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63Two more proofs of present qualiaTheoria 56 (1-2): 3-22. 1990.Now in so far as it is recognized that the constituents of the environment are not present inside the body in the same way as they are present outside it, to that extent they are bound, the moment they are inside it, to become something essentially different from the environment.
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8Faith as Ethically Basic to the Task of ConstructingConstructivist Foundations 7 (1): 31-33. 2011.Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: The aim is to show that, although Schmidt’s thesis must in most respects be warmly welcomed, there is an unexpressed implication concerning the dialogic structure of language that, when drawn out plainly, reveals a further valuable move open to the theory. I offer it therefore as a clarification of his theory with which I hope Schmidt may agree. He…Read more
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19The Entity Fallacy in EpistemologyPhilosophy 67 (259). 1992.In order to entertain the argument to be presented here, you have to begin by casting away a presupposition. The ultimate aim will be to restore it again as a presupposition, but the immediate aim will be to test for and make clear its undoubted worth and usefulness by imagining what happens to our knowledge-system when we remove it
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158The Case for Qualia (edited book)MIT Press. 2008.Philosophical and scientific defenses of Indirect Realism and counterarguments to the attacks of qualiaphobes.
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18New Representationalisms: Essays in the Philosophy of Perception (edited book)Ashgate. 1993.These essays in the philosophy of perception cover a variety of topics, among which are included science, souls and sense-data, perception and scepticism, the causal representation theory of perception, semantic presence, the impact of contemporary neuroscience and hypothesis and illusion.
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16Clamping and motivationBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (5): 643-644. 2003.Arthur M. Glenberg omits discussion of motivation and this leads him to an underestimation of the part played by pleasure and pain and desire and fear in both the clamping and the updating of percepts. This commentary aims at rectifying this omission, showing that mutual correction plays an important role.
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14The question of the assumed givenness of the singularity of the targetBehavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4): 514-514. 2005.Interesting as the experiments are, their relevance to the real-life situation is rendered questionable by the unthinking use of given singularities as target objects. The evolutionary process does not respect what one agent takes to be a singular referent. A “singling” from the continuum is rather a varying feature of the necessity to track what is rewarding in it.
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38Percepts are selected from nonconceptual sensory fieldsBehavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (4): 429-430. 2003.Steven Lehar allows too much to his direct realist opponent in using the word “subjective” of the sensory field per se. The latter retains its nonconceptual, nonmental nature even when explored by perceptual judgement. He also needs to stress the evolutionary value of perceptual differences between person and person, a move that enables one to undermine the direct realist's superstitious certainty about the singular object.
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101More qualia trouble for functionalism: The Smythies TV-Hood analogySynthese 97 (3): 365-82. 1993.It is the purpose of this article to explicate the logical implications of a television analogy for perception, first suggested by John R. Smythies (1956). It aims to show not only that one cannot escape the postulation of qualia that have an evolutionary purpose not accounted for within a strong functionalist theory, but also that it undermines other anti-representationalist arguments as well as some representationalist ones.
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68Gestalt Switching: Hanson, Aronson, and HarrePhilosophy of Science 59 (3): 480-86. 1992.This discussion takes up an attack by Jerrold Aronson (seconded by Rom Harre) on the use made by Norwood R. Hanson of the Gestalt-Switch Analogy in the philosophy of science. Aronson's understanding of what is implied in a gestalt switch is shown to be flawed. In his endeavor to detach conceptual understanding from perceptual identification he cites several examples, without realizing the degree to which such gestalt switches can affect conceptualizing or how conceptualizing can affect gestalts.…Read more
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18A visual registration can be coloured without being a pictureBehavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2): 214-214. 2002.Zenon Pylyshyn here repeats the same error as in his original article (1973) in starting with the premiss that all cognition is a matter of perceiving entities already given in their singularity. He therefore fails to acknowledge the force of the evolutionary argument that perceiving is a motivated process working upon a non-epistemic sensory registration internal to the brain.
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‘What it Isn’t Like’1 (January, 1996), 23-45American Philosophical Quarterly 33 (1): 23-42. 1996.From an Indirect Realist point of view, the Knowledge Argument in the philosophy of perception has been misdirected by its very title. If it can be argued that sense-fields are at their basis no more than evidence, indeed, a part of existence as brute as what is usually termed the 'external', then, if 'knowing' is not essential to sensing, that argument has to be radically reconstructed. Resistance to there being an non-epistemic or 'raw feel' basis for sensing is very fashionable at the momen…Read more
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64In view of the excellent arguments that have been put forth recently in favour of qualia, internal sensory presentations, it would strike an impartial observer - one could imagine a future historian of philosophy - as extremely odd why so many philosophers who are opposed to qualia, that is, sensory experiences internal to the brain, have largely ignored those arguments in their own. There has been a fashionable assumption that any theory of perception which espouses qualia has long since been o…Read more
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1Pre-phenomenal adjustments and Sanford's illusion objection against sense-dataPacific Philosophical Quarterly 64 (July): 266-272. 1983.
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93Dennett as illusionistJournal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 23 (2): 157-167. 2003.Mark Crooks's article correctly draws attention to the ambiguous use of the notion of 'illusion' by Daniel Dennett in its arguments against theories that postulate the existence of qualia. The present comment extends that criticism by showing how Dennett's strictures reveal a failure to perceive an illusion in Dennett's own arguments. First, the inadequacy of his dismissal of inner registration is shown to be based in a prejudicial interpretation of the case for qualia. Second, his resistance to…Read more
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38A non-epistemic, non-pictorial, internal, material visual fieldBehavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (5): 1010-1011. 2001.The authors O'Regan & Noë (O&N) have ignored the case for the visual field as being non-epistemic evidence internal to the brain, having no pictorial similarity to the external input, and being material in ontological status. They are also not aware of the case for the evolutionary advantage of learning as the perceptual refashioning of such non-epistemic sensory evidence via motivated feedback in sensorimotor activity.
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24The title of this paper is 'The Story of the Story'. If its argument is valid, I cannot be speaking to you now, trying to change your view of something without telling a story myself, even about the Story. Over the last two decades there has been an increasing number of people in a variety of disciplines telling us that the story, narrative, is an inescapable feature of human communication. Listen to a few representative voices. from psychology - Theodore Sarbin: 'Human beings think, perceive, i…Read more
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32Perceiving socially and morally: A question of triangulationPhilosophy 80 (311): 53-75. 2005.One evolutionary advantage is that, because of sensory and perceptual relativity (acknowledged as an empirical fact), the tracking of portions of the real relevant to the living creature can be enhanced if updating from species-member to species-member can take place. In human perception, the structure is therefore in the form of a triangulation (Davidson's metaphor) in which continual mutual correction can be performed. Language, that which distinguishes human beings from other animals, capital…Read more