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97Pain and Mental ImageryThe Monist 100 (4): 485-500. 2017.One of the most promising trends both in the neuroscience of pain and in psychiatric treatments of chronic pain is the focus on mental imagery. My aim is to argue that if we take these findings seriously, we can draw very important and radical philosophical conclusions. I argue that what we pretheoretically take to be pain is partly constituted by sensory stimulation-driven pain processing and partly constituted by mental imagery. This general picture can explain some problematic cases of pain p…Read more
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387Blur and perceptual contentAnalysis 78 (2): 254-260. 2018.Intentionalism about visual experiences is the view according to which the phenomenal character of a visual experience supervenes on the content of this experience. One of the most influential objections to this view is about blur: seeing a fuzzy contour clearly and seeing a sharp contour blurrily have different phenomenal character but the same content. I argue that this objection does not work if we understand perceptual content simply, and not particularly controversially, as partly constitut…Read more
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14The Macro and the Micro: Andreas Gursky's AestheticsJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70 (1): 91-100. 2012.
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528Action‐oriented PerceptionEuropean Journal of Philosophy 20 (3): 430-446. 2012.Abstract:When I throw a ball at you, do you see it as catch‐able? Do we perceive objects as edible, climbable or Q‐able in general? One could argue that it is just a manner of speaking to say so: we do not reallyseean object as edible, we only infer on the basis of its other properties that it is. I argue that whether or not an object is edible or climbable is indeed represented perceptually: weseeobjects as edible, and do not just believe that they are. My argument proceeds in two steps. First,…Read more
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31Current Controversies in Philosophy of Perception (edited book)Routledge. 2016.Philosophy of perception is one of the most robust and flourishing fields within contemporary philosophy. This volume casts a spotlight on the subject’s most dynamic conversations, with pairs of philosophers debating six key questions: 1. Are perceptual states representations? 2. How can perception be unconscious? 3. Is attention necessary for perception? 4. In what sense is perception multimodal? 5. How is vision different from other sense modalities? 6. Does perception include both low-level a…Read more
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29Foundationalism Strikes Back? In Search of Epistemically BasicIn René van Woudenberg, Sabine Roeser & Ron Rood (eds.), Basic Belief and Basic Knowledge: Papers in Epistemology, Ontos-verlag. pp. 41. 2005.
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714Is twofoldness necessary for representational seeing?British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (3): 248-257. 2005.Richard Wollheim claimed that twofoldness is a necessary condition for the perception of pictorial representations and it is also a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of pictures. Jerrold Levinson pointed out that these two questions are different and argued that though twofoldness may be a necessary condition for the aesthetic appreciation of pictures, it cannot be a necessary condition for the perception of pictorial representations. I argue that Wollheim's use of the term ‘two…Read more
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312The Dethroning of IdeocracyThe Monist 97 (1): 3-11. 2014.Paper on Robert Musil's philosophical system
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569How to (and how not to) think about top-down influences on visual perceptionConsciousness and Cognition 47 17-25. 2017.The question of whether cognition can influence perception has a long history in neuroscience and philosophy. Here, we outline a novel approach to this issue, arguing that it should be viewed within the framework of top-down information-processing. This approach leads to a reversal of the standard explanatory order of the cognitive penetration debate: we suggest studying top-down processing at various levels without preconceptions of perception or cognition. Once a clear picture has emerged abou…Read more
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277Group selection and our obsession with the grand questions of lifeThe Monist 93 (1): 76-95. 2010.The aim of this paper is to make an unlikely connection between the old question about the meaning of life and some important concepts in philosophy of biology. More precisely, I argue that while biology is unlikely to help us to figure out the meaning of life, the fact that this question has been considered to be such a crucial one could be explained with the help of some consideration of our evolutionary past. I argue that if there is evidence for group selection in the course of human evoluti…Read more
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587Rational Reconstruction ReconsideredThe Monist 93 (4): 598-617. 2010.Here is a dilemma concerning the history of science. Can the history of scientific thought be reduced to the history of the beliefs, motives and actions of scientists? Or should we think of the history of scientific thought as in some sense independent from the history of scientists? The aim of this paper is to carve out an intermediate position between these two. I will argue that the history of scientific thought supervenes on, but not reducible to, the history of scientists. There is a legiti…Read more
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727Imagination and PerceptionIn Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Imagination, Routledge. 2016.Look at a red apple. Now close your eyes and visualize this apple. Your perceptual state and your imagery of the apple are very similar in some respects. They are also different in some respects. The aim of this paper is to address three questions about the relation between perception and imagination: -/- (a) How similar are perception and imagination and what explains this similarity? (b) How different are perception and imagination and what explains this difference? (c) How do perception and …Read more
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934Perceiving picturesPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10 (4): 461-480. 2011.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” …Read more
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98Cognitive penetration and the gallery of indiscernibles.Frontiers in Psychology 5. 2015.Danto's Gallery of Indiscernibles thought experiment only works if we make assumptions about the cognitive impenetrability of perception, which we have strong empirical reasons to reject.
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722What if reality has no architecture?The Monist 94 (2): 181-197. 2011.The aim of this paper is to show that we can deny that reality is neatly segmented into natural kinds and still give a plausible view about what science is supposed to do – and the way science in fact works does not rely on the dubious metaphysical assumption that reality is segmented into natural kinds. The score is simple: either there are natural kinds or there aren’t. The former view has been the default position in mainstream analytic metaphysics and philosophy of science. I want to put the…Read more
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553Do we see apples as edible?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (3): 305-322. 2011.Do we (sometimes) perceive apples as edible? One could argue that it is just a manner of speaking to say so: we do not really see an object as edible, we see it as having certain shape, size and color and we only infer on the basis of these properties that it is. I argue that we do indeed see objects as edible, and do not just believe that they are. My argument proceeds in two steps. First, I point out that Susanna Siegel's influential argument in favor of the claim that we represent sortal prop…Read more
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373Taking twofoldness seriously: Walton on imagination and depictionJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (3). 2004.This paper analyzes Kendall Walton's theory of depiction and, more specifically, his notion of twofoldness. I argue that (1) Walton’s notion of twofoldness is, in spite of what Walton claims, very different from Richard Wollheim’s and (2) Walton’s notion of twofoldness is inconsistent with the rest of his theory of depiction.
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646Action-oriented PerceptionEuropean Journal of Philosophy 20 (3): 430-446. 2010.Abstract: When I throw a ball at you, do you see it as catch-able? Do we perceive objects as edible, climbable or Q-able in general? One could argue that it is just a manner of speaking to say so: we do not really see an object as edible, we only infer on the basis of its other properties that it is. I argue that whether or not an object is edible or climbable is indeed represented perceptually: we see objects as edible, and do not just believe that they are. My argument proceeds in two steps. F…Read more
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304The macro and the microJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70 (1): 91-100. 2012.Andreas Gursky is the darling of philosophers and art theorists of all kinds of traditions and denominations. He has been used as a prime example of the return of the sublime in contemporary art, as a trailblazer in the use of the digital manipulation of images in order to represent something abstract and even as a philosopher of perception who makes some subtle point about the nature of visual experience. All of these arguments are based on some or another technological innovation Gursky …Read more
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845Attention and perceptual contentAnalysis 70 (2): 263-270. 2010.I argue that perceptual content is always affected by the allocation of one’s attention. Perception attributes determinable and determinate properties to the perceived scene. Attention makes (or tries to make) our perceptual attribution of properties more determinate. Hence, a change in our attention changes the determinacy of the properties attributed to the perceived scene.
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496Inflected and uninflected perception of picturesIn Catharine Abell & Katerina Bantinaki (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction, Oxford University Press. 2010.It has been argued that picture perception is sometimes, but not always, ‘inflected’. Sometimes the picture’s design ‘inflects’, or is ‘recruited’ into the depicted scene. The aim of this paper is to cash out what is meant by these metaphors. Our perceptual state is different when we see an object fact to face or when we see it in a picture. But there is also a further distinction: our perceptual state is very different if we perceive objects in pictures in an inflected or uninflected manner. Th…Read more
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651Success semantics: the sequelPhilosophical Studies 165 (1): 151-165. 2013.The aim of this paper is to reinterpret success semantics, a theory of mental content, according to which the content of a belief is fixed by the success conditions of some actions based on this belief. After arguing that in its present form, success semantics is vulnerable to decisive objections, I examine the possibilities of salvaging the core of this proposal. More specifically, I propose that the content of some very simple, but very important, mental states, the immediate mental antecedent…Read more
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294An introduction to contemporary debates in philosophy of perception
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92Entity realism and singularist semirealismSynthese 196 (2): 499-517. 2019.Entity realism is the view that ‘a good many theoretical entities do really exist’. The main novelty of entity realism was that it provided an account of scientific realism that did not have to endorse realism about theories—the general proposal was that entity realism is noncommittal about whether we should be realist about scientific theories. I argue that the only way entity realists can resist the pull of straight scientific realism about theories is by endorsing a recent new player in the s…Read more
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452Population thinking as trope nominalismSynthese 177 (1). 2010.The concept of population thinking was introduced by Ernst Mayr as the right way of thinking about the biological domain, but it is difficult to find an interpretation of this notion that is both unproblematic and does the theoretical work it was intended to do. I argue that, properly conceived, Mayr’s population thinking is a version of trope nominalism: the view that biological property-types do not exist or at least they play no explanatory role. Further, although population thinking has been…Read more
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339Function attribution depends on the explanatory context: A Reply to Neander and Rosenberg's Reply to NanayJournal of Philosophy 109 (10): 623-627. 2012.In ‘A modal theory of function’, I gave an argument against all existing theories of function and outlined a new theory. Karen Neander and Alex Rosenberg argue against both my negative and my positive claim. My aim here is not merely to defend my account from their objections, but to (a) very briefly point out that the new account of etiological function they propose in response to my criticism cannot avoid the circularity worry either and, more importantly, to (b) highlight, and attempt to ma…Read more
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379Perceptual learning, the mere exposure effect and aesthetic antirealismLeonardo 50 58-63. 2017.It has been argued that some recent experimental findings about the mere exposure effect can be used to argue for aesthetic antirealism: the view that there is no fact of the matter about aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is to assess this argument and point out that this strategy, as it stands, does not work. But we may still be able to use experimental findings about the mere exposure effect in order to engage with the aesthetic realism/antirealism debate. However, this argument would nee…Read more
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735Three ways of resisting essentialism about natural kindsIn Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O'Rourke & Matthew H. Slater (eds.), Carving nature at its joints: natural kinds in metaphysics and science, Mit Press. pp. 175--97. 2011.Essentialism about natural kinds has three tenets. The first tenet is that all and only members of a natural kind has some essential properties. The second tenet is that these essential properties play a causal role. The third tenet is that they are explanatorily relevant. I examine the prospects of questioning these tenets and point out that arguing against the first and the second tenets of kind-essentialism would involve taking parts in some of the grand debates of philosophy. But, at least i…Read more
Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland