Perceptual experiences of particularity

ABSTRACT

Philosophers of perception often claim that usual perceptual experiences not only present particulars but also phenomenally present them as particulars. Nevertheless, despite the initial plausibility of this thesis, it is not clear what exactly it means to say that particularity is phenomenally presented. The paper aims to provide a deeper analysis of the claim that perceptual experiences phenomenally present objects as particulars. In doing so, I distinguish two theses regarding phenomenally presented particularity: Generic Particularity and Specific Particularity. According to the first thesis, vision phenomenally presents particularity of objects, understood as a general characteristic that may be shared by many entities. The second thesis states that vision phenomenally presents particularity of objects, understood as an individual characteristic unique to each particular. I argue that, relying on knowledge concerning the functioning of perceptual mechanisms, vision does not phenomenally present generic particularity but it has certain abilities for presenting specific particularity.

KEYWORDS:

• Perception
• particularity
• phenomenal character
• representational content
• attention

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for comments concerning the paper. The early version of the paper was presented during SemDok seminar at the Jagiellonian University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I adopt this terminology form Gomes and French (2019). An important difference is that, according to Gomes and French, any experience with phenomenal character that can be described in general terms, for instance, as an experience as of an apple or as of something red, exhibits generic particularity. In contrast, I believe that this requires further argument (see Section 2).

2 I use the term ‘characteristic’ to remain natural regarding the specific metaphysical explanation of two entities potentially being both particulars. For instance, one may propose that particularity is a universal property possessed by many entities, or being a particular consists in exemplifying a certain ontological category, or that being particular is a primitive fact which does not require a further specification.

3 Analogously, as in the case of generic particularity, I do not assume any specific metaphysical structure in virtue of which specific particularity is realized. For example, it may be postulated that an object has specific particularity in virtue of instantiating a particularized trope-property or due to being partially constituted by a particular element such as ‘bare substratum’ or ‘thisness.’

4 In this paper, I merely consider whether the particularity of objects is phenomenally presented; I do not address the issue of the phenomenal particularity of experienced properties. It seems possible that particularity of objects is not phenomenally presented, but particularity of properties is presented (or vice versa).

5 Gomes and French (2019) make an analogous distinction by developing Martin’s (2002a) notions of narrower phenomenal character and broader phenomenal nature.

6 In addition, the method of phenomenal contrast, introduced by Siegel (2006), is often referred to in works discussing the perceptual status of some phenomenal changes. However, I treat this method not as a criterion for deciding whether something belongs to perceptual phenomenology, but rather as a method which allows pointing out interesting cases of phenomenal differences which then may be interpreted, by applying some criterion, as involving perceptual or non-perceptual phenomenology.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Science Center (Poland) grant 2016/20/S/HS1/00090.