Particular Thoughts & Singular Thought

Abstract

A long-standing theme in discussion of perception and thought has been that our primary cognitive contact with individual objects and events in the world derives from our perceptual contact with them. When I look at a duck in front of me, I am not merely presented with the fact that there is at least one duck in the area, rather I seem to be presented with this thing (as one might put it from my perspective) in front of me, which looks to me to be a duck. Furthermore, such a perception would seem to put me in a position not merely to make the existential judgment that there is some duck or other present, but rather to make a singular, demonstrative judgment, that that is a duck. My grounds for an existential judgment in this case derives from my apprehension of the demonstrative thought and not vice versa.

Pensamento Singular e Atos de Pensamento Episódicos

“…16 Pode-se pensar em critérios tais como a chamada 'condição de Frege' (Schiffer, 1978) de acordo com a qual deve ser possível atribuir, sem irracionalidade, ao sujeito ao mesmo tempo a crença de que a é F e a crença de que a não é F. episódio 17 . Os atos de pensar episódicos envolvem o exercício de capacidades cognitivas específicas tais como a capacidade de vivenciar novamente acontecimentos pessoais específicos -conhecida como memória episódica -, em contraposição à capacidade de lembrar fatos gerais impessoais -conhecida como memória semântica (Tulving, 1972;2002); a capacidade de simular (i.e., projetar-se) mentalmente (na direção de) acontecimentos específicos futuros, em contraposição à capacidade de pensar no futuro com base num roteiro de como as coisas costumam acontecer (Atance;O'Neil, 2005); a de simular mentalmente acontecimentos específicos possíveis na sua vida passada ou futura, em contraposição à contemplação de roteiros hipotéticos gerais (Schacter et al, 2015) 18 ; ou ainda a de se pensar em objeto particular, individualizada pela circunstância particular em que se deu o encontro perceptual como o objeto, em contraposição à capacidade de pensar repetidamente no mesmo objeto particular (Martin, 2002).…”

Perceptual Consciousness as a Mental Activity

“…Thereby, mental activism amounts to a naturalized view of perceptual consciousness. 18 1 For a defense of austere relationalism or naïve realism, see Campbell (2002), Martin (2002), Brewer (2006), Genone (2014), and French (2014) among others. For recent critical discussions, see Schellenberg (2010), (2011a) and Echeverri (2016).…”

Particularity of Content and Illusions of Identity

“…Philosophers of perception disagree on whether the notion of "representational content" is needed to adequately characterize perceptual experiences (Brewer 2006;Genone 2014;Schellenberg 2010;Travis 2014). However, in this paper I address a more specific issue that concerns those positions in which it is accepted that perceptual experiences have content: a distinction between general and particular content (Martin 2002;Prat 2006;Schellenberg 2016; Soteriou 2000). According to the general content view, the representational content specifies an object that has certain features, for instance a red square.…”

“…These arguments can be divided into three general types. First, it is claimed that general content is implausible given the phenomenology of perceptual experiences (Schellenberg 2016;Martin 2002). Second, it has been proposed that general content cannot account for higher-order abilities based on perceptual experiences, such as forming singular thoughts (Brewer 2015; Nanay 2012).…”

“…However, in this paper I address a more specific issue that concerns those positions in which it is accepted that perceptual experiences have content: a distinction between general and particular content (Martin 2002;Prat 2006;Schellenberg 2016;Soteriou 2000). According to the general content view, the representational content specifies an object that has certain features, for instance a red square.…”