Some argue that split-brain cases undermine the thesis that phenomenal consciousness is necessarily unified. This paper defends the phenomenal unity thesis against Michael Tye's (2003 ) version of that argument. Two problems are identified. First, his argument relies on a questionable analysis of the split-brain data. Second, his analysis leads to the view that in experimental situations split-brain patients are not single subjects – a result that would render the analysis harmless to the phenomenal unity thesis.

This paper explores the distinction between perceiving an object as extended in time, and experiencing a sequence of perceptions. I argue that this distinction cannot be adequately described by any present theory of time-consciousness and that in order to solve the puzzle, we need to consider perceptual content as having three distinct constituents: Explicit content, which has a particular phenomenal character, modal content, or the kind of content that is contributed by the psychological mode, and implicit content, which lacks phenomenal (...) character. These notions are then further clarified and related to each other. (shrink)

Francois Recanati has recently argued that each perceptual state has two distinct kinds of content, complete and explicit content. According to Recanati, the former is a function of the latter and the psychological mode of perception. Furthermore, he has argued that explicit content is temporally neutral and that time-consciousness is a feature of psychological mode. In this paper it is argued, pace Recanati, that explicit content is not temporally neutral. Recanati’s position is initially presented. Three desiderata for a theory of (...) time-consciousness are subsequently introduced. It is then argued that a theory locating time-consciousness as a feature of psychological mode will fail to satisfy these desiderata. In the last section the intentionality of memories is discussed. Using the notion of shiftable indexical, it is argued that memories have the same explicit content as perceptions, but that they nevertheless can have different conditions of satisfaction since they are entertained in different modes. (shrink)

In the present paper, the notion that brains in vats with perceptual experiences of the same type as ours could perceptually represent other entities than shapes is challenged. Whereas it is often held that perceptual experiences with the same phenomenal character as ours could represent computational properties, I argue that this is not the case for shapes. My argument is in brief that the phenomenal character of a normal visual experience exemplifies shapes – phenomenal shapes – which functions as the (...) vehicle for our perceptual representation of shapes. Due to the unique mereological structure of shapes, phenomenal shapes are unable to reliably track any property but shapes. In so far as reliable tracking is a necessary condition for perceptual representation, phenomenal shapes can consequently and contrary to received wisdom only represent shapes. (shrink)

This paper presents a framework for analysing perceptual Twin Earth thought experiments. Visual content normally has an analogue character, and it is argued in this paper that this sets certain constraints on the extent to which Twin Earth thought experiments can be successful. The argumentation in the paper is developed by using examples from visual spatial content. It is argued that visual spatial content can only be “twin-earthed” in a very limited way. Whereas the metrics of space can be twin-earthed, (...) visual experience has a structure that means that it can only be the vehicle for representing entities with geometrical structures. (shrink)

A central topic in discussions about qualia concerns their purported transparency. According to transparency theorists, an experience is transparent in the sense that the subject having the experience is aware of nothing but the intended object of the experience. In this paper this notion is criticized for failing to account for the dynamical aspects of perception. A key assumption in the paper is that perceptual content has a certain temporal depth, in the sense that each act of perception can present (...) an object as extended in time and that objects can be perceived as persisting through time. An object that is seen as persisting through time is often seen as constant and unchanging, even though the presentation of it is changing. In this paper it is argued that in order to account for these cases of perceptual constancy, we must distinguish between the awareness of having perceived that an object has a property at a certain point in time, and perceptually intending that it has that property at that point in time. Consequently, we must in at least some instances be aware of something more than the object of the experience. But precisely this distinction is rejected by the transparency theory. (shrink)

Extensionalist theories of the specious present suggest that every perceptual experience is extended in time for a short while, such that they are co-extensive in time with the time experienced in them. Thus, there can be no experience of time, unless the experience itself is extended in time. Accordingly, there must be something that unites the temporal parts of a perceptual experience into temporally extended wholes. I call this the “glue-problem for extensionalism”. In this paper I suggest three desiderata that (...) an extensionalist theory should meet in order to solve the glue-problem. I also distinguish between different versions of extensionalism, and argue that none of them can solve the glue-problem without violating at least one desideratum. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel argument against one theoretically attractive form of panpsychism. I argue that “idealist panpsychism” is false since it cannot account for spacetime’s structure. Idealist panpsychists posit that fundamental reality is purely experiential. Moreover, they posit that the consciousness at the fundamental level metaphysically grounds and explains both the facts of physics and the facts of human consciousness. I argue that if idealist panpsychism is true, human consciousness and the consciousness at the fundamental level will have the (...) same metrical structure. However, as I demonstrate, human consciousness does not exhibit the same metrical structure as spacetime. Consequently, the idealist panpsychist faces an explanatory gap between the fundamental consciousness she posits and spacetime. Idealist panpsychism is incompatible with the existence of such an explanatory gap. Thus, idealist panpsychists must close this explanatory gap (which I argue they lack the resources to do), or idealist panpsychism is false. (shrink)

There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers like Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s "neither-one-nor-many argument" against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning (...) is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses. (shrink)

According to the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception, we must possess concepts for all the objects, properties and relations which feature in our perceptual experiences. In this paper, I investigate the possibility of developing an argument against the conceptualist view by appealing to the notion of attention. In Part One, I begin by setting out an apparently promising version of such an argument, a version which appeals to a link between attention and perceptual demonstrative concept possession. In Part (...) Two, however, I show how the conceptualist can challenge what appears to be the key premise of the argument, and I go on to describe, in Part Three, an important further difficulty which we face if we attempt to overcome this challenge in a particular way. My conclusion will be that the conceptualist's challenge to the argument is convincing and hence that the argument remains inconclusive. (shrink)

Timelines is an inquiry into the nature of time, both as an apparent feature of the external physical world and as a fundamental feature of our experience of ourselves in the world. The principal argument of Timelines is that our coventional ideas about time are largely mistaken and that what we think of as independent physical time is actually our calibration of a certain relation between events. Namely, the relation between time-keeping events and the causal sequential differences of physical processes (...) which are real and independent of us. (shrink)

Husserl offers insight into the constituting of the self-aware ego through time-consciousness. Yet his account does not satisfactorily explain how this ego can experience itself as presently acting. Furthermore, although he acknowledges that the Now is not a knife-edge present, he does not show what determines its duration. These shortfalls and others are overcome through a change of starting point. Citing empirical evidence, I take it as a basic given that when a caregiver frontally engages an infant of two months (...) or so, the infant is aware of a person attending. The attending, I propose, is experienced by the infant as having an implicit target, a focal center. In the infant’s awareness, the carer’s focal center is the self. When a You is perceived as attending, a self is apperceived. I argue that such dependence on a You’s attending continues lifelong in derivative forms. I explore the idea that original time is a partial oscillation of awareness between the perceived You and the apperceived self. I then show how, from this oscillation, the ordinary experience of time is derived. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the role of phenomenal knowledge in understanding the experiences of the victims of hermeneutical injustice. In particular, I argue that understanding that is enriched by phenomenal knowledge is a powerful tool to mitigate hermeneutical injustice. I proceed as follows: Firstly, I investigate the requirements for a full understanding of the experiences at the center of hermeneutical injustice and I argue that phenomenal knowledge is key to full understanding. Secondly, I distinguish between direct phenomenal knowledge and (...) imaginative phenomenal knowledge. Thirdly, I investigate whether one can gain imaginative phenomenal knowledge of the experiences of members of social groups other than one´s own. I consider reasons for pessimism in this regard and show that they are not conclusive. Then, I provide a model of how outgroup members can acquire imaginative knowledge of the experiences of the victims of hermeneutical injustice. Finally, I connect the varieties of phenomenal knowledge with different grades of understanding an experience and I outline how understanding that involves imaginative phenomenal knowledge helps to overcome various forms of hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

In this journal S Siddharth has recently argued that the phenomenal bonding response to the subject summing argument for panpsychism is question begging, therefore we should reject constitutive forms of panpsychism. The argument specifically focuses on the proposals of Goff and Miller. In this reply, I show that the argument is unsound.

There is an eminent tradition of thought that sees in the phenomenon of time something contradictory. This tradition has been recently revived by some contemporary proponents of dialethism – the view that there are true contradictions. In this paper, I will contribute to this line of thinking by tracing the first steps of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. In particular, I will argue that the experiential flow of time can be accounted for in the framework of an intentionalist approach to (...) temporal perception if we conceive of time-consciousness as a quasi-multiplicity, i.e., a multiplicity of non-self-identical parts, hence the embrace of dialethism. Section 1 introduces dialethism, discusses Priest's dialethic theory of motion and time, and motivates the project of a dialethic account of time-consciousness. Section 2 introduces the intentionalist approach to time-consciousness and distinguishes pure intentionalism from sense-data intentionalism; both subscribes to a certain Principle of Simultaneous Awareness but interprets it differently. In Sect. 3, I offer an in-depth analysis of this principle and identify its core as the requirement of self-unification, i.e., the requirement that time-consciousness unifies itself in flowing without any higher-order act of unification. Section 4 then argues that pure intentionalism can satisfy this requirement by embracing dialethism. I conclude by noting how the dialethic account of time-consciousness incorporates a central extensionalist insight within an intentionalist outlook. (shrink)

This chapter examines the philosophical discussion concerning the relationship between time, memory, attention, and consciousness, from Locke through the Scottish Common Sense tradition, in terms of its influence on James' development of the specious present doctrine. The specious present doctrine is the view that the present moment in experience is non punctate, but instead comprises some nonzero amount of time; it contrasts with the mathematical view of the present, in which the divide between past and future is merely a point (...) or a line with no thickness. The anonymous source for the term 'specious present' is revealed as a retired businessman-turned-amateur philosopher. The more likely source for the idea itself is a little-known philosopher, Shadworth Hollway Hodgson, who was not merely a significant influence on James but also on Husserl's development of the tripartite account of internal time consciousness. I conclude by demonstrating how James' changing views on the relationship between concepts and experience meant that by the later period of his writings, including those in which he develops his own views on pragmatism, James would have not merely noted the contrast between a mathematical conception of the present and our actual experience of it, he would have taken a further step and condoned the thick experience of the present as demonstrating the inadequacy of the intellectualized mathematical characterization. (shrink)

This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed issue of Husserl’s self-criticism concerning the schema of content and apprehension. It will also reveal a fundamental similarity between Husserl’s conception of the absolute flow and (...) Sartre’s conception of lived temporality. This paper consists of four sections. Section 2 presents the basic elements of Husserl’s mereology. Section 3 introduces the difficulty encountered by Husserl’s early account of time that makes use of the schema. I will examine Barry Dainton’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness against the background of the older debate between Meinong and Stern, a debate that has informed Husserl’s own account. Section 4 distinguishes two common criticisms of the schema from Husserl’s own self-criticism, which is in turn divided into two steps. It is shown how the second step of this self-criticism implies the interpenetration of the absolute flow and responds to Dainton’s criticism. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some comparative remarks. I will show how Husserl’s notion of absolute flow, as mereologically interpreted, anticipates Sartre’s conception of consciousness as self-transcendence, as well as how it accommodates the apparently conflicting mereological intuitions of Aristotle and Bergson. (shrink)

Let a smooth experience be an experience with perfectly gradual changes in phenomenal character. Consider, as examples, your visual experience of a blue sky or your auditory experience of a rising pitch. Do the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences have continuous or discrete structures? If we appeal merely to introspection, then it may seem that we should think that smooth experiences are continuous. This paper (1) uses formal tools to clarify what it means to say that an experience is continuous (...) or discrete, and (2) develops a discrete model of the phenomenal characters of smooth experiences. As a result, I'll argue that introspection leaves open whether smooth experiences are continuous or discrete. Yet I’ll also argue—perhaps surprisingly—that the discrete theory may better fit our introspective evidence. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes two short texts in which Peirce sketches out an anti-skeptical argument inspired by Kant’s refutation of idealism. The chapter will first consider why Peirce found Kant’s argument interesting and promising, given that it is often regarded as problematic and unsuccessful. It will then briefly reconstruct Kant’s refutation, highlighting its most problematic passages. Moreover, since Peirce’s own version of the argument relies on Kant’s views regarding the temporal structure of consciousness, the chapter will explain how Peirce tackles this (...) issue in “The Law of Mind.” Finally, the chapter considers Peirce’s own anti-skeptical argument and examines whether and how it can be seen as appropriating Kant’s strategy. (shrink)

In recent years, the science and the philosophy of consciousness has seen growing interest in structural questions about consciousness. This is the Editorial Introduction for a special volume for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences on “Structuralism in Consciousness Studies.”.

Contentless experience involves an absence of mental content such as thought, perception, and mental imagery. In academic work it has been classically treated as including states like those aimed for in Shamatha, Transcendental, and Stillness Meditation. We have used evidence synthesis to select and review 135 expert texts from within the three traditions. In this paper we identify the features of contentless experience referred to in the expert texts and determine whether the experiences are the same or different across the (...) practices with respect to each feature. We identify 65 features reported or implied in one or more practices, with most being reported or implied in all three. While there are broad similarities in the experiences across the traditions, we find that there are differences with respect to four features and possibly many others. The main difference identified is that Shamatha involves substantially greater attentional stability and vividness. Another key finding is that numerous forms of content are present in the experiences, including wakefulness, naturalness, calm, bliss/joy, and freedom. The findings indicate that meditation experiences described as contentless in the academic literature can in fact involve considerable variation, and that in many and perhaps most cases these experiences are not truly contentless. This challenges classical understandings in academic research that in these so-called contentless experiences all content is absent, and that the experiences are therefore an identical state of _pure consciousness_ or consciousness itself. Our assessment is that it remains an open question whether the experiences aimed for in the three practices should be classed as pure consciousness. Implications of our analysis for neuroscientific and clinical studies and for basic understandings of the practices are discussed. (shrink)

The aim in this paper is to focus on one of the proposals about successful perception that has led its adherents to advance some kind of disjunctive account of experience. The proposal is that we should understand the conscious sensory experience involved in successful perception in relational terms. I first try to clarify what the commitments of the view are, and where disagreements with competing views may lie. I then suggest that there are considerations relating to the conscious character of (...) our perception of events that speak in its favour. (shrink)

Explanation does not exist in a metaphysical vacuum. Conceptions of the structure of a phenomenon play an important role in guiding attempts to explain it, and erroneous conceptions of a phenomenon may direct investigation in misleading directions. I believe that there is a case to be made for thinking that much work on the neural underpinnings of consciousness—what is often called the neural correlates of consciousness—is driven by an erroneous conception of the structure of consciousness. The aim of this paper (...) is lay bare some connections between the explanation of consciousness and the structure of consciousness, and to argue for a conception of the structure of consciousness that is more adequate than that which currently drives much research into the neural correlates of consciousness. (shrink)

opinionated review of some of the recent work on the phenomenal unity of consciousness.

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)

The space of possible worlds is vast. Some of these possible worlds are materialist worlds, some may be worlds bottoming out in 0s and 1s, or other strange things we cannot even dream of… and some are idealist worlds. From among all of the worlds subjectively indistinguishable from our own, the idealist ones have uniquely compelling virtues. Idealism gives us a world that is just as it appears; a world that’s fit to literally enter our minds when we perceive it. (...) If the world is an idealist world, we live in a perceptual Eden. We did not fall from Eden. Rather, we deluded ourselves into believing that we couldn’t possibly live in Eden when we committed to materialism. Reflecting on these big-picture issues gives us reason to question this commitment and embrace a radically new account of reality and our relation to it. (shrink)

This paper explores the theme “quantum approaches to consciousness” by considering the work of one of the pioneers in the field. The physicist David Bohm not only made important contributions to quantum physics, but also had a long-term interest in interpreting the results of quantum physics and relativity in order to develop a general world view. His idea was further that living and mental processes could be understood in a new, scientifically and philosophically more coherent way in the context of (...) such a new world view. This paper gives a brief overview of different – and sometimes contradictory - aspects of Bohm’s research programme, and evaluates how they can be used to give an account of topics of interest in contemporary consciousness studies, such as analogies between thought and quantum processes, the problem of mental causation, the mind-body problem and the problem of time consciousness. (shrink)

The most pressing worry for panpsychism is arguably the combination problem, the problem of intelligibly explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macrophysical entities such as ourselves. This chapter argues that the combination problem is similar in kind to other problems of mental combination that are problems for everyone: the problem of phenomenal unity, the problem of mental structure, and the problem of new quality spaces. The ubiquity of combination problems suggests the ignorance hypothesis, (...) the hypothesis that we are ignorant of certain key facts about mental combination, which allows the panpsychist to avoid certain objections based on the combination problem. (shrink)

Temporally extended experiences, experiential holists have it, are not reducible to successions of their temporal parts because some whole experiences determine their parts (in some way). This paper suggests, first, that some forms of experiential holism are in fact consistent with the rival atomist view (that experiences are successions of their parts) and, second, that the main reasons advanced for experiential holism are compatible with atomism too. The paper then looks at how holistic determination of its parts by a whole (...) experience might take place in time, arguing that it is either inconsistent or undermines widespread assumptions regarding the mechanisms underlying experiences. (shrink)

Several disputes about the nature of experience operate under the assumption that experiences have parts, including temporal parts. There's the widely held view, when it comes to temporal experiences, that we should follow James' exhortation that such experiences aren't mere successions of their temporal parts, but something more. And there's the question of whether it is the parts of experiences which determine whole experiences and the properties they have, or whether the determination goes instead from the whole to the parts, (...) as holists have it. But what are parts, or temporal parts, of experiences exactly—what does it mean to say that an experience is “part” of another? Are the participants in those disputes talking about the same thing—is there a univocal notion of “experiential part” available? Are there different kinds of experiential parts? And if there are, is there a systematic way of carving them out? More importantly, how should we conceive of the temporal parts of experiences, and how can we establish that experiences really do have temporal parts, against those who reject the notion? (shrink)

Temporal experiences, according to retentionalism, essentially have temporally extended contents: contents which represent distinct events at distinct temporal locations, and some of their temporal relations. This means, retentionalists insist, that temporal experiences themselves needn’t be extended in time: only their contents are. The paper reviews an experiment by Moutoussis and Zeki, which demonstrates a colour-motion visual asynchrony (§2): information about motion seems to be processed more slowly than information about colour, so that the former is delayed relative to the latter. (...) This, the paper argues, raises an important difficulty for retentionalism and its account of the temporal ontology of experiences: it suggests that a central background assumption about neural processing presupposed by retentionalism is false, at least in cases of visual asynchrony. The paper then explores the general significance of this result for retentionalism (§3). (shrink)

Philosophers have usually approached the concept of timing of experiences by addressing the question how the experiences of temporal phenomena can be explained. As a result, the issue of timing has been addressed in two different ways. The first, similar to the questions posed in sciences, concerns the relationship between the experienced time of events and the objective time of events. The second approach is more specific to philosophers’ debates, and concerns the phenomenology of experiences: how is the apparent temporal (...) structure of experiences constituted? In regard to both questions, this article shows why and how philosophers’ views differ from those held by most scientists. To conclude, I present a combination of views that is not only compatible with that of scientists, but also addresses the problems that engage philosophers. (shrink)

Abstract- Presentism And Temporal Experience Intuitively, we all believe that we experience change and the passage of time. Presentism prides itself as the most intuitive theory of time. However, a closer look at how we would experience temporality if presentism was true reveals that this is far from obvious. For if presentism was really so intuitive, then it would do justice to these intuitions. In the course of this article I examine how presentism fares when combined with various leading theories (...) of perception and temporal perception. I focused on two Central Questions. Can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of change and duration? And can presentism, given theory X, account for experiences of time as passing? I argue that there is no possible combination which allows for an experience of time as passing. This result alone undermines the alleged intuitive advantage of presentism and with it the motivation for the view. Presentism, it remains safe to say, is not as intuitive a theory as its adherents like to portray it. (shrink)

The self can be understood in objective metaphysical terms as a bundle of properties, as a substance, or as some other kind of entity on our metaphysical list of what there is. Such an approach explores the metaphysical nature of the self when regarded from a suitably impersonal, ontological perspective. It explores the nature and structure of the self in objective reality, that is, the nature and structure of the self from without. This is the objective self. I am taking (...) a different approach. In addition to objective reality, which is usually understood and explored from an impersonal, quasi-observational and metaphysically realist perspective, we can also explore the nature and structure of subjective reality. The nature and structure of subjective reality is defined by the nature and structure of first-personal, conscious experience. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, and a metaphysical realist such as myself can endorse the existence of both kinds of ontology. The mental states that, as experienced from the first-personal or subjective perspective, capture the nature and structure of subjective reality, are included in objective reality. The questions to explore in a subjective ontology of the self concern the nature and structure of the self from the first-personal or subjective perspective, that is, the nature and structure of the self from within. This is the subjective self. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that despite its current popularity the doctrine of the specious present, or at least every current version of it, should be rejected. I describe two alternative accounts, which deal with experiences of two different kinds of change. The first is what I call the dynamic snapshot theory, which accounts for the way we experience continuous changes such as motion and other motion-like phenomena. The second account deals with the way we experience discontinuous changes, those for (...) which there is no finite rate of change. However I then argue that much of the current debate implicitly presupposes a problematic Cartesian view about the nature of conscious experience. If this view is rejected – as I think it should be – then a different kind of account emerges that avoids commitment both to the specious present and to its main current rival, the cinematic view. (shrink)

This chapter offers a overview of Shadworth Hodgson's account of experience as fundamentally temporal, an account that was deeply influential on thinkers such as William James and which prefigures the phenomenology of Husserl in many ways. I highlight eight key features that are characteristic of Hodgson's account, and how they hang together to provide a coherent overall picture of experience and knowledge. Hodgson's account is then compared to Husserl's, and I argue that Hodgson's account offers a better target for projects (...) such as neurophenomenology than does Husserl's. Hodgson's account is historically important as a culmination of a certain trajectory of British Empiricist thought. It offers a substantive alternative for how to think about temporality and experience in contemporary discussions, not just of the present moment but of the relationship between experience and knowledge more broadly. (shrink)

Hume famously denied that he could experience the self. Most subsequent philosophers have concurred with this finding. I argue that if the subject is to function as a bearer of experience it must (1) lack sensory qualities in itself to be compatible with bearing sensory qualities and (2) be single so that it can unify experience. I use Douglas Harding’s first-person experiments to investigate the visual gap where one cannot see one’s own head. I argue that this open space conforms (...) to the above criteria and hence is consistent with being the subject. I respond to the objection that this location is merely a lack of visual experience. I argue that this space also encompasses sound and touch properties and hence functions as a bearer for other sensory modalities. These first-person findings provide prima facie support for the view that the subject is a thin bearer of experience. (shrink)

Does the self exist? If so, what is its nature? How long do selves last? Galen Strawson draws on literature and psychology as well as philosophy to discuss various ways we experience having or being a self. He argues that it is legitimate to say that there is such a thing as the self, distinct from the human being.

In his recent book The Stream of Consciousness, Dainton provides what must surely count as one of the most comprehensive discussions of time-consciousness in analytical philosophy. In the course of doing so, he also challenges Husserl's classical account in a number of ways. In the following contribution, I will compare Dainton's and Husserl's respective accounts. Such a comparison will not only make it evident why an analysis of time-consciousness is so important, but will also provide a neat opportunity to appraise (...) the contemporary relevance of Husserl's analysis. How does it measure up against one of the more recent analytical accounts? (shrink)

Through hearing we learn about source events: events in which objects move or interact so that they vibrate and produce sound waves, such as when they roll, collide, or scrape together. It is often claimed that we do not simply hear sounds and infer what event caused them, but hear source events themselves, through hearing sounds. Here I investigate how the idea that we hear source events should be understood, with a focus on how hearing an event relates to hearing (...) the objects involved in that event. I argue that whereas we see events such as rollings and collisions by seeing objects move through space, this cannot be how we hear them, and go on to examine two other possible models. On the first, we hear events but not their participant objects. On the second, to hear an event is to hear the appearance of an object to change. I argue that neither is satisfactory and endorse a third option: to hear a source event is to hear an object as extending through time. (shrink)

The problem of phenomenal unity consists in providing a phenomenological characterization of the difference between phenomenally unified and disunified conscious experiences. Potential solutions to PPU are faced with an important challenge. I show that this challenge can be conceived as a phenomenological dual to what is known as Bradley’s regress. This perspective facilitates progress on PPU by finding duals to possible solutions to Bradley’s regress and makes it intelligible why many characterize phenomenal unity in terms of the existence of a (...) single global conscious state. I call this latter view the “single state conception”. SSC is superficially attractive, because it seems to provide a solution to the phenomenological dual to Bradley’s regress, but should still be rejected, because it does not solve PPU; instead, it creates more problems; these problems can be avoided by alternative conceptions of phenomenal unity. (shrink)

Some authors argue that phenomenal unity can be grounded in the attentional structure of consciousness, which endows conscious states with at least a foreground and a background. Accordingly, the phenomenal character of part of a conscious state comprises a content aspect and a structural aspect. This view presents the concern that such a structure does not bring about phenomenal unity, but phenomenal segregation, since the background is separated from the foreground. I argue that attention can still lead to a form (...) of phenomenal unity that connects the foreground with the background. Experiencing oneself as controlling the focus of attention can, at least occasionally, bring about an experienced connection between the attentional foreground and the attentional background of a conscious experience. (shrink)

Perceptual illusions have often served as an important tool in the study of perceptual experience. In this paper I argue that a recently discovered set of visual illusions sheds new light on the nature of time consciousness. I suggest the study of these silencing illusions as a tool kit for any philosopher interested in the experience of time and show how to better understand time consciousness by combining detailed empirical investigations with a detailed philosophical analysis. In addition, and more specifically, (...) I argue against an initially plausible range of views that assume a close match between the temporal content of visual experience and the temporal layout of experience itself. Against such a widely held structural matching thesis I argue that which temporal changes we are experiencing bears no close relation to how our experience itself is changing over time. Explanations of the silencing illusions that are compatible with the structural matching thesis fail. (shrink)

We present a conceptual framework on the experience of time and provide a coherent basis on which to base further inquiries into qualitative approaches concerning time experience. We propose two Time-Layers and two Time-Formats forming four Time-Domains. Micro-Flow and Micro-Structure represent the implicit phenomenal basis, from which the explicit experiences of Macro-Flow and Macro-Structure emerge. Complementary to this theoretical proposal, we present empirical results from qualitative content analysis obtained from 25 healthy participants. The data essentially corroborate the theoretical proposal. With (...) respect to Flow, the phenomenally accessible time experience appeared as a continuous passage reaching from the past through the present into the future. With respect to Structure, the individual present was embedded in the individual biography, emerging from past experiences and comprising individual plans and goals. New or changing plans and goals were being integrated into the existing present, thus forming a new present. The future appeared as changeable within the present, by means from the past, and therefore as a space of potential opportunities. Exemplarily, we discuss these results in relation to previous empirical findings on deviant experiences of time in Autism Spectrum Disorder that is presumably characterized by a breakdown of Flow and concomitant compensatory repetition resulting in an overly structured time. Finally, we speculate about possible implications of these findings both for psychopathological and neuroscientific research. (shrink)

Consider a toothache, or a feeling of intense pleasure, or the sensation you would have if you looked impassively at an expanse of colour. In each case, the experience can easily be thought to fill time by being present throughout a period. This way of thinking of conscious experience is natural enough, but it is in deep conflict with the view that physical processes are ultimately responsible for experience. The problem is that physical processes are related to durations in a (...) very different way—not by being wholly present at each instant or sub-period, but by having temporal parts that are. There is a choice to be made, therefore, between preserving this common way of thinking of experience and preserving the fundamentality of processes. The first option holds fixed the view of experiences as occurring throughout time and takes this to constrain the category of entity to which they are identical, or upon which they supervene. The second option abandons this common view of experience by taking up a perspective on which we experience things in the world and their properties as existing or occurring a certain way, and mistakenly ascribe this ontological character to our experience as well. The second option is ultimately the better option, however, since only it can make sense of the facts of our experience. (shrink)

The growing block view of time holds that the past and present are real whilst the future is unreal; as future events become present and real, they are added on to the growing block of reality. Surprisingly, given the recent interest in this view, there is very little literature on its origins. This paper explores those origins, and advances two theses. First, I show that although C. D. Broad’s Scientific Thought provides the first defence of the growing block theory, the (...) theory receives its first articulation in Samuel Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity. Further, Alexander’s account of deity inclines towards the growing block view. Second, I argue that Broad shifted towards the growing block theory as a result of his newfound conviction that time has a direction. By way of tying these theses together, I argue that Broad’s views on the direction of time – and possibly even his growing block theory – are sourced in Alexander. (shrink)