Handout 15

Question 1

Non-visual perceptual modalities include (4)

Answer 1

-taste
-olfaction (smell)
-touch
-audition

Question 2

Philosophers of perception usually focus on vision, and frequently assume that what they say about
visual experience applies to

Answer 2

non-visual experience

Question 3

Transparency claims

Answer 3

visual experience seems to provide direct awareness of
(presumably mind-independent) ordinary objects and their visible properties.

Question 4

Representationalists and naïve realists argue that it is a virtue of their respective accounts of visual experience that they accommodate (and explain) ________________

Answer 4

the alleged transparency of sensory
experience.

Question 5

Naïve realism and representationalism positions lose some of their
attraction if we deny the relevant __________

Answer 5

transparency claims

Question 6

Which view would gain traction if we avoided the need to accommodate transparency?

Answer 6

Indirect realism

Question 7

What is the potential problem of the transparency claim?

Answer 7

It seems much less plausible when adapted to certain
non-visual sensory modalities.

Question 8

What is the potential problem of the transparency claim for taste?

Answer 8

When you eat X, you taste the flavour of it. Do you taste X itself or the substances of X?

Question 9

What is the potential problem of the transparency claim for touch?

Answer 9

we perceive objects in virtue of perceiving surfaces. So, touch
provides direct awareness of surfaces, and only indirect awareness of objects.

Question 10

The potential problem with the transparency claim is that attention to non-visual perception may cause us to ____________________

Answer 10

revise or abandon
positions motivated by reflection on visual experience.

Question 11

Casey O’Callaghan is an

Answer 11

indirect realist about auditory experience.

Question 12

O’Callaghan argues on phenomenological
grounds that we are _________________

Answer 12

indirectly aware of ordinary objects in virtue of being directly aware of sounds.

Question 13

Why aren’t sounds ordinary objects?

Answer 13

they lack many/all features of ordinary objects

Question 14

What are feautures of ordinary objects? (5)

Answer 14

1) fill space
2) possess a size
3) have proper boundaries (unlike liquids)
4) have parts that cohere
5) are wholly present at every moment of existence

Question 15

Why does O’Callaghan resist the view that sounds are private?

Answer 15

He claims that the temptation for indirect realists to think of sounds as private comes from an antecedent commitment to the view that auditory experience is aspatial, which he denies

Question 16

Why do some indirect realists think sound being aspatial leads to it being private?

Answer 16

Due to the aspatial nature of auditory experience, sounds are not perceived as located in the space around one’s body, challenging the idea that they share a public space with external objects.

Question 17

Philosophers who think sound is aspatial believe claims that someone stuck with purely auditory experience
would ___________

Answer 17

lack awareness of spatial relations, and be unable to conceive of a mind-independent world

Question 18

What does O’Callaghan say about sceptics of the spatiality of auditory experience?

Answer 18

They mistake the audition’s impoverished spatial perception for an absence of spatial perception.

Question 19

Why does O’Callaghan say that audition is spatial? (2)

Answer 19

1) there is empirical evidence that suggests auditory experience carries info about direction/distance.

2) PCM suggests we hear sounds as being outside of us.

Question 20

O’Callaghan notes that we do not experience sounds as having a _________, compared to visual experiences, which do.

Answer 20

complex internal spatial structure.

Question 21

O’Callaghan says that objects are unities composed of _____________

Answer 21

spatially extended parts, each of which occupies its own region of space.

Question 22

Why does O’Callaghan say sounds are public? (4)

Answer 22

1) Ear-plugging stops sounds we find persistent

2) they maintain constancy in loudness, timbre, and pitch amid perspective changes

3)shared in conversation, sounds can be a public nuisance

4) unlike headaches, sounds can be hallucinated or misperceived.

Question 23

2 reasons to be sceptical of O’Callaghan’s view that sounds are public:

Answer 23

(1) we might plug our ears in order to interrupt the mechanism responsible for causing private sounds

(2) the privacy of sounds need not entail that we have
infallible access to them, so the possibility of hallucination and misperception is no guarantee
that sounds are public.

Question 24

perceptual constancy

Answer 24

the perceptual system’s successful identification of perceived property instances despite discernable differences between them (e.g. due to lighting conditions)

Question 25

O’Callaghan’s arguments about sound appeal to (2)

Answer 25

1) Communication

2) Perceptual constancy

Question 26

If sounds are not ordinary objects, they must belong to ___________

Answer 26

some other metaphysical category.

Question 27

What are the 2 options of other metaphysical categories sound could belong to, if not ordinary objects?

Answer 27

1) Properties

2) Individuals

Question 28

Properties

Answer 28

repeatable entities instantiated by other entities

Question 29

Individuals

Answer 29

non-repeatable entities that instantiate properties and are not themselves instantiated by other things

Question 30

O’Callaghan argues that sounds are ______

Answer 30

Event-like individuals

Question 31

What are O’Callaghan’s 3 considerations for why sounds are event-like individuals?

Answer 31

1. Sounds instantiate properties such as timbre, pitch, and loudness.
2. We hear multiple sounds simultaneously: a nearby clock, a distant roar, etc.
3. A version of the ‘Many Properties Problem’ arises for sound

Question 32

How does the many properties problem arise for sounds?

Answer 32

‘[H]earing a loud, low-pitched sound on the left and a soft, high-pitched sound on the right differs from hearing a loud, high-pitched sound on the left and a soft, low-pitched sound on the right. This
motivates the introduction of audible individuals, in addition to audible attributes, to capture the respect in which the latter are bound to or qualify a single perceptible item.’

Question 33

Problem with O’Callaghan’s 1st and 2nd considerations for why sounds are event-like individuals?

Answer 33

does not distinguish sounds from properties.

Question 34

O’Callaghan’s defense for his 3rd consideration for why sounds are event-like individuals relies upon __________

Answer 34

claims about how sounds, as opposed to objects, occupy time.

Question 35

How does sound occupy time differently than a object?

Answer 35

audible individuals don’t appear wholly present at a given moment, requiring time to unfold, stream, or occur, contrasting with visible objects that are perceived as wholly present instantly.

Question 36

O’Callaghan says sounds have a part-whole structure where

Answer 36

the parts both occupy and are arranged within space.

Question 37

O’Callaghan says objects have a part-whole structure that

Answer 37

relies upon temporal
relations rather than spatial relations.

Question 38

How does O’Callaghan explain how direct auditory awareness of sounds
can provide indirect auditory awareness of ordinary objects.

Answer 38

objects to serve as the basis for irreducibly multimodal sensory experiences.

Question 39

Multimodal sensory experiences

Answer 39

attribute properties detected by different sensory organs to a single object, without first individually attributing these properties.

Question 40

How does O’Callaghan argue for multimodal sensory experience?

Answer 40

At times, you perceive the thing you hear as identical to what you see, implying that besides the sound, there is a common element both visually and auditorily experienced, potentially indicating the presence of a material object.

Question 41

How does O’Callaghan use multimodal sensory experience to argue for indirect auditory awareness?

Answer 41

we have indirect auditory awareness of ordinary objects in virtue of these objects being constituent parts of events which themselves includes sounds as audible parts.

we can be visually aware of a largely hidden object (and thus its hidden parts) in virtue of seeing one of its visible parts.