论自然律与因果知识的知觉经验基础

<正>一、引论自休谟以来,特别是在科学哲学的演进中,自然律理论与因果理论从来是不可分离的。相比而言,自然律理论具有某种优先地位。因为按照休谟的广为接受的论证,人类的知觉经验并不能直接辩     

Amodal completion and relationalism

Amodal completion is usually characterized as the representation of those parts of the perceived object that we get no sensory stimulation from. In the case of the visual sense modality, for example, amodal completion is the representation of occluded parts of objects we see. I argue that relationalism about perception, the view that perceptual experience is constituted by the relation to the perceived object, cannot give a coherent account of amodal completion. The relationalist has two options: construe the perceptual relation as the relation to the entire perceived object or as the relation to the unoccluded parts of the perceived object. I argue that neither of these options are viable.

     

‘The Echo of a Thought in Sight’: Property Perception,Universals and Wittgenstein

Contemporary philosophers of perception, even those with otherwise widely differing beliefs, often hold that universals enter into the content of perceptual experience. This doctrine can even be seen as a trivial inference from the observation that we observe properties – ways that things are – as well as things. I argue that the inference is not trivial but can and should be resisted. Ordinary property perception does not involve awareness of universals. But there are visual (and aural) experiences which do involve determinate universals: following Wittgenstein, I call these ‘aspect experiences’. The common view of perceptual content effectively conflates aspect experiences with mere property perceptions. Wittgenstein’s later writings on the philosophy of psychology provide an alternative way to think about both aspects and properties. It also forms a contrast with Wittgenstein’s own early treatment of perception in the Tractatus, the doctrine of which is much closer to the contemporary norm among philosophers of perception. In seeing how Wittgenstein moved away from his early view, we can see how we might move away from that norm.     

Seeing Empty Space

Abstract: In this paper I offer an account of a particular variety of perception of absence, namely, visual perception of empty space. In so doing, I aim to make explicit the role that seeing empty space has, implicitly, in Mike Martin's account of the visual field. I suggest we should make sense of the claim that vision has a field—in Martin'ss sense—in terms of our being aware of its limitations or boundaries. I argue that the limits of the visual field are our own sensory limitations, and that we are aware of them as such. Seeing empty space, I argue, involves a structural feature of experience that constitutes our awareness of our visual sensory limitations, and thus, in virtue of which vision has a field.     

Empathy and the responsiveness to social affordances

The direct perception theory of empathy claims that we can immediately experience a person’s state of mind. I can see for instance that my neighbour is angry with me in his bodily countenance. I develop a version of the direct perception theory of empathy which takes this perceptual capacity to depend upon recognising in what way the other person is responsive to the affordances the environment provides. By recognising which possibilities for action are relevant to a person, I can thereby understand something about the meaning they give to the world. I come to share something of their perspective on the world, and this allows me to grasp based on my perception of them something about their current state of mind. I argue that shared affect plays a central role in this perceptual capacity. Shared affect allows me to orient my attention to possibilities for action that matter to the other person. I end by briefly discuss the implications of this view of empathy for the disturbances in so-called “cognitive empathy” that are found in people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.     

The Ubiquity of Self-Deception

My paper is a discussion of Bas van Fraassen’s important, but neglected, paper on self-deception, “The Peculiar Effects of Love and Desire.” Paradoxes of self-deception are widely thought to follow from the ease with which we know ourselves. For example, if self-deception were intentional, how could we fail to know as target of our own deception just those things necessary to undermine the deception? Van Fraassen stands that reasoning on its head, arguing that is the ease with which we accuse ourselves of self-deception that undermines our confidence in our claims to know ourselves. I unpack and modify his argument, attempting to show that it makes a powerful case for scepticism about self-knowledge. I argue, contra van Fraassen, that local scepticism about self-knowledge threatens our claims to know ourselves in a way that global scepticism does not threaten our claims about the external world. I support this claim by showing that the Wittgensteinian response to the sceptic in On Certainty—that we don’t know what to do with the sceptic’s doubts, that we don’t know how to incorporate those doubts into our practices—does not succeed in deflecting scepticism about self-knowledge because the local sceptic’s doubts—about whether we can distinguish genuine claims to know ourselves from self-deceived claims—are integral to language game of self-knowledge. The local sceptic’s doubts are our doubts because it is natural to ask whether we are deceiving ourselves when we claim to know ourselves. However, because, we have no way of distinguishing genuine claims to know ourselves from self-deceived claims, our claims to self-knowledge are systematically undermined.     

Smelling objects

Objects are central to perception and our interactions with the world. We perceive the world as parsed into discrete entities that instantiate particular properties, and these items capture our attention and shape how we interact with the environment. Recently there has been some debate about whether the sense of smell allows us to perceive odours as discrete objects, with some suggesting that olfaction is aspatial and doesn’t allow for object-individuation. This paper offers two empirically tractable criteria for assessing whether particular objects are exhibited in perceptual experience—(1) susceptibility to figure-ground segregation and (2) perceptual constancies—and argues that these criteria are fulfilled by olfactory perception, and thus there are olfactory objects. I argue that there are, in fact, two different ways that olfaction allows for figure-ground segregation. First, I look at various Gestalt grouping principles, which are thought to govern when features are perceived as grouped into structured wholes, segregated from everything around them. I argue that these principles apply to olfactory experience, providing evidence of non-spatial figure-ground segregation. Second, I defend the contentious idea that a spatial variety of figure-ground segregation can also occur in olfaction. To see this, however, we need to look to empirical evidence showing that tactile stimulation and bodily movements play a crucial role in olfactory phenomenology. Finally, I draw on empirical evidence and olfactory phenomenology to argue that there are perceptual constancies in olfactory experience, allowing us to perceive odours as coherent objects that survive shifts in our perspectives on the world.

     

Perceiving pictures

I aim to give a new account of picture perception: of the way our visual system functions when we see something in a picture. My argument relies on the functional distinction between the ventral and dorsal visual subsystems. I propose that it is constitutive of picture perception that our ventral subsystem attributes properties to the depicted scene, whereas our dorsal subsystem attributes properties to the picture surface. This duality elucidates Richard Wollheim’s concept of the “twofoldness” of our experience of pictures: the “visual awareness not only of what is represented but also of the surface qualities of the representation.” I argue for the following four claims: (a) the depicted scene is represented by ventral perception, (b) the depicted scene is not represented by dorsal perception, (c) the picture surface is represented by dorsal perception, and (d) the picture surface is not necessarily represented by ventral perception.     

Sensorimotor expectations and the visual field

Sensorimotor expectations concern how visual experience covaries with bodily movement. Sensorimotor theorists argue from such expectations to the conclusion that the phenomenology of vision is constitutively embodied: objects within the visual field are experienced as 3-D because sensorimotor expectations partially constitute our experience of such objects. Critics argue that there are (at least) two ways to block the above inference: to explain how we visually experience objects as 3-D, one may appeal to such non-bodily factors as (1) expectations about movements of objects, not the perceiver, or to (2) the role of mental imagery in visual experience. But instead of using sensorimotor expectations to explain how objects are experienced within the visual field, we can instead use them to explain our experience of the visual field itself and, in particular, our experience of its limits; that is, our ever-present visual sense of there being more to see, beyond what’s currently within the visual field. Crucially, this inference from sensorimotor expectations to the constitutive embodiment of visual phenomenology is not threatened by the above two challenges. I thus present here a sensorimotor theory of the phenomenology of the visual field, that is, our experience of our visual fields as such.

     

Seeing absence

Intuitively, we often see absences. For example, if someone steals your laptop at a café, you may see its absence from your table. However, absence perception presents a paradox. On prevailing models of perception, we see only present objects and scenes (Marr, Gibson, Dretske). So, we cannot literally see something that is not present. This suggests that we never literally perceive absences; instead, we come to believe that something is absent cognitively on the basis of what we perceive. But this cognitive explanation does not do justice to the phenomenology. Many experiences of absence possess immediate, perceptual qualities. One may further argue that the ability to detect certain absences confers strong adaptive advantage and therefore must be as primitive and fundamental to humans as seeing positive things. I argue that we can literally see absences; in addition to representing objects, perception represents absences of objects. I present a model of seeing absence based on visual expectations and a visual matching process. The phenomenon of seeing absence can thus serve as an adequacy-test for a theory of perceptual content. If experiences of absence are possible, then we have another reason (following Siegel) to reject the view that perceptual content is restricted to colors and shapes. Furthermore, if the proposed account is correct, then we have grounds for dissociating seeing absence from other imagery-based phenomena termed “perceptual presence-in-absence” (Noë, Macpherson).     

On Direct Social Perception

Direct Social Perception (DSP) is the idea that we can non-inferentially perceive others’ mental states. In this paper, I argue that the standard way of framing DSP leaves the debate at an impasse. I suggest two alternative interpretations of the idea that we see others’ mental states: others’ mental states are represented in the content of our perception, and we have basic perceptual beliefs about others’ mental states. I argue that the latter interpretation of DSP is more promising and examine the kinds of mental states that plausibly could satisfy this version of DSP.     

We See in the Dark

Do we need light to see? I argue that the black experience of a man in a perfectly dark cave is a representation of an absence of light, not an absence of representation. There is certainly a difference between his perceptual knowledge and that of his blind companion. Only the sighted man can tell whether the cave is dark just by looking. But perhaps he is merely inferring darkness from his failure to see. To get an unambiguous answer, I switch the focus from perceptual knowledge to non‐epistemic seeing. My conclusion is that we see even in the limiting case of absolute darkness – regardless of whether we believe we are seeing. We see little of pratical interest. But in terms of basic information, we see about as much as we do when the lights are on. Depending on what has gone before and after, we may even see ordinary objects.     

But what then am I,this inexhaustible,unfathomable historical self? Or,upon what ground may one commit empiricism?

This essay examines the perspective from which Bas van Fraassen, in his book, The Empirical Stance, explains the project of empiricism. I argue that this perspective is a robustly transcendental perspective, which suggests that the tradition of empiricism lacks the resources to explain itself. I offer an alternative history of epistemic voluntarism in twentieth-century philosophy to the history van Fraassen himself provides, one that finds the novelty in van Fraassen’s own views to be precisely his reintroduction of the knowing mind into the tradition of analytic philosophy of science.     

Aesthetic Experience in Shaftesbury: Richard Glauser

Shaftesbury's theory of aesthetic experience is based on his conception of a natural disposition to apprehend beauty, a real 'form' of things. I examine the implications of the disposition's naturalness. I argue that the disposition is not an extra faculty or a sixth sense, and attempt to situate Shaftesbury's position on this issue between those of Locke and Hutcheson. I argue that the natural disposition is to be perfected in many different ways in order to be exercised in the perception of the different degrees of beauty within Shaftesbury's hierarchy. This leads to the conclusion that the exercise of the disposition depends, from case to case, on many different cognitive and affective conditions, that are realised by the collaborative functionings of our ordinary faculties. Essential to Shaftesbury's conception of aesthetic experience is a disinterested, contemplative love, that causes (or contains) what we may call a 'disinterested pleasure', but also an interested pleasure. I argue that, within any given aesthetic experience, the role of the disinterested pleasure is secondary to that of the disinterested love. However, an important function of the disinterested pleasure is that, in combination with the interested pleasure, it leads one to aspire to pass from the aesthetic experience of lower degrees of beauty to the experience of higher ones in the hierarchy.     

Iterated Non‐Refutation: Robert Lockie on Relativism 1

Abstract

I argue that an experience’s sensuous elements play an ineliminable role in our being intentionally directed upon an entity through perception. More specifically, I argue that whenever we appreciate a sensuous element in experience, we appreciate an intrinsic and irreducibly phenomenal aspect of experience that I call phenomenal presence – an aspect of experience that I show is central to its presentational character – and that the appreciation of phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality. If an experience is to possess intentionality, the experience itself must make an entity available as an object of perceptually-based singular beliefs and the experiencing subject, by virtue of undergoing the experience, must in some sense be able to appreciate that it has done so. Phenomenal presence is necessary for perceptual intentionality because it plays an ineliminable role in making an entity available to its subject in this way.     

Sellars and the "Myth of the Given"

Sellars is well known for his critique of the "myth of the given" in his "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind". That text does not make it unambiguous just how he understands the "myth". Here I take it that whatever else may be involved, his critique is incompatible with the view that there is a nonconceptual mode of "presentation" or "givenness" of particulars that is the heart of sense perception and what is most distinctive of perception as a type of cognition. A critical examination of Sellars' arguments, particularly those directed at the Theory of Appearing, results in the conclusion that he has failed to eliminate the above view of perception. Moreover, though Sellars is clearly opposed to the view that perceptual experience cannot provide justification for beliefs about perceived objects, I argue that Sellars has failed to shake the intuitive plausibility of that view.     

VAN FRAASSEN ON THE NATURE OF EMPIRICISM

Abstract: A traditional view is that to be an empiricist is to hold a particular epistemological belief: something to the effect that knowledge must derive from experience. In his recent book The Empirical Stance, and in a number of other publications, Bas van Fraassen has disagreed, arguing that if empiricism is to be defensible it must instead be thought of as a stance: an attitude of mind or methodological orientation rather than a factual belief. In this article I will examine his arguments for this claim in detail. I will argue that they do not succeed and that empiricism is, contrary to van Fraassen's claim, better thought of as a truth‐evaluable doctrine than as a stance.     

Measure development and the hermeneutic task

I examine the dynamics of measure development using two case studies: temperature, and health-related quality of life. I argue, following Bas van Fraassen and Leah McClimans that in each case these dynamics have a hermeneutic structure. Measure development is plagued by epistemic circularity, as is the task of interpreting a text, and similar strategies can be used in both measure development and hermeneutics to overcome that circularity. I show that Hans Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in particular are an effective lens through which to examine the development of the temperature standard as described by Hasok Chang. Despite similar grounding in hermeneutics, I note an important difference between measure development for temperature and for health-related quality of life. Namely, while the meaning of temperature can be standardized, the meaning of health-related quality of life cannot. This standardization of meaning for the temperature concept represents a limit to the analogy with hermeneutics. Finally, I argue that the indeterminacy we find in health-related quality of life measurement is a result not only of analogy with the hermeneutic task, but of full-fledged participation in it.