Temporally extended experiences, experiential holists have it, are not reducible to successions of their temporal parts because some whole experiences determine their parts (in some way). This paper suggests, first, that some forms of experiential holism are in fact consistent with the rival atomist view (that experiences are successions of their parts) and, second, that the main reasons advanced for experiential holism are compatible with atomism too. The paper then looks at how holistic determination of its parts by a whole (...) experience might take place in time, arguing that it is either inconsistent or undermines widespread assumptions regarding the mechanisms underlying experiences. (shrink)

Several disputes about the nature of experience operate under the assumption that experiences have parts, including temporal parts. There's the widely held view, when it comes to temporal experiences, that we should follow James' exhortation that such experiences aren't mere successions of their temporal parts, but something more. And there's the question of whether it is the parts of experiences which determine whole experiences and the properties they have, or whether the determination goes instead from the whole to the parts, (...) as holists have it. But what are parts, or temporal parts, of experiences exactly—what does it mean to say that an experience is “part” of another? Are the participants in those disputes talking about the same thing—is there a univocal notion of “experiential part” available? Are there different kinds of experiential parts? And if there are, is there a systematic way of carving them out? More importantly, how should we conceive of the temporal parts of experiences, and how can we establish that experiences really do have temporal parts, against those who reject the notion? (shrink)

Temporal experiences, according to retentionalism, essentially have temporally extended contents: contents which represent distinct events at distinct temporal locations, and some of their temporal relations. This means, retentionalists insist, that temporal experiences themselves needn’t be extended in time: only their contents are. The paper reviews an experiment by Moutoussis and Zeki, which demonstrates a colour-motion visual asynchrony (§2): information about motion seems to be processed more slowly than information about colour, so that the former is delayed relative to the latter. (...) This, the paper argues, raises an important difficulty for retentionalism and its account of the temporal ontology of experiences: it suggests that a central background assumption about neural processing presupposed by retentionalism is false, at least in cases of visual asynchrony. The paper then explores the general significance of this result for retentionalism (§3). (shrink)

Philosophers have usually approached the concept of timing of experiences by addressing the question how the experiences of temporal phenomena can be explained. As a result, the issue of timing has been addressed in two different ways. The first, similar to the questions posed in sciences, concerns the relationship between the experienced time of events and the objective time of events. The second approach is more specific to philosophers’ debates, and concerns the phenomenology of experiences: how is the apparent temporal (...) structure of experiences constituted? In regard to both questions, this article shows why and how philosophers’ views differ from those held by most scientists. To conclude, I present a combination of views that is not only compatible with that of scientists, but also addresses the problems that engage philosophers. (shrink)

It is widely held that episodic memory is constitutively connected with space and time. In particular, many contend that episodic memory constitutively has spatial and/or temporal content: for instance, necessarily representing a spatial scene, or when a given event occurred, or at the very minimum that it occurred in the past. Here, I critically assess such claims. I begin with some preparatory remarks on the nature of episodic memory. I then ask: How, if at all, is episodic memory constitutively spatial? (...) And, how, if at all, is episodic memory constitutively temporal? In answer, I argue that episodic memory need not have any spatial content, nor (in any substantial sense) need it represent when its events occur, nor even that they occur in the past. Instead, only a relatively modest connection holds between episodic memory and time in virtue of the temporal structure of its objects. Finally, I critically assess whether considerations concerning the organization and encoding of episodic memory in creatures like us provide stronger reason to posit a constitutive link between our episodic memories and space or time. (shrink)

This paper surveys selected (though arguably representative) versions of metaphysical and epistemological disjunctivism. Although they share a common logical structure, it is hard to find a further common denominator among them. Two main conclusions are: (1) a specific standpoint on the nature of perceptual relation is not such a common denominator, which means that it is very unlikely that all of these views could be refuted with a single objection; (2) contrary to what its name suggests, disjunctivism can be correctly (...) expressed without the employment of disjunction. (shrink)

The specious present (James, 1890/1950) is the phenomenal temporal structure of the representational content of my present experience. This article is a study of the mereological structure of the specious present and what it reveals about the nature of the mind. I argue that the specious present has certain features that cannot be easily explained within the framework of physicalism about the mind — the view that consciousness is nothing over and above what is physical. In particular, the specious present (...) is a phenomenally extended (i.e.non-instantaneous) whole whose parts are conceptual abstractions and are therefore dependent on this whole. However, unlike the specious present, what is physical does not have this special property of the parts being dependent on the whole. Therefore, it is unclear how the specious present can be explained in physicalistic terms. (shrink)

If God exists atemporally, could God still be temporally conscious? This article aims to clarify a conceptual space for a divine temporal mode of consciousness under the traditional assumption that God exists atemporally. I contend that an atemporally existing and conscious God – by the divine nature, and not just the human nature in Christ – could also be conscious of the temporal world – and indeed, all possible temporal worlds – through a temporal mode that is akin to human (...) temporal consciousness, albeit exempt from its limitations. I submit that although (a) God exists atemporally (ontological atemporalism), (b) God could be both temporally and atemporally conscious (bimodalism of divine consciousness), and (c) these two modes of consciousness could be unified in an absolute divine consciousness without incurring schizophrenia-like problems (unity of bimodal divine consciousness). (shrink)

As a typical subject, you experience a variety of paradigmatically temporal phenomena. Looking out of the window in the English summer, you can see leaves swaying in the breeze and hear the pitter-patter of raindrops steadily increasing against the window. In discussions of temporal experience, and through reflecting on examples such as those offered, two phenomenological claims are widely – though not unequivocally – accepted: firstly, you perceptually experience motion and change; secondly, while more than a momentary state of affairs (...) is presented in your ongoing perceptual experience, that which is presented nonetheless seems to be of a quite limited temporal extent. These two claims are frequently tied to the notion of the specious present. However, there has recently been a push back against the supposed link between perceived motion and the specious present. I argue that there are two ways of understanding this link, and while one has recently been the target of criticism, the other withstands such criticism. My overarching aim is to clarify the notion of the specious present through a discussion of the notion’s origins, in addition to recent criticism directed at the notion, with the hope of reframing how contemporary debates proceed. (shrink)

A familiar slogan in the literature on temporal experience is that ‘a succession of appearances, in and of itself, does not amount to an experience of succession’. I show that we can distinguish between a strong and a weak sense of this slogan. I diagnose the strong interpretation of the slogan as requiring the support of an assumption I call the ‘Seems→Seemed’ claim. I then show that commitment to this assumption comes at a price: if we accept it, we either (...) have to reject the extremely plausible idea that experience is as it seems, or we are forced to provide an account of temporal experience that isn’t compatible with the phenomenology. I conclude by noting that the only plausible interpretation of the slogan is the weak interpretation, and outline a positive account of temporal experience, according to which an appearance of succession requires a succession of appearances. (shrink)

How must experience of time be structured in time? In particular, does the following principle, which I will call inheritance, hold: for any temporal property apparently presented in perceptual experience, experience itself has that same temporal property. For instance, if I hear Paul McCartney singing ‘Hey Jude’, must my auditory experience of the ‘Hey’ itself precede my auditory experience of the ‘Jude’, or can the temporal order of these experiences come apart from the order the words are experienced as having? (...) A number of recent authors (Phillips Experience and Time, ‘The Temporal Structure of Experience’, Soteriou ‘Perceiving Events’, Hoerl ‘“A Succession of Feelings, in and of Itself, is Not a Feeling of Succession”’, Rashbrook) claim, to paraphrase Martin (399), that inheritance best characterises how our temporal experience seems to initial reflective intuition. For this reason, Phillips takes the principle to form part of our naïve view of temporal experience. An opposing group of theorists object that inheritance is subject to empirical counter-example. This article surveys such challenges. Section 2 considers Grush's case against inheritance based on postdiction. Section 3 examines Watzl's anti-inheritance argument based on silencing effects. Finally, Section 4 explores a number of alleged counter-examples proposed by Lee (‘Temporal Experience and the Temporal Structure of Experience’). Section 1 provides essential background to the debate. (shrink)

Although meritorious, Naïve Realism faces theoretical issues stemming from the lack of clarity in the concepts forming its propositions and the relevant (but not usually acknowledged) diversity of its theses. In this paper, my goal is to provide a groundwork that mitigates these theoretical complications. One such distinction concerns its subject matter, in particular, whether it deals with the nature of perceptual episodes or their phenomenology. My first goal is to acknowledge such distinctions by delimiting the former option, which I (...) refer to as “Ontological Naïve Realism”. To accomplish this, I proposed a distinctively minimal version of this position. However, a thorough characterization of the acquaintance relation was necessary for its postulation, which revealed a diversity of the corresponding relations/predicates. This informed the postulation of the minimal thesis and thus the definition of Ontological Naïve Realism. Based on this definition, I also proposed a novel classification and taxonomy of the relevant forms of Ontological Naïve Realism, based on the width of the attribution of naïve-realistic features and whether or not they identify perceptions/illusions to acquaintance instantiations. (shrink)

The notion of the absolute time-constituting flow plays a central role in Edmund Husserl’s analysis of our consciousness of time. I offer a novel reading of Husserl’s remarks on the absolute flow, on which Husserl can be seen to be grappling with two key intuitions that are still at the centre of current debates about temporal experience. One of them is encapsulated by what is sometimes referred to as an intentionalist (as opposed to an extensionalist) approach to temporal experience. The (...) other centres on the thought that temporal experience itself necessarily unfolds over time. I show how some of Husserl’s more enigmatic-sounding remarks about the absolute flow become intelligible if they are read as attempts to accommodate both these intuitions at the same time. However, I also question whether Husserl ultimately provides good reasons for preferring his intentionalist approach to a rival extensionalist one. (shrink)

Early twentieth-century philosophers of perception presented their naïve realist views of perceptual experience in anti-Kantian terms. For they took naïve realism about perceptual experience to be incompatible with Kant’s claims about the way the understanding is necessarily involved in perceptual consciousness. This essay seeks to situate a naïve realist account of visual experience within a recognisably Kantian framework by arguing that a naïve realist account of visual experience is compatible with the claim that the understanding is necessarily involved in the (...) perceptual experience of those rational beings with discursive intellects. The resultant view is middle way between recent conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of Kant, holding that the understanding is necessarily involved in the kind of perceptual consciousness that we, as rational beings, enjoy whilst allowing that the relations of apprehension which constitute perceptual consciousness are independent of acts of the understanding. (shrink)

According to non-conceptualist interpretations, Kant held that the application of concepts is not necessary for perceptual experience. Some have motivated non-conceptualism by noting the affinities between Kant's account of perception and contemporary relational theories of perception. In this paper I argue (i) that non-conceptualism cannot provide an account of the Transcendental Deduction and thus ought to be rejected; and (ii) that this has no bearing on the issue of whether Kant endorsed a relational account of perceptual experience.

I open my eyes and see that the lemon before me is yellow. States like this—states of seeing that $p$ —appear to be visual perceptual states, in some sense. They also appear to be propositional attitudes (and so states with propositional representational contents). It might seem, then, like a view of perceptual experience on which experiences have propositional representational contents—a Propositional View—has to be the correct sort of view for states of seeing that $p$ . And thus we can’t sustain (...) fully general non-Propositional but Representational, or Relational Views of experience. But despite what we might initially be inclined to think when reflecting upon the apparent features of states of seeing that $p$ , a non-propositional view of seeing that $p$ is, I argue, perfectly intelligible. (shrink)

Austere relationism rejects the orthodox analysis of hallucinations and illusions as incorrect perceptual representations. In this article, I argue that illusions of optimal motion present a serious challenge for this view. First, I submit that austere-relationist accounts of misleading experiences cannot be adapted to account for IOMs. Second, I show that any attempt at elucidating IOMs within an austere-relationist framework undermines the claim that perceptual experiences fundamentally involve relations to mind-independent objects. Third, I develop a representationalist model of IOMs. The (...) proposed analysis combines two ideas: Evans' dynamic modes of presentation and Fine's relational semantics for identity. (shrink)

It is now common to distinguish Metaphysical from Epistemological Disjunctivism. It is equally common to suggest that it is at least not obvious that the latter requires a commitment to the former: at the very least, a suitable bridge principle will need to be identified which takes one from the latter to the former. This paper identifies a plausible-looking bridge principle that takes one from the version of Epistemological Disjunctivism defended by John McDowell and Duncan Pritchard, which I label Reflective (...) Epistemological Disjunctivism, or (RED), to Metaphysical Disjunctivism. Moreover, it identifies a modification the proponent of (RED) could, and should, make to the Internalist component of their theory, and argues that the commitment to Metaphysical Disjunctivism remains, even if such a modification is made. The upshot is that the commitment to Metaphysical Disjunctivism on the part of (RED) is shown to be particularly robust. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe aim of the paper is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the influential verb typology developed by Zeno Vendler for recent debates in the philosophy of perception. Section one explains t...

It has been claimed that naïve realism predicts phenomenological similarities where there are none and, thereby, mischaracterises the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. If true, this undercuts a key motivation for the view. Here, we defend naïve realism against this charge, proposing that such arguments fail (three times over). In so doing, we highlight a more general problem with critiques of naïve realism that target the purported phenomenological predictions of the view. The problem is: naïve realism, broadly construed, doesn’t make (...) phenomenological predictions of the required sort. So, as a result, opponents must resign themselves to attacking specific incarnations of naïve realism, or approach matters quite differently. (shrink)

Levinas is usually discussed as a philosopher wrestling with the nature of our experience of others, ethical obligation, and the divine. Unlike other phenomenologists, such as Husserl and Heidegger, he is not often mentioned in discussions about issues in philosophy of mind. His work in that area, especially on perception, is underappreciated. He gives an account of the nature of perceptual experience that is remarkable both in how it departs from that of others in the phenomenological tradition and for how (...) it fits in among presently available views about the nature of perceptual experience, namely, as a form of naïve realism. (shrink)

There is a recent surge in interest in agential accounts of perception, i.e. accounts where activity plays a central role in accounting for the nature of perceptions. Within this camp, Lisa Miracch...

There is a recent surge in interest in agential accounts of perception, i.e. accounts where activity plays a central role in accounting for the nature of perceptions. Within this camp, Lisa Miracch...

I argue that the direct perception of emotion (DP) is best conceived in terms of event perception, rather than fact perception or object perception. On neither of these two traditional models can the perception of emotion be as direct as its counterpart in ordinary perception; the proponent of DP must either drop the ‘direct’ claim or embrace a part-whole model of emotion perception and its problems. But our best account of how we perceive events directly can be applied to emotion (...) perception without any loss in directness. Not only this but there are good reasons to think that such a conception better respects both empirical evidence and the phenomenology of emotion perception. (shrink)

In this thesis I present a phenomenological investigation of our experience of time – of things as they fall within time – and suggest that something important goes missing in recent debates. This is the notion of a point of view. I believe that articulating the sense in which we have a point of view in time, and what this is a point of view upon, is crucial to an account of how things are for an experiencing subject. In the (...) first chapter, I elucidate the specious present. I argue that theorists appeal to the specious present under two guises without explicitly distinguishing between them; yet these two conceptions are not identical, while one entails the other the reverse is not true. In the second chapter I defend an appeal to the specious present against proponents of what I refer to as snapshot models of temporal experience. I argue that perceptual experience minimally presents something of some non-zero temporal extent as such. In the third chapter I discuss how we are to characterise experience over intervals of time of a greater extent than the specious present. I offer a proposal on which a subject is invariably presented with a positive temporal extent, with this interval marking the partition between the past and the future for the subject. In the fourth chapter I compare and contrast our experience of objects and events, and our experiential point of view in space and in time. Among other things, I argue that getting right how things are for the subject requires an appeal to the subject’s asymmetrical awareness of times either side of the specious present. In fifth and final chapter I demonstrate that appeal to an experiencing subject’s tensed temporal perspective can explain the sense in which time seems to pass. (shrink)