Theories of philosophy of perception are too simplifying. Direct realism and representationalism, for example, are philosophical theories of perception about the nature of the perceived object and its location. It is common sense to say that we directly perceive, through our senses, physical objects together with their properties. However, if perceptual experience is representational, it only appears that we directly perceive the represented physical objects. Despite psychological studies concerning the role of memory in perception, what these two philosophical theories do (...) not explicate are the continuity of the external describable object and the role of memory in perceiving the continuity, difference, break or ending. Using empirical evidence of particular cases and the hypothetico-deductive model, this research article analyses how one is able to perceive the continuity of same things. The early stages of perceptual process are not sufficient for the perception of continuity. Empirical evidence of memory disorders shows that persons with a memory disorder do not perceive the same thing or the familiar place they previously saw and now experience or remember what they are thinking about, even if the object, the place or the person has remained the same. I will argue that the perception of continuity requires memory. In fact, observation indicates how the memory runs at the same time, when the object is seen over time. This fact implies the memory system’s essential role for perceiving the continuity of the same things. (shrink)

I will develop a new problem for almost all realist theories of colour. The problem involves fluctuations in our colour experiences that are due to visual noise rather than changes in the objects we are looking at.

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. (shrink)

I sketch a philosophical program called ‘Empirical Fundamentalism,’ whose signature feature is the extensive use of a distinction between fundamental and derivative reality. Within the framework of Empirical Fundamentalism, derivative reality is treated as an abstraction from fundamental reality. I show how one can understand reduction and supervenience in terms of abstraction, and then I apply the introduced machinery to understand the relation between water and H2O, mental states and brain states, and so on. The conclusion is that such relations (...) can be understood either as metaphysical contingencies or as necessary type-identities. (shrink)

We aim to find a middle path between disease models of addiction, and those that treat addictive choices as choices like any other. We develop an account of the disease element by focussing on the idea that dopamine works primarily to lay down dispositional intrinsic desires. Addictive substances artifically boost the dopamine signal, and thereby lay down intrinsic desires for the substances that persist through withdrawal, and in the face of beliefs that they are worthless. The result is cravings that (...) are largely outside the control of the addict. But this does not mean that addicts are bound to act on such cravings, since they typically retain their faculty of self-control. The issue is one of difficulty not impossibility. Controlling an addictive craving is exceedingly demanding. (shrink)

This paper (from 2006) is now defunct. I argue against "realist primitivism". One of my arguments is a kind of "evolutionary debunking argument". Some of the material of this was incorporated into “Can Disjunctivists Explain Our Access to the Sensible World?” and "How Does Color Experience Represent the World?".