The Ontology of Perceptual Experience

Sebastián Sanhueza Rodríguez

doi:10.5771/9781793616869

Summary

Contemporary philosophy of perception typically focuses on discussions concerning the content and the phenomenology of perceptual experience. In a significant departure from this tradition, The Ontology of Perceptual Experience explores the very conscious phenomena to which intentional or phenomenal features are thus ascribed. Drawing on a new wave of research— including the work of maverick philosophers like Helen Steward, Brian O’Shaughnessy, and Matthew Soteriou—this book examines two ways of categorizing perceptual experiences in accordance to their dynamic structure: on the one hand, Experiential Heracliteanism, an approach striving to describe perceptual experiences in terms of irreducibly dynamic components; and, on the other, Experiential Non-Heracliteanism, which conceives perceptual experiences as dynamic phenomena that may nevertheless be described in terms of non-dynamic elements. Sebastián Sanhueza Rodríguez describes both proposals and makes a modest case on behalf of the Non-Heraclitean approach against its increasingly popular Heraclitean counterpart. This case crucially turns on the fact that the Heracliteanist engages in a controversial and perhaps unnecessary commitment to irreducibly dynamic processes. The ontological framework this book unpacks offers a platform from which traditional issues in the philosophies of mind and perception may be revisited in refreshing and potentially fruitful ways.

Keywords

Search publication

Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-1685-2
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-1686-9
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 150
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
1. Beyond Perceptual Content and Phenomenology No access
2. The Ontological Significance of Doxastic Views of Perceptions No access
3. A Categorial Framework for Perceptual Phenomena No access
4. A Glimpse of Things to Come No access
5. Notes No access
1. Experiences as Necessarily Dynamic Processes No access
2. Conceptual Analysis and Thought Experiments No access
3. Change and Individuation No access
4. Conclusion No access
5. Notes No access
1. Of Experience and the River No access
2. Heraclitean Processes No access
3. A World of Non-Heraclitean Experiences No access
4. Non-Heraclitean Experiences: Stative or Static? No access
5. Conclusion No access
6. Notes No access
1. Experiential Content and Experiential Vehicle No access
2. The Individuating Role of Experiential Processes No access
3. The Individuating Role of Perceptual States No access
4. Conclusion No access
1. A Gap in the Mind-World Continuum No access
2. Two Causal Paradigms No access
3. Steward’s Pluralist Understanding of Causation No access
4. Perceptual Experiences as Constraints No access
5. Coda: Links to Behaviorism and Functionalism No access
6. Notes No access
1. Philosophy of Mind sans Ontology No access
2. Experiential Assertivity as a Mark of Occurrent States No access
3. Experiential Ontology and Temporal Phenomenology No access
4. Notes No access
1. Tacking Stock No access
2. Perceptual Experiences and the Continuous Test No access
3. Perceptual Experiences and Aspectual Features No access
4. Conclusion No access
5. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 137 - 144
Index No access Pages 145 - 148
About the Author No access Pages 149 - 150