Philosophical considerations regarding experiential spatial content have focused on exteroceptive sensations presenting external entities, and not on interoceptive experiences that present states of our own body. A notable example is studies on interoceptive touch, in which it is argued that interoceptive tactile experiences have rich spatial content such that tactile sensations are experienced as located in a spatial field. This paper investigates whether a similarly rich spatial content can be attributed to experiences of acute, cutaneous pain. It is argued that (...) such experiences of pain do not have field-like content, as they do not present distance relations between painful sensations. (shrink)

It seems plausible that visual experiences of darkness have perceptual phenomenal content that clearly differentiates them from absences of visual experiences. I argue, relying on psychological results concerning auditory attention, that the analogous claim is true about auditory experiences of silence. More specifically, I propose that experiences of silence present empty spatial directions like ‘right’ or ‘left’, and so have egocentric spatial content. Furthermore, I claim that such content is genuinely auditory and phenomenal in the sense that one can, in (...) principle, recognize that one is experiencing silence. This position is far from obvious, as the majority of theories concerning silence perception do not ascribe perceptual phenomenal content to experiences of silence. (shrink)

Along with pitch and loudness, timbre is commonly described as an audible property of sounds. This paper puts forward an alternative view—that timbres are properties of auditory media. This approach has many advantages. First, it accounts for the frequent attribution of timbres to objects that do not have characteristic sounds. Second, it explains why timbres are attributed not only to ordinary objects, like musical instruments, but also to surrounding spaces and architectural structures. And finally, it provides an original solution to (...) the timbre-constancy problem. (shrink)

Ambiguity in our experience of embodiment online has prevented us from confidently extending existing scholarship to the domain of online sociality. In recent decades, research across the disciplines has been undergirded by themes related to embodiment, restoring to prominence a theme previously neglected in part thanks to the rise of feminist scholars within the academy. We have not, however, adequately appealed to this corpus when theorizing forms of life happening online. In this paper I hope to bridge this gap by (...) bringing forward phenomenological evidence about the nature of online embodiment. This paper presents the findings from a research project that used phenomenological interviews to elicit descriptions of lived embodiment from participants singing in online choirs during the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that these descriptions reveal anchoring and discounting as central features of their experience, two dynamics of the body schema as described by Merleau-Ponty in the Phenomenology of Perception that underpin participant experiences of sensory disjunction. I furthermore take pains to show how the form of embodiment operative in the online choirs has the characteristics of intercorporeality, a reciprocal two-sided form of embodied subjectivity. After explaining how Husserl and Merleau-Ponty each define intercorporeality, I suggest that what I am calling an auditory intercorporeality underlies reported features of participant experience in the choirs, such as we-experience and coordination. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that musical works are individuated by essential elements such as tone, harmony, and rhythm. Some argue that timbre or instrumentation can individuate musical works, too. I argue here that there can be a further element of musical works: spatial location. Some works of music are partly constituted by the location and motion of their sound sources. I begin by describing works of spatial music and arguing that they exist. I then consider the implications for the ontology of music. (...) Hardcore formalists cannot allow for spatial music. I argue that two other views, which allow a close relationship between sounds and musical works, can allow for works of spatial music. However, their ability to do so turns on issues in the philosophy of sound. I appeal to work in philosophy of sound to show that music is an art not just of hearing, but of sounds. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A (not the) history of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy is presented in a series of snapshots, some of them with 360° angles, taken at ten-year intervals from the time of its foundation to the time of writing. Attention is paid to influences on the AJP ranging from the social and political to the individual, from the financial to the technical, from the historical to the geographical, and to how these influences are (or are not) reflected in its contents (...) and appearance. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to revive wave theory in the philosophy of sound. Wave theory identifies sounds with compression waves. Despite its wide acceptance in the scientific community as the default position, many philosophers have rejected wave theory and opted for different versions of distal theory instead. According to this current majority view, a sound has its stationary location at its source. I argue against this and other alternative philosophical theories of sound and develop wave theory into a more defensible form. (...) Philosophers of sound tend to emphasise how sounds are experienced to be in their arguments. Most often, it is assumed that that which appears to be a distally located bearer of auditory properties in an auditory experience is a sound. Chapter 1 argues that if this distal entity is the sound source instead, many of the existing theories of sound will be severely affected. Chapter 2 discusses auditory perception and criticises the common assumption that we hear non-sound entities in virtue of hearing sounds. I show that this assumption begs the question against certain theories of sound and that the contrary view that sound sources can be directly heard is more plausible. If sound sources can be directly heard, then features commonly attributed to sounds based on auditory experiences might rather be features of sound sources. I examine eight of such features in Chapter 3. Only four of them survive. Chapters 4 and 5 review the existing theories of sound. After a taxonomy of existing theories of sound, each theory is criticised one-by-one. Some of them are problematic precisely because they rely on the implausible assumption that that which appears to be distally located in an auditory experience is a sound rather than a sound source. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on wave theory. It begins with two positive arguments for wave theory in general, followed by my replies to two common objections in the literature. I then move on to develop my version of wave theory. There are two core aspects of my view. The first one is a metaphysics of compression waves; the second is an account of what it is to hear compression waves. After comparing my view with a similar theory, I demonstrate the explanatory power of my view in two steps. First, the eight commonly accepted features of sounds examined in Chapter 3 are revisited. It turns out that my view can accommodate all of them. Second, explanations for four special sound-related phenomena are offered at the end of the chapter. I conclude in the last chapter with the suggestion that, as a philosopher, the best way to defend wave theory is to offer a better understanding of auditory perception which explains how compression waves are experienced. (shrink)