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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Will Hornett
Summary: This paper argues that despite the differences between perception and belief, perception involves states that are importantly similar to beliefs: conscious visual experiences. According to the Content View, these experiences have contents in the form of accuracy conditions. The paper develops and defends the Content View, discusses its significance, and argues that contrary to what is often supposed, the Content View is compatible with Naive Realist disjunctivism.Siegel, Susanna. The Contents of Perception2010, Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Summary: In this article, the author provides a great overview on the topic of perceptual content, by addressing the following main issues: i) what are perceptual experiences? ii) what can constitute the content of our experience? iii) what is the relation between the content and our experience? iv) in virtue of what experiences have content?Comment: Great article to be used as background/overview reading for undergraduate course on the philosophy of perception.
Siegel, Susanna. Affordances and the Contents of Perception2014, in Brogaard, Berit (ed.) Does Perception have Content, OUP-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Summary: The author questions the centrality of representation in perceptual experience that comes from a specific class of experience, namely, those experiences of the environment that compels you to act in a certain way.Comment: This could work as secondary reading for a postgraduate course on philosophy of perception.
Siegel, Susanna. The Content of Visual Experience2010, Oxford University Press-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Abstract: properties. The book starts by analyzing the notion of the contents of experience, and by arguing that theorists of all stripes should accept that experiences have contents. It then introduces a method for discovering the contents of experience: the method of phenomenal contrast. This method relies only minimally on introspection, and allows rigorous support for claims about experience. It then applies the method to make the case that we are conscious of many kind properties, of all sorts of causal properties, and of many other complex properties. The book goes on to use the method to help analyze difficult questions about our consciousness of objects and their role in the contents of experience, and to reconceptualize the distinction between perception and sensation. The book's results are important for many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. They are also important for the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of vision.Comment: Good as further reading for a postgraduate course on epistemology of percpetion.
Siegel, Susanna. Do Visual Experiences have contents?2010, in Nanay, Bence (eds.) Perceiving the World, Oxford University Press-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Abstract: This paper argues that despite the differences between perception and belief, perception involves states that are importantly similar to beliefs: conscious visual experiences. According to the Content View, these experiences have contents in the form of accuracy conditions. The paper develops and defends the Content View, discusses its significance, and argues that contrary to what is often supposed, the Content View is compatible with Naive Realist disjunctivism.Comment: This can be used as background reading for a course on epistemology of perception, insofar as the author presents clearly the Content View and its main implications (especially section 1).
Siegel, Susanna. The Contents of Visual Experience2011, Oxford University Press-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Publisher's Note: What do we see? We are visually conscious of colors and shapes, but are we also visually conscious of complex properties such as being John Malkovich? In this book, Susanna Siegel develops a framework for understanding the contents of visual experience, and argues that these contents involve all sorts of complex properties. Siegel starts by analyzing the notion of the contents of experience, and by arguing that theorists of all stripes should accept that experiences have contents. She then introduces a method for discovering the contents of experience: the method of phenomenal contrast. This method relies only minimally on introspection, and allows rigorous support for claims about experience. She then applies the method to make the case that we are conscious of many kinds of properties, of all sorts of causal properties, and of many other complex properties. She goes on to use the method to help analyze difficult questions about our consciousness of objects and their role in the contents of experience, and to reconceptualize the distinction between perception and sensation. Siegel's results are important for many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. They are also important for the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of vision.
Comment: Background reading on intentionalism in philosophy of perception
Siegel, Susanna. How Does Visual Phenomenology Constrain Object Seeing2006, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84: 429-441.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Abstract: I argue that there are phenomenological constraints on what it is to see an object, and that these are overlooked by some theories that offer allegedly sufficient causal and counterfactual conditions on object-seeing.
Comment: Further reading on causal theories of perception; offers an interesting counterexample to the Lewisian view.
Siegel, Susanna & Silins, Nicholas. The epistemology of Perception2015, in Matthen, Mohan (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Perception, Oxford-
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Abstract: An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.Comment: A great overview on the epistemology of perception, covering issues from the nature of justification, the rational role of experience, as well as the topic of cognitive penetrability. Good to use as background/overview reading for a course on epistemology of perception.
Sigman, Jill. Self-Mutilation, Interpretation and Controversial Art2003, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 27(1): 88–114.-
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: Sigman studies outrage and offense in the art context. The first important observation she makes is that, often enough, the public's recoiling from a piece of art comes with the assumption that the object of offense is interpretatively transparent. This is because in the absence of art-historical or theoretical wherewithal, we default to pre-conceptual reactions - fear of otherness, loss of our ethical bearings, low self-esteem etc. Since most historical offense-based arguments against art have made a claim that the particular work is demeaning to the public, Sigman carefully lays out the features of demeaning treatment - a mostly intentional act that treats persons as less than persons, usually in an abusive manner. On this description, very few artworks could be considered demeaning. Furthermore, as Sigman shows in her art-historical contextualization of artist Stelarc's performance work Street Suspension, public outrage could be tempered and/or extinguished through attentive engagement with problematic artworks.Comment: This is a thought-provoking text which can provide good background for a debate on controversial art. It is quite easy to read and features examples which make it accessible for beginners classes on aesthetics, art interpretation, the value of art, and modern art in general.
Silvers, Anita. From the Crooked Timber of Humanity, Beautiful Things Can Be Made2000, in: Brand, Peg Zeglin (ed.), Beauty Matters, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 197-221.-
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Added by: Hans Maes
Summary: Starting from our appreciation of cubist portraits, asks why it to commonplace for us to contemplate distorted depictions of faces with eagerness and enjoyment but to be repelled by real people whose physiognomies resemble the depicted ones. Argues that the aesthetic process that permits our attraction to portrayed human anomalies can be expanded so as to offset the devalued social positioning of real people whose physiognomic features are anomalous. Presenting an anomaly as originality rather than deviance is crucial.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Pablo Picasso, Maya with a Doll (1938)
Cubist portrait of a child. Silvers interestingly compares this to a photo of a child with osteogenesis imperfecta. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, beauty, as well as the links between aesthetics and ethics.
Artworks to use with this text:
Pablo Picasso, Maya with a Doll (1938)
Cubist portrait of a child. Silvers interestingly compares this to a photo of a child with osteogenesis imperfecta.
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Siegel, Susanna. Do Experiences Have Contents?
2010, In Bence -Nanay (ed.), Perceiving the World. Oxford University Press.
Comment: It is a fairly difficult paper because it has some technical sections and her main argument is rather dense. However, it is generally very clearly written, with numerous helpful examples, and a broad discussion of views on contemporary debate on perception. This paper could be used in a senior year or postgraduate course on the philosophy of perception as seminar reading since it is a detailed and controversial discussion of the metaphysics of perception. It has also been central to recent debates. It is is useful to teach alongside Thomas Raliegh's "Phenomenology Without Representation" (2013). It is a fairly difficult paper because it has some technical sections and her main argument is rather dense. However, it is generally very clearly written, with numerous helpful examples, and a broad discussion of views on contemporary debate on perception. This paper could be used in a senior year or postgraduate course on the philosophy of perception as seminar reading since it is a detailed and controversial discussion of the metaphysics of perception. It has also been central to recent debates. It is is useful to teach alongside Thomas Raliegh's "Phenomenology Without Representation" (2013).