Syllabus

Date

Topics

Readings
orange = main reading
Tuesday, August 25

What does it mean to say that experiences have contents, and do they?

Some more thoughts about the idea that perceptions have contents

Byrne, "Experience and content"
Johnston, "Better than mere knowledge? The function of sensory awareness"
Crane, "Is perception a propositional attitude?"
Brewer, "Perception and content"
Brewer, "How to account for illusion"
Travis, "The silence of the senses"
Alston, "Perception and representation"
Siegel, "Do visual experiences have contents?"
Pautz, "What are the contents of experiences?," §§I-II

Tuesday, September 1

Arguments for intentionalism

Intentionalism and phenomenal continua

Byrne, "Intentionalism defended"
Harman, "The intrinsic quality of experience"
Tye, "Representationalism and the transparency of experience"
Speaks, "Transparency, intentionalism, and the nature of perceptual content" (sec. 1)
Pautz, "The interdependence of phenomenology and intentionality"
Pautz, "How visual experience reaches to the world"
Varieties of intentionalism none
Counterexamples to local intentionalism Tye, "Blurry images, double vision, and other oddities"
Tuesday, September 8

Global intentionalism and bodily sensations

Tye, "Orgasms Again"
Block, "Mental paint"
Bain, "Intentionalism and pain"

Intentionalism and the "other" senses O'Callaghan, "Auditory perception"
Batty, "A representational account of olfactory experience"
Batty, "Scents and sensibilia"

Attention shifts and intentionalism

More thoughts about attention

Nickel, "Against intentionalism"
Speaks, "Attention and intentionalism"
Macpherson, "Ambiguous figures and the content of experience"
Tuesday, September 15 A link between global and intermodal intentionalisms none

Intermodal vs. intramodal intentionalism

More on cross-modal binding and singular propositions

John, "Representationalism, phenomenism, and the intuitive view", §4
Tye, "The problem of common sensibles"
O'Callaghan, "Seeing what you hear: cross-modal illusions and perception"
Nudds, "The significance of the senses"
Interpersonal comparisons of phenomenal character Stalnaker, "Comparing qualia across persons"
Spectrum inversion & intentionalism

Byrne, "Inverted qualia"
Marcus, "Intentionalism and the imaginability of the inverted spectrum"

Tuesday, September 22 Inverted earth Block, "Inverted earth"
Block, "Is experiencing just representing?"
Tye, "Swampman meets inverted earth"
Macpherson, "Colour inversion problems for representationalism"
An argument for the impossibility of spectrum inversion without difference in representation Speaks, "Spectrum inversion without misrepresentation is impossible"
Tuesday, September 29

Introduction to the metaphysics of color

Contrast effects in vision

Dispositionalism

Boghossian & Velleman, "Colour as a secondary quality"
Johnston, "How to speak of the colors"
Johnston, "A mind-body problem at the surface of objects
Johnston, "Is the external world invisible?"
Cohen, "Color: A Functionalist Proposal"
Cohen, "Color properties and color ascriptions: a relationalist manifesto"

Reductive physicalism

Byrne & Hilbert, "Colors and reflectances"
Byrne & Hilbert, "Color realism and color science" (with critical commentaries and replies by the authors)
Hardin, "A spectral reflectance doth not a color make"
Pautz, "Can the physicalist explain colour structure in terms of colour experience?"
Kuehni & Hardin, "Churchland's metamers"

Tuesday, October 6 Primitivist realism

Campbell, "A simple view of colour"
Byrne & Hilbert, "Color primitivism"
Watkins, "A posteriori primitivism"

Eliminativism Hardin, Color for Philosophers (excerpt)
Pautz, "Color eliminativism"
Tuesday, October 13 Intentionalism, spectrum shifts, and the puzzle of true blue Block, "Sexism, racism, ageism and the structure of consciousness"
Tye, "The puzzle of true blue"
Cohen, Hardin, & McLaughlin, "True colours"
Tye, "The truth about true blue"
Byrne & Hilbert, "Truest blue"
Tye, "True blue redux"
Appearance properties Shoemaker, "Phenomenal character"
Shoemaker, "On the ways things appear"
Egan, "Appearance properties?"
Color constancy Hilbert, "Color constancy and the complexity of color"
Kalderon, "Metamerism, constancy, and knowing which"
Cohen, "Colour constancy as counterfactual"
fall break
Tuesday, October 27 Chris Tucker presentation Tucker, "Why open-minded people should endorse dogmatism"
Fregeanism about perceptual content Chalmers, "The representational character of experience"
Chalmers, "Perception and the fall from Eden"
Thompson, "Senses for senses"
Thompson, "Colour constancy and Russellian representationalism"
From transparency to Russellianism Speaks, "Transparency, intentionalism, and the nature of perceptual content"
Tuesday, November 3 The scope of perceptual content I: external particulars Johnston, "The obscure object of hallucination"
Schroeder & Caplan, "On the content of experience"
Siegel, "How does visual phenomenology constrain object-seeing?"
Tye, "The admissible contents of visual experience"
Tuesday, November 10 Ron Belgau presentation  
Three problems for Millian-Russellian views of content The problem of self-representation Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (excerpt)
Siegel, "Subject and object in the contents of visual experience"

The problem of the unity of the proposition
The problem of propositions, pt. 2
A note on impossible worlds semantics

Russell, Principles of Mathematics (excerpt)
Frege, "On concept and object"
Soames, "Propositions"
Soames, "Why propositions cannot be sets of truth-supporting circumstances"
Speaks, "Facts, properties, and the unity of the proposition"

Tuesday, November 17

Existentialism & Plantinga's argument

More on existentialism

Plantinga, "On existentialism"
Fine, "First-order modal theories"
Adams, "Actualism and thisness"
Bennett "Two axes of actualism"
Speaks, "On possibly nonexistent propositions"

Tuesday, November 24 The scope of perceptual content II: properties

Siegel, "Which properties are represented in perception?" & "Misperception"
Siegel, "How can we discover the contents of experience?"
Siegel, "The visual experience of causation"
Bayne, "Perception and the reach of phenomenal content"
Price, "Aspect-switching and visual phenomenal character"
Pautz, "What are the contents of experiences?,"§III
Byrne, "Experience and content" §VII

Biconditional intentionalisms and phenomenal content

Horgan & Tienson, "The intentionality of phenomenology and the phenomenology of intentionality"
Loar, "Phenomenal intentionality as the basis of mental content"
Kriegel & Horgan, "The phenomenal intentionality research program"
Kriegel, "Phenomenal content"
Chalmers, "The representational character of experience"

Tuesday, December 1 Class replaced by workshop on two-dimensionalist semantics Background to two-dimensionalist semantics: the distinction between character and content and its applications Kaplan, "Demonstratives"
Davies & Humberstone, "Two notions of necessity"
Evans, "Reference and contingency"
Stalnaker, "Assertion"
Contextual two-dimensionalism

Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (selection)
Byrne, "Cosmic hermeneutics"
Chalmers, "Components of content" (1995 version)
Soames, "Ambitious two-dimensionalism"
Dever, "Low-grade two dimensionalism"
Soames, "The substance and significance of disputes about two-dimensionalism"
Stalnaker, "On considering a possible world as actual"

Epistemic two-dimensionalism Chalmers, "On sense and intension"
Byrne & Pryor, "Bad intensions"
Chalmers, "Epistemic two dimensional semantics"
Chalmers, "The foundations of two dimensional semantics"
Chalmers, "Scott Soames' two dimensionalism"
Soames, "Reply to critics"
Soames, "Actually"
Chalmers, "Response to Soames"
Schroeter, "Considering empty worlds as actual"
Speaks, "Epistemic two-dimensionalism and the epistemic argument"
Chalmers, "The nature of epistemic space"
Chalmers, "Propositions and attitudes: a Fregean account"
Tuesday, December 8 Conflicts between internalism about phenomenal character, externalism about content, and intentionalism Egan & John, "A puzzle about perception"
Byrne & Tye, "Qualia ain't in the head"
Nonconceptual content

Evans, Varieties of Reference (excerpt)
McDowell, Mind & World (excerpt)
Kelly, "Demonstratives and nonconceptual content"
Martin, "Perception, concepts, and memory"
Peacocke, "Does perception have a nonconceptual content?"
Speaks, "Is there a problem about nonconceptual content?"
Roskies, "A new argument for nonconceptual content"
Peacocke, "Phenomenology and nonconceptual content"
Crane, "The waterfall illusion"
Tye, "Content, richness, and fineness of grain"
Tye, "The nature of nonconceptual content"
Stalnaker, "What might nonconceptual content be?"
Heck, "Are there different kinds of content?"