According to the perceptual theory of emotions, emotions are perceptions of evaluative properties. The account has recently faced a barrage of criticism recently by critics who point out varies disanalogies between emotion and paradigmatic perceptual experiences. What many theorists fail to note however, is that many of the disanalogies that have been raised to exclude emotions from being perceptual states that represent evaluative properties have also been used to exclude high-level properties from appearing in the content of perception. This suggests (...) that emotions are perceptions of high level properties and perceptual theorists can marshal the arguments used by proponents of high-level perception to defend the perceptual theory. This paper therefore defends an account of emotion as high-level perception. (shrink)

Some objects we value because they afford a felt connection with people, events, or places connected with their past. Visiting Canterbury cathedral, you encounter the place where, in 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights of Henry II. Knowing that you are standing in the very place where Becket’s blood was spilled gives the past event a sense of tangible reality. One feels ‘in touch with’ the past; history seems to ‘come alive’. In this paper, I propose an (...) explanation for the phenomenology of such experiences in terms of an imaginative activity that represents what an object is historically connected with as part of the object in the present. One imagines of the site of Becket’s murder Becket being murdered. According to my account, objects that embody their histories are representations in Kendall Walton’s sense: they have the function of serving as props in games of make-believe. (shrink)

Visual perception is widely taken to present properties such as redness, roundness, and so on. This in turn might be thought to give rise to accuracy conditions for experience, and so content, regardless of which metaphysical view of perception one endorses. An influential version of this argument—Susanna Siegel’s ’Argument from Appearing’—aims to establish the existence of content as common ground between representational and relational views of perception. This goes against proponents of ‘austere’ relationalism who deny that content plays a substantive (...) role in philosophical explanations of conscious perceptual experience. Though Siegel’s argument purports to be neutral with respect to the metaphysics of perception, it relies upon an equivocation between the presentation of property-types and property-instances. Consequently, the argument begs the question against the austere relational view, and so fails to establish the desired conclusion. So while relationalists can and should allow that experiences have accuracy conditions, it does not follow from this that they have contents of any philosophically interesting or significant kind. (shrink)

I suggest that we can think of delusional misidentification in terms of systematic errors in the management of mental files. I begin by sketching the orthodox “bottom-up” aetiology of delusional misidentification. I suggest that the orthodox aetiology can be given a descriptivist or a singularist interpretation. I present three cases that a descriptivist interpretation needs to account for. I then introduce a singularist approach, one that is based on mental files, and show how it opens the way for different and (...) potentially more plausible accounts of these three cases. I reflect on how this mental files approach can be viewed either as a supplement to the orthodox aetiology, or as suggesting an altogether different aetiology. I end by addressing a concern surrounding the explanatory power of mental files. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to outline Dorothy Emmet’s (1904-2000) account of perception in The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking (published in 1945). Emmet’s account of perception is part of a wider attempt to rehabilitate metaphysics in the face of logical positivism and verificationism (of the kind espoused most famously by A. J. Ayer). It is thus part of an attempt to stem the tide of anti-metaphysical thought that had become widespread in British philosophy by the middle of the twentieth (...) century. In pursuit of that aim, Emmet draws on the work of figures like A. N. Whitehead and Henri Bergson, rather than more mainstream analytic thinkers like Bertrand Russell or G. E. Moore, for inspiration. Indeed, Emmet’s ideas stand in contrast to the prevailing tides of British philosophy during her lifetime. This makes Emmet a figure of considerable historical interest; she does not fit neatly into the traditional narrative of the continental-analytic divide, proposed a way forward for metaphysics in one of its greatest times of crisis, and pre-empted certain movements in more contemporary philosophy of perception. By espousing her unique account of perception and drawing out its connections to her wider philosophy, I hope to put Emmet ‘on the map’, so to speak, of twentieth century British thought. (shrink)

How do we know about other minds on the basis of perception? The two most common answers to this question are that we literally perceive others’ mental states, or that we infer their mental states on the basis of perceiving something else. In this paper, I argue for a different answer. On my view, we don’t perceive mental states, and yet perceptual experiences often immediately justify mental state attributions. In a slogan: other minds are neither seen nor inferred. I argue (...) that this view offers the best explanation of our deeply equivocal intuitions about perception-based mental state attributions, and also holds substantial interest for the epistemology of perception more generally. (shrink)

Moral perceptualism is the theory that perception and perceptual experience is attuned to moral features in our environment. This idea has received renewed attention in the last 15–20 years, for its potential to do theoretical work in moral epistemology and moral psychology. In this paper, I review the main motivations and arguments for moral perceptualism, the variety of theories that go under the heading of “moral perception,” and the three biggest challenges to moral perception. https://youtu.be/9cc_1zykq80.

Is the flavor of mint reducible to the minty smell, the taste, and the menthol-like coolness on the roof of one’s mouth, or does it include something over and above these—something not properly associated with any one of the contributing senses? More generally, are there features of perceptual experiences—so-called novel features—that are not associated with any of our senses taken singly? This question has received a lot of attention of late. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question (...) of what it means to say that a feature is associated with a sensory modality in the first place. Indeed, there is only one fully developed proposal in the literature, due to Casey O’Callaghan. I argue that this proposal is too permissive to inform the debate over novel features. I go on to argue that all attempts to formulate a better proposal along these lines fail. The corollary of my arguments is that the question of the existence of novel features is poorly formed. Furthermore, the problem generalizes, with the result that we should not rely on our pre-theoretical notions of the senses as the basis of theorizing about the features of perceptual experiences. (shrink)

The so-called ‘re-identification condition’ (Kelly 2011) has played an important role in the most prominent argument for nonconceptualism, the argument from fineness of grain. A number of authors have recently argued that the condition should be modified or discarded altogether, with devastating implications for the nonconceptualist (see, e.g., Brewer 2005, Chuard 2006). The aim of this paper is to show that the situation is even more dire for nonconceptualists, for even if the re-identification condition remains in its original form, the (...) argument from fineness of grain still fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. The paper's central case rests on two claims: according to the first, if the re-identification condition holds, then some beliefs will represent some properties nonconceptually; and according to the second, if some beliefs represent some properties nonconceptually, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism in any relevant sense. It follows that if the re-identification condition holds, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. (shrink)

The question of how we actually arrive at our knowledge of others’ mental lives is lively debated, and some philosophers defend the idea that mentality is sometimes accessible to perception. In this paper, a distinction is introduced between “mind awareness” and “mental state awareness,” and it is argued that the former at least sometimes belongs to perceptual, rather than cognitive, processing.

This paper starts by distinguishing three views about the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. ‘Low-level theorists’ argue that perceptual experience is reducible to the experience of low-level properties, ‘high-level theorists’ argue that we have perceptual experiences of high-level properties, while ‘disunified view theorists’ argue that perceptual seemings can present high-level properties. The paper explores how cognitive states can penetrate perceptual experience and provides an interpretation of cognitive penetration that offers some support for the high-level view.

In recent epistemology many philosophers have adhered to a moderate foundationalism according to which some beliefs do not depend on other beliefs for their justification. Reliance on such ‘basic beliefs’ pervades both internalist and externalist theories of justification. In this article I argue that the phenomenon of perceptual learning – the fact that certain ‘expert’ observers are able to form more justified basic beliefs than novice observers – constitutes a challenge for moderate foundationalists. In order to accommodate perceptual learning cases, (...) the moderate foundationalist will have to characterize the ‘expertise’ of the expert observer in such a way that it cannot be had by novice observers and that it bestows justification on expert basic beliefs independently of any other justification had by the expert. I will argue that the accounts of expert basic beliefs currently present in the literature fail to meet this challenge, as they either result in a too liberal ascription of justification or fail to draw a clear distinction between expert basic beliefs and other spontaneously formed beliefs. Nevertheless, some guidelines for a future solution will be provided. (shrink)

In this paper, I set out to answer two foundational questions concerning our psychological engagements with fictions. The first is the question of fictional transformation: How we can see fictional media while also ‘seeing’ those objects as fictional ones? The second is the question of fictional response: How and why we take the objects of fiction to be the types of things that we can respond to and judge? Standard responses to these questions rely on distinct cognitive attitudes like pretense, (...) imagination, and make-believe. I call this position the distinct attitude view. I argue against the DAV, arguing instead that a psychological framework of fiction can answer the two questions without appealing to distinct mental attitudes. Hence, I call my position the standard attitude view. The challenge for the SAV is to explain the two questions in terms of everyday mental states and the intentional content of those states. I do so by appealing to the concept of taking the fictional stance.... (shrink)

This article focuses on a potentially perplexing aspect of our interactions with pictorial representations : in some cases, it seems that visual representations can play tricks on our cognitive faculties. We may either come to believe that objects represented in pictures are real or perhaps perceive them as such. The possibility of widespread pictorial illusions has been oft discussed, and discarded, in the aesthetics literature. I support this stance. However, the nature of the illusion is more complicated than is usually (...) considered. I argue that there are five different types of potential illusions and present reasons for rejecting each. I also explore in detail the most persistent illusion: the “object recognition perceptual illusion thesis,” which states that we undergo a perceptual illusion while viewing pictorial representations simply in virtue of seeing objects in the representation. I contend that a rejection of this thesis depends on the nature of perceptual content, an issue with far-reaching consequences in aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper explores the conscious visual experience of seeing race. In everyday occurrences, racialized seeing involves the capacity for a subject to simply “see” that someone she encounters belongs to a racial category. I bridge research in analytic philosophy of perception and accounts from phenomenologists and critical race theorists on the lived experience of racialized seeing. I contend that we should not trust our visual experiences of racialized seeing because they provide, at best, incomplete information on a target’s racial identity. (...) I make a case for a version of perceptual learning that I think both captures actual experiences of racialized seeing and is empirically plausible. Finally, I follow work of critical race theorists in suggesting that normative constraints surrounding racial identity and privilege are built into our experiences of racialized seeing. Both types of racialized seeing are subject to social norms and practices and, thus, aid in perpetuating racial hierarchies. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of “gendered seeing”: the capacity to visually perceive another person's gender and the role that one's own gender plays in that perception. Assuming that gendered properties are actually perceptible, my goal is to provide some support from the philosophy of perception on how gendered visual experiences are possible. I begin by exploring the ways in which sociologists and psychologists study how we perceive one's sex and the implications of these studies for the sex/gender distinction. I (...) then discuss feminist philosopher Linda Alcoff's concept of “interpretative horizons,” which highlights the role that one's social and political identities play in how we understand the world around us. I also discuss Elizabeth Grosz's notion of double sensation. I then apply some work in the philosophy of perception on perceptual learning and the cognitive penetration of perception to gendered seeing. My hypothesis is that we can explain how one's interpretative horizons are acquired through some notion of perceptual learning. I conclude by suggesting some of the epistemic and ethical implications of gendered seeing. (shrink)

According to so-called “thin” views about the content of experience, we can only visually experience low-level features such as colour, shape, texture or motion. According to so-called “rich” views, we can also visually experience some high-level properties, such as being a pine tree or being threatening. One of the standard objections against rich views is that high-level properties can only be represented at the level of judgment. In this paper, I first challenge this objection by relying on some recent studies (...) in social vision. Secondly, I tackle a different but related issue, namely, the idea that, if the content of experience is rich, then perception is cognitively penetrable. Against this thesis, I argue that the very same criteria that help us vindicate the truly sensory nature of our rich experiences speak against their being cognitively penetrable. (shrink)

Restrictivists hold that visual experience only represents low-level properties such as shape, spatial location, motion, color, etc. Expansionists contend that visual experience also represents high-level properties such as being a pine tree. I outline a new approach to support expansionism called the conflict cross-modal argument. What I call the conflict cross-modal effects occur when at least two perceptual systems disagree about some property belonging to a common stimulus, and this disagreement causes a change in the representational and phenomenal content of (...) the perceptual experience associated with one, or both, modalities. The conflict cross-modal argument works by accepting that if a property figures in a conflict cross-modal effect, then prima facie that property is a strong common sensible between the two modalities, and vision and another modality disagree about a property that is high-level for vision. After outlining this argument, and showing how it overcomes two obstacles that face traditional methods employed to defend expansionism, I turn to the well known Mcgurk effect as a case where vision and audition disagree about phoneme properties in order to employ my argument for the conclusion that phoneme properties are represented in visual experience. The upshot is that since phoneme properties are high-level for vision, we have an argument supporting expansionism. (shrink)

Phenomenal character is determined by representational content, which both hallucinatory and veridical experiences can share. But in the case of veridical experience, unlike hallucination, the external objects of experience literally have the properties one is aware of in experience. The representationalist can accept the common factor assumption without having to introduce sensory intermediaries between the mind and the world, thus securing a form of direct realism.

Michael Devitt has argued that a satisfactory explanation of the authority of linguistic intuitions need not assume that they are derived from tacit knowledge of principles of grammar. Devitt’s Modest Explanation is based on a controversial construal of linguistic intuitions as meta-linguistic central-processor judgements. I will argue that there are non-judgemental responses to linguistic strings, linguistic seemings, which are evidence for linguistic theories. Devitt cannot account for their epistemic authority. This spoils his ‘modest explanation’. Devitt’s opponent, the Voice of Competence (...) View, is back in business. (shrink)

As an important view in the epistemology of perception, dogmatism proposes that for any experience, if it has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character, then it thereby provides us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world. This paper rejects dogmatism by looking into the epistemology of imagining. In particular, this paper first appeals to some empirical studies on perceptual experiences and imaginings to show that it is possible for imaginings to have the distinctive phenomenal character dogmatists have in (...) mind. Then this paper argues that some of these imaginings fail to provide us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world at least partly due to their inappropriate etiology. Such imaginings constitute counterexamples to dogmatism. (shrink)

Expertise is a cognitive achievement that clearly involves experience and learning, and often requires explicit, time-consuming training specific to the relevant domain. It is also intuitive that this kind of achievement is, in a rich sense, genuinely perceptual. Many experts—be they radiologists, bird watchers, or fingerprint examiners—are better perceivers in the domain(s) of their expertise. The goal of this paper is to motivate three related claims, by substantial appeal to recent empirical research on perceptual expertise: Perceptual expertise is genuinely perceptual (...) and genuinely cognitive, and this phenomenon reveals how we can become epistemically better perceivers. These claims are defended against sceptical opponents that deny significant top-down or cognitive effects on perception, and opponents who maintain that any such effects on perception are epistemically pernicious. (shrink)

There are good, even if inconclusive, reasons to think that cognitive penetration of perception occurs: that cognitive states like belief causally affect, in a relatively direct way, the contents of perceptual experience. The supposed importance of – indeed as it is suggested here, what is definitive of – this possible phenomenon is that it would result in important epistemic and scientific consequences. One interesting and intuitive consequence entirely unremarked in the extant literature concerns the perception of art. Intuition has it (...) that knowledge about art changes how one aesthetically evaluates artworks. A profound explanation of this intuitive fact is that perceptual experiences vary with artistic expertise. Cognitive penetration provides an explanatory mechanism for this latter effect. What one knows or otherwise thinks about art may affect, in one of two ways sketched below, how one perceives art. Differences in aesthetic evaluation may follow, either because high-level aesthetic properties can be perceptually represented or because they causally depend on low-level perceptible properties. All of this lends credence to the hypothesis that the expert better judges art because she better perceives art. And she better perceives art because she better knows art. (shrink)

Perception is typically distinguished from cognition. For example, seeing is importantly different from believing. And while what one sees clearly influences what one thinks, it is debatable whether what one believes and otherwise thinks can influence, in some direct and non-trivial way, what one sees. The latter possible relation is the cognitive penetration of perception. Cognitive penetration, if it occurs, has implications for philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. This paper offers an analysis of the phenomenon, (...) its theoretical consequences, and a variety of experimental results and possible interpretations of them. The paper concludes by proposing some constraints for analyses and definitions of cognitive penetrability. (shrink)

Amongst philosophers and cognitive scientists, modularity remains a popular choice for an architecture of the human mind, primarily because of the supposed explanatory value of this approach. Modular architectures can vary both with respect to the strength of the notion of modularity and the scope of the modularity of mind. We propose a dilemma for modular architectures, no matter how these architectures vary along these two dimensions. First, if a modular architecture commits to the informational encapsulation of modules, as it (...) is the case for modularity theories of perception, then modules are on this account impenetrable. However, we argue that there are genuine cases of the cognitive penetrability of perception and that these cases challenge any strong, encapsulated modular architecture of perception. Second, many recent massive modularity theories weaken the strength of the notion of module, while broadening the scope of modularity. These theories do not require any robust informational encapsulation, and thus avoid the incompatibility with cognitive penetrability. However, the weakened commitment to informational encapsulation greatly weakens the explanatory force of the theory and, ultimately, is conceptually at odds with the core of modularity. (shrink)

This is the written version of a reply to Michael Tye's "Transparency, Qualia Realism, and Representationalism," given at the 40th Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. It argues that, given one standard way of understanding these theses, qualia realism is trivially true and transparency theses are trivially false. I also discuss four objections to Tye's claim that the phenomenal character of the experience of red just is redness, and conclude by arguing that philosophers of perception should state their claims as about the (...) properties of subjects of experience rather than as about the properties of experiences themselves. (shrink)

Direct Social Perception (DSP) is the idea that we can non-inferentially perceive others’ mental states. In this paper, I argue that the standard way of framing DSP leaves the debate at an impasse. I suggest two alternative interpretations of the idea that we see others’ mental states: others’ mental states are represented in the content of our perception, and we have basic perceptual beliefs about others’ mental states. I argue that the latter interpretation of DSP is more promising and examine (...) the kinds of mental states that plausibly could satisfy this version of DSP. (shrink)

I defend a perceptual account of face-to-face mindreading. I begin by proposing a phenomenological constraint on our visual awareness of others' emotional expressions. I argue that to meet this constraint we require a distinction between the basic and non-basic ways people, and other things, look. I offer and defend just such an account.

This is the first in a series of two articles that serve as an introduction to recent debates about cognitive phenomenology. Cognitive phenomenology can be defined as the experience that is associated with cognitive activities, such as thinking, reasoning, and understanding. What is at issue in contemporary debates is not the existence of cognitive phenomenology, so defined, but rather its nature and theoretical role. The first article examines questions about the nature of cognitive phenomenology, while the second article explores the (...) philosophical implications of these questions for the role of consciousness in theories of intentionality, introspective self-knowledge, and knowledge of the external world. (shrink)

I reply to my critics in this symposium on my book, The Epistemic Role of Consciousness.

While there is a growing philosophical interest in analysing olfactory experiences, the mereological structure of odours considered in respect of how they are perceptually experienced has not yet been extensively investigated. The paper argues that odours are perceptually experienced as having a mereological structure, but this structure is significantly different from the spatial mereological structure of visually experienced objects. Most importantly, in the case of the olfactory part-structure, the classical weak supplementation principle is not satisfied. This thesis is justified by (...) referring to empirical results in olfactory science concerning the human ability to identify components in complex olfactory stimuli. Further, it is shown how differences between olfactory and visual mereologies may arise from the way in which these modalities represent space. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that human perceptual experiences can be, and usually are, multimodal. What is more, a stronger thesis is often proposed that some perceptual multimodal characters cannot be described simply as a conjunction of unimodal phenomenal elements. If it is the case, then a question arises: what is the additional mode of combination that is required to adequately describe the phenomenal structure of multimodal experiences? The paper investigates what types of audio–visual experiences have phenomenal character that cannot be (...) analysed as a mere conjunction of visual and auditory elements; and how can we properly characterise the required, additional mode of perceptual combination. Three main modes of combination are considered: instantiation, parthood, and grouping. It is argued that some phenomena involving intermodal relations, like spatial and temporal ventriloquism, can be analysed in terms of audio–visual, perceptual grouping. On the other hand, cases of intermodal binding need a different treatment. Experiences involving audio–visual binding should be analysed as experiences presenting objects or events which instantiate, or which have a proper part instantiating, both visually and auditorily determined properties. (shrink)

Philosophers often state that the persistence of objects in vision is experienced differently than the persistence of sounds in audition. This difference is expressed by using metaphors from the metaphysical endurantism/perdurantism debate. For instance, it is claimed that only sounds are perceived as “temporally extended”. The paper investigates whether it is justified to characterize visually experienced objects and auditorily experienced sounds as different types of entities: endurants and perdurants respectively. This issue is analyzed from the perspective of major specifications of (...) the endurance/perdurance distinction connected, inter alia, with the notions of temporal parts and temporal localization. It is argued that it is unjustified to characterize visually experienced objects and auditorily experienced sounds as different types of entities in respect of how they persist. On the other hand, the apparent difference in the way of persisting can be explained by the presence of contingent differences between typical visual and auditory experiences. (shrink)

It seems intuitive that in situations of perceptual recognition additional properties are represented. While much has been written about the significance of such properties for perceptual phenomenology, it is still unclear (a) what is the relation between recognition-based properties and lower-level perceptual properties, and (b) whether it is justified to classify them as kind-properties. Relying on results in cognitive psychology, I argue that recognition-based properties (I) are irreducible, high-level properties, (II) are kind properties by virtue of being sortal properties, but (...) (III) they supervene on lower-level properties and so are unlikely to be natural kind properties. (shrink)

This paper is an essay in counterfactual epistemology. What if experience have high-level contents, to the effect that something is a lemon or that someone is sad? I survey the consequences for epistemology of such a scenario, and conclude that many of the striking consequences could be reached even if our experiences don't have high-level contents.

There are general aspects of mental life it is reasonable to believe do not vary even when subjects vary in their first‐person judgments about them. Such lack of introspective agreement gives rise to “phenomenological disputes.” These include disputes over how to describe the perspectival character of perception, the phenomenal character of perceptual recognition and conceptual thought, and the relation between consciousness and self‐consciousness. Some suppose that when we encounter such disputes we have no choice but to abandon first‐person reflection in (...) philosophy of mind in favor of a third‐person methodology. Such reaction is unwarranted. A reasoned assessment of phenomenological disputes that relies on first‐person reflection is explained, illustrated, and advocated. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a theory of what makes certain influences on visual experiences by prior mental states (including desires, beliefs, moods, and fears) reduce the justificatory force of those experiences. The main idea is that experiences, like beliefs, can have rationally assessable etiologies, and when those etiologies are irrational, the experiences are epistemically downgraded.

In this paper I discuss several proposals for how to find out which contents visual experiences have, and I defend the method I.

I defend the claim that we have the capacity to perceptually represent objects and events in experience as deviating from an expectation, or, for short, as deviant. The rival hypothesis is that we may ascribe the property of deviance to a stimulus at a cognitive level, but that property is not a representational content of perceptual experience. I provide empirical reasons to think that, contrary to the rival hypothesis, we do perceptually represent deviance.

The question regarding how to characterize aesthetics has been revived with the publication of Bence Nanay’s _Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception_. This paper takes seriously Dustin Stokes’ criticisms of Nanay’s book regarding Nanay’s inability to distinguish between ordinary expert visual tasks (e.g., sorting for sock color or ornithology) and aesthetic experience. Using empirical research on gist perception and its reliance on low-level features in visual experience, I develop a theory that distinguishes expert visual tasks and aesthetic experiences by differentiating two (...) different kinds of distributed attention over properties. I argue that expert visual tasks are instances of property attribution in a mode of conscious attention, while aesthetics is a kind of distributed attention that significantly relies on the reiteration of gist-like lowlevel features. Gist, often referred to in visual science as “preattentive” mode, gives us a model to understand the perceptual processes that are specific to aesthetics. This comports with our common-sense definition of aesthetics as both distinguishable from ordinary expert visual tasks and an experience that makes prominent sensory aspects of visual experience. (shrink)

If artworks and their aesthetic properties stand in constitutive relationships to historical context and circumstances, so that some understanding of relevant facts is involved in responding to a work, what becomes of the intuitive view that we see artworks and at least some of their aesthetic properties? This question is raised by arguments in both aesthetics and art history for the historical nature of works of art. The paper argues that the answer needs to take philosophy of perception into account. (...) The principal development that has shaped philosophy of perception in the last thirty years—explaining perceptual experience in terms of contents that represent that such-and-such is the case—is directly relevant to key arguments for the historical nature of art because contents can represent complex kinds and properties. Conceptual realism is especially well-suited for explaining perception of artworks and aesthetic properties because it emphasizes that forms of understanding—in the sense of capacities, abilities and techniques—are involved in perceptual engagement with individual objects and instances of properties. To make this case, the paper examines influential arguments for the historical nature of art and aesthetic properties by Arthur C. Danto and Kendall L. Walton; and examines art-historical discussions by Michael Baxandall, Linda Nochlin and T. J. Clark. The paper argues that the aesthetic properties of an artwork depend on human intentional uses of properties, colours and contours among them, and such uses may themselves be aesthetic. The Wittgensteinian notion of use is contextual and historical, and uses are perceptible. (shrink)

This article outlines a realist theory of aesthetic properties as higher-order manifest properties and defends it from several objections, including a possible conflict with contextualist approaches to the aesthetic properties of works of art.

This paper develops a theory of perception that reconciles representationalism and relationalism by relying on pragmatist ideas. I call it the pragmatic view of perception. I argue that fully reconciling representationalism and relationalism requires, first, providing a theory in which how we perceive the world involves representations; second, preserving the idea that perception is constitutively shaped by its objects; and third, offering a direct realist account of perception. This constitutes what I call the Hybrid Triad. I discuss how Charles Peirce’s (...) theory of perception can provide a framework for such a view and I devote the rest of the paper to developing my own pragmatic and Peircean theory of perception. In particular, I argue that considering perception as a continuous temporal process, which essentially involves interaction with the environment, allows us to do justice to the Hybrid Triad. I motivate this view by discussing how a pragmatic theory of perception would deal with issues such as the distinction between veridical and non-veridical experiences and the nature of perceptual objects. (shrink)

The psychology and phenomenology of our knowledge of other minds is not well captured either by describing it simply as perception, nor by describing it simply as inference. A better description, I argue, is that our knowledge of other minds involves both through ‘perceptual co-presentation’, in which we experience objects as having aspects that are not revealed. This allows us to say that we perceive other minds, but perceive them as private, i.e. imperceptible, just as we routinely perceive aspects of (...) physical objects as unperceived. I discuss existing versions of this idea, particularly Joel Smith’s, on which it is taken to imply that our knowledge of other minds is, in these cases, perceptual and not inferential. Against this, I argue that perceptual co-presentation in general, and mind-perception in particular, yields knowledge that is simultaneously both perceptual and inferential. (shrink)

The claim that God is perfectly beautiful has played a key role within the history of a number of religious traditions. However, this view has received surprisingly little attention from philosophers of religion in recent decades. In this article I aim to remedy this neglect by addressing some key philosophical issues surrounding the doctrine of divine beauty. I begin by considering how best to explicate the claim that God is perfectly beautiful before moving on to ask what consequences accepting this (...) claim will have for our broader theorizing in philosophy. (shrink)

Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should (...) be directed to how we see materials. (shrink)