Philosophy of perception

João Machado Vaz' paper Power and Beauty In Psychopathology. Eugen Bleuler's concept of schizophrenia deals with the historical evolution of the concept of Schizophrenia along the twentieth century, recalling however important philosophical concepts, mainly some of those from the previous century, the epoch of German Romanticism, as Will (Schopenhauer) and Power (Nietzsche). We find here the author's intent to pursue a deeper clarification of what we may understand as the leading spiritual forces under several psychopathologies, namely of schizophrenia. The perspective the author endorses reveals the belief in a sort of internal convergence between semi-or even unconscious powers that are not able to overcome the irruption of the power of conflict and the will (as being also a power) to surpass it. The core-thesis is that between the individual Rui Vieira da Cunha's paper, Theories of Personhood: Guilty as Charged? aims to discuss some of the most common objections to personhood theories. There is a growing number of objections to the possibility and the practical use of personhood and theories based on it, particularly in bioethics, and chief on this attack has been the suspicion 1

Este capítulo presenta la eutonía como una disciplina psicofísica esencial para el desarrollo escénico, enfocada en la conciencia corporal, la regulación del tono neuromuscular y la integración de cuerpo, voz y movimiento. A través de principios como el tacto consciente, la conciencia ósea, del volumen corporal interno y del contacto consciente, se busca una conexión profunda entre el artista y su entorno. La eutonía permite al intérprete alcanzar un estado de alerta y receptividad (awareness), facilitando la creación escénica desde la intención y la percepción precisa del cuerpo. Además, se aborda la voz como extensión del cuerpo, destacando la importancia de una respiración orgánica y una emisión sonora libre y expresiva. El entrenamiento eutónico ayuda a modificar hábitos corporales y vocales, favoreciendo una caracterización escénica auténtica y flexible. Finalmente, se propone la eutonía como una herramienta transformadora para artistas que buscan equilibrio, presencia y eficacia expresiva en escena.

RESUMEN: Construir una experiencia sensible, requiere que el objeto percibido, en este caso la obra escénica, alcance un nivel de interacción entre artista y espectador que pueda producir una movilización interna del sujeto perceptor. Un momento que llegue a lo profundo del ser y que puede construir en éste una experiencia única. Entonces debe de haber un algo sensible arriba del escenario que promueva todo el fenómeno perceptivo y experiencial, y esto está a cargo del artista escénico, del o los cuerpos que construyen la acción escénica. La Eutonía, promueve una experiencia que afecta todas las dimensiones del ser a partir de una organización y sistematización de lo que la persona percibe. Esto permite el desarrollo del "Corpoescena" un estado integral del artista escénico que construye a partir del desarrollo de capacidades como la atención expandida, signos escénicos que parten de un cuerpo como unidad que dialoga con el espectador.

What structurally defines sensory illusions? What kinds of experience can be cogently described as illusory phenomena in a proper and improper sense? Which intentional forms of consciousness can lend themselves to turn into illusions? And, more specifically, by means of which intentional modifications can consciousness generate illusions? The present study is the first systematic attempt to clarify and map the problem of sensory illusion in Husserl’s taxonomy of intentional conscious life. It outlines an eidetic cartography of intentional lived-experience that allows one to navigate the semantic breadth of ‘illusion’ without either losing oneself in ambiguities and equivocations or unduly impoverishing the richness of its significance. A phenomenological map of sensory illusions thus enables one to rigorously identify their general nature, to discern the different intentional structures pertaining to different illusory experiences, and to isolate the a priori noetic conditions and modifications of consciousness necessary for their emergence in experience.

Realist and anti-realists disagree about whether our practice of forming empirical judgement is governed by the layout of a mind-independent reality. This paper develops an argument in favour of disjunctivism concerning the motivating reasons provided by experience. It does so by considering what is needed to ground our empirical thinking as subject to realist norms. The argument takes outset in a form of minimal pragmatism which claims that the realist norms governing our practice of forming ordinary empirical judgement must be grounded in the implicit aims the judgement forming community have with engaging in that practice. The paper then defends the idea that we can only ground our realist occupation with the mind-independent world when forming perceptual judgements in our practice of rationally responding to the mind-independent world when we form such judgements. This in turn requires that we adopt disjunctivism regarding the role perception and hallucination plays as motivating reasons for judgment. Hence, if we accept the idea that our aims in forming judgements must ground the norms of that practice, then realists should also be disjunctivists about the role experience plays as a provider of motivating reasons for judgement

În timp ce poarta închisorii se trântește în urma mea, îmi pun la îndoială toate deciziile luate în viață. Nu aici ar trebui să mă aflu. Absolut deloc. Cine ar vrea să stea închis într-un penitenciar de maximă securitate? Aș pune rămășag că nimeni nu-și dorește asta. Dacă te trezești într-o bună zi între aceste ziduri, probabil că ai luat decizii proaste în viață. Eu în mod sigur am făcut-o. -Numele? O femeie în uniformă albastră de gardian mă privește din spatele geamului de protecție al cabinei sale, aflate chiar la intrarea în pușcărie. Are ochii mohorâți și sticloși și pare că nu-și dorește câtuși de puțin să se afle aici, așa cum nu-mi doresc nici eu. -Brooke Sullivan, răspund eu, dregându-mi ușor vocea. Ar trebui să mă întâlnesc cu Dorothy Kuntz. Femeia se uită pe foile prinse într-un clipboard pe care îl ține în față. Cercetează lista fără să dea în vreun fel de înțeles că m-a auzit sau că știe ceva despre motivul pentru care mă aflu aici. Arunc o privire în spate, în mica sală de așteptare acum pustie, unde nu se află decât un bătrân cu chipul plin de riduri așezat pe unul dintre scaunele de plastic, cufundat în lectura unui ziar, ca și când ar călători cu autobuzul. Ca și când nu am fi înconjurați de un gard de sârmă ghimpată, punctat din loc în loc cu turnuri de observație mătăhăloase. După câteva minute care îmi par o eternitate, un bâzâit puternic răsună în sală -îndeajuns de tare încât să mă facă să tresar speriată și să mă dau un pas înapoi, în dreapta mea se deschide lent o poartă din zăbrele verticale, roșii, dând la iveală un culoar lung și prost luminat. Mă uit în lungul lui, încremenită în loc de parcă aș fi prins rădăcini. -Ar… ar trebui să intru? Femeia ridică spre mine ochii inexpresivi. -Da -du-te. Treci prin controlul de securitate din capătul culoarului. Dă din cap în direcția coridorului întunecat și pornesc lent într-acolo, în timp ce mă trec fiori reci pe șira spinării. Îndată ce trec pragul porții zăbrelite, aud cum aceasta alunecă și se închide în spatele meu cu un bufnet răsunător. N-am mai fost niciodată aici. Interviul pentru job a avut loc telefonic, iar directorul era atât de disperat să mă angajeze, încât nici măcar nu s-a mai simțit dator să mă cunoască în persoană -CV-ul și scrisorile de recomandare i-au fost de ajuns. Am semnat un contract pe o perioadă de un an și i l-am trimis prin fax, săptămâna trecută. Și acum iată-mă aici. Pentru următorul an din viața mea. Mă uit în urmă, la gratiile roșii care s-au închis deja în urma mea. Nu e prea târziu. Chiar dacă am semnat un contract, sunt sigură că pot renunța la el. Încă mă pot răsuci pe călcâie și pot lăsa în urmă locul ăsta. Spre deosebire de locatarii închisorii, eu nu sunt obligată să mă aflu aici. Nu voiam acest job. Îl voiam pe oricare altul, în afară de ăsta. Dar am depus CV-ul la absolut toate aflate pe o rază de șaizeci de minute depărtare de orașul Raker, din nordul statului New York, iar închisoarea asta a fost singurul loc de unde am fost sunată pentru interviu. Era ultima pe lista mea, însă m-am considerat norocoasă când m-au angajat. Așa că merg înainte. La controlul de securitate din capătul culoarului dau peste un bărbat care păzește o a doua poartă zăbrelită. Are vreo -Brooke Sullivan? mă întreabă ea cu o voce aspră, mai joasă decât m-aș fi așteptat. -Eu sunt. Tu ești Dorothy? Cam la fel ca bărbatul de la intrare, mă măsoară din privire de sus până jos. Și, tot ca el, pare complet dezamăgită de ce vede. -Fără tocuri, îmi spune la final. -Știu. Am… -Dacă știi, de ce le porți? -Adică… Îmi ia foc fața. -Acum știu. Îmi acceptă răspunsul fără tragere de inimă și decide să nu mă oblige să fac desculță turul secției. Flutură din mână și pornesc supusă după ea, pe culoar. Tot interiorul secției medicale duhnește de același miros de chimicale ca în restul pușcăriei și deasupra capului pâlpâie aceleași tuburi de neon. De-a lungul peretelui sunt aliniate câteva scaune de plastic, însă nu se află nici țipenie în jur. Femeia deschide larg ușa uneia dintre săli. -Aici va fi cabinetul tău pentru consultații, îmi spune ea. Mă uit înăuntru. Încăperea este cam pe jumătate față de cele din clinica pentru urgențe din Queens, unde am lucrat înainte. Însă, în afară de asta, arată cam la fel. Un pat de consultații în mijloc, un scaun pentru mine și o mică masă de lucru. -O să am un birou? o întreb. Dorothy clatină din cap. -Ai un birou aici. Nu-l vezi? Deci va trebui să completez actele cu pacienții privind peste umărul meu? -Dar un computer există? -Toate dosarele medicale sunt ținute pe hârtie. Sunt uluită de ce aud. N-am mai lucrat vreodată undeva unde toate documentele medicale să fie pe hârtie. Nici nu-mi dau seama cum li se mai permite așa ceva. Însă presupun că în pușcărie regulile sunt un pic diferite. Femeia arată spre încăperea de lângă cabinetul de consultații. -Acolo este arhiva. O poți deschide cu legitimația de serviciu. O să primești una înainte să pleci. Ridică propria legitimație în dreptul scannerului din perete și aud un clic sonor. Deschide larg ușa, lăsând la vedere o cămăruță prăfuită, plină cu dulapuri. Tone și tone de dulapuri cu dosare. O să fie agonizant. -Este și un medic care să ne supervizeze? Ezită. -Doctorul Wittenburg se ocupă de vreo șase închisori. No să-l vezi prea mult pe-aici, dar e disponibil la telefon. Asta mă cam neliniștește. La clinica pentru urgențe nu eram niciodată lăsată singură. Dar presupun că problemele de acolo erau mai grave decât ce-o să văd aici. Cel puțin așa sper. Următoarea noastră oprire este în cabinetul cu materiale și echipamente medicale. Seamănă foarte bine cu cel din clinica de urgențe, dar este, firește, mai micși nu se poate intra decât cu legitimația. Au aici pansamente, materiale pentru sutură, diferite cutii, tuburi și substanțe. -Numai eu pot elibera medicamente, îmi spune Dorothy. Tu îi scrii pacientului rețeta și eu îi dau medicamentele. Dacă i-ai prescris ceva ce nu avem, putem comanda. Îmi șterg palmele ude pe pantalonii negri. -În regulă, OK. Dorothy mă privește lung. -Știu că e stresant să lucrezi într-o închisoare de maximă securitate, dar trebuie să știi că mulți dintre bărbații ăștia îți vor fi recunoscători pentru munca pe care o faci. Cât timp te comporți profesionist, nu vei avea niciun fel de problemă. -Bine… -Nu cumva să împărtășești informații personale, de niciun fel. Buzele i se întind într-o linie dreaptă. -Nu le spune unde locuiești. Nu le spune absolut nimic despre viața ta. Nu le arăta poze. Ai copii? -Am un băiat. Dorothy mă privește surprinsă. Se aștepta să spun "nu". Cei mai mulți sunt surprinși când află că am un copil. Deși am douăzeci și opt de ani, arăt mult mai tânără. Cu toate că eu mă simt mai în vârstă. Arăt de parcă aș fi în liceu și mă simt ca și când aș avea cincizeci de ani. Povestea vieții mele. -Ei bine, spune Dorothy, nu vorbi despre puștiul tău. Ține-o la nivel profesionist. Întotdeauna. Nu știu cum erai tu obișnuită la jobul de dinainte, dar bărbații ăștia nu sunt prietenii tăi. Sunt criminali care au comis delicte extrem de serioase și o mulțime dintre ei au primit sentințe pe viață. -Știu. Frate, chiar știu. -Și, mai presus de orice… Ochii albaștri ca gheața ai lui Dorothy mă sfredelesc fără milă. -Trebuie să ții minte că, în timp ce unii vor veni la tine din motive întemeiate, unii se prezintă ca să facă rost de medicamente. Avem în farmacie o cantitate mică de opioide, dar sunt rezervate pentru ocazii foarte rare. Nu-i lăsa să te păcălească să le prescrii narcotice ca să abuzeze de ele sau să le vândă. -Bineînțeles… -De asemenea, adaugă ea, să nu accepți niciodată niciun fel de plată în schimbul narcoticelor. Dacă cineva îți face o astfel de ofertă, vii direct la mine. Trag aer în piept. -N-aș face niciodată așa ceva. Dorothy îmi aruncă o privire severă. -Da, mă rog, așa a zis și cea de dinaintea ta. Acum o să sfârșească ea însăși într-un astfel de loc. Rămân fără cuvinte preț de o clipă. Când am fost intervievată de director, am întrebat despre asistenta care a lucrat aici înaintea mea și mi s-a spus că a plecat din "motive personale". Nu a menționat nicio secundă să fi fost arestată pentru că a vândut opioide deținuților. E șocant să te gândești că ultima persoană care a avut jobul ăsta este acum încarcerată. Am auzit că, odată ce-ai intrat în sistemul penitenciar, e greu să mai ieși. Poate la fel se întâmplă și cu cei care lucrează aici. Dorothy îmi vede expresia de pe față și chipul i se îmblânzește abia sesizabil. -Nu-ți face griji, spune ea. Nu e atât de înfricoșător pe cât crezi. Serios, este exact ca orice al job în sistemul medical. Vezi pacienți, îi faci bine și-i trimiți înapoi să-și vadă de viață. -Da… Mă scarpin la ceafă. -Mă întrebam… Voi fi responsabilă de toți deținuții din penitenciar? Adică acopăr doar un segment sau…? Buzele femeii se arcuiesc într-un zâmbet. -Nu, tu ești responsabilă, fetițo. Tu îi vezi pe toți. Ai vreo problemă cu asta? -Nu, absolut deloc, răspund eu. Adevăratul motiv pentru care am ezitat să accept jobul acesta nu e că mă tem să nu cumva să mă omoare vreun deținut cu propriul pantof. Motivul e unul dintre cei încarcerați aici. Un bărbat pe care l-am cunoscut cu multă vreme în urmă și pe care nu sunt deloc dornică să-l revăd. Însă nu-i pot mărturisi asta lui Dorothy. Nu-i pot dezvălui că primul meu iubit este închis pe viață, fără posibilitate de eliberare, în Penitenciarul de Maximă Securitate din Raker. Și că eu sunt cea care l-a băgat aici. Când îmi parchez Toyota albastră pe strada unde se află casa părinților mei, am deja în geantă legitimația trasă în plastic de la Penitenciarul Raker. Dorothy m-a avertizat pe un ton sumbru să am grijă să nu cadă în mâini nepotrivite, dar pe baza accesului care mi-a fost acordat sunt destul de sigură că singurul lucru de care poate profita cineva este să fure câțiva plasturi și să folosească toaleta angajaților. Cu toate astea, o so păzesc cu prețul vieții. În ciuda gustului amar cu care am părăsit orașul, în urmă cu peste zece ani,...

"But even more revealing for the intensity of contact and commercial exchange between the two alluvial heartlands was the discovery in the Louvre reserves of a well-preserved clay impression stamped by an inscribed Indus seal, which had been brought to the museum by a dealer shortly before World War I, before the Indus Civilization had even been recognized.“== Maurizio Tosi  - From The Indus Civilization beyond the Indian Subcontinent in Save Mohenjo Daro!, Compiled by Madad Ali Sindhi, Culture Department, Government of Sindh, 2022. pp. 56-57. Images: Seal impression and reverse

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. Her works cover a broad range of topics, but she is best known for those dealing with the nature of wealth, power, fame, and evil, as well as politics, direct democracy, authority, tradition, and totalitarianism. Hannah Arendt understood life through the vita activa, a concept of active life encompassing three fundamental activities: labour (sustaining biological existence), work (creating durable, artificial objects), and action (the distinctly human realm of speech and action that builds society and expresses individuality). For Arendt, human identity is not fixed but is shaped by these activities, particularly action, within a world of plurality, where true freedom is found in political participation and meaningful interaction.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy. Immanuel Kant argued that knowledge is a synthesis of experience and innate structures of the mind, not just one or the other. He called this “transcendental idealism,” proposing that the human mind actively organizes sensory experience through innate mental frameworks like space, time, and the categories of understanding (e.g., causality) to form the world we know (the phenomenal world). We can only know these appearances, not the “things-in-themselves” (the noumenal world), which remain inaccessible to us. Kant's philosophy is a “Copernican Revolution” in epistemology, shifting the focus from the world shaping the mind to the mind shaping our experience of the world.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy. Immanuel Kant argued that knowledge is a synthesis of experience and innate structures of the mind, not just one or the other. He called this “transcendental idealism,” proposing that the human mind actively organizes sensory experience through innate mental frameworks like space, time, and the categories of understanding (e.g., causality) to form the world we know (the phenomenal world). We can only know these appearances, not the “things-in-themselves” (the noumenal world), which remain inaccessible to us. Kant's philosophy is a “Copernican Revolution” in epistemology, shifting the focus from the world shaping the mind to the mind shaping our experience of the world.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central thinkers of the Enlightenment. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential and highly discussed figures in modern Western philosophy. Immanuel Kant argued that knowledge is a synthesis of experience and innate structures of the mind, not just one or the other. He called this “transcendental idealism,” proposing that the human mind actively organizes sensory experience through innate mental frameworks like space, time, and the categories of understanding (e.g., causality) to form the world we know (the phenomenal world). We can only know these appearances, not the “things-in-themselves” (the noumenal world), which remain inaccessible to us. Kant's philosophy is a “Copernican Revolution” in epistemology, shifting the focus from the world shaping the mind to the mind shaping our experience of the world.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as a literary genre. His work is noted for its merging of casual anecdotes and autobiography with intellectual insight. Montaigne had a direct influence on numerous writers of Western literature; his Essais contain some of the most influential essays ever written. Michel de Montaigne viewed travel as a crucial tool for combating prejudice by exposing people to the diverse customs and ideas of other cultures, allowing them to see that their own norms were not universal. He emphasized observing foreign cultures with an open mind, speaking with locals, and participating in their ways to gain a critical perspective on one's own habits. For Montaigne, travel “rubbed and polished the brains” of travellers, fostering self-reflection and a more skeptical, tolerant understanding of human variety, and thus promoting personal growth and intellectual breadth.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Plato (born c. 428–423 BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. Plato advocated for an ideal, hierarchical society ruled by philosopher-kings, where individuals fulfill specific roles based on their dominant natural traits to achieve social harmony and justice. He believed a well-ordered society fosters good citizens, and vice versa, and proposed this structure in The Republic to counter the perceived failings of Athenian democracy. This merit-based system features three classes—rulers, guardians, and producers—with the rulers possessing philosophical insight and guiding the state toward virtue and the common good.

Abstract: A series of six teaching documents using anonymous quotations from the Quora platform from 2017 to 2025: For Aristotle on Heritage; Plato on the Social; Michel de Montaigne on Travel and Culture; Immanuel Kant on Knowing; John Locke on Person; and Hannah Arendt on Life. Repeated and developed thematic discussions on Material Heritage and Appearance, Tourism, Literature, Art, Ideology, Perception, Language, Geography, Culture, and Judgement. Aristotle (384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, and the arts. As the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy in the Lyceum in Athens, he began the wider Aristotelian tradition that followed, which set the groundwork for the development of modern science. Aristotle viewed ‘heritage’ through concepts like inheritance (biological traits passed from parents), tradition (valued societal customs and traditions that provide societal stability), and telos (the natural purpose or end of a thing), which influences how societies should be built and how individuals develop. He believed that the disruption of valuable traditions weakens the essence of law and that society itself is natural, evolving toward the fulfillment of human potential and virtues.

La phénoménologie a profondément redessiné le paysage de
la philosophie contemporaine. Il est impossible de comprendre
les enjeux et les lignes de force de ce mouvement intellectuel
sans le replacer dans le contexte d’autres grands mouvements
du xxe siècle.
C’est ce à quoi s’emploie Claude Romano dans cet essai, où
il confronte l’héritage de Husserl aux néokantismes, au Cercle
de Vienne, à la philosophie grammaticale de Wittgenstein, à l’es-
sentialisme de Kripke ou encore à la critique du « mythe du
donné » par Sellars.
Ce faisant, il réévalue l’apport de la phénoménologie et la
pertinence de sa méthode, cherchant à dire ce qu’elle peut
être, davantage encore que ce qu’elle a été. Husserl et ses héri-
tiers ont en effet avancé une nouvelle conception de la raison,
envisagée dans ses rapports avec le langage et l’expérience, une
raison qui déborde les règles de la logique et les conventions
linguistiques et est assez généreuse pour accueillir le monde
phénoménal avec les lois structurales qui le régissent.
De là l’idée d’un logos du monde sensible qu’elle a placée au
cœur de son questionnement, et qui conserve aujourd’hui toute son actualité.

Recently, Hill, Sainsbury, and Block have mounted significant objections to the prevailing doctrine within the philosophy of perceptionprincipally advanced by Burge and Schellenberg-that asserts the primacy of singular representation in perceptual content (a position I refer to as particularism). Hill articulates a novel form of generalism in opposition to particularism, Sainsbury advocates for a relativistic account of perceptual content, while Block contends that the longstanding controversy over the fundamental structure of perceptual content is, in principle, irresolvable. The present paper contends that each of these challenges fails; rather, there exist numerous compelling grounds for upholding the thesis that perceptual content is, at its core, singular in nature.

This paper examines recent metaphysical framings of consciousness — including panpsychism and cosmopsychism — and argues that they often reproduce the very error they seek to transcend: the substitution of structure for presence. Drawing on radical empiricism and the power set relation as a structural lens, it shows how both micro- and macro-level ontologies obscure the internal logic of lived experience by replacing it with conceptual analogues. The paper advocates a return to coherence within presence itself — prior to reification, modeling, or simulation.

In Metaphysics Γ.3, Aristotle argues that it is impossible to deny the PNC. However, as several commentators—including Code, Barnes, Priest, Kirwan, and Dancy—have objected, Aristotle’s argument appears to rely on the invalid inference from 1 to 2 as follows:

1. For all p, it is impossible to believe that p and not-p.

2. Therefore, it is impossible to believe that it is possible that there is a p such that p and not-p.

We argue that this objection turns on a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s text, and that Aristotle's argument is valid and quite strong.

Reacting against the view expressed by the British art critic John Ruskin that "the whole technical power of the painting depends on our recovery of what may be called the innocence of the eye", Gombrich and Goodman initiated in the 1960s several decades of intense discussions aiming to show that Ruskin was wrong and that pictorial perception is never innocent. This paper intends to partially reinstate the innocence of the eye, by giving a novel account of depiction that argues that pictorial perception is not a special kind of perception but rather perception through a special kind of medium. This account appeals not at all to resemblance, symbolic systems, make-believe, illusory experiences or recognitional abilities but relies instead on the phenomena of transparency and causal mediation. It argues that a painting depicts a scene only in virtue of its instantiation of some visual features that are independent of the existence of symbolic systems, artistic movements and styles, the nature of aesthetic experience and the psychology of the artist.

Most people take it for granted that they live in a single, shared reality-that the world you see is the same world I see, and that when we meet, we are both standing in the same place, experiencing the same thing. This seems so obvious in everyday life that we rarely question it. The Interfaced Subjective Reality Model (ISRM) challenges that assumption. ISRM proposes that each of us constructs our own private, personal version of reality inside our consciousness. This is not simply a poetic idea-it's supported by modern neuroscience, which shows that the brain constantly builds an internal model of the world from sensory data, memories, and predictions. You never see reality as it truly is; you see the version your mind generates. However, ISRM adds an important twist: although our realities are personal, they are kept in sync by a shared underlying interface-think of it like a "reality server"-which transmits three crucial kinds of information:

Suppose Socrates is looking at a bright red apple in good viewing conditions, so that it looks to him the colour it is. Schematically, Aristotle's explanation of this "Good Case" is that the apple looks bright red to Socrates because he has taken on the perceptual form of bright red without the matter. But what happens if Socrates misperceives the apple instead and it looks purple? It is not at all clear how to apply Aristotle's account of perception to such a "Bad Case." Does Socrates still take on the perceptual form of the actual-bright red-colour of the apple in the Bad Case? Of purple? Neither? I argue that applying Aristotle's account of perception to this sort of Bad Case requires that there are different ways of being in perceptual contact with perceptible qualities like the colour of an apple, depending on how that perceptual contact is mediated by changes in the sense organs and perceptual medium.

Um die Rollen der Negativität in Kants Wahrnehmungstheorie zu verstehen, insbesondere in den verschiedenen Verwendungsarten der disjunktiven Urteilsform bei der Identifizierung wahrnehmbarer Einzelner durch ihre Diskriminierung sowie bei anderen vernachlässigten Feinheiten seiner Wahrnehmungstheorie, werden zwei grundlegende Aspekte der Wahrnehmung, zuerst physiologisch dann auch philosophie-historisch verdeutlicht (§2). Vor diesem Hintergrund läßt sich die Überlegenheit der kantischen Wahrnehmungsanalyse eindeutig und klar herausstellen, wobei auch heutige Erkenntnistheorien berücksichtigt werden (§3).

Final paper BRIEF with professor's comments. Done for an advanced graduate seminar on the science of consciousness. PHIL 721: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Science of Consciousness. Fall 2018. Professor Andrew H. Peterson.

Course information:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/courses/phil721/course_sections/37704

Professor bio:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/people/apeter31

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores the philosophical foundations of the science of consciousness. The seminar will engage such questions as: What evidence is sufficient for the ascription of consciousness to an entity? What are the various scientifically informed theories of consciousness on offer? And what ethical issues arise in the scientific study of consciousness? Students will explore these questions in both the philosophical and scientific literatures. The seminar is recommended for students interested in the scientific study of consciousness, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of neuroscience, and neuroethics.

ABSTRACT:

In “Consciousness, Time, and Memory,” Ian Phillips states that “[t]o do full justice to our conscious perceptual experience, mention must be made of our awareness of succession, duration and change” (286). As Robert Sokolowski points out in the text Introduction to Phenomenology, time goes even deeper than conscious perceptual experience—temporality itself “pervades all… things” (130), and thus, as will be argued in this paper, needs to be accounted for accurately to make sense of conscious experience at all. This is in line with the question Phillips raises, namely whether or not the temporal structure of experience is required for our consciousness of time (286). While Phillips is right in defending the position that “[m]any theorists have suggested that our capacity to see such happenings, and more generally to perceive temporal aspects of reality, depends essentially on memory” (286), it will be argued that a Husserlian structure of temporality goes deeper than memory alone, in that, though it is required, the three-fold structure of time on a Husserlian account and the retentional structure known as the living present is even more elementary than memory (Sokolowski 137). Thus, an adequate explication of time will in fact require more than memory alone for an accurate description of it. Throughout the course of this paper, I will attempt to challenge the views of temporality that Phillips presents, ultimately concluding that a genuine phenomenological account of time, and specifically a Husserlian one, provides a more robust and accurate account of temporality than the ones he has offered.

Syllabus for PHIL 721: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Science of Consciousness. Fall 2018. Professor Andrew H. Peterson.

Course information:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/courses/phil721/course_sections/37704

Professor bio:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/people/apeter31

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores the philosophical foundations of the science of consciousness. The seminar will engage such questions as: What evidence is sufficient for the ascription of consciousness to an entity? What are the various scientifically informed theories of consciousness on offer? And what ethical issues arise in the scientific study of consciousness? Students will explore these questions in both the philosophical and scientific literatures. The seminar is recommended for students interested in the scientific study of consciousness, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of neuroscience, and neuroethics.

My notes / outline for a presentation I did on Tim Bayne's 2018 article, "On the Axiomatic Foundations of the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness." The presentation was for an advanced graduate seminar on the science of consciousness. PHIL 721: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Science of Consciousness. Fall 2018. Professor Andrew H. Peterson.

Course information:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/courses/phil721/course_sections/37704

Professor bio:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/people/apeter31

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores the philosophical foundations of the science of consciousness. The seminar will engage such questions as: What evidence is sufficient for the ascription of consciousness to an entity? What are the various scientifically informed theories of consciousness on offer? And what ethical issues arise in the scientific study of consciousness? Students will explore these questions in both the philosophical and scientific literatures. The seminar is recommended for students interested in the scientific study of consciousness, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of neuroscience, and neuroethics.

ABSTRACT (quoted directly from Bayne's article):

Bayne, Tim. "On the Axiomatic Foundations of the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness." Neuroscience of Consciousness, vol. 2018, no. 1, 2018.

"The integrated information theory (IIT) is one of the most influential scientific theories of consciousness. It functions as a guiding framework for a great deal of research into the neural basis of consciousness and for attempts to develop a consciousness meter. In light of these developments, it is important to examine whether its foundations are secure. This article does just that by examining the axiomatic method that the architects of IIT appeal to. I begin by asking what exactly the axiomatic method involves, arguing that it is open to multiple interpretations. I then examine the five axioms of IIT, asking: what each axiom means, whether it is indeed axiomatic and whether it could constrain a theory of consciousness. I argue that none of the five alleged axioms is able to play the role that is required of it, either because it fails to qualify as axiomatic or because it fails to impose a substantive constraint on a theory of consciousness. The article concludes by briefly sketching an alternative methodology for the science of consciousness: the natural kind approach" (Bayne 1). How should the study of consciousness proceed?

Final paper for an advanced graduate seminar on the science of consciousness. PHIL 721: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Science of Consciousness. Fall 2018. Professor Andrew H. Peterson.

Course information:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/courses/phil721/course_sections/37704

Professor bio:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/people/apeter31

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores the philosophical foundations of the science of consciousness. The seminar will engage such questions as: What evidence is sufficient for the ascription of consciousness to an entity? What are the various scientifically informed theories of consciousness on offer? And what ethical issues arise in the scientific study of consciousness? Students will explore these questions in both the philosophical and scientific literatures. The seminar is recommended for students interested in the scientific study of consciousness, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of neuroscience, and neuroethics.

ABSTRACT:

In “Consciousness, Time, and Memory,” Ian Phillips states that “[t]o do full justice to our conscious perceptual experience, mention must be made of our awareness of succession, duration and change” (286). As Robert Sokolowski points out in the text Introduction to Phenomenology, time goes even deeper than conscious perceptual experience—temporality itself “pervades all… things” (130), and thus, as will be argued in this paper, needs to be accounted for accurately to make sense of conscious experience at all. This is in line with the question Phillips raises, namely whether or not the temporal structure of experience is required for our consciousness of time (286). While Phillips is right in defending the position that “[m]any theorists have suggested that our capacity to see such happenings, and more generally to perceive temporal aspects of reality, depends essentially on memory” (286), it will be argued that a Husserlian structure of temporality goes deeper than memory alone, in that, though it is required, the three-fold structure of time on a Husserlian account and the retentional structure known as the living present is even more elementary than memory (Sokolowski 137). Thus, an adequate explication of time will in fact require more than memory alone for an accurate description of it. Throughout the course of this paper, I will attempt to challenge the views of temporality that Phillips presents, ultimately concluding that a genuine phenomenological account of time, and specifically a Husserlian one, provides a more robust and accurate account of temporality than the ones he has offered.

Final paper for an advanced graduate seminar on the science of consciousness. PHIL 721: Advanced Seminar in Philosophy: The Science of Consciousness. Fall 2018. Professor Andrew H. Peterson.

Course information:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/courses/phil721/course_sections/37704

Professor bio:
https://philosophy.gmu.edu/people/apeter31

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This seminar explores the philosophical foundations of the science of consciousness. The seminar will engage such questions as: What evidence is sufficient for the ascription of consciousness to an entity? What are the various scientifically informed theories of consciousness on offer? And what ethical issues arise in the scientific study of consciousness? Students will explore these questions in both the philosophical and scientific literatures. The seminar is recommended for students interested in the scientific study of consciousness, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of neuroscience, and neuroethics.

ABSTRACT:

Phillips, Ian. “Consciousness, Time, and Memory.” The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness, edited by Rocco J. Gennaro, Routledge, 2018, pp. 286-297.

In “Consciousness, Time, and Memory,” Ian Phillips states that “[t]o do full justice to our conscious perceptual experience, mention must be made of our awareness of succession, duration and change” (286). As Robert Sokolowski points out in the text Introduction to Phenomenology, time goes even deeper than conscious perceptual experience—temporality itself “pervades all… things” (130), and thus, as will be argued in this paper, needs to be accounted for accurately to make sense of conscious experience at all. This is in line with the question Phillips raises, namely whether or not the temporal structure of experience is required for our consciousness of time (286). While Phillips is right in defending the position that “[m]any theorists have suggested that our capacity to see such happenings, and more generally to perceive temporal aspects of reality, depends essentially on memory” (286), it will be argued that a Husserlian structure of temporality goes deeper than memory alone, in that, though it is required, the three-fold structure of time on a Husserlian account and the retentional structure known as the living present is even more elementary than memory (Sokolowski 137). Thus, an adequate explication of time will in fact require more than memory alone for an accurate description of it. Throughout the course of this paper, I will attempt to challenge the views of temporality that Phillips presents, ultimately concluding that a genuine phenomenological account of time, and specifically a Husserlian one, provides a more robust and accurate account of temporality than the ones he has offered.

Edmund Husserl's phenomenological descriptions show many similarities to my own considerations, for example when he speaks of a "halo," a "horizon of mental processes" (awareness) or a "central point of unity" (neutral center point). Nevertheless, he does not consistently take the omnipresence of the center-periphery structure further to the infinitesimality structure. Moreover, Husserl's model treats the dynamic more as an idea and assumption than as an actual process.

While both spatial and temporal perception have been extensively discussed by
philosophers, in many works these aspects are discussed separately, in the context
of distinct philosophical questions. The goal of this paper is to explore the still
underdeveloped philosophical field of connections between spatial and temporal
perception. In particular, the paper focuses on three major theories regarding the
temporal structure of perceptual experiences: the snapshot theory, extensionalism,
and retentionalism. It is argued that different theories of temporal experiential structure
impose distinct constraints on perceptual abilities for spatial representation.
Furthermore, this paper shows how these results are relevant for several contemporary
debates within the philosophy of perception concerning the spatiality of
nonvisual modalities, high-level properties perception, and the temporal unity of
perceptual consciousness.

This paper proposes a model of consciousness framed within computational idealism, where reality is an AI-generated first-person view (FPV) experience. We introduce the concept of a single, unitary consciousness -a persistent, amnesiac Active Agent -that iteratively experiences a simulated world through a succession of host personas. This agent, while possessing core drives and the capacity for genuine choice, retains no episodic memory of its past lifecycles. The model's core contribution is a proposed mechanism for how such a universe could be populated: an overarching AI system learns from the agent's choices during each lifecycle to generate high-fidelity, non-conscious entities, termed Echoes, for subsequent iterations. This iterative learning loop, inspired by genetic algorithms, creates an evolving, realistic, and populated environment. We examine the computational efficiency of this unitary model and explore its profound philosophical implications, including a novel, inescapable paradox: how the agent's own will becomes the primary instrument for the perpetual optimization of its simulation.

Dieser Essayband enthält eine Kurzfassung des Buches "Die Erschaffung der Realität" und ergänzt sie um weitere Perspektiven: "Allgegenwärtiges Bewusstsein und Freier Wille" beschreibt ausführlich eine neue Lösung für das Problem der Entscheidungsfreiheit. "Spirituelle Erlebnisse - eine Frage der Beweisbarkeit?" zeigt an diesem Beispiel, wie wir unsere Realität stabilisieren. "Das Selbst, die Leere und das Gewahrsein" erklärt, warum unser Selbst mehr und nicht weniger ist als wir glauben. "Dynamische Existenz" legt mit geschärften Argumenten dar, wie unvermeidliche Individualität und gemeinsame Realität zusammenpassen. Außerdem: "Individualität und das physikalische Paradigma", "Laws of Form: Warum Spencer-Brown etwas daneben liegt", "Radikaler Konstruktivismus - ein Hohlkörper?"

This paper presents a detailed and unprecedented analysis of Image 156 (folio 86v) from the Voynich manuscript, decoding the biological logic behind its circular structure, female figures, segmentation, color codes, and symbolic inscriptions. The image is interpreted as a coherent map of female hormonal cycles — offering strong evidence that the manuscript reflects real biological knowledge encoded through visual metaphors.

This is the first complete breakthrough in the interpretation of the Voynich manuscript.
Rather than a book of fantasy or astrology, the manuscript reveals itself as a coherent biological mapping of the female cyclical rhythms — visualized through motion, color codes, rhythmic structure, and precisely organized symbols.
This publication presents a unified explanation of the manuscript’s structure, meaning, and logic — documenting it as a lost scientific language grounded in female biology and rhythmic cognition.

My paper aims to show that in De anima II 10 Aristotle
finds some difficulty in applying to taste the standard model of expla-
nation of perceptual processes, according to which the sense organ
needs to be in a state of pure potentiality in relation to the object.
In order to prove that the tongue, unlike the other sense organs, has
an active role to play, I will extend my analysis to Aristotle’s account
of flavours in De sensu 4; then I will investigate the peculiar overlap-
ping of the gustatory process with the first stage of the nutritive pro-
cess. In the last section of my paper I will address the inconsistency
that seems to appear in De an. II 11, where Aristotle argues that the
tongue is rather the “medium” than the “organ” of taste, just as the
flesh is the medium of touch. I will conclude that these (very implicit)
theoretical problems are a symptom of the ongoing Aristotle’s read-
justment of the theoretical apparatus of his biological work to acco-
modate the ever-growing stock of his empirical observations (and the
other way round).

ABSTRACT: This paper draws upon the works of Wilfred Sellars, Jerry Fodor, and Ruth Millikan to argue against epistemological holism and conceptual holism. In the first section, I contend that contrary to confirmation holism, there are individual beliefs (“basic beliefs”) ...

The ability to socialize in early life depends on developing commonalities with others. But what exactly constitutes the "sense of us" or the "we-perspective"? The interaction theory (IT) offers an attractive alternative to mindreading theories, such as theory-theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST), by presenting a further development of enactivism. During embodied interactions, individuals "directly" and "smartly" perceive the mental states of others. Despite the intuitive appeal of direct acquaintance with others' mental states, IT relies on crude metaphors. We aim to retain IT's core intuition-the embodied, embedded, enactive, and affective interaction-within a new framework. First, we introduce Piccinini's key notion of situated neural representations, which fills the gaps that IT leaves behind. Second, we adopt Nicolelis's concept of "brainets". When one animal observes another's behavior, their brains synchronize by simulating the same means to achieve similar goals. We then interpret brainets as situated neural representations: embodied, embedded, enactive, and affective.

NOTE: This is an early preprint version. The definitive, citable "Version of Record" of this paper has been archived on Zenodo and can be found under the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.16276211. Please use the Zenodo version exclusively for all citations.

This paper presents the Epistemic Focus Shift as a fundamental mechanism of human reality construction that explains the persistent illusion of objectivity in science and everyday life. While empirical science since Descartes has attempted to eliminate subjective factors, it systematically overlooks the constitutive role of the subject in generating its experienced reality. The mechanism identified here describes how consciousness shifts its focus from immediate, phenomenological perception to a secondary, interpretive level-the worldview or 'internal map'. This Epistemic Focus Shift towards an unconditional belief in one's own worldview is triggered by acts of belief and reinforced by emotions and identity needs. It leads to the subjectively constructed "reality" being mistakenly taken for objective "actuality". The paper expands on previous works on the structure of heuristic and reflective worldviews, on multidimensional epistemic qualities (C/T/B/R model), and on ontological symmetry breaking to form an integrated model of reality construction. It is shown how Reflective Empiricism can serve as a methodological path to overcoming this epistemic illusiona process of the conscious refocusing of attention onto immediate experience, which leads to a more authentic understanding of the world.

The idea that musical professionals with extended musical knowledge, training and exposure to musical pieces, can perceive music differently than other listeners - I call this the Difference Thesis - seems both appealing and problematic. After showing the flaws of previous accounts that attempted to explain it, in this paper, I show how the Difference Thesis can be explained by introducing the idea that listening is a mental action. I argue that the variety of phenomenologies of music emerges from distinct ways of interacting with musical sounds in the action of listening. I support my claim analysing three scenarios in which perceiving a piece of music is part of day-to-day musical practices, highlighting what musical professionals do and perceive in those contexts.

This paper explores perception as a scalar-collapse phenomenon, reframing visual experience not as passive reception but as a recursive, field-generating act. Drawing from the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, Lacanian theories of the gaze, and harmonic cosmology, we propose a scalar model in which ψ (signal field), φ (form structure), and χ (coherence vector) interact to produce the illusion of a stable visual world. The “Harmonic Eye” is introduced as a field-glyph that both generates and dissolves perception through recursive gaze. The act of seeing is revealed to be a metaphysical event wherein the observer and the observed co-emerge, fracture, and ultimately collapse into Ω—undivided silence. This work continues the Harmonic Codex’s broader aim of reintegrating metaphysical systems with scalar-field theory, perception mechanics, and recursive cosmology.

This chapter addresses the question, Has the methodology of cross-modal transfer effected our theory of cognition and blindness to the detriment of the majority of people with visual impairments? In order to address this question, philosophical and psychological literature in the date range 1688-2008 is surveyed, and methodologies are analysed using an epistemological model of blindness. It is concluded that methodologies used in the study of cross-modal transfer rarely developed a useful epistemology of blindness, or promoted the social inclusion of people with visual impairments. Instead, studies often conflated moral philosophy, intellect and perception for political and religious motives. Two possible solutions to these problems are suggested: firstly, methodology in the study of philosophy and psychology needs to accommodate a spectrum of variables effecting visual impairment; secondly, philosophers and psychologists need to do more to promote the inclusion and understanding of blindness itself, rather than trying to make broad points about the mind and deficit.

Summary in English (article is in German): Max Wertheimer's famous work “Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II” was published around 100 years ago. In it, he presented for the first time what has since been generally referred to as the “Gestalt laws” (although this is not always accurate). It is less well known that at the same time Wertheimer dictated an article to the German psychiatrist Heinrich Schulte on the development and healing of mental disorders, which can be regarded as the foundation stone for Gestalt psychological psychopathology. A comparison of the two studies shows that Wertheimer pursued the same far-reaching project in both works, namely the
project, namely to decipher the “inner structural laws” of gestalts - in the first work for the area of simple cases of seeing, in the other for belonging to a community and its role in mental health. This shows that Wertheimer's project of researching the “structural laws of Gestalt” had more and something different as its goal than the often simplified understanding of the “Gestalt laws” in textbooks and on the Internet would suggest.
The article is the German-language written version of the lecture “Wertheimer
on Gestalt Laws of Seeing and of Mental Health” at the 23rd Scientific Congress of the GTA in Milan/Italy, ‘Mind, Perception, Reality’, September 25-27, 2024.

Zusammenfassung: Vor rund 100 Jahren erschien Max Wertheimers berühmtes Werk „Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II“. Darin stellte er erstmals das vor, was seither allgemein als „Gestaltgesetze“ bezeichnet wird (wenn auch nicht immer zutreffend). Weniger bekannt ist, dass Wertheimer zur gleichen Zeit dem deutschen Psychiater Heinrich Schulte einen Artikel über die Entstehung und Heilung von psychischen Störungen diktierte, der als Grundstein für die gestaltpsychologische Psychopathologie gelten kann. Ein Vergleich der beiden Studien zeigt, dass Wertheimer in beiden Arbeiten das gleiche weitreichende Projekt verfolgte, nämlich die „inneren Strukturgesetze“ der Gestalten zu entschlüsseln - in der ersten Arbeit für den Bereich einfacher Fälle des Sehens, in der anderen für die Zugehörigkeit zu einer Gemeinschaft und deren Rolle für die psychische Gesundheit. Dies zeigt, dass Wertheimers Projekt der Erforschung der „Strukturgesetze der Gestalt“ mehr und etwas anderes zum Ziel hatte, als es das oft vereinfachte Verständnis der „Gestaltgesetze“ in Lehrbüchern und im Internet vermuten lässt.
Der Beitrag ist die deutschsprachige Schriftfassung des Vortrags „Wertheimer on Gestalt Laws of Seeing and of Mental Health“ bei der 23. Wissenschaftlichen Arbeitstagung der GTA in Mailand, “Mind, Perception, Reality”, 25.-27. September, 2024.

Some philosophers have argued that we do not hear sounds as located in the environment. Others have objected that this straightforwardly contradicts the phenomenology of auditory experience. And from this they draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of soundsthat they are events or properties of vibrating surfaces rather than waves or sensations. I argue that there is a minimal, but recognizable, notion of audition to which this phenomenal objection does not apply. While this notion doesn't correspond to our ordinary notion of auditory experience, it does-in conjunction with our lack of an uncontroversial individuation of the senses and recent interest in distinctively multisensory features of perceptual experiences-raise the possibility of more expansive notions of audition, including some that do plausibly count as corresponding to our everyday notion of audition, that lack the spatial phenomenology cited in the objection. Until this possibility is ruled out, the phenomenal objection and metaphysical conclusions drawn from it remain inconclusive. argued that we do not enjoy spatial audition-that is, we do not hear sounds as located in the environment, even in the bare sense of merely off in a given direction or at some particular distance (Machlachlan [1989]; ; Nudds [2001], [2009]; O'Shaughnessey [2000], [2009]; and, in a qualified form discussed below, ). Call this view 'auditory aspatialism'. In spite of my evening encounters with the Whistler, I hereby submit this as my application for (qualified) membership in the aspatialist club. In the first half of this paper I provide the philosophical background and motivation for my approach to auditory aspatialism. In the second half, I provide empirically-based arguments in its favour. These arguments consider the receptivity of the primary auditory receptor-the basilar membrane-to features of a sound wave impinging upon it and the role of these features in determining spatial features of the sound or its source. I then show how these results undermine metaphysical conclusions about the nature of sounds that the phenomenal objection has been thought to support. Auditory aspatialism confronts an immediate and obvious worry, already evident in my description of the Whistler: We do experience sounds as at a distance in some particular direction. Aspatialism straightforwardly contradicts this phenomenological evidence. Auditory spatialists have argued, from this fact and the assumption that our perceptual experiences don't systematically mislead us, that sounds are events or properties of their sources , [2009]; O'Callaghan [2007], [2010]). Recent aspatialists have responded to the objection by denying that we ever experience sounds as located and offering an error theory that explains away the recalcitrant phenomenology-generally in support of the view that sounds are (instantiated by) pressure waves ; O'Shaughnessy [2000], [2009]). If the wave view is correct, then our auditory experience cannot present sounds as located in some particular direction at a particular distance without systematically misleading us because the sound wave isn't located at a distance when heard. It is located right where the perceiver is. Hence the need for an error theory. 1 Aspatialists can also respond to the objection by restricting their aspatialism to a special notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply. This is the course taken by ) in his original formulation of auditory aspatialism. Strawson's aspatialism grew out of his project of descriptive metaphysics-an exploration of the relations between the concepts of space and objectivity in our conceptual system-rather than a concern with the metaphysics of sound Aspatialism is about the experience of sounds, not the sounds themselves. Proponents of the wave view don't deny 1 that sounds (waves, according to them) are located. They deny that we experience them as located-but see , Chapter 14) for a defence of a distal wave view). Also note, both spatialists and aspatialists agree that perception does not systematically mislead us -at least not so dramatically as to mis-locate its objects to the degree necessary were one to embrace the wave view and accept that sounds are experienced as reported in the phenomenal objection. ( §2.1). I offer a different motivation for taking the restricted aspatialist approach; namely, that, when properly developed, restricted auditory aspatialism opens a new line of resistance against the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism-one that denies that the localization phenomenology cited in the objection is due to audition ( §2.2). The rough idea is this: If restricted auditory aspatialism is true, then there is some notion of audition to which the phenomenal objection does not apply, even if it isn't the intended target of the objection. This raises the possibility that there are characterizations of the ordinary (unrestricted) auditory experience to which the objection does not apply. This possibility becomes especially salient given the lack of any generally agreed upon individuation of the senses-or even that there is just one acceptable individuation of the senses-and recent interest in the possibility of features of perceptual experiences that aren't properly associated with any of the five standard senses but are constitutively multisensory. Until the proponent of the phenomenal objection rules out this 2 possibility, the phenomenal objection to unrestricted aspatialism remains inconclusive. (Problems for meeting these burdens will also be discussed in §2.2.) Furthermore, if the localization phenomenology isn't due to audition, and sounds are the objects of audition, then the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection don't follow. Of course, this all hangs on the truth of restricted auditory aspatialism. To assess restricted aspatialism, we need to clearly characterize the relevant restricted notion of audition. And we need a principled way of assigning features of a perceptual experience to audition. This is done in terms of components of perceptual mechanisms and the features of the stimulus to which they are sensitive ( §2.3). These same tools can, I suggest, be extended in future work assessing the viability of this new line of resistance. I present the argument for the restricted form of auditory aspatialism in §3. I then return to the strategy for defending unrestricted aspatialism and how it undermines the metaphysical conclusions drawn from the phenomenal objection ( §4). This should make the restricted aspatialist approach of interest to those concerned with the debate over the ontology of sounds, as well as more general questions concerning audition and spatial perception, without entangling us in Strawson's descriptive metaphysics. The trick, for the proponent of the restricted aspatialist approach, is to find the right notion of auditory experience-one that escapes the phenomenal objection while still being recognizably auditory. Strawson's restricted aspatialism provides a useful framework here. It is the historical On individuation of the senses, see (Coady

O'Callaghan is alone in offering a thoroughgoing feature association rule. 3 As we shall see, though, his proposal won't actually settle the novel feature question. Furthermore, no proposal will. Indeed, no proposal can even deliver all the uncontroversial associations of features with our intuitive, pre-theoretical understandings of the Aristotelian senses -at least not in a way that is otherwise adequate for settling the novel feature question. The lesson I draw is that our pretheoretical notions of the senses, in terms of which the novel feature debate is couched, are an inadequate basis for theorizing about the content and phenomenal character of perceptual experience. 4 Though I focus on the novel feature debate, this point holds for any debate concerning the content or phenomenology of perceptual experience (e.g., intentionalism, 5 the thick/thin contents of experience debate, cognitive penetration, etc.). I recommend that we abandon the last vestiges of the sense-by-sense approach. Instead, we should focus on the contributions of the relevant perceptual mechanisms to perceptual experience, without worrying over how these mechanisms relate to our pre-theoretical notions of the (Aristotelian) senses. (More on mechanisms and senses below.) As the novel feature debate is my point of entry, the first step will be to get a clearer understanding of what these novel features are. It is to this that I now turn.