How the World Is Measured Up in Size Experience

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (2):345-365 (2011)
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Abstract

I develop a Russellian representationalist account of size experience that draws importantly from contemporary vision science research on size perception. The core view is that size is experienced in ‘body-scaled’ units. So, an object might, say, be experienced as two eye-level units high. The view is sharpened in response to Thompson’s (forthcoming) Doubled Earth example. This example is presented by Thompson as part of an argument for a Fregean view of size experience. But I argue that the Russellian view I develop handles the Doubled Earth example in a natural and illuminating way, thereby avoiding the need to posit irreducible experiential ‘modes of presentation’. I also address a kind of neo-Fregean ‘reference-fixing’ view of size experience, that shares features with the Russellian view developed. I give reasons for favoring the latter. Finally, I argue that Peacocke’s claim that spatial experience is ‘unit free’ is not persuasive

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David Bennett
Brown University

Citations of this work

Gombrich and the Duck-Rabbit.Robert Eamon Briscoe - 2015 - In Michael Beaney, Brendan Harrington & Dominic Shaw (eds.), Aspect Perception After Wittgenstein: Seeing-as and Novelty. New York: Routledge. pp. 49-88.
Seeing Shape: Shape Appearances and Shape Constancy.David J. Bennett - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (3):487-518.
The Phenomenal Representation of Size.Jonathan Brink Morgan - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (4):716-729.

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References found in this work

The Perception Of The Visual World.James J. Gibson - 1950 - Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
The Logic Of Perception.Irvin Rock - 1983 - Cambridge: MIT Press.
Which Properties Are Represented in Perception.Susanna Siegel - 2006 - In Tamar Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Perceptual experience. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-503.

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