•  23
    Reply to Thomas Metzinger and Bettina Walde
    Consciousness and Cognition 9 (3): 363-369. 2000.
  •  33
    Language, ecological structure, and across-population sharing
    with Alexa Bódog, gábor P. háden, and Zsolt Palatinus
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4): 490-491. 2005.
    We propose a way to achieve across-population sharing within the authors' model in a way that is plausibly in accordance with human evolution, and also a simple way to capture ecological structure. Finally, we briefly reflect on the model's scope and limits in modeling linguistic communication.
  •  171
    Intrinsic colors - and what it is like to see them
    In R. Mausfeld & D. Heyer (eds.), Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World., Oxford University Press. pp. 303-306. 2003.
    This is a commentary on Laurence Maloney’s chapter in Mausfeld R., and Heyer, D. (Eds.): Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. I discuss two related proposals as to the nature of object color formulated by Maloney. On the first proposal colors are photoreceptor excitations; on the second, they are fundamental, universal reflectance characteristics of terrestrial surfaces. I argue that the second proposal is suitable for purposes of color objectivi…Read more
  •  245
    Overlooking the resources of functionalism?
    with Zolt&Aacute Jakab and N.
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (6): 957-957. 1999.
    Although the author's critical view of functionalism has a considerable intuitive pull, his argument based on the color room scenario does not work. Functionalism and other relational views of the mind are capable of providing coherent accounts of conscious experience that meet the challenge set up by the “color room argument.” A simple example of such an account is presented.
  •  43
    The phenomenal character of conscious experience has long been regarded as the major problem for physicalist accounts of consciousness. In recent years, defenders of physicalism have typically been relying on the so-called Phenomenal Concept Strategy to avoid dualism. In this paper, we argue with PCS that cognitive-physicalistic explanations can account for the peculiarities of phenomenal character. However, we think that the conceptual features PCS investigates are not the genuine causes of the…Read more
  •  77
    Ineffability of qualia: A straightforward naturalistic explanation
    Consciousness and Cognition 9 (3): 329-351. 2000.
    In this paper I offer an explanation of the ineffability (linguistic inexpressibility) of sensory experiences. My explanation is put in terms of computational functionalism and standard externalist theories of representational content. As I will argue, many or most sensory experiences are representational states without constituent structure. This property determines both the representational function these states can serve and the information that can be extracted from them when they are proces…Read more
  • Color Experience: Empirical Evidence Against Representational Externalism
    Dissertation, Carleton University (Canada). 2001.
    Contrary to some well-known views in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, in general it is not the case that the felt character of sensory experiences is determined by the information that these experiences pick up, or represent, about the world. In this dissertation I shall focus on a particular sensory modality, namely color vision, to support this thesis. ;Recently there has arisen a strong and popular view of phenomenal consciousness according to which the two fundamental problems a…Read more
  •  135
    Revelation and normativity in visual experience
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36 (1): 25-56. 2006.
    A traditional explanation that dates back to Aristotle is that we access color in one perceptual modality only, whereas shape we perceive via two different modalities: visual and tactile. Two independent modalities make possible a verification of our percepts which is not possible for qualities accessed in one modality only.
  •  714
    In this chapter, data concerning the development of principal aspects of vision is reviewed. First, the development of colour vision and luminance perception is discussed. Relevant data accumulated so far indicates that perception of colour and luminance is present by 6-9 months of age. The presence of typical color illusions at this age suggests that the phenomenal character of color experience is comparable to that of adults well before the first birthday. Thus it seems plausible that color p…Read more
  •  1786
    Reflectance Physicalism About Color: The Story Continues
    Croatian Journal of Philosophy 12 (3): 463-488. 2012.
    A stubborn problem for reflectance physicalism about color is to account for individual differences in normal trichromat color perception. The identification of determinate colors with physical properties of visible surfaces in a universal, perceiver-independent way is challenged by the observation that the same surfaces in identical viewing conditions often look different in color to different human subjects with normal color vision. Recently, leading representatives of reflectance physicalism …Read more
  •  77
    How to improve on Quinian bootstrapping – a response to nativist objections
    Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 2013.
    Quinian bootstrapping is Susan Carey's solution to Fodor’s paradox of concept learning. Carey claims that contrary to Fodor’s view, not all learning amounts to hypothesis testing, and that there are ways in which even primitive concepts can be learned. Recently Georges Rey has argued that Carey’s attempt to refute radical concept nativism is unsuccessful. First it cannot explain how the expressive power of mental representational systems could increase due to learning. Second, both Fodorian circ…Read more
  •  63
    Why not color physicalism without color absolutism?
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (1): 34-35. 2003.
    We make three points. First, the concept of productance value that the authors propose in their defense of color physicalism fails to do the work for which it is intended. Second, the authors fail to offer an adequate physicalist account of what they call the hue-magnitudes. Third, their answer to the problem of individual differences faces serious difficulties.
  •  517
    In this paper I argue that there are problems with the foundations of the current version of physicalism about color. In some sources laying the foundations of physicalism, types of surface reflectance corresponding to (veridical) color perceptions are characterized by making reference to properties of the observer. This means that these surface attributes are not objective (i.e. observer-independent). This problem casts doubt on the possibility of identifying colors with types of surface reflec…Read more
  •  47
    Phenomenal projection
    PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 9. 2003.
    In this paper I shall defend a projectivist view of sensory experience. The case I shall focus on is that of color experience. Projectivism has recently been criticized by some authors who claim that it is unintelligible, or at least implausible, and that it makes a severe category mistake. I shall argue that despite some prima facie impressions of implausibility, projectivism can be made intelligible, and plausible, if its details are spelled out in a reasonable way. In addition, projectivism i…Read more