On Privations and Their Perception

Acta Analytica 26 (2):175-186 (2011)
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Abstract

Despite its admirable bottom-up methodology, Roy Sorensen's Seeing Dark Things (OUP, 2008) raises difficult theoretical questions concerning the metaphysics and perception of absences. Metaphysical difficulties include how to individuate, count, locate, and classify absences, and what determines their features. Perceptual difficulties include how to distinguish experiences of absences and presences, especially when nonveridical, and what subjects contribute to perceptual experience according to Sorensen's causal theory. In addition to articulating these difficulties, this paper also presents and explores, on Sorensen's terms, an alternative account of silence.

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Casey O'Callaghan
Washington University in St. Louis

Citations of this work

Seeing absence.Anna Farennikova - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (3):429-454.
A Breath of Fresh Air: Absence and the Structure of Olfactory Perception.Tom Roberts - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (3):400-420.
On Perceiving Abs nces.Achille C. Varzi - 2022 - Gestalt Theory 44 (3):213-242.
Seeing the Impossible.Andreas Elpidorou - 2016 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (1):11-21.
On Silhouettes, Surfaces and Sorensen.Thomas Raleigh - 2018 - In Thomas Crowther & Clare Mac Cumhaill, Perceptual Ephemera. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 194-218.

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References found in this work

Action in Perception.Alva Noë - 2004 - MIT Press.
The intrinsic quality of experience.Gilbert Harman - 1990 - Philosophical Perspectives 4:31-52.
Causing and Nothingness.Helen Beebee - 2004 - In John Collins, Ned Hall & Laurie Paul, Causation and Counterfactuals. MIT Press. pp. 291--308.
Seeing dark things: the philosophy of shadows.Roy Sorensen - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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