Draft Conference Programme
Draft Conference Programme
Tuesday 20 March
9.30 - 10.30
Registration and Tea
10.30 - 12.15
Susanna Siegel (Harvard)
'How Can We Discover the Contents of Experience?'
Abstract: How can we discover the contents of experience? I argue that neither introspection alone nor naturalistic theories of experience content are sufficient to discover these contents. I propose another method of discovery: the method of phenomenal contrast. I defend the method against skeptics who doubt that the contents of experience can be discovered, and I explain how the method may be employed even if one denies that experiences have contents.
Chair: Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow)
12.15 - 1.15
Lunch
1.15 - 3.00
Michael Tye (Texas at Austin)
'The Admissible Contents of Visual Experience'
Abstract: I discuss various proposals concerning the nature of visual content (existential, singular, multiple layers). The view adopted has consequences for strong intentionalism about phenomenal character. These consequences are also briefly discussed.
Chair: David Bain (Glasgow)
3.00 - 3.30
Tea
3.30 - 5.15
Alan Millar (Stirling)
'Perceptual Knowledge and the Contents of Experience'
Abstract: The discussion considers why, if at all, we should think of experiences of the sort we have in perception as having representational content. Consideration is given to whether experiences should be regarded as having rich conceptual contents as opposed to thinner conceptual contents restricted to superficial appearances. It is argued that phenomenological considerations are apt to lead us in a different direction from epistemological considerations on this issue. It also addresses the issue of whether experiences should be regarded as having non-conceptual contents.
Chair: Matthew Nudds (Edinburgh)
6.00 - 7.30
Civic Reception in the City Chambers, George Square
7.45 - late
Dinner at The Dakhin South Indian Restaurant
- cost is £15 per head, excluding drinks
Wednesday 21 March
9.30 - 11.15
Alva Noe (Berkeley)
'Conscious Reference'
Abstract: In this paper I propose that perception requires understanding. I offer an account of understanding as including not only conceptual knowledge but also practical skills including sensorimotor knowledge. I defend the idea that perception is thoughtful; I also propose that some varieties of thought are perceptual.
Chair: Alan Weir (Glasgow)
11.15 - 11. 30
Tea
11.30 - 1.15
Tim Bayne (St. Catherine's, Oxford)
'The Phenomenal Fringe as the Thin Edge of the Wedge'
Abstract: Accounts of the admissible contents of phenomenal consciousness divide into two camps: inflationists and deflationists. Inflationists argue that cognitive states such as judgments have a distinctive phenomenal character. Deflationists deny that cognitive states have a distinctive phenomenal character; they typically restrict phenomenal character to sensory and perceptual states. I attempt to put the squeeze on deflationism by appealing to fringe phenomenology.
Chair: John O'Dea (Tokyo)
1.15 - 2.15
Lunch
2.15 - 4.00
Richard Price (All Souls, Oxford)
'Just Colours and Positions'
Abstract: In this paper I identify a certain kind of looking, which I call phenomenal looking, and I explore what properties objects phenomenally look to have. I argue that objects phenomenally look to have only colours and positions, and that the colour properties do not include determinables such as being red.
Chair: John Morrison (New York)
4.00 - 4.15
Tea
4.15 - 6.00
Tim Crane (UCL)
'On the Content and Object of Presentations: Why Perceptual Experience Is Not a Propositional Attitude'
Abstract: Many philosophers assume that perceptual experience has a propositional content in something like the way that the propositional attitudes do. Other philosophers deny that perception has propositional or representational content at all. In this paper I reject both views: perception does have a representational content, but it is not propositional in any interesting sense. Treating perceptual experience as a propositional attitude gives a distorted and misleading conception of the intentionality and phenomenology of perceptual experience.
Chair: Adrian Haddock (Stirling)
6.30 - late
Drinks and Conference Dinner at the Ubiquitous Chip
Thursday 22 March
9.30 - 11.15
Stephen Butterfill (Warwick)
‘Hearing Gestures and Seeing Causes'
Abstract: How do we come to have causal concepts? Albert Michotte claims that we can see causal interactions and that such perceptions are a source of causal concepts. Opponents of this position tend to follow David Hume in denying that we can see causal interactions. This paper aims to show that both parties are wrong. There is a sense in which we can perceive causal interactions in visual stimuli (we can perceive causal interactions in roughly the sense that we can perceive the phonic gestures that constitute speech). However, these perceptions are not a source of causal concepts.
Chair: Michael Brady (Glasgow)
11.15 - 11. 30
Tea
11.30 - 1.15
Howard Robinson (Central European University)
‘A Defence of a Traditional Empiricist Approach to Perceptual Content’
Abstract: I argue for the traditional sense-datum view that perceptual experience has as its fundamental objects/contents only sensible qualities and that the presence of other features, such as physical objects, can be constructed on this basis.
Chair: Jim Edwards (Glasgow)
1.15 - 2.15
Lunch
2.15 - 4.00
Adam Pautz (ANU/Texas at Austin)
‘Intentionalism and the Admissible Contents of Experience’
Abstract: My subject is the interaction between the case for Intentionalism and the issue of the admissible contents of experience. First, I argue that the transparency argument for Intentionalism fails because it harbors commitment to implausible theses about the admissible contents and objects of hallucination. Second, I develop an alternative argument for Intentionalism based on the intuition that phenomenology necessarily grounds (that is, explains or makes possible) the capacity to entertain thoughts about extended objects and their properties. Third, I explain how this argument for Intentionalism naturally suggests a method for arriving at the admissible contents of experience that is distinct from other methods, such as the method of phenomenal contrast. I call this method the grounding method. For it is possible to extract from this argument for Intentionalism a general principle linking the grounding of beliefs and the phenomenal contents of experience. I then use this principle to develop some positive theses about the admissible contents of experience.
Chair: Simon Prosser (St. Andrews)
4.00 - 4.15
Tea
4.15 - 6.00
Alex Byrne (MIT)
'Experience and Content'
Abstract: It is often said that perceptual experiences have representational content. What does this claim mean? And is it true? The paper tries to answer these questions.
Chair: Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow)