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Susanna Schellenberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journal Articles:

 

 

 

 

 

"Minimalism about Phenomenology". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Situation-Dependency of Perception". The Journal of Philosophy, 105 (2), Feb 2008, pp. 55-84.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Action and Self-Location in Perception". Mind, 116 (463), July 2007, pp. 603-632.   (PDF)

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Begriff, Gehalt, Folgerung". Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 48 (5), 2000, pp. 780-789. [Translated Title: Concept, Content, Inferences]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book Chapters:

 

 

 

 

 

“Externalism and the Gappy Content of Hallucination”. Hallucination, ed. F. E. Macpherson, Cambridge: MIT Press, forthcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Self-Location and the Asymmetry of Perceptual Evidence”. Perception, Action, and Consciousness, ed. N. Gangopadhay, M. Madary, and F. Spicer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Space and Perspective”. The Myth of the Mental? ed. J. Schear, London: Routledge, forthcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"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.

 

 

 

 

I argue for a way of understanding the particularity of perception within the framework of a conceptual role semantics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review of Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment, by Robert Brandom, Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger 51, 1998, pp. 187-195.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unpublished Comments:

 

 

 

 

Comments on Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan: "Wanting Things You Don't Want", presented at the Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on Christopher Peacocke: "Mental Actions", presented at the Peacocke Conference, University of Toronto 10/5/06