal in a way that other sensible qualities are not, then this would mean that standard lists of paradigm secondary qualities offered by Locke, Galileo, and other modern philosophers — lists which include colors, odors and sounds without any significant distinctions — overlook significant metaphysical differences. This, in turn, would threaten to undermine the coherence of the modern understanding of secondary qualities itself. Moreover, a number of authors have recently urged that the essential temporality of sounds makes it impossible to understand sounds as properties (except on a trope theory of properties; see note 3). If true, and given the more or less universal view that colors are properties, this last conclusion would make potentially inapplicable to sounds much of the comparatively well-developed philosophical taxonomy and apparatus that has arisen in philosophical disputes over the status of colors (for presentations of this taxonomy and apparatus see, for example, Byrne and Hilbert (2003); Cohen (2008b)).1 Therefore, the conclusion that sounds are distinctively temporal would be a serious blow to hopes for a theoretically unified treatment of the sensory qualities.2 For all these reasons, quite a lot seems to hang on the question of the temporality of sounds
• John Kulvicki (2008). The nature of noise.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There is a growing consensus in the philosophical literature that sounds differ rather profoundly from colors. Colors are qualities, while sounds are particulars of some sort or other, such as events or pressure waves. A key motivation for this is that sounds seem to be transient, to evolve over time, to begin and end, while colors seem like stable qualities of objects' surfaces. I argue that sounds are indeed, like colors, stable qualities of objects. Sounds are not transient, and they do not seem to be, even though they are typically perceived transiently. In particular, sounds are dispositions of objects to vibrate in response to being stimulated. This stable property view of sounds aligns nicely with, and owes an inspirational debt to, reflectance physicalist accounts of color. The upshot is a unified picture of colors, sounds, and the perception thereof
• Fiona Macpherson (1999). Perfect pitch and the content of experience.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://lgxserve.ciseca.uniba.it/lei/mind/texts/t0000004.htm
  
• Mark S. Muldoon (1996). Silence revisited: Taking the sight out of auditory qualities.   (More)
• Matthew Nudds (2001). Experiencing the production of sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Whether or not we would be happy to do without sounds, the idea that our expe- rience of sounds is of things which are distinct from the world of material objects can seem compelling. All you have to do to confirm it is close your eyes and reflect on the character of your auditory experience
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Journal_Samples/EJOP0966-8373~9~2~136\136.pdf
  http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/BPL_Images/Journal_Samples/EJOP0966-8373~9~2~136/136.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0378.00136
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0378.00136
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ejop/2001/00000009/00000002/art00004
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ejop/2001/00000009/00000002/art00136
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Audition.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Provides the theoretical and psychological framework to the philosophy of sounds and audition. I address auditory scene analysis, spatial hearing, the audible qualities, and cross-modal interactions.
• Casey O'Callaghan (2007). Echoes.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Echo experiences are illusory experiences of ordinary primary sounds. Just as there is no new object that we see at the surface of a mirror, there is no new sound that we hear at a reflecting surface. The sound that we hear as an echo just is the original primary sound, though its perception involves illusions of place, time, and qualities. The case of echoes need not force us to adopt a conception according to which sounds are persisting object-like particulars that travel through space.
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Introduction: The Philosophy of Sounds and Auditory Perception.   (More)
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). Pitch.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some sounds have pitch, some do not. A tuba’s notes are lower pitched than a flute’s, but the fuzz from an untuned radio has no discernible pitch. Pitch is an attribute in virtue of which sounds that possess it can be ordered from “low” to “high”. Given how audition works, physics has taught us that frequency determines what pitch a sound auditorily appears to have
• Casey O'Callaghan (2010). Perceiving the locations of sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Frequently, we learn of the locations of things and events in our environment by means of hearing. Hearing, I argue, is a locational mode of perceiving with a robustly spatial nature. I defend three proposals. First, audition furnishes information about the locations of things and events in one's environment because auditory experience itself is spatial. Audition represents space. Second, we hear the locations of things and events by or in hearing locational information about their sounds. Third, we auditorily experience sounds themselves as having relatively stable distal locations. I reject skepticism about spatial audition tracing to Strawson's Individuals, and suggest that spatial audition supports the view that audition and vision share a dimension of perceptual content
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Sounds.   (More)
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). Sounds and events.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that sounds are best conceived not as pressure waves that travel through a medium, nor as physical properties of the objects ordinarily thought to be the sources of sounds, but rather as events of a certain kind. Sounds are particular events in which a surrounding medium is disturbed or set into wavelike motion by the activities of a body or interacting bodies. This Event View of sounds provides for a uni- ?ed perceptual account of several pervasive sound phenomena, including transmission through barriers, constructive and destructive interference, and echoes
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). The argument from vacuums.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A commonly shared assumption is that there are no sounds in vacuums. If the standard science-based view that sounds are waves that exist in and travel through a medium such as air or water is correct, then vacuums hold no sounds and the shared assumption is true. Recently, however, several philosophers (Pasnau 1999, 2000; Casati and Dokic 1994) have argued against the received view. These authors have claimed, primarily on perceptual grounds, that sounds are properties of their sources (Pasnau 1999) or events located at their sources. According to Pasnau (1999), sounds are either identical with or supervene upon the the vibrations of objects ordinarily thought to make or produce sounds. For Casati and Dokic (1994), sounds are events constituted by such vibrations. These views share the consequence that sounds can exist in vacuums; sounds occur when an object vibrates alone in the absence of a surrounding medium. I do not wish here to directly engage the debate over whether sounds are properties or events in the medium or in the sources. Instead, I wish to indirectly address it by urging that the question of whether there could be sounds in vacuums should be decided neither by simply consulting common sense nor by reading off the consequences of one’s favorite metaphysical theory of sounds. I argue that even independent of explicit theoretical commitments concerning the nature of
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/2209313/2007/00000001/00000001/art00004
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). The locations of sounds.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When you hear the sound of a car drive by on the street outside your window, you learn not only whether the car has a hole in its muffler or has squealing brakes. You also learn something about the location of the car because hearing furnishes information about the locations of its objects. By listening, you learn not only about the character of the things and happenings around you, but also about where they are in the surrounding environment. The question I wish to address is this: Do we hear the locations of sounds themselves, or do we merely hear the locations of sound sources—the objects and events that produce sounds? I shall argue that frequently we do hear the locations of sounds themselves, and that this is required in order to hear and learn the locations of sound-producing sources. This feature of auditory experience has consequences for the metaphysics of sounds. If we veridically hear the locations of sounds, then the most prominent conception of sounds is mistaken and we must revise our ontology
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/2209313/2007/00000001/00000001/art00003
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (2009). The world of sound.   (More)
• Ian Phillips (forthcoming). Hallucinating silence.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Audrey … lives in a noisy environment and so has never experienced silence. Audrey … wants to experience silence and so constructs a soundproof chamber. When she enters the chamber, Audrey learns something: what it is like to hear silence. … Audrey is introspecting an absence of auditory sensations while perceiving an absence of sound … an auditory gap that originates through healthy hearing of an external state of silence. (271)

Primary and Secondary Qualities

• Andy Egan (2006). Secondary qualities and self-location.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Colors aren't as real as shapes. Shapes are full?fledged qualities of things in themselves, independent of how they're perceived and by whom. Colors aren't. Colors are merely qualities of things as they are for us, and the colors of things depend on who is perceiving them. When we take the fully objective view of the world, things keep their shapes, but the colors fall away, revealed as the mere artifacts of our own subjective, parochial perspective on the world that they are
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.geocities.com/eganamit/2qs.pdf
  http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/egana/files/2qs.pdf
  http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/egana/files/2qs.final.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2006.tb00492.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2006/00000072/00000001/art00004
  
• Nenad Miscevic (1997). Secondary and tertiary qualities: Semantics and response--dependence.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Secondary and tertiary qualities are plausibly explained along dispositionalist lines. Concepts of such qualities are response-dependent, denoting properties that are partly mind/brain-dependent. Unfortunately, dispositionalism is hard to square with extant versions of naturalistic theories of representation. In particular the standard naturalistic (indicational) semantics of representational content cannot handle the question from either the subjectivist or the dispositional viewpoint. The paper proposes a remedy: the problem can be solved in a smooth and natural way, provided that we revise and supplement the standard semantics in a rather obvious fashion, by allowing the mind/brain-involving properties to figure within it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119152725/PDFSTART
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0114.00044
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.00044
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/1997/00000078/00000004/art00044
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/1997/00000078/00000004/art00003
  

Perceptual Qualities, Misc

• Stephan Blatti (2006). No Impediment to Solidity as Impediment.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: ABSTRACT: Quassim Cassam (1997) accepts the standard account of solidity, according to which, if S feels x as solid, then S feels x as an imediment to his movement. Recently, Martin Fricke and Paul Snowdon (2003) have presented a battery of counter-examples designed to show that S may feel x as solid and as exerting a pressure that supports or facilitates his movement. In this note, I defend the standard account against Fricke and Snowdon’s attack. Integral to this defense is a distinction between two (sometimes overlapping) ways in which S may feel x as an impediment to his movement: as an influence on a movement state of S, or as an obstacle to the achievement of a goal that requires movement. After demonstrating the primacy of the former sense, I argue that Fricke and Snowdon’s counter-examples only undermine a version of the standard account that glosses ‘impediment’ as an obstacle to the achievement of a goal that requires movement.
• Andy Egan (2006). Appearance properties?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Intentionalism is the view that the phenomenal character of an experience is wholly determined by its representational content is very attractive. Unfortunately, it is in conflict with some quite robust intuitions about the possibility of phenomenal spectrum inversion without misrepresentation. Faced with such a problem, there are the usual three options: reject intentionalism, discount the intuitions and deny that spectrum inversion without misrepresentation is possible, or find a way to reconcile the two by dissolving the apparent conflict. Sydney Shoemaker's (1994) introduction of appearance properties is a particularly ingenious way of pursuing the third strategy, by maintaining that there is a representational difference between the phenomenally spectrum-inverted subjects.2 In introducing appearance properties, Shoemaker does two things: he identifies a theoretical role for some family of properties to play, and he suggests a family of properties as candidates to play that role. I'll argue that his proposed candidates do not play the role as well as we would like, suggest some new candidates, and argue that they do a better job
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.geocities.com/eganamit/APs.pdf
  http://www.geocities.com/eganamit/APs.rtf
  http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/egana/files/aps.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2006.00621.x?ai=2l6&mi=85vxf&af=R
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2006.00621.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/nous/2006/00000040/00000003/art00004
  
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). Pitch.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some sounds have pitch, some do not. A tuba’s notes are lower pitched than a flute’s, but the fuzz from an untuned radio has no discernible pitch. Pitch is an attribute in virtue of which sounds that possess it can be ordered from “low” to “high”. Given how audition works, physics has taught us that frequency determines what pitch a sound auditorily appears to have
• Casey O'Callaghan (ms). The argument from vacuums.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A commonly shared assumption is that there are no sounds in vacuums. If the standard science-based view that sounds are waves that exist in and travel through a medium such as air or water is correct, then vacuums hold no sounds and the shared assumption is true. Recently, however, several philosophers (Pasnau 1999, 2000; Casati and Dokic 1994) have argued against the received view. These authors have claimed, primarily on perceptual grounds, that sounds are properties of their sources (Pasnau 1999) or events located at their sources. According to Pasnau (1999), sounds are either identical with or supervene upon the the vibrations of objects ordinarily thought to make or produce sounds. For Casati and Dokic (1994), sounds are events constituted by such vibrations. These views share the consequence that sounds can exist in vacuums; sounds occur when an object vibrates alone in the absence of a surrounding medium. I do not wish here to directly engage the debate over whether sounds are properties or events in the medium or in the sources. Instead, I wish to indirectly address it by urging that the question of whether there could be sounds in vacuums should be decided neither by simply consulting common sense nor by reading off the consequences of one’s favorite metaphysical theory of sounds. I argue that even independent of explicit theoretical commitments concerning the nature of
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/2209313/2007/00000001/00000001/art00004
  

Discriminability

• Philippe Chuard (2007). Indiscriminable shades and demonstrative concepts.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Conceptualists have it that the representational content of perceptual experience is determined by the concepts a subject applies in having such an experience. Conceptualists like Bill Brewer [1999] and John McDowell [1994] have laid particular emphasis on demonstrative concepts in trying to account for the fact that subjects can perceive and discriminate very many specific shades of colour in experience. Against this, it has been objected that such demonstrative concepts have incoherent conditions of extension and/or of individuation, due to the fact that chromatic indiscriminability is non-transitive. In this paper, I consider three different versions of this objection and show why each fails
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a778943218~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/778943218.pdf
  
• Philippe Chuard & Richard Corry (ms). Looks non-transitive!   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose you are presented with three red objects. You are then asked to take a careful look at each possible pair of objects, and to decide whether or not their members look chromatically the same. You carry out the instructions thoroughly, and the following propositions sum up the results of your empirical investigation:

  i. red object #1 looks the same in colour as red object #2.

  ii. red object #2 looks the same in colour as red object #3
• Katalin Farkas (2006). Indiscriminability and the sameness of appearance.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Abstract: How exactly should the relation between a veridical perception and a corresponding hallucination be understood? I argue that the epistemic notion of ‘indiscriminability’, understood as lacking evidence for the distinctness of things, is not suitable for defining this relation. Instead, we should say that a hallucination and a veridical perception involve the same phenomenal properties. This has further consequences for attempts to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of phenomenal properties in terms of indiscriminability, and for considerations about the phenomenal sorites.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2006.00194.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2006.00145.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/paso/2006/00000106/00000002/art00003
  
• Sanford C. Goldberg (2006). Brown on self-knowledge and discriminability.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In her recent book Anti-Individualism and Knowledge, Jessica Brown has presented a novel answer to the self-knowledge achievement problem facing the proponent of anti-individualism. She argues that her answer is to be preferred to the traditional answer (based on Burge, 1988a). Here I present three objections to the claim that her proposed answer is to be preferred. The significance of these objections lies in what they tell us about the nature of the sort of knowledge that is in dispute. Perhaps the most important lesson I draw from this discussion is that, given the nature of knowledge of one's own thoughts, discriminability (from relevant alternatives) is not a condition on knowledge as such
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2006.00261.x?ai=2l8&mi=85vxf&af=R
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0114.2006.00261.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2006/00000087/00000003/art00002
  
• Delia Graff (2001). Phenomenal continua and the sorites.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that, contrary to widespread philosophical opinion, phenomenal indiscriminability is transitive. For if it were not transitive, we would be precluded from accepting the truisms that if two things look the same then the way they look is the same and that if two things look the same then if one looks red, so does the other. Nevertheless, it has seemed obvious to many philosophers (e.g. Goodman, Armstrong and Dummett) that phenomenal indiscriminability is not transitive; and, moreover, that this non-transitivity is straightforwardly revealed to us in experience. I show this thought to be wrong. All inferences from the character of our experience to the non-transitivity of indiscriminability involve either a misunderstanding of continuity, a mistaken interpretation of the idea that we have limited powers of discrimination, or tendentious claims about what our experience is really like; or such inferences are based on inadequately supported premisses, which though individually plausible are jointly implausible
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.princeton.edu/~dfara/papers/continua.doc
  http://www.princeton.edu/~graff/papers/mindcontinua.pdf
  http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/research/graff/papers/continua.doc
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/110/440/905
  http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/110/440/905
  
• Benj Hellie (2010). An externalist's guide to inner experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Let's be externalists about perceptual consciousness and think the form of veridical perceptual consciousness includes /seeing this or that mind-independent particular and its colors/. Let's also take internalism seriously, granting that spectral inversion and hallucination can be "phenomenally" the same as normal seeing. Then perceptual consciousness and phenomenality are different, and so we need to say how they are related. It's complicated!
  
  Phenomenal sameness is (against all odds) /reflective indiscriminability/. I build a "displaced perception" account of reflection on which indiscriminability stems from shared "qualia". Qualia are compatible with direct realism: while they generate an explanatory gap (and colors do not), so does /seeing/; qualia are excluded from perceptual consciousness by its "transparency"; instead, qualia are aspects of thought about the perceived environment.
  
  The asymmetry between my treatments of color and seeing is grounded in the asymmetry between ignorance and error: while inversion shows that normal subjects are ignorant of the natures of the colors, hallucination shows not that perceivers are ignorant of the nature of seeing but that hallucinators are prone to error about their condition. Past literature has treated inversion and hallucination as on a par: externalists see error in both cases, while internalists see mutual ignorance. My account is so complicated because plausible results require mixing it up.
• Adrian Haddock & Fiona Macpherson (2008). Introduction: Varieties of disjunctivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Inspired by the writings of J. M. Hinton (1967a, 1967b, 1973), but ushered into the mainstream by Paul Snowdon (1980–1, 1990–1), John McDowell (1982, 1986), and M. G. F. Martin (2002, 2004, 2006), disjunctivism is currently discussed, advocated, and opposed in the philosophy of perception, the theory of knowledge, the theory of practical reason, and the philosophy of action. But what is disjunctivism?
• Michael G. F. Martin (2004). The limits of self-awareness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j67n647645555622/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J67N647645555622.pdf
  
• Charlie Pelling (2007). Conceptualism and the (supposed) non-transitivity of colour indiscriminability.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper, I argue that those who accept the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception should reject the traditional view that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive. I start by outlining the general strategy that conceptualists have adopted in response to the familiar ‘fineness of grain’ objection, and I show why a commitment to what I call the indiscriminability claim seems to form a natural part of this strategy. I then show how together, the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim –the claim that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive –entail a further, suspicious-looking claim that I call the problematic claim. My argument then splits into two parts. In the first part, I show why the conceptualist does indeed need to reject the problematic claim. Given that this claim is jointly entailed by the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim, the conceptualist is then left with a straight choice: reject the indiscriminability claim, or reject the non-transitivity claim. In the second part, I then explain why the conceptualist should choose the latter option
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/l238586773142713/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/L238586773142713.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2007/00000134/00000002/00005338
  
• Ian Phillips (ms). Indiscriminability and experience of change.   (More)
• Diana Raffman (ms). Nontransitivity, Indiscriminability, and Looking the Same.   (More)
• Susanna Siegel (2004). Indiscriminability and the phenomenal.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/xp05760765436763/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/XP05760765436763.pdf
  
• Susanna Siegel (2008). The Epistemic Conception of Hallucination.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Early formulations of disjunctivism about perception refused to give any positive account of the nature of hallucination, beyond the uncontroversial fact that they can in some sense seem to the same to the subject as veridical perceptions. Recently, some disjunctivists have attempt to account for hallucination in purely epistemic terms, by developing detailed account of what it is for a hallucinaton to be indiscriminable from a veridical perception. In this paper I argue that the prospects for purely epistemic treatments of hallucinations are dim, and that this undermines the case for disjunctivism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/mseph.html
  

Color

• John Campbell (2006). Manipulating colour: Pounding an Almond.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: It seems a compelling idea that experience of colour plays some role in our having concepts of the various colours, but in trying to explain the role experience plays the first thing we have to describe is what sort of colour experience matters here. I will argue that the kind of experience that matters is conscious attention to the colours of objects as an aspect of them on which direct intervention is selectively possible. As I will explain this idea, it is a matter of being able to use experience to inform linguistic or conceptual thought about what would happen were there to be various interventions on an object. Against this background, I will review Locke’s fundamental argument that since we can change the colour of an almond by pounding it, there must be an error embodied in our ordinary concepts of colour: there is no such thing as intervening directly on the colour of an object. The analysis I present brings out the force of Locke’s argument. But I will propose a vindication of our commonsense conception of colour as an aspect of objects on which direct intervention is selectively possible
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~jcampbel/documents/ManipulatingColour.pdf
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA31&ots=I0WGkBD8qx&sig=sXnhKGbtu8fKjVJR-_ISn_B9qBo
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA31&ots=_ol-wcAyBF&sig=6asMQkICYjj_a-Z6LyOSVWzZogw
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=paqmMMfP8t0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA31&ots=_ol-wcAzHN&sig=FMEuosL0HQUJc5pSLcEgeLK2F4U
  http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WUW3sLZ9tIAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA31&ots=I0WGkBD7kp&sig=OpUxojqTIy4hZ_H5Yzyv31LyyNA
  
• Benj Hellie (ms). Justin Fisher's 'color representations as hash values'.   (More)
• Donald D. Hoffman (2001). The data problem for color objectivism.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273628&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11273628&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053810000904768
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90476
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/cc/2001/00000010/00000001/art00476
  
• Susan L. Hurley & Alva Noë (forthcoming). Can hunter-gatherers hear color?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philip Pettit (2003) argues that color looks should be explained in terms of manifest powers. He indicates that his view is broadly allied with our own dynamic sensorimotor approach to conscious experience (O’Regan and Noë 2001a, b, c; Hurley 1998, Hurley and Noë 2003a
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/hunter-gatherers.pdf
  http://www.warwick.ac.uk/staff/S.L.Hurley/papers/hunter_gatherers.pdf
  http://www.warwick.ac.uk/staff/S.L.Hurley/papers/hunter gatherers.pdf
  
• Michael Jacovides (2000). Cambridge changes of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Locke’s porphyry argument at 2.8.19 of the Essay has not been properly appreciated. On my reconstruction, Locke argues from the premise that porphyry undergoes a mere Cambridge change of color in different lighting conditions to the conclusion that porphyry’s colors do not belong to it as it is in itself. I argue that his argument is not quite sound, but it would be if Locke chose a different stone, alexandrite. Examining his argument teaches us something about the relation between explanatory qualities and real alterations and something about the ways that colors inhere in bodies
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.00100
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2000/00000081/00000002/art00100
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2000/00000081/00000002/art00003
  
• Zoltán Jakab (2006). Metameric surfaces: The ultimate case against color physicalism and representational theories of phenomenal consciousness.   (More)
• Zoltán Jakab (2005). Opponent processing, linear models, and the veridicality of color perception.   (More)
• Kent Johnson & Wayne Wright (2006). Colors as properties of the special sciences.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: We briefly examine the pros and cons of color realism, exposing some desiderata on a theory of color: the theory should render colors as scientifically legitimate and correctly individuated, and it should explain how we have veridical color experiences. We then show that these desiderata can by met by treating colors as properties of the special sciences. According to our view, some of the major disputes in the literature about color—anti-realism vs. dispositionalism vs. reductionism—are not well-founded at this stage of scientific inquiry
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.mindstuff.net/ColorRealism_KJ-WW.doc
  http://www.lps.uci.edu/~johnsonk/Publications/JohnsonWright.ColorsAsPropertiesOfTheSpecialSciences.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/870k12521gm43017/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/870K12521GM43017.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/erke/2006/00000064/00000002/00004310
  
• Mark Eli Kalderon (forthcoming). Color Illusion.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: As standardly conceived,an illusion is an experience of an object o appearing F where o is not in fact F. Paradigm examples of color illusion, however, do not fit this pattern. A diagnosis of this uncovers different sense of appearance talk that is the basis of a dilemma for the standard conception. The dilemma is only a challenge. But if the challenge cannot be met, then any conception of experience, such as representationalism, that is committed to the standard conception is false. Perhaps surprisingly, naïve realism provides a better account of color illusion.
• Joseph Levine (2006). Color and color experience: Colors as ways of appearing.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I argue that color is a relational feature of the distal objects of perception, a way of appearing. I begin by outlining three constraints any theory of color should satisfy: (i) physicalism about the non-mental world, (ii) consistency with what is known from color science, and (iii) transparency about color experience. Traditional positions on the ontological status of color, such as physicalist reduction of color to spectral re?ectance, subjectivism, dispositional- ism, and primitivism, fail, I claim, to meet all three constraints. By treating color as a relational property, a way of appearing, the three constraints can be met. However, serious problems for this view emerge when considering the relation between illusory color experiences (particularly hallucinations) and veridical color experiences. I do not propose a solution to these problems
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01056.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00004
  
• Fiona Macpherson (2003). Novel colours and the content of experience.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore that one cannot fully explain the nature of the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences using a naturalistic conception of representation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21949_en.pdf
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/philosophy/Personnel/Fiona/nc.pdf
  http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/archive/00000581/01/macpherson_ppq84.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1468-0114.00162/enhancedabs/
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0114.00162
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2003/00000084/00000001/art00004
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/papq/2003/00000084/00000001/art00162
  
• Mohan P. Matthen (online). Our knowledge of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Scientists are often bemused by the efforts of philosophers essaying a theory of colour: colour science sports a huge array of facts and theories, and it is unclear to its practitioners what philosophy can or is trying to contribute. Equally, philosophers tend to be puzzled about how they can fit colour science into their investigations without compromising their own disciplinary identity: philosophy is supposed to be an _a priori_ investigation; philosophers do not work in psychophysics labs – not in their professional capacity, anyway
• Adam Pautz (web). Can color structure be explained in terms of color experience?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Hardin argues that Reflectance Physicalism about color fails because it cannot accommodate color structure. David Lewis and others have replied that the Reflectance Physicalist may explain color structure in terms of color experience. I argue that this reply fails
• Adam Pautz (2006). Can the physicalist explain colour structure in terms of colour experience?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Physicalism about colour is the thesis that colours are identical with response-independent, physical properties of objects. I endorse the Argument from Structure against Physicalism about colour. The argument states that Physicalism cannot accommodate certain obvious facts about colour structure: for instance, that red is a unitary colour while purple is a binary colour, and that blue resembles purple more than green. I provide a detailed formulation of the argument. According to the most popular response to the argument, the Physicalist can accommodate colour structure by explaining it in terms of colour experience. I argue that this response fails. Along the way, I examine other interesting issues in the philosophy of colour and colour perception, for instance the relational structure of colour experience and the description theory of how colour names refer
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/people-defaults/adamp/papers/can_colour_physicalist.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a762358599~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/762358599.pdf
  
• Stefan Persson (2003). Colours with a Humean face.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ej.lib.cbs.dk/index.php/sats/article/viewArticle/422
  http://ej.lib.cbs.dk/index.php/sats/article/viewPDFInterstitial/422/439
  
• William S. Robinson (2004). Colors, arousal, functionalism, and individual differences.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/articles/Robinson/cafid.pdf
  http://psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/articles/Robinson/cafid.pdf
  
• David M. Rosenthal (2001). Color, mental location, and the visual field.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Color subjectivism is the view that color properties are mental properties of our visual sensations, perhaps identical with properties of neural states, and that nothing except visual sensations and other mental states exhibits color properties. Color phys- icalism, by contrast, holds that colors are exclusively properties of visible physical objects and processes
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://davidrosenthal1.googlepages.com/ross-cc.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273630&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273630&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11273630&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053810000904781
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90478
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90478
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/cc/2001/00000010/00000001/art00478
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/cc/2001/00000010/00000001/art00478
  
• Peter W. Ross (2001). The location problem for color subjectivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to color subjectivism, colors are mental properties, processes, or events of visual experiences of color. I first lay out an argument for subjectivism founded on claims from visual science and show that it also relies on a philosophical assumption. I then argue that subjectivism is untenable because this view cannot provide a plausible account of color perception. I describe three versions of subjectivism, each of which combines subjectivism with a theory of perception, namely sense datum theory, adverbialism, and the virtual color proposal, and argue that each version faces serious objections. Considering these three theories of perception to be exhaustive of those available to the subjectivist, I conclude that subjectivism is untenable and that the scientifically motivated argument for this view is unsound. I then offer the diagnosis that the philosophical assumption on which this argument relies is mistaken
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273625&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90473
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/cc/2001/00000010/00000001/art00473
  
• Eric M. Rubenstein (online). Color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophy has long struggled to understand the nature of color. The central role color plays in our lives, in visual experience, in art, as a metaphor for emotions, has made it an obvious candidate for philosophical reflection. Understanding the nature of color, however, has proved a daunting task, despite the numerous fields that contribute to the project. Even knowing how to start can be difficult. Is color to be understood as an objective part of reality, a property of objects with a status similar to shape and size? Or is color more like pain, to be found only in experience and so somehow subjective? Or is color more like what some have said about time--that it seems real until we reflect enough, where we come ultimately to dismiss it as mere illusion? If color is more like shape and size, can we give a scientific account of it? Various strategies exist for this option--taking the color of an object to be just a complicated texture of that object, one that reflects certain wavelengths. Or perhaps color is merely a disposition to cause experiences in us, as salt has a disposition to dissolve. On the other hand, if color is more like pain, and found only in subjective experience, what is the nature of color experience? How, for instance, does an experience of red differ from an experience of blue, or from an experience of pain for that matter? Finally, if color is mere illusion, how do we continue to be so taken in by that illusion and how can something unreal seem so real and important to us?
• B. A. C. Saunders & Jaap Van Brakel (2002). The trajectory of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: : According to a consensus of psycho-physiological and philosophical theories, color sensations (or qualia) are generated in a cerebral "space" fed from photon-photoreceptor interaction (producing "metamers") in the retina of the eye. The resulting "space" has three dimensions: hue (or chroma), saturation (or "purity"), and brightness (lightness, value or intensity) and (in some versions) is further structured by primitive or landmark "colors"—usually four, or six (when white and black are added to red, yellow, green and blue). It has also been proposed that there are eleven semantic universals—labeling the previous six plus the "intermediaries" of orange, pink, brown, purple, and gray. There are many versions of this consensus, but they all aim to provide ontological, epistemological and semantic blueprints for the brute fact of the reality of color ordained by Nature (evolution). In contrast to this consensus, we have argued that "seeing color" is not a matter of light waves impacting on our eyes, producing sensations to be categorized and labeled in the "color space" in the brain. While electrochemical events may unproblematically be regarded as the causal precondition for seeing color, the reception of sensations in "the color space" as semantically labeled natural categories, kinds, or information, is a "just so" story: it is Wittgenstein's beetle in a box. In contrast we consider that the authority of this consensus might better be regarded not as the result of the truth-tracking of nature, but as the sociohistorical outcome of philosophical presuppositions, scientific theories, experimental practices, technological apparatus, and their feed forward into the lifeworld. The question we shall therefore explore is whether, or to what extent, we ourselves are changed, as the conditions of production of color science change. Thus we are doing a kind of anthropology at two levels: of color science itself (and its effect on our own lifeworld), and of those studied by the "anthropology of color". As befits this stance we are agnostic about the theoretical entities of color science (cf. van Fraassen 2001), and within this new context, we propose to cross-cut object-and-subject, organism-and-environment (the bedrock of color science) in socio-historical ways. Our approach is in part inspired by, but not the same as, that of Gibson, in that we wish to pursue the notion of "social affordances" (Burmudez 1995). We suggest that color has become a naturalization through science-based technologies, which, through praxes and materializations, have become the perceptual and cultural entities that structure experience and understanding in the lifeworld. It is this naturalization that we shall refer to and characterize as "the historically inflected exosomatic organ". Consequently we shall explore the historical ontology of "color" without assuming an underlying biological constant (Dupré 2001). In part 1 we show the flimsiness of the evidence for the three dimensions of color, borrowed from physics, and fine-tuned to a "standard observer" (a "spectral creature" with a phenomenal "color space"). In part 2 we address the structuring of hue through the development of color circles and color spaces. This is followed by a review of the evidence for unique hues. Again the evidence is shown to be flimsy. We then show that an isolated domain of color is a particular kind of model, not a "natural given". In part 3, after reviewing what is referred to as "the isomorphy thesis," we discuss the exemplary case study of Berlin and Kay (1969). This illustrates the pull of stadial models presupposed by their evolutionary theory of color language. The Berlin and Kay paradigm proposes that American English color terms are incorrigible and can provide the universal metalanguage. We conclude by presenting an alternative account, namely that we ourselves are changed as the conditions of production of color science change. We argue that it is better to regard "seeing-color" as a historically inflected exosomatic organ that provides social affordances for those trained to grasp them
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/perspectives_on_science/v010/10.3saunders_tables.html
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/perspectives_on_science/v010/10.3saunders.html
  http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/perspectives_on_science/v010/10.3saunders.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mitpress/posc/2002/00000010/00000003/art00003
  
• Mark F. Sharlow (2005). Cortical feedback and the ineffability of colors.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Philosophers long have noted that some sensations (particularly those of color) seem to be ineffable, or refractory to verbal description. Some proposed neurophysiological explanations of this ineffability deny the intuitive view that sensations have inherently indescribable content. The present paper suggests a new explanation of ineffability that does not have this deflationary consequence. According to the hypothesis presented here, feedback modulation of information flow in the cortex interferes with the production of narratives about sensations, thereby causing the subject to assess as inadequate his or her own verbal descriptions of sensations
• Par Sundstrom (2007). Colour and consciousness: Untying the metaphysical knot.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u645h20010108131/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U645H20010108131.pdf
  
• Michael Tye (2006). The puzzle of true blue.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Most men and nearly all women have non-defective colour vision, as measured by standard colour tests such as those of Ishihara and Farns- worth. But people vary, according to gender, race and age in their per- formance in matching experiments. For example, when subjects are shown a screen, one half of which is lit by a mixture of red and green lights and the other by yellow or orange light, and they are asked to ad- just the mixture of lights so as to make the two halves of the screen match in colour, they disagree about the location of the match. Where one male subject sees the two sides of the screen as being the same in colour, an- other female subject may see one side as a little redder or greener. And there are corresponding differences with age and race
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8284.2006.00611.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2006/00000066/00000291/art00001
  
• Michael Tye (2006). The truth about true blue.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Cohen, Hardin, and McLaughlin (2006) complain that my solution to the puzzle of true blue (Tye 2006) depends upon my assuming that 'all variation in colour experience among standard perceivers in standard circumstances is at the level of fine-grained hues (4)'. That assumption, they say, is false: 'there is in fact variation in colour experience among
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2006/00000066/00000292/art00012
  
• Wayne Wright (2003). A dilemma for Jackson and Pargetter's account of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter (1987)2 have argued for a version of reductive physicalism about color which they claim can accommodate the basic intuitions that have led others to embrace dispositionalism or subjectivism about color. Jackson (1996) has further developed the view and provided responses to some objections to its original statement. While Jackson and Pargetter do not have much company in endorsing their specific form of color physicalism, elements of their view have shown up in other realist accounts, including the relativized account of color offered by John Spackman (2002), the disjunctivism of color properties endorsed by Peter Ross (2000), and the subjectivist strain present in Sydney Shoemaker’s (1994) discussion of color.3 Additionally, Mark Johnston (1992) has used Jackson and Pargetter’s view as a principal target in his arguments against color physicalism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.mindstuff.net/DilemmaJPColorDraft.PDF
  

Physicalist Theories of Color

• Edward Wilson Averill & Allan Hazlett, Color objectivism and color projectivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Objectivism, in the philosophy of color, is (roughly) the claim that colors are physically constituted properties, instantiated by objects around us. On this view many objects around us both look colored and are colored. Projectivism is (roughly) the claim that objects around us look colored, but are not colored. On some projectivist accounts, colors are identified with properties instantiated by elements of perceiver’s visual systems, resulting in a systematic illusion of the instantiation of color properties by objects around us. Objectivism and projectivism are standardly taken to be incompatible theories of color. Here we argue that this incompatibility is only apparent: objectivism and projectivism, properly articulated so as to deal with basic objections, are in fundamental agreement about the ontology of color and phenomenology of color perception
• Peter Bradley & Michael Tye (2001). Of colors, kestrels, caterpillars, and leaves.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to color realism, object colors are mind-independent properties that cover surfaces or permeate volumes of objects. In recent years, some color scientists and a growing number of philosophers have opposed this view on the grounds that realism about color cannot accommodate the apparent unitary/binary structure of the hues. For example, Larry Hardin asserts,

  the unitary-binary structure of the colors as we experience them
  corresponds to no known physical structure lying outside nervous
  systems that is causally involved in the perception of color. This
  makes it very difficult to subscribe to a color realism that is
  supposed to be about red, green, blue, black, and white—that is,
  the colors with which we are perceptually acquainted.1

  Similarly, Evan Thompson says
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(200109)98:9<469:OCKCAL>2.0.CO;2-4
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2678495.pdf
  
• Alex Byrne, Authors' response continuing commentary on color realism and color science ".   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Our reply is in four parts. The first part addresses objections to our claim that there might be "unknowable" color facts. The second part discusses the use we make of opponent process theory. The third part examines the question of whether colors are causes. The fourth part takes up some issues concerning the content of visual experience. Our target article had three aims: (a) to explain clearly the structure of the debate about color realism; (b) to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to the way philosophers have thought about the issue; (c) to argue that colors are certain sorts of physical properties ("productances"). We are very grateful to the commentators in this continuing commentary for their criticism and constructive suggestions
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (1997). Colors and reflectances.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When we open our eyes, the world seems full of colored opaque objects, light sources, and transparent volumes. One historically popular view, _eliminativism_, is that the world is not in this respect as it appears to be: nothing has any color. Color _realism_, the denial of eliminativism, comes in three mutually exclusive varieties, which may be taken to exhaust the space of plausible realist theories. Acccording to _dispositionalism_, colors are _psychological_ dispositions: dispositions to produce certain kinds of visual experiences. According to both _primitivism_ and _physicalism_, colors are not psychological dispositions; they differ in that primitivism says that no reductive analysis of the colors is possible, whereas physicalism says that they are physical properties. This paper is a defense of physicalism about color
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/colref.html
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/colors&reflectances.html
  
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2003). Color realism and color science.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The target article is an attempt to make some progress on the problem of color realism. Are objects colored? And what is the nature of the color properties? We defend the view that physical objects (for instance, tomatoes, radishes, and rubies) are colored, and that colors are physical properties, specifically types of reflectance. This is probably a minority opinion, at least among color scientists. Textbooks frequently claim that physical objects are not colored, and that the colors are "subjective" or "in the mind." The article has two other purposes: first, to introduce an interdisciplinary audience to some distinctively philosophical tools that are useful in tackling the problem of color realism and, second, to clarify the various positions and central arguments in the debate
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/colorrealismandcolorscience.pdf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X03350010
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/ColorRealism.html
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=175666&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=01&aid=175665
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/22/51/
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03000013
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/ColorRealism.html
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/colorrealismandcolorscience.pdf
  http://mit.edu/abyrne/www/colorrealismandcolorscience.pdf
  http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~colour/publications/BBS-2003/BBS-2003.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14598439&dopt=Citation
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/22/51/bbs00002251-00/bbs.byrne.htm
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/22/51/index.html
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X03480011
  
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2003). Color realism redux.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Our reply is in three parts. The first part concerns some foundational issues in the debate about color realism. The second part addresses the many objections to the version of physicalism about color ("productance physicalism") defended in the target article. The third part discusses the leading alternative approaches and theories endorsed by the commentators
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/colorrealismredux.html
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/colorrealismredux.html
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/ColorRealismRedux.html
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=175854&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=01&aid=175853
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03540018
  
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2004). Hardin, Tye, and color physicalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Larry Hardin has been the most steadfast and influential critic of physicalist theories of color over the last 20 years. In their modern form these theories originated with the work of Smart and Armstrong in the 1960s and 1970s1 and Hardin appropriately concentrated on their views in his initial critique of physicalism.2 In his most recent contribution to this project3 he attacks Michael Tye’s recent attempts to defend and extend color physicalism.4 Like Byrne and Hilbert5, Tye identifies color with the reflecting properties of objects (“reflectance physicalism”). Specifically, the determinate and determinable colors are identified with types of reflectances. (Setting some complications aside, the reflectance of an object is the proportion of light that it reflects at each wavelength in the visible spectrum.) These reflectance types are, in the terminology of Hilbert, anthropocentric—in the terminology of Lewis6, they are not very “natural”
• Jonathan Cohen (2006). Color and perceptual variation revisited: Unknown facts, alien modalities, and perfect psychosemantics.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: An adequate ontology of color must face the empirical facts about per- ceptual variation. In this paper I begin by reviewing a range of data about perceptual variation, and showing how they tell against color physicalism and motivate color relationalism. Next I consider a series of objections to the argument from perceptual variation, and argue that they are un- persuasive. My conclusion will be that the argument remains a powerful obstacle for color physicalism, and a powerful reason to believe in color relationalism instead
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01057.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00006
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2006). Color, variation, and the appeal to essences: Impasse and resolution.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Many philosophers have been attracted by the view that colors are mind- independent properties of object surfaces. A leading, and increasingly popular, version of this view that has been defended in recent years is the so-called physicalist position that identi?es colors with (classes of) spectral re?ectance distributions.¹ This view, has, however, come in for a fair bit of criticism for failing to do justice to the facts about perceptual variation.²
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/j7p06u46p7854816/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/J7P06U46P7854816.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2007/00000133/00000003/00009076
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2003). Perceptual variation, realism, and relativization, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love variations in color vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In many cases of variation in color vision, there is no non-arbitrary way of choosing between variants. Byrne and Hilbert insist that there is an unknown standard for choosing, while eliminativists claim that all the variants are erroneous. A better response relativizes colors to perceivers, thereby providing a color realism that avoids the need to choose between variants
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=175698&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=01&aid=175697
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03260015
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2001). Subjectivism, physicalism or none of the above? Comments on Ross's The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In “The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism,” Peter Ross argues against what he calls subjectivism — the view that “colors are not describable in physical terms, ... [but are] mental processes or events of visual states” (2),¹ and in favor of physicalism — a view according to which colors are “physical properties of physical objects, such as reflectance properties” (10). He rejects an argument that has been offered in support of subjectivism, and argues that, since no form of subjectivism is able to account for our perception of color, we are better off adopting physicalism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273631&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11273631&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053810000904793
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90479
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ap/cc/2001/00000010/00000001/art00479
  
• Don Dedrick (1995). Objectivism and the evolutionary value of color vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In Color for Philosophers C. L. Hardin argues that chromatic objectivism?a view which identifies colour with some or other property of objects?must be false. The upshot of Hardin's argument is this: there is, in fact, no principled correlation between physical properties and perceived colours. Since that correlation is a minimal condition for objectivism, objectivism is false. Mohan Matthen, who accepts Hardin's conclusion for what can be called "simple objectivism," takes it that an adaptationist theory of biological function applied to colour is able to surmount the problems Hardin describes. It is Matthen's view that I am primarily concerned with in this paper. I will argue that it entails an overly simple view of adaptive value?as, perhaps, do all objectivist views
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000366/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:366
  http://cogprints.org/366/1/dialogue.html
  http://cogprints.org/366/0/dialogue.html
  
• Daniel C. Dennett (2003). Forestalling a food fight over color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Byrne and Hilbert provide valuable clarification of the complexities–undreamt of by the layman–that make it hard to answer the question of what color is, and that often lead color scientists to say such remarkable and extravagant things. They emphasize at the outset that their issue is not just how to define the ordinary language term “color”: “The problem of color realism is like the investigation of what humans can digest, not the investigation of the folk category of food.” [ms p4], but then I am puzzled by a tension in the target article regarding the weight they put on our ordinary intuitions about color. The very setting of the issue as a disagreement between “color realists” and “color eliminativists” endows the everyday concept with somewhat more authority than it deserves–comparable to an imaginary debate between biologists who were “food realists” and “food eliminativists”!
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/byrnehilbertbbs.htm
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Byrne/Commentators/dennett.rtf
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=242264&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=06&aid=242263
  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03230181
  http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03230181
  
• Kathrin Gluer (forthcoming). Colors Without Circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The dispute between realists about color and anti-realists is actually a dispute about the
  nature of color properties. The disputants do not disagree over what material objects are
  like. Rather, they disagree over whether any of the uncontroversial facts about material
  objects – their powers to cause visual experiences, their dispositions to reflect incident
  light, their atomic makeup, and so on – amount to their having colors. The disagreement
  is thus about which properties colors are and, in particular, whether colors are any of the
  properties in a particular set that is acknowledged on both sides to exhaust the properties
  of material objects (1991, 67)
• Kathrin Glüer-Pagin (2007). Colors without circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in Theories of Color Perception, ed. R. Schumacher, special issue of Erkenntnis 2007
• Vivian Mizrahi (2010). Color and transparency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I argue that all transparent objects are colorless. This thesis is important for at least three reasons. First, if transparent objects are colorless, there is no need to distinguish between colors which characterize three-dimensional bodies, like transparent colors, and colors which lie on the surface of objects. Second, traditional objections against color physicalism relying on transparent colors are rendered moot. Finally, an improved understanding of the relations between colors, light and transparency is provided.
• Vivian Mizrahi (2006). Color objectivism and color pluralism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Most objectivist and dispositionalist theories of color have tried to resolve the challenge raised by color variations by drawing a distinction between real and apparent colors. This paper considers such a strategy to be fundamentally erroneous. The high degree of variability of colors constitutes a crucial feature of colors and color perception; it cannot be avoided without leaving aside the real nature of color. The objectivist theory of color defended in this paper holds that objects have locally many different objective colors. Most color variations are then real and result from the extreme richness of color properties.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01070.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00005
  http://www.mizrahi.ch/philo/Mizrahi_Pluralism.pdf
  
• Adam Pautz (2003). Have Byrne and Hilbert answered Hardin's challenge?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that Byrne and Hilbert have not answered Hardin’s objection to physicalism about color concerning the unitary-binary structure of the colors for two reasons. First, their account of unitary-binary structure seems unsatisfactory. Second, _pace_ Byrne and Hilbert, there are no physicalistically acceptable candidates to be the hue- magnitudes. I conclude with a question about the justification of physicalism about color
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=175818&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=01&aid=175817
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03460019
  
• Thomas W. Polger (online). True colors: A problem for Tye's color realism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Michael Tye has recently been a vocal defender of color realism or, as I shall call it, color objectivism. Objectivism about color is the view that color properties are identical to intrinsic physical properties of the surfaces of objects. Subjectivism about color is the denial of color objectivism. Objectivists argue that color claims must be taken at face value. In this paper I forego the usual bickering about whether there are surface reflectance properties that can be identified with colors as the objectivist theory requires. Supposing that some such properties could be found, I argue that if objectivism about color were correct it would have the unsavory consequence that we are rarely if ever right—perhaps never right—about the particular colors of particular things. So objectivism does not bear out common attribution of colors to the surfaces of things, after all
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://homepages.uc.edu/~polgertw/Polger-TrueColors.pdf
  

Dispositionalist Theories of Color

• Jonathan Cohen (2003). Color: A functionalist proposal.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper I propose and defend an account of color that I call color functionalism. I argue that functionalism is a non-traditional species of primary quality theory, and that it accommodates our intuitions about color and the facts of color science better than more widely discussed alternatives
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/v118306572n4p537/fulltext.pdf
  
• Kathrin Gluer (forthcoming). Colors Without Circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The dispute between realists about color and anti-realists is actually a dispute about the
  nature of color properties. The disputants do not disagree over what material objects are
  like. Rather, they disagree over whether any of the uncontroversial facts about material
  objects – their powers to cause visual experiences, their dispositions to reflect incident
  light, their atomic makeup, and so on – amount to their having colors. The disagreement
  is thus about which properties colors are and, in particular, whether colors are any of the
  properties in a particular set that is acknowledged on both sides to exhaust the properties
  of material objects (1991, 67)
• Kathrin Glüer (2007). Colors without circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Realists about color, be they dispositionalists or physicalists, agree on the truth of the following claim: (R) x is red iff x is disposed to look red under standard conditions. The disagreement is only about whether to identify the colors with the relevant dispositions, or with their categorical bases. This is a question about the representational content of color experience: What kind of properties do color experiences ascribe to objects? It has been argued (for instance by Boghossian and Velleman, 1991) that truths like (R) cannot be used in an account of the colors as they would result in ‚circular’, and therefore empty, contents. It has also been argued (for instance by Harman, 1996) that switching to an account of color in terms of a functional account of color sensations would result in a circular, and therefore empty, account. In this paper, I defend a realist account of color in terms of a (non-reductive) functional account of color sensations. Such an account of sensations has been suggested by Pagin (2000), and it can be applied to color sensations without the resulting account of the colors themselves being circular or empty. I argue that the so-called transparency of experience does not provide any argument against such an account. I also argue that on such an account, the issue of physicalism vs. dispositionalism boils down to the question of the modal profile of the color concepts
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/f342520233q1363v/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/F342520233Q1363V.pdf
  
• Kathrin Glüer-Pagin (2007). Colors without circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in Theories of Color Perception, ed. R. Schumacher, special issue of Erkenntnis 2007
• Keith Allen (2010). In defence of natural daylight.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Objects appear different as the illumination under which they are perceived varies. This fact is sometimes thought to pose a problem for the view that colours are mind-independent properties: if a coloured object appears different under different illuminations, then under which illumination does the object appear the colour it really is? I argue that given the nature of natural daylight, and certain plausible assumptions about the nature of the colours it illuminates, there is a non-arbitrary reason to suppose that it is under natural daylight that we are able to perceive the real colours of objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123305235/PDFSTART
  
• Tony Pitson (1997). The dispositional account of colour.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/P027X11556821684.pdf
  

Primitivist Theories of Color

• Clare Batty (ms). Naive color.   (More)
• Justin Broackes (1992). The autonomy of colour.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This essay* takes two notions of autonomy and two notions of explanation and argues that colours occur in explanations that fall under all of them. The claim that colours can be used to explain anything at all may seem to some people an outrage. But their pessimism is unjustified and the orthodox dispositional view which may seem to support it, I shall argue, itself has difficulties. In broad terms, Section 2 shows that there exist good straight scientific laws of colour, constituting what one might call a phenomenal science. Section 3 offers a larger view of what we are doing when we attribute colours to things, a view which makes it a case of holistic explanation, similar in many ways to psychological explanation. Section 2 emphasizes the model of scientific explanation, and Section 3 the holistic model found in rational explanation; but it will emerge that colour explanation in different ways fits both models, as it also does the two principal notions of autonomy that the first section identifies
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2006). Color primitivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The realist preference for reductive theories of color over the last few decades is particularly striking in light of the generally anti-reductionist mood of recent philosophy of mind. The parallels between the mind-body problem and the case of color are substantial enough that the difference in trajectory is surprising. While dualism and non-
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/colorprimitivism.pdf
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/primitivism.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n5r6g35753667564/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N5R6G35753667564.pdf
  
• John Campbell (1993). A simple view of colour.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Physics tells us what is objectively there. It has no place for the colours of things. So colours are not objectively there. Hence, if there is such a thing at all, colour is mind-dependent. This argument forms the background to disputes over whether common sense makes a mistake about colours. It is assumed that..
• Jonathan Cohen (online). It's not easy being green: Hardin and color relationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: But Hardin hasn’t contented himself with reframing traditional philosoph- ical issues about color in a way that is sensitive to relevant empirical con- straints. In addition, he has been a staunch defender of color eliminativism — the view that there are no colors, qua properties of tables, chairs, and other mind-external objects, and a vociferous critic of several varieties of re- alism about color that have been defended by others (e.g., [Hardin, 2003], [Hardin, 2005]). These other views include the so-called color physical- ism of [Hilbert, 1987], [Byrne and Hilbert, 1997a], [Byrne and Hilbert, 2003], and [Tye, 2000],¹ and, inconveniently, even the relationalist view defended in [Cohen, 2003a], [Cohen, 2004a], [Cohen, 2003b], [McLaughlin, 2003], and [Jakab and McLaughlin, 2003]
• David R. Hilbert & Alex Byrne (ms). Color primitivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some of these views are realist: objects like oranges and lemons have the colors we mostly take them to have. Others are eliminativist: oranges and lemons are not colored. The usual kind of realism is reductive: the color properties are identified with properties specified in other terms (as ways of altering light, for instance). If no reductive analysis is available—if the colors are primitive sui generis properties—this is often taken to be a convincing argument for eliminativism. Realist primitivism, in other words, is usually thought to be untenable

Theories of Color, Misc

• Berit Brogaard, Color by.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The nature of the colors—what they are like, whether they are instantiated by objects or are projected by our minds, whether their nature is revealed to us in color perception, and whether there could be alien colors (e.g. reddish-green)—has been one of the central topics in philosophy for centuries. This entry focuses on the contemporary philosophical debate about the nature of the colors
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://brogaardb.googlepages.com/MS8Color.pdf
  http://sites.google.com/site/brogaardb/MS8Color.pdf
  
• Berit Brogaard, Perspectival truth and color perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Perspectivalism is a semantic theory according to which the contents of utterances and mental states (perhaps of a particular kind) have a truth-value only relative to a particular perspective (or standard) determined by the context of the speaker or bearer of the mental state. I have defended this view for epistemic terms, moral terms and predicates of personal taste elsewhere (Brogaard 2008a, 2008b, forthcoming). The main aim of this paper is to defend perspectivalism about color perception and color discourse. The content of color perception and color discourse, I will argue, has a truth-value only relative to a centered world containing an appropriate viewing condition and the perceiver, or a perceiver that is deferred to. Some may object to the underlying assumption that perceptual experiences have truth-evaluable contents. Representationalists typically treat perceptual experiences as propositional attitudes with full-blown or non-deflationary propositional contents (Russellian, Fregean or possible-worlds contents). But the assumption that perceptual experiences are propositional attitudes has been explicitly denied by numerous others. For example, direct realists hold that good perceptual experiences are relations to objects. Accordingly, good perceptual experiences do not have full-blown truth-evaluable contents. Sense-data theorists hold that perceptual experiences are relations to sense-data. Consequently, no perceptual experience has full-blown truth-evaluable content. Adverbialists deny that experiences are relations to objects or properties. Perceiving R is engaging in the activity of perceiving R- wise. For example, one has an experience as of R being red just in case one is engaged in the activity of perceiving red-ly and R-wise. So, adverbialists too deny that perceptual experiences have full-blown truth-evaluable contents. Raw feel theorists equate perceptual..
• Alex Byrne (2006). Comments on Cohen, mizrahi, Maund, and Levine.   (More)
• Alex Byrne (ms). Colour vision, philosophical issues about.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (forthcoming). Philosophical issues about colour vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/ColourVision.pdf
  
• Austen Clark (1998). Color perception (in 3000 words).   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A neighbor who strikes it rich evokes both admiration and envy, and a similar mix of emotions must be aroused in many neighborhoods of cognitive science when the residents look at the results of research in color perception. It provides what is probably the most widely acknowledged success story of any domain of scientific psychology: the success, against all expectation, of the opponent process theory of color perception. Initially proposed by a Ewald Hering, a nineteenth century physiologist, it drew its inspiration from the existence of opposing muscle groups. Hering thought that analogous opposing processes could explain some aspects of color perception, but the resulting theory was more complicated and less intuitive than that proposed by the great Hermann von Helmholtz. Helmholtz carried his day, but in the long run Hering turned out to be right
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://selfpace.uconn.edu/paper/ClarkAusCcompan.html
  
• Jonathan Cohen (online). A guided tour of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: One of the most salient facts about our experience of the world is that objects appear to have colors. This feature of our experience is both striking and pervasive. Indeed, representations of colors of objects are among the most notable deliverances of the visual modality, which is perhaps our most important source of information about the world. For this reason, among others, questions about the nature of color have crucial significance for a variety of philosophical subjects including perception, ontology, epistemology, semantics, and philosophy of mind. But the nature of color is a fascinating philosophical topic in its own right, and there has been a significant increase in the philosophical attention paid to this matter in recent years. In this essay I'll survey some of the main views about the nature of color in the contemporary literature and attempt to lay out some of the arguments that have been used to support or reject various of these accounts
• Jonathan Cohen (2007). A relationalist's guide to error about color perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Color relationalism is the view that colors are constituted in terms of relations to perceiving subjects. Among its explanatory virtues, relation- alism provides a satisfying treatment of cases of perceptual variation. But it can seem that relationalists lack resources for saying that a representa- tion of x’s color is erroneous. Surely, though, a theory of color that makes errors of color perception impossible cannot be correct. In this paper I’ll argue that, initial appearances notwithstanding, relationalism contains the resources to account for errors of color perception. I’ll conclude that worries about making room for error are worries the relationalist can meet
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/~joncohen/color/error.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00650.x
  
• Jonathan Cohen (web). Color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Questions about the ontology of color matter because colors matter. Colors are (or, at least, appear to be) extremely pervasive and salient features of the world. Moreover, people care about the distribution of these features: they expend money and effort to paint their houses, cars, and other possessions, and their clear preference for polychromatic over monochromatic televisions and computer monitors have consigned monochromatic models to the status of rare antiques. The apparent ubiquity of colors and their importance to our lives makes them a ripe target for ontological questions such as the following:

  • What is the nature of colors?

  • Are they, as they seem to be, properties of objects?
• Jonathan Cohen (2003). Color: A functionalist proposal.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   In this paper I propose and defend an account of color that I call color functionalism. I argue that functionalism is a non-traditional species of primary quality theory, and that it accommodates our intuitions about color and the facts of color science better than more widely discussed alternatives
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/v118306572n4p537/fulltext.pdf
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2008). Colour constancy as counterfactual.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy. [Swift 1711: 258] In this paper I argue that two standard characterizations of colour constancy are inadequate to the phenomenon. This inadequacy matters, since, I contend, philosophical appeals to colour constancy as a way of motivating illumination-independent conceptions of colour turn crucially on the shortcomings of these characterizations. After critically reviewing the standard characterizations, I provide a novel counterfactualist understanding of colour constancy, argue that it avoids difficulties of its traditional rivals, and defend it from objections. Finally, I show why, on this improved understanding, colour constancy does not have the philosophical consequences that have been claimed for it in the literature
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a790566607~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a790566607~fulltext=713240930
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2004). Color properties and color ascriptions: A relationalist manifesto.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Are colors relational or non-relational properties of their bearers? Is red a property that is instantiated by all and only the objects with a certain intrinsic (/non-relational) nature? Or does an object with a particular intrinsic (/non-relational) nature count as red only in virtue of standing in certain relations - for example, only when it looks a certain way to a certain perceiver, or only in certain circumstances of observation? In this paper I shall argue for the view that color properties are relational (henceforth, relationalism), and against the view that colors are not relational (henceforth, anti- or non-relationalism)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/color/relational.html
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(200410)113:4<451:CPACAA>2.0.CO;2-S
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4147999.pdf
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/citation/113/4/451
  http://philreview.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/113/4/451
  
• Jonathan Cohen, Color relationalism and color phenomenology.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Color relationalism is the view that colors are constituted in terms of relations between subjects and objects. The most historically important form of color relationalism is the classic dispositionalist view according to which, for example red is the disposition to look red to standard observers in standard conditions (mutatis mutandis for other colors).1 However, it has become increasingly apparent in recent years that a commitment to the relationality of colors bears interest that goes beyond dispositionalism (Cohen, 2004; Matthen, 1999, 2001, 2005; Thompson, 1995). Accordingly, it is an important project for those interested in the metaphysics of color to sort through and assess different forms of color relationalism. There is, however, a powerful and general cluster of objections that has been thought by many to amount to a decisive refutation of any and all forms of color relationalism. Although this idea has been developed in a number of ways, the basic thought is that relationalism — qua theory of color — is at odds with the manifest evidence of color phenomenology, and that this clash between theory and data should be resolved by giving up the theory
• Jonathan Cohen (online). It's not easy being green: Hardin and color relationalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: But Hardin hasn’t contented himself with reframing traditional philosoph- ical issues about color in a way that is sensitive to relevant empirical con- straints. In addition, he has been a staunch defender of color eliminativism — the view that there are no colors, qua properties of tables, chairs, and other mind-external objects, and a vociferous critic of several varieties of re- alism about color that have been defended by others (e.g., [Hardin, 2003], [Hardin, 2005]). These other views include the so-called color physical- ism of [Hilbert, 1987], [Byrne and Hilbert, 1997a], [Byrne and Hilbert, 2003], and [Tye, 2000],¹ and, inconveniently, even the relationalist view defended in [Cohen, 2003a], [Cohen, 2004a], [Cohen, 2003b], [McLaughlin, 2003], and [Jakab and McLaughlin, 2003]
• Jonathan Cohen (2003). On the structural properties of the colours.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Primary quality theories of color claim that colors are intrinsic, objective, mind-independent properties of external objects — that colors, like size and shape, are examples of the sort of properties moderns such as Boyle and Locke called primary qualities of body.¹ Primary quality theories have long been seen as one of the main philosophical options for understanding the nature of color
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713659586~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/XXMMTMMURYLG1AD0.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/713659586.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/2003/00000081/00000001/art00078
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oup/ajphil/2003/00000081/00000001/art00078
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~db=all~content=a713659586~fulltext=713240930
  
• Jonathan Cohen, C. L. Hardin & Brian P. McLaughlin (2006). True colours.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: (Tye 2006) presents us with the following scenario: John and Jane are both stan- dard human visual perceivers (according to the Ishihara test or the Farnsworth test, for example) viewing the same surface of Munsell chip 527 in standard conditions of visual observation. The surface of the chip looks “true blue” to John (i.e., it looks blue not tinged with any other colour to John), and blue tinged with green to Jane.¹ Tye then in effect poses a multiple choice question
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8284.2006.00638.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2006/00000066/00000292/art00011
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2001). Two recent anthologies on color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Although philosophers have puzzled about color for millennia, the recent explosion in philosophical interest in the topic can largely be traced to C. L. Hardin’s widely-read and deservedly-praised Color for Philosophers: Unweaving the Rainbow [Hardin, 1988]. While Hardin has had no more than the usual, limited success in convincing other philosophers to adopt the substance of his views, he has been quite influential about a point of philosophical methodology: he has convinced many that responsible philosophical work on color simply must make contact with the vast body of empirical color science, and thereby has effected an enormous (and to my mind, extremely salutary) change in the terms of recent philosophical discussion of color.¹ Indeed, writers have been so eager to take Hardin’s lesson on board that one is hard-pressed to find a recent philosophical book on color that does not acknowledge it, crediting Hardin by name
• David R. Hilbert & Mark Eli Kalderon (2000). Color and the inverted spectrum.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: If you trained someone to emit a particular sound at the sight of something red, another at the sight of something yellow, and so on for other colors, still he would not yet be describing objects by their colors. Though he might be a help to us in giving a description. A description is a representation of a distribution in a space (in that of time, for instance)
• David R. Hilbert (online). Theories of colour.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The world as perceived by human beings is full of colour. The world as described by physical scientists is composed of colourless particles and fields. Philosophical theories of colour since the scientific revolution have been primarily driven by a desire to harmonize these two apparently conflicting pictures of the world. Any adequate theory of colour has to be consistent with the characteristics of colour as perceived without contradicting the deliverances of the physical sciences. Given this conception of the aim of a theory of colour, there are three possibilities for resolving the apparent conflict between the scientific and perceptual facts. The first possibility is to deny that physical objects have colours. Theories of this kind admit that objects appear coloured but maintain that these appearances are misleading. The conflict is resolved by removing colour from the external world. Second, it might be that colour is a relational property. For an object to possess a particular colour it must be related in the right way to a perceiver. One common version of this view analyzes colour as a disposition to cause particular kinds of perceptual experiences in a human being. Since the physical sciences deal only with the intrinsic properties of physical objects and their relations to other physical objects and not their relations to perceiving subjects, the possibility of conflict is removed. A third possible response to the conflict is to maintain that colour really is a property of external objects and that the conflict is merely apparent. Some theories of this form maintain that colour is identical to a physical property of objects. Others maintain that colour is a property that physical objects possess over and above all their physical

  1

  properties. Philosophical discussions of colour typically take the form of either elaborating on one of these three possibilities or attempting to show more generally that one of these three types of responses is to be preferred to the others..
• Mohan P. Matthen (1999). The disunity of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is color? What is color vision? Most philosophers answer by reference to humans: to human color qualia, or to the environmental properties or "quality spaces" perceived by humans. It is argued, with reference to empirical findings concerning comparative color vision and the evolution of color vision, that all such attempts are mistaken. An adequate definition of color vision must eschew reference to its outputs in the human cognition and refer only to inputs: color vision consists in the use of wavelength discrimination in the construction of visual representations. A color quality is one that is generated from such processing
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/897/00/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000897/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:897
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2998260.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/897/1/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.org/897/0/color.asc.txt
  
• Barry Maund (online). Color.   (More)
• Vivian Mizrahi (2006). Color objectivism and color pluralism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Most objectivist and dispositionalist theories of color have tried to resolve the challenge raised by color variations by drawing a distinction between real and apparent colors. This paper considers such a strategy to be fundamentally erroneous. The high degree of variability of colors constitutes a crucial feature of colors and color perception; it cannot be avoided without leaving aside the real nature of color. The objectivist theory of color defended in this paper holds that objects have locally many different objective colors. Most color variations are then real and result from the extreme richness of color properties.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01070.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00005
  http://www.mizrahi.ch/philo/Mizrahi_Pluralism.pdf
  
• Stephen Palmer (1999). Color, consciousness, and the isomorphism constraint.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The relations among consciousness, brain, behavior, and scientific explanation are explored in the domain of color perception. Current scientific knowledge about color similarity, color composition, dimensional structure, unique colors, and color categories is used to assess Locke
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://web.gc.cuny.edu/cogsci/private/palmer-isomorphism.pdf
  http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.palmer.html
  http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/04/bbs00000504-00/bbs.palmer.html
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=30958&jid=BBS&volumeId=22&issueId=06&aid=30957
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11301573&dopt=Citation
  http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=30958
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X99002216
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X99382212
  http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0140525X99482214
  
• Adam Pautz (web). Colors.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: An overview of the main positions on color forthcoming in the Oxford Companion to Consciousness

Color Realism

• Edward Wilson Averill & Allan Hazlett, Color objectivism and color projectivism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Objectivism, in the philosophy of color, is (roughly) the claim that colors are physically constituted properties, instantiated by objects around us. On this view many objects around us both look colored and are colored. Projectivism is (roughly) the claim that objects around us look colored, but are not colored. On some projectivist accounts, colors are identified with properties instantiated by elements of perceiver’s visual systems, resulting in a systematic illusion of the instantiation of color properties by objects around us. Objectivism and projectivism are standardly taken to be incompatible theories of color. Here we argue that this incompatibility is only apparent: objectivism and projectivism, properly articulated so as to deal with basic objections, are in fundamental agreement about the ontology of color and phenomenology of color perception
• Paul A. Boghossian (2002). Seeking the real.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   A critical discussion of Barry Stroud's claim, in his book The Quest for Reality, that we could never rationally arrive at the conclusion that, for example, the world is not really colored
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/btba247g7ncm8bdn/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=403563&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/BTBA247G7NCM8BDN.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2002/00000108/F0020001/00403563
  
• Bill Brewer (2004). Stroud's Quest for reality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Barry Stroud begins his investigation into the metaphysics of colour with a discussion of the elusiveness of the genuinely philosophical quest for reality. He insists upon a distinction between two ways in which the idea of a correspondence between perceptions or beliefs and the facts may be understood: first, as equivalent to the plain truth of the perceptions/beliefs in question; second, as conveying the metaphysical reality of the corresponding features of the world. I begin by voicing some suspicion about this distinction. Then I go on to consider various aspects of his central argument against the likelihood of any successful unmasking explanation in connection with colour. The final moves of this argument seem to me to be unstable. Either his conclusion that the unmasker’s overall strategy is self-defeating is stronger than is warranted, or his insistence that no conclusive result is established in connection with the fundamental quest for reality is unduly cautious, depending on how precisely the dependence, which he rightly insists upon, of the identification of perceptions of colour upon some identification of colour properties themselves, is to be taken
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00353.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ips/ppr/2004/00000068/00000002/art00013
  
• Justin Broackes (2007). Colour, world and archimedean metaphysics: Stroud and the Quest for reality.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Barry Stroud’s book _The Quest for Reality_1 is, I think, the most substantial study of colour realism that has yet been written. It subjects to fundamental criticism a tradition that found its classic expression in Descartes and Locke and which in many ways remains standard today; it argues to be flawed not only the traditional rejection of colours as mere ideas or features of ideas in the mind, but also the view that colours are dispositions or powers in objects to produce ideas in us—which in other quarters sometimes passes as a form of colour realism. Stroud rejects subjectivism, dispositionalism, relativism, and reductionism; but he is deliberately reticent about offering any positive account of what we believe to exist when believe colours to exist (after all, he says, in quiet allusion to Butler, everything is what it is and not another thing). And he is resolute in denying that we can give a philosophical argument to establish such belief as true. Stroud’s general conclusion can be seen as occupying a middle ground between what we might call dogmatic anti-realism and dogmatic realism. He argues (in Ch. 7) that anti-realism (or what Stroud calls the ‘unmasking’ of colours) is a view that cannot be affirmed without a kind of self-refutation—for ‘no one could abandon all beliefs about the colours of things and still _understand_ the colour terms’ (168, my emphasis). On the other hand (in Ch. 9), it remains in some sense a ‘possibility’ (204) that everyday colour beliefs might actually all be false. Stroud’s final judgment is not that we shall or should abandon the ‘Quest for Reality’, though he has expressed many reservations about it.2 The
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/u21vl7744826x811/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/U21VL7744826X811.pdf
  
• Justin Broackes (1992). The autonomy of colour.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This essay* takes two notions of autonomy and two notions of explanation and argues that colours occur in explanations that fall under all of them. The claim that colours can be used to explain anything at all may seem to some people an outrage. But their pessimism is unjustified and the orthodox dispositional view which may seem to support it, I shall argue, itself has difficulties. In broad terms, Section 2 shows that there exist good straight scientific laws of colour, constituting what one might call a phenomenal science. Section 3 offers a larger view of what we are doing when we attribute colours to things, a view which makes it a case of holistic explanation, similar in many ways to psychological explanation. Section 2 emphasizes the model of scientific explanation, and Section 3 the holistic model found in rational explanation; but it will emerge that colour explanation in different ways fits both models, as it also does the two principal notions of autonomy that the first section identifies
• Alex Byrne (2006). Comments on Cohen, mizrahi, Maund, and Levine.   (More)
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2004). Hardin, Tye, and color physicalism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Larry Hardin has been the most steadfast and influential critic of physicalist theories of color over the last 20 years. In their modern form these theories originated with the work of Smart and Armstrong in the 1960s and 1970s1 and Hardin appropriately concentrated on their views in his initial critique of physicalism.2 In his most recent contribution to this project3 he attacks Michael Tye’s recent attempts to defend and extend color physicalism.4 Like Byrne and Hilbert5, Tye identifies color with the reflecting properties of objects (“reflectance physicalism”). Specifically, the determinate and determinable colors are identified with types of reflectances. (Setting some complications aside, the reflectance of an object is the proportion of light that it reflects at each wavelength in the visible spectrum.) These reflectance types are, in the terminology of Hilbert, anthropocentric—in the terminology of Lewis6, they are not very “natural”
• Alex Byrne & David R. Hilbert (2007). Truest blue.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Physical objects are coloured: roses are red, violets are blue, and so forth. In particular, physical objects have fine-grained shades of colour: a certain chip, we can suppose, is true blue (unique, or pure blue). The following sort of scenario is commonplace. The chip looks true blue to John; in the same (ordinary) viewing conditions it looks (slightly) greenish-blue to Jane. Both John and Jane are “normal” perceivers. Now, nothing can be both true blue and greenish-blue; since the chip is true blue, it is not greenish-blue. Hence Jane, unlike John, is misperceiving the chip. Generalizing, the conclusion is that there is widespread misperception of fine-grained shades. According to Tye (2006), and Cohen, Hardin, and McLaughlin (2006), the previous paragraph amounts to a paradox: an apparently unacceptable conclusion has been drawn from apparently acceptable premises via apparently acceptable reasoning. (See also Hawthorne and Kovakovich 2006: 180-1.) Tye swallows the conclusion, aided by a dose of evolutionary speculation. Hardin (1988), on the other hand, rejects the first premise, and denies that physical objects are coloured. Cohen (2004) and McLaughlin (2003) claim that both Jane and John have the colour of the chip right. Our opening paragraph concealed a crucial parameter. In fact, the chip looks greenish-blue-relative-to- circumstances-C to Jane, and true-blue-relative-to-circumstances-C* to John, and the chip has both these relativized colours.¹ All this ingenious philosophizing would be in vain, of course, if the conclusion of the opening paragraph were not puzzling or problematic. So, why is it supposed to be? According to Tye, the conclusion is puzzling because John and Jane are both “_normal_ perceivers” (xx). He seems to think that it is (prima facie) plausible to assume that there is no variation in perceptual accuracy among normal perceivers. But he does not explain why this assumption should be made..
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/truestblue.pdf
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/truestblue.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8284.2007.00654.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anal/2007/00000067/00000293/art00014
  
• K. Campbell (1993). David Armstrong and realism about colour.   (More)
• Jonathan Cohen (2007). A relationalist's guide to error about color perception.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Color relationalism is the view that colors are constituted in terms of relations to perceiving subjects. Among its explanatory virtues, relation- alism provides a satisfying treatment of cases of perceptual variation. But it can seem that relationalists lack resources for saying that a representa- tion of x’s color is erroneous. Surely, though, a theory of color that makes errors of color perception impossible cannot be correct. In this paper I’ll argue that, initial appearances notwithstanding, relationalism contains the resources to account for errors of color perception. I’ll conclude that worries about making room for error are worries the relationalist can meet
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/~joncohen/color/error.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00650.x
  
• Jonathan Cohen (2003). Barry Stroud, the Quest for reality: Subjectivism and the metaphysics of colour.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In The Quest for Reality: Subjectivism and the Metaphysics of Colour [Stroud, 2000], Barry Stroud carries out an ambitious attack on various forms of irrealism and subjectivism about color. The views he targets - those that would deny a place in objective reality to the colors - have a venerable history in philosophy. Versions of them have been defended by Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, Locke, and Hume; more recently, forms of these positions have been articulated by Williams, Smart, Mackie, Ryle, and Hardin, among others. Stroud's aim is to argue not only that these writers fail to make their cases, but that no conceivable argument could ever convince us that colors are not a part of objective reality
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/~joncohen/color/stroud.html
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118872508/PDFSTART
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-0068.00450
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/nous/2003/00000037/00000003/art00007
  
• Don Dedrick (1995). Objectivism and the evolutionary value of color vision.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In Color for Philosophers C. L. Hardin argues that chromatic objectivism?a view which identifies colour with some or other property of objects?must be false. The upshot of Hardin's argument is this: there is, in fact, no principled correlation between physical properties and perceived colours. Since that correlation is a minimal condition for objectivism, objectivism is false. Mohan Matthen, who accepts Hardin's conclusion for what can be called "simple objectivism," takes it that an adaptationist theory of biological function applied to colour is able to surmount the problems Hardin describes. It is Matthen's view that I am primarily concerned with in this paper. I will argue that it entails an overly simple view of adaptive value?as, perhaps, do all objectivist views
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000366/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:366
  http://cogprints.org/366/1/dialogue.html
  http://cogprints.org/366/0/dialogue.html
  
• Naomi M. Eilan (ms). On the reality of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The Quest for Reality, contains, amongst much else, a sustained and deeply illuminating investigation of the thesis Barry Stroud labels ’subjectivism’ about colours. The grounds he relentlessly amasses for rejecting the thesis are, in my view, compelling. There is a sense, indeed, in which I think they are more compelling than he says he himself finds them. For as I understand his arguments, they contain the materials for delivering a positive answer to the question: are objects really coloured? As Stroud himself presents the outcome of his investigation, they do not. Actually, to put it in this ’headline-grabbing’ way is misleading. The real issue turns on the main concern of his book-- his immensely thought-provoking investigation of the questions: what counts as a metaphysical account of reality? And, in the test case of colours, can the task of addressing the question of whether they are or are not part of reality be successfully undertaken? The suggestion I will be making is that his rejection of subjectivism contains the materials for asking about the metaphysical reality of colour in a way that is distinct from the way he shows cannot work; and that on this distinct way, the answer to the question of whether objects are really coloured is: yes. So, he might either reject the very idea that this alternative way of framing the question about colours does count as an example of a metaphysical quest for their reality; or he might agree that it is one, but disagree with the positive answer I sketch on his behalf, so to speak
• Kathrin Gluer (forthcoming). Colors Without Circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The dispute between realists about color and anti-realists is actually a dispute about the
  nature of color properties. The disputants do not disagree over what material objects are
  like. Rather, they disagree over whether any of the uncontroversial facts about material
  objects – their powers to cause visual experiences, their dispositions to reflect incident
  light, their atomic makeup, and so on – amount to their having colors. The disagreement
  is thus about which properties colors are and, in particular, whether colors are any of the
  properties in a particular set that is acknowledged on both sides to exhaust the properties
  of material objects (1991, 67)
• Kathrin Glüer (2007). Colors without circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Realists about color, be they dispositionalists or physicalists, agree on the truth of the following claim: (R) x is red iff x is disposed to look red under standard conditions. The disagreement is only about whether to identify the colors with the relevant dispositions, or with their categorical bases. This is a question about the representational content of color experience: What kind of properties do color experiences ascribe to objects? It has been argued (for instance by Boghossian and Velleman, 1991) that truths like (R) cannot be used in an account of the colors as they would result in ‚circular’, and therefore empty, contents. It has also been argued (for instance by Harman, 1996) that switching to an account of color in terms of a functional account of color sensations would result in a circular, and therefore empty, account. In this paper, I defend a realist account of color in terms of a (non-reductive) functional account of color sensations. Such an account of sensations has been suggested by Pagin (2000), and it can be applied to color sensations without the resulting account of the colors themselves being circular or empty. I argue that the so-called transparency of experience does not provide any argument against such an account. I also argue that on such an account, the issue of physicalism vs. dispositionalism boils down to the question of the modal profile of the color concepts
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/f342520233q1363v/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/F342520233Q1363V.pdf
  
• Kathrin Glüer-Pagin (2007). Colors without circles?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: forthcoming in Theories of Color Perception, ed. R. Schumacher, special issue of Erkenntnis 2007
• David R. Hilbert (1992). What is color vision?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There are serious reasons for accepting each of these propositions individually but there are apparently insurmountable difficulties with accepting all three of them simultaneously if we assume that color is a single property. 1) and 2) together seem to imply that there is some property which all organisms with color vision can see and 3) seems to imply that there can be no such property. If these implications really are valid then one or more of these propositions will have to be rejected in spite of whatever reasons can be given for their apparent acceptability. Before going on to discuss possible resolutions of this apparent contradiction it is worth pointing out there our three propositions are not all of a kind. Proposition 1) is a metaphysical thesis about the ontological status of color and proposition 3) is an empirical thesis about what properties organisms with color vision are capable of detecting. If you accept 1) then 2) will appear to verge on the trivial, but if 1) is denied then the status of 2) will appear more problematic. In what follows I will have more to say about why we either should or should not accept all three of these propositions
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/wcv.pdf
  http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/redirect.php?URI=http://tigger.uic.edu/~hilbert/papers/wcv.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/x108594365w01575/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/X108594365W01575.pdf
  
• Keith Allen (2010). In defence of natural daylight.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Objects appear different as the illumination under which they are perceived varies. This fact is sometimes thought to pose a problem for the view that colours are mind-independent properties: if a coloured object appears different under different illuminations, then under which illumination does the object appear the colour it really is? I argue that given the nature of natural daylight, and certain plausible assumptions about the nature of the colours it illuminates, there is a non-arbitrary reason to suppose that it is under natural daylight that we are able to perceive the real colours of objects
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123305235/PDFSTART
  
• Mohan P. Matthen (1999). The disunity of color.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: What is color? What is color vision? Most philosophers answer by reference to humans: to human color qualia, or to the environmental properties or "quality spaces" perceived by humans. It is argued, with reference to empirical findings concerning comparative color vision and the evolution of color vision, that all such attempts are mistaken. An adequate definition of color vision must eschew reference to its outputs in the human cognition and refer only to inputs: color vision consists in the use of wavelength discrimination in the construction of visual representations. A color quality is one that is generated from such processing
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/897/00/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000897/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:897
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108(199901)108:1<47:TDOC>2.0.CO;2-1
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2998260.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/897/1/color.asc.txt
  http://cogprints.org/897/0/color.asc.txt
  
• Vivian Mizrahi (2010). Color and transparency.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In this paper I argue that all transparent objects are colorless. This thesis is important for at least three reasons. First, if transparent objects are colorless, there is no need to distinguish between colors which characterize three-dimensional bodies, like transparent colors, and colors which lie on the surface of objects. Second, traditional objections against color physicalism relying on transparent colors are rendered moot. Finally, an improved understanding of the relations between colors, light and transparency is provided.
• Vivian Mizrahi (2006). Color objectivism and color pluralism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Most objectivist and dispositionalist theories of color have tried to resolve the challenge raised by color variations by drawing a distinction between real and apparent colors. This paper considers such a strategy to be fundamentally erroneous. The high degree of variability of colors constitutes a crucial feature of colors and color perception; it cannot be avoided without leaving aside the real nature of color. The objectivist theory of color defended in this paper holds that objects have locally many different objective colors. Most color variations are then real and result from the extreme richness of color properties.
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2006.01070.x
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/dltc/2006/00000060/00000003/art00005
  http://www.mizrahi.ch/philo/Mizrahi_Pluralism.pdf
  
• Adam Pautz (2003). Have Byrne and Hilbert answered Hardin's challenge?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I argue that Byrne and Hilbert have not answered Hardin’s objection to physicalism about color concerning the unitary-binary structure of the colors for two reasons. First, their account of unitary-binary structure seems unsatisfactory. Second, _pace_ Byrne and Hilbert, there are no physicalistically acceptable candidates to be the hue- magnitudes. I conclude with a question about the justification of physicalism about color
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=175818&jid=BBS&volumeId=26&issueId=01&aid=175817
  http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0140525X03460019
  
• Nigel J. T. Thomas (2001). Color realism: Toward a solution to the "hard problem".   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This article was written as a commentary on a target article by Peter W. Ross entitled "The Location Problem for Color Subjectivism" [Consciousness and Cognition 10(1), 42-58 (2001)], and is published together with it, and with other commentaries and Ross's reply. If you or your library have the necessary subscription you can get PDF versions of the target article, all the commentaries, and Ross's reply to the commentaries here. However, I do not think that it is by any means essential for you to have read Ross's piece in order to understand this one. Ross defends a view called "color physicalism" or color realism that holds (simplifying somewhat) that colors are real physical properties (in typical cases, spectral reflectances of object surfaces). This is in opposition to what is probably a more widely held "subjectivist" view of color, holding that color qualities really exist only in the mind. In my commentary I suggest that a realist view of qualitative properties, such as Ross's, together with a direct, active view of perception, and a concept of "extended mind" (Clark & Chalmers, 1998) may provide the materials for a real solution to the notorious hard problem of consciousness. I sketch this solution in outline. - N.J.T.T
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/5020/
  http://cogprints.org/3749/1/colreal.htm
  http://cogprints.org/5020/1/colreal.htm
  http://www.imagery-imagination.com/col-real.pdf
  http://www.imagery-imagination.com/col-real.htm
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003749/01/colreal.htm
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11273636&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11273636&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google
  http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1053810000904847
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/10538100/2001/00000010/00000001/art90484
  
• Michael Tye (2007). True blue redux.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: A chip looks true blue to John and greenish blue to Jane. On the face of it, at least one of the two perceivers has an inaccurate colour experience; for the chip cannot be both true blue and greenish blue. But John and Jane are “normal” perceivers, and there is no privileged class of normal perceivers (Block 1999). This is the puzzle of true blue (Tye