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On Visual Experience of Objects: Comments on John Campbell’sReference and Consciousness

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Abstract

John Campbell argues that visual attention to objects is the means by which we can refer to objects, and that this is so because conscious visual attention enables us to retrieve information about a location. It is argued here that while Campbell is right to think that we visually attend to objects, he does not give us sufficient ground for thinking that consciousness is involved, and is wrong to assign an intermediary role to location. Campbell’s view on sortals is also queried, as is his espousal of the so-called Referential View of Experience.

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Correspondence to Mohan Matthen.

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Matthen, M. On Visual Experience of Objects: Comments on John Campbell’sReference and Consciousness . Philos Stud 127, 195–220 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-4941-2

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