Susanna
SiegelProfessor of Philosophy, Harvard University
Some papers (Comments
welcome -- ssiegel@fas.harvard.edu)
Papers about demonstratives
1. "The Role of Perception in Demonstrative Reference", in Philosophers'
Imprint | Vol. 2, No.
1
In this paper I defend a view about what fixes the reference of
uses of bare demonstratives ("this", "that", and their plurals).
2. "Presupposition and Policing in Complex Demonstratives" (with
Michael Glanzberg) | cd
in htmlNous 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.
Papers about seeing objects
3. "How Does Visual Phenomenology Constrain Object-seeing?" Australasian Journal of Philosophy, September 2006.
| franco in pdf
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.
4. "Subject and Object in the Contents of Visual Experience "Philosophical Review vol 115, no 3 | ms. oc in pdf
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").
5. "Direct Realism and Perceptual Consciousness" DRPC in pdf |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
6. "Indiscriminability and the Phenomenal," Philosophical Studies 120, 90-112
| itp
in html
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.
7. "The Epistemic Conception of Hallucination" disj in pdf | 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 properties presented in visual experience
8. "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. | Ms.P
in html | Ms.P in pdf
9. "Which Properties Are Represented in Perception?", in Perceptual Experience, eds. T. Szabo Gendler and J. Hawthorne | MsK.html
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.)
10. "The Visual Experience of Causation" Forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly| ms.c in html (new version)
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
11. "The Phenomenology of Efficacy" | ms. efficacy in html 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.
12. "How can we discover the contents of experience?"| method in html Forthcoming in the Southern Journal of Philosophy, Proceedings of the 2006 Spindel Conference
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.
14. "The Contents of Consciousness" | Entry for forthcoming Oxford Companion to Consciousness, eds. Bayne, Cleermans and Wilken.
15. "The Fact View and the Content View"| Draft coming soon.
Paper in epistemology
16. "Cognitive Penetrability and Perceptual Justification"| Draft, coming soon.
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 AustismSB-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
Comment on Ned Block's "Consciousness, Accessibility, and the Mesh Between Psychology and Neuroscience", forthcoming in BBS. Co-authored with Alex Byrne and David Hilbert
Edited Collections
• Guest Editor, PSYCHE 13.1: 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.
Other things in progress
•A book tentatively called The Contents of Visual Experience
The book has three parts. The first part is about how best to understand the idea that visual experiences have contents. It discusses various versions of this idea, defends one of them, and discusses why it matters which contents visual experiences have.
The second part of the book is about which properties figure in the contents of visual experience. I focus on three classes of properties: kind properties, causal properties, and efficacy (where this is the property a subject has of bringing about an effect).
I argue that each of these properties is represented in visual experience. (In the case of efficacy, I defend the view that it is a combination of visual and kinesthetic
experience that represents efficacy). These are defenses of what I call Thesis K in the paper "Which Properties are Represented in Perception?".
The third part of the book is about how ordinary objects are represented in visual experience. Here I argue that once we accept Thesis K, we can better understand
how ordinary objects are typically represented in visual experience. The main point of the third part is that is that typically when we see ordinary objects,
our visual experiences have complex contents of the form 'there is something perceptually connected to this experience that is F'. This view bears some resemblance
to Searle's view in chapter 3 of his book Intentionality. But whereas Searle thinks the relevant experiences represent that those very experiences causally depend
on the the things one seems to see, I think they represent the independence of the things one seems to see from one's experiences. I am told that my view
resembles those of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.
Part 1: Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Weak Content View
Chapter 3: The Strong Content View
Chapter 4: The Method of Phenomenal Contrast
Part 2: Which Properties Are Represented in Perception?
Chapter 5: Kind properties
Chapter 6: Causation
Chapter 7: Efficacy
Part 3: How Are Objects Represented in Perception?
Chapter 8: Perspectival Connectedness and Subject-Independence
Drafts of Chapters 2 and 3 may be available upon request.