How do causes depend on us? The many faces of perspectivalism (original) (raw)

Perspectivity and Rationality of Perception

Dialectica, 2021

Susanna Schellenberg has presented several arguments for the "situation-dependency thesis" (SDT), i.e. the claim that (visual) perceptual experiences are necessarily situationdependent, insofar as they represent objects' situation-dependent properties. In my critical response to her paper, I focus on her argument from the "epistemic dependence thesis" (EDT), according to which "perceptual knowledge of intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on representations of the relevant situation-dependent properties" (Schellenberg 2008, 75). I consider what support she musters for EDT, so as to make an objection to her argument from EDT. To address this objection (or, rather, to bypass it), I will re-formulate the EDT, as a different but closely related thesis that I will call EDT*, informed by the admittedly radical Husserlian view that perception is epistemically rational.

Perspectivism with Objectivity, Causal and Temporal

Daímon

It has been suggested that the only plausible way to integrate causality in the scientific image of the world is through a subjectivist causal perspectivism. Causation would exist only from the point of view of an agent capable of doing things. The conception of time associated with such causal perspectivism is certain temporal perspectivism that is also subjectivist. Following some ideas of Ramsey, Huw Price is a recent exponent of these approaches, which are rooted in Russell's critique of the notion of causality and in McTaggart’s irrealism about time. We analyze this line of thought and argue for an objectivist interpretation of those perspectivisms. It will be crucial a distinction between perspectives and the subjects capable of adopting them, as well as an analysis of the conditions for adopting perspectives.

Relativism, Perspectivism, and the Universal Epistemic Language

Philosophy of the History of Philosophy, 2024

Recent research gives perspectivism the status of a stand-alone epistemological research program. As part of this development, it must be distinguished from other epistemologies, especially relativism. Not only do relativists and perspectivists use a similar vocabulary-even the supposed tenets (features of the doctrine) seem to partially overlap. To clarify the relation between these programs, I suggest drawing two important distinctions. The first is between the (1) terminological and (2) doctrinal components of epistemologies, the second between the (2a) analytical and (2b) synthetical doctrinal elements. The method of the originalistic linguistic analysis that I introduce in this article shows that both relativism and perspectivism are using the same matrix of interconnected linguistic expressions that belong to what I call the universal epistemic language. Furthermore, this method reveals which doctrinal components necessarily follow from this linguistic basis and the terms "relativism" and "perspectivism" and which are a result of deliberate philosophical constructions. As for the linguistic basis and analytical doctrinal components, relativism and perspectivism are complementary members of one epistemology. Doctrinal additions that transform the original meaning of the terms "relativism" and "perspectivism", such as "indifferentism" and "non-absolutism", should be always explicitly mentioned to avoid confusion and strawmen debates in philosophy.

Failing to make it explicit: Superficial and irreducible perspectivality

Filozofia Nauki, 2022

The aim of this paper is to explore what the different answers that might be given to the question about the role of perspective in language—indexical contextualism, nonindexical contextualism, and assessor relativism—amount to, using Perry’s work about thought without designation and thought without representation as our point of departure. In particular, I argue that Perry’s discussion of the possibility of making explicit the parameter on which the truth-value of a certain sentence depends provides us with a useful criterion to distinguish between indexical and nonindexical contextualism. Then, I show that some of MacFarlane’s insights can be seen as a continuation of Perry’s discussion. The most salient outcome of the comparison between Perry’s and MacFarlane’s frameworks will be the distinction between the superficial perspectivality that can be found in sentences like “It is raining” and the irreducible perspectivality that we find in sentences like “Licorice is tasty.” The apparently paradoxical conclusion will be that language is truly perspectival precisely when it does not encode a perspective.