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Lecture 5, Adverbialism

The document discusses the view in philosophy of mind called "adverbialism", which proposes that rather than perceiving sense-data or objects, we perceive adverbially - for example, we may perceive bluely or circularly during an illusion. Adverbialism aims to avoid postulating sense-data while still accounting for perceptual errors. It has received renewed interest from philosophers in recent years as an alternative to sense-datum theories of perception.

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Purvi Jain
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15 views

Lecture 5, Adverbialism

The document discusses the view in philosophy of mind called "adverbialism", which proposes that rather than perceiving sense-data or objects, we perceive adverbially - for example, we may perceive bluely or circularly during an illusion. Adverbialism aims to avoid postulating sense-data while still accounting for perceptual errors. It has received renewed interest from philosophers in recent years as an alternative to sense-datum theories of perception.

Uploaded by

Purvi Jain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Adverbialism

Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest
1. History of Adverbialism
Adherents
 Ducasse (1942) ‘Moore’s refutation of idealism’
 Chisholm (1957) Perceiving

Idea
 Endorse modified Phenomenal Principle
 Avoid sense-data and the veil of perception
 How? Adverbs.
Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest
2. Adverbs?
In speech, adverbs modify verbs:

 verb ‘to run’ + adverb ‘quickly’ = to run quickly


2. Adverbs?
In speech, adverbs modify verbs:

 verb ‘to dance’ + adverb ‘silly’ = to dance silly


2. Adverbs?
In speech, adverbs modify verbs:

 verb ‘to eat’ + adverb ‘healthily’ = to eat healthily

And so on…
Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

 During illusions & hallucinations, there are erroneous bits of


experience.
 In SDT, the erroneous bits are explained by postulating special
objects of perception, i.e. sense-data.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience
Indirect perception

Subject Sense-data Objective world


Acquaintance Represents
Perc. Experience
Perception

 During illusions & hallucinations, there are erroneous bits of


experience.
 In SDT, the erroneous bits are explained by postulating special
objects of perception, i.e. sense-data.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

 During illusions & hallucinations, there are erroneous bits of


experience.
 In adverbialism, the erroneous bits are explained by postulating
special “acts of perception”.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

Ways of perceiving

Subject
Objective world

 During illusions & hallucinations, there are erroneous bits of


experience.
 In adverbialism, the erroneous bits are explained by postulating
special “acts of perception”.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

Ways of perceiving

Subject
Objective world
 During illusions & hallucinations, there are erroneous bits of
experience.
 In adverbialism, the erroneous bits are explained by postulating
special “acts of perception”.
 If we can run quickly, then maybe we can also:
 Perceptually experience bluely and circularly.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

 Recall this illusion that generates experiences of blue circles, and


there are no blue circles on the stimulus

Adverbialist:
 You don’t experience a blue circle, as SDT claims
 Instead, you experience bluely & circularly.
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience

Ways of perceiving

Subject
Objective world

Accept the Common Factor Principle: veridical & non-veridical


experiences have something basic in common:
 We can experience bluely and circularly during:
 Veridical perception of blue circle
 Illusory perception of green circle
 Hallucinatory perception of nothing
3. Adverbs + Perceptual Experience
Direct perception
Ways of perceiving

Subject
Objective world
Do adverbialists accept the Phenomenal Principle: if x perceptually
seems p, is there something p?
 Sort of: one experiences p-ly, but there isn’t a thing that is p; there is an
action that is done in p-ly way.

Advantage: avoids veil of perception


 Actions don’t intervene between perceiver & objective reality. Instead,
sensory features qualify ways of experiencing worldy objects.
Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest
Objections
Objection 1: Huh?

 What does it mean to experience bluely or


circularly?
 Adverbs make sense when applied to actions like
running and dancing; but application to
experience isn’t intuitive.

 Response: and sense-data are intuitive?


Objections
Objection 2: phenomenally inaccurate

 We typically experience blueness and circularity to be


features of objects.
 We don’t experience blueness and circularity to be
features of the way we are experiencing.

 Response 1: appearances can be misleading.


 Response 2: SDT is no better, for we experience objects to
be “out there”, independent of us, not as mind-dependent
sense-data.
Objections
Objection 3: many-properties problem
 Feature binding:
 Experienced properties are bound to objects
 And can be bound together by being bound to same
object, or
 separated by being bound to different objects
Objections
Objection 3: many-properties problem
 Feature binding:
In the example on the right:
a) Green & square are bound together by virtue of
being bound to the same object
b) Blue & circle are bound together by virtue of being
bound to the same object
 The objects in (a) and (b) are different

 How can feature binding be explained if, as


adverbialists maintain, features are bound to acts
of perception instead of objects?
Objections
Objection 3: many-properties problem
 Feature binding:
 How can feature binding be explained if, as
adverbialists maintain, features are bound to acts of
perception instead of objects?
 Experiencing bluely & greenly & circularly &
squarely all belong to the same act – a single
perceptual experience!
 Response: for many critics there is no response.
 Perhaps adverbialists can “partition experiential acts”
into different parts and work from there?
Objections
Objection 4: complementary property problem
 One can’t experience an object O to have complementary
properties:
 O can’t be experienced as blue and not-blue (e.g. green)
 O can’t be experienced as circular and not circular (e.g.
square)
 But one can experience bluely & greenly, and circularly &
squarely….
You’re doing it right now!
The problem: a single “experiential act” has all these features.
Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest
5. Recent Interest

Some recent interest in adverbialism:


 Uriah Kriegel 2011 Sources of Intentionality
 We need, not only perceptual objects and their features, but also
ways of experiencing
 E.g. different levels of blurry vision are variations in the way that
one experiences things, not variations in what one is experience
 He gives lots of examples
 Not adverbialism per se, but adding an adverbial aspect to our
account of perceptual experience
5. Recent Interest

Some recent interest in adverbialism:


 M. Chirimuuta 2015 Outside Color, argues that
 colour experiences are ways of perceiving the world
 Colours themselves are perceptual interactions (acts)
between perceivers and things in their environment
5. Recent Interest

Some recent interest in adverbialism:


 J. Gert 2017 Primitive Colors
 Rough colours: blue, green, yellow
 Precise colours: a specific shade of blue, or green
 Real colours are objective and “rough”
 Precise colours are merely experiential (and not real, in that
sense) and are adverbial, i.e. aspects of ways of experiencing
real, rough colours.
5. Recent Interest

Some recent interest in adverbialism:


 Our very own J. Corns

 Thinks quite highly of


adverbialism
Adverbialism

1. Brief history of adverbialism


2. What are adverbs?
3. Applying adverbs to perceptual experience
4. Objections
5. Recent interest

Next time: Causation & Perception

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