Shoemaker on Phenomenal Content

Sydney Shoemaker has given a sophisticated theory of phenomenal content, motivated by the transparency of experience and by the possibility of spectrum inversion without illusion (1994, 2000, 2001, 2002). It centers on the idea that color experiences represent what he calls “appearance properties”. I consider the different sorts of appearance properties that Shoemaker has suggested might enter into phenomenal content – occurrent appearance properties, dispositional appearance properties, and higher-order dispositional appearance properties – and argue that none of them are plausibly represented by color experiences. I argue that Shoemaker's theory faces a dilemma – either it makes misperception too difficult, or it does not truly accommodate veridical spectrum inversion. I then examine some alternative Russellian theories of phenomenal content that might be consistent with Shoemaker's motivations, including a different sort of proposal recently suggested by Shoemaker (forthcoming). I argue that these views are also lacking, for similar reasons as the appearance property view. Finally, I conclude that in order for a representationalist theory to properly accommodate spectrum inversion without illusion, phenomenal content must include an indexical element. Such a view requires the adoption of a broadly Fregean theory of phenomenal content, according to which sameness of phenomenal character does not entail sameness in extension. What phenomenally identical experiences have in common is not what they represent, but how they represent.     

A Hasty Retreat From Evidence: The Recalcitrance of Relativism in Feminist Epistemology

While feminist epistemologists have made important contributions to the deconstruction of the traditional representationalist model, some elements of the Cartesian legacy remain. For example, relativism continues to play a role in the underdetermination thesis used by Longino and Keller. Both argue that because scientific theories are underdetermined by evidence, theory choice must be relative to interpretive frameworks. Utilizing Davidson's philosophy of language, I offer a nonrepresentationalist alternative to suggest how relativism can be more fully avoided.     

Representationalism, Supervenience, and the Cross-Modal Problem

The representational theory of phenomenal experience is often stated in terms of a supervenience thesis: as Tye has recently put it, “necessarily, experiences that are alike in their representational contents are alike in their phenomenal character”. Consequently, much of the debate over whether representationalism is true centres on purported counter-examples – that is to say, purported failures of supervenience. The discussion here focuses on one important representationalist response to a striking class of these, namely, perceptual states in different sensory modalities that, despite differing phenomenally, share at least some content – for example, the visual and tactile sensations of motion. Some representationalists reply to these cases, in effect, by widening the supervenience base of phenomenal experience to clusters of perceptual contents. However, I argue that this reply radically undermines the representational theory of experience by, among other problems, ruling out its construal as an identity thesis, and leaving the supervenience claim apparently ungrounded.     

Representation and Regress

I defend a Husserlian account of self-consciousness against representationalist accounts: higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism. Of these, self-representationalism is the harder to refute since, unlike higher-order representationalism, it does not incur a regress of self-conscious acts. However, it incurs a regress of intentional contents. I consider, and reject, five strategies for avoiding this regress of contents. I conclude that the regress is inherent to self-representationalism. I close by showing how this incoherence obtrudes in what must be the self-representationalist’s account of the phenomenology of experience.     

How the World Is Measured Up in Size Experience

I develop a Russellian representationalist account of size experience that draws importantly from contemporary vision science research on size perception. The core view is that size is experienced in ‘body‐scaled’ units. So, an object might, say, be experienced as two eye‐level units high. The view is sharpened in response to Thompson’s (forthcoming) Doubled Earth example. This example is presented by Thompson as part of an argument for a Fregean view of size experience. But I argue that the Russellian view I develop handles the Doubled Earth example in a natural and illuminating way, thereby avoiding the need to posit irreducible experiential ‘modes of presentation’. I also address a kind of neo‐Fregean ‘reference‐fixing’ view of size experience, that shares features with the Russellian view developed. I give reasons for favoring the latter. Finally, I argue that Peacocke’s claim that spatial experience is ‘unit free’ is not persuasive.     

Novel Colours and the Content of Experience

Abstract: I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore that one cannot fully explain the nature of the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences using a naturalistic conception of representation.     

Attention,consciousness, and the semantics of questions

Attention influences the character of conscious perceptual experience in intricate and surprising ways, including our experience of contrast, space, and time. These patterns of influence have been argued to cause trouble for the attractive thesis that differences in the character of conscious experience flow from differences in what we represent (Block 2010). I present a novel theory of the functional role of attention that has the resources for a systematic representationalist account of these phenomena. On the erotetic theory of attention, we bring an interest to the task of perception, captured as a question we seek to answer. Questions, as understood here, are contents that cognitive systems can represent rather than sentences. We process perceptual input as a putative answer to our question in a way that is modulated by attentional focus; attentional focus aims to pick out something that matches what our question is “about.” In certain cases, this yields a form of predictive coding: if the contribution of focus matches what our question is about, we take it to select one of the possible answers we are entertaining, even though our perceptual input by itself does not supply a full answer. The proposed account also provides a new account of the phenomenology of salience.     

Attitudinal and Phenomenological Theories of Pleasure

On phenomenological theories of pleasure, what makes an experience a pleasure is the way it feels. On attitudinal theories, what makes an experience a pleasure is its relationship to the favorable attitudes of the subject who is having it. I advance the debate between these theories in two ways. First, I argue that the main objection to phenomenological theories, the heterogeneity problem, is not compelling. While others have argued for this before, I identify an especially serious version of this problem that resists existing solutions, and I explain why even this version of the problem does not undermine phenomenological theories. Second, I argue that a grand reconciliation can be effected between the two types of theory: it can be true both that pleasures are pleasures in virtue of the way they feel and that they are pleasures in virtue of how they are related to their subjects' favorable attitudes, so long as the attitudes that are constitutively related to pleasures are ones that feel a certain way. Hybrid views of this sort have significant advantages over pure attitudinal or phenomenological views.     

Ambiguous figures and the spatial contents of perceptual experience: a defense of representationalism

Representationalists hold that the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience is identical with, or supervenes on, an aspect of its representational content. As such, representationalism could be disproved by a counter-example consisting of two experiences that have the same representational content but differ in phenomenal character. In this paper, I discuss two recently proposed counter-examples to representationalism that involve ambiguous or reversible figures. I pursue two goals. My first, and most important, goal is to show that the representationalist can offer plausible responses to both counter-examples. My second goal is to show the implications of these responses for the nature of the spatial representational contents of perceptual experiences.     

Representationalism,perceptual distortion and the limits of phenomenal concepts

This paper replies to objections from perceptual distortion (blur, perspective, double vision, etc.) against the representationalist thesis that the phenomenal characters of experiences supervene on their intentional contents. It has been argued that some pairs of distorted and undistorted experiences share contents without sharing phenomenal characters, which is incompatible with the supervenience thesis. In reply, I suggest that such cases are not counterexamples to the representationalist thesis because the contents of distorted experiences are always impoverished in some way compared to those of normal experiences. This can be shown by considering limit cases of perceptual distortion, for example, maximally blurry experiences, which manifestly lack details present in clear experiences. I argue that since there is no reasonable way to draw the line between distorted experiences that have degraded content and distorted experiences that do not, we should allow that an increase in distortion is always accompanied by a degradation in content. I also discuss the prospects for a positive account of the contents specific to distorted experiences. I argue that the prospects for such an account are dim, but that this is due to limitations of our phenomenal concepts, not to the falsity of the representationalist thesis.     

Integration of Two Skeptical Emotion Theories: Dimensional Appraisal Theory and Russell's Psychological Construction Theory

This inquiry attempts to integrate two skeptical emotion theories: dimensional appraisal theory and Russell's (2003) psychological construction theory. To bring out the skeptical elements of these theories, I compare them first with two classic theories: affect program theory and discrete appraisal theory. The skeptical theories are similar to each other in that they replace the concept of emotion with the concept of emotional episode, and that they organize the variety within the set of emotional episodes according to dimensions instead of vernacular emotion subsets. Their differences concern the strength of the relations among the components in emotional episodes and the scientific status of the set of emotional episodes. To make an informed decision about the elements to keep and to revise from both theories, I engage in a separate analysis of the behavior-related components and the experience component, guided by insights from general behavior theories and general theories of consciousness. The analysis of the behavior-related components suggests the relatively uncharted idea that the so-called emotional aspect of behavior can be caused by a goal-directed mechanism. The analysis of the experience component reveals that different theories have emphasized different aspects of experience and hence different paths toward experience. The inquiry ends with an integrated theory that rejects the scientific status of emotions or emotional episodes, but accepts the scientific status of the components and sees strong causal relations among them.     

The ‘Practical Turn’ and the Convergence of Traditions

Abstract

This paper explores the idea that the structure of intentionality is fundamentally the structure of a practice, not the structure of a language, or some quasi-linguistic system of representational entities. I show how and why neo-Fregean theory of content is committed to this practical turn. Mis-representation is often thought to be problematic for the neo-Fregean, but I show not only that it accommodates the phenomena better than the representationalist position, but also that the idea of error that the representationalist wants with empty singular terms is redundant, for it has no role to play in explaining the systematicity of thought.     

Ambiguous figures and representationalism

Macpherson (Nous 40(1):82–117, 2006) argues that the square/regular diamond figure threatens representationalism, construed as the theory which holds that the phenomenal character is explained by the nonconceptual content of experience. Her argument is the claim that representationalism is committed to the thesis that differences in the experience of ambiguous figures, the gestalt switch, should be explained by differences in the NCC of perception of these figures. However, with respect to the square/regular diamond and some other ambiguous figure representationalism fails to offer a unified account of how representational content makes them ambiguous. In this paper, I aim, first, to offer a representationalist account of ambiguous figures and, second, to examine and rebut Macpherson’s arguments. My main point is that in each ambiguous figure Macpherson discusses there are differences in representational content that can explain differences in phenomenal character or content. The representational differences are due to the ways the Cartesian frame of reference in which perceptual content is always cast cuts the figure, underlying different properties of the figure with respect to the axes of the Cartesian frame of reference.     

The Achilles Heel of Psychoanalysis: Meditations on Motivation: Commentary on Paper by Robert P. Drozek

In discussing Robert P. Drozek's “Intersubjectivity Theory and the Dilemma of Intersubjective Motivation,” I consider the challenges inherent to general theories of motivation in contemporary psychoanalysis, challenges that are further complicated by our multiple theories of intersubjectivity. While I agree with Drozek that individuals can be motivated by aspects of others' subjective experience I would not raise this phenomenon to a general theory of motivation. I explain why I feel that motivation is a fraught topic in contemporary psychoanalysis, and I suggest reasons that relational authors have often addressed this topic only obliquely. I also take issue with Drozek's claim that, to date, psychoanalysis has no motivational theory that addresses both the intrapsychic and the intersubjective realms. In reviewing the ideas of several authors whose theories Drozek rejects because he believes their work reduces motivation to the intrapsychic, I find that these authors have addressed the intersubjective and intrapsychic aspects of motivation far more adequately and complexly than Drozek has recognized. Thus while I admire the energy and logic—even at times the eloquence—with which Drozek presents his ideas, I question whether psychoanalysis needs a new motivational theory at this point in time.     

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.     

How to Be a Bayesian Dogmatist

Rational agents have (more or less) consistent beliefs. Bayesianism is a theory of consistency for partial belief states. Rational agents also respond appropriately to experience. Dogmatism is a theory of how to respond appropriately to experience. Hence, Dogmatism and Bayesianism are theories of two very different aspects of rationality. It's surprising, then, that in recent years it has become common to claim that Dogmatism and Bayesianism are jointly inconsistent: how can two independently consistent theories with distinct subject matter be jointly inconsistent? In this essay I argue that Bayesianism and Dogmatism are inconsistent only with the addition of a specific hypothesis about how the appropriate responses to perceptual experience are to be incorporated into the formal models of the Bayesian. That hypothesis isn't essential either to Bayesianism or to Dogmatism, and so Bayesianism and Dogmatism are jointly consistent. That leaves the matter of how experiences and credences are related, and so in the remainder of the essay I offer an alternative account of how perceptual justification, as the Dogmatist understands it, can be incorporated into the Bayesian formalism.     

Representation and aspectual shape

One of the most significant characteristics of intentional states is the fact that they represent their intentional objects under selective aspects (or modes of presentation); that is, that they manifest an aspectual shape (Searle, 1992). Surprisingly however, although this remarkable feature is widely recognized little has been done to explain what makes representation aspect-relative in the first-place. In this article I attempt to outline an answer to this question. I begin with a critique of Searle's explanation of aspectual shape as anchored in conscious experience. I argue next that, since to represent an object under an aspect is to represent it relative to a selective set of properties, the task - from the perspective of a theory of mental representation - is to explain what makes intentional states property-relative. It is then argued that while this task cannot be handled properly by standard (in particular computational-representational) theories of mental representation, a shift towards an action-based framework for theories of perception and representation promises to provide the key with which to unlock the puzzle.