There is an important division in the human mind between perception and reasoning. We reason from information that we have already, but perception is a means of taking in new information. Susanna Siegel argues that these two aspects of the mind become deeply intertwined when beliefs, fears, desires, or prejudice influence what we perceive.

Since disjunctivists when talking about perception deny that hallucinations and veridical perceptions have a common fundamental nature, they need some other way to account for the fact that these kinds of experiences can ‘seem the same’ from the inside. A natural response is to give a purely epistemic account of hallucination, according to which there is nothing more to hallucinations than their indiscriminability from veridical perceptions. This chapter argues that the epistemic conception of hallucination falters in its treatment of cognitively (...) unsophisticated creatures, and that it cannot respect all the facts about what we can know on the basis of introspection. (shrink)

Siegel defends "Limited Intentionism", a theory of what secures the semantic reference of uses of bare demonstratives ("this", "that" and their plurals). According to Limited Intentionism, demonstrative reference is fixed by perceptually anchored intentions on the part of the speaker.

Those who model doxastic states with a set of probability functions, rather than a single function, face a pressing challenge: can they provide a plausible decision theory compatible with their view? Adam Elga and others claim that they cannot, and that the set of functions model should be rejected for this reason. This paper aims to answer this challenge. The key insight is that the set of functions model can be seen as an instance of the supervaluationist approach to vagueness (...) more generally. We can then generate our decision theory by applying the general supervaluationist semantics to decision-theoretic claims. The result: if an action is permissible according to all functions in the set, it’s determinately permissible; if impermissible according to all, determinately impermissible; and – crucially – if permissible according to some, but not all, it’s indeterminate whether it’s permissible. This proposal handles with ease some difficult cases ) on which alternative decision theories falter. One reason this view has been overlooked in the literature thus far is that all parties to the debate presuppose that an acceptable decision theory must classify each action as either permissible or impermissible. But I will argue that this thought is misguided. Seeing the set of functions model as an instance of supervaluationism provides a compelling motivation for the claim that there can be indeterminacy in the rationality of some actions. (shrink)

Schellenberg sheds light on the recent debate between Dreyfus and McDowell about the role and nature of concepts in perceptual experience, by considering the following trilemma: (C1) Non-rational animals and humans can be in mental states with the same kind of content when they are perceptually related to the very same environment. (C2) Non-rational animals do not possess concepts. (C3) Content is constituted by modes of presentations and is, thus, conceptually structured. She discusses reasons for accepting and rejecting each of (...) the three claims. By developing a substantive notion of modes of presentation as constituting nonconceptual content, she argues that the trilemma is best resolved by giving up (C3). In doing so, she discusses the nature of mental content and its relation to bodily skills and conceptual capacities as well as the notion of conceptual and nonconceptual content. (shrink)

This paper defends a principle I call Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of a belief is determined in precisely the same way as the rationality of any other state. For example, if wearing a raincoat is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value, then believing some proposition P is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value. This contrasts with the popular view that the rationality of belief is determined by evidential support. It also contrasts (...) with the common idea that in the case of belief, there are two different incommensurable senses of rationality, one of which is distinctively epistemic. I present considerations that favor Equal Treatment over these two alternatives, reply to objections, and criticize some arguments for Evidentialism. I also show how Equal Treatment opens the door to a distinctive kind of response to skepticism. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that certain type of first-personal causal property, efficacy, is represented in perceptual experience.

This paper proposes that the question “What should I believe?” is to be answered in the same way as the question “What should I do?,” a view I call Equal Treatment. After clarifying the relevant sense of “should,” I point out advantages that Equal Treatment has over both simple and subtle evidentialist alternatives, including versions that distinguish what one should believe from what one should get oneself to believe. I then discuss views on which there is a distinctively epistemic sense (...) of should. Next I reply to an objection which alleges that non-evidential considerations cannot serve as reasons for which one believes. I then situate Equal Treatment in a broader theoretical framework, discussing connections to rationality, justification, knowledge, and theoretical vs. practical reasoning. Finally, I show how Equal Treatment has important implications for a wide variety of issues, including the status of religious belief, philosophical skepticism, racial profiling and gender stereotyping, and certain issues in psychology, such as depressive realism and positive illusions. (shrink)

Noting the pervasiveness of the adoption of "responsibility" as a core ideal of neoliberal governance, the contributors to Competing Responsibilities challenge contemporary understandings and critiques of that concept in political, social, and ethical life. They reveal that neoliberalism's reification of the responsible subject masks the myriad forms of individual and collective responsibility that people engage with in their everyday lives, from accountability, self-sufficiency, and prudence to care, obligation, and culpability. The essays—which combine social theory with ethnographic research from Europe, North (...) America, Africa, and New Zealand—address a wide range of topics, including critiques of corporate social responsibility practices; the relationships between public and private responsibilities in the context of state violence; the tension between calls on individuals and imperatives to groups to prevent the transmission of HIV; audit culture; and how health is cast as a citizenship issue. Competing Responsibilities allows for the examination of modes of responsibility that extend, challenge, or coexist with the neoliberal focus on the individual cultivation of the self. Contributors Barry D. Adam, Elizabeth Anne Davis, Filippa Lentzos, Jessica Robbins-Ruszkowski, Nikolas Rose, Rosalind Shaw, Cris Shore, Jessica M. Smith, Susanna Trnka, Catherine Trundle, Jarrett Zigon. (shrink)

Some prominent evidentialists argue that practical considerations cannot be normative reasons for belief because they can’t be motivating reasons for belief. Existing pragmatist responses turn out to depend on the assumption that it’s possible to believe in the absence of evidence. The evidentialist may deny this, at which point the debate ends in an impasse. I propose a new strategy for the pragmatist. This involves conceding that belief in the absence of evidence is impossible. We then argue that evidence can (...) play a role in bringing about belief without being a motivating reason for belief, thereby leaving room for practical considerations to serve as motivating reasons. I present two ways in which this can happen. First, agents can use evidence as a mere means by which to believe, with practical considerations serving as motivating reasons for belief, just as we use tools (e.g. a brake pedal) as mere means by which to do something (e.g. slow down) which we are motivated to do for practical reasons. Second, evidence can make it possible for one to choose whether or not to believe – a choice one can then make for practical reasons. These arguments push the debate between the evidentialist and the pragmatist into new territory. It is no longer enough for an evidentialist to insist that belief is impossible without evidence. Even if this is right, the outcome of the debate remains unsettled. It will hang on the ability of the evidentialist to respond to the new pragmatist strategy presented here. (shrink)

The rapidly growing research on hybrid organizations in recent years suggests that these organizations may have particular abilities to facilitate institutional change. This article contributes to our understanding of change and, in particular, sustainable transformation in society by highlighting the importance of organizational forms. Looking more closely at the role of hybrid organizations in processes of path generation, we analyze the conditions under which hybrid organizations may enable path generation. A retrospective exploratory case study of the Swedish hybrid organization The (...) Natural Step confirms how hybrids can take part in- and may facilitate the early phases of path generation: assimilation and coalescence. The conclusion drawn is that hybrids have multivocal abilities that enable them to earn trust and authority to open up “neutral” spaces for orientation and connection between actors in separated sub-paths, and that this in turn may ease tensions and trigger dialogue and exchange, also between former opponents. Yet, as also seen in the case, this enabling position of the hybrid may be both fragile and temporary. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 434-453, March 2022.

What do we see? We are visually conscious of colors and shapes, but are we also visually conscious of complex properties such as being John Malkovich? In this book, Susanna Siegel develops a framework for understanding the contents of visual experience, and argues that these contents involve all sorts of complex properties. Siegel starts by analyzing the notion of the contents of experience, and by arguing that theorists of all stripes should accept that experiences have contents. She then introduces (...) a method for discovering the contents of experience: the method of phenomenal contrast. This method relies only minimally on introspection, and allows rigorous support for claims about experience. She then applies the method to make the case that we are conscious of many kinds of properties, of all sorts of causal properties, and of many other complex properties. She goes on to use the method to help analyze difficult questions about our consciousness of objects and their role in the contents of experience, and to reconceptualize the distinction between perception and sensation. Siegel's results are important for many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. They are also important for the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of vision. (shrink)

The first full philological edition in English of the Roman philosopher Seneca's De Clementia. It includes the Latin text with apparatus criticus, a new English translation, a substantial introduction, and a commentary on matters of textual and literary criticism and issues of socio-political, historical, cultural, and philosophical significance.

Evidentialists and Pragmatists about reasons for belief have long been in dialectical stalemate. However, recent times have seen a new wave of Evidentialists who claim to provide arguments for their view which should be persuasive even to someone initially inclined toward Pragmatism. This paper reveals a central flaw in this New Evidentialist project: their arguments rely on overly demanding necessary conditions for a consideration to count as a genuine reason. In particular, their conditions rule out the possibility of pragmatic reasons (...) for action. Since the existence of genuine pragmatic reasons for action is common ground between the Evidentialist and the Pragmatist, this problem for the New Evidentialist arguments is fatal. The upshot is that the deadlock between these two positions is restored: neither side can claim to be in possession of an argument that could convince the other. As it happens, I myself favor Pragmatism about reasons for belief, and although I don't claim to be able to convince a committed Evidentialist, I do make a prima facie case for Pragmatism by describing particular scenarios in which it seems to be true. I then go on to develop my own preferred version of the view: Robust Pragmatism, according to which a consideration never constitutes a reason for believing a proposition purely in virtue of being evidence for it. (shrink)

Perception is our key to the world. It plays at least three different roles in our lives. It justifies beliefs and provides us with knowledge of our environment. It brings about conscious mental states. It converts informational input, such as light and sound waves, into representations of invariant features in our environment. Corresponding to these three roles, there are at least three fundamental questions that have motivated the study of perception. How does perception justify beliefs and yield knowledge of our (...) environment? How does perception bring about conscious mental states? How does a perceptual system accomplish the feat of converting varying informational input into mental representations of invariant features in our environment? -/- This book presents a unified account of the phenomenological and epistemological role of perception that is informed by empirical research. So it develops an account of perception that provides an answer to the first two questions, while being sensitive to scientific accounts that address the third question. The key idea is that perception is constituted by employing perceptual capacities - for example the capacity to discriminate instances of red from instances of blue. Perceptual content, consciousness, and evidence are each analyzed in terms of this basic property of perception. Employing perceptual capacities constitutes phenomenal character as well as perceptual content. The primacy of employing perceptual capacities in perception over their derivative employment in hallucination and illusion grounds the epistemic force of perceptual experience. In this way, the book provides a unified account of perceptual content, consciousness, and evidence. (shrink)

A number of Bayesians claim that, if one has no evidence relevant to a proposition P, then one's credence in P should be spread over the interval [0, 1]. Against this, I argue: first, that it is inconsistent with plausible claims about comparative levels of confidence; second, that it precludes inductive learning in certain cases. Two motivations for the view are considered and rejected. A discussion of alternatives leads to the conjecture that there is an in-principle limitation on formal representations (...) of belief: they cannot be both fully accurate and maximally specific. (shrink)

This book reconstructs the impact of Plato's words for the modern reader. In the Republic, Plato presented his schematization of human intellectual development, and called for collaboration between writer and reader. The response presented in this book results in a new theoretical framework for engaging with Plato's dialogues. Susanna Saracco analyzes the epistemic function of Plato's written words and explores Plato's higher order pedagogy, in which students are not mere learners and teachers are not the depositories of the truth.

Many have thought that it is impossible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic that we have knowledge of the external world. This paper aims to show how this could be done. I argue, while appealing only to premises that a skeptic could accept, that it is not rational to believe external world skepticism, because doing so commits one to more extreme forms of skepticism in a way that is self-undermining. In particular, the external world skeptic is ultimately committed to (...) believing a proposition P while believing that she shouldn’t believe P, an irrational combination of beliefs. Suspending judgment on skepticism is also problematic, for similar reasons; and, I argue, rational dilemmas are not possible; so, we should believe that skepticism is false. (shrink)

Inquiry is guided, in the minimal sense that it is not haphazard. It is also often thought to have as a natural stopping point ceasing to inquire, once inquiry into a question yields knowledge of an answer. On this picture, inquiry is both telic and guided. By contrast, mind-wandering is unguided and atelic, according to the most extensively developed philosophical theory of it. This paper articulates a puzzle that arises from this combination of claims: there seem to be plenty of (...) examples of inquiry progressing within mind-wandering, yet theories of inquiry and mind-wandering can make wandering inquiry seem impossible or incoherent. I offer several solutions to this puzzle and make the case that taken together, they illuminate a prevalent form of inquiry that the burgeoning literature on that topic overlooks: inquiry that progresses spontaneously. (shrink)

There is an important division in the human mind between perception and reasoning. We reason from information that we have already, but perception is a means of taking in new information. Susanna Siegel argues that these two aspects of the mind become deeply intertwined when beliefs, fears, desires, or prejudice influence what we perceive.

In part one I present a positive argument for the claim that philosophical argument can rationally overturn common sense. It is widely agreed that science can overturn common sense. But every scientific argument, I argue, relies on philosophical assumptions. If the scientific argument succeeds, then its philosophical assumptions must be more worthy of belief than the common sense proposition under attack. But this means there could be a philosophical argument against common sense, each of whose premises is just as worthy (...) of belief as the scientist’s philosophical assumptions. If so, then the purely philosophical argument will also succeed. In part two I consider three motivations, each of which comprises a distinct philosophical methodology, for the opposing view: (1) the Moorean idea that common sense enjoys greater plausibility than philosophy; (2) case judgments should trump general principles; (3) reflective equilibrium and conservatism. I argue that all three motivations fail. (shrink)

The introduction of social distancing, as part of efforts to try and curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, has brought about drastic disruption to the world of the performing arts. In the UK the majority of professional orchestral musicians are freelance and therefore self-employed. These players, previously engaged in enjoyable, busy, successful, portfolio careers, are currently unable to earn a living carrying out their everyday work of performing music, and their future working lives are surrounded by great uncertainty. The (...) aim of the present study was to examine how established professional musicians are experiencing this period, and to look for similarities and differences between the experiences of musicians in the middle of their performing careers, with those of older players. Single semi-structured interviews were carried out over Zoom with 24 freelance, self-employed orchestral musicians; 12 mid-career musicians aged 35–45, and 12 seasoned musicians aged 53 and over. Thematic analysis identified themes common to both groups: the loss of a much-loved performing career, missing music making and colleagues, and anxiety about the future of the music profession. It also identified differences between the two groups: challenges to their identity as a musician, the extent of their anxiety about finances, the extent of their emotional distress, attitudes toward practicing and engaging in collaborative music making, and confusion over future career plans. Findings are discussed with reference to lifespan models of musicians' career development, the PERMA model of wellbeing, and the concept of resilience. (shrink)

Recently, the thesis that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists. I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids their objections. I will argue that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. As it will show that most objections to the thesis that experience has content apply only to (...) accounts of perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But against austere relationalists, I will argue that it is fundamentally both relational and representational. (shrink)

German philosophy as it is today can best disprove the various theories of "Historical Reason." Philosophic thought seems to go its necessary way regardless of immediate historical and social situations.

Finland is currently undergoing a fundamental structural transformation in the forestry sector, with factories closing in the Global North and production being shifted to the Global South (see also Carrere & Lohmann 1996; Cossalter & Pye-Smith 2003). This is accompanied by Finnish mass movements protesting unemployment and demanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) from theforest industry. The difficult domestic situation, however, seems to overshadow the circumstances of the new production regions in the South. What do we actually know about the impacts (...) of the Finnish forestry sector in those societies? The branches of global forest companies may be located in regions that are experiencing various societal conflicts – like in the case of indigenous communities in northeastern Brazil, where the question of land ownership remains unsolved. The aim of our paper is to bring out the perspective of these traditional communities and the legitimacy problems of the Finnish forest industry in Brazil. We also scrutinize the corporate tactics by which companies seek to gain societal acceptability in the region. These range from social programs and campaigns to violent confrontations, even to attempts to deconstruct the identities of indigenous communities. Our general argument is that while companies have outlined their CSR policies in theory, the situation in actual practice is quite different. Companies often fail to take into account the prevailing socioeconomic conditions in the region and some of the more marginal stakeholders like indigenous peoples, who obviously have no economic importance to the company. (shrink)

Op-ed about the role of anti-hypocrisy in political criticism.

I argue that any account of perceptual experience should satisfy the following two desiderata. First, it should account for the particularity of perceptual experience, that is, it should account for the mind-independent object of an experience making a difference to individuating the experience. Second, it should explain the possibility that perceptual relations to distinct environments could yield subjectively indistinguishable experiences. Relational views of perceptual experience can easily satisfy the first but not the second desideratum. Representational views can easily satisfy the (...) second but not the first desideratum. I argue that to satisfy both desiderata perceptual experience is best conceived of as fundamentally both relational and representational. I develop a view of perceptual experience that synthesizes the virtues of relationalism and representationalism, by arguing that perceptual content is constituted by potentially gappy de re modes of presentation. (shrink)

This paper explores two kinds of selection effects on experience by the subject's prior psychological states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Such states can influence the selection of objects for experience, or they can influence the selection of experience for uptake in the process of belief-formation. I argue that both kinds of selection effects are rationally assessable, even when the subject is not aware of the influence of her prior states on the selection.

This book breaks new ground in our understanding of how we perceive and represent the space around us - one of the central topics in cognitive psychology. It presents a new view of development and spatial cognition by reversing the usual focus on vision and examining the evidence on representation in the total absence of vision without specific brain damage. Findings from the author's work with congenitally totally blind and with sighted children, together with studies from a wide variety of (...) other areas, are set in the context of intersensory and spatial development. Touch and movement are considered as converging sources of reference information with and without vision. The findings have important implications for future work in many fields, particularly developmental pscychology; cognition, cognitive neuroscience and visual handicap, and make this new work essential reading for students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

Das Verhältnis des Seneca philosophus zum Seneca tragicus ist für die Interpretation von Senecas Tragödien noch immer entscheidend. Die Autorin widmet sich dem Problem im Bereich der Theologie. Als zentrale theologische Problemfelder untersucht sie in Senecas philosophischen Schriften und Tragödien sein Verständnis von providentia und damit die Theodizeefrage sowie sein Verständnis des fatum und damit die Willensfreiheit. Anders als die bisherigen Untersuchungen, deren Interesse vorrangig den Dramen galt und die die philosophischen Schriften nur am Rande berücksichtigten, bildet in dieser Studie (...) die Theologie der philosophischen Schriften den Ausgangspunkt, um deren Problemstellungen auch für eine Deutung der Dramen fruchtbar zu machen. Im Gegensatz zu den Forschungspositionen, die Senecas Dramen entweder als philosophische Lehrstücke oder als Negation der stoischen Philosophie verstehen, erhellt die von der Autorin gewählte Vorgehensweise Senecas Bezugnahme auf philosophische Fragestellungen innerhalb der Dramen. In ihnen setzt sich Seneca im Gedankenexperiment mit Problemen und Aporien auseinander, die auch im philosophischen Diskurs der Stoa nicht zufriedenstellend aufzulösen sind. (shrink)

È frequente in Borges il riferimento a Dante come a uno degli scrittori fondamentali per la creazione della propria poetica. I suoi Saggi danteschi e, in particolare, Il falso problema di Ugolino, consentono di rintracciare alcuni degli aspetti più pregnanti del legame che Borges stabilisce tra sé e lo scrittore toscano e di fare luce su alcuni dei principi chiave che guidano la poetica borgesiana. In particolare, l’episodio di Ugolino e, più precisamente, il verso , in cui Dante trasmette l’eterna (...) oscillante immagine di Ugolino [che] divora e non divora gli amati cadaveri, costituisce per Borges una delle massime espressioni di un principio estetico fondamentale per la propria poetica: la capacità di esprimere i fatti tramite allusioni – evitando quindi di limitarne le possibili infinite biforcazioni – piuttosto che attraverso la mera esposizione circostanziata. (shrink)