Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience

Saturday June 4th

Alex Byrne (MIT) and Heather Logue (MIT)

"Either/Or: Disjunctivism for Dummies"

Abstract: There are two main varieties of disjunctivism about perception: a metaphysical version deriving from Hinton, and an epistemological version deriving from McDowell. The paper explains and evaluates them.

Chair: Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow)

Sonia Sedivy (Toronto)

"Perceptual Engagement with the World"

Abstract: Disjunctivism is integral to re-thinking perception as perceptual engagement. This account of perception is required by (i) the link between perception and action; and (ii) the determinate nature of perceptual content; and it can meet the main objections to direct realist approaches that involve disjunctivism.

Chair: Mike Wheeler (Stirling)

Alan Millar (Stirling)

"Perceptual-Recognitional Abilities"

Abstract: An outline account is given of perceptual-recognitional abilities, that is, abilities to tell, that is, come to know, by looking, hearing, and so on, whether or not something is so. The talk explores how the exercise of such abilities relates to reliable judgement-forming procedures, to justified belief and to being in a position to vouch for what one knows. It is argued that a relational conception of experience, as favoured by disjunctivists, is not necessary to account for our cognitive contact with the world.

Chair: Gary Kemp (Glasgow)
Commentator: Richard Gray (Cardiff)

Ram Neta (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

"In Defense of Disjunctivism"

Abstract: A common objection about perceptual disjunctivism is that such disjunctivism does not have the resources to account satisfactorily for the subjective indistinguishability of some hallucinations and some veridical perceptions. I distinguish different interpretations of this objection, and I argue that, on any interpretation, it is false.

Chair: Finn Spicer (Bristol)

Jennifer Hornsby (Birkbeck, London)

"Reason Explanation: A Disjunctivist Thesis Defended"

Abstract: I defend the claim that we have to think of ourselves as possessing knowledge in order to see ourselves as agents who act for reasons.  This claim gives rise to the disjunctivist thesis whose endorsement I shall recommend.  I’ll argue that my disjunctivism can play a dialectical role parallel to John McDowell’s disjunctivism about perceptual experiences. One way to understand the point of my own disjunctivism is to say that it encourages explicitness about the epistemic standing of someone whose acting merits a reason-explanation.

Chair: Matthew Nudds (Edinburgh)
Commentator: Adrian Haddock (Stirling)

Sunday 5th June

Mike Martin (UCL)

Chair: Adrian Haddock (Stirling)
Commentator: Matthew Nudds (Edinburgh)

Mohan Matthen (British Columbia)

"Misidentifying the Object of Perception"

Abstract: Do perceptual states represent individual objects? It has been argued that, if they do, a perceptual demonstrative of the form "the thing I am looking at" cannot possibly misidentify its object. This paper, however, presents a framework for object-representation which allows for misidentification. If correct, this framework will be a source of counter-examples to the Relational and Disjunctive Views of Experience.
               
Chair: David Bain (Glasgow)
Commentator: Alex Byrne (MIT)

Duncan Pritchard (Stirling)

"How to be a Neo-Moorean"

Abstract: Much of the recent debate regarding scepticism has focussed on a certain template sceptical argument and a rather restricted set of proposals concerning how one might deal with that argument. Throughout this debate the ‘Moorean’ response to scepticism is often cited as a paradigm example of how one should not respond to the sceptical argument, so conceived. As I argue in this paper, however, there are ways of resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic, and I consider the prospects for three such proposals in this regard: a classical epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism, a classical epistemic externalist neo-Mooreanism, and a non-classical McDowellian epistemic internalist neo-Mooreanism. I claim that a suitably qualified version of neo-Mooreanism would actually sit quite well with the general philosophical motivations behind other key anti-sceptical views and I argue that given this fact neo-Mooreanism is actually at a dialectical advantage relative to other views when it comes to dealing with the sceptical problem as it is typically conceived.

Chair: Albert Atkin (Glasgow)
Commentator: Finn Spicer (Bristol)

Jonathan Dancy (Reading/Texas at Austin)

"Acting in Disjunctive Fashion"

Abstract: In this talk I will reconsider the prospects for a disjunctive account of acting for a reason.

Chair: Richard Gray (Cardiff)