The philosophy of perception has been mostly focused on vision, to the detriment of other modalities like audition or olfaction. In this paper I focus on olfaction and olfactory experience, and raise the following questions: is olfaction a perceptual-representational modality? If so, what does it represent? My goal in the paper is, firstly, to provide an affirmative answer to the first question, and secondly, to argue that olfaction represents odors in the form of olfactory objects, to which (...) olfactory qualities are attributed. In order to do this I develop an empirically adequate notion of olfactory object that is sensitive to the peculiarities of olfaction, and defend it against various objections. (shrink)

Much of the philosophical work on perception has focused on vision. Recently, however, philosophers have begun to correct this ‘tunnel vision’ by considering other modalities. Nevertheless, relatively little has been written about the chemical senses—olfaction and gustation. The focus of this paper is olfaction. In light of new physiological and psychophysical research on olfaction, I consider whether olfactory experience is object-based. In particular, I explore the claim that “odor objects” constitute sensory individuals. It isn’t obvious—at least at the (...) outset—whether they meet the widely accepted principles of object individuation and recognition at work in the visual and auditory cases. Among the general issues I consider, then, is whether these traditional principles form necessary, or simply sufficient, conditions on object perception. As we see, at the very least, considering the object-recognition model of olfaction challenges us to look more closely at well-entrenched models of object perception. But the payoff of doing so is high. We not only learn something about a modality that philosophers have historically neglected; by asking new questions and challenging old assumptions, we also further our understanding of perception in general. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that (...) of dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

This chapter argues that olfactory experiences represent either everyday objects or ad hoc olfactory objects as having primitive olfactory properties, which happen to be uninstantiated. On this picture, olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent: they falsely represent everyday objects or ad hoc objects as having properties they do not have, and they misrepresent in the same way on multiple occasions. One might worry that this view is incompatible with the plausible claim that olfactory (...) experiences at least sometimes justify true beliefs about the world. This chapter argues that there is no such incompatibility. Since olfactory experiences reliably misrepresent, they can lead to true and justified beliefs about putatively smelly objects. (shrink)

We can learn much about perceptual experience by thinking about how it can mislead us. In this paper, I explore whether, and how, olfactory experience can mislead. I argue that, in the case of olfactory experience, the traditional distinction between illusion and hallucination does not apply. Integral to the traditional distinction is a notion of ‘object-failure’—the failure of an experience to present objects accurately. I argue that there are no such presented objects in olfactory experience. (...) As a result, olfactory experience can only mislead by means of a kind of property hallucination. The implications of my arguments are twofold. First, we see that accounts of representational content cannot always be based on the visual model. And, secondly, we see that we must recast the notion of nonveridicality, allowing for a notion of non-veridical experience that is disengaged from any particular object. (shrink)

Amodal completion is the representation of those parts of the perceived object that we get no sensory stimulation from. While amodal completion is rife and plays an essential role in all sense modalities, philosophical discussions of this phenomenon have almost entirely been limited to vision. The aim of this paper is to examine in what sense we can talk about amodal completion in olfaction. We distinguish three different senses of amodal completion – spatial, temporal and feature-based completion – and argue (...) that all three are present and play a significant role in olfaction. (shrink)

Background: As part of a consistent effort to examine and provide integrative medical approaches to the therapeutic offering for psychophysical health, this study investigates the utilization of Olfactory Virtual Reality (OVR) in an inpatient psychiatry unit, more specifically in the Shepardson 3 Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at the University of Vermont Medical Center, in Burlington, VT, USA. Objectives: The purpose of this protocol is to explore the therapeutic value of olfactory virtual reality (OVR) in the above described population, and (...) to collect statistically significant data to determine the feasibility of potential future OVR studies. Method: Direct subject observation and monitoring in the context of Olfactory Virtual Reality (OVR) sessions and Qualitative data collection via the administration of subject surveys, subdivided in: a) Pre-OVR experience, b) Immediate post-OVR experience, and c) 1-to-3-hour post-OVR experience questionnaires. Results: The research yielded positive outcomes in all areas investigated, despite challenges related to the utilization of the device itself, issues in individual olfactory threshold, and COVID-19 restrictions and limitations. Conclusion: The outcome of this study indicates that the utilization of olfactory virtual reality technologies is a safe and effective integrative approach to target several aspects of psychological and physical health such as anxiety, stress, and pain, in combination with the psychotherapeutic and pharmacological standards of care in inpatient psychiatry. (shrink)

The chapter unfolds in the following sections. The first section exam- ines the reasons for claiming that olfactory perception is spatially unstruc- tured and our experience of smells has an abstract structure. The second section elucidates the further arguments that olfaction cannot generate figure-ground segregation. The third section assesses the conclusion that olfactory perception and experience cannot solve the MPP. Following the overview of the many problems inherent to distal olfactory percep- tion, MST will be introduced as (...) an alternative perspective that allows for figure-ground segregation and perceiving multiple olfactory objects within an array. The chapter then concludes by replying to the shared argument that olfactory distal perception does not have the requisite res- olution to resolve the many properties problem. (shrink)

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)

Clare Batty has recently argued that the content of human olfactory experience is 'a very weak kind of abstract, or existentially quantified content', and so that 'there is no way things smell'. Her arguments are based on two claims. Firstly, that there is no intuitive distinction between olfactory hallucination and olfactory illusion. Secondly, that olfaction 'does not present smell at particular locations', and 'seems disengaged from any particular object'. The present article shows both of these claims to (...) be false. It shows that naïve subjects find it quite natural to draw a distinction between olfactory hallucination and olfactory illusion. And it argues that the phenomenology of normal olfactory experience is of particular objects as having smells. Two confusions are responsible for Batty thinking otherwise: (1) Batty's examples are cases of extreme pungency, and she mistakes a peculiarity of intense perceptions for a property of olfaction more generally; (2) Batty focuses on very short time slices and so confuses limitations on the information carried by a single sniff for a limitation on the logical form of all olfactory content. (shrink)

Olfaction represents odors, if it represents anything at all. Does olfaction also represent ordinary objects like cheese, fish and coffee-beans? Many think so. This paper argues that it does not. Instead, we should affirm an austere account of the intentional objects of olfaction: olfactory experience is about odors, not objects. Visuocentric thinking about olfaction has tempted some philosophers to say otherwise.

Perception is a first-person internal sensation induced within the nervous system at the time of arrival of sensory stimuli from objects in the environment. Lack of access to the first-person properties has limited viewing perception as an emergent property and it is currently being studied using third-person observed findings from various levels. One feasible approach to understand its mechanism is to build a hypothesis for the specific conditions and required circuit features of the nodal points where the mechanistic operation (...) of perception take place for one type of sensation in one species and to verify it for the presence of comparable circuit properties for perceiving a different sensation in a different species. The present work explains visual perception in mammalian nervous system from a first-person frame of reference and provides explanations for the homogeneity of perception of visual stimuli above flicker fusion frequency, the perception of objects at locations different from their actual position, the smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements, the perception of object borders, and perception of pressure phosphenes. Using results from temporal resolution studies and the known details of visual cortical circuitry, explanations are provided for (a) the perception of rapidly changing visual stimuli, (b) how the perception of objects occurs in the correct orientation even though, according to the third-person view, activity from the visual stimulus reaches the cortices in an inverted manner and (c) the functional significance of well-conserved columnar organization of the visual cortex. A comparable circuitry detected in a different nervous system in a remote species-the olfactory circuitry of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster-provides an opportunity to explore circuit functions using genetic manipulations, which, along with high-resolution microscopic techniques and lipid membrane interaction studies, will be able to verify the structure-function details of the presented mechanism of perception. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion about the reality of sensory perceptions has been hijacked by two tendencies. First, talk about perception has been largely centered on vision. Second, the realism question is traditionally approached by attaching objects or material structures to matching contents of sensory perceptions. These tendencies have resulted in an argumentative impasse between realists and anti-realists, discussing the reliability of means by which the supposed causal information transfer from object to perceiver takes place. Concerning the nature of sensory experiences and (...) their capacity to provide access to reality, this article challenges the standard categories through which most arguments in this debate have been framed to date. Drawing on the underexplored case of olfaction, I first show how the details of the perception process determine the modalities of sensory experiences. I specifically examine the role of measurement and analyze its influence on the characterization of perceptions in olfaction. My aim is to argue for an understanding of perception through a process view, rather than one pertaining to objects and properties of objects. (shrink)

The thesis that smells are objective and independent of perceivers may seem to be in tension with the phenomenon of perceptual variation. In this paper, I argue that there are principled reasons to think that perceptual variation is not a threat to objectivism about smells and is indeed integral to our perceptual relation to the objective world. I first distinguish various kinds of perceptual variation, and argue that the most challenging cases for the objectivist are those where an odourant smells (...) different in different conditions or to different perceivers but the odourant does not change, and there is neither misperception nor a simple failure to perceive a smell. I then argue that there is an independently plausible conception of olfactory experience on which even these challenging cases do not pose a threat to objectivism about smells. Following Kalderon’s work in the domain of colour perception, I argue that olfactory perception provides us with a partial perspective on the smells around us, where this perspective is constrained by the conditions of perception as well as by features of the perceiver. Within this framework, we can allow that perceivers with different sensitivities, or the same perceiver in different conditions, genuinely perceive the same objective smell even though this smell appears different to them. In turn, smells are best understood as qualitatively complex entities, different aspects of which can become perceptually available in different conditions and to different perceivers. (shrink)

It is part of the phenomenology of perceptual experiences that objects seem to be presented to us. The first guide to objects is their perceptual presence. Further reflection shows that we take the objects of our perceptual experiences to be among the causes of our experiences. However, not all causes of the experience are also objects of the experience. This raises the question indicated in the title of this paper. We argue that taking phenomenal presence as (...) the guide to the objects of perception, we can see that at least in two sensory modalities, smell and touch, there is no uniform answer to this question. The objects of olfactory and tactile experiences can move along the causal chain. Accordingly, the content of olfactory and tactile experience may vary. (shrink)

In "What the Nose Doesn't Know", I argue that there are no olfactory illusions. Central to the traditional notions of illusion and hallucination is a notion of object-failure—the failure of an experience to represent particular objects. Because there are no presented objects in the case of olfactory experience, I argue that the traditional ways of categorizing non-veridical experience do not apply to the olfactory case. In their place, I propose a novel notion of non-veridical experience (...) for the olfactory case. In his (2011), Stevenson responds to my claim that there are no olfactory illusions. Although he agrees that it is natural—or at least commonplace—to think there are no olfactory illusions, he argues that there are and provides examples of them, many of which he suggests have analogues in the visual and auditory domains. In this paper, I examine the nature of the disagreement between us. I argue that Stevenson fails to argue against my conclusion that there are no olfactory illusions. (shrink)

According to a common opinion, human olfactory experiences are significantly different from human visual experiences. For instance, olfaction seems to have only rudimentary abilities to represent space; it is not clear whether olfactory experiences have any mereological structure; and while vision presents the world in terms of objects, it is a matter of debate whether there are olfactory object-representations. This paper argues that despite these differences visual and olfactory experiences share a hierarchical subject/property structure. Within (...) this structure, olfactorily experienced odours and visual objects have the same status: they are primary subjects which unify other represented elements into perceptual units. (shrink)

We perceive smells as perduring complex entities within a distal array that might be conceived of as smellscapes. However, the philosophical orthodoxy of Odor Theories has been to deny that smells are perceived as having a distal location. Recent challenges have been mounted to Odor Theories’ veracity in handling the timescale of olfactory perception, how it individuates odors as a distal entities, and their claim that olfactory perception is not spatial. The paper does not aim to dispute these (...) criticisms. Rather, what will be shown is that Molecular Structure Theory, a refinement of Odor Theory, can be further developed to handle these challenges. The theory is further refined by focusing on distal perception that requires considering the perceptual object as mereologically complex persisting odor against a background scene conceived of as a smellscape. What will be offered is an expansion of Molecular Structure Theory to account for distal smell perception within natural environments. (shrink)

There is consensus within the chemosciences that olfactory perception is of the molecular structure of chemical compounds, yet within philosophical theories of smell there is little agreement about the nature of smell. The paper critically assesses the current state of debate regarding smells within philosophy in the hopes of setting it upon firm scientific footing. The theories to be covered are: Naïve Realism, Hedonic Theories, Process Theory, Odor Theories, and non-Objectivist Theories. The aforementioned theories will be evaluated based on (...) their explanations of the (a) the olfactory quality of a smell, (b) smells as distal entities, and (c) our experience of smells as intentional objects. The paper concludes with a defense of Molecular Structure Theory that demonstrating its superiority in accounting for each of these three aspects of smell. (shrink)

Olfactory perception provides a promising test case for enactivism, since smelling involves actively sampling our surrounding environment by sniffing. Smelling deploys implicit skillful knowledge of how our movement and the airflow around us yield olfactory experiences. The hybrid nature of olfactory experience makes it an ideal test case for enactivism with its esteem for touch and theoretical roots in vision. Olfaction is like vision in facilitating the perception of distal objects, yet it requires us to breath (...) in and physically contact the sensory object in a manner similar to touch. The paper offers an analysis of the central theoretical components of enactivism, whose soundness and empirical viability are tested using the empirical literature on sniffing. It will be shown that even if sniffing is an essential component of olfaction, the motoric component is not necessary for perceiving smells, which is contrary to the most crucial tenet of enactivism. Thus, the paper concludes that the theory cannot account for olfactory perception. (shrink)

Much of the philosophical work on perception has focused on vision. Recently, however, philosophers have begun to correct this ‘tunnel vision’ by considering other modalities. Nevertheless, relatively little has been written about the chemical senses—olfaction and gustation. The focus of this paper is olfaction. In this paper, I consider the question: does human olfactory experience represents objects as thus and so? If we take visual experience as the paradigm of how experience can achieve object representation, we might think (...) that the answer to this question is no. I argue that olfactory experience does indeed represent objects—just not in a way that is easily read from the dominant visual case. (shrink)

It is arguably the case that olfactory system contains two senses that share the same type of stimuli, sensory transduction mechanism, and processing centers. Yet, orthonasal and retronasal olfaction differ in their types of perceptible objects as individuated by their sensory qualities. What will be explored in this paper is how the account of orthonasal smell developed in the Molecular Structure Theory of smell can be expanded for retronasal olfaction (Young, 2016, 2019a-b, 2020). By considering the object of (...) olfactory perception to be the molecular structure of chemical compounds composing odor plumes, Molecular Structure Theory provides a means for determining an odor’s olfactory quality, how odors can be identified and individuated, and how we perceive smellscapes. Surveying the differences between orthonasal and retronasal olfaction provides the basis for the central argument of the paper that the perceptible objects we refer to as smells and individuated on the basis of their olfactory qualities are only relative to orthonasal olfaction. Retronasal olfaction it is speculatively concluded might play an essential role in our perception of flavorful objects. (shrink)

THE IDENTITY GAME THE CORE MECHANICS RULE There is only one rule: A thing can only be understood by what it is not. This single rule generates all meaning. FORMULA Intelligence = Awareness × Distinction Understanding emerges when awareness meets distinction. Each new distinction multiplies against awareness, transforming all previous understanding. WEB Because of the rule, every distinction creates connections to everything it is not. This forms an inverse web of meaning - each thing defined by its differences from all (...) other things. Every new distinction both adds to and transforms this web. DIMENSIONS A dimension is a particular kind of field of experience 5 sensory dimensions visual, auditory, tactile, Olfactory, Gustatory. 1 conceptual dimension Within each sensory dimension, new distinctions create understanding. In sight, colors distinguish themselves from each other. In sound, tones separate from silence. Every distinction follows the rule, multiplies understanding, and adds to the web. These sensory distinctions flow into the conceptual dimension, where they combine and transform into abstract understanding. Any specific object is known through the interplay of its sight, sound, feel, and its conceptual distinctions from all other objects. The Identity Game is not a game we can choose to play or not play it is the process through which all understanding emerges. In recognizing this, we do not transcend the game but play it more deeply. To understand is to demonstrate it To reject it is to prove it. (shrink)

This chapter distinguishes between two kinds of ordinary multisensory experience that go beyond mere co-consciousness of features (e.g., the experience that results from concurrently hearing a sound in the hallway and seeing the cup on the table). In one case, a sensory experience in one modality creates a perceptual demonstrative to whose referent qualities are attributed in another sensory modality. For example, when you hear someone speak, auditory experience attributes audible qualities to a seen event, a person’s speaking motions. The (...) second kind of multisensory experience attributes features experienced in several sensory modalities to one and the same object via a process of amodal perceptual integration, i.e., integration that occurs separately from processing within the individual sensory modalities. Multisensory experiences arising from holding and seeing a tomato or from seeing the Indian curry boil and smelling it are examples of the second kind of multisensory experience. At the end of the chapter we look at synesthesia, a kind of atypical multisensory experience, and argue that one version of this phenomenon may be able to shed light on the neural mechanism underlying amodally integrated multisensory experience. (shrink)

Although vision is the de facto model system of consciousness research, studying olfactory consciousness has its own advantages, as this collection of articles emphatically demonstrates. One advantage of olfaction is its computational and phenomenological simplicity, which facilitates the identification of basic principles. Other researchers study olfactory consciousness not because of its simplicity, but because of its unique features. Together, olfaction's simplicity and its distinctiveness make it an ideal system for testing theories of consciousness. In this research topic, the (...) results of recent research into olfactory consciousness are presented. (shrink)

Olfactory Virtual Reality (OVR) for Wellbeing and Reduction of Stress, Anxiety and Pain - Journal of Medical Research and Health Sciences.

Our sense of smell pervasively influences our most common behaviors and daily experience, yet little is known about olfactory consciousness. Over the past decade and a half research in both the fields of Consciousness Studies and Olfaction has blossomed, however, olfactory consciousness has received little to no attention. The olfactory systems unique anatomy, functional organization, sensory processes, and perceptual experiences offers a fecund area for exploring all aspects of consciousness, as well as a external perspective for re-examining (...) the assumptions of contemporary theories of consciousness. It has even been suggested that the olfactory system may represent the minimal neuroanatomy that is required for conscious processing. Here, we seek contributions that should serve as the foundation for future research concerning consciousness using olfaction as a model. -/- Given the variegated nature of research on consciousness, we seek original papers including review articles, original research, and theoretical contributions concerning the nature of olfactory consciousness. The scope of the special edition widely incorporates olfaction as it relates to Consciousness, Awareness, Attention, Phenomenal- or Access-Consciousness, and Qualia. Research concerning olfaction and cross-modal integration as it relates to conscious experience is also welcome. -/- As the initial foray into this uncharted area of research, we welcome contributions from across all disciplines contributing to cognitive neuroscience, including neurobiology, neurology, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer sciences. It is our hope that this special edition will serve as the impetus for future interdisciplinary research on olfaction and consciousness. (shrink)

One of the crucial characteristics of the olfactory modality is that olfactory experiences commonly present odours as pleasant or unpleasant. Indeed, because of the importance of the hedonic aspects of olfactory experience, it has been proposed that the role of olfaction is not to represent the properties of stimuli, but rather to generate a valence-related response. However, despite a growing interest among philosophers in the study of the chemical senses, no dominant theory of sensory pleasure has emerged (...) in the case of human olfaction. The aim of this paper is to develop an argument based on the way in which olfactory valence is neurally encoded; one that demonstrates an advantage of the indicative representational approach to olfactory valence over approaches that characterise valence in terms of desires or commands. The argument shows that it is plausible to understand olfactory valence, at least in part, in terms of indicative representations. (shrink)

This book pursues the question of how and whether natural language allows for reference to abstract objects in a fully systematic way. By making full use of contemporary linguistic semantics, it presents a much greater range of linguistic generalizations than has previously been taken into consideration in philosophical discussions, and it argues for an ontological picture is very different from that generally taken for granted by philosophers and semanticists alike. Reference to abstract objects such as properties, numbers, propositions, (...) and degrees is considerably more marginal than generally held. (shrink)

Objectivity may be a useful regulative ideal for inquiry, but here I ponder to what extent it may be thought of more as a political ideology than an epistemological methodology. By tracing objectivity to its political origins, I aim to problematize this ideal as we tend to understand it - as one demanding that we eliminate the influence of certain subjective features - and to sketch a new conception of this ideal that accommodates (rather than dismisses) the role of these (...) features in inquiry. (shrink)

Human cognitive acts are directed towards entities of a wide range of different types. What follows is a new proposal for bringing order into this typological clutter. A categorial scheme for the objects of human cognition should be (1) critical and realistic. Cognitive subjects are liable to error, even to systematic error of the sort that is manifested by believers in the Pantheon of Olympian gods. Thus not all putative object-directed acts should be recognized as having objects of (...) their own. Broadly, the objects towards which human cognition is directed should be parts of reality in a sense that is at least consistent with the truths of natural science. But such a scheme should also be (2) comprehensive: it should do justice to each sort of object on its own terms, and not attempt to eliminate objects of one sort in favour of objects of other, more favoured sorts. Linguistic and other forms of idealism, as well as Meinongian theories, which assign to each and every referring expression or intentional act an object tailored to fit, yield categorial schemes which fail to satisfy (1). Physicalistic and other forms of reductionism yield categorial schemes which fail to satisfy (2). What follows is a categorial scheme that is both critically realistic and comprehensive. Thus it enjoys some of the benefits of linguistic idealism and physicalism, without (or so it is hoped) the corresponding disadvantages of each. (shrink)

Several recent lines of inquiry have pointed to the amygdala as a potential lesion site in autism. Because one function of the amygdala may be to produce autonomic arousal at the sight of a significant face, we compared the responses of autistic children to their mothers’ face and to a plain paper cup. Unlike normals, the autistic children as a whole did not show a larger response to the person than to the cup. We also monitored sympathetic activity in autistic (...) children as they engaged in a wide range of everyday behaviours. The children tended to use self-stimulation activities in order to calm hyper-responsive activity of the sympathetic (`fight or flight’) branch of the autonomic nervous system. A small percentage of our autistic subjects had hyporesponsive sympathetic activity, with essentially no electrodermal responses except to self-injurious behaviour. We sketch a hypothesis about autism according to which autistic children use overt behaviour in order to control a malfunctioning autonomic nervous system and suggest that they have learned to avoid using certain processing areas in the temporal lobes. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of "objective phenomenology," or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

The knowledge account of assertion - roughly: one should not assert what one does not know - can explain a variety of Moorean conjunctions, a fact often cited as evidence in its favor. David Sosa ("Dubious Assertions," Phil Studies, 2009) has objected that the account does not generalize satisfactorily, since it cannot explain the infelicity of certain iterated conjunctions without appealing to the controversial "KK" principle. This essay responds by showing how the knowledge account can handle such conjunctions without use (...) of the KK principle. (shrink)

Perceptual experience has the phenomenal character of encountering a mind-independent objective world. What we encounter in perceptual experience is not presented to us as a state of our own mind. Rather, we seem to encounter facts, objects, and properties that are independent from our mind. In short, perceptual experience has phenomenal objectivity. This paper proposes and defends a Kantian account of phenomenal objectivity that grounds it in experiences of lawlike regularities. The paper offers a novel account of the connection (...) between phenomenology and intentionality. It also sheds some light on one of the central themes in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. (shrink)

It is often assumed that neural representation, with content that is in principle detachable from the flow of natural-factive information, is necessary to perceptually experience an object. In this paper we present and discuss two cases challenging this assumption. We take them to show that it is possible to experience an object with which you are interacting through your sensory systems without those systems constructing a representation of the object. The first example is viewing nearby medium-sized groups of objects. (...) The second is hearing objects through misbound sounds. These cases bring out two different ways object representation can fail while object experience persists, suggesting that object experience requires only that the object be revealed through sensory information, not full-blown representation. Constructing object representations is one way sensory systems reveal objects, but it is not the only way. Object representation in neural sensory systems is relatively demanding, rare, and fragile; object experience is relatively easy, pervasive, and robust. We conclude that even minimal forms of neural phenomenal internalism are false. (shrink)

Two questions are addressed in this paper. First, what is it to see? I argue that it is veridical experience of things outside the perceiver brought about by looking. Second, what is it to see a material object? I argue that it is experience of an occupant of a spatial region that is a logical subject for other visual features, able to move to another spatial region, to change intrinsically, and to interact with other material objects. I show how (...) this theory is different from the idea that object-seeing is merely the visual segregation of a region of the visual field. Finally, I argue that we do not object-see objects reflected in mirrors, surfaces of back-lit objects, and depictions of objects. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to deny the morality and instrumentality of the behavior known as bestiality, or the use of non-human animals for sexual gratification by human beings. While to most modern peoples, this hardly even seems like it should be in question, it should be the nature of the human mind to occasionally question long-standing traditional moray in the hopes of finding solutions to problems and the disbanding of superstition. It has been proposed that the moral question, and (...) by extension the legal question, of bestiality is based on traditions long outlived and unnecessary. In an IceNews.is article written in 2008, Norwegian lawyers were growing concerned over the prevalence of animal brothels in Denmark and the precedent it set for Norway [http://www.icenews.is, 2008]. The article, when coupled with the 2001 article title “Heavy Petting” by prominent Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer, proves that the issue of bestiality is no longer the purview of jokes and psychological discussions. I will argue against bestiality as a socially acceptable practice based on five standard premises. The standard premises I will present will contain notes in regard to: instrumentality; consent; disease transmission; deviance; and morality. There is significant work available on the harm done to the beast, so aside from brief summary; the question of the good of the beast is not in the focus. I will also ignore any religious concerns, either surrounding morality or freedom of practice. Instead, these arguments are in support of the moral identity of the individual and of society as a whole. (shrink)

Chapter 3 surveys objectivity in the natural sciences. Thomas Kuhn problematized the logicist understanding of the objectivity or rationality of scientific change, providing a very different picture than that of the cumulative or step-wise progress of theoretical science. Theories often compete, and when consensus builds around one competitor it may be for a variety of reasons other than just the direct logical implications of experimental successes and failures. Kuhn pitted the study of the actual history of science against what Hans (...) Reichenbach referred to as the “logical substitutes” logicists used to reconstruct the rationality of theory change. Such substitutes were promoted to show that theory confirmation is a purely epistemic affair, where purely epistemic implies purely inferential. But where the positivists saw logical compulsion as the reason for theory change, Kuhn saw psychology in values as relevant to how theories are actually confirmed or accepted by the scientific community. (shrink)

This paper argues for the philosophical and semantic importance of attitudinal objects, entities such as judgments, claims, beliefs, demands, and desires, as an ontological category distinct from that of events and states and from that of propositions. The paper presents significant revisions and refinements of the notion of an attitudinal object as it was developed in my previous work.

This chapter is divided into three parts. First I outline what makes something an objective list theory of well-being. I then go on to look at the motivations for holding such a view before turning to objections to these theories of well-being.

I this article, I introduce the notion of pluralism about an area, and use it to argue that the questions at the center of our normative lives are not settled by the facts -- even the normative facts. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the concept of objectivity, not realism, should take center stage.

The literature on conscientious objection in medicine presents two key problems that remain unresolved: Which conscientious objections in medicine are justified, if it is not feasible for individual medical practitioners to conclusively demonstrate the genuineness or reasonableness of their objections? How does one respect both medical practitioners’ claims of conscience and patients’ interests, without leaving practitioners complicit in perceived or actual wrongdoing? My aim in this paper is to offer a new framework for conscientious objections in medicine, which, by bringing (...) medical professionals’ conscientious objection into the public realm, solves the justification and complicity problems. In particular, I will argue that: an “Uber Conscientious Objection in Medicine Committee” —which includes representatives from the medical community and from other professions, as well as from various religions and from the patient population—should assess various well-known conscientious objections in medicine in terms of public reason and decide which conscientious objections should be permitted, without hearing out individual conscientious objectors; medical practitioners should advertise their conscientious objections, ahead of time, in an online database that would be easily accessible to the public, without being required, in most cases, to refer patients to non-objecting practitioners. (shrink)

This paper elaborates distinctions between a core and a periphery in the ontological and the conceptual domain associated with natural language. The ontological core-periphery distinction is essential for natural language ontology and is the basis for the central thesis of my 2013 book Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language, namely that natural language permits reference to abstract objects in its periphery, but not its core.

The objective Bayesian view of proof (or logical probability, or evidential support) is explained and defended: that the relation of evidence to hypothesis (in legal trials, science etc) is a strictly logical one, comparable to deductive logic. This view is distinguished from the thesis, which had some popularity in law in the 1980s, that legal evidence ought to be evaluated using numerical probabilities and formulas. While numbers are not always useful, a central role is played in uncertain reasoning by the (...) ‘proportional syllogism’, or argument from frequencies, such as ‘nearly all aeroplane flights arrive safely, so my flight is very likely to arrive safely’. Such arguments raise the ‘problem of the reference class’, arising from the fact that an individual case may be a member of many different classes in which frequencies differ. For example, if 15 per cent of swans are black and 60 per cent of fauna in the zoo is black, what should I think about the likelihood of a swan in the zoo being black? The nature of the problem is explained, and legal cases where it arises are given. It is explained how recent work in data mining on the relevance of features for prediction provides a solution to the reference class problem. (shrink)

Object files are mental representations that enable perceptual systems to keep track of objects as numerically the same. How is their reference fixed? A prominent approach, championed by Zenon Pylyshyn and John Campbell, makes room for a non-satisfactional use of properties to fix reference. This maneuver has enabled them to reconcile a singularist view of reference with the intuition that properties must play a role in reference fixing. This paper examines Campbell’s influential defense of this strategy. After criticizing it, (...) a new approach is sketched. The alternative view introduces representational contents to explain perceptual individuation. After arguing that those contents are not satisfactional, it is concluded that there is room for a third view of reference fixing that does not fit into the singularist/descriptivist dichotomy. (shrink)

This paper is focused on the possibility of a dialogue between Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and phenomenology, a dialogue concerning the problem of objects and relations. In the first part, the author shows what is interesting in OOO from a phenomenological perspective and why it should be considered as a challenge for contemporary philosophy. The second part develops the phenomenological perspective of the author, a perspective based on Merleau-Ponty’s “carnal” phenomenology, as well as some suggestions coming from the Italian school (...) of Gaetano Kanizsa. The third part is dedicated to the objections of the author to the OOO view regarding the separation between objects and relations: a separation which leads to Harman’s quadruple object. In the concluding portion, the author shows that, despite evident differences between phenomenological and OOO’s views of relations, OOO offers new starting points for phenomenological reflections, thanks to its specific focus on objects and its pluralistic view of reality. (shrink)

Climate change assessments rely upon scenarios of socioeconomic developments to conceptualize alternative outcomes for global greenhouse gas emissions. These are used in conjunction with climate models to make projections of future climate. Specifically, the estimations of greenhouse gas emissions based on socioeconomic scenarios constrain climate models in their outcomes of temperatures, precipitation, etc. Traditionally, the fundamental logic of the socioeconomic scenarios—that is, the logic that makes them plausible—is developed and prioritized using methods that are very subjective. This introduces a fundamental (...) challenge for climate change assessment: The veracity of projections of future climate currently rests on subjective ground. We elaborate on these subjective aspects of scenarios in climate change research. We then consider an alternative method for developing scenarios, a systems dynamics approach called ‘Cross-Impact Balance’ (CIB) analysis. We discuss notions of ‘objective’ and ‘objectivity’ as criteria for distinguishing appropriate scenario methods for climate change research. We distinguish seven distinct meanings of ‘objective,’ and demonstrate that CIB analysis is more objective than traditional subjective approaches. However, we also consider criticisms concerning which of the seven meanings of ‘objective’ are appropriate for scenario work. Finally, we arrive at conclusions regarding which meanings of ‘objective’ and ‘objectivity’ are relevant for climate change research. Because scientific assessments uncover knowledge relevant to the responses of a real, independently existing climate system, this requires scenario methodologies employed in such studies to also uphold the seven meanings of ‘objective’ and ‘objectivity.’. (shrink)

Patients in Quebec can legally obtain medical assistance in dying (MAID) if they are able to give informed consent, have a serious and incurable illness, are at the end of their lives and are in a situation of unbearable suffering. Since the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2015 Carter decision, access to MAID, under certain conditions, has become a constitutional right. Quebec physicians are now likely to receive requests for MAID from their patients. The Quebec and Canadian laws recognize a physician’s (...) right to conscientious objection, but this right is contested both in the medical ethics literature and in the public sphere. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study conducted with twenty Quebec physicians who did not integrate MAID into their medical practice, either because they were opposed to or deeply ambivalent about MAID. The interviews aimed to explore the reasons – religious and secular – for opposition to or ambivalence towards MAID. The secular reasons given by participants were grouped into four main categories: 1) the ends of medicine and professional identity, 2) the philosophy of palliative medicine and resource allocation in palliative care, 3) benevolent paternalism, the “good death”, and the interests of future selves, 4) the risk of a slippery slope and the protection of vulnerable people. (shrink)

Davidson’s theory of agency aims to solve the dilemma that the same action can be both intentional and not intentional. He explains primitive actions using primarily bodily movements and argues that event-causality can be described through the “accordion effect”, but not agent-causality. And Davidson uses reasons as causes to explain the actions and responds to five objections. In this paper, I critique Davidson’s argument, pointing out that he ignores certain factors in the belief-desire model, such as emotions. And his sentence (...) holism has a problem because individual words that express complete thoughts can explain actions in language games. As a result, Davidson’s criticism of Wittgenstein is not reasonable. (shrink)