While shaping and defending a criterion to individuate the sensory modalities, philosophers have to deal with groups of perceptual states that don’t fit into the catalogue of the senses comfortably. I call these groups «grey areas». In this paper, I present the «artificial grey area», which is about perceptions obtained through artificial devices that replace or augment one’s sensory abilities. More precisely, the spotlight is on the results that the experiential criterion, the experiential-ontological criterion and the subtractive criterion provide when (...) artificially-assisted perceptions fall under their scope. The main theses of the paper are that each sensory device allows users to access a peculiar sensory world, and that each of these worlds should be associated with a peculiar, independent sensory modality. (shrink)

Riassunto: In questo lavoro intendo discutere alcune questioni metodologiche relative al dibattito sull’individuazione delle modalità sensoriali. In primo luogo, cercherò di distinguere tra un problema metafisico, che riguarda la natura dei sensi, e un problema di classificazione, che riguarda la loro tassonomia. I criteri comunemente impiegati per individuare i sensi dovrebbero essere in grado di affrontare entrambi i problemi. In secondo luogo, delineerò cinque zone grigie, ossia cinque gruppi di casi problematici, che gli autori interessati nel difendere un criterio dovrebbero (...) essere in grado di affrontare. Il fine di questo lavoro non è quello di discutere i criteri e le aree grigie per se, bensì quello di chiarire alcune premesse metodologiche sullo sfondo del dibattito che qui si sta considerando. Parole chiave: Individuazione dei sensi; Filosofia della percezione; Metafisica dei sensi; Classificazione dei sensi; Zone grigie Methodological Considerations on the Individuation of the Senses: In this paper, I discuss some methodological issues relevant to the debate on the individuation of the sensory modalities. First, I make a distinction between a metaphysical question related to the nature of the senses, and a classificatory question related to their taxonomization. The criteria commonly used to individuate the senses should be able to address both questions. Second, I articulate five grey areas, namely, five groups of problematic cases that authors interested in defending a specific criterion should be able to tackle. The aim of this paper is not to discuss these criteria and grey areas per se, but to clarify some methodological premises that frame the debate under consideration. Keywords: Individuation of the Senses; Philosophy of Perception; Metaphysics of the Senses; Classification of the Senses; Grey Areas. (shrink)

According to Hermann von Helmholtz, sensations are signs that external causes impress on our sense organs; those signs are then used by the mind to acquire knowledge of the reality. Helmholtz's work points out the difficulty of defining a notion of causality suitable for explaining the relation between sensations on the one hand and the physical world on the other. In fact, he states that: 1) Physical stimuli, understood as the causal origins of sensations, are unknowable in themselves; 2) There (...) is no empirical evidence for the kind of causality from which sensations originate; 3) A transcendental causality is nothing but the urge of the intellect to know everything. It is necessary to keep in mind that Helmholtz is a committed empiricist : therefore, he believes that all knowledge originates from sensations. He tries avoiding commitments with any kind of pre-established harmony between the two sides of the causal relation. That is to say, sensible perceptions give us information about the peculiarities of the external world, but the relation between sensations and the reality should be explained and should not be taken for granted. In this paper, I study Helmholtz's struggles with providing a suitable explanation of that relation; in doing so, I also make use of Emile Du Bois-Reymond's work concerning the limits of human understanding, and in particular the transcendent difficulty of grasping the origins of sensations. (shrink)

Riassunto: In questo articolo, vengono difese due tesi. La prima è che esistono ragioni per sganciare i dibattiti sull’individuazione delle modalità sensoriali e sul criterio esperienziale-ontologico dalle nozioni di “esperienza pura”, “esclusività” ed “esaustività”; piuttosto, è preferibile collocare le esperienze percettive sotto il cappello dell’unità soggettiva. La seconda è che lo sviluppo del criterio esperienziale-ontologico può essere portato avanti senza assumere che le modalità sensoriali costituiscono generi naturali. La prima tesi riguarda le esperienze percettive, la seconda riguarda le modalità sensoriali. (...) Affermare, con il criterio esperienziale-ontologico, che le realtà percettive svolgono un ruolo ontologico non implica che lo stesso valga per le classificazioni teoriche dei sensi ottenute per suo mezzo. La proposta consiste nell’inquadrare le tassonomizzazioni dei sensi in una cornice strumentalista. Parole chiave: Individuazione dei sensi; Modalità sensoriali; Esperienza percettiva; Criterio esperienziale-ontologico; Strumentalismo Towards an Instrumentalist Interpretation of the Senses: Two main theses are defended in this paper. First, I submit that the notions of “pure experience”, “exclusivity” and “exhaustivity” are far-fetched, and that a better proposal is to focus on the subjective unity of perceptual experiences. Second, I claim that the experiential-ontological criterion for the individuation of the sensory modalities doesn’t require the senses to be understood as natural kinds. The first thesis is about perceptual experiences, while the second one concerns the senses. According to the experiential-ontological criterion, perceptual realities have to be defined in ontological terms, but that doesn’t imply that the same holds true for the senses, which are theoretical notions. The proposal is to put the task of taxonomizing the senses in an instrumentalist frame. Keywords: Individuation of the Senses; Sensory Modalities; Perceptual Experiences; Experiential-ontological Criterion; Instrumentalism. (shrink)

In the last chapter of The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard discusses his theory of strategy for liberty, and recommends tools such as education that libertarians can lean on to attain the highest political goal of freedom. Building on Rothbard’s shoulders, the main thesis of this paper is that an effective theory of strategy for liberty cannot dispense with privacy, which needs to be understood as a condition for the enjoyment of liberty and not as a right per se. In the (...) first section, the discussion is framed in the context of natural rights libertarianism. Then, a metaphysical taxonomy of property is provided, which articulates the functioning of property rights and privacy in the realm of the body and of the mind, in the realm of alienable goods and services, and in the realm of information. The third section deals with the war on privacy that is raging nowadays; not coincidentally, the ultimate enemy of this war is private property. The last part of the paper contends that Rothbard is correct in reducing privacy rights to property rights, but this doesn’t mean that privacy has no place in libertarian thought; on the contrary, privacy is one of the main conditions for the defense and preservation of property rights, and, in the case of information, property cannot even exist without it. If these theses are true, libertarians need to find a proper place for privacy in their theory of strategy for liberty. (shrink)