Bill Brewer | King's College London (original) (raw)

Papers by Bill Brewer

Acquaintance, 2019

We specify the conscious character of vision by appeal to the way things look to the subject. An ... more We specify the conscious character of vision by appeal to the way things look to the subject. An experience in which there looks to be an F before her is also a source of knowledge of what it is to be F. I argue that these commitments are incompatible with Resemblance and Representational accounts and motivate a Relational account of the nature of visual experience.

Perception and its Objects, 2011

Perception and Reason, 2002

Asks how exactly perceptual experiences do provide reasons for empirical beliefs. My answer is th... more Asks how exactly perceptual experiences do provide reasons for empirical beliefs. My answer is that they furnish the subject with certain essentially experiential demonstrative contents—‘that is thus’ (fully conceptual, as they must be)—his grasp of which provides him with a reason to endorse them in belief. For a person's grasp of such contents, as referring to the mind‐independent objects that they do, and predicating the mind‐independent properties that they do, essentially involves his appreciation of them as the joint upshot of the way things are anyway, in the mind‐independent world around him, and his current point of view upon them and other relevant circumstances of perception. That is to say, he necessarily understands that his current apprehension that things are thus is in part due to the very fact that they are. He therefore recognizes the relevant content ashis apprehension of the facts, his epistemic opennessto the way things mind‐independently are out there.

... Inside JANE HEAL Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian Legacy CRISPIN WRIGHT ]oint Attention an... more ... Inside JANE HEAL Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian Legacy CRISPIN WRIGHT ]oint Attention and the First Person JOHN CAMPBELL Consciousness as ... Freedom CHRISTOPHER PEACOCKE Dualism in Action JENNIFER HORNSBY Index "I U1 L») l\J \l C») DJ @| DJ U3 [Q ...

Perception, Causation, and Objectivity, 2011

5 Realism and Explanation in Perception Bill Brewer* Suppose that we identify physical objects, i... more 5 Realism and Explanation in Perception Bill Brewer* Suppose that we identify physical objects, in the first instance, by extension, as things like stones, tables, trees, people, and other animals: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world in which we live. Of course, ...

Perception and its Objects, 2011

... Stirling Naomi Eilan, University ofWarwick Christoph Hoerl, University of Warwick Hemdat Lerm... more ... Stirling Naomi Eilan, University ofWarwick Christoph Hoerl, University of Warwick Hemdat Lerman, University of Warwick Andrew N. Meltzoff ... of Warwick Johannes Roessler, University of Warwick Paul Snowdon, University College London Matthew Soteriou, University ofWarwick ...

The Nature of Ordinary Objects, 2019

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Supplementary volume - Aristotelian Society, Jul 1, 1995

The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens- ... more The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens- she intentionally φ’s- the occurrence of which we explain by

Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge

Philosophy, 2020

This issue of the journal includes three papers on paradoxes. Two of them were submitted to the 2... more This issue of the journal includes three papers on paradoxes. Two of them were submitted to the 2019 Philosophy Essay Prize, on The Significance of Paradoxes, for which authors were asked to consider the philosophical use of paradox in any area. We received a number of excellent entries and it was impressive to see the range of topics where reflection on paradoxes is relevant: there were papers on ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of law, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, art and literature, and the meaning of life. The winning essay, published here, is Georgi Gardiner's 'Profiling and Proof: are statistics safe?'. We also publish a highly commended runner up: Martin Pleitz's 'Paradox as a Guide to Ground'. The third paper is a commissioned piece on paradoxes by Roy Sorensen and Mark Sainsbury which considers the identification, nature, and enumeration of paradoxes. The issue also features a transcript of Susan Neiman's Royal Institute of Philosophy/Royal Society of Edinburgh Annual Lecture 'Justice and History', delivered in Edinburgh on 25 November. The publication of the various RIP annual lectures is intended to meet the journal's goal of enabling RIP members and other readers keep in touch with the Institute's activities all over the UK. We also publish reviews of books on a decent life by Todd May (reviewed by Jake Wojtowicz), on idealism by Govinda Chandra Dev (reviewed by Ralph Walker), and on the place of God in Kant's metaphysics by Edward Kanterian (reviewed by Jonathan Egid). The next issue of the journal will be dedicated to the work of Early Career Researchers. We are also excited to announce details of this year's essay prize. The topic for the 2020 Competition is Knowledge, Truth and Power in an Online World. Advances in IT have made possible things that seemed pure science-fiction even two decades ago, for instance, real-time audiovisual communication is now accessible to anyone almost anywhere. This has transformed commercial and financial transactions, the dissemination of information and news in all media formats, political and personal relationshipseven romance. This development is bound to have a radical impact on how we approach traditional philosophical problems about, for example, knowledge, the justification of belief, political power and influence, or fairness. We welcome

We believe that the ordinary physical objects that we perceive continue to exist unperceived; and... more We believe that the ordinary physical objects that we perceive continue to exist unperceived; and this is intuitively an aspect of any authentic characterization of how the world appears to us in perception. But how can experience present its objects as continuing to exist beyond that very experience of them? Here I aim to explain this phenomenon. I start with an insight from Evans (1985). Familiar attempts to implement this insight fail, in my opinion. Here I introduce, motivate, defend, and elaborate an alternative approach to its implementation that, I claim, succeeds. Its key is to recognize the role of Evans’s insight in the metaphysics of perceptual experience itself.

Philosophical Perspectives, 2017

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Analytic Philosophy, 2018

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Metaphysica, 2017

Commonsense appears committed to enduring macroscopic material objects that exclude each other fr... more Commonsense appears committed to enduring macroscopic material objects that exclude each other from their precise location at all times. I elaborate a specific version of the commonsense commitment and consider its merits in connection with an important line of objection concerning the relation between material objects and their parts. The central thesis is that amongst persisting macroscopic material objects there are Natural Continuants, NCs, whose unity at a time and over time is entirely independent of our concepts, which occupy their precise spatial location Exclusively at all times, and which ground Artificial Continuants, ACs, by partition, collection, and approximation. I call the position the Natural Continuants View (NCV). Section “The Natural Continuants View” offers a provisional characterization. Section “Spatial Partition” considers a familiar puzzle concerning the idea that material objects may survive the loss of a part in order to provide intuitive motivation for (N...

Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 2015

Acquaintance, 2019

We specify the conscious character of vision by appeal to the way things look to the subject. An ... more We specify the conscious character of vision by appeal to the way things look to the subject. An experience in which there looks to be an F before her is also a source of knowledge of what it is to be F. I argue that these commitments are incompatible with Resemblance and Representational accounts and motivate a Relational account of the nature of visual experience.

Perception and its Objects, 2011

Perception and Reason, 2002

Asks how exactly perceptual experiences do provide reasons for empirical beliefs. My answer is th... more Asks how exactly perceptual experiences do provide reasons for empirical beliefs. My answer is that they furnish the subject with certain essentially experiential demonstrative contents—‘that is thus’ (fully conceptual, as they must be)—his grasp of which provides him with a reason to endorse them in belief. For a person's grasp of such contents, as referring to the mind‐independent objects that they do, and predicating the mind‐independent properties that they do, essentially involves his appreciation of them as the joint upshot of the way things are anyway, in the mind‐independent world around him, and his current point of view upon them and other relevant circumstances of perception. That is to say, he necessarily understands that his current apprehension that things are thus is in part due to the very fact that they are. He therefore recognizes the relevant content ashis apprehension of the facts, his epistemic opennessto the way things mind‐independently are out there.

... Inside JANE HEAL Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian Legacy CRISPIN WRIGHT ]oint Attention an... more ... Inside JANE HEAL Self-knowledge: the Wittgensteinian Legacy CRISPIN WRIGHT ]oint Attention and the First Person JOHN CAMPBELL Consciousness as ... Freedom CHRISTOPHER PEACOCKE Dualism in Action JENNIFER HORNSBY Index "I U1 L») l\J \l C») DJ @| DJ U3 [Q ...

Perception, Causation, and Objectivity, 2011

5 Realism and Explanation in Perception Bill Brewer* Suppose that we identify physical objects, i... more 5 Realism and Explanation in Perception Bill Brewer* Suppose that we identify physical objects, in the first instance, by extension, as things like stones, tables, trees, people, and other animals: the persisting macroscopic constituents of the world in which we live. Of course, ...

Perception and its Objects, 2011

... Stirling Naomi Eilan, University ofWarwick Christoph Hoerl, University of Warwick Hemdat Lerm... more ... Stirling Naomi Eilan, University ofWarwick Christoph Hoerl, University of Warwick Hemdat Lerman, University of Warwick Andrew N. Meltzoff ... of Warwick Johannes Roessler, University of Warwick Paul Snowdon, University College London Matthew Soteriou, University ofWarwick ...

The Nature of Ordinary Objects, 2019

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Supplementary volume - Aristotelian Society, Jul 1, 1995

The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens- ... more The standard paradigm for mental causation is a person’s acting for a reason. Something happens- she intentionally φ’s- the occurrence of which we explain by

Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge

Philosophy, 2020

This issue of the journal includes three papers on paradoxes. Two of them were submitted to the 2... more This issue of the journal includes three papers on paradoxes. Two of them were submitted to the 2019 Philosophy Essay Prize, on The Significance of Paradoxes, for which authors were asked to consider the philosophical use of paradox in any area. We received a number of excellent entries and it was impressive to see the range of topics where reflection on paradoxes is relevant: there were papers on ethics, epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of law, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, art and literature, and the meaning of life. The winning essay, published here, is Georgi Gardiner's 'Profiling and Proof: are statistics safe?'. We also publish a highly commended runner up: Martin Pleitz's 'Paradox as a Guide to Ground'. The third paper is a commissioned piece on paradoxes by Roy Sorensen and Mark Sainsbury which considers the identification, nature, and enumeration of paradoxes. The issue also features a transcript of Susan Neiman's Royal Institute of Philosophy/Royal Society of Edinburgh Annual Lecture 'Justice and History', delivered in Edinburgh on 25 November. The publication of the various RIP annual lectures is intended to meet the journal's goal of enabling RIP members and other readers keep in touch with the Institute's activities all over the UK. We also publish reviews of books on a decent life by Todd May (reviewed by Jake Wojtowicz), on idealism by Govinda Chandra Dev (reviewed by Ralph Walker), and on the place of God in Kant's metaphysics by Edward Kanterian (reviewed by Jonathan Egid). The next issue of the journal will be dedicated to the work of Early Career Researchers. We are also excited to announce details of this year's essay prize. The topic for the 2020 Competition is Knowledge, Truth and Power in an Online World. Advances in IT have made possible things that seemed pure science-fiction even two decades ago, for instance, real-time audiovisual communication is now accessible to anyone almost anywhere. This has transformed commercial and financial transactions, the dissemination of information and news in all media formats, political and personal relationshipseven romance. This development is bound to have a radical impact on how we approach traditional philosophical problems about, for example, knowledge, the justification of belief, political power and influence, or fairness. We welcome

We believe that the ordinary physical objects that we perceive continue to exist unperceived; and... more We believe that the ordinary physical objects that we perceive continue to exist unperceived; and this is intuitively an aspect of any authentic characterization of how the world appears to us in perception. But how can experience present its objects as continuing to exist beyond that very experience of them? Here I aim to explain this phenomenon. I start with an insight from Evans (1985). Familiar attempts to implement this insight fail, in my opinion. Here I introduce, motivate, defend, and elaborate an alternative approach to its implementation that, I claim, succeeds. Its key is to recognize the role of Evans’s insight in the metaphysics of perceptual experience itself.

Philosophical Perspectives, 2017

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Analytic Philosophy, 2018

If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination... more If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Metaphysica, 2017

Commonsense appears committed to enduring macroscopic material objects that exclude each other fr... more Commonsense appears committed to enduring macroscopic material objects that exclude each other from their precise location at all times. I elaborate a specific version of the commonsense commitment and consider its merits in connection with an important line of objection concerning the relation between material objects and their parts. The central thesis is that amongst persisting macroscopic material objects there are Natural Continuants, NCs, whose unity at a time and over time is entirely independent of our concepts, which occupy their precise spatial location Exclusively at all times, and which ground Artificial Continuants, ACs, by partition, collection, and approximation. I call the position the Natural Continuants View (NCV). Section “The Natural Continuants View” offers a provisional characterization. Section “Spatial Partition” considers a familiar puzzle concerning the idea that material objects may survive the loss of a part in order to provide intuitive motivation for (N...

Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 2015