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Susanna Schellenberg |
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Journal Articles: |
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“Perceptual
Content Defended”. Noûs, forthcoming. |
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Recently the thesis
that experience is fundamentally a matter of representing the world as being
a certain way has been questioned by austere relationalists.
I defend this thesis by developing a view of perceptual content that avoids
the objections of austere relationalists. The main
thesis of the paper is that on a relational understanding of perceptual
content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism
do not compete with perceptual experience being representational. I argue
that most austere relationalist objections to the
thesis that experience has content are objections only against accounts of
perceptual content on which perceptual relations to the world play no
explanatory role. With austere relationalists, I
will argue that perceptual experience is fundamentally relational. But
against austere relationalists, I will argue that
it is fundamentally both relational and representational. |
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“The
Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience”. Philosophical
Studies, forthcoming. (penultimate draft) |
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I argue that any account of perceptual
experience should satisfy the following two desiderata. First, it should account
for the particularity of perceptual experience, that is, it should account
for the mind-independent object of an experience making a difference to
individuating the experience. Second, it should explain the possibility that
perceptual relations to distinct environments could yield subjectively
indistinguishable experiences. Relational views of perceptual experience
can easily satisfy the first but not the second desideratum. Representational
views can easily satisfy the second but not the first desideratum. I argue
that to satisfy both desiderata perceptual experience is best conceived of as
fundamentally both relational and representational. I develop a view of
perceptual experience that synthesizes the virtues of relationalism
and representationalism, by arguing that perceptual
content is constituted by potentially gappy de re
modes of presentation. |
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“Ontological
Minimalism about Phenomenology”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
forthcoming. (penultimate draft) |
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I develop a view of the common factor between
subjectively indistinguishable perceptions and hallucinations that avoids analyzing
experiences as involving awareness relations to abstract entities,
sense-data, or any other peculiar entities. The main thesis is that
hallucinating subjects employ concepts (or analogous nonconceptual
structures), namely the very same concepts that in a subjectively
indistinguishable perceptual experience are employed as a consequence of
being related to external, mind-independent objects or property-instances.
These concepts and non-conceptual structures are identified with modes of
presentation types. Since a hallucinating subject is not related to any such
objects or property-instances, the concepts she employs remain unsaturated. I
argue that the phenomenology of hallucinations and perceptions can be
identified with employing concepts and analogous nonconceptual structures. By
doing so, I defend an ontologically minimalist view of the phenomenology of
experience that (1) satisfies the Aristotelian principle according to which
the existence of any type depends on its tokens and (2) amounts to a naturalized
view of the phenomenology of experience. |
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“The
Situation-Dependency of Perception”. The Journal of Philosophy, 105 (2), Feb 2008, pp. 55-84. (PDF) |
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I argue that perception is necessarily
situation-dependent. The way an object is must not just be distinguished from
the way it appears and the way it is represented, but also from the way it is
presented given the situational features. First, I argue that the way an
object is presented is best understood in terms of external,
mind-independent, but situation-dependent properties of objects.
Situation-dependent properties are exclusively sensitive to and ontologically
dependent on the intrinsic properties of objects, such as their shape, size,
and color, and the situational features, such as the lighting conditions and
the perceiver’s location in relation to the perceived object. Second, I argue
that perceiving intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on
representing situation-dependent properties. Recognizing situation-dependent
properties yields four advantages. It makes it possible to embrace the
motivations that lead to phenomenalism and indirect
realism by recognizing that objects are presented a certain way, while
holding on to the intuition that subjects directly perceive objects. Second,
it acknowledges that perceptions are not just individuated by the objects
they are of, but by the ways those objects are presented given the
situational features. Third, it allows for a way to accommodate the fact that
there is a wide range of viewing conditions or situational features that can
count as normal. Finally, it makes it possible to distinguish perception and
thought about the same object with regard to what is represented. |
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“Action and Self-Location in
Perception”. Mind, 116
(463), July 2007, pp. 603-632. (PDF) |
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I offer an explanation of how subjects are able to
perceive the intrinsic spatial properties of objects, given that subjects
always perceive from a particular location. The argument proceeds in two
steps. First, I argue that a conception of space is necessary to perceive the
intrinsic spatial properties of objects. This conception of space is spelled
out by showing that perceiving intrinsic properties requires perceiving
objects as the kind of things that are perceivable from other locations.
Second, I show that having such a conception of space presupposes that a
subject represent her location in relation to perceived objects. More
precisely the thesis is that a subject represents her location as the
location from which she both perceives objects and would act in relation to
objects were she to act. So I argue that perception depends on the capacity
to know what it would be to act in relation to objects. |
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“Begriff, Gehalt, Folgerung”. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 48 (5),
2000, pp. 780-789. [Translated Title: Concept, Content, Inferences] |
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Book Chapters: |
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“Externalism and the Gappy
Content of Hallucination”. Hallucination, ed. F. E. Macpherson, Cambridge: MIT Press,
forthcoming. |
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“Perceptual Content and Reasons for Belief”. Does Perception
have Content? ed. B. Brogaard,
New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming. |
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“Perceptual Experience and the Capacity to Act”. Perception,
Action, and Consciousness, ed. N. Gangopadhay,
M. Madary, and F. Spicer, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, forthcoming. |
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“Space and Perspective”. The Myth of the Mental? ed. J. Schear, London: Routledge,
forthcoming. |
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“Sellarsian Perspectives on Perception and
Non-Conceptual Content”. The
Self-Correcting Enterprise: Essays on Wilfrid Sellars, ed. M.
Lance, M. Wolf, Rodopi 2006, pp. 173-196. |
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I argue for a way of understanding the particularity
of perception within the framework of a conceptual
role semantics. |
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Review: |
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Review of Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and
Discursive Commitment, by Robert Brandom, Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger 51, 1998, pp. 187-195. |
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Unpublished Comments: |
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Comments on Ishani Maitra and Brian Weatherson:
“Assertion, Knowledge, and Action”, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference
2009 |
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Comments on Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan: “Wanting Things
You Don't Want”, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference 2007 |
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Comments on Christopher Peacocke: “Mental Actions”,
Peacocke Conference, University of Toronto, 2006 |
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