On Privations and Their Perception

Acta Analytica 26 (2):175-186 (2011)
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Abstract

Despite its admirable bottom-up methodology, Roy Sorensen's Seeing Dark Things (OUP, 2008) raises difficult theoretical questions concerning the metaphysics and perception of absences. Metaphysical difficulties include how to individuate, count, locate, and classify absences, and what determines their features. Perceptual difficulties include how to distinguish experiences of absences and presences, especially when nonveridical, and what subjects contribute to perceptual experience according to Sorensen's causal theory. In addition to articulating these difficulties, this paper also presents and explores, on Sorensen's terms, an alternative account of silence.

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Casey O'Callaghan
Washington University in St. Louis

Citations of this work

Seeing absence.Anna Farennikova - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (3):429-454.
A Breath of Fresh Air: Absence and the Structure of Olfactory Perception.Tom Roberts - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):400-420.
On Perceiving Abs nces.Achille C. Varzi - 2022 - Gestalt Theory 44 (3):213-242.
On Silhouettes, Surfaces and Sorensen.Thomas Raleigh - 2018 - In Clare Mac Cumhaill & Thomas Crowther (eds.), Perceptual Ephemera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 194-218.
Can We Hear Silence?Daniela Šterbáková - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (1):33-53.

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References found in this work

Action in Perception.Alva Noë - 2004 - MIT Press.
The intrinsic quality of experience.Gilbert Harman - 1990 - Philosophical Perspectives 4:31-52.
Seeing dark things: the philosophy of shadows.Roy A. Sorensen - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Causing and Nothingness.Helen Beebee - 2004 - In L. A. Paul, E. J. Hall & J. Collins (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press. pp. 291--308.

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