Paul Coates | University of Hertfordshire (original) (raw)

Perception by Paul Coates

Research paper thumbnail of SENSE DATA The Internet Encyclopedia

Th Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Perception Naturalised: Relocation and the Sensible Qualities

Synthese, 2017

This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defen... more This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defends the relocation strategy that Sellars adopts in his project of reconciling the manifest and scientific images. It concentrates on defending the causal analysis of perception that is essential to his treatment of sensible qualities. One fundamental metaphysical issue in perception theory concerns the nature of the perceptual relation; it is argued that a philosophical exploration of this issue is continuous with the scientific investigation of perceptual processes. Perception, it is argued, can, and should be naturalised. A challenge for any account of perception arises from the fact that a subject's experiences are connected with particular objects. We need to supply principled grounds for identifying which external physical object the subject stands in a perceptual relation to when they have an experience. According to the particularity objection presented in the paper, naive realism (or disjunctivism) does not constitute an independently viable theory since, taken on its own, it is unable to answer the objection. In appealing to a 'direct experiential relation', it posits a relation that cannot be identified independently of the underlying causal facts. A proper understanding of one central function of perception, as guiding extended patterns of actions, supports a causal analysis of perception. It allows us to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for perceiving that avoids well-known counterexamples. An analysis of this kind is congruent with the scientific account, according to which experiences are interpreted as inner states: sensible qualities, such as colours, are in the mind (but not as objects of perception). A Sellarsian version of the relocation story is thus vindicated.

Research paper thumbnail of Projection, Revelation and the Function of Perception (2015)

Projection, Revelation, and the Function of Perception Paul Coates [Forthcoming in: Coates, P... more Projection, Revelation, and the Function of Perception
Paul Coates

[Forthcoming in:
Coates, P. and Coleman, S. (eds), (2015), , (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 181-213.]

Abstract
This paper defends a projectivist account of perception. Distinctions are drawn between theories of perception, the philosophical pictures that motivate such theories, and the functions of perception in our lives. According to the Navigational Picture, the central function of perception is to provide knowledge about objects that enables subjects to navigate around their environment, and make beneficial use of items in it. None of this requires the revelation of the intrinsic nature of the sensible properties of external objects. A different view, the Confrontation Picture underlies Direct Realism. It is argued that this theory of perception is difficult to make clear sense of. It cannot provide a positive account of the experiential relation it posits, and cannot explain how the individual contents of experiences are determined. These considerations support a causal theory of perception, according to which phenomenal qualities are located on the side of the observer, and not in the objects we perceive. They are projected onto the objects we take to be present.

Keywords: causal theory of perception, confrontation picture, navigational picture, direct realism, disjunctivism, intrinsic properties, inverted spectrum, phenomenal qualities, projectivism, revelation

Research paper thumbnail of Deviant Causal Chains and Hallucinations: A Problem for the Anti-causalist

The Philosophical Quarterly, 2000

This paper shows why there is a serious problem for Disjunctivism (/Naive Realism/the Relational ... more This paper shows why there is a serious problem for Disjunctivism (/Naive Realism/the Relational theory of perception) in accounting for deviant causal chains (or nonstandard causal chains).
The problem must be faced by all theories of perception, in order to determine which, if any, object is the object perceived at a give time when a subject has a perceptual experience.
Our grasp of the nature of perception relies implicitly on the acceptance of a contrast between the kinds of causal link between object and experience that are constitutive of perception, and those that are not.

Research paper thumbnail of The Multiple Contents of Experience: Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities (2009)

'The Multiple Contents of Experience: Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities' ... more 'The Multiple Contents of Experience:
Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities'

[Forthcoming in Philosophical Topics: Perception and Intentionality, Vol 37:1, (2009), 25-48.]

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on the relation between the representational aspects of an experience and its phenomenal character. It is argued that the Critical Realist two-component analysis of experience, advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, is preferable to the Intentionalist view. Experiences have different kinds of representational contents: both informational and intentional. An understanding of the essential navigational role of perception provides a principled way of explaining the nature of such representational contents. Experiences also have a distinct phenomenal content, or character, which is not determined by representational content.

KEY WORDS:
Perceptual experience; perceptual content; critical realism; phenomenal qualities; representation; intentionalism; causal theory of perception; navigational account; Wilfrid Sellars;

Research paper thumbnail of 'Imagination and the Unity of Experience: Kant, Sellars, and the Objects of Perception'

This paper spells out the implications of a two-component analysis of perceptual experience, deve... more This paper spells out the implications of a two-component analysis of perceptual experience, developing ideas about the productive imagination that are sketched out in Sellars's late paper 'The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience' (1978). It is argued that the phenomenal and intentional aspects of experience are unified through the role of the imagination. There are two dimensions in the exercise of concepts in experience. In order to be perceptually conscious, the perceiving subject must exercise at least some low-level classificatory concepts about the objects taken to be perceived. At the same time the subject becomes implicitly prepared for changes to the inner phenomenal aspects of their perceptual consciousness. The activity of the imagination in experience, through the construction of "sense-image-models", enables the subject to anticipate future possible experiences, corresponding to different perspectival views of the outer objects perceived. A range of problematic kinds of perceptual experiences are examined in detail, including hallucinations of various kinds, displaced perception, and double vision. The application of the two-component analysis of experience to such cases leads to a proper understanding of what takes place in normal perception. and provides a consistent explanation of a whole range of perceptual phenomena. When subjects exercise concepts focusing on the objective properties of the external environment, the inner phenomenal character of their experience is projected onto outer objects. It is shown how a critical realist version of the causal theory of perception makes much better sense of perceptual phenomena than any other theory of experience, and is compatible with a common-sense understanding of the directness of perception.

Research paper thumbnail of Perception, Imagination, and Demonstrative Reference: A Sellarsian Account

In an important late paper, ‘The Role of the Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience’, Sellars... more In an important late paper, ‘The Role of the Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience’, Sellars brings together ideas about the complex nature of perceptual consciousness and the content of perceptual demonstratives. In a development of his previous ideas about perception, he clarifies the key role played by the imagination in integrating the conceptual and sensory (or phenomenal) components of perceptual experience. I propose a modification of Sellars’s views on the imagination, and show how the resulting conception explains the different ways in which experiences can be conceptualised. I then discuss how the account enables us to understand exactly how, according to the Sellarsian critical realist analysis of experience, we are able to make demonstrative judgements about physical objects, while avoiding a problematic appeal to neo-Russellian notions of acquaintance.

Key words: perceptual experience; causal theory of perception; critical realism; Wilfrid Sellars; demonstrative reference; acquaintance; imagination; Kant

Research paper thumbnail of The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness: Phenomenal Qualities and the Two-Component View of Experience

The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness: Phenomenal Qualities and the Two-Component View, 2007

This paper, presented here with very minor revisions, originally appeared as Chapter

Chess and Philosophy by Paul Coates

Research paper thumbnail of Chess Imagination and Perceptual Understanding - Preprint (2013)

'Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding' Paul Coates [Forthcoming in Philosophy and Sp... more 'Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding'

Paul Coates

[Forthcoming in Philosophy and Sport, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 73, ed. A. O'Hear, Cambridge University Press, 2013.]

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of the imagination in the way that human chess players (as contrasted with computers) exercise their understanding of both tactics and strategy. A phenomenological investigation of the way that chess players think reveals important parallels between our grasp of the possibilities latent in a chess position, and our perceptual understanding of the essentially spatial nature of physical objects, a connection that has implications for philosophical theories of perception. Our implicit grasp of the relational structure of the physical world is compatible with the fact that we experience the physical world as comprising a wide range of different kinds of objects, instantiating rich and varied high-level properties, and permeated by value. These findings support a qualified form of structural realism.

KEYWORDS

Chess, Imagination, Causal theory of perception, Structural realism, Intrinsic properties, Grover Maxwell, Phenomenology, Perceptual experience, Spatial representation, Adriaan de Groot.

Reviews by Paul Coates

Research paper thumbnail of Form Without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception

Philosophy, 2016

The following review first appeared in Philosophy, Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, ... more The following review first appeared in Philosophy, Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Vol 91 / 358, October 2016, pp. 600-605.

Research paper thumbnail of Paul Coates, review of *Philosophy and Memory Traces* (BJHP 8, 2000, 559-561)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8 (3), 2000, 559-561, 2000

John Sutton’s rich and absorbing book interweaves two related themes. ... Throughout, Sutton coun... more John Sutton’s rich and absorbing book interweaves two related themes. ... Throughout, Sutton counters both explicitly and implicitly the idea that there is a sharp divide between philosophical and scientific issues. ... All those interested in the history and philosophy of memory should benefit from this work.

Encyclopedia Articles by Paul Coates

Papers by Paul Coates

Research paper thumbnail of The Metaphysics of Perception: Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Critical Realism * By PAUL COATES

Analysis, 2011

purposes of the originals' (119). He suggests that certain apparently true utterances of other se... more purposes of the originals' (119). He suggests that certain apparently true utterances of other sentences are really non-committal since they are actually made within the scope of the presupposition that their subject matter exists. He suggests that some intensional transitives are ontologically non-committal because they take sentential complements. And he offers a provocative argument that if a sentence S is entailed by a sentence (or set of sentences) S*, then the ontology required for the truth of S does not exceed that required for the truth of S* (where p entails q just in case there is no world where p is true and q is not). Sainsbury's suggestions here are often ingenious but one might well feel unhappy about the piecemeal nature of Sainsbury's approach. This is surely a weakness of Sainsbury's account when we compare it to Walton's rival pretence-theoretic account, since the latter ultimately has the resources to provide a unified account of a range of cases Sainsbury treats in a piecemeal manner. In fact, while Sainsbury is at pains to distinguish his notion of presupposition from Walton's notion of pretence (121-22, 125), there may ultimately be less difference between the two notions than Sainsbury thinks. Sainsbury notes that, for Walton, assertions made within the scope of a pretence are not genuine assertions but rather pretend assertions and they will typically not be genuinely true. Sainsbury takes this to be a strike against Walton's account. In contrast Sainsbury suggests that we may make genuine assertions within the scope of a presupposition, and that these assertions may be true, albeit relative to that presupposition. But we should certainly not take my utterance of 'Zeus', made within the scope of a presupposition that Zeus exists, to genuinely refer to Zeus. Nor should we take me to have secured genuine speaker reference to an object. Reference within the scope of a presupposition is not a genuine variety of reference. So truth relative to a presupposition, and hence assertion within that presupposition's scope, should not be viewed as genuine forms of truth and assertion. Sainsbury does not provide a detailed account of presupposition in this book. But I suspect that, when fully cashed out, it may not be so different from Walton's notion of pretence. If so, Sainsbury and Walton may be closer here than Sainsbury allows.

Research paper thumbnail of Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Theories of Attention

Essays in Philosophy, 2004

The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims... more The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims about how much of the world a person actually sees at any given moment. It is argued that there are suggestive parallels between the two-component analysis of experience defended by Wilfrid Sellars, and certain recently advanced information processing accounts of visual perception. Sellars' later account of experience is examined in detail, and it is argued that there are good reasons in support of the claim that the sensory nonconceptual content of experience can vary independently of conceptual awareness. It is argued that the Sellarsian analysis is not undermined by recent work on change blindness and related phenomena; a model of visual experience developed by Ronald Rensink is shown to be in essential harmony with the framework provided by Sellars, and provides a satisfactory answer to the problem of the richness of visual experience.

Research paper thumbnail of Perception naturalised: relocation and the sensible qualities

Synthese, 2017

This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defen... more This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defends the relocation strategy that Sellars adopts in his project of reconciling the manifest and scientific images. It concentrates on defending the causal analysis of perception that is essential to his treatment of sensible qualities. One fundamental metaphysical issue in perception theory concerns the nature of the perceptual relation; it is argued that a philosophical exploration of this issue is continuous with the scientific investigation of perceptual processes. Perception, it is argued, can, and should be naturalised. A challenge for any account of perception arises from the fact that a subject's experiences are connected with particular objects. We need to supply principled grounds for identifying which external physical object the subject stands in a perceptual relation to when they have an experience. According to the particularity objection presented in the paper, naive realism (or disjunctivism) does not constitute an independently viable theory since, taken on its own, it is unable to answer the objection. In appealing to a 'direct experiential relation', it posits a relation that cannot be identified independently of the underlying causal facts. A proper understanding of one central function of perception, as guiding extended patterns of actions, supports a causal analysis of perception. It allows us to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for perceiving that avoids well-known counterexamples. An analysis of this kind is congruent with the scientific account, according to which experiences are interpreted as inner states: sensible qualities, such as colours, are in the mind (but not as objects of perception). A Sellarsian version of the relocation story is thus vindicated.

Research paper thumbnail of Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification

International Philosophical Quarterly, 1997

Research paper thumbnail of Reflections on Reid and the Two-Component Model of Experience

Academia Letters, 2021

These reflections show how Thomas Reid's theories about the two-component nature of perception ha... more These reflections show how Thomas Reid's theories about the two-component nature of perception has been developed in the critical realist theory, in opposition to naive realist views. It is argued that the phenomenology of perception can be reconciled with an internalist view of perceptual experience. While the sensory aspects of experiences are inner states, the conceptual aspect dominates our perceptual consciousness, and refers directly to objective features in the external world. Looking at the tree outside my window, out of the corner of my eye I seem to see a squirrel moving. Turning, I discover that what I took to be a squirrel is in fact a sheet of grey paper, blowing in the wind. I saw the paper, but I misperceived it. In becoming perceptually aware of objects we spontaneously classify them; we become conscious of things by attending to them, and exercising categories, often at a low level. Yet what it is like to perceive, or misperceive, an object constitutes more than merely conceiving that object. When I see something, I stand in an experiential relation to it, and become aware of a range of phenomenal qualities, which form part of the sensory aspect of my experience. What it is to be experientially related to an object is the central metaphysical problem of perception.

Research paper thumbnail of The Multiple Contents of Experience

Philosophical Topics, 2009

ABSTRACT This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on... more ABSTRACT
This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on the relation between the representational aspects of an experience and its phenomenal character. It is argued that the Critical Realist two-component analysis of experience, advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, is preferable to the Intentionalist view. Experiences have different kinds of representational contents: both informational and intentional. An understanding of the essential navigational role of perception provides a principled way of explaining the nature of such representational contents. Experiences also have a distinct phenomenal content, or character, which is not determined by representational content.

Research paper thumbnail of SENSE DATA The Internet Encyclopedia

Th Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009

Research paper thumbnail of Perception Naturalised: Relocation and the Sensible Qualities

Synthese, 2017

This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defen... more This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defends the relocation strategy that Sellars adopts in his project of reconciling the manifest and scientific images. It concentrates on defending the causal analysis of perception that is essential to his treatment of sensible qualities. One fundamental metaphysical issue in perception theory concerns the nature of the perceptual relation; it is argued that a philosophical exploration of this issue is continuous with the scientific investigation of perceptual processes. Perception, it is argued, can, and should be naturalised. A challenge for any account of perception arises from the fact that a subject's experiences are connected with particular objects. We need to supply principled grounds for identifying which external physical object the subject stands in a perceptual relation to when they have an experience. According to the particularity objection presented in the paper, naive realism (or disjunctivism) does not constitute an independently viable theory since, taken on its own, it is unable to answer the objection. In appealing to a 'direct experiential relation', it posits a relation that cannot be identified independently of the underlying causal facts. A proper understanding of one central function of perception, as guiding extended patterns of actions, supports a causal analysis of perception. It allows us to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for perceiving that avoids well-known counterexamples. An analysis of this kind is congruent with the scientific account, according to which experiences are interpreted as inner states: sensible qualities, such as colours, are in the mind (but not as objects of perception). A Sellarsian version of the relocation story is thus vindicated.

Research paper thumbnail of Projection, Revelation and the Function of Perception (2015)

Projection, Revelation, and the Function of Perception Paul Coates [Forthcoming in: Coates, P... more Projection, Revelation, and the Function of Perception
Paul Coates

[Forthcoming in:
Coates, P. and Coleman, S. (eds), (2015), , (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 181-213.]

Abstract
This paper defends a projectivist account of perception. Distinctions are drawn between theories of perception, the philosophical pictures that motivate such theories, and the functions of perception in our lives. According to the Navigational Picture, the central function of perception is to provide knowledge about objects that enables subjects to navigate around their environment, and make beneficial use of items in it. None of this requires the revelation of the intrinsic nature of the sensible properties of external objects. A different view, the Confrontation Picture underlies Direct Realism. It is argued that this theory of perception is difficult to make clear sense of. It cannot provide a positive account of the experiential relation it posits, and cannot explain how the individual contents of experiences are determined. These considerations support a causal theory of perception, according to which phenomenal qualities are located on the side of the observer, and not in the objects we perceive. They are projected onto the objects we take to be present.

Keywords: causal theory of perception, confrontation picture, navigational picture, direct realism, disjunctivism, intrinsic properties, inverted spectrum, phenomenal qualities, projectivism, revelation

Research paper thumbnail of Deviant Causal Chains and Hallucinations: A Problem for the Anti-causalist

The Philosophical Quarterly, 2000

This paper shows why there is a serious problem for Disjunctivism (/Naive Realism/the Relational ... more This paper shows why there is a serious problem for Disjunctivism (/Naive Realism/the Relational theory of perception) in accounting for deviant causal chains (or nonstandard causal chains).
The problem must be faced by all theories of perception, in order to determine which, if any, object is the object perceived at a give time when a subject has a perceptual experience.
Our grasp of the nature of perception relies implicitly on the acceptance of a contrast between the kinds of causal link between object and experience that are constitutive of perception, and those that are not.

Research paper thumbnail of The Multiple Contents of Experience: Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities (2009)

'The Multiple Contents of Experience: Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities' ... more 'The Multiple Contents of Experience:
Representation and the Awareness of Phenomenal Qualities'

[Forthcoming in Philosophical Topics: Perception and Intentionality, Vol 37:1, (2009), 25-48.]

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on the relation between the representational aspects of an experience and its phenomenal character. It is argued that the Critical Realist two-component analysis of experience, advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, is preferable to the Intentionalist view. Experiences have different kinds of representational contents: both informational and intentional. An understanding of the essential navigational role of perception provides a principled way of explaining the nature of such representational contents. Experiences also have a distinct phenomenal content, or character, which is not determined by representational content.

KEY WORDS:
Perceptual experience; perceptual content; critical realism; phenomenal qualities; representation; intentionalism; causal theory of perception; navigational account; Wilfrid Sellars;

Research paper thumbnail of 'Imagination and the Unity of Experience: Kant, Sellars, and the Objects of Perception'

This paper spells out the implications of a two-component analysis of perceptual experience, deve... more This paper spells out the implications of a two-component analysis of perceptual experience, developing ideas about the productive imagination that are sketched out in Sellars's late paper 'The Role of Imagination in Kant's Theory of Experience' (1978). It is argued that the phenomenal and intentional aspects of experience are unified through the role of the imagination. There are two dimensions in the exercise of concepts in experience. In order to be perceptually conscious, the perceiving subject must exercise at least some low-level classificatory concepts about the objects taken to be perceived. At the same time the subject becomes implicitly prepared for changes to the inner phenomenal aspects of their perceptual consciousness. The activity of the imagination in experience, through the construction of "sense-image-models", enables the subject to anticipate future possible experiences, corresponding to different perspectival views of the outer objects perceived. A range of problematic kinds of perceptual experiences are examined in detail, including hallucinations of various kinds, displaced perception, and double vision. The application of the two-component analysis of experience to such cases leads to a proper understanding of what takes place in normal perception. and provides a consistent explanation of a whole range of perceptual phenomena. When subjects exercise concepts focusing on the objective properties of the external environment, the inner phenomenal character of their experience is projected onto outer objects. It is shown how a critical realist version of the causal theory of perception makes much better sense of perceptual phenomena than any other theory of experience, and is compatible with a common-sense understanding of the directness of perception.

Research paper thumbnail of Perception, Imagination, and Demonstrative Reference: A Sellarsian Account

In an important late paper, ‘The Role of the Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience’, Sellars... more In an important late paper, ‘The Role of the Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience’, Sellars brings together ideas about the complex nature of perceptual consciousness and the content of perceptual demonstratives. In a development of his previous ideas about perception, he clarifies the key role played by the imagination in integrating the conceptual and sensory (or phenomenal) components of perceptual experience. I propose a modification of Sellars’s views on the imagination, and show how the resulting conception explains the different ways in which experiences can be conceptualised. I then discuss how the account enables us to understand exactly how, according to the Sellarsian critical realist analysis of experience, we are able to make demonstrative judgements about physical objects, while avoiding a problematic appeal to neo-Russellian notions of acquaintance.

Key words: perceptual experience; causal theory of perception; critical realism; Wilfrid Sellars; demonstrative reference; acquaintance; imagination; Kant

Research paper thumbnail of The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness: Phenomenal Qualities and the Two-Component View of Experience

The Structure of Perceptual Consciousness: Phenomenal Qualities and the Two-Component View, 2007

This paper, presented here with very minor revisions, originally appeared as Chapter

Research paper thumbnail of Chess Imagination and Perceptual Understanding - Preprint (2013)

'Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding' Paul Coates [Forthcoming in Philosophy and Sp... more 'Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding'

Paul Coates

[Forthcoming in Philosophy and Sport, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 73, ed. A. O'Hear, Cambridge University Press, 2013.]

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of the imagination in the way that human chess players (as contrasted with computers) exercise their understanding of both tactics and strategy. A phenomenological investigation of the way that chess players think reveals important parallels between our grasp of the possibilities latent in a chess position, and our perceptual understanding of the essentially spatial nature of physical objects, a connection that has implications for philosophical theories of perception. Our implicit grasp of the relational structure of the physical world is compatible with the fact that we experience the physical world as comprising a wide range of different kinds of objects, instantiating rich and varied high-level properties, and permeated by value. These findings support a qualified form of structural realism.

KEYWORDS

Chess, Imagination, Causal theory of perception, Structural realism, Intrinsic properties, Grover Maxwell, Phenomenology, Perceptual experience, Spatial representation, Adriaan de Groot.

Research paper thumbnail of Form Without Matter: Empedocles and Aristotle on Color Perception

Philosophy, 2016

The following review first appeared in Philosophy, Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, ... more The following review first appeared in Philosophy, Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Vol 91 / 358, October 2016, pp. 600-605.

Research paper thumbnail of Paul Coates, review of *Philosophy and Memory Traces* (BJHP 8, 2000, 559-561)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 8 (3), 2000, 559-561, 2000

John Sutton’s rich and absorbing book interweaves two related themes. ... Throughout, Sutton coun... more John Sutton’s rich and absorbing book interweaves two related themes. ... Throughout, Sutton counters both explicitly and implicitly the idea that there is a sharp divide between philosophical and scientific issues. ... All those interested in the history and philosophy of memory should benefit from this work.

Research paper thumbnail of The Metaphysics of Perception: Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Critical Realism * By PAUL COATES

Analysis, 2011

purposes of the originals' (119). He suggests that certain apparently true utterances of other se... more purposes of the originals' (119). He suggests that certain apparently true utterances of other sentences are really non-committal since they are actually made within the scope of the presupposition that their subject matter exists. He suggests that some intensional transitives are ontologically non-committal because they take sentential complements. And he offers a provocative argument that if a sentence S is entailed by a sentence (or set of sentences) S*, then the ontology required for the truth of S does not exceed that required for the truth of S* (where p entails q just in case there is no world where p is true and q is not). Sainsbury's suggestions here are often ingenious but one might well feel unhappy about the piecemeal nature of Sainsbury's approach. This is surely a weakness of Sainsbury's account when we compare it to Walton's rival pretence-theoretic account, since the latter ultimately has the resources to provide a unified account of a range of cases Sainsbury treats in a piecemeal manner. In fact, while Sainsbury is at pains to distinguish his notion of presupposition from Walton's notion of pretence (121-22, 125), there may ultimately be less difference between the two notions than Sainsbury thinks. Sainsbury notes that, for Walton, assertions made within the scope of a pretence are not genuine assertions but rather pretend assertions and they will typically not be genuinely true. Sainsbury takes this to be a strike against Walton's account. In contrast Sainsbury suggests that we may make genuine assertions within the scope of a presupposition, and that these assertions may be true, albeit relative to that presupposition. But we should certainly not take my utterance of 'Zeus', made within the scope of a presupposition that Zeus exists, to genuinely refer to Zeus. Nor should we take me to have secured genuine speaker reference to an object. Reference within the scope of a presupposition is not a genuine variety of reference. So truth relative to a presupposition, and hence assertion within that presupposition's scope, should not be viewed as genuine forms of truth and assertion. Sainsbury does not provide a detailed account of presupposition in this book. But I suspect that, when fully cashed out, it may not be so different from Walton's notion of pretence. If so, Sainsbury and Walton may be closer here than Sainsbury allows.

Research paper thumbnail of Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Theories of Attention

Essays in Philosophy, 2004

The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims... more The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims about how much of the world a person actually sees at any given moment. It is argued that there are suggestive parallels between the two-component analysis of experience defended by Wilfrid Sellars, and certain recently advanced information processing accounts of visual perception. Sellars' later account of experience is examined in detail, and it is argued that there are good reasons in support of the claim that the sensory nonconceptual content of experience can vary independently of conceptual awareness. It is argued that the Sellarsian analysis is not undermined by recent work on change blindness and related phenomena; a model of visual experience developed by Ronald Rensink is shown to be in essential harmony with the framework provided by Sellars, and provides a satisfactory answer to the problem of the richness of visual experience.

Research paper thumbnail of Perception naturalised: relocation and the sensible qualities

Synthese, 2017

This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defen... more This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defends the relocation strategy that Sellars adopts in his project of reconciling the manifest and scientific images. It concentrates on defending the causal analysis of perception that is essential to his treatment of sensible qualities. One fundamental metaphysical issue in perception theory concerns the nature of the perceptual relation; it is argued that a philosophical exploration of this issue is continuous with the scientific investigation of perceptual processes. Perception, it is argued, can, and should be naturalised. A challenge for any account of perception arises from the fact that a subject's experiences are connected with particular objects. We need to supply principled grounds for identifying which external physical object the subject stands in a perceptual relation to when they have an experience. According to the particularity objection presented in the paper, naive realism (or disjunctivism) does not constitute an independently viable theory since, taken on its own, it is unable to answer the objection. In appealing to a 'direct experiential relation', it posits a relation that cannot be identified independently of the underlying causal facts. A proper understanding of one central function of perception, as guiding extended patterns of actions, supports a causal analysis of perception. It allows us to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for perceiving that avoids well-known counterexamples. An analysis of this kind is congruent with the scientific account, according to which experiences are interpreted as inner states: sensible qualities, such as colours, are in the mind (but not as objects of perception). A Sellarsian version of the relocation story is thus vindicated.

Research paper thumbnail of Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification

International Philosophical Quarterly, 1997

Research paper thumbnail of Reflections on Reid and the Two-Component Model of Experience

Academia Letters, 2021

These reflections show how Thomas Reid's theories about the two-component nature of perception ha... more These reflections show how Thomas Reid's theories about the two-component nature of perception has been developed in the critical realist theory, in opposition to naive realist views. It is argued that the phenomenology of perception can be reconciled with an internalist view of perceptual experience. While the sensory aspects of experiences are inner states, the conceptual aspect dominates our perceptual consciousness, and refers directly to objective features in the external world. Looking at the tree outside my window, out of the corner of my eye I seem to see a squirrel moving. Turning, I discover that what I took to be a squirrel is in fact a sheet of grey paper, blowing in the wind. I saw the paper, but I misperceived it. In becoming perceptually aware of objects we spontaneously classify them; we become conscious of things by attending to them, and exercising categories, often at a low level. Yet what it is like to perceive, or misperceive, an object constitutes more than merely conceiving that object. When I see something, I stand in an experiential relation to it, and become aware of a range of phenomenal qualities, which form part of the sensory aspect of my experience. What it is to be experientially related to an object is the central metaphysical problem of perception.

Research paper thumbnail of The Multiple Contents of Experience

Philosophical Topics, 2009

ABSTRACT This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on... more ABSTRACT
This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on the relation between the representational aspects of an experience and its phenomenal character. It is argued that the Critical Realist two-component analysis of experience, advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, is preferable to the Intentionalist view. Experiences have different kinds of representational contents: both informational and intentional. An understanding of the essential navigational role of perception provides a principled way of explaining the nature of such representational contents. Experiences also have a distinct phenomenal content, or character, which is not determined by representational content.