In the philosophy of perception, typically, everything is illuminated. Discussions of perceptual experience primarily focus on subjects situated in illuminated environs. Rarely do we see treatment of putative perceptual experience involving darkness. In this paper, I will carefully canvas and characterize the nature of experiences of darkness, marking a substantive distinction between two such kinds of experiences. Crucially, I give an account of the distinctive phenomenology of experiences of darkness, and show that neither of the two broad kinds of experiences (...) of darkness requires, as Roy Sorensen has recently suggested, the reification of unfamiliar entities to serve as objects of perceptual awareness. I will also offer potential candidates for the proper representational contents of experiences of darkness. This exploration not only reveals that such experiences pose no threat to a view like representationalism, but also demonstrates how experiences of darkness can be given their rightful place in a naturalistic theory of perceptual awareness. Atlast, darkness will be brought out from the shadows. A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible ? ?John Milton, Paradise Lost. (shrink)

Philosophers seldom ask questions regarding how certain phenomena occur, because such questions tend to be the province of the sciences or of technology. However, the question how pictures have depth requires philosophical reflection because it takes place on the surface of pictorial objects and involves both physical and phenomenal, i.e. aesthetic, features of those surfaces. This essay examines how pictures have depth by first separating the aesthetic question from interpretive considerations, and thereby refining the question how pictures have depth. Next (...) it explicates two sorts of conceptual tools required to understand the question: several complex concepts needed to understand surfaces, and the concept of intensity. These are then used to understand how pictures can have depth by showing how intensities produce both an aesthetic surface and depth within it. (shrink)

This paper examines the impact that recent advances in clinical neurology, introspectionist psychology and neuroscience have upon the philosophical psycho?neural Identity Theory. Topics covered include (i) the nature and properties of phenomenal consciousness based on a study of the ?basic? visual field, i.e. that obtained in the complete dark, the Ganzfeld, and during recovery from occipital lobe injuries; (ii) the nature of the ?body?image? of neurology and its relation to the physical body; (iii) Descartes? error in choosing extension in space (...) as the criterion for distinguishing the physical and the mental; (iv) the technical distinction between sensing and perceiving; (v) why phenomenal Direct Realism is incorrect whereas epistemic DR and the representative theory are correct; (vi) the ontological and topological status of phenomenal space and physical space. This leads to considerations of the current ?binding problems? in neuroscience; the role of the brain mechanisms that construct the sensory fields of phenomenal consciousness; the ?homunculus? fallacy; the key difference between epistemic and non?epistemic perception as revealed by brain injury studies; and how the brain codes information, contrasting topological and vectorial coding, with particular reference to the binding problem. My conclusion is that the Identity Theory is incompatible with the scientific evidence from an integrated approach to modern introspectionist psychology, clinical neurology, and neuroscience. However, Cartesian Dualism is even more incompatible with the evidence. This leaves only two viable theories. The first is Bohr's theory of brain?consciousness complementarity. The second is the Broad?Price?Smythies theory of extension, which is a topological theory of the relation between phenomenal space and physical space. (shrink)

The project of a 'naive physics' has been the subject of attention in recent years above all in the artificial intelligence field, in connection with work on common-sense reasoning, perceptual representation and robotics. The idea of a theory of the common-sense world is however much older than this, having its roots not least in the work of phenomenologists and Gestalt psychologists such as K hler, Husserl, Schapp and Gibson. This paper seeks to show how contemporary naive physicists can profit from (...) a knowledge of these historical roots of their discipline, which are shown to imply above alla critique of the set-theory-based models of reality typically presupposed by contemporary work in common-sense ontology [1]. (shrink)

The empirical study of visual space has centered on determining its geometry, whether it is a perspective projection, flat or curved, Euclidean or non-Euclidean, whereas the topology of space consists of those properties that remain invariant under stretching but not tearing. For that reason distance is a property not preserved in topological space whereas the property of spatial order is preserved. Specifically the topological properties of dimensionality, orientability, continuity, and connectivity define “real” space as studied by physics and are the (...) spatial properties that characterize the physical universe as being an integral whole. By contrast the geometrical analysis of VS has taken little cognizance of its topology. Instead such properties have been presupposed a priori rather than being established a posteriori by empirical means, perhaps because these properties are self-evident. Applying the method of coordinative definition expounded by Hans Reichenbach for determining geometrical and topological properties of physical space, it can be shown that VS fulfills the topological criteria of being a “real” space sui generis. Though theorized to be produced by the brain, the topology of VS is not topologically equivalent with the structure and activity of the brain because, as will be shown, the topology of VS cannot be formed from the topology of the brain without tearing and/or cutting and pasting. (shrink)

It is often assumed that when we see common opaque objects in standard light this is in virtue of seeing their facing surfaces. Here I argue that we should reject that claim. Either we don't see objects' facing surfaces, or—if we hold on to the claim that we do see such things—it is at least not in virtue of seeing them that we see common opaque objects. I end by showing how this conclusion squares both with our intuitions and with (...) the facts of vision science. (shrink)

This paper examines an often-ignored aspect of the evaluation of metaphysical analyses, namely, their ontological commitments. Such evaluations are part of metaphysical methodology, and reflection on this methodology is itself part of metametaphysics. I will develop a theory for assessing what these commitments are, and then I will apply it to an important historical and an important contemporary metaphysical analysis of the concept of an individual substance (i.e., an object, or thing). I claim that in evaluating metaphysical analyses, we should (...) not only rule out counterexamples, but also compare them with respect to their ontological commitments, and we should hold that if they are comparable in other respects, then an analysis with fewer such commitments is preferable to one with more (There is, of course, a connection between counterexamples and ontological commitments. If the existence or possible existence of something one is committed to the existence or possible existence of is incompatible with an analysis, then one should reject that analysis as inadequate to the data. On the other hand, if one is uncertain about the existence or possible existence of something that is incompatible with an analysis, then while this does not refute the analysis for one, it raises doubts about it. The fewer such doubts are raised by an analysis, the better it is.). (shrink)

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical (...) results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper we will propose an empirical analysis of spatial and temporal boundaries. Unlike other proposals, which deal mainly with the commonsense level of the subject, we will ground our explication on well-established scientific practice and language. In this way we show how to reconsider in an innovative way questions such as the distinction between the bona fide boundaries and the fiat boundaries, the thickness and the ownership of the boundaries. At the same time we propose a division between (...) ex mensura boundaries and qui vulgo dicuntur boundaries. What is it, therefore,that divides the atmosphere from the water?[Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks]. (shrink)

We think of a boundary whenever we think of an entity demarcated from its surroundings. There is a boundary (a line) separating Maryland and Pennsylvania. There is a boundary (a circle) isolating the interior of a disc from its exterior. There is a boundary (a surface) enclosing the bulk of this apple. Sometimes the exact location of a boundary is unclear or otherwise controversial (as when you try to trace out the margins of Mount Everest, or even the boundary of (...) your own body). Sometimes the boundary lies skew to any physical discontinuity or qualitative differentiation (as with the border of Wyoming, or the boundary between the upper and lower halves of a homogeneous sphere). But whether sharp or blurry, natural or artificial, for every object there appears to be a boundary that marks it off from the rest of the world. Events, too, have boundaries — at least temporal boundaries. Our lives are bounded by our births and by our deaths; the soccer game began at 3pm sharp and ended with the referee's final whistle at 4:45pm. It is sometimes suggested that even abstract entities, such as concepts or sets, have boundaries of their own, and Wittgenstein could emphatically proclaim that the boundaries of our language are the boundaries of our world. Whether all this boundary talk is coherent, however, and whether it reflects the structure of the world or simply the organizing activity of our mind, are matters of deep philosophical controversy. (shrink)

In his book “Seeing Dark Things” (2008), Roy Sorensen provides many wonderfully ingenious arguments for many surprising, counter-intuitive claims. One such claim in particular is that when we a silhouetted object – i.e. an opaque object lit entirely from behind – we literally see its back-side – i.e. we see the full expanse of the surface facing away from us that is blocking the incoming light. Sorensen himself admits that this seems a tough pill to swallow, later characterising it as (...) “the most controversial thesis of the book” (2011, p199). -/- I will argue against Sorensen’s controversial thesis and in favour of what seems to me to be a much more natural and commonsensical alternative: when we see a silhouetted object, what we see is its edge and only its edge – so we do not see its entire back-side. (shrink)

We propose a modular ontology of the dynamic features of reality. This amounts, on the one hand, to a purely spatial ontology supporting snapshot views of the world at successive instants of time and, on the other hand, to a purely spatiotemporal ontology of change and process. We argue that dynamic spatial ontology must combine these two distinct types of inventory of the entities and relationships in reality, and we provide characterizations of spatiotemporal reasoning in the light of the interconnections (...) between them. (shrink)