Everything is clear: All perceptual experiences are transparent

The idea that perceptual experience is transparent is generally used by naïve realists and externalist representationalists to promote an externalist account of the metaphysics of perceptual experience. It is claimed that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience can be explained solely with reference to the externally located objects and properties which (for the representationalist) we represent, or which (for the naïve realist) partly constitute our experience. Internalist qualia theorists deny this and claim that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience is internally constituted. However, my concern in this paper is not with the metaphysical debate but with transparency as a phenomenological feature of perceptual experience. Qualia theorists have presented a number of examples of perceptual experiences which, they claim, do not even seem to be transparent; these experiences involve objects or properties which seem to be internally realized. I argue, contrary to the qualia theorist's claim, that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can in fact be characterized solely with reference to externally located objects and properties, and the sense in which some features of our perceptual experiences do not seem external is due to cognitive, not perceptual, phenomenology.     

Low-Level Properties in Perceptual Experience

Whether perceptual experience represents high-level properties like causation and natural-kind in virtue of its phenomenology is an open question in philosophy of mind. While the question of high-level properties has sparked disagreement, there is widespread agreement that the sensory phenomenology of perceptual experience presents us with low-level properties like shape and color. This paper argues that the relationship between the sensory character of experience and the low-level properties represented therein is more complex than most assume. Careful consideration of mundane examples, like looking at a coin from an oblique angle, show that the low-level properties represented in experience do not necessarily figure in the sensory character of the experience. Furthermore, the sensible properties invoked when characterizing the sensory character of a perceptual experience are not necessarily included in the sensible properties represented in a perceptual experience. On this basis it is argued that perceptual experience has a disunified metaphysics, consisting in distinct sensory and cognitive components. The account is developed in relation to existing unified and disunified accounts, and discussed in terms of its implications for cognitive penetration, the reliability of introspection, the transparency of experience, and cognitive phenomenology.     

Agent Causation and the Phenomenology of Agency

Several philosophers claim that the phenomenology of one's own agency conflicts with standard causal theories of action, couched in terms of causation by mental events or states. Others say that the phenomenology is prima facie incompatible with such a theory, even if in the end, a reconciliation can be worked out. Here, it is argued that the type of action theory in question is consistent with what can plausibly be said to be presented to us in our experience of our agency. Several routes to a claim that there is nevertheless a prima facie incompatibility are examined, and all are found wanting. The phenomenology of agency, it is argued, is no threat to a standard causal theory of action.     

Toward a new transcendental aesthetic: Merleau-Ponty’s appraisal of Kant’s philosophical method

ABSTRACT

In light of the central role scientific research plays in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the question has arisen whether his phenomenology involves some sort of commitment to naturalism or whether it is better understood along transcendental lines. In order to make headway on this issue, I focus specifically on Merleau-Ponty’s method and its relationship to Kant’s transcendental method. On the one hand, I argue that Merleau-Ponty rejects Kant’s method, the ‘method-without-which’, which seeks the a priori conditions of the possibility of experience. On the other hand, I show that this does not amount to a methodological rejection of the transcendental altogether. To the contrary, I claim that Merleau-Ponty offers a new account of the transcendental and a priori that he takes to be the proper subject matter of his phenomenological method, the method of ‘radical reflection’. And I submit that this method has important affinities with aesthetic themes in Kant’s philosophy.     

Towards a rich view of auditory experience

In this paper I will argue that the gender properties expressed by human voices are part of auditory phenomenology. I will support this claim by investigating auditory adaptational effects on such properties and contrasting auditory experiences, before and after the adaptational effects take place. In light of this investigation, I will conclude that auditory experience is not limited to low-level properties. Perception appears to be much more informative about the auditory landscape than is commonly thought.     

Why Colour Primitivism?

Primitivism is the view that colors are sui generis properties of physical objects. The basic insight underlying primitivism is that colours are as we see them, i.e. they are categorical properties of physical objects—simple, monadic, constant, etc.—just like shapes. As such, they determine the content of colour experience. Accepting the premise that colours are sui generis properties of physical objects, this paper seeks to show that ascribing primitive properties to objects is, ipso facto, ascribing to objects irreducible dispositions to look coloured, and that anything that primitive redness can do, the non-reductive disposition to look red can do just as well. What makes primitivism suspect is not the commitment to sui generis properties, but instead the claim that colours are more than dispositions. Since, as I show, whatever primitivism appeals to for the purpose of arguing that colours are more than dispositions—objectivity, explanation, causation, phenomenology, constancy, etc.—can also be invoked by non-reductive dispositionalism, the feature that purportedly renders colours more than dispositions remains mysterious.     

An epistemic argument for liberalism about perceptual content

This paper concerns the question of which properties figure in the contents of perceptual experience. According to conservatives, only low-level properties figure in the contents of perceptual experience. Liberals, on the other hand, claim that high-level properties, such as natural kind properties, artifacts, and even moral properties, can figure in the contents of perceptual experience. I defend a novel argument in favor of liberalism, the Epistemic Argument, which hinges on two crucial claims. The first is that many perceptual experiences of even neurotypical human beings can justify beliefs in high-level properties without providing justification for their low-level constituents. The second claim, roughly, is that any experience that alone provides (defeasible) justification for beliefs about some property p, other things being equal, has p as part of its content. In short, certain perceptual experiences represent high-level but not low-level properties, which entails that liberalism is true.     

On the Meaning of Screens: Towards a Phenomenological Account of Screenness

This paper presents a Heideggerian phenomenological analysis of screens. In a world and an epoch where screens pervade a great many aspects of human experience, we submit that phenomenology, much in a traditional methodological form, can provide an interesting and novel basis for our understanding of screens. We ground our analysis in the ontology of Martin Heidegger's Being and Time [1927/1962], claiming that screens will only show themselves as they are if taken as screens-in-the-world. Thus, the phenomenon of screen is not investigated in its empirical form or conceptually. It is rather taken as a grounding intentional orientation that conditions our engagement with certain surfaces as we comport ourselves towards them “as screens.” In doing this we claim to have opened up the phenomenon of screen in a new and meaningful way.     

Ethical Phenomenology and Metaethics

In recent times, comments have been made and arguments advanced in support of metaethical positions based on the phenomenology of ethical experience – in other words, the feel that accompanies our ethical experiences. In this paper I cast doubt on whether ethical phenomenology supports metaethical positions to any great extent and try to tease out what is involved in giving a phenomenological argument. I consider three such positions: independent moral realism (IMR), another type of moral realism – sensibility theory – and noncognitivism. Phenomenological arguments have been used in support of the first two positions, but my general claim is that ethical phenomenology supports no metaethical position over any other.I discuss two types of phenomenological argument that might be offered in support of different types of moral realism, although I couch my debate in terms of IMR. The first argument asserts that ethical properties are not experienced in the way that rivals to IMR say we experience them. Against this I claim that it is odd to think that one could experience ethical properties as any metaethical theory characterizes them. The second argument is more complicated: the general thought is that an adequate metaethical theory should not distort our ethical experience unduly. I consider one aspect of our ethical experience – that there is some ethical authority to which our judgements answer – in order to illustrate this idea. I discuss why IMRealists might think that this phenomenon supports their position. Against them I claim that other metaethical positions might be able to accommodate the phenomenon of ethical authority. Even if they cannot, then, secondly, I argue that there are other aspects of our ethical experience that sit more naturally with other metaethical positions. Hence, one cannot argue that ethical phenomenology as a whole supports one theory over any others.     

On the development of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of imagination and its use for interdisciplinary research

In this paper I trace Husserl’s transformation of his notion of phantasy from its strong leanings towards empiricism into a transcendental phenomenology of imagination. Rejecting the view that this account is only more incompatible with contemporary neuroscientific research, I instead claim that the transcendental suspension of naturalistic (or scientific) pretensions precisely enables cooperation between the two distinct realms of phenomenology and science. In particular, a transcendental account of phantasy can disclose the specific accomplishments of imagination without prematurely deciding upon a particular scientific paradigm for its experimental investigation; a decision that is best left to the sciences themselves.You will find a more extensive version of the first sections of this paper in Rudolf Bernet, Donn Welton, Gina Zavota (eds), in press. Husserl: Critical Assessments (5 vol.). London: Routledge.     

On the Perception of Structure

Many of the objects that we perceive have an important characteristic: When they move, they change shape. For instance, when you watch a person walk across a room, her body constantly deforms. I suggest that we exercise a type of perceptual constancy in response to changes of this sort, which I call structure constancy. In this paper I offer an account of structure constancy. I introduce the notion of compositional structure, and propose that structure constancy involves perceptually representing an object as retaining its compositional structure over time. I argue that compositional structure is represented in visual phenomenology, and I also assemble empirical evidence in support of the claim that compositional structure is recovered by the visual system. Finally, I draw out consequences of this account. I argue that structure constancy has implications for the predictive capacities of perception, and that the phenomenon places important constraints on viable accounts of both the format and reference frame of visual experience.     

Derrida and Cavaillès: Mathematics and the Limits of Phenomenology

Abstract

This paper examines Derrida’s interpretation of Jean Cavaillès’s critique of phenomenology in On Logic and the Theory of Science. Derrida’s main claim is that Cavaillès’s arguments, especially the argument based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, need not lead to a total rejection of Husserl’s phenomenology, but only its static version. Genetic phenomenology, on the other hand, not only is not undermined by Cavaillès’s critique, but can even serve as a philosophical framework for Cavaillès’s own position. I will argue that Derrida’s approach to Cavaillès is fruitful, facilitating the exposition of some central Cavaillèsian ideas, including the notion of dialectics. Nevertheless, it is important to evaluate Derrida’s own arguments against static phenomenology. I undertake such an assessment in the last section of the paper, showing that Gödel’s theorems do not in themselves warrant rejection of static phenomenology. I base this conclusion in part on Gödel’s own understanding of phenomenology as a philosophical basis for mathematics.     

ATTENTION AND MENTAL PAINT1

Much of recent philosophy of perception is oriented towards accounting for the phenomenal character of perception—what it is like to perceive—in a non‐mentalistic way—that is, without appealing to mental objects or mental qualities. In opposition to such views, I claim that the phenomenal character of perception of a red round object cannot be explained by or reduced to direct awareness of the object, its redness and roundness—or representation of such objects and qualities. Qualities of perception that are not captured by what one is directly aware of or by representational content are instances of what Gilbert Harman has called “mental paint” ( Block, 1990 ; Harman, 1990 ). The claim of this paper is that empirical facts about attention point in the direction of mental paint. The argument starts with the claim (later modified) that when one moves one's attention around a scene while keeping one's eyes fixed, the phenomenology of perception can change in ways that do not reflect which qualities of objects one is directly aware of or the way the world is represented to be. These changes in the phenomenology of perception cannot be accounted for in terms of awareness of or representation of the focus of attention because they manifest themselves in experience as differences in apparent contrast, apparent color saturation, apparent size, apparent speed, apparent time of occurrence and other appearances. There is a way of coping with these phenomena in terms of vague contents, but vague contents cannot save direct realism or representationism because the kind of vagueness required clashes wth the phenomenology itself.     

Merleau-Pontian Phenomenology as Non-Conventionally Utopian

This essay takes up the claim made recently by Simon Critchley in The Companion to Continental Philosophy that a feature common to many philosophers in the Continental tradition is the utopian demand that things be otherwise. The general question I pursue has to do with whether or not such a claim includes movements within Continental philosophy that do not self-identify with the utopian (like critical theory). The particular question has to do with whether or not the movement of phenomenology is utopian or does it, because of its other commitments, view the utopian as the antithesis to its orientation, which makes that claim that phenomenology is utopian seem strange. My thesis is that phenomenology can be seen as a utopian tradition but that some account must be given that demonstrates this connection to the utopian. In particular, I argue that Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology provides an understanding of the utopian, which I call a non-conventional view, that is vastly different from the one assumed by most when they see or hear the word utopian, which I label conventional. I show that such a non-conventional understanding can be developed in a way that neither requires us to view the utopian solely as opposed to finitude and contingency, nor a form of thought and action from which we necessarily need to dissociate ourselves. It is this non-conventional view of the utopian that in the end enables us to understand how Continental philosophy in general and phenomenology in particular are important bearers of the utopian demand that things be otherwise.     

The reception of Otto and Das Heilige in Japan: in and outside the phenomenology of religion

ABSTRACT

In Japan, Rudolf Otto is commonly identified as a precursor of the phenomenology of religion, claiming the sui generis nature of religion. However, the first Japanese translation of Das Heilige was published in 1927, far before the reception of the phenomenology of religion. This article divides the history of the reception of Das Heilige into three periods: before, during and after the heyday of the phenomenology of religion. It also examines both academic and lay receptions of Otto’s work, considering that its paperback version has sold over 53,000 copies. Its major findings are scholars of religion in the pre-war period framed Das Heilige according to a hierarchical dichotomy of the East and the West; post-war, phenomenological scholars empathetically interpreted the work, rejecting this ideological dichotomy; younger scholars have recently attempted more history-conscious, critical analyses; and, largely ‘non-religious’ general readers viewed it as a classic of Western thought, without being disturbed by its claim of Christian superiority.     

Gender as Lived Time: Reading The Second Sex for a Feminist Phenomenology of Temporality

This article suggests that Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex offers an important contribution to a feminist phenomenology of temporality. In contrast to readings of The Second Sex that focus on the notion of “becoming” as the main claim about the relation between “woman” and time, this article suggests that Beauvoir's discussion of temporality in volume II of The Second Sex shows that Beauvoir understands the temporality of waiting, or a passive present, to be an underlying structure of women's existence and subordination. Accordingly, I argue that Beauvoir does not see “woman” as a mere becoming, as that which unfolds in time, but instead understands becoming a woman to be realized as lived time. As such, Beauvoir's account shows that gender and temporality are deeply entangled, and thus she challenges the classic phenomenological account of temporality as a general, given structure of human existence. More specifically, I argue that her account shows how a particular experience of time is an underlying structure of sexual objectification, a claim that expands on the feminist phenomenological claim that a particular relation to space becomes a way in which women take up and negotiate their own subordination and objectification.     

On the “Theological Turn” in French henomenology

In this paper, I show that the claim for a “theological turn” in French phenomenology is not tenable by analyzing the relation between transcendencies and the modes of givenness in Husserl, the relation between the ethical transcendence and its mode of givenness in Levinas, and the question of the self of phenomenon and giveness in Marion. I argue that the inner motive of phenomenology requires it to go beyond the horizon of objectness and the question about God or theological issues are determined as part of its essential task in phenomenology. The principle of “go to the thing itself” does not predetermine or presuppose what phenomenology should deal with; it is always the thing itself that imposes itself on phenomenology.     

Phenomenology,Objectivity, and the Explanatory Gap

There has been much recent discussion of whether Husserlian phenomenology might be relevant to the explanatory gap—the problem of explaining how conscious experience arises from nonexperiential events or processes. However, some phenomenologists have argued that the explanatory gap is a confused problem, because it starts by assuming a false distinction between the subjective and the objective. Rather than trying to solve this problem, they claim that phenomenology should dissolve it by undermining the distinction upon which it is based. I shall argue that adopting a phenomenological approach does not provide reason to think that the explanatory gap is not a genuine problem. In assessing the assumptions underlying the gap, we must distinguish between objectivity understood as a stance we can take toward the world and objectivity as the world's having a structure independent of any experience. The explanatory gap can be understood as the problem of finding a place for consciousness in this objective structure. This does not force us to take an objective stance or reduce the methods of phenomenology to those of the natural sciences.     

Making sense of the libertarian’s semantic claim about agential phenomenology

Libertarians about free will sometimes argue for their position on the grounds that our phenomenology of action is such that determinism would need to be false for it to be veridical. Many, however, have thought that it would be impossible for us to have an experience that is in contradiction with determinism, since this would require us to have perceptual experience of metaphysical facts. In this paper I show how the libertarian claim is possible. In particular, if experience depicts the world such that there is more than one physically possible future, then determinism would need to be false for that experience to be veridical. I show that we have experiences, or perceptual episodes, of this kind on the basis of recent work in the study of perception. Theorists in this area have argued that we have vision-for-action, and that what we visually perceive are not just objects but also possibilities for action. If we experience that it is possible that we ?, then we also experience that it is possible that we not ?. Furthermore, we probably experience more than one possibility for action at any one moment. I argue that these are physical possibilities, and therefore that we experience the world such that there is more than one physically possible future. So the libertarian claim about the semantics of agential phenomenology is highly plausible, even if this does not entail libertarianism.     

The phenomenological directness of perceptual experience

When you have a perceptual experience of a given physical object that object seems to be immediately present to you in a way it never does when you consciously think about or imagine it. Many philosophers have claimed that naïve realism (the view that to perceive is to stand in a primitive relation of acquaintance to the world) can provide a satisfying account of this phenomenological directness of perceptual experience while the content view (the view that to perceive is to represent the world to be a certain way) cannot. I argue that this claim is false. Specifically, I maintain that the only acceptable naïve realist account of the relevant phenomenology is circular and that the content view can provide a similar account. In addition, I maintain that a certain specific variety of the content view provides a non-circular and thus more satisfactory account of this phenomenology. If so, then contrary to what is commonly assumed there are powerful phenomenological grounds for preferring the content view to naïve realism.