Structural Realism for Secondary Qualities

Isaac, Alistair

doi:10.1007/s10670-013-9519-3

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…20 Similar views have been expressed by several other authors. Isaac (2014) argues that we use relations between colors to flexibly represent changes and relations occurring in the environment. Papineau (2015) reminds us that even though humans are said to be capable of distinguishing millions of colors, we are not able to distinguish them in an absolute fashion.…”

Section: Phenomenal Holismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

2021

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Researchers on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) need to distinguish mere statisticalNCCs from NCCs proper. Some neural events may be co-occurrent, probabilistically coupled,or coincidental with a type of conscious experience but lack any deeper connection to it, whilein other cases, the relation between neural states and a type of experience hints at a strongmetaphysical relation, which distinguishes such NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs. In orderto address this issue of how to distinguish NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs, we proposea position we call neurophenomenal structuralism. The position hinges on the uncontroversialidea that phenomenal experiences relate to each other in degrees of similarity and difference.These complex structures are used to identify and individuate experiences in the methods ofneuroscience, psychophysics, and phenomenology. Such individuation by structure leads to phenomenalholism, which has implications for how to investigate consciousness neuroscientificallyand generates a constraint by which we can distinguish NCCs proper from mere statistical NCCs:the structural similarity constraint. Neural activation must preserve the structure governing thedomain of experiences it is associated with in order to count as that domain’s NCC proper. Anyactivation that fails to preserve phenomenal structure fails to be an NCC proper. We illustratehow this constraint works with a study by Brouwer & Heeger (2009) as an example.

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Section: Phenomenal Holismmentioning

confidence: 99%

A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

2021

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“…But without further argument, it is unclear why this should be an obstacle to thinking of flavors as what taste experiences represent. Some accounts of sensory qualities or our experiences of them, such as David Rosenthal's quality space theory (2005), or Alistair Isaac's structural realism (2014) necessitate the existence of sensory spaces analogous to the color space, for all sensory qualities. If one does not endorse such a theory, one will be unbothered by the absence of a sensory space for flavors.…”

Section: The Epistemological Power Of Tastementioning

confidence: 99%

The Epistemological Power of Taste

Richardson¹

2021

J. of the Am. Philos. Assoc.

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It is generally accepted that sight—the capacity to see or to have visual experiences—has the power to give us knowledge about things in the environment and some of their properties in a distinctive way. Seeing the goose on the lake puts me in a position to know that it is there and that it has certain properties. And it does this by, when all goes well, presenting us with these features of the goose. One might even think that it is part of what it is to be a perceptual capacity that it has this kind of epistemological power, such that a capacity that lacked this power could not be perceptual. My focus in this essay is the sense of taste—the capacity to taste things or to have taste experiences. It has sometimes been suggested that taste lacks sight-like epistemological power. I argue that taste has epistemological power of the same kind as does sight, but that as a matter of contingent fact, that power often goes unexercised in our contemporary environment. We can know about things by tasting them in the same kind of way as we can know about things by seeing them, but we often do not. I then consider the significance of this conclusion. I suggest that in one way, it matters little, because our primary interest in taste (in marked contrast to our other senses) is not epistemic but aesthetic. But, I end by suggesting, it can matter ethically.

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“…Under contemporary usage, "secondary" qualities are those that are mind-dependent, with color being the prime example. In light of this, color ontology has become a major topic in its own right in the philosophy of perception (Chirimuuta, 2020), and it is not unusual to develop theories of color ontology that are then generalized to other, non-visual examples of secondary qualities like musical pitch or odors (e.g., Isaac, 2014). Some material properties may be secondary qualities as well.…”

Section: The Ontology Of Materials Propertiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material perception for philosophers

et al. 2021

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Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should be directed to how we see materials.

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Structural Realism for Secondary Qualities

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

A structural constraint on neural correlates of consciousness

The Epistemological Power of Taste

Material perception for philosophers

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