This page was last modified on September 25, 2009

Susanna Siegel Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University

The Contents of Visual Experience forthcoming from Oxford University Press, 2010 or 2011

Papers

Do Visual Experiences Have Contents? In Perceiving the World, ed. Bence Nanay, Oxford University Press, 2010 (final version, Sept 09)

Papers about properties presented in visual experience

Which Properties Are Represented in Perception? In Perceptual Experience, eds. T. Szabo Gendler and J. Hawthorne. OUP, 2005

In this paper, I consider whether anything more than colors and shapes of objects in environment is represented in visual experience. I argue that it is: properties such as being a table and being a pine tree are represented in experience, as are semantic properties of texts. The argument includes discussions of non-sensory phenomenology. (Papers 5 and 6 will be fused into one book chapter eventually.)

The Visual Experience of Causation In Philosophical Quarterly59

In this paper I argue that visual experiences can represent causal relations, and I discuss the bearing of Michotte's results on this claim. An earlier draft of this paper was part of the on-line philosophy conference, which can be viewed here

The Phenomenology of Efficacy In Philosophical Topics Vol. 33, No 1, Spring 2005.

I argue that in some visual and kinesthetic experiences represent that the subject of those experiences has just brought about an effect. I call the kind of causation that I argue is so represented 'efficacy'. The paper also criticizes some arguments against the view that any kind of causation (a fortiori, efficacy) is represented in perceptual experience.

How Can We Discover the Contents of Experience? In Southern Journal of Philosophy, 2007, vol XLV

In this paper I discuss several proposals for how to find out which contents visual experiences have, and I defend the method I've uesd in several other papers - the method of phenomenal contrast.

Are Kind Properties Represented in Perception?

In this paper, I criticize an argument that no visual experiences represent kind properties, such as being a Eucalyptus tree.

Papers about seeing objects

How Does Visual Phenomenology Constrain Object-seeing? In Australasian Journal of Philosophy, September 2006.

I argue that there are phenomenological constraints on what it is to see an object, and that these are overlooked by some theories that offer allegedly sufficient causal and counterfactual conditions on object-seeing.

Subject and Object in the Contents of Visual Experience In Philosophical Review vol 115, no 3, 2006|

In this paper I argue that in experiences of object-seeing, objects are presented to us as mind-independent. The paper contains a thought-experiment involving a doll and an afterimage. (This paper used to be called "Particularity and Presence in Visual Perception").

Direct Realism and Perceptual Consciousness In Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol 73:2, Sept. 2006, with a reply by A.D. Smith

This is a paper focused on A.D. Smith's book The Problem of Perception. It discusses the argument from illusion and the argument from hallucination and criticizes Smith's attempt to defend direct realism from these arguments. It also includes a long section (section 6) on what characterizes phenomenology of perception as opposed to mere sensation. This section complements the discussion of these topics in "Subject and Object in the Contents of Visual Experience".

Papers about disjunctivism

Indiscriminability and the Phenomenal In Philosophical Studies 120, 90-112. 2004

In "The Limits of Self-Awareness", M.G.F. Martin argues that the dominant conception of phenomenal character is closely linked to the notion of indiscriminability from veridical perception, and brings with it weighty epistemic assumptions. I argue that fans of the dominant conception can reject the link between phenomenality and indiscriminability from veridical perception, and that the epistemic assumptions they're committed to are not weighty as Martin suggests.

The Epistemic Conception of Hallucination In Disjunctivism: Perception, Action and Knowledge Oxford University Press, 2008

In this paper I argue that the disjunctivist attempt to account for hallucination in purely epistemic terms probably won't work.

Papers about demonstratives

The Role of Perception in Demonstrative Reference In Philosophers' Imprint Vol. 2, No. 1. 2002.

In this paper I defend a view about what fixes the reference of uses of bare demonstratives ("this", "that", and their plurals).

"Presupposition and Policing in Complex Demonstratives" (with Michael Glanzberg) | In Nous March 2006, 40:1

We argue that in classic perceptual uses of that F, the nominal F plays what we call a "policing role" with respect the proposition semantically expressed by utterances in which the use occurs: roughly speaking, no proposition is semantically expressed by an utterance ofThat F is G if no contextually appropriate object is F. We argue for this on grounds that are independent of whether complex demonstratives are quantificational, referring expressions, or something else.

Paper in epistemology

Cognitive Penetrability and Perceptual Justification | Forthcoming in Nous

Encylcopedia Entries

The Contents of Perception in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Contents of Perception in the Sage Encyclopedia of Perception, Ed. Bruce Goldstein, 2009.

The Contents of Consciousness in Oxford Companion to Consciousness, Eds. Bayne, Cleermans and Wilken. 2009.

Unpublished Commentaries

Comments on Jim Pryor's "An Epistemic Theory of Acquaintance" (previously called "What Is De Re Thought?".) | jp in html

Comments on David Chalmers's "Perception and the Fall from Eden" | eden in html

Some thoughts on Simon Baron-Cohen's book The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Austism SB-C in html

This is a handout from a discussion held at the MBB Program's 2005 Junior Symposim. The topic of the symposium was Sex, Gender, Mind and Brain.

Reviews

•Review of A Theory of Sentience, by Austen Clark, Philosophical Review, vol. 111, no 1, January 2002 | clark in html

•Review of Reference and Consciousness, by John Campbell, Philosophical Review vol. 113, no 3, July 2004 | jc in html

•"Can We See More Than We Can Access?" Comment on Ned Block's "Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and Neuroscience". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2007. Co-authored with Alex Byrne and David Hilbert

Edited Collections

• Guest Editor, PSYCHE 13.1, 2007: Symposium on the Phenomenology of Agency.

The symposium includes papers by Vittorio Gallese, Jakob Hohwy, Terry Horgan, Jenann Ismael, Elisabeth Pacherie, and Stephen White

• Co-Editor, with Tamar Gendler and Steven Cahn.Elements of Philosophy Oxford University Press, 2007.

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