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Susanna Schellenberg
Journal Articles:
	“Perceptual Content Defended”. Noûs, forthcoming.
		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.
	“The Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience”. Philosophical Studies, forthcoming.
		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.
	“Ontological 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.
	“Perceptual Content and Reasons for Belief”. Does Perception have Content? ed. B. Brogaard, New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
	“Perceptual Experience and the Capacity to Act”. 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 Ishani Maitra and Brian Weatherson: “Assertion, Knowledge, and Action”, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference 2009
	Comments on Tyler Doggett and Andy Egan: “Wanting Things You Don't Want”, Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference 2007
	Comments on Christopher Peacocke: “Mental Actions”, Peacocke Conference, University of Toronto, 2006