Rick Grush
Papers
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Przemysław Nowakowski: Czy mógłby Pan opisać krótko swoją koncepcję emulacji? Czy sądzi Pan, że m... more Przemysław Nowakowski: Czy mógłby Pan opisać krótko swoją koncepcję emulacji? Czy sądzi Pan, że może stać się podstawą nie tylko dla teorii percepcji, lecz także – na przykład – dla teorii pojęć lub wnioskowania? Rick Grush: Moja koncepcja emulacji jest stosunkowo prosta: emulacja to reprezentowanie czegoś przy użyciu modeli, które to coś zastępują. Ma to miejsce cały czas: używamy symulatorów lotów jako modeli zastępujących samoloty; używamy szachownicy by wypróbować możliwe posunięcia, zanim wykonamy ostateczny ruch pionkiem. Wspomniane przykłady mają jedną cechę wspólną: aktywny agent wchodzi w interakcję z modelem lub emulatorem w ten sam sposób, w jaki wchodzi w interakcję z reprezentowanymi przez nie obiektami. Wchodzimy w interakcję z symulatorem lotów w ten sam sposób, w jaki wchodzimy w interakcję z realnym samolotem; wchodzimy w interakcję z "nieoficjalną" szachownicą (tą, na której sprawdzamy posunięcie), w taki sam sposób, w jaki działamy na "oficjalnej&qu...
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Synthese, 2006
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Perception, Realism, and the Problem of Reference
This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary unders... more This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary understanding of demonstrative reference. Section 2 will focus on perception, and in particular perceptual mechanisms that allow us to latch onto entities in the environment as candidates for thought or reference. Our point here will be brief and, once made, we hope uncontroversial: location is not – current thinking notwithstanding – the key to understanding how perceptual mechanisms single out their accusatives. Rather, it is Gestalt criteria, or similar low-level principles, that do this. Given the way research is currently most commonly preformed, it is easy to see how this could be missed or ignored. But the focus on location is (at least in part) an artifact of choices about research. In any case, we can see that it is incorrect. Our conclusion will be: the basic perceptual accusatives, those entities, broadly understood, which are isolated and tracked by the perceptual system, are not physical objects, or even Spelke-objects or ‘proto-objects’, or even locations in visual space. They are rather what we will call gobjects (for Gestalt object), which is anything isolated by Gestalt criteria. These often, but not always, involve space, hence the confusion. The focus on vision of most work in this area has aided this error. In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location. In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactEnaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan ... more Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan Hurley, 2006; and Kevin O’Regan, 1992), departs from traditional accounts that treat mental processes (like perception, reasoning, and action) as discrete, independent processes that are causally related in a sequen- tial fashion. According to the main claim of the enactive approach, which Thompson seems to fully endorse, perceptual awareness is taken to be a skill-based activity. Our perceptual contact with the world, according to the enactionists, is not mediated by representations but is enacted, and the notion of representation, belonging to the classic computational paradigm, has no place in this alternative approach. Though Thompson does not pronounce directly on the issue of representationalism, he is most definitely keeping the company of anti-representationalists, and in that context it is not unreasonable to take his silence for consent. In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
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Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018
The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity,... more The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity, space and the body. Such connections have been the subject matter of much philosophical work. For example, the importance of the body and bodily action on perception is a growth area in philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, there are some key relations that, as will become clear, have not been adequately explored. We start by examining the relation between embodiment and agency, especially the dependence of agency on perception and the dependence of perception on agency. We also consider the nature of subjectivity itself: In virtue of what do humans and animals but not rocks and pencils have genuine perceptual and agentive intentional contents? We sketch a hylomorphic account of subjects and subjectivity, which highlights connections between the conclusions argued for in the previous sections and some basic principles of teleosemantics.
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This paper is largely exegetical/interpretive. My goal is to demonstrate that some criticisms tha... more This paper is largely exegetical/interpretive. My goal is to demonstrate that some criticisms that have been leveled against the program Gareth Evans constructs in The Varieties of Reference (Evans 1980, henceforth VR) misfire because they are based on misunderstandings of Evans’ position. First I will be discussing three criticisms raised by Tyler Burge (Burge, 2010). The first has to do with Evans’ arguments to the effect that a causal connection between a belief and an object is insufficient for that belief to be about that object. A key part of Evans’ argument is to carefully distinguish considerations relevant to the semantics of language from considerations relevant to the semantics (so to speak) of thought or belief (to make the subsequent discussion easier, I will henceforth use ‘thought’ as a blanket term for the relevant mental states, including belief). I will argue that Burge’s criticisms depend on largely not taking account of Evans’ distinctions. Second, Burge criticizes Evans’ account of ‘informational content’ taking it to be inconsistent. I will show that the inconsistency Burge finds depends entirely on a misreading of the doctrine. Finally, Burge takes Evans to task for a perceived over-intellectualization in a key aspect of his doctrine. Burge incorrectly reads Evans as requiring that the subject holding a belief be engaged in certain overly intellectual endeavors, when in fact Evans is only attributing these endeavors to theorists of such a subject.
Next, I turn to two criticisms leveled by John Campbell (Campbell, 1999). I will argue that Campbell’s criticisms are based on misunderstandings – though they do hit at deeper elements of Evans’ doctrine. First, Campbell reads Evans’ account of demonstrative thought as requiring that the subject’s information link to an object allows her to directly locate that object in space. Campbell constructs a case in which one tomato (a) is, because of an angled mirror, incorrectly seen as being at a location that happens to be occupied by an identical tomato (b). Campbell claims that Evans’ doctrines require us to conclude that the subject cannot have a demonstrative thought about the seen tomato (a), though it seems intuitively that such a subject would be able to have a demonstrative thought about that tomato, despite its location is inaccurately seen. I show that Evans’ position in fact allows that the subject can have a demonstrative thought about the causal-source tomato in this case because his account does not require that the location of demonstratively identified objects be immediately accurately assessed. What is crucial is that the subject have the ability to accurately discover the location. Second, Campbell criticizes Evans’ notion of a fundamental level of thought. I show that this criticism hinges on view of the nature and role of the fundamental level of thought that mischaracterizes Evans’ treatment of the notion.
Next, I turn to two criticisms leveled by John Campbell (Campbell, 1999). I will argue that Campbell’s criticisms are based on misunderstandings – though they do hit at deeper elements of Evans’ doctrine. First, Campbell reads Evans’ account of demonstrative thought as requiring that the subject’s information link to an object allows her to directly locate that object in space. Campbell constructs a case in which one tomato (a) is, because of an angled mirror, incorrectly seen as being at a location that happens to be occupied by an identical tomato (b). Campbell claims that Evans’ doctrines require us to conclude that the subject cannot have a demonstrative thought about the seen tomato (a), though it seems intuitively that such a subject would be able to have a demonstrative thought about that tomato, despite its location is inaccurately seen. I show that Evans’ position in fact allows that the subject can have a demonstrative thought about the causal-source tomato in this case because his account does not require that the location of demonstratively identified objects be immediately accurately assessed. What is crucial is that the subject have the ability to accurately discover the location. Second, Campbell criticizes Evans’ notion of a fundamental level of thought. I show that this criticism hinges on view of the nature and role of the fundamental level of thought that mischaracterizes Evans’ treatment of the notion.
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In this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in phi... more In this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in philosophy of mind circles: are minds located in the same place as the brains (or other computing machinery) supporting them? Must they exist at the same location as the body? Must they exist at the same time? Could a single mind be implemented in multiple brains, or multiple minds in a single brain? Under what conditions might a single mind persist despite being implemented successively in different brains? What contributions do features of the computing machinery make to these questions, compared to the contribution made by the body and embedded point of view? Some of these questions have been touched on previously, but there hasn't been any attempt at a systematic analysis of the various consequences that different approaches in the philosophy of mind have for how the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation and diachronic identity of minds relates to the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation, and diachronic identity of both the implementing computational machinery and the embodied embedded point of view. I make a first stab at such an analysis by discussing a variety of thought experiments in which such questions of location, individuation, and identity arise, and I explore how various approaches to understanding the mind – identity theoretic, functionalist, contentualist, embodied/embedded/extended, and so forth – would respond to such situations. A number of novel issues emerge, and some surprising affinities are revealed.
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by Rick Grush and Amanda Brovold
Many forms of visual adaptation have been studied, including spatial displace- ments (Heuer & Heg... more Many forms of visual adaptation have been studied, including spatial displace- ments (Heuer & Hegele 2008), spatial inversions and rotations (Heuer & Rapp 2011), removing or enhancing various colors in the visual spectrum (Belmore & Shevell 2011; Kohler 1963), and even luminance inversion (Anstis 1992). But there have been no studies that have assessed adaptation to an inverted spectrum, or more generally color rotation. We present the results of an adaptation protocol on two subjects who wore LCD goggles that were driven by a video camera, but such that the visual scene presented to subjects was color-rotated by 120°, so that blue objects appeared green, green objects appeared red, and red objects ap- peared blue (with non-primary colors being analogously remapped). One subject wore the apparatus intermittently for several hours per day for a week. The second subject wore the apparatus continually for six days, meaning that all his visual input for those six days was color rotated. Several experiments were run to assess the kinds and degrees of adaptation, including Stroop (1935), the memory color effect (Hansen et al. 2006), and aesthetic judgments of food and people. Several additional phenomena were assessed and noticed, especially with respect to color constancy and phenomenal adaptation. The results were that color con- stancy initially was not present when colors were rotated, but both subjects adap- ted so that color constancy returned. However, there was no evidence of phenom- enal color adaptation. Tomatoes continued to look blue, subjects did not adapt so that they started to look red again. We found no reliable Stroop result. But there was an adaptation to the memory color effect. Also, interesting differences were revealed in the way color affects aesthetic judgments of food versus people, and differences in adaptation to those effects.
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Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan ... more Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan Hurley, 2006; and Kevin O’Regan, 1992), departs from traditional accounts that treat mental processes (like perception, reasoning, and action) as discrete, independent processes that are causally related in a sequen- tial fashion. According to the main claim of the enactive approach, which Thompson seems to fully endorse, perceptual awareness is taken to be a skill-based activity. Our perceptual contact with the world, according to the enactionists, is not mediated by representations but is enacted, and the notion of representation, belonging to the classic computational paradigm, has no place in this alternative approach. Though Thompson does not pronounce directly on the issue of representationalism, he is most definitely keeping the company of anti-representationalists, and in that context it is not unreasonable to take his silence for consent.
In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, 2007
Gareth Evans’ account of Identification-freedom (IF), which he develops in Chapters 6 and 7 of Th... more Gareth Evans’ account of Identification-freedom (IF), which he develops in Chapters 6 and 7 of The Varieties of Reference (henceforth VR) is almost universally misunderstood. My exegesis of Evans’ account — like any non-trivial exegesis — goes somewhat beyond anything Evans overtly says. That Evans did not explicitly put the pieces together in the way I suggest they fit no doubt contributes to the widespread misunderstanding of his views. But I am confident that once my interpretation is on the table it will be post hoc obvious that it really is the correct interpretation Evans’ account.
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by Rick Grush and Amanda Brovold
Raftopoulos and Machamer, eds., Perception, realism and the problem of reference. Cambridge University Press
This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary unders... more This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary understanding of demonstrative reference. Section 2 will focus on perception, and in particular perceptual mechanisms that allow us to latch onto entities in the environment as candidates for thought or reference. Our point here will be brief and, once made, we hope uncontroversial: location is not – current thinking notwithstanding – the key to understanding how perceptual mechanisms single out their accusatives. Rather, it is Gestalt criteria, or similar low-level principles, that do this. Given the way research is currently most commonly preformed, it is easy to see how this could be missed or ignored. But the focus on location is (at least in part) an artifact of choices about research. In any case, we can see that it is incorrect. Our conclusion will be: the basic perceptual accusatives, those entities, broadly understood, which are isolated and tracked by the perceptual system, are not physical objects, or even Spelke-objects or ‘proto-objects’, or even locations in visual space. They are rather what we will call gobjects (for Gestalt object), which is anything isolated by Gestalt criteria. These often, but not always, involve space, hence the confusion. The focus on vision of most work in this area has aided this error.
In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location.
In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location.
In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
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Synthese, 2007
An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach... more An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach according to which perception is imbued with spatial con- tent in virtue of certain kinds of connections between perceiving organism’s sensory input and its behavioral output. The most important aspect of the defense involves clearly distinguishing two kinds of perceptuo-behavioral skills—the formation of dis- positions, and a capacity for emulation. The former, the formation of dispositions, is argued to by the central pivot of spatial content. I provide a neural information processing interpretation of what these dispositions amount to, and describe how dis- positions, so understood, are an obvious implementation of Gareth Evans’ proposal on the topic. Furthermore, I describe what sorts of contribution are made by emula- tion mechanisms, and I also describe exactly how the emulation framework differs from similar but distinct notions with which it is often unhelpfully confused, such as sensorimotor contingencies and forward models.
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The nature of temporal experience is typically explained in one of a small number of ways, most a... more The nature of temporal experience is typically explained in one of a small number of ways, most are versions of either retentionalism or extensionalism. After describing these, I make a distinction between two kinds of temporal character that could structure temporal experience: A-ish contents are those that present events as structured in past/present/future terms, and B-ish contents are those that present events as structured in earlier-than/later-than/simultaneous-with relations. There are a few exceptions, but most of the literature ignores this distinction, and silently assumes temporal experience is A-ish. I then argue that temporal character is not scale invariant, but rather that temporal experience is A-ish at larger scales (a few hundred milliseconds and above), and B-ish at smaller scales. I then point out that this scale non-invariance opens the possibility of hybrid views. I clarify (or modify, depending on how you want to frame it) my own view (Grush 2005, 2007) as a hybrid view, according to which temporal experience is B-ish at small scales – and at this scale my trajectory estimation model (TEM, a version of retentionalism) applies – but A-ish at larger scales, and at the larger scale my TEM does not apply. I then motivate this hybrid position by first defending it against arguments that have tried to show that the TEM is untenable. Since the hybrid view has TEM as its small-scale component, it must address this objection. I then put pressure on the main alternative account, extentionalism, by showing that its proponents have not adequately dealt with the problem of temporal illusions. The result is a new theory (perhaps characterizable as a refined version of my prior theory) motivated by i) explaining its virtues, ii) showing that objections to it can be met, and iii) showing that objections to its main competitors have not been met.
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 2007
I call the wave-collapse illusion – a less radical cousin of the refrigerator light illusion – to... more I call the wave-collapse illusion – a less radical cousin of the refrigerator light illusion – to the effect that transitions from generic to detailed phenomenology are not noticed as phenomenal changes. Change blindness and inattentional blindness can be analyzed as cases where certain things are phenomenally present, but generically so.
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Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2007
Berkeley’s Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (NTV) presents a theory of various aspects of the... more Berkeley’s Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (NTV) presents a theory of various aspects of the spatial content of visual experience that attempts to undercut not only the optico-geometric accounts of, e.g., Descartes and Malebranche, but also elements of the empiricist account of Locke. My task in this paper is to shed light on some features of Berkeley’s account that have not been adequately appreciated. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 will discuss Locke’s account of the spatiality of vision in Book II of the Essay. The optico-geometric approach of, e.g., Descartes and Malebranche credits subjects (or their visual systems) with a priori geometrical knowledge by way of which the spatial features of their environments are deduced from, inter alia, the nature of the immediate visual input, the distance between the eyes, and the eyes’ vergence angle. in contrast, Locke’s empiricism motivates an approach according to which spatial features of visual perception are either directly given in perception (viz. spatial information relating to features of the visual environment in the breadth and height dimensions), or are learned through experience—as when features such as shading gradients available on the two-dimensional “sense datum screen” come to be associated with the dimension of depth. In section 3, I turn to Berkeley’s NTV. After a brief preliminary discussion in section 3.2 of the initial sections of NTV that deal with the issue of depth in a way that is essentially a more detailed version of Locke’s account, section 3.3 discerns two conflated but distinguishable considerations that Berkeley provides to the effect that depth is not a proper object of vision. I then turn, in sections 3.4 to 3.6, to what is the central issue of this paper: Berkeley’s discussion of the spatial axes of breadth and height. This is where the problems arise, for on the one hand, Berkeley is motivated to deny Locke’s assumption that we are through vision immediately aware of a two-dimensional sense datum plane, for the spatiality of this plane, as a common sensible available to both vision and touch and hence the exclusive province of neither, would be an abstract idea. But on the other hand, he frequently uses language that suggests he is crediting vision with just such planar content. The first major strand of the critical discussion of Berkeley in section 3.4 will be a critique of his negative account to the effect that planar content is not directly given through the modality of vision, where it will be argued that Berkeley’s argument fails because of an unnoticed ambiguity—the same ambiguity that was shown in section 3.3 to be present, but relatively harmlessly so, in his discussion of depth. The second major strand, spanning sections 3.5 and 3.6, concerns Berkeley’s positive account of the apparent planar content of visual experience. I argue that his positive account of vision cannot be formulated in such a way that is both adequate as an account of actual human vision and does not make surreptitious appeal to precisely the planar content the dismissal of which is its goal—and this is true even on the sympathetic reconstructions that have been offered recently by Atherton and Schwartz. In a brief, final section 4, I make explicit what alterations would have to be made to Berkeley’s position in order to render it viable, and underscore the respect in which it has been vindicated by recent work in perception.
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Journal of Neural Engineering, 2005
The question of whether time is its own best representation is explored. Though there is theoreti... more The question of whether time is its own best representation is explored. Though there is theoretical debate between proponents of internal models and embedded cognition proponents (e.g. Brooks R 1991 Artificial Intelligence 47 139–59) concerning whether the world is its own best model, proponents of internal models are often content to let time be its own best representation. This happens via the time update of the model that simply allows the model’s state to evolve along with the state of the modeled domain. I argue that this is neither necessary nor advisable. I show that this is not necessary by describing how internal modeling approaches can be generalized to schemes that explicitly represent time by maintaining trajectory estimates rather than state estimates. Though there are a variety of ways this could be done, I illustrate the proposal with a scheme that combines filtering, smoothing and prediction to maintain an estimate of the modeled domain’s trajectory over time. I show that letting time be its own representation is not advisable by showing how trajectory estimation schemes can provide accounts of temporal illusions, such as apparent motion, that pose serious difficulties for any scheme that lets time be its own representation.
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Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2009
The decades bracketing the end of the nineteenth century saw two colossal developments in the phi... more The decades bracketing the end of the nineteenth century saw two colossal developments in the philosophy and psychology of the experience of time. The first was William James’ highly influential Principles of Psychology, published in 1890; the second was edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des Inneren Zeitbewusstseins, based on notes written largely during the first decade of the twentieth century, but first published in 1928. Associated with each of these developments is a standard, largely unchallenged understanding of its historical precursors: James was chiefly synthesizing a good deal of work that had been done over the previous three decades or so in experimental psychology in Germany, primarily under the influence of Wundt, and framed this synthesis in terms of a philosophical idea he credited to “E. R. Clay,” namely, the specious present doctrine (henceforth, SP doctrine). Husserl was reacting to, and building on, attempts by Brentano and Meinong to provide analyses of time consciousness, and was also familiar with work in experimental psychology, including James’ work, and with the expression ‘specious present’ that James had used for the doctrine.
But as we shall demonstrate in this paper, the standard picture is crucially incomplete. There is a clearly discernible line of philosophical debate about the temporality of experience which began with Thomas Reid, ran through a number of nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophers, and culminated in two independent termini: “E.R. Clay,” identified by James as the author of the anonymously published The Alternative: a Study in Psychology; and the work of the now nearly-completely forgotten Shadworth Hollway Hodgson. The first goal of this paper is discerning and describing this line of development and its two termini. Both of these termini were significant influences on James. The second goal of this paper is to argue that the second terminus, Hodgson, was also a significant and unappreciated influence on Husserl. Sections 2 through 5 discuss, in turn, the relevant doctrines of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and William Hamilton. Exposition of these authors establishes that discussion of the temporal character of perceptual experience was already underway prior to James, while tracing how distinct stances on relevant premises concerning consciousness and experience eventually led to the formulation of the SP doctrine. Section 6 discusses Robert Kelly (alias ‘E.R. Clay’) who named and (co-)developed the SP doctrine James made famous. Section 7 discusses Hodgson’s early work and his own independently-developed version of the specious present doctrine. Section 8 turns to Hodgson’s later work and the specific issue of his influence on Husserl. Section 9 concludes, and considers the reception of Hodgson and Kelly’s work.
But as we shall demonstrate in this paper, the standard picture is crucially incomplete. There is a clearly discernible line of philosophical debate about the temporality of experience which began with Thomas Reid, ran through a number of nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophers, and culminated in two independent termini: “E.R. Clay,” identified by James as the author of the anonymously published The Alternative: a Study in Psychology; and the work of the now nearly-completely forgotten Shadworth Hollway Hodgson. The first goal of this paper is discerning and describing this line of development and its two termini. Both of these termini were significant influences on James. The second goal of this paper is to argue that the second terminus, Hodgson, was also a significant and unappreciated influence on Husserl. Sections 2 through 5 discuss, in turn, the relevant doctrines of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and William Hamilton. Exposition of these authors establishes that discussion of the temporal character of perceptual experience was already underway prior to James, while tracing how distinct stances on relevant premises concerning consciousness and experience eventually led to the formulation of the SP doctrine. Section 6 discusses Robert Kelly (alias ‘E.R. Clay’) who named and (co-)developed the SP doctrine James made famous. Section 7 discusses Hodgson’s early work and his own independently-developed version of the specious present doctrine. Section 8 turns to Hodgson’s later work and the specific issue of his influence on Husserl. Section 9 concludes, and considers the reception of Hodgson and Kelly’s work.
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This article outlines a unified information processing framework whose goal is to explain how the... more This article outlines a unified information processing framework whose goal is to explain how the nervous system represents space, time, and objects. It explains the concept of the emulation theory of representation and describes an extension of the emulation framework for temporal representation. It discusses Alexandre Pouget's basis function model of spatial representation and describes how to combine the basis function model of spatial representation with the trajectory emulation model of temporal representation to yield an information processing framework that genuinely represents behavioral spatiotemporal trajectories of behavioral objects.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView Impact Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactPrzemysław Nowakowski: Czy mógłby Pan opisać krótko swoją koncepcję emulacji? Czy sądzi Pan, że m... more Przemysław Nowakowski: Czy mógłby Pan opisać krótko swoją koncepcję emulacji? Czy sądzi Pan, że może stać się podstawą nie tylko dla teorii percepcji, lecz także – na przykład – dla teorii pojęć lub wnioskowania? Rick Grush: Moja koncepcja emulacji jest stosunkowo prosta: emulacja to reprezentowanie czegoś przy użyciu modeli, które to coś zastępują. Ma to miejsce cały czas: używamy symulatorów lotów jako modeli zastępujących samoloty; używamy szachownicy by wypróbować możliwe posunięcia, zanim wykonamy ostateczny ruch pionkiem. Wspomniane przykłady mają jedną cechę wspólną: aktywny agent wchodzi w interakcję z modelem lub emulatorem w ten sam sposób, w jaki wchodzi w interakcję z reprezentowanymi przez nie obiektami. Wchodzimy w interakcję z symulatorem lotów w ten sam sposób, w jaki wchodzimy w interakcję z realnym samolotem; wchodzimy w interakcję z "nieoficjalną" szachownicą (tą, na której sprawdzamy posunięcie), w taki sam sposób, w jaki działamy na "oficjalnej&qu...
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactSynthese, 2006
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactPerception, Realism, and the Problem of Reference
This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary unders... more This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary understanding of demonstrative reference. Section 2 will focus on perception, and in particular perceptual mechanisms that allow us to latch onto entities in the environment as candidates for thought or reference. Our point here will be brief and, once made, we hope uncontroversial: location is not – current thinking notwithstanding – the key to understanding how perceptual mechanisms single out their accusatives. Rather, it is Gestalt criteria, or similar low-level principles, that do this. Given the way research is currently most commonly preformed, it is easy to see how this could be missed or ignored. But the focus on location is (at least in part) an artifact of choices about research. In any case, we can see that it is incorrect. Our conclusion will be: the basic perceptual accusatives, those entities, broadly understood, which are isolated and tracked by the perceptual system, are not physical objects, or even Spelke-objects or ‘proto-objects’, or even locations in visual space. They are rather what we will call gobjects (for Gestalt object), which is anything isolated by Gestalt criteria. These often, but not always, involve space, hence the confusion. The focus on vision of most work in this area has aided this error. In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location. In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactEnaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan ... more Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan Hurley, 2006; and Kevin O’Regan, 1992), departs from traditional accounts that treat mental processes (like perception, reasoning, and action) as discrete, independent processes that are causally related in a sequen- tial fashion. According to the main claim of the enactive approach, which Thompson seems to fully endorse, perceptual awareness is taken to be a skill-based activity. Our perceptual contact with the world, according to the enactionists, is not mediated by representations but is enacted, and the notion of representation, belonging to the classic computational paradigm, has no place in this alternative approach. Though Thompson does not pronounce directly on the issue of representationalism, he is most definitely keeping the company of anti-representationalists, and in that context it is not unreasonable to take his silence for consent. In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView Impact Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactPhenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018
The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity,... more The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity, space and the body. Such connections have been the subject matter of much philosophical work. For example, the importance of the body and bodily action on perception is a growth area in philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, there are some key relations that, as will become clear, have not been adequately explored. We start by examining the relation between embodiment and agency, especially the dependence of agency on perception and the dependence of perception on agency. We also consider the nature of subjectivity itself: In virtue of what do humans and animals but not rocks and pencils have genuine perceptual and agentive intentional contents? We sketch a hylomorphic account of subjects and subjectivity, which highlights connections between the conclusions argued for in the previous sections and some basic principles of teleosemantics.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactThis paper is largely exegetical/interpretive. My goal is to demonstrate that some criticisms tha... more This paper is largely exegetical/interpretive. My goal is to demonstrate that some criticisms that have been leveled against the program Gareth Evans constructs in The Varieties of Reference (Evans 1980, henceforth VR) misfire because they are based on misunderstandings of Evans’ position. First I will be discussing three criticisms raised by Tyler Burge (Burge, 2010). The first has to do with Evans’ arguments to the effect that a causal connection between a belief and an object is insufficient for that belief to be about that object. A key part of Evans’ argument is to carefully distinguish considerations relevant to the semantics of language from considerations relevant to the semantics (so to speak) of thought or belief (to make the subsequent discussion easier, I will henceforth use ‘thought’ as a blanket term for the relevant mental states, including belief). I will argue that Burge’s criticisms depend on largely not taking account of Evans’ distinctions. Second, Burge criticizes Evans’ account of ‘informational content’ taking it to be inconsistent. I will show that the inconsistency Burge finds depends entirely on a misreading of the doctrine. Finally, Burge takes Evans to task for a perceived over-intellectualization in a key aspect of his doctrine. Burge incorrectly reads Evans as requiring that the subject holding a belief be engaged in certain overly intellectual endeavors, when in fact Evans is only attributing these endeavors to theorists of such a subject.
Next, I turn to two criticisms leveled by John Campbell (Campbell, 1999). I will argue that Campbell’s criticisms are based on misunderstandings – though they do hit at deeper elements of Evans’ doctrine. First, Campbell reads Evans’ account of demonstrative thought as requiring that the subject’s information link to an object allows her to directly locate that object in space. Campbell constructs a case in which one tomato (a) is, because of an angled mirror, incorrectly seen as being at a location that happens to be occupied by an identical tomato (b). Campbell claims that Evans’ doctrines require us to conclude that the subject cannot have a demonstrative thought about the seen tomato (a), though it seems intuitively that such a subject would be able to have a demonstrative thought about that tomato, despite its location is inaccurately seen. I show that Evans’ position in fact allows that the subject can have a demonstrative thought about the causal-source tomato in this case because his account does not require that the location of demonstratively identified objects be immediately accurately assessed. What is crucial is that the subject have the ability to accurately discover the location. Second, Campbell criticizes Evans’ notion of a fundamental level of thought. I show that this criticism hinges on view of the nature and role of the fundamental level of thought that mischaracterizes Evans’ treatment of the notion.
Next, I turn to two criticisms leveled by John Campbell (Campbell, 1999). I will argue that Campbell’s criticisms are based on misunderstandings – though they do hit at deeper elements of Evans’ doctrine. First, Campbell reads Evans’ account of demonstrative thought as requiring that the subject’s information link to an object allows her to directly locate that object in space. Campbell constructs a case in which one tomato (a) is, because of an angled mirror, incorrectly seen as being at a location that happens to be occupied by an identical tomato (b). Campbell claims that Evans’ doctrines require us to conclude that the subject cannot have a demonstrative thought about the seen tomato (a), though it seems intuitively that such a subject would be able to have a demonstrative thought about that tomato, despite its location is inaccurately seen. I show that Evans’ position in fact allows that the subject can have a demonstrative thought about the causal-source tomato in this case because his account does not require that the location of demonstratively identified objects be immediately accurately assessed. What is crucial is that the subject have the ability to accurately discover the location. Second, Campbell criticizes Evans’ notion of a fundamental level of thought. I show that this criticism hinges on view of the nature and role of the fundamental level of thought that mischaracterizes Evans’ treatment of the notion.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactIn this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in phi... more In this article I explore a number of questions that have not been adequately investigated in philosophy of mind circles: are minds located in the same place as the brains (or other computing machinery) supporting them? Must they exist at the same location as the body? Must they exist at the same time? Could a single mind be implemented in multiple brains, or multiple minds in a single brain? Under what conditions might a single mind persist despite being implemented successively in different brains? What contributions do features of the computing machinery make to these questions, compared to the contribution made by the body and embedded point of view? Some of these questions have been touched on previously, but there hasn't been any attempt at a systematic analysis of the various consequences that different approaches in the philosophy of mind have for how the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation and diachronic identity of minds relates to the spatiotemporal location, synchronic individuation, and diachronic identity of both the implementing computational machinery and the embodied embedded point of view. I make a first stab at such an analysis by discussing a variety of thought experiments in which such questions of location, individuation, and identity arise, and I explore how various approaches to understanding the mind – identity theoretic, functionalist, contentualist, embodied/embedded/extended, and so forth – would respond to such situations. A number of novel issues emerge, and some surprising affinities are revealed.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView Impactby Rick Grush and Amanda Brovold
Many forms of visual adaptation have been studied, including spatial displace- ments (Heuer & Heg... more Many forms of visual adaptation have been studied, including spatial displace- ments (Heuer & Hegele 2008), spatial inversions and rotations (Heuer & Rapp 2011), removing or enhancing various colors in the visual spectrum (Belmore & Shevell 2011; Kohler 1963), and even luminance inversion (Anstis 1992). But there have been no studies that have assessed adaptation to an inverted spectrum, or more generally color rotation. We present the results of an adaptation protocol on two subjects who wore LCD goggles that were driven by a video camera, but such that the visual scene presented to subjects was color-rotated by 120°, so that blue objects appeared green, green objects appeared red, and red objects ap- peared blue (with non-primary colors being analogously remapped). One subject wore the apparatus intermittently for several hours per day for a week. The second subject wore the apparatus continually for six days, meaning that all his visual input for those six days was color rotated. Several experiments were run to assess the kinds and degrees of adaptation, including Stroop (1935), the memory color effect (Hansen et al. 2006), and aesthetic judgments of food and people. Several additional phenomena were assessed and noticed, especially with respect to color constancy and phenomenal adaptation. The results were that color con- stancy initially was not present when colors were rotated, but both subjects adap- ted so that color constancy returned. However, there was no evidence of phenom- enal color adaptation. Tomatoes continued to look blue, subjects did not adapt so that they started to look red again. We found no reliable Stroop result. But there was an adaptation to the memory color effect. Also, interesting differences were revealed in the way color affects aesthetic judgments of food versus people, and differences in adaptation to those effects.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactEnaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan ... more Enaction, as put forward by Varela and defended by other thinkers (notably Alva Noë, 2004; Susan Hurley, 2006; and Kevin O’Regan, 1992), departs from traditional accounts that treat mental processes (like perception, reasoning, and action) as discrete, independent processes that are causally related in a sequen- tial fashion. According to the main claim of the enactive approach, which Thompson seems to fully endorse, perceptual awareness is taken to be a skill-based activity. Our perceptual contact with the world, according to the enactionists, is not mediated by representations but is enacted, and the notion of representation, belonging to the classic computational paradigm, has no place in this alternative approach. Though Thompson does not pronounce directly on the issue of representationalism, he is most definitely keeping the company of anti-representationalists, and in that context it is not unreasonable to take his silence for consent.
In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
In this paper, we will argue that the enactive approach to imagery is unworkable unless it makes appeal to representations, understood in a particular way. Not understood as pictures, to be sure. Or sentences for that matter. But those aren’t the only options.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactCANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, 2007
Gareth Evans’ account of Identification-freedom (IF), which he develops in Chapters 6 and 7 of Th... more Gareth Evans’ account of Identification-freedom (IF), which he develops in Chapters 6 and 7 of The Varieties of Reference (henceforth VR) is almost universally misunderstood. My exegesis of Evans’ account — like any non-trivial exegesis — goes somewhat beyond anything Evans overtly says. That Evans did not explicitly put the pieces together in the way I suggest they fit no doubt contributes to the widespread misunderstanding of his views. But I am confident that once my interpretation is on the table it will be post hoc obvious that it really is the correct interpretation Evans’ account.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView Impactby Rick Grush and Amanda Brovold
Raftopoulos and Machamer, eds., Perception, realism and the problem of reference. Cambridge University Press
This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary unders... more This paper will have three substantive sections, all organized around an interdisciplinary understanding of demonstrative reference. Section 2 will focus on perception, and in particular perceptual mechanisms that allow us to latch onto entities in the environment as candidates for thought or reference. Our point here will be brief and, once made, we hope uncontroversial: location is not – current thinking notwithstanding – the key to understanding how perceptual mechanisms single out their accusatives. Rather, it is Gestalt criteria, or similar low-level principles, that do this. Given the way research is currently most commonly preformed, it is easy to see how this could be missed or ignored. But the focus on location is (at least in part) an artifact of choices about research. In any case, we can see that it is incorrect. Our conclusion will be: the basic perceptual accusatives, those entities, broadly understood, which are isolated and tracked by the perceptual system, are not physical objects, or even Spelke-objects or ‘proto-objects’, or even locations in visual space. They are rather what we will call gobjects (for Gestalt object), which is anything isolated by Gestalt criteria. These often, but not always, involve space, hence the confusion. The focus on vision of most work in this area has aided this error.
In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location.
In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
In Section 3 we will turn from perceptual psychology to language, and in particular to an initial exploration of exophoric demonstrative reference. The goal of this section will also be straight-forward: even a casual look at actual language makes clear that demonstrative reference felicitously tracks the full range of gobjects, physical, spatial, Spelke-objects, non-visual and non-spatial gobjects. Linguistic demonstratives, like perceptual systems, are not beholden to space or location.
In Section 4 we turn from these brief preliminary points to a fuller discussion of demonstrative semantics, by way of outlining an account of the semantics of natural language demonstratives we develop elsewhere. The target of this account is the core semantic value of demonstrative expressions in natural language, both exophoric and endophoric. The account is broadly within the framework of cognitive linguistics, but the core ideas of the account are independent of that approach. As will emerge, an adequate account of the semantics of demonstratives will interface only minimally with work on object perception, though there will be a great deal of interface with other kinds of empirical research.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactSynthese, 2007
An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach... more An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach according to which perception is imbued with spatial con- tent in virtue of certain kinds of connections between perceiving organism’s sensory input and its behavioral output. The most important aspect of the defense involves clearly distinguishing two kinds of perceptuo-behavioral skills—the formation of dis- positions, and a capacity for emulation. The former, the formation of dispositions, is argued to by the central pivot of spatial content. I provide a neural information processing interpretation of what these dispositions amount to, and describe how dis- positions, so understood, are an obvious implementation of Gareth Evans’ proposal on the topic. Furthermore, I describe what sorts of contribution are made by emula- tion mechanisms, and I also describe exactly how the emulation framework differs from similar but distinct notions with which it is often unhelpfully confused, such as sensorimotor contingencies and forward models.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactThe nature of temporal experience is typically explained in one of a small number of ways, most a... more The nature of temporal experience is typically explained in one of a small number of ways, most are versions of either retentionalism or extensionalism. After describing these, I make a distinction between two kinds of temporal character that could structure temporal experience: A-ish contents are those that present events as structured in past/present/future terms, and B-ish contents are those that present events as structured in earlier-than/later-than/simultaneous-with relations. There are a few exceptions, but most of the literature ignores this distinction, and silently assumes temporal experience is A-ish. I then argue that temporal character is not scale invariant, but rather that temporal experience is A-ish at larger scales (a few hundred milliseconds and above), and B-ish at smaller scales. I then point out that this scale non-invariance opens the possibility of hybrid views. I clarify (or modify, depending on how you want to frame it) my own view (Grush 2005, 2007) as a hybrid view, according to which temporal experience is B-ish at small scales – and at this scale my trajectory estimation model (TEM, a version of retentionalism) applies – but A-ish at larger scales, and at the larger scale my TEM does not apply. I then motivate this hybrid position by first defending it against arguments that have tried to show that the TEM is untenable. Since the hybrid view has TEM as its small-scale component, it must address this objection. I then put pressure on the main alternative account, extentionalism, by showing that its proponents have not adequately dealt with the problem of temporal illusions. The result is a new theory (perhaps characterizable as a refined version of my prior theory) motivated by i) explaining its virtues, ii) showing that objections to it can be met, and iii) showing that objections to its main competitors have not been met.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactBEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 2007
I call the wave-collapse illusion – a less radical cousin of the refrigerator light illusion – to... more I call the wave-collapse illusion – a less radical cousin of the refrigerator light illusion – to the effect that transitions from generic to detailed phenomenology are not noticed as phenomenal changes. Change blindness and inattentional blindness can be analyzed as cases where certain things are phenomenally present, but generically so.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactJournal of the History of Philosophy, 2007
Berkeley’s Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (NTV) presents a theory of various aspects of the... more Berkeley’s Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (NTV) presents a theory of various aspects of the spatial content of visual experience that attempts to undercut not only the optico-geometric accounts of, e.g., Descartes and Malebranche, but also elements of the empiricist account of Locke. My task in this paper is to shed light on some features of Berkeley’s account that have not been adequately appreciated. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 will discuss Locke’s account of the spatiality of vision in Book II of the Essay. The optico-geometric approach of, e.g., Descartes and Malebranche credits subjects (or their visual systems) with a priori geometrical knowledge by way of which the spatial features of their environments are deduced from, inter alia, the nature of the immediate visual input, the distance between the eyes, and the eyes’ vergence angle. in contrast, Locke’s empiricism motivates an approach according to which spatial features of visual perception are either directly given in perception (viz. spatial information relating to features of the visual environment in the breadth and height dimensions), or are learned through experience—as when features such as shading gradients available on the two-dimensional “sense datum screen” come to be associated with the dimension of depth. In section 3, I turn to Berkeley’s NTV. After a brief preliminary discussion in section 3.2 of the initial sections of NTV that deal with the issue of depth in a way that is essentially a more detailed version of Locke’s account, section 3.3 discerns two conflated but distinguishable considerations that Berkeley provides to the effect that depth is not a proper object of vision. I then turn, in sections 3.4 to 3.6, to what is the central issue of this paper: Berkeley’s discussion of the spatial axes of breadth and height. This is where the problems arise, for on the one hand, Berkeley is motivated to deny Locke’s assumption that we are through vision immediately aware of a two-dimensional sense datum plane, for the spatiality of this plane, as a common sensible available to both vision and touch and hence the exclusive province of neither, would be an abstract idea. But on the other hand, he frequently uses language that suggests he is crediting vision with just such planar content. The first major strand of the critical discussion of Berkeley in section 3.4 will be a critique of his negative account to the effect that planar content is not directly given through the modality of vision, where it will be argued that Berkeley’s argument fails because of an unnoticed ambiguity—the same ambiguity that was shown in section 3.3 to be present, but relatively harmlessly so, in his discussion of depth. The second major strand, spanning sections 3.5 and 3.6, concerns Berkeley’s positive account of the apparent planar content of visual experience. I argue that his positive account of vision cannot be formulated in such a way that is both adequate as an account of actual human vision and does not make surreptitious appeal to precisely the planar content the dismissal of which is its goal—and this is true even on the sympathetic reconstructions that have been offered recently by Atherton and Schwartz. In a brief, final section 4, I make explicit what alterations would have to be made to Berkeley’s position in order to render it viable, and underscore the respect in which it has been vindicated by recent work in perception.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactJournal of Neural Engineering, 2005
The question of whether time is its own best representation is explored. Though there is theoreti... more The question of whether time is its own best representation is explored. Though there is theoretical debate between proponents of internal models and embedded cognition proponents (e.g. Brooks R 1991 Artificial Intelligence 47 139–59) concerning whether the world is its own best model, proponents of internal models are often content to let time be its own best representation. This happens via the time update of the model that simply allows the model’s state to evolve along with the state of the modeled domain. I argue that this is neither necessary nor advisable. I show that this is not necessary by describing how internal modeling approaches can be generalized to schemes that explicitly represent time by maintaining trajectory estimates rather than state estimates. Though there are a variety of ways this could be done, I illustrate the proposal with a scheme that combines filtering, smoothing and prediction to maintain an estimate of the modeled domain’s trajectory over time. I show that letting time be its own representation is not advisable by showing how trajectory estimation schemes can provide accounts of temporal illusions, such as apparent motion, that pose serious difficulties for any scheme that lets time be its own representation.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactJournal of the History of Philosophy, 2009
The decades bracketing the end of the nineteenth century saw two colossal developments in the phi... more The decades bracketing the end of the nineteenth century saw two colossal developments in the philosophy and psychology of the experience of time. The first was William James’ highly influential Principles of Psychology, published in 1890; the second was edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des Inneren Zeitbewusstseins, based on notes written largely during the first decade of the twentieth century, but first published in 1928. Associated with each of these developments is a standard, largely unchallenged understanding of its historical precursors: James was chiefly synthesizing a good deal of work that had been done over the previous three decades or so in experimental psychology in Germany, primarily under the influence of Wundt, and framed this synthesis in terms of a philosophical idea he credited to “E. R. Clay,” namely, the specious present doctrine (henceforth, SP doctrine). Husserl was reacting to, and building on, attempts by Brentano and Meinong to provide analyses of time consciousness, and was also familiar with work in experimental psychology, including James’ work, and with the expression ‘specious present’ that James had used for the doctrine.
But as we shall demonstrate in this paper, the standard picture is crucially incomplete. There is a clearly discernible line of philosophical debate about the temporality of experience which began with Thomas Reid, ran through a number of nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophers, and culminated in two independent termini: “E.R. Clay,” identified by James as the author of the anonymously published The Alternative: a Study in Psychology; and the work of the now nearly-completely forgotten Shadworth Hollway Hodgson. The first goal of this paper is discerning and describing this line of development and its two termini. Both of these termini were significant influences on James. The second goal of this paper is to argue that the second terminus, Hodgson, was also a significant and unappreciated influence on Husserl. Sections 2 through 5 discuss, in turn, the relevant doctrines of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and William Hamilton. Exposition of these authors establishes that discussion of the temporal character of perceptual experience was already underway prior to James, while tracing how distinct stances on relevant premises concerning consciousness and experience eventually led to the formulation of the SP doctrine. Section 6 discusses Robert Kelly (alias ‘E.R. Clay’) who named and (co-)developed the SP doctrine James made famous. Section 7 discusses Hodgson’s early work and his own independently-developed version of the specious present doctrine. Section 8 turns to Hodgson’s later work and the specific issue of his influence on Husserl. Section 9 concludes, and considers the reception of Hodgson and Kelly’s work.
But as we shall demonstrate in this paper, the standard picture is crucially incomplete. There is a clearly discernible line of philosophical debate about the temporality of experience which began with Thomas Reid, ran through a number of nineteenth-century Anglophone philosophers, and culminated in two independent termini: “E.R. Clay,” identified by James as the author of the anonymously published The Alternative: a Study in Psychology; and the work of the now nearly-completely forgotten Shadworth Hollway Hodgson. The first goal of this paper is discerning and describing this line of development and its two termini. Both of these termini were significant influences on James. The second goal of this paper is to argue that the second terminus, Hodgson, was also a significant and unappreciated influence on Husserl. Sections 2 through 5 discuss, in turn, the relevant doctrines of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and William Hamilton. Exposition of these authors establishes that discussion of the temporal character of perceptual experience was already underway prior to James, while tracing how distinct stances on relevant premises concerning consciousness and experience eventually led to the formulation of the SP doctrine. Section 6 discusses Robert Kelly (alias ‘E.R. Clay’) who named and (co-)developed the SP doctrine James made famous. Section 7 discusses Hodgson’s early work and his own independently-developed version of the specious present doctrine. Section 8 turns to Hodgson’s later work and the specific issue of his influence on Husserl. Section 9 concludes, and considers the reception of Hodgson and Kelly’s work.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView ImpactThis article outlines a unified information processing framework whose goal is to explain how the... more This article outlines a unified information processing framework whose goal is to explain how the nervous system represents space, time, and objects. It explains the concept of the emulation theory of representation and describes an extension of the emulation framework for temporal representation. It discusses Alexandre Pouget's basis function model of spatial representation and describes how to combine the basis function model of spatial representation with the trajectory emulation model of temporal representation to yield an information processing framework that genuinely represents behavioral spatiotemporal trajectories of behavioral objects.
Readers Related Papers MentionsView Impact