Up to the present time the science of physics has given us no purely physical theory by which the characteristic formal properties of sensation can be derived. No explanation of the sense world purely in terms of the postulated physical world has been forthcoming, so that the psychologist has had either to ignore sensations or consider them as at least partially unaccountable additions to the entities of physics.That there is, nevertheless, a purely physical explanation of the sense world (...) we hope the following pages will make clear. We will present a theory in which the characteristic properties of sensation are derived from postulated physical entities. (shrink)

Cornford assures us that the theory of sensation developed in the Theaetetus must be Plato's own. He offers three considerations in support of this contention.

It seems generally agreed that a theory of sensory episodes that mentions sensory objects and a sensing relation — the ‘act-object’ theory — is unacceptable and should be replaced by some other account. A chief competitor is the Adverbial Theory, and one of its chief advocates is Wilfrid Sellars. While it is clear that there are serious difficulties for the act-object theory not facing the adverbial theory, I will argue that the latter has difficulties of (...) its own. (shrink)

Literally, προσβάλλον and προσβαλλόμενον mean, respectively, "that which strikes" and "that which is struck." The first suggests activity; the second passivity. Consequently, it would seem that the προσβάλλον should be said to emanate from the agent and the προσβαλλόμενον from the patient. And, since Plato explicitly identifies the agent with the perceptual object and the patient with the sensing organ, we should, it would seem, identify the προσβάλλον with the motion from the perceptual object and the προσβαλλόμενον with the motion (...) from the sensing organ, which is the reverse of what I did in the article. (shrink)

In its classical conception, game theory aspires to be a determinate decision theory for games, understood as elements of a structurally specified domain. Its aim is to determine for each game in the domain a complete solution to each player's decision problem, a solution valid for all real-world instantiations, regardless of context. "Permissiveness" would constrain the theory to designate as admissible for a player any conjecture consistent with the function's designation of admissible strategies for the other players. (...) Given permissiveness and other appropriate constraints, solution sets must contain only Nash equilibria and at least one pure-strategy equilibrium, and there is no solution to games in which no symmetry invariant set of pure-strategy equilibria forms a Cartesian product. These results imply that the classical program is unrealizable. Moreover, the program is implicitly committed to permissiveness, through its common-knowledge assumptions and its commitment to equilibrium. The resulting incoherence deeply undermines the classical conception in a way that consolidates a long series of contextualist criticisms. (shrink)

Since its inception, roughly sixteen years ago, the theory of the contingent identity of mental-states and brain-states has been argued on many fronts. I want here to examine and to try to meet one in particular of the objections raised in connection with this theory. The objection has been stated with especial force by Peter Herbst.Let us then investigate a proposition that there is a particular mental entity which is contingently identical with a particular brain state. In order (...) to be able to test it, we must know which mental entity is supposed to be identical with what brain state. Therefore we need at least two clear and independent identifying references to serve as the basis of our proposition of identity. They must each be sufficient to individuate an entity, or else we cannot say what is identical with what, and they must be independent of each other, or else the identity proposition expressed in terms of them becomes tautologous. (shrink)

In general, seventeenth‐century philosophers seem to have assumed that intentionality is an essential characteristic of our mental life. Malebranche is perhaps the only philosopher in the period who stands out clearly against the prevailing orthodoxy; he is committed to the thesis that there is a large class of mental items ‐ sensations ‐ which have no representational content. In this paper I argue that due attention to this fact makes it possible to mount at least a partial defence of his (...) notorious doctrine of ‘the rainbow‐coloured soul’; Malebranche's doctrine is a striking anticipation of modern adverbial theories of sensation. I then argue that failure to appreciate the non‐intentional character of sensations for Malebranche vitiates one recent attempt to explain why he accepted the Cartesian doctrine of the beastmachine; in contrast to the Radners, I suggest that Malebranche has the philosophical resources to offer an interesting theory of animal consciousness, and that his failure to develop such a theory rests largely on his acceptance of certain theological arguments. The paper ends by speculating about how Malebranche's theological commitments may have encouraged him to adopt the philosophically important thesis that intentionality is not the mark of the mental. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This chapter contains sections titled: Socratic Dialogues Phaedo Republic Timaeus Theaetetus Sophist Philebus Seventh Letter and Definitions Overview Note.

Charles A. Baylis; VII—Foundations For a Presentative Theory of Perception and Sensation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 19.

Recent social theory that stresses the ‘nonrepresentational’, the ‘more-than visual’, and the relationship between affect and sensation have tended to assume some kind of break or rupture from historical antecedents. Especially since the contributions of Crary and Jay in the 1990s, when it comes to perceiving the built environment the complexities of sensation have been partially obscured by the dominance of a static model of vision as the principal organizing modality. This article returns to some prior historical (...) articulations of the significance of motility in perception, retracing pathways across art history, architectural theory and the history of neuroscience to argue for an alternative model based on the movement of the eye. Along with subsystems that deal with balance and orientation, I offer parallels between spatial motifs of the interior spaces of the body – labyrinths, vestibules, chambers – and those in artefacts and the built environment that contribute to the heightened physicality of the oculomotor subject. (shrink)

Prologue : narratocracy and the contours of political life -- From nomos to nomad : Kant, Deleuze, and Rancière on sensation -- The piazza, the edicola, and the noise of the utterance -- Machiavelli's theory of sensation and Florence's vita festiva -- The viewing subject : Caravaggio, Bacon, and the ring -- "You're eating too fast!" slow food's ethos of convivium -- Epilogue : "the photographs tell it all" : on an ethics of appearance.

I develop and defend a sense-datum theory of perception. My theory follows the spirit of classic sense-datum theories: I argue that what it is to have a perceptual experience is to be acquainted with some sense-data, where sense-data are private particulars that have all the properties they appear to have, that are common to both perception and hallucination, that constitute the phenomenal characters of perceptual experiences, and that are analogous to pictures inside one’s head. But my theory (...) also diverges from conventional sense-datum theories in some key respects: on my view, (1) sense-data are first-person presentations of neural states, (2) the sensational qualities of sense-data differ in kind from the sensible qualities of external objects, and (3) sense-data are the vehicles in virtue of which we perceive, rather than the objects that we perceive. I argue that this package of claims is appropriately labeled ‘sense-datum theory’, and that the resultant view ought to be a live contender in contemporary philosophy of perception. (shrink)

This paper aims to pay tribute to Figal’s comprehensive and innovative analysis of the artwork and beauty, while challenging both his realist position on the immediacy of meaning and his monist stance that reduces sublimity to beauty. To enquire into the origin of aesthetic feelings and sense, and thus, to break the hermeneutic circle, we first trace the origin of this reduction to the reception of Burke’s concept of the sublime by Mendelssohn and Kant. We then recur to Husserl and (...) Dufrenne to trace the origin of the sense of the feeling of sublimity in the realm of affectivity or sensuousness. This genesis takes place in passive experience, where we identify an excess of sensuous sense over categorial meaning that is constitutive of the affective sense that our bodily sensations give to hyletic material. It is argued that this sensuous excess evokes a sublime experience in the phenomenological sense, involving an affective and disruptive bodily experience and an endless process of sense formation. Affective or sensuous sense is thus an event that irreversibly affects the bodily surface. To elucidate this phenomenon, we draw on the theoretical framework of Breton and Bataille, positing it as a form-transgressive ‘convulsive’ sublime, which we then illustrate in the architectural works of Tschumi and Eisenman. In short, we have retrieved the origin of aesthetic experience and redefined the feeling of the sublime as a phenomenological ‘convulsive’ sublimity. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of attempts to reconstruct Marxian theory in forms that can be assessed by reference to currently received standards in various disciplines. The work has even been said to establish a new paradigm: “analytical Marxism.” One doesn't have to endorse this claim to recognize a good deal of merit in the work. Through creative application of state-of-the-art methods to traditional Marxian issues, researchers have promoted productive cross-fertilization with non-Marxian programs and have revealed many (...) problems that must be resolved for fruitful development of Marxian theory. Marx's work can be relevant to today's problems only if it is examined from vantage points provided by subsequent scientific and philosophical achievements. Moreover, critical engagement with the best science of the day has been an essential part of the Marxian theoretical project from the beginning. (shrink)

Intended for courses in sensation and perception, this book covers the anatomy, physiology and phenomenology of the way humans sense and perceive the world. It is grounded in physiology to explain perceptual phenomena, on the theory that understanding sensation and perception is based in the physiology of the sensory organs and the brain.

Zabarella and the Intentionality of Sensation - ABSTRACT: In this paper, I examine Zabarella’s account of the intentionality of sensation. By looking at both his account of the production of the sensible species as well as proper activity of the human soul in the process of sensation, I show that he has carefully reinterpreted standard medieval theories of sensation. Most notably, his account of intentionality as a kind of mental attention seems to point towards a type (...) of Cartesian dualism, but at the same time attempts to remain faithful to the basic insights of the Aristotelian tradition concerning sensation. (shrink)

Like their contemporary counterparts, early modern philosophers find themselves in a predicament. On one hand, there are strong reasons to deny that sensations are representations. For there seems to be nothing in the world for them to represent. On the other hand, some sensory representations seem to be required for us to experience bodies. How else could one perceive the boundaries of a body, except by means of different shadings of color? I argue that Nicolas Malebranche offers an extreme -- (...) and ultimately unworkable -- attempt to solve this riddle. Most commentators claim that Malebranche defends an adverbial theory of sensation, according to which a sensation is merely a way in which an act of sensing happens. The adverbial reading is wrong, or so I argue. Once we arrive at a more accurate reading, we shall see that his position is much more strange than is currently thought. Nevertheless, Malebranche’s view is similar to the adverbial theory in one respect, albeit it at a very high level of generality. His view thus inherits two of the main problems that afflict adverbial theories. Although Malebranche fails to solve them, his ingenious attempts to do so are instructive. (shrink)

Marx criticized political economy for propounding an inverted, mystical view of economic reality. But he went beyond asserting the falsity and apologetic character of the doctrine to characterize it as reflecting a social practice of inversion or mystification — an inverted social world — in which individuals incorporate their own actions into a process whose dynamic lies beyond their control. Caught up in this process, individuals confront aspects of their own agency in the alien or reified form of a given, (...) determining reality. Marx leaves unclear exactly how the process exerts and maintains its hold on agents, the nature of the reasons they might have for wanting to free themselves of it, and under what conditions they could do so. However, it is possible to abstract somewhat from Marx's specific concerns and to model a self-reproducing practice of reification that works through the informational environment of decision. Though of wider interest, this more general conception can shed light on the nature and critique of Marx's inverted world. It draws on conceptual resources from decision theory, game theory and general equilibrium theory. (shrink)

For Reid, the external senses have a “double province.” They give rise to both sensation and perception. This essay is about the relation of sensation and perception, a relation Reid’s sign theory of sensations describes. Drawing on Reid’s distinctions between general and particular principles of our constitution, relative and absolute conceptions, and original and acquired perception, the paper systematizes Reid’s sporadic comments on the sign theory. The aim is to offer an interpretation which reveals the overall (...) structure, rationale and coherence of Reid’s sign theory. (shrink)

Born in 1838, Mach was a pioneer in the field of physics, having even made an impression on Einstein in his younger life who credited him with being the "Philosophical forerunner of relativity theory." His name is also associated with the speed of sound (as in traveling at Mach "insert-number-here") as well as the Doppler effect. Throughout his career, he was particularly interested in the biological and sensory relationship to physics and science, and naturally, this interest expanded to that (...) of the world of psychological perception and physiological psychology as well as philosophy. The Analysis of Sensations is about just that, the nature of the relationship of physics and the physical sciences to psychological phenomena of sense and perception. It's a fascinating read for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of how the two sides of the same coin meld harmoniously. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs and defends a Sellarsian approach to “sensation” that allows us to avoid mythological conceptions of it. Part I reconstructs and isolates Sellars’s argument for “sensation,” situating his adverbial interpretation of the notion within his broader theory of perception. Part II positions Sellars’s views vis-à-vis current conversations on adverbalism. In particular, it focuses on the Many Property Problem, which is traditionally considered the main obstacle to adverbialism. After reconstructing Sellars’s response to this problem, I demonstrate (...) that his position is compatible with some current strategies to solving it and can be developed along similar lines. Finally, part III addresses how a Sellarsian adverbial approach productively accounts for the phenomenal properties of experience often understood to fall under the notion of “sensation”. The paper therefore shows how isolating Sellars’s argument can yield a non-problematic conception of sensation. Indeed, the argument on which I focus offers a form of direct realism compatible with recent forms of “new adverbialism”. Although my view remains Sellarsian, to defend it I maintain that some Sellarsian claims about sensation should be resisted as not logically entailed by his argument. (shrink)

Phenomenology's relation to sensation has many facets. Sensation arises in different contexts in Edmund Husserl's work, and receives several reformulations. This causes us to inquire how the sensations that are unified within the temporal flow by time constituting consciousness, in On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, and that continue to exercise an affective pull even after having passed away, in Analyses Concerning Passive Synthesis, can be related to the bodily sensations which constitute the lived body (...) in Ideas II. What is revealed in a critical study of these texts is the unthematized role that sensation plays in Husserl's writings. Yet sensation is not for that reason less significant, nor could his phenomenological descriptions of experience convincingly forgo this concept. ;What is the concept of sensation which can subtend these different formulations and provide a connecting thread within Husserl's phenomenology? My dissertation is a reply to this question. I argue that the sketches of sensation found in Husserl's works can provide the grounds for a rhythmic and dynamic theory of the lived body---a theory which not only inserts the body into the temporal flow of lived experience, and defines its spatiality as fluid, malleable and affectively charged, but which also opens the body to an intersubjective dimension. In this way, sensation becomes a differentiated and heterogeneous reality. Sensation has the structure of an evolution, the continuity of a rhythm, so that the body that is constituted of sensings secretes time at its joints. This theory frees sensation from Husserl's early hylomorphic schema in Ideas I, and reconnects it to the flow of life, and to bodily experiences of world and others. In the process I also examine alternative views which deal with the role of sensation in the contexts of the body, temporality and otherness. The works of M. Merleau-Ponty, but also of E. Levinas, L. Irigaray, H. Bergson and G. Deleuze are important in this regard. Reading these thinkers in connection to Husserl sheds an unexpected light on their philosophies, while allowing us to challenge Husserl and to propel phenomenology in new directions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes’s Theory of MindEnrique Chávez-ArvizoDesmond M. Clarke. Descartes’s Theory of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 267. Cloth, $49.95.Desmond Clarke, commentator on Cartesian natural philosophy, has now published an interpretation of Descartes's dualism, a theme which can hardly be said to be underrepresented in the literature. The monograph is divided into nine chapters concerned with explanation, sensation, imagination and memory, the passions, the (...) will, language, thought, substance, and property dualism—yes, property dualism.The book pushes forward a reading of Descartes's theory of mind, made from a perspective which Clarke has adopted over the last three decades or so, that maintains that Descartes was primarily (and willingly) a scientist and incidentally (and reluctantly) a philosopher. From this viewpoint, according to Clarke, natural philosophy provides the paradigm for genuine explanation in Descartes's metaphysics. Furthermore, given that Descartes rejects Scholastic substantial forms and real qualities as explanatorily infertile and since substances are equally unfruitful, substances play no explanatory role in his system of philosophy. Substance dualism is not at the center of Descartes's philosophy of mind; his account of explanation is. This makes Descartes not a substance dualist; but a property dualist. So argues, in very broad strokes, Clarke. [End Page 116]Unlike us, Descartes did not draw a sharp distinction between philosophy and science. For him, these two realms of enquiry were part of a unified realm of knowledge, what he deemed scientia or philosophy in the wider sense. Hence his use of the instructive metaphor of philosophy as a tree, whose roots are metaphysics, the trunk physics, and the branches the other sciences which he reduces to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics, and morals (Letter Preface to Picot, French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery [Paris: Vrin, 1989], 14). However, Descartes did distinguish the roots from the trunk, that is, metaphysics (or "first philosophy") from physics (or "natural philosophy"). Commentators on Descartes's system of philosophy ignore his natural philosophy at their peril, for it does shed considerable light on his metaphysics. But, likewise, Descartes's philosophy greatly illuminates his science. It is for this reason that I want to cast doubt on Clarke's apparent scientific imperialism in which Descartes's methodological, epistemological, and metaphysical concerns are forced to play second fiddle to his scientific views. We cannot neatly fit Descartes's metaphysical views into Clarke's scientific mold, nor can we force them in, without incurring serious error. I do not think that one has to choose between one and the other as being primary, between the tree of knowledge and the inverted tree of knowledge. We need to keep in mind that in Descartes's system of philosophy, both science and philosophy are interconnected and that both parts elucidate each other.Clarke's attempt to eliminate substance from Descartes's account of mind is problematic. True, the term 'substance' is an extremely ambiguous one and Descartes's comments about it are often blurred and puzzling. On the one hand, one must concede that the concept of substance plays a small role in Descartes's natural philosophy, in which although the material universe is depicted in terms of extended substance or res extensa, physics is ultimately unwrapped by way of laws describing the behavior of particles in virtue of their size, shape, and motion. But, in contrast, substance plays a far more prominent role in his metaphysics, not to mention in his theology. This leads to a related point. Clarke overlooks the importance of theology for Descartes's philosophical project and the role of God in Cartesian natural philosophy.The level of argument drops considerably in the final chapter, where Clarke offers an uncritical and not very clear survey of naming and necessity, the identity theory, anomalous monism, and property dualism. This chapter seems in tension with his disapproval of anachronistic readings of Descartes (8-9) and contains some serious slips. Clarke's answer to his own question "Was Descartes, then, a substance dualist" is a mind boggling "Yes and no" (258), and his claim that Descartes was a property dualist, collapses under... (shrink)

Disgust (Ekel, dégoût) is a state of high alert. It acutely says "no" to a variety of phenomena that seemingly threaten the integrity of the self, if not its very existence. A counterpart to the feelings of appetite, desire, and love, it allows at the same time for an acting out of hidden impulses and libidinal drives. In Disgust, Winfried Menninghaus provides a comprehensive account of the significance of this forceful emotion in philosophy, aesthetics, literature, the arts, psychoanalysis, and (...) class='Hi'>theory of culture from the eighteenth century to the present. Topics addressed include the role of disgust as both a cognitive and moral organon in Kant and Nietzsche; the history of the imagination of the rotting corpse; the counter-cathexis of the disgusting in Romantic poetics and its modernist appeal ever since; the affinities of disgust and laughter and the analogies of vomiting and writing; the foundation of Freudian psychoanalysis in a theory of disgusting pleasures and practices; the association of disgusting "otherness" with truth and the trans-symbolic "real" in Bataille, Sartre, and Kristeva; Kafka's self-representation as an "Angel" of disgusting smells and acts, concealed in a writerly stance of uncompromising "purity"; and recent debates on "Abject Art.". (shrink)

The authors favor a “color realism” theory that considers colors to be physical properties residing in objects that reflect, emit, or transmit light. It is opposed to the theory that colors are sensations or visual experiences. This commentary suggests that both theories are correct, and that context usually indicates which of these dual aspects is being considered.

My goal is to formulate a theory of introspection that can be integrated with a strongly reductionist account of sensations that I have defended elsewhere. In pursuit of this goal, I offer a skeletal explanation of the metaphysical nature of introspection and I attempt to resolve several of the main questions about the epistemological status of introspective beliefs.

Drawn upon optimum stimulation level theory, and in view of the impact of mobile terminal usage on tourist decision-making, the present study aims to investigate how personality influences tourist trip planning behavior in the mobile era. A sample of 344 respondents in China completed measures of sensation seeking, travel risk perception, smartphone usage, as well as tourist planfulness. Results indicated that sensation seeking was negatively associated with tourist planfulness and travel risk perception partially mediated this association. Besides, (...) both the direct effect of sensation seeking on tourist planfulness and the indirect effect of travel risk perception were moderated by smartphone usage, in that these effects were stronger for tourists with a high-level of smartphone usage than those with low-level smartphone usage. This study can significantly advance existing research on tourist behavior from the perspective of personality and reconfiguring our traditional understanding on tourist decision-making in the mobile era. Our study may also provide indicative support for theoretical perspective that information technology is changing customer behavior. (shrink)

This work develops an approach to the emotions suitable for addressing issues in moral psychology. It tries to answer two questions: What is an emotion? What are the functions of emotion? The proposed theory is based in part on the Cartesian theory of the passions and is developed within the framework of a functionalist analysis of mental states. Its central claims are: that an emotional state involves a person being affected in typical ways; that 'being affected emotionally' involves (...) tendencies: to be preoccupied with, or have one's attention focused on, the object of emotion; to overevaluate the object of emotion, where this overvaluation is relative to one's nonemotional beliefs; 'mental' feelings which are aspects of intentional states like evaluations and desires. ;The work contains six chapters. The first discusses sceptical doubts about the possibility of a general theory of emotion and suggests a way of drawing a distinction between emotions and attitudes. The second chapter considers a traditional analysis of BAE--the so-called feeling theory of emotion--and three standard objections to that theory. The chapter goes on to investigate a contemporary approach, the 'comprehensive theory of emotion' , which seeks to avoid these objectives. CT, endorsed by William Alston and William Lyons , is an amalgam of the cognitive view and the feeling theory; it analyses an emotion in terms of several casually related components: evaluative beliefs, desires, physiological changes and bodily sensations. ;Chapter Three offers a critique of CT, on the grounds that CT's explanation of emotional action is inadequate. CT analyses BAE in terms of bodily changes and sensations, but these components of emotion have no central role in causing action; rather CT holds that the evaluational and appetitive aspects of emotion give rise to action. This account, it is argued, underestimates the degree to which emotional action is frequently unreasonable or irrational, and severs the intuitive link between BAE and action. ;The remaining chapters develop a neo-Cartesian theory as an alternative to CT. Chapter Four defends Descartes' theory of the passions against traditional objections, and shows how two aspects of emotion he discusses--focus of attention and overvaluation--offer a more promising explanation of emotional action. Chapter Five explores the relation between feelings and emotions, and argues that many emotions essentially involve 'mental' pain or pleasure. In Chapter Six some consideration is given to the implications of the proposed theory for moral issues, and it is suggested that commonly held views on responsibility for emotions and the value of the emotional life bear re-examination. (shrink)