Keith A Wilson
I’m a Philosopher of Mind specialising in empirically-informed Philosophy of Perception, Philosophy of Psychology and the Cognitive Sciences at University College Dublin, where I specialise in issues concerning the spatial and temporal structure of multisensory experience. I am currently Co-Director of UCD’s interdisciplinary Cognitive Science programme.
I previously worked at the University of Oslo where I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Perceiving Representations project, and was Postdoctoral Investigator on the ‘Synchronising the Senses’ project at the University of Glasgow, funded by the John Templeton Foundation via the University of Cambridge New Directions in the Study of the Mind initiative.
From 2014 to 2017 I was a postdoc on the AHRC large-grant project ‘Rethinking the Senses: Uniting the Philosophy and Neuroscience of Perception’. This project concerned the implications of multi-modality—that is, sensory experiences that involve two or more of the senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, etc.—for the philosophy, psychology and neuroscience of perception.
My research concerns how we identify or individuate various senses, the perception–cognition distinction, and the temporal structure of perceptual experience, as well as epistemology, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science, the metaphysics and consciousness of time and temporal passage, and the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (esp. Thomas Reid).
Phone: +353 (0)1 716 8122
Address: School of Philosophy
Newman Building
University College Dublin
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland
I previously worked at the University of Oslo where I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Perceiving Representations project, and was Postdoctoral Investigator on the ‘Synchronising the Senses’ project at the University of Glasgow, funded by the John Templeton Foundation via the University of Cambridge New Directions in the Study of the Mind initiative.
From 2014 to 2017 I was a postdoc on the AHRC large-grant project ‘Rethinking the Senses: Uniting the Philosophy and Neuroscience of Perception’. This project concerned the implications of multi-modality—that is, sensory experiences that involve two or more of the senses of vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, etc.—for the philosophy, psychology and neuroscience of perception.
My research concerns how we identify or individuate various senses, the perception–cognition distinction, and the temporal structure of perceptual experience, as well as epistemology, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science, the metaphysics and consciousness of time and temporal passage, and the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (esp. Thomas Reid).
Phone: +353 (0)1 716 8122
Address: School of Philosophy
Newman Building
University College Dublin
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland
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This article available via Open Access under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence.
Drafts by Keith A Wilson
Book Reviews by Keith A Wilson
PhD Thesis by Keith A Wilson
In chapter 2, I present an interpretation of Travis’s arguments that poses a dilemma for the representationalist concerning the indeterminacy and availability of perceptual content. Chapters 3 and 4 evaluate a variety of arguments in favour of such content based upon the nature of appearances, or ‘looks’, including those by Byrne (2009), Siegel (2010) and Schellenberg (2011b), each of which I find to be problematic. Finally, chapters 5 and 6 examine the relationship between representational content and phenomenal character, i.e. what perceptual experience is subjectively like, outlining some potential responses to Travis’s anti-representationalism. These include the external individuation of content and self-knowledge, and the operation of perceptual discriminatory capacities (the latter of which does not necessarily favour a representationalist account of experience).
I conclude that Travis’s arguments establish substantive constraints upon the nature and role of perceptual content. Moreover, I argue that the debate centres less upon the existence of such content than its explanatory role, particularly in relation to phenomenal character and the contents of other mental states: belief, intention, thought, knowledge, and so on. This in turn highlights the need for representationalists to better clarify the role of the contents their theories posit, and why such theories constitute a better explanation of the relevant phenomena than the corresponding non-representational view.
MLitt Dissertation by Keith A Wilson
Talks by Keith A Wilson
This article available via Open Access under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence.
In chapter 2, I present an interpretation of Travis’s arguments that poses a dilemma for the representationalist concerning the indeterminacy and availability of perceptual content. Chapters 3 and 4 evaluate a variety of arguments in favour of such content based upon the nature of appearances, or ‘looks’, including those by Byrne (2009), Siegel (2010) and Schellenberg (2011b), each of which I find to be problematic. Finally, chapters 5 and 6 examine the relationship between representational content and phenomenal character, i.e. what perceptual experience is subjectively like, outlining some potential responses to Travis’s anti-representationalism. These include the external individuation of content and self-knowledge, and the operation of perceptual discriminatory capacities (the latter of which does not necessarily favour a representationalist account of experience).
I conclude that Travis’s arguments establish substantive constraints upon the nature and role of perceptual content. Moreover, I argue that the debate centres less upon the existence of such content than its explanatory role, particularly in relation to phenomenal character and the contents of other mental states: belief, intention, thought, knowledge, and so on. This in turn highlights the need for representationalists to better clarify the role of the contents their theories posit, and why such theories constitute a better explanation of the relevant phenomena than the corresponding non-representational view.