Elucidations Episode 87: Susanna Schellenberg discusses perceptual particularity
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Sep 11, 2016 Susanna Schellenberg, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers known for work on perception and hallucination, explains perceptual capacities as the common ability behind seeing and hallucinating. Short takes cover how those capacities can succeed or fail to single out real objects, why sensory experience grounds singular thoughts, and how perception and hallucination can feel identical yet differ metaphysically.
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Hallucinations Challenge The Movie In Your Head View
- Perceptual states aren't plausibly mere 'movies in the head' because hallucinations can be subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception.
- That motivates moving away from ideas that experiences are constituted by private sense-data or qualia detached from the external objects.
Explain Sensory Character By Citing Perceptual Capacities
- When explaining phenomenal character, treat experiences as employing discriminatory capacities rather than awareness relations to strange particulars.
- Frame capacities as low-level discriminatory abilities (see red, see round) applicable across species.
Perceptual Capacity Is The Common Factor Between Perception And Hallucination
- Perceptual experiences (including hallucinations) share a metaphysical common factor: the employment of the same perceptual capacities.
- Hallucinations occur when those capacities are employed 'baselessly' and fail to single out any actual object.