Argumenta – Journal of Analytic Philosophy

The usual considerations about high-level properties perception focus on contents of perceptual experiences. While different types of high-level properties are considered, such as category-related, causal, emotional, and aesthetic, they are all interpreted as elements of experiential content. This paper introduces a new category of perceptual properties—structural phenomenal properties—by utilizing the important distinction between experiential contents and experiential structures. It is argued that while these are not content-properties, some of them have characteristics typical of high-level content properties. In particular, three structural phenomenal properties related to the visual field will be…

The ability to socialize in early life depends on developing commonalities with others. But what exactly constitutes the “sense of us” or the “we-perspective”? The interaction theory (IT) offers an attractive alternative to mindreading theories, such as theory-theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST), by presenting a further development of enactivism. During embodied interactions, individuals “directly” and “smartly” perceive the mental states of others. Despite the intuitive appeal of direct acquaintance with others’ mental states, IT relies on crude metaphors. We aim to retain IT’s core intuition—the embodied, embedded, enactive, and…

In this paper, first of all, I want to give a criterion for the perceivability of higher-level properties, i.e., the properties that depend for their own instantiation on the instantiation of low-level properties (colors, shapes, sounds, textures …); namely, conditions that are necessary and jointly sufficient in order for such a property to be perceivable. Here it is: the higher-level property is given i) immediately; ii) via a grouping operation that involves a perceptual form of attention Moreover, I want to show why some candidate higher-level properties fulfill it and…

One of the primary objections to the biological approach revolves around what is known as the transplant intuition. That is, the allegedly widely shared intuition that if we had our cerebrum transplanted into a different body, we would be transferred to that body along with our cerebrum. Drawing upon our understanding of brain death, this paper argues that either (1) the transplant intuition should be rejected, and the biological approach has the advantage of being consistent with that rejection; or (2) the psychological approach, the biological approach’s main rival, cannot…

Smith’s Film, Art and the Third Culture is dedicated to developing a naturalized aesthetics of film, and at the heart of his proposal for a methodological “triangulation” is the principle that our research should take serious account of three levels of analysis, each with its respective type of evidence: the phenomenological level, the psychological level, and the neurophysiological level. While Smith addresses many aspects of our perceptual, emotional, and cognitive engagement with movies within this framework, he rarely discusses what underlies our visual engagement with films: the fact that they…

Considerable interest has been recently devoted to analyzing picture perception and its differences from vis-à-vis perception. However, an exhaustive theory of picture perception requires explaining the difference between these two perceptual states and the one we are in when facing pictorial illusions like trompe l’oeils, which foster the impression of being in front of a real object available for interaction. One standard story is that these illusions prevent the viewer from perceiving the surface, which is instead possible with usual pictures, this causing the pictorial space to be perceived as…

This paper explores the structural parallels between Gettier’s challenge to the justified true belief account of knowledge and Chisholm’s problem of wayward causal chains in action theory. Despite their distinct domains, both issues highlight the necessity of an adequate connection between explanation, justification, and outcome. Based on this analysis, this paper argues that the distinction between theoretical and practical rationality is less rigid than traditionally assumed. The paper further contends that, while a solution to the issue of wayward causal chains can at least be hypothesized, previous analyses have primarily…

Fred Dretske made important contributions to the debate concerning how to distinguish perception from cognition, to the question of whether perceptual content is ‘Rich’ or ‘Sparse’ and to developing the thesis that perceptual experience employs a distinctively iconic format of representation. In Dretske (2015) he offered a method or criterion for determining whether or not two subjects have visual experiences with different phenomenal characters, which he dubbed the ‘Goldilocks Test’. In this paper I criticize Dretske’s proposal, drawing on various visual phenomena in order to argue that this ‘Goldilocks Test’…

This paper presents a conceptual analysis of Wittgenstein’s use of the notions of habit and custom. References to habit and custom abound in Wittgenstein’s writings already from the 1930s, but no particular focus has been placed on his actual use of these notions. The aim of the paper is to provide a preliminary conceptual tool useful for developing a fruitful engagement between Wittgenstein’s “post-tractarian” philosophy and contributions to the philosophy of habit. To do this, I will first trace relevant occurrences in Wittgenstein’s writings. Secondly, I will map the use…

Wittgenstein famously asked: What is left when we subtract the fact that my arm rises from the fact that I raise it? Any adequate theory of action must clarify the difference between actions of this kind and mere bodily movements. Plausible answers since the 1950s have been broadly causal. The readiest answer—that causation by an intention is the missing element—is oversimple. Intentionality, however, may be crucial even if intentions alone cannot provide an answer. Elizabeth Anscombe apparently favored reasons for acting; but reasons in the abstract, say as true propositions,…