Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T05:33:53.772Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Goldilocks Problem of the specificity of visual phenomenal content

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Robert Schroer
Robert Schroer*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Minnesota Duluth, 1121 University Drive, Duluth, MN55812, USA
*
*Email: rschroer@d.umn.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Existentialist accounts maintain that visual phenomenal content takes the logical form of an existentially quantified sentence. These accounts do not make phenomenal content specific enough. Singularist accounts posit a singular content in which the seen object is a constituent. These accounts make phenomenal content too specific. My account gets the specificity of visual phenomenal content just right. My account begins with John Searle’s suggestion that visual experience represents an object as seen, moves this relation outside the scope of the existential quantifier and then replaces it with the relation of objects being ‘present as accessible’, as described by Alva Noë.

Keywords

perceptual contentphenomenal contentsingular contentexistentially quantified contentveridical illusion
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 3-4 , August 2014 , pp. 476 - 495
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Armstrong, David M. 1991. “Intentionality, Perception, and Causality: Reflections on John Searle’s Intentionality.” In John Searle and His Critics, edited by Lepore, Ernest and Gulick, Robert van, 149–158. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bach, Kent. 2007. “Searle against the World.” In John Searle’s Philosophy of Language, edited by Tsohatzidis, S. L., 64–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1991. “Vision and Intentional Content.” In John Searle and His Critics, edited by Lepore, Ernest and Gulick, Robert van, 195–214. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Campbell, John. 2002. Reference and Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2004. “The Representational Character of Experience.” In The Future for Philosophy, edited by Leiter, Brian, 153–181. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2006. “Perception and the Fall from Eden.” In Perceptual Experience, edited by Gendler, Tamar Szabo and Hawthorne, John, 49–125. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Martin. 1992. “Perceptual Content and Local Supervenience.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 92: 21–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennett, Daniel. 1991. Consciousness Explained. Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Dretske, Fred. 1981. Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dretske, Fred. 1995. Naturalizing the Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Erickson, C. W., and St. James, J. D.. 1986. “Visual Attention within and Around the Field of Focal Attention: A Zoom Lens Model.” Perception & Psychophysics 40: 225–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erickson, C. W., and Yeh, Y.. 1985. “Allocation of Attention in the Visual Field.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance 11: 583–597.Google Scholar
Evans, Gareth. 1982. The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1961. “The Causal Theory of Perception.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 35: 121–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1990. “The Intrinsic Quality of Experience.” In Philosophical Perspectives 4, edited by Tomberlin, James, 31–52. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Horgan, Terence, and Tienson, John. 2002. “The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality.” In Philosophy of Mind, edited by Chalmers, David, 520–533. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1980. “Veridical Hallucination and Prosthetic Vision.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (3): 239–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loar, Brian. 2003. “Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia.” In Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Smith, Quentin and Jokic, Aleksander, 77–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lycan, William. 2001. “The Case for Phenomenal Externalism.” In Philosophical Perspectives 15, edited by Tomberlin, John, 17–53. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Mack, Arien, and Rock, Irwin. 1998. Inattentional Blindness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Michael. 2002. “Particular Thoughts and Singular Thought.” In Logic, Thought, and Language, edited by O’Hear, A., 117–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Michael. 2004. “The Limits of Self-Awareness.” Philosophical Studies 120 (13): 37–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGinn, Colin. 1982. The Character of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Millar, Alan. 1991. Reasons and Experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Cathleen. 2001. “Inattentional Blindness: Perception or Memory and What Does It Matter?” Psyche 7.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1974. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 82: 435–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noë, Alva. 2004. Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, Stephen. 2002. Vision Science. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pashler, Harold. 1998. The Psychology of Attention. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1948. “On What There Is.” Review of Metaphysics 2 (5): 21–36.Google Scholar
Rensink, Ronald. 2000. “When Good Observers Go Bad: Change Blindness, Inattentional Blindness, and Visual Experience.” Psyche 6.Google Scholar
Schellenberg, Susanna. 2010. “The Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience.” Philosophical Studies 149: 19–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroer, Robert. 2007. “The Reticence of Visual Phenomenal Character: A Spatial Interpretation of Transparency.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (3): 393–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroer, Robert. 2009. “Does the Phenomenality of Perceptual Experience Present an Obstacle to Phenomenal Externalism?” Philosophical Papers 39 (1): 93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1983. Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1991. “Response: Reference and Intentionality.” In John Searle and His Critics, edited by Lepore, Ernest and Gulick, Robert van, 227–241. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Siegel, Susanna. 2010. “The Contents of Perception.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), edited by Zalta, E. N.. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/perception-contents.Google Scholar
Siewert, Charles. 1998. The Significance of Consciousness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soteriou, Matthew. 2000. “The Particularity of Visual Perception.” European Journal of Philosophy 8 (2): 173–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Travis, Charles. 2004. “The Silence of the Senses.” Mind 113: 57–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. 1995. Ten Problems of Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. 2000. Consciousness, Color, and Content. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tye, Michael. 2009. Consciousness Revisited. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Jeremy. 1999. “Inattentional Amnesia.” In Fleeting Memories, edited by Coltheart, V., 71–94. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar