Alberto Voltolini

In (2025), contra Voltolini (2021) in his revised endorsement of Wollheim’s theory of seeing-in as applied to mirrors, Luca Marchetti argues that mirror perception is not a seeing-in perception. Instead, for Marchetti mirror perception is a particular kind of transparency perception, since he actually departs from the standard account of transparency perception as applied to mirrors, according to which in that perception one sees the real object facing the mirror through the mirror itself. For according to Marchetti, in having to do perceptually with a mirror, one sees a virtual object through it. However, not only Marchetti’s negative arguments, though intriguing, are not ultimately convincing, since they can be resisted bya defender of the seeing-in approach to mirror perception. But also, his positive thesis that mirror perception is a particular kind of transparency perception does not ultimately serve its critical purposes.

According to a position which has dominated the theoretical landscape in the philosophy of mind until recently, only sensory states exhibit a characteristic phenomenal dimension, whereas cognitive states either utterly lack it, or inherit it from some of their accompanying sensory states. This position has recently been challenged by several scholars who have stressed the irreducibility of cognitive phenomenology to a merely sensory one. The aim of this introductory paper is to provide a general overview of the debate on cognitive phenomenology in order to give the reader a flavor of the richness of the themes that surround this area of investigation centered on the relationship between consciousness and cognition.

In this paper, I first want to provide an argument (actually, a two-step argument) in favor of the claim that, qua primitive form of phenomenology, cognitive phenomenology is not only irreducible to, but also independent of, sensory phenomenology. Second, I want to claim that the two cognitive phenomenologies that the previous argument has respectively shown to be independent of and merely irreducible to sensory phenomenology, namely the phenomenology of having thoughts and that of understanding thoughts, also instantiate different general kinds of cognitive phenomenology, i.e., a merely proprietary phenomenology and a both proprietary and distinctive phenomenology respectively. Third, I gesture towards a generalization of this distinction: any independent cognitive phenomenology is merely proprietary, any irreducible cognitive phenomenology is both proprietary and distinctive. In order to do so, finally, I have to dismantle Pitt’s (2004) argument to the effect that all cognitive phenomenology is not only both proprietary and distinctive, but also individuative.

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I want to show how picture perception is specifically presentational, hence specifically perceptual, by suitably reinterpreting Richard Wollheim’s conception of seeing-in. Picture perception is such for it only ascribes the presence of the picture’s subject in its content, but not in its mode, for the subject is visually known not to be there: thus, it amounts to a knowingly illusory perceptual experience of such a presence. Second, I want to show how this presentational specificity does not prevent the picture itself from being properly presentational of the properties that are ascribed, within its perception, to its subject: the design properties of the picture’s vehicle present the perceivable properties ascribed to the picture’s subject just as the sensory features of a standard perceptual experience present the perceivable properties of its object.

Fiction is first of all a pragmatico-semantic phenomenon, according to which in order to ascribe fictionality to something we must locate ourselves in a context different from a real one, so that that very something acquires a fictional meaning within this new context. Yet cognitively speaking fictionality is more than that. Fictionality involves the capacity of representing both the real world and an imaginary world, along with the metarepresentational capacity of representing to oneself that the first representation is different from the second representation.

In (2025), contra Voltolini (2021) in his revised endorsement of Wollheim’s theory of seeing-in as applied to mirrors, Luca Marchetti argues that mirror perception is not a seeing-in perception. Instead, for Marchetti mirror perception is a particular kind of transparency perception, since he actually departs from the standard account of transparency perception as applied to mirrors, according to which in that perception one sees the real object facing the mirror through the mirror itself. For according to Marchetti, in having to do perceptually with a mirror, one sees a virtual object through it. However, not only Marchetti’s negative arguments, though intriguing, are not ultimately convincing, since they can be resisted bya defender of the seeing-in approach to mirror perception. But also, his positive thesis that mirror perception is a particular kind of transparency perception does not ultimately serve its critical purposes.

ABSTRACT I want to hold an original position as regards the metaphysics of mythical entities, a kind of fictional entities that, typically at least, are not recognised as such by their purported authors, for they entertain no relevant act of make-believe. This position is weak mythical creationism, which lies between straightforward mythical creationism, the position holding that all mythical entities are on a par by being created by their purported authors (Braun, David. 2005. “Empty Names, Fictional Names, Mythical Names.” Noûs 39: 596–631; Salmon, Nathan. 2002. “Mythical Objects.” In Meaning and Truth: Investigations in Philosophical Semantics, edited by J. K. Campbell, M. O’Rourke, and D. Shier, 105–123. New York: Seven Bridges Press; Zvolenszky, Zsofia. 2016. “Fictional Characters, Mythical Objects and the Phenomenon of Inadvertent Creation.” Res Philosophica 93: 311–333), and mythical anticreationism, for which mythical entities are no artefactual creations (Goodman, Jeffrey. 2014. “Creatures of Fiction, Objects of Myth.” Analysis 74: 35–40; Goodman, Jeffrey. 2017. “On Inadvertently Created Abstracta, Fictional Storytelling, and Scientific Hypothesizing.” Res Philosophica 94: 177–188). According to weak mythical creationism, one must draw a distinction between standard and nonstandard mythical entities, i.e. legendary entities and post-empirical posits. For unlike legendary entities, a post-empirical posit is an artefact created only later by an audience. Thus, weak creationism rejects the form of mythical backward-looking creationism that straightforward mythical creationism entails: namely, the idea that the merely purported authors of post-empirical posits are nevertheless their original creators.

By reprising a venerable Cartesian-Husserlian-Cantabridgean tradition, some people have recently maintained that the mark of the mental (MOM), i.e., the necessary and sufficient conditions in order for something—a property, an event, a state—to be mental, is for that state to be an experience, viz. to be featured by a certain phenomenal character, i.e., a certain what-it-is-like, whether sensuous or not (as people believing in so-called non-sensuous phenomenology hold, e.g. Pitt 2004; Kriegel 2015; Montague 2016), so as for the experience to be phenomenally aware/conscious—e.g. Strawson (2004, 2008), Gertler (2007), Nida-Rümelin (2017). By developing what actually is a new option of the so-called acquaintance theories of phenomenal awareness, I claim that phenomenal awareness simply contributes to make an experience a state in which the qualitative intrinsic property F featuring it is truthfully predicated, viz. instantiated, by its instantiator, a subject, in a mode different from the mode in which it is instantiated by its instantiator in the underlying neural state F also features. In other words, the fact that such an instantiator is F means different things, depending on whether F is truthfully predicated of her in the experiential-constitutive way, thereby determining an experience, or in a non-experiential-constitutive way, thereby determining a merely neural state on which the experience necessarily supervenes. Let me call this theory the copula theory of experience.

What is the mind? If nobody asks me what it is, I well know the answer. For I daily speak of mental states, events, and properties, such as my present state of euphoria while starting this book, my sudden fear that the book will be hard to understand, and my hoping that the value of its contributors will dispel that fear. Yet if somebody asks me what it is, I get in trouble. Is the mind something that belongs to the physical, or more generally the natural, world, so that empirical sciences may contribute in letting me understand what it is? Or is it something that exceeds the natural world, so that in this respect appealing to empirical sciences is useless? And if it exceeds the natural world, what this exceedance is constituted by? Is it the case that the mind contains some normative element, hence it belongs to a world of institutions and values rather than to a world of mere natural items? Or has the exceedance to do with the fact that the mind is basically spiritual, while a spirit is something that at most co-exists with a natural world, taken as a mere Cartesian res extensa, but it is utterly independent of it? But if it is something that exceeds the natural world, is it really the case that there is such a thing, or is it just a philosopher’s myth that ordinary people do not care, since at most the only phenomenon that such people are really involved with is the linguistic phenomenon by means of which we ascribe first to others and then to ourselves mental states, events, and properties?

This book explores new perspectives on venerable problems about being mental that have always attracted philosophers’ attention. For human beings, being mental is one of the most fascinating research subjects, since having a mind is the feature that makes our life unique. Yet what does mentality really consist in? Is there a realm of the mental that can be singled out from other domains, and in what relation does being mental stand with other basic features of the world, notably being physical or having a body? By linking mentality with intentionality, phenomenal consciousness, and other interesting features this book provides a fresh perspective on philosophy of mind.

In this paper, I explore the consequences of the thesis that externalism and internalism are (possibly, but as we will see not necessarily, opposite) metaphysical doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought. If I am right, this thesis primarily entails that at least some naturalist positions on the ontology of the mind, namely the reductionistic ones, are hardly compatible with both externalism and a version of internalism so conceived, namely relational internalism. Indeed, according to both externalism and relational internalism, intentionality constitutes (or at least grounds) the relational content property providing the individuation conditions of a thought, as a relation to an outer or to an inner object respectively. Yet since intentionality turns out to be a modal, hence a nonnatural, property, both externalism and relational internalism deny to thoughts at least token-identity with physical states. Finally, I will give some support to the idea that externalism and internalism must be interpreted as doctrines on the individuation conditions of a thought.

A suitable account of fiction must involve a conceptual distinction between (at least) the following figures, or roles: real authors, fictional narrators, fictional authors. Real authors are the real original utterers of fiction-involving sentences in their fictional use, the one mobilizing pretense. They may coincide (although this would be rare) either with fictional narrators or with fictional authors. A fictional narrator is the protagonist of a tale that is narrated in the first person: the internal point of view on the tale. A fictional author constitutes the tale’s external point of view that vividly manifests itself when the tale is narrated by no protagonist. Fictional narrators, however, never coincide with fictional authors. For either one or the other is the fictional agent, the one-place factor of a narrow fictional context of interpretation whose contribution is to provide a fictional truth-conditional content to the fiction-involving sentences of the relevant tale.

This chapter is about ontological issues that arise in the context of discourse within and about fiction and fictional characters. Our main focus will be on the divide between broadly realist accounts of fictional characters (the entities supposedly designated by purely fictional terms) and broadly antirealist accounts. Understanding what is at stake requires a brief look both at the nature of fiction, and at the nature of fictional language, in particular the ways in which the semantics of fictional language raises ontological issues. We also consider some arguments that are more directly ontological. In the final section, we turn from ontology to metaphysics and look at the dominant realist theories of fictional objects.

A venerable view starting with Plato holds that shadows can be pictures. Yet independently of whether Plato’s illusionist-like theory of depiction is correct, it nowadays seems that the perceptual experience affecting shadow apprehension goes against the view. For that experience seems to be either a perception of physical transparency or a perception of _ephemera_; hence, nothing that may, at least _prima facie_, count as a pictorial experience. In this paper, however, I will first try to show that shadows perception either is not perception of physical transparency or, if it is perception of _ephemera_, this does not prevent it from being a perception of something having a pictorial value. Second, I will try to show that since shadows can be grasped in seeing-in experiences _à la_ Wollheim, they can be _bona fide_ pictures, i.e., _pictorial_ representations viz. _depictions_, under the Wollheimian conception that a seeing-in experience is the mark of pictoriality, i.e., the necessary condition in order for something to be a _bona fide_ picture.

This paper critically examines leading feminist philosophical arguments asserting that inegalitarian pornography inherently perpetuates the objectification and silencing of women, thereby warranting moral condemnation or legal restriction. While recognizing the seriousness of these concerns, we argue that neither objection holds, regardless of how objectification or silencing is conceptualized. Central to our position is the distinction between fictional and non-fictional pornography. As fiction, we contend, pornography does not intrinsically validate real-world beliefs or behaviors regarding women’s subordination. Even in non-fictional (“documentary”) contexts, the purported causal link between pornography and harm remains unsubstantiated. The paper deliberately sets aside ethical concerns about coercion in pornography’s production (e.g., exploitation, abuse) to focus on its alleged social effects. By interrogating the assumed mechanisms of influence—whether through fictional representation or documentary realism—we challenge the foundational premises of anti-pornography arguments and advocate for a more nuanced assessment of pornography’s role in shaping social norms.

Perceptual experiences and imaginative experiences phenomenally are both similar and dissimilar. They are phenomenally similar in that they may share their presentational character: namely, certain of their own properties in their feature of presenting worldly properties. Yet they are phenomenally dissimilar insofar as their mode is respectively constituted by a feeling of presence towards their objects and by presentification, which is a make-believe neutralizing modification of that feeling. Since mode counts for the metaphysical individuation of a mental state, then perceptual and imaginative experiences characterize metaphysically different kinds of such states.

In this article, I want to defend two claims. First, as regards fictional characters (ficta), one must appeal to constitutive properties, i.e., properties that are not only necessary but also essential for a fictum involved by a certain narration; namely, the internal discourse about a fictum. Such properties are indeed the properties that are truly predicated of ficta, either explicitly or implicitly, in that narration. For the appeal to such properties may explain not only i) the truth of important bits of external discourse, i.e., the discourse concerning a fictum outside that narration, but also ii) a fictum’s individuation, i.e., what makes that fictum the object it is. Second, ficta are truly internally predicated such properties, i.e., they possess such properties in a specific, constitutive, mode. For those properties are members of the property sets with which ficta are somehow correlated; indeed, possession of truly internally predicated properties precisely amounts to set-membership.