Sensation and the Grammar of Life

2021 ◽  
pp. 276-294
Author(s):  
Clare Mac Cumhaill ◽  
Rachael Wiseman
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Object ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Intentional Objects ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
The Way

Anscombe’s published writings, lectures, and notes on sensation offer material for a sophisticated critique of philosophical theories of perception and a novel analysis of the concept of sensation. Her philosophy of perception begins with the traditional question, ‘What are the objects of sensation?’, but the response is a grammatical rather than ontological enquiry. What, she asks, are the characteristics of the grammatical object of sensation verbs? Anscombe’s answer is: sensation verbs take ‘intentional objects’, where an ‘intentional object’ is a description which has the characteristics of the concept of intention—characteristics elucidated in detail in her Intention. This allows Anscombe to reject two opposing positions—that the objects of sensation are sense data, and that they are ordinary objects. Both views, she argues, fail to recognize the grammatical fact that verbs of sensation take intentional objects. This chapter sets out Anscombe’s analysis and outlines the case for a grammatical methodology. Along the way, it will be shown that Anscombe’s philosophy of perception should not be read as forerunning contemporary representationalism.

Phenomenological Psychopathology, Neuroscience, Psychiatric Disorders, and the Intentional Arc

2018 ◽  
pp. 1064-1077
Author(s):  
Grant Gillett ◽  
Patrick Seniuk
Keyword(s):  
Neural Circuits ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Phenomenological Psychopathology ◽  
The Way

This article combines an evolutionary perspective with phenomenological philosophy of Merleau-Ponty. Neuroscience addresses the way the brain connects individuals to domains of adaptation, while Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of perception explores the way sense situates humans the world. In particular, his concept “the intentional arc” captures the basic structure of embodied mental life through purposeful action. The processes of “sedimentation” and the neuroscience of ontogeny offer a perspective on the development of cortical and subcortical neural circuits that are in to-and-fro communication with the lived body. This dynamic sheds light on the genesis of a psychological life, structures of attunement, and capacity for adaptation to the world, which are all vulnerable to disruption in psychiatric disorder.

scholarly journals The theory of επινοια in st. Basil of Caesarea and Eunomius of Cyzicus: philosophical and theological background

Vox Patrum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 129-138
Author(s):  
Georgios D. Panagopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
The Way

In the paper our attention is focused on the way in which both Saint Basil of Caesarea and his opponent, the anomoian Eunomius of Cyzicus, integrate in their theological thought the philosophical teaching about the formation of concepts (™p…noia) in human mind and their relation to the external objects. Our inquiry will provide the evidence that the two theologians are acquainted with the same philosophical material concerning human mind’s concepts; nevertheless each of them opted to use a different element from the related philosophical traditions in order to provide support to different theological purposes. Eunomius’ rationalistic doctrine of God’s knowledge, which goes hand in hand with his account of human language and mind, prompted Saint Basil to advance an empirical epistemologi­cal view that both makes possible a talk about God based on sense data and keeps fully intact the transcendence of God’s essence.

scholarly journals Proper recognition: Personhood and symbolic capital in contemporary sociology

2020 ◽  
pp. 001139212093294
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Mead
Keyword(s):  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The World ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The Way

Sociologists maintain an ambivalent relationship to the category of the person, even more so at a time when the category is deemed insufficient for analysis yet appears increasingly significant within the world it purports to capture. This article begins with this ascending significance of the person in the neoliberal world of work, where the personal accumulation of skills and devolution of responsibility to individuals are privileged. Theoretical approaches to personhood attempt to respond to these changed conditions, with the work of Pierre Bourdieu often thought incapable of properly explaining such contemporary phenomena. In response, this article approaches personhood through the frame of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital, those properties ‘misrecognized’ as belonging to the person when they are in fact the product of relations in which the person is enmeshed. A reconstruction of the concept in the sociologist’s work, along with analyses of its implications for a philosophy of perception and for ideology, will show the way for an unexpected approach both to Bourdieu’s own work, reframed through the concept of symbolic capital, and to personhood, which is revealed to be a profoundly and paradoxically relational notion.

Appearances and Illusions

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Soldati
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
Relational Properties ◽  
Perceptual Illusions ◽  
External Objects ◽  
The Way

This paper deals with the nature of perceptual appearances. It argues that they are objective relational properties of external objects. In perceptual experience, we are acquainted with such appearances. These are not sense data, as usually understood, and they are not identical to the properties we attribute to external objects through the usage of qualitative concepts such as ‘red’, ‘square’ and ‘sweet.’ We use such concepts in order to describe properties that are manifest in perception, not in order to describe appearances. One and the same property, such as the bent shape of a stick, can appear in different ways in different contexts. None of those ways is more or less appropriate, because things simply appear the way they do. The choice of a certain context determines the normal conditions for the possession of qualitative concepts. Standard perceptual illusions are perceptual experiences. They mislead us, not because they are incorrect, but because they prompt us to use concepts that are not appropriate under the obtaining conditions.

scholarly journals The Intuitive Concept of Information: An Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-119
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Król
Keyword(s):  
Intentional Object ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Virtual Objects ◽  
Intentional Objects ◽  
Adequate Information ◽  
Intuitive Concept ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Concept Of Information ◽  
Subject Of Cognition

AbstractThis paper seeks to determine the intuitive meaning of the concept of information by indicating its essential (definitional) features and relations with other concepts, such as that of knowledge. The term “information” – as with many other concepts, such as “process”, “force”, “energy” and “matter” – has a certain established meaning in natural languages, which allows it to be used, in science as well as in everyday life, without our possessing any somewhat stricter definition of it. The basic aim here is thus to explicate what it amounts to in the context of its intuitive meaning as encountered in natural languages, what the subject of cognition implicitly presumes when using the term, and to which ontological situations it can be applied. I demonstrate that the essential features of the notion of information include the presence of a material medium, its transformation, the recording and reading of information encoded in the medium, and the grasp of what is recorded, coded and transmitted as an intentional object, where the latter is construed in terms broadly in line with the ontologies of Husserl and Ingarden. Along the way, a number of issues relating to the notion of information are also pointed out: the problem of informational identity, of the existence of virtual objects, and of the choice of an adequate information carrier, as well as formal-ontological problems, including those which concern relations between information carriers and intentional objects.

The Clash of the Images - Why the Manifest Image and the Scientific Image Are Incompatible

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adem Mulamustafić
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Scientific Image ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Scientific Results ◽  
Manifest Image ◽  
The Way

In everyday life, we take there to be ordinary objects such as persons, tables, and stones bearing certain properties such as color and shape and standing in various causal relationships to each other. Basic convictions such as these form our everyday picture of the world: the manifest image. The scientific image, on the other hand, is a system of beliefs that is only based on scientific results. It contains many beliefs that are not contained in the manifest image. At first glance, this may not seem to be a problem. But Mulamustafić shows convincingly that this is a mistake: The world as it is in itself cannot be both the way the manifest image depicts it and the way the scientific image describes it to be.

Counterpart Theories: The Argument from Concern

Metaphysica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet E. Baber
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Counterpart Theory ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Modal Fictionalism ◽  
The Way

Abstract Modal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s possibly being F with its having a counterpart that is F at another possible world; temporal counterpart theory, the stage view, according to which people and other ordinary objects are instantaneous stages, identifies a thing’s having been F or going to be F, with its having a counterpart that is F at another time. Both counterpart theories invite what has been called ‘the argument from concern’ (Rosen, G. 1990. “Modal Fictionalism.” Mind 99 (395): 327–54). Why should I be concerned about my counterparts at other possible worlds or other times? I care about how things might have gone for me—not how they go for other people at other possible worlds; I care about my prospects—not the way go for other people at other times. Jiri Benovsky has argued that while modal counterpart theory can be defended against this style of argument, temporal counterpart theory cannot (Benovsky, J. 2015. “Alethic Modalities, Temporal Modalities, and Representation.” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 29: 18–34). I argue that temporal counterpart theory, like modal counterpart theory, resists the argument from concern.

scholarly journals The Transfigured Phenomena of Domesticity in the Urban Interior

IDEA JOURNAL ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 56-77
Author(s):  
Valerie Mace
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
The Body ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Stable Form ◽  
Phenomenological Method ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

This paper reconsiders a refurbished London street, Bermondsey Street, as an interior where objects of memories are curated into a reconstructed atmosphere of domesticity.The study argues that as our experience of the city becomes increasingly transient, the notion of inhabiting shifts to a wider and more fragmented context, and our ability to integrate with the urban environment becomes eroded. Bermondsey Street, however, presents a distinctive experience where the phenomena of intimacy and familiarity converge across space and time to provide a more stable form of inhabitation. In order to understand how these phenomena occur and how the experience of the urban interior manifests itself in our consciousness, the study follows the Husserlian phenomenological method of intentionality whereby the urban interior of Bermondsey Street becomes the intentional object. It also places the reflective gaze of the phenomenologist in ‘epoché’, a phenomenological method of reduction that suspends normality. In doing so, the phenomenologist is able to access the points of reference that reveal the affective qualities of the intentional object in our consciousness.While the discursive and theoretical content of the study is expressed in the body of text, the phenomenological narrative is bracketed and illustrated as a meditative journey; a recollection of memories of the homely, initiated by the encounter between consciousness and the way the interior animates imagination. Thus, in ‘epoché’, the reflective gaze of the phenomenologist transcends normality to reveal the underlying structure of the phenomena and the intentionality of the subjective experience.

Neopragmatism and Philosophy of Perception

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-126
Author(s):  
Joshua Gert
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Naive Realism ◽  
Naïve Realism ◽  
Positive View ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception ◽  
Related Idea ◽  
The World ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Insight Into

Neopragmatism is an anti-metaphysical approach to philosophical problems. It addresses such problems by taking the focus off of metaphysics, and turning it onto language. That is, the neopragmatist seeks philosophically uncontentious explanations of the sort of talk that often gives rise to the sense that there is a deep philosophical puzzle to solve. In the domain of perception, reflection on apt ways of describing perceptual experiences have led to various metaphysically committing theories, including (i) sense data theory, (ii) representationalism, and (iii) naïve realism. This chapter uses neopragmatist techniques to undermine the case for the last of these. The attack is two-pronged. First, some of the metaphysical commitments of naïve realism are criticized. Second, neopragmatism is used to explain some of the ideas that were thought to lend naïve realism support. These include the idea that perceptual experience has a peculiar sort of openness or presentational character, and the related idea that such experience gives insight into the mind-independent character of the world. Beyond forming the basis for criticizing other views, neopragmatism also suggests a positive view of perception. This is a form of adverbialism that relies on the idea that our sensory states are information-bearing, but not, in any robust sense, representational.

Aesthetic Emotions

The Monist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-222
Author(s):  
Jenefer Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Special Kind ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Intentional Objects ◽  
Aesthetic Pleasure ◽  
Traditional Sense ◽  
The Way

Abstract This paper investigates what I call aesthetic emotions in the “traditional” sense going back to Burke and Kant. According to Kant, aesthetic pleasure is disinterested, and so maybe for Kant aesthetic emotions would be too, for Kant, but emotions by their very nature cannot be disinterested. After dismissing the idea that aesthetic emotions are a special kind of distanced emotions or refined emotions, I extract from the writings of Clive Bell, Peter Kivy, and Peter Lamarque the view that aesthetic emotions are positive, pleasurable, consummatory emotions—emotions of appreciation—which are noninstrumental and which take as their intentional objects the intrinsic qualities of an artwork, more particularly, its formal interrelationships and the way that the overall formal structure of an artwork molds its content.

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