The issue of what distinguishes systems which have original intentionalityfrom those which do not has been brought into sharp focus by Saul Kripke inhis discussion of the sceptical paradox he attributes to Wittgenstein.In this paper I defend a sophisticated version of the dispositionalistaccount of meaning against the principal objection raised by Kripke in hisattack on dispositional views. I argue that the objection put by the sceptic,to the effect that the dispositionalist cannot give a satisfactory account ofnormativity and mistake, in fact (...) comprises a number of distinct lines ofargument, all of which can be satisfactorily answered by the dispositionalist.Two central problems raised by the sceptic consist in explaining (1) theextension of the term which a subject uses, and (2) the fact that the subjectintends to use the term with that extension, and is thus justified in her use.I adapt a suggestion of Blackburn's, that the extension of a word is fixed bya person's extended first-order dispositions to use it, and suggest that thereis no coherent possibility of a subject being disposed to makesystematic mistakes in connection with many ordinary words; the scepticalproblem does not apply in the same way throughout language. It is furtherargued that an account which appeals to a subject's second-orderdispositions to maintain a consistent pattern of extended first-orderdispositions to use words is able to provide a naturalistic basis to answerthe normative questions about justification of use. Three other variants ofthe mistake objection which are also revealed by a careful examination ofKripke's arguments are distinguished and it is shown that the dispositionalisthas adequate resources to meet them.The appeal to second-order dispositions provides a principled way ofdistinguishing between those systems (animal or machine) which have originalintentionality, and those which do not. (shrink)

The subjective character of a given experience leaves open the question of its precise status. If it looks to a subject K as if there is an object of a kind F in front of him, the experience he is having could be veridical, or hallucinatory. Advocates of the Causal Theory of perception (whom I shall call.

The intention of this project is to argue theoretically for, and exemplify through critical and historical analysis, the interrelatedness of discourses on scale, distance, identification and doubling in the cinema. The link between the first two terms (scale and distance) and the latter two (identification and doubling) is implicit in the title, and its unfolding constitutes the project: for instance, the closer one comes, the deeper identification is likely to be, and the greater the likelihood that what is apparently 'there' (...) will impose itself as also 'here', existing both inside and outside the viewing psyche, which becomes double, and whose doubling may either become explicit or remain implicit in the text. Along with its collapsing of interiority/exteriority distinctions, doubling reveals the reversibility and ambiguity of scale, as what is 'there' could just as well have been situated 'here'. The book contains analyses of a wide variety of films, including Citizen Kane, The Double Life of Veronique, The Great Gatsby, Gilda, Vertigo and Wings of Desire. (shrink)

Robert Brandom makes several mistakes in his discussion of Sellars's "Two-Ply" account of observation. Brandom does not recognize the difference in "level" between observation reports concerning physical objects and 'looks'-statements. He also denies that 'looks'-statements are reports or even make claims. They then demonstrate a more correct reading of Sellars on 'looks'-statements.

Experiences of all kinds have a distinctive character, which marks them out as intrinsically different from states of consciousness such as thinking. A plausible view is that the difference should be accounted for by the fact that, in having an experience, the subject is somehow immediately aware of a range of phenomenal qualities. For example, in seeing, grasping and tasting an apple, the subject may be aware of a red and green spherical shape, a certain feeling of smoothness to touch, (...) and a sweet sensation. Such phenomenal qualities are also immediately present in hallucinations. According to the sense-data theory, phenomenal qualities belong to items called “sense-data.” In having a perceptual experience the subject is directly aware of, or acquainted with, a sense-datum, even if the experience is illusory or hallucinatory. The sense-datum is an object immediately present in experience. It has the qualities it appears to have. (shrink)

At the Intersection of High and Mass Culture analyses the contradictions and interaction between high and low art, with particular reference to Hollywood and European cinema. Written in the essayist, speculative tradition of Walter Benjamin and Theodore Adorno, this study also includes analyses of several key films of the 1980s. Tracing the boundaries of such genres as film noir, science fiction and melodrama, it demonstrates how these genres were radically expanded by such filmmakers as Neil Jordan, Chris Merker and Georges (...) Franju. This work also reflects on kitsch, the star system, racial and gender stereotypes, and the nature of audience participation. While defining the conditions under which the symbiotic relationship between high and mass culture can be cross-fertilising, this study stresses their inevitably contradictory characteristics. (shrink)

This book is an important study in the philosophy of the mind; drawing on the work of philosopher Wilfrid Sellars and the theory of critical realism to develop a novel argument for understanding perception and metaphysics.

In this paper I introduce and critically examine a paradox about perceiving that is in some ways analogous to the paradox about meaning which Kripke puts forward in his exegesis of Wittgenstein's views on Rule-following. When applied to vision, the paradox of perceiving raises a metaphysical scepticism about which object a person is seeing if he looks, for example, at an apple on a tree directly in front of him. Physical objects can be seen when their appearance is distorted in (...) various ways by illusions. The question therefore arises as to how can we answer the sceptic who suggests the following: although the viewer appears to be seeing the green apple in front of him, he is actually suffering a bizarre illusion of a blue car situated somewhere behind him. The sceptic is not concerned with epistemic problems about how we know which object, if any, the subject is seeing; the sceptic is raising the more fundamental question: whatfact of the matter underlies a person's perceptual relation to the physical world, in virtue of which that person may be justified in arriving at a perceptual belief about the environment? Among the various different issues raised by the sceptic, I focus on the question: what determines the perceiving relation? I canvass a number of possible proposals in answer to it, concentrating mainly on two opposed accounts: the Disjunctive View and the Causal Theory of Perception. I argue in particular for the following two claims: that the paradox highlights the fact that the Disjunctive View fails to provide a coherent positive account of what perceiving is. that the problem of 'deviant causal chains', often thought to raise particular difficulties for the Causal theorist, can also be raised against other accounts of perception, including versions of the Disjunctive View. I conclude that unless the Causal Theory of Perception can be upheld, there will be no way of answering the sceptic. (shrink)

This paper examines the contents of perceptual experience, and focuses in particular on the relation between the representational aspects of an experience and its phenomenal character. It is argued that the Critical Realist two-component analysis of experience, advocated by Wilfrid Sellars, is preferable to the Intentionalist view. Experiences have different kinds of representational contents: both informational and intentional. An understanding of the essential navigational role of perception provides a principled way of explaining the nature of such representational contents. Experiences also (...) have a distinct phenomenal content, or character, which is not determined by representational content. (shrink)

"This book is an important study in the philosophy of the mind; drawing on the work of philosopher Wilfrid Sellars and the theory of critical realism to develop a novel argument for understanding perception and metaphysics."--Publisher's website.

What are phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences? Are phenomenal qualities subjective, belonging to inner mental episodes of some kind, or should they be seen as objective, belonging in some way to the physical things in the world around us? Are they physical properties at all? And to what extent do experiences represent the things around us, or the states of our own bodies? Fourteen original papers, written by a team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists, explore the ways in (...) which phenomenal qualities fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience. (shrink)

In the fields of metaphysics and epistemology, ethics and political thought, idealism can generate controversy and disagreement. This title is part of the Idealism series, which finds in idealism new features of interest and a perspective which is germane to our own philosophical concerns.

The issue of what distinguishes systems which have original intentionalityfrom those which do not has been brought into sharp focus by Saul Kripke inhis discussion of the sceptical paradox he attributes to Wittgenstein.In this paper I defend a sophisticated version of the dispositionalistaccount of meaning against the principal objection raised by Kripke in hisattack on dispositional views. I argue that the objection put by the sceptic,to the effect that the dispositionalist cannot give a satisfactory account ofnormativity and mistake, in fact (...) comprises a number of distinct lines ofargument, all of which can be satisfactorily answered by the dispositionalist. (shrink)

This paper defends a dynamic model of the way in which perception is integrated with action, a model I refer to as ‘the navigational account’. According to this account, employing vision and other forms of distance perception, a creature acquires information about its surroundings via the senses, information that enables it to select and navigate routes through its environment, so as to attain objects that satisfy its needs. This form of perceptually guided activity should be distinguished from other kinds of (...) semi-automatic responses to visual stimuli that do not necessarily involve conscious experiences. It essentially involves inner states, which involve both the awareness of phenomenal qualities, and also a representational component. The navigational account is compared here with the enactive approach to perception, which opposes the view that perceptual experiences are inner states. This paper argues that a full account of perception raises a number of different questions. One central explanatory project concerns questions about the kinds of processes that currently enable a creature to identify and respond appropriately to distant objects: the answer, it is argued, lies in acknowledging the role of conscious inner representations in guiding navigational behaviour through complex environments. The fact that perception and action are interdependent does not conflict with the claim that inner representational states comprise an essential stage in visual processing. (shrink)

In this paper I introduce and critically examine a paradox about perceiving that is in some ways analogous to the paradox about meaning which Kripke puts forward in his exegesis of Wittgenstein's views on Rule-following. When applied to vision, the paradox of perceiving raises a metaphysical scepticism about which object a person is seeing if he looks, for example, at an apple on a tree directly in front of him. Physical objects can be seen when their appearance is distorted in (...) various ways by illusions. The question therefore arises as to how can we answer the sceptic who suggests the following: although the viewer appears to be seeing the green apple in front of him, he is actually suffering a bizarre illusion of a blue car situated somewhere behind him. The sceptic is not concerned with epistemic problems about how we know which object, if any, the subject is seeing; the sceptic is raising the more fundamental question: whatfact of the matter underlies a person's perceptual relation to the physical world, in virtue of which that person may be justified in arriving at a perceptual belief about the environment? Among the various different issues raised by the sceptic, I focus on the question: what determines the perceiving relation? I canvass a number of possible proposals in answer to it, concentrating mainly on two opposed accounts: the Disjunctive View and the Causal Theory of Perception. I argue in particular for the following two claims: that the paradox highlights the fact that the Disjunctive View fails to provide a coherent positive account of what perceiving is. that the problem of 'deviant causal chains', often thought to raise particular difficulties for the Causal theorist, can also be raised against other accounts of perception, including versions of the Disjunctive View. I conclude that unless the Causal Theory of Perception can be upheld, there will be no way of answering the sceptic. (shrink)

The problem of the richness of visual experience is that of finding principled grounds for claims about how much of the world a person actually sees at any given moment. It is argued that there are suggestive parallels between the two-component analysis of experience defended by Wilfrid Sellars, and certain recently advanced information processing accounts of visual perception. Sellars' later account of experience is examined in detail, and it is argued that there are good reasons in support of the claim (...) that the sensory nonconceptual content of experience can vary independently of conceptual awareness. It is argued that the Sellarsian analysis is not undermined by recent work on change blindness and related phenomena; a model of visual experience developed by Ronald Rensink is shown to be in essential harmony with the framework provided by Sellars, and provides a satisfactory answer to the problem of the richness of visual experience. (shrink)

Chess is sometimes referred to as a ‘mind-sport’. Yet, in obvious ways, chess is very unlike physical sports such as tennis and soccer; it doesn't require the levels of fitness and athleticism necessary for such sports. Nor does it involve the sensory-governed, skilled behaviour required in activities such as juggling or snooker. Nevertheless, I suggest, chess is closer than it may at first seem to some of these sporting activities. In particular, there are interesting connections between the way that we (...) use our perceptual imagination in sports, and also in chess. The same distinction between calculation and natural instinct applies in chess as it does in many physical sports. (shrink)

This paper offers a partial defence of a Sellarsian-inspired form of scientific realism. It defends the relocation strategy that Sellars adopts in his project of reconciling the manifest and scientific images. It concentrates on defending the causal analysis of perception that is essential to his treatment of sensible qualities. One fundamental metaphysical issue in perception theory concerns the nature of the perceptual relation; it is argued that a philosophical exploration of this issue is continuous with the scientific investigation of perceptual (...) processes. Perception, it is argued, can, and should, be naturalised. A challenge for any account of perception arises from the fact that a subject’s experiences are connected with particular objects. We need to supply principled grounds for identifying which external physical object the subject stands in a perceptual relation to when they have an experience. According to the particularity objection presented in the paper, naive realism does not constitute an independently viable theory since, taken on its own, it is unable to answer the objection. In appealing to a ‘direct experiential relation’, it posits a relation that cannot be identified independently of the underlying causal facts. A proper understanding of one central function of perception, as guiding extended patterns of actions, supports a causal analysis of perception. It allows us to draw up a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for perceiving that avoids well-known counterexamples. An analysis of this kind is congruent with the scientific account, according to which experiences are interpreted as inner states: sensible qualities, such as colours, are in the mind. A Sellarsian version of the relocation story is thus vindicated. (shrink)

A cluster of experiments on “Change Blindness”, “Inattentional Blindness” and associated phenomena appear to demonstrate extremely counter intuitive results. According to one plausible characterisation, these results show that we consciously take in far less of the visual world than it seems we are aware of. It is worth briefly summarising the results of two recent sets of experiments, in order to give a flavour of this work. In ‘Gorillas in our Midst’ (Simons, D. and Chabris, C., Perception, 1999, 28), subjects (...) were asked to perform a task that involved watching a video of a casual basketball game that lasts for about a minute. The task involves counting the number of consecutive passes between members of the one of the teams. While the basketball is being thrown from player to player, something unexpected takes place: a person dressed in a black gorilla-suit walks through the play, stops briefly in the centre of the picture, thumps his chest, and then walks off. Although most subjects correctly record the number of passes made by the team, at least half of these subjects fail to notice the gorilla-suited interloper, who is visible for about nine seconds. When shown the video sequence a second time they are amazed to observe what they had previously overlooked. (shrink)

The zona pellucida is an extracellular coat that surrounds all mammalian eggs. It is a porous matrix of interconnected filaments that are assembled from glycoproteins synthesized and secreted by growing oocytes. The zona pellucida is responsible both for species‐specific binding of sperm to unfertilized eggs and inducing bound sperm to undergo the acrosome reaction. The latter enables sperm to penetrate the extracellular coat and fertilize the egg. The zona pellucida also aids in prevention of polyspermy following fertilization and in protection (...) of preimplantation embryos. In mice, several of these important functions can now be ascribed to specific zona pellucida glycoproteins that have been purified and characterized. Furthermore, the enzyme responsible for hatching of embryos from the zona pellucida, just prior to implantation, has been identified and characterized. (shrink)

Opposition: Obedience and authority in Exodus 32-34 / George W. Coats -- The theological significance of contradiction within the Book of the Covenant / Paul D. Hanson -- The renewed authority of Old Testament wisdom for contemporary faith / Wayne Sibley Towner -- A stylistic study of the priestly creation story / Bernhard W. Anderson -- "I will not cause it to return" in Amos 1 and 2 / Rolf P. Knierim.

The Coates–Coogler expansion of the Wakandan afterlife in name, membership, and deed toward West African and transatlantic African diasporic ideas, concerns, and sentiments puts Erik Killmonger's last words in Black Panther into a different light. There are different metaphysical problems confronting Killmonger's postmortem existence in the Wakandan afterlife. Killmonger would have sought out theoretical alternatives less destabilizing to the prospect of continuing his existence postmortem. Wiredu's theory, quasi‐physicalism, would have alleviated some of Killmonger's substance abuse problems. Killmonger in (...) class='Hi'>Coates's comics would recognize ori‐inu in part from when he defeated Bast, an orisha, at Orisha Gate, home of Wakanda's pantheon. Cast in Yoruba philosophical terms, the subjectivity that Killmonger wants to persist after death takes on new unconventional meaning. Killmonger chose "death over bondage." He apparently wants to join the ancestors. The very least a man called "Killmonger" would demand from such philosophy is that it help him fight for his destiny. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Despite recent research showing that children rapidly interpret human action in terms of intention, a long tradition of empirical research on moral development and recent conceptual analyses of the deontic domain suggest that children do not apply their understanding of intention to the deontic domain. However, two experiments are described showing that children do make that connection. Preschool children heard stories in which a protagonist was obliged to meet a particular condition if an action was to be taken (e.g. obliged (...) to wear a coat if playing outside). When shown four pictures depicting each possible combination of: (1) the protagonist either performing the action or not, and (2) deliberately or accidentally failing to meet the obligation, children appropriately identified the protagonist as naughty when he or she was depicted as deliberately not meeting the obligation while performing the action. The findings proved to be robust across two different cultural settings. Implications for research on children’s developing theory of mind and their understanding of deontic concepts are discussed. (shrink)

Despite recent research showing that children rapidly interpret human action in terms of intention, a long tradition of empirical research on moral development and recent conceptual analyses of the deontic domain suggest that children do not apply their understanding of intention to the deontic domain. However, two experiments are described showing that children do make that connection. Preschool children heard stories in which a protagonist was obliged to meet a particular condition if an action was to be taken (e.g. obliged (...) to wear a coat if playing outside). When shown four pictures depicting each possible combination of: (1) the protagonist either performing the action or not, and (2) deliberately or accidentally failing to meet the obligation, children appropriately identified the protagonist as naughty when he or she was depicted as deliberately not meeting the obligation while performing the action. The findings proved to be robust across two different cultural settings. Implications for research on children’s developing theory of mind and their understanding of deontic concepts are discussed. (shrink)