Susanna Siegel -- Årets Burmanföre läsare i filosofi
Umeå universitet | Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier och Institutionen för psykologi
BURMANFÖRELÄSNINGARNA I FILOSOFI 2008
The nature of visual experience
Prof. Susanna Siegel, Harvard University
Föreläsning 1
The varieties of perceptual intentionality
Måndag 29 september, kl. 15.15-17, hörsal E, humanisthuset
Abstract: Are perception and perceptual experience best understood as contentful representations of the world, or is the nature of their connection somehow more direct? I argue that these options are not deeply in tension with one another, contrary to what many philosophers have supposed. Focusing on the case of visual experience, I argue that there is a sense in which visual experiences have propositional contents, even if they are not fundamentally representational states.
Föreläsning 2
The contents of visual experience
Tisdag 30 september, kl. 15.15-17, hörsal E, humanisthuset
Abstract: Although it is often claimed that visual experiences involve a distinctively perceptual mode of entertaining propositional content, philosophers sympathetic to this idea have not paid much attention to the attitude side of the equation. I argue that there distinctively visual forms of intentionality, and that the central features of visual experiences can be understood in terms of the mode of entertaining propositional content.
Susanna Siegel är professor i filosofi vid Harvard University. Hennes huvudsakliga intressen är inom medvetande- och språkfilosofi. Hon är författare till flera inflytelserika artiklar, och arbetar för närvarande på en bok om visuella perceptioners innehåll. Mer information om Susanna Siegel finns på hennes hemsida: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~phildept/siegel.html. I samband med Burmanföreläsningarna arrangeras också en föreläsning i Filosofiska föreningen, och en gästföreläsning i filosofi:
Filosofiska föreningen
Måndag den 29 september, kl. 19.15-21, hörsal E, humanisthuset
What do we see?
Susanna Siegel, Harvard University
Abstract: Is visual consciousness limited to color, shape and motion? Or does it include things such as causation (one ball hitting another), kinds (a tree looking like a pine tree), emotions (people looking happy), and other high-level properties (cars looking expensive, clouds looking threatening)? I discuss a method for answering this question, the Phenomenal Contrast Method, which proceeds by noting differences between relevant pairs of experience, and isolating the source of the difference. When applied properly, this method supports the idea that the contents of visual consciousness are rich enough to include causation and some high-level kinds.
Gästföreläsning i filosofi
Tisdag den 30 september, kl. 10.15-12, rum D108, humanisthuset
On turtles and dobermans: Natural Kinds and Ceteris Paribus Laws
Bernhard Nickel, Harvard University
Abstract: Ceteris Paribus (cp-) laws tolerate exceptions. It's true, for example, that turtles grow old, even though not all turtles do. In light of this observation, it has long been a contentious matter to state just what a cp-law actually says. It does not say, for instance, that most members of the kind at issue have the property predicated.
Most turtles, for one, die almost immediately after hatching. I propose to make progress on this question by defending the view that cp-laws reflect our categorizing practice, that is, reflect the natural kinds we are ready to countenance in our theorizing.
ALLA FÖRELÄSNINGAR ÄR ÖPPNA FÖR ALLA INTRESSERADE!