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Susanna Schellenberg

 

Journal Articles:

 "The Situation-Dependency of Perception" 
        The Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming 2008)

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"   (PDF)
        Mind, 116 (463), July 2007, pp. 603-632.

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.

 

Book Chapters:

 

 “Space, Perspective, and the Abstraction Condition”
        forthcoming in a volume edited by J. Schear, London: Routledge.

 

 

 "Sellarsian Perspectives on Perception and Non-Conceptual Content"
        The Self-Correcting Enterprise: Essays on Wilfrid Sellars, M. Lance, M. Wolf (eds), Rodopi 2006, pp. 173-196.

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

Work in Progress:


  "The Particularity and Phenomenology of Perceptual Experience"

Traditionally, there are two fundamentally different ways of thinking about perception. According to intentionalists, perception is essentially a matter of representing objects, properties, or a scene. According to relationalists, perception is essentially a matter of standing in an awareness or an acquaintance relation to objects, properties, or a scene.  I aim to show that these two approaches are not incompatible and indeed that perception is best thought of as both representational and relational. Intentionalism can easily account for how a perception and a hallucination can be phenomenologically indistinguishable. By contrast, relationalism can easily account for the particularity of perceptual experience.  I  argue that any account of perceptual experience should explain both the particularity of perception and the possibility that a perception and a hallucination are phenomenologically indistinguishable. I argue that these two desiderata can be accommodated if the content of experience is understood in terms of potentially gappy content schemas. This way of thinking about the content of expereince makes it possible to acknowledge that a perception and a phenomenologically indistinguishable hallucination differ in content while recognizing that they have a common element.

    

  "In Defense of Perceptual Content"

It used to be common ground that perceptual experience represents the world as being one way rather than another. Recently this intuition has been questioned by austere relationalists. With relationalists I argue that veridical perceptions  essentially involve relations to material objects. But against austere relationalists, I argue that embracing this insight does not require conceiving of perceptual experience as non-representational. I present a way of thinking about the content of perceptual experience that does not fall prey to the relationalist criticisms of intentionalist accounts of perception. In short the idea is that the content of experience consists of an element that is object-independent and of an element that is object-dependent—at least in the case of a veridical perception.

 

  "Introspection and Particularity"

 


   Perception in Perspective (book project)




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