Mark Eli Kalderon

The philosophy of perception has been an important topic throughout history, appealing to thinkers in antiquity and the middle ages as well as to figures such as Kant, Bergson and others. In this wide-ranging study, Mark Eli Kalderon presents multiple perspectives on the general nature of perception, discussing touch and hearing as well as vision. He draws on the rich history of the subject and shows how analytic and continental approaches to it are connected, providing readers with insights from both traditions and arguing for new orientations when thinking about the presentation of perception. His discussion addresses issues including tactile metaphors, sympathy in relation to the concept of fellow-feeling, and the Wave Theory of sound. His comprehensive and thoughtful study presents bold and systematic investigations into current theory, informed by centuries of philosophical enquiry, and will be important for those working on ontological and metaphysical aspects of perception and feeling. 229 x 152 mm c.233pp For more information, and to order, visit: www.cambridge.org/9781108411462 and enter the code PHI5019 at the checkout

We hear sounds, and their sources, and their audible qualities. Sounds and their sources are essentially dynamic entities, not wholly present at any given moment, but unfolding through their temporal interval. Sounds and their sources, essentially dynamic entities, are the bearers or susbtrata of audible qualities. Audible qualities are qualities essentially sustained by activity. The only bearers of audible qualities present in auditory experience are essentially dynamic entities. Bodies are not, in this sense, essentially dynamic entities and so are not present in our auditory experience. Though absent in auditory experience, we may, nonetheless, attend to bodies in audition, when an audible sound-generating event in which they participate presents a dynamic aural image of them.

We begin with a puzzle about how to intelligibly combine the active and passive elements of perception. For counsel, we turn to Augustine's account of perception in De trinitate. Augustine's trinitarian account of perception offers an attractive resolution of our puzzle. Augustine's resolution of our puzzle, however, cannot be straightforwardly adopted. It must be adapted. We end with speculation about how this might be done.

Sight is a capacity, and seeing is its exercise. Reflection on the sense in which sight is for the sake of seeing reveals distinct relations of dependence between sight and seeing, the capacity and its exercise. Moreover, these relations of dependence in turn reveal the nature of our perceptual capacities and their exercise. Specifically, if sight is for the sake of seeing, then sight will depend, in a certain sense, upon seeing, in a manner inconsistent with experiential monism. Thus reflection on the power of perception forms the basis of an argument for experiential pluralism.

Many of the tools that programmers use are, in fact, readily adaptable to the task of writing. Programmers and writers face at least one common problem, they need to track small changes over time. Programmers, being programmers, have written software to meet this particular need, ...

This conference is, in part, an expression of respect for Joseph Raz and his work from which we have all learned much. I thought it apt, then, to talk about Raz s views about respect as developed in chapter four of Value, Respect, and Attachment. Raz describes his views as having a ...

... the look of a colored thing varies with the circumstances of perception. ... in shadow is a relational property that the wall may have in-dependently of being perceived ... see Kalderon forthcoming; for an application of that problem to phenomenal objectivism see Allen 2008.) Moreover ...

... part, illusory. Invert, however, can use his color vision to successfully navigate through the world. ... well. If there could be a difference in color phenomenology without a difference in ... We should emphasize that the inverted spectrum argument comes in two parts. ...

... Thanks also to Keith Allen, David R. Hilbert, MGF Martin, Maja Spener, and Scott Sturgeon for their help and encouragement. ... Moreover, this, in turn, is consistent with the object's being multiplycolored, with its being red all over and green all over at the same time ...

Philosophy of mathematics is in an alienated state. While regarded by the profession as a serious and legitimate subdiscipline, a passing knowledge of its subject matter is considered something of a luxury-or at least not required of a conscientious philosopher the way a passing ...

... Now that we understand the notions of an epistemic judgment, an epistemic principle, and an epistemic system, we are in a position to understand Boghossian's characterization of ... Bog-hossian characterizes epistemic relativism as the conjunction of three doc-trines: ... Page 3. ...

... MARK ELI KALDERON* ... For an argument that modal struc-turalism is the most plausible elaboration of the skeptical intuitions see chapter three of my dissertation, Structure and theConcept of Number, Princeton University, 1995. at Google Indexer on September 9, 2010 ...

Transparency is the following (alleged) property of truth: if one possesses the concept of truth, then to assert, believe, inquire whether it is true that S just is to assert, believe, inquire whether S (and conversely). It might appear (as it did to Frege in “Thoughts”) that if truth ...

... blue even though it looks pink in the prevailing pink light by letting the least transitory colour count as 'the real colour'. The case of a cloth looking pinkish blue in broad daylight and simply pink in pink light involves veridical and nonveridical experiences. Being simply pink ...

Up to now, in constructing a language, the procedure has usually been, first to assign a meaning to the fundamental mathematico-logical symbols, and then to consider what sentences and inferences are seen to be correct in accordance with this meaning ... The connection [between ...

... the look of a colored thing varies with the circumstances of perception. ... in shadow is a relational property that the wall may have in-dependently of being perceived ... see Kalderon forthcoming; for an application of that problem to phenomenal objectivism see Allen 2008.) Moreover ...

By editorial demand, now with extra footnotes! Final version accepted by Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy

This talk consists in a trick and a potential insight. The trick consists in a minimalist interpretation of color mixture. The account of color mixture is minimalist in the sense that, given certain background assumptions, there is no more to Timaeus' account of color mixture than the list of the chromatic pathēmata and the list of how these combine to elicit perceptions of all the colors. The only potential controversial elements of the minimalist interpretation are the relevant background assumptions and the interpretation of the chromatic pathēmata. The potential insight concerns a motive that Plato, in the guise of Timaeus, may have for presenting an account of color mixture. Specifically, I shall argue that on the minimalist interpretation, Plato may be read as reconciling the Democritrean four color scheme with an older tradition where white and black are the fundamental chromatic opposition. As we shall see, this bears on the interpretation of the chromatic pathēmata. Perception, for Timaeus, is a kind of measurement. Pathēmata-affections of the body as a whole or in part that are liable to produce perceptions or sensations-are the measure of the powers of the agents that produced them, and perception is the cognizance of what is measured, not the affections, but the powers that produced these affections. Sensible qualities, for Timaeus, then, are corporeal powers, powers to produce affections in sentient animate bodies. In the earlier discussion of vision (46c-47e), Timaeus says nothing specific about the powers of the agents that produce visual affections, nor does he say anything specific about the nature of these affections. With respect to the sunaitia, the auxiliary causes of vision, Timaeus largely confines himself to the construction of the visual body, opsis, that is the primary recipient of affection in the causal process of visual perception. Timaeus claims that the eye contains a fire within that is emitted through the pupil owing to its fineness. Timaeus claims, in addition, that this fire combines with daylight, akin to it, in the direction that the perceiver is looking, to form a body that may be acted upon as a homogenous unity. The present passage completes Timaeus' account of the suniaitia of vision. For here we are told about the powers of the agents that cause visual affections, namely the colors, and we are told about how the visual body is affected by these powers.

I defend and develop a traditional view in the metaphysics of sound, The Wave Theory of Sound. According The Wave Theory, as developed herein, sounds are not patterned disturbances so much as their propagation. And the propagation of a patterned disturbance is not a form of travel, but a dynamic information , the wave-form successively inhering in differently located parts of the dense and elastic medium. This conception, along with the assumption that we hear not only sounds but their sources, has the resources to address many of the most recent criticisms of this traditional view.

Augustine is commonly interpreted as endorsing an extramission theory of perception in De quantitate animae. A close examination of the text shows, instead , that he is committed to its rejection. I end with some remarks about what it takes for an account of perception to be an extramission theory and with a review of the strength of evidence for attributing the extramission theory to Augustine on the basis of his other works.

An aporia posed by Theophrastus prompts Priscian to describe the process by which perception formally assimilates to its object as a progressive perfection. I present an interpretation of Priscian's account of perception's progressive perfection. And I consider a dilemma for the general class of accounts to which Priscian's belongs based on related problems raised by Plotinus and Aquinas.

This is an essay on perfection and its objects in the Timaeus. Two features of this work are noteworthy. First, the emphasis throughout is on Timaeus' views and not Plato's. Second, I show how broader aspects of Timaeus' cosmology are directly relevant to his philosophy of perception.

This is a book about the metaphysics of perception and discusses touch, audition, and vision. Though primarily concerned with the nature of perception, it draws heavily from the history of philosophy of perception, and connects the concerns of analytical and continental philosophers.