No abstract

Some philosophers have argued that we do not hear sounds as located in the environment.Others have objected that this straightforwardly contradicts the phenomenology of auditory experience. And from this they draw metaphysical conclusions about the nature of soundsthat they are events or properties of vibrating surfaces rather than waves or sensations. I argue that there is a minimal, but recognizable, notion of audition to which this phenomenal objection does not apply. While this notion doesn't correspond to our ordinary notion of auditory experience, it does-in conjunction with our lack of an uncontroversial individuation of the senses and recent interest in distinctively multisensory features of perceptual experiences-raise the possibility of more expansive notions of audition, including some that do plausibly count as corresponding to our everyday notion of audition, that lack the spatial phenomenology cited in the objection. Until this possibility is ruled out, the phenomenal objection and metaphysical conclusions drawn from it remain inconclusive. argued that we do not enjoy spatial audition-that is, we do not hear sounds as located in the environment, even in the bare sense of merely off in a given direction or at some particular distance

In Leviathan, Hobbes embraces three seemingly inconsistent claims: (1) the unity of a multitude is secured only by the unity of its representer, (2) assemblies can represent other multitudes, and (3) assemblies are, or are constituted by, multitudes. Together these claims require that a representative assembly, itself, be represented. If that representer is another assembly, it too will need a unifying representer, and so on. To stop a regress, we will need an already unified representer (i.e., one that is not an assembly). But a multitude can only speak or act through its representer, and an assembly is a multitude, so any representing done by the assembly is actually done by this already unified, regress-stopping representer. That is, if (1) and (3) are true, (2) cannot be. I will argue that this inconsistency is only apparent and that we can resolve it without rejecting any of these three claims (and so without imputing error to Hobbes). We do this by appealing to a representer-as-decision-procedure meeting certain criteria. Such a procedural representer breaks the transitivity of representation such that the assembly it represents (and unifies) can properly represent (and unify) some further multitude. I proceed in my defense of the procedural representer view by addressing a series of problems it faces, the solutions to which give us a progressively clearer picture of the criteria this representer must meet.