In this paper, I argue for a version of panpsychist idealism on first-person experiential grounds. As things always appear in my field of consciousness, there is prima facie empirical support for idealism. Furthermore, by assuming that all things correspond to a conscious perspective or perspectives (i.e., panpsychism), realism about the world is arguably safeguarded without the need to appeal to God (as per Berkeley’s idealism). Panpsychist idealism also has a phenomenological advantage over traditional panpsychist views as it does not commit (...) perceptual experience to massive error by denying that perceived colours are properties of things. Finally, I argue that the subject combination problem for panpsychism has been motivated by the problematic assumption that consciousness is in things. Thinking about subject combination from the first-person perspective is fruitful for reframing the subject combination problem and for seeing how subjects could potentially combine for the idealist. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 3, pp 147 - 172 The Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu has seldom been considered in conjunction with the problem of external-world skepticism despite the fact that his text, _Twenty Verses_, presents arguments from ignorance based on dreams. In this article, an epistemological phenomenalist interpretation of Vasubandhu is supported in opposition to a metaphysical idealist interpretation. On either interpretation, Vasubandhu gives an invitation to the problem of external-world skepticism, although his final conclusion is closer to skepticism (...) on the epistemological phenomenalist interpretation. The article ends with reflections on what light Vasubandhu might shed on the issue of whether skepticism is a natural problem in epistemology as well as why, despite Vasubandhu, the skeptical problem was not a central issue in the later Indian tradition. (shrink)

Representationalist theories of phenomenal consciousness have problems in accounting for pain, for at least two reasons. First of all, the negative affective phenomenology of pain (its painfulness) does not seem to be representational at all. Secondly, pain experiences are not transparent to introspection in the way perceptions are. This is reflected, e.g. in the fact that we do not acknowledge pain hallucinations. In this paper, I defend that representationalism has the potential to overcome these objections. Defenders of representationalism have tried (...) to analyse every kind of phenomenal character in terms of indicative contents. But there is another possibility: Affective phenomenology, in fact, depends on imperative representational content. This provides a satisfactory solution to the aforementioned difficulties. (shrink)

Is the sense-data theory, otherwise known as indirect realism, a form of representationalism? This question has been underexplored in the extant literature, and to the extent that there is discussion, contemporary authors disagree. There are many different variants of representationalism, and differences between these variants that some people have taken to be inconsequential turn out to be key factors in whether the sense-data theory is a form of representationalism. Chief among these are whether a representationalist takes the phenomenal character of (...) an experience to be explicable in virtue of the properties of an experience that represent something or explicable in virtue of that which gets represented. Another is whether representationalists hold a non-reductionist, or naturalistically or non-naturalistically reductionist variant of representationalism. In addition, subtle differences in what one takes phenomenal character to be on the sense-data theory – either awareness of sense-data or the sense-data themselves – together with one's account of representation, are crucial factors in determining whether sense-data theory is compatible with representationalism. This paper explores these relationships and makes manifest the complexities of the metaphysics of two central theories of perception. (shrink)

No particular dagger was the object of Macbeth’s hallucination of a dagger. In contrast, when he hallucinated his former comrade Banquo, Banquo himself was the object of the hallucination. Although philosophers have had much to say about the nature and philosophical import of hallucinations (e.g. Macpherson and Platchias, Hallucination, 2013) and object-involving attitudes (e.g. Jeshion, New essays on singular thought, 2010), their intersection has largely been neglected. Yet, object-involving hallucinations raise interesting questions about memory, perception, and the ways in which (...) we have knowledge of the world around us. In this paper, I offer an account of object-involving hallucinations. Specifically, I argue that they are an unusual species of perceptual remembering. (shrink)

In this reply to James H. Fetzer’s “Minds and Machines: Limits to Simulations of Thought and Action”, I argue that computationalism should not be the view that (human) cognition is computation, but that it should be the view that cognition (simpliciter) is computable. It follows that computationalism can be true even if (human) cognition is not the result of computations in the brain. I also argue that, if semiotic systems are systems that interpret signs, then both humans and computers are (...) semiotic systems. Finally, I suggest that minds can be considered as virtual machines implemented in certain semiotic systems, primarily the brain, but also AI computers. In doing so, I take issue with Fetzer’s arguments to the contrary. (shrink)

Relationalism claims that the phenomenal character of perception is constituted by the obtaining of a non-representational psychological relation to mind-independent objects. Although relationalism provides what seems to be the most straightforward and intuitive account of how experience strikes us introspectively, it is very often believed that the argument from hallucination shows that the view is untenable. The aim of this thesis is to defend relationalism against the argument from hallucination. The argument claims that the phenomenal character of hallucination and perception (...) deserves the same account, and that relationalism cannot be true for hallucinations, therefore relationalism must be rejected. This argument relies on the Indiscriminability Principle, the claim that two experiences that are introspectively indiscriminable from each other have the same phenomenal character. Before assessing the plausibility of this principle, I first consider and dismiss versions of the argument which wouldn’t depend on IND. Although widely accepted, no satisfactory support for IND has been presented yet. In this thesis I argue that defending IND requires that we understand the notion of ‘indiscriminability’ employed in IND in an impersonal sense. I then identify what underwrites IND: the intuition that, in virtue of its superficiality, the nature of a phenomenal character must be accessible through introspection, together with the claim that it is not possible to deny IND without denying the superficiality of phenomenal characters too. I argue that the relationalist can deny IND while preserving the superficiality of phenomenal characters. This can be done by adopting a negative view of hallucination and an account of introspection whereby the phenomenal character doesn’t exist independently of one’s introspective awareness of it and where having introspective access to our experience depends on our perceptual access to the world. (shrink)

When we perceive we are under the impression of being directly aware of concrete, mindindependent objects. We also consider perception as a basic, reliable source for acquiring beliefs and an effective means for coping with the environment. In the philosophical literature, this direct and basic character of perception is sometimes captured by saying that perception is openness to the world. Articulating, refining and vindicating as far as possible this commonsensical view of perception as openness to the world is the main (...) objective of this work. In order to make the metaphor of openness tractable in theoretical terms, I set up the dialectic in terms of a contrast between representationalism, which holds that perception represents things as being a certain way, and pure relationalism, which holds that perception can be openness to the world only by being a non-representational relation between a subject and objects in the world. The main thesis that I defend with several arguments in this work is that perception is both representational and relational. Indeed, it intelligibly relates us to the world in virtue of its representational content. In chapter one, I place perception in the broader context of intentional states. I articulate a view on which intentional states are directed toward their objects in virtue of having representational content, and show that prima facie the arguments for thinking that paradigmatic intentional states such as belief have content apply to perception too. I also explain why pure relationalists would reject the application of the content-model to perception. Chapter two is devoted to Charles Travis’s argument that perceptual experience does not have content. I counter his argument by offering a phenomenological account of perceptual constancy, and I show that content is necessary for capturing constancy in theoretical terms. Further, I argue that content helps us to better explain how the mind-independent nature of concrete objects is manifest in the phenomenology of perceptual experience. Chapter three concerns the question of how we should elucidate perceptual experience as openness to the world in the face of illusion and hallucination. I consider three possible approaches, and I argue that a view on which perceptual experience is both representational and relational can best make sense of the relevant phenomena. In the fourth chapter, I consider the debate on phenomenal character between representationalist and purely relationalist views in light of a distinction between particularity and generality. I show how representationalists are committed to there being an element of generality in perception, and how pure relationalists construe perception as wholly particular instead. I defend the representationalist view on the grounds that generality is necessary to make sense of the phenomenal and epistemic determinacy of perception. In the concluding remarks, I consider the question of whether my view can make room for the relationality of perception, and I argue again that only a distorted view of the metaphor of openness to the world could lead one to think that content and relationality are incompatible. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 25 This is a pre-print. Please cite only the revised published version. This paper presents an original, ambitious, truth-directed transcendental argument for the existence of an ‘external world’. It begins with a double-headed starting-point: Stroud’s own remarks on the necessary conditions of language in general, and Hegel’s critique of the “fear of error.” The paper argues that the sceptical challenge requires a particular critical concept of thought as that which may diverge from reality, and that this (...) concept is possible only through reflection on situations of error, in which how things are thought to be diverges from how things really are with independent items in an objective world. The existence of such a world is therefore a necessary condition of the possibility of scepticism: such scepticism is therefore false. I defend the argument against objections from Stroud’s sceptic and others. Drawing on Heidegger, the paper concludes by indicating that the chain of necessary conditions includes practical engagement with the world. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns the location and nature of phenomenal qualities. Arguably, these qualities naively seem to belong to perceived external objects. However, we also seem to experience phenomenal qualities in hallucinations, and in hallucinations we do not perceive any external objects. I present and argue for a theory of the phenomenal qualities, "brain theory", which claims that all phenomenal qualities we experience are physical properties instantiated in the brain, regardless of whether they are experienced in veridical perceptions or in hallucinations. (...) I begin by more carefully identifying the phenomenal qualities, discussing how they are related to "qualia" and "phenomenal character". Then I present brain theory, and investigate its implications for the perceptual relations we stand in to external objects, noting that it is mostly neutral. I also compare brain theory to a similar theory of perception advocated by Bertrand Russell. Next, I provide an overview over the competing theories of phenomenal qualities, and relate them to theories of perception, such as representationalism, qualia theory, sense data theory and disjunctivism. The majority of my argumentation for brain theory focuses on arguing that the phenomenal qualities are instantiated in the brain, rather than on arguing that they are physical properties. Instead, I largely assume physicalism. However, even independently of the physicalism assumption, I show that we have reason to believe that phenomenal qualities are experienced in hallucinations, and that qualities experienced in hallucinations are instantiated in internal objects, such as our brains or sense data. In the first step towards this conclusion I argue that theories which deny that phenomenal qualities are experienced in hallucinations face serious problems. In the next step I argue that theories which deny that phenomenal qualities experienced in hallucinations are instantiated in internal objects face serious problems. Finally, an important part of the argumentation is my replies to objections against brain theory, including common sense objections and the "observation objection". From these conclusions, together with the physicalism assumption, I infer that we have reason to believe that brain theory is true about hallucinations. On this basis, I then argue, through a generalizing argument, that the same is the case for veridical perceptions. (shrink)

This paper discuss the problem of motion within sense-data concept. Using the sense of speed as starting-point, we debate how it is possible to find a conceptual formulation that combines the idea of mental states with its physicalist criticism. The answer lies in the field of quantum mechanics and its concept of tensor, a geometric object that has a mathematical matrix representation. Thinking about examples taken from the car racing world, where the sense of speed is preponderant, we see how (...) the mental condition of speed is represented matrix-like, tensor-like, rather than ephemerally as the more traditional sense-data formulation advocates. (shrink)