Perception and idealism : an essay on how the world manifests itself to us, and how it (probably) is in itself / Howard Robinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robinson, Howard, author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Perception.

Perception (Philosophy).

Idealism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 234 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Perception & idealism

Essay on how the world manifests itself to us, and how it (probably) is in itself

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2022]

©2022

Summary:

It is a standard feature of modern philosophy, at least from Locke, to tie together the questions of how we perceive the world and what we have reason to think the world is like in itself. This is a natural connection, because the questions of how we perceive it, and what kind of conception of it we can best form on the basis of that mode of perception, are obviously intimately linked. Part I of this volume defends the sense-datum theory of perception against its opponents, and argues that the sense-datum theory is much closer to a form of direct realism than is normally thought: we directly perceive the world in the form that it naturally manifests itself to creatures like us. This leaves open the question of what it is like in itself, and Part II tries to show that a Berkeleian interpretation-that the world is a nomological structure in the mind of God-is the most plausible option. Arguments with roots in Berkeley, in modern philosophers such as John Foster, and in modern science, are drawn on to support this conclusion.

Contents:

Introduction

1 The Aim of This Book

2 Part I: Chapter by Chapter

3 Part II: Its Rationale through the Chapters 3

4 The Nature of Sense-Data 4

PART I : HOW THE WORLD MANIFESTS

1. The Causal Argument for Sense-data, 'Philosophers' Hallucinations', and the Disjunctive Response

1.1 Philosophers' Hallucination: Introductory Remarks

1.2 Preliminary Thoughts on the Role of Causation in Perception

1.3 Philosophers' Hallucinations: The Argument

1.4 Strategies for Opposing the Causal-Hallucinatory Argument

1.5 Disjunctivist Accounts of Hallucination: Introductory Remarks

1.6 Disjunctivist Accounts of Hallucination; (i) Martin's 'Indiscriminability' Account

1.7 Disjunctivist Accounts of Hallucination; (ii) Fish's 'Belief ' Account

1.8 Disjunctivist Accounts of Hallucination; (iii) Soteriou and 'Seeming to Experience'

1.9 Naïve Realism and Philosophers' Hallucinations: Conclusion

2. Naïve Realism and the Argument from Illusion

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Disjunctivism and Illusion

2.3 French and Phillips' 'Austere' Naïve Realism, and Why It Is Not as Austere as They Hope

2.4 Brewer, Campbell, and Perspectivalism

2.5 The Perspectivalism of Fish and Kalderon

2.6 Genone and the Doxastic Theory

2.7 Conclusion

3. Intentionality and Perception (I): The Fundamental Irrelevance of Intentionality to Phenomenal Consciousness

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Searle's Appeal to Intentionality in Perception, and the Illuminating Contrast with Crane

3.3 Presentationality and the 'Blocking Function'

3.4 Crane's Own Account of Intentionality

3.5 The Intentionalist's Dilemma and Its History

3.6 How Appeal to Transparency Helps No-one

4. Intentionality and Perception (II): Attempts to Articulate the 'Content' and 'Object' Distinction

4.1 Introductory Remarks

4.2 Modern Responses (i): Smith: 'Phenomenal Objects' Are Not Objects in the Relevant Sense

4.3 Modern Responses (ii): The Contents of Subjective Experience as Abstractions: Dretske, Lycan, and Jackson

4.4 Modern Responses (iii): Contents as Abstract: Johnston and Schellenberg

4.5 Modern Responses (iv): Schellenberg on Discriminatory Capacities

4.6 Conclusion

5. Singular Reference and Its Relation to Intentionality

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Brentano's Howler

5.3 Mill as Supposed Proponent of Direct Reference

5.4 Intentionality and the Distinctive Character of Thought: Hav

a Conception of an Object, Mental Files, and Mental Maps

5.5 A Note on 'Content' and 'Object'

5.6 A Different Model of Intentionality for Sensations?

5.7 'Representation' in a Reductive Sense

5.8 Conclusion: World Maps and Perception

6. Objectivity: How Is It Possible?

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Direct Realism and Objectivity

6.3 The Causal-Semantic Account of Objectivity

6.4 Burge on Distil Causes and the Experience of 'How Things Look'

6.5 The Transition to Hume

6.6 David Papineau and the Manifest Image

6.7 Constancy and Coherence: the Humean Account of Objectivity

6.8 Conclusion

7. Semantic Direct Realism, Critical Realism, and the Sense-Datum Theory

7.1 The Situation So Far

7.2 How We Might Understand Directness

7.3 SDR and Intentionalism

7.4 SDR and Relationalism

7.5 Critical Realism

7.6 The Sense-Datum Theory and SDR

8. Building the Manifest World

8.1 Introduction

8.2 The Role of Judgement in, and Its Integration with, Perception

8.3 The Sense-Datum Theory Is Not an Error Theory

8.4 Our Spatial World and Visual Experience

8.5 Perceiving Objects, Not Just Qualities

8.6 Availability and Phenomenology

8.7 Sense-Data, Direct Realism, and the Common-Se

Understanding of Perception

8.8 Conclusion

PART I I : WHAT THE WORLD IS, IN ITS

9. The Problematic Nature of the Modern Conception of Matter

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Sensible Qualities, the Nature of Matter and the Regress of Powers

9.3 Contemporary Discussion of the Powers Regress

9.4 Grounding Basic Powers

9.5 Quiddities, and Similar Devices

9.6 The Humean Account of Causation: Against the Primitiveness of Regularity

9.7 Scientific Realism about Quantum Theory, and Common-Sense

10. Two Suggestive Berkeleian Arguments

10.1 Introduction

10.2 The Sense-Dependence of Qualities

10.3 The Physical World and the Nature of Thought

11. Bishop Berkeley and John Foster on Problems with Physical Realism about Space

11.1 Introduction: Two Berkelian Arguments about the Nature of Space

11.2 Mites, Men, and Objective Space

11.3 Newton's Thought Experiments and Absolute Space

11.4 John Foster on Spatial Topology and Empirical Reality

11.5 Conclusion

12. Mentalist Alternatives to Berkeleian Theism, and Their Failure

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Hume-Mill Phenomenalism

12.3 Panpsychism

12.4 Idealism without God

12.5 God as the Source of the Laws of Nature

12.6 Conclusion

General Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on Publisher website and other sources; title from home page (viewed on September 23, 2022).

Other Format:

Print version: Robinson, Howard Perception and Idealism

ISBN:

0-19-193778-9

0-19-266037-3

0-19-266036-5

Publisher Number:

10.1093/oso/9780192845566.001.0001 DOI