I reply to comments on my book Perception (Routledge 2021) by Umrao Sethi, Jeff Speaks and Brian Cutter. Sethi objects to my representational view of perception on the ground that that having an experience of a color or shape can enable you to know what that color or shape is like only if it is actually present in the experience. Speaks has a very interesting discussion of my puzzle of the laws of appearance for the representational view. And Cutter asks (...) what I have against 'neural sense datum theory'. In my responses, I try to take the discussion forward. At the end, I develop a new argument against reductive physicalist theories of sensible qualities based on a principle I call "qualitative closure". (shrink)

This commentary on Adam Pautz's excellent book, Perception, explores the consequences of “spatial illusionism,” the view that the spatial properties presented in experience aren't instantiated in the extra-mental world. First, I consider whether spatial illusionism entails that our ordinary beliefs about the physical world are mostly false. I then argue that spatial illusionism threatens to undermine two arguments Pautz's defends in Perception: his argument that sense data theory is incompatible with physicalism, and his central argument against the internal physical state (...) view of perception. (shrink)

William Lycan is a notable early proponent of representationalism, which is, roughly, the view that a mental state's phenomenal features are nothing over and above its representational features (perhaps in addition to some further ingredients). Representationalism faces a challenge in accounting for perspectival experiences, which are, roughly, experiences that arise from our occupying a particular real or perceived perspective on the world. This paper presents representationalism, situating Lycan's version of representationalism within the representationalist landscape, and describes the challenge from perspectival (...) experiences. It considers three different representationalist treatments of perspectival experiences: the Layered View, which is developed by Lycan; the Relational Properties View, which Lycan eventually comes to endorse; and the Naive View, which, I will argue, combines elements from both views to achieve the best overall view. (shrink)

The gist of the many-subjects argument is that, given physicalism, it’s hard to avoid the absurd result that there are many conscious subjects in your vicinity with more-or-less the same experiences as you. The most promising ways of avoiding this result have a consequence almost as bad: that there are many things in your vicinity that are in a state only trivially different from being conscious, a state with similar normative significance. This paper clarifies and defends three versions of the (...) many-subjects argument. One version poses the threat of conscious parts. Its key premise is that if physicalism is true, then not only you, but also certain parts of your body, are conscious. These parts might include your brain, your head, all-of-you-except-your-left-pinky, all-of-your-brain-except-one-neuron, or your left cerebral hemisphere. A second version poses the threat of conscious coinciders, things that currently occupy the same spatial region as you and share all your matter. Its key premise is that if physicalism is true, then not only you, but also some things that currently coincide with you, are conscious. These might include your body or the aggregate of particles of which you are currently composed. A third version poses the threat of conscious person candidates, the many human-body-shaped material objects in your vicinity that mostly overlap one another, differing only in a few peripheral atoms. This version claims that if physicalism is true, then there are many conscious person-candidates in your vicinity. -/- . (shrink)

This dialogue explores the question of whether intentionality—the “ofness”, “aboutness”, or “directedness” of mental states—is a relation. We explore three views: the Naive View, on which intentionality is a relation to ordinary, everyday objects, facts, and other such items; the Abstract Contents View, on which intentionality is a relation to mind-independent abstract entities that are our contents; and the Aspect View, on which intentionality is a matter of having intentional states with particular (non-relational) aspects that are our contents. We consider (...) the challenges facing these views, which include empirical challenges in accounting for all the contents our intentional states can represent, metaphysical challenges in making sense of how contents can be entertained or otherwise represented by us and how they can play a psychological role in the mental economy, and challenges in making sense of how intentionality connects us to the world—if at all. Along the way, we consider the question of how consciousness is related to intentionality and how this affects one’s choice of views. (shrink)

Our universe features a harmonious match between laws and states: applying its laws to its states generates other states. This is a striking fact. Matters might have been otherwise. The universe might have been stillborn in a state unengaged by its laws. The problem of nomological harmony is that of explaining the noted striking fact. After introducing and developing this problem, we canvass candidate solutions and identify some of their virtues and vices. Candidate solutions invoke the likes of a designer, (...) axiarchic meta-laws, multiverses, essential causal powers, and Humean laws. (shrink)

We motivate five constraints on theorizing about sensory experience. We then propose a novel form of naturalistic intentionalism that succeeds where other theories fail by satisfying all of these constraints. On the proposed theory, which we call structure matching tracking intentionalism, brains states track determinables. Internal structural features of those states select determinates of those determinables for presentation in experience. We argue that this theory is distinctively well-positioned to both explain internal-phenomenal structural correlations and accord external features a role in (...) fixing phenomenology. In addition, we use the theory to shed light on how one comes to experience “missing shades”. (shrink)