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81. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Yasmina Jraissati Categorical Perception of Color: Assessing the Role of Language
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Why do we draw the boundaries between “blue” and “green”, where we do? One proposed answer to this question is that we categorize color the way we do because we perceive color categorically. Starting in the 1950’s, the phenomenon of “categorical perception” (CP) encouraged such a response. CP refers to the fact that adjacent color patches are more easily discriminated when they straddle a category boundary than when they belong to the same category. In this paper, I make three related claims. (1) Although what seems to guide discrimination performances seems to indeed be categorical information, the evidence in favor of the fact that categorical perception infl uences the way we perceive color is not convincing. (2) That CP offers a useful account of categorization is not obvious.While aiming at accounting for categorization, CP itself requires an account of categories. This being said, CP remains an interesting phenomenon. Why and how is our discrimination behavior linked to our categories? It is suggested that linguistic labels determine CP through a naming strategy to which participants resort while discriminating colors. This paper’s fi nal point is (3) that the naming strategy account is not enough. Beyond category labels, what seems to guide discrimination performance is category structure.
82. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Mohan Matthen How Do We Know How Sensory Properties Appear? A Reply to Νenad Miščević
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The paper is a reply to Miščević (same volume). His objections are discussed and answered, in particular objections concerning Cartesian certainty in our knowledge of color.
83. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Peter Pagin A Note on the Phenomenal Sorites
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Is observational indiscriminability non-transitive? This was once an accepted truth, and it was used by philosophers like Armstrong and Dummett to argue against the existence of appearances (sense data, sensory items). It was objected, however, early on by Jackson and Pinkerton, and more recently by vagueness contextualists like Raffman and Fara, that the case for non-transitivity is flawed. The reason is the context dependence of appearance. I argue here that if we take context dependence properly into account, we still have (a modified version of) non-transitivity, and that therefore we still face the problem of appearances.
84. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Nenad Miščević Color: Semantic Realism οr Response-Intentionalism?
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Matthen’s semantic theory of color is compared and contrasted with a variety of dispositionalism, to be called response-intentionalism (since it claims that color is a disposition to produce intentional states involving color-looks. First, it is argued that the two theories are not so far from each other; Matthen might be a closed dispositionalist, since he does stress the causal power of surfaces to produce color representations (signs). Next, the pragmatist component of his theory is addressed. Can usefulness unify color? It seems that some degree of unity is required for a plurality of things to be treated as a group useful in a specifi c way: existence is prior to usefulness, not the other way around. Finally, the dispositionalism (including response-intentionalism) is defended against Mohan’s epistemological objection, according to which the dispositionalist cannot account for a priori nature of one’s knowledge of color looks; it is argued that it can,and that it can even use roughly the same means as semantic realism.
85. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Keith Allen Colour, Contextualism, and Self-Locating Contents
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This paper considers two accounts of the way that colours are represented in perception, thought, and language that are consistent with relationalist theories of colour: Jonathan Cohen’s contextualist semantics for colour ascriptions, and Andy Egan’s suggestion that colour ascriptions have self-locating contents. I argue that colours are not represented in perception, thought, or language as mind-dependent relational properties.
86. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Daniel Burnston, Jonathan Cohen Perception of Features and Perception of Objects
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There is a long and distinguished tradition in philosophy and psychology according to which the mind’s fundamental, foundational connection to the world is made by connecting perceptually to features of objects. On this picture, which we’ll call feature prioritarianism, minds like ours first make contact with the colors, shapes, and sizes of distal items, and then, only on the basis of the representations so obtained, build up representations of the objects that bear these features. The feature priority view maintains, then, that our perception/knowledge of objects asymmetrically depends on our perception/knowledge of simple features. This paper has two aims. First, we will present evidence, drawn from a variety of perceptual effects, that feature prioritarianism cannot be true, since there are cases that speak against the priority of feature representations in perceptual processing. Instead, we claim that the evidence supports an alternative —-and more complex—- no-priority view. Second, we will offer a framework for a no-priority view that both captures the cases we cite and provides a more sensible architecture in which to understand a variety of productive projects in perceptual science, and show how the framework cross-cuts some recent discussions in philosophy of perception.
87. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Åsa Wikforss Color Terms and Semantic Externalism
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The paper discusses whether the color terms should be given an externalist semantics. In the literature on the semantics of color terms externalism is standardly taken for granted, and Twin Earth style arguments play a central role. This is notable given that few people would claim that semantic externalism applies across the board, to all types of terms. Why, then, should the color terms belong with this group of terms? I argue that the standard externalist strategies, introduced by Tyler Burge and Hilary Putnam, do not apply to these terms: The color terms do not function like natural kind terms, and the idea of semantic reliance on others does not apply to them. I conclude that the externalist arguments fail and that a version of internalism, more properly called ‘individualism’,applies to the color terms.
88. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Jonathan Cohen Redness, Reality, and Relationalism: Reply to Gert and Allen
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In this paper I reply to two sets of criticisms—a first from Joshua Gert, and a second from Keith Allen—of the relationalist view of color developed and defended in my book, The Red and the Real: An Essay on Color Ontology.
89. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 12 > Issue: 3
Zoltan Jakab Reflectance Physicalism About Color: The Story Continues
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A stubborn problem for reflectance physicalism about color is to account for individual differences in normal trichromat color perception. The identification of determinate colors with physical properties of visible surfaces in a universal, perceiver-independent way is challenged by the observation that the same surfaces in identical viewing conditions often look different in color to different human subjects with normal color vision. Recently, leading representatives of reflectance physicalism have offered some arguments to defend their view against the individual differences challenge. In this paper I challenge their defense. I argue thateven though individual differences are present in shape perception as well as in color perception, the mechanisms of shape perception and those of color perception differ in ways which make them completely different regarding their evidential status for certain identity claims. Thus comparing color perception to shape perception offers no support for identifying hues with reflectances. On the other hand, drawing a parallel between the temperature-mean kinetic energy of molecules (MKE) identification and the proposed hue-reflectance identities is no support for reflectance physicalism either, since there is an important disanalogybetween the two cases. While individual differences obtain in color perception, the effects of temperature (e.g., melting, thermal expansion) do not exhibit analogous variation, which makes the temperature-MKE identification unproblematic compared to the hue-reflectance identification. One motivation for this ongoing debate is that the success or failure of reflectance physicalism has far-reaching consequences regarding externalist theories of phenomenal consciousness.
90. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Majda Trobok Defending Analyticity: Remarks on Williamson’s The Philosophy of Philosophy
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In this paper I concentrate on three issues concerning Williamson’s book The Philosophy of Philosophy: the problem of analytic statements being first-order propositions, the issue concerning aposteriority and the concerns related to the semantic vs. metasemantic distinction.
91. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Timothy Williamson Anti-Exceptionalism about Philosophy
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I briefly rehearse the positive conception of philosophy in my book The Philosophy of Philosophy, as an introduction to the symposium on it that follows.
92. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Dan López De Sa The Aposteriori Response-Dependence of the Colors
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The paper proposes and defends the following characterization of response dependent property: a property is response-dependent iff there is a response-dependence biconditional for a concept signifying it which holds in virtue of the nature of the property. Finding out whether a property is such is to a large extent a posteriori matter. Finally, colors are response dependent: they are essentially tied to issuing the relevant experiences, so that having those experiences does give access to their, dispositional, nature. Finally, some important contrary views are critically discussed in the paper.
93. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Nenad Miščević An Uncomfortable Armchair: Tim Williamson Against Apriorism
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The paper addresses Williamson’s original and challenging proposal for understanding of thought experiments (TEs). First, it puts it on the map of positions, describing it as “ordinarism”, the view that sees thinker’s reaction to the thought-experimental question as nothing extraordinary, let alone mysterious. Then, it passes to Williamson’s proposal to use counterfactuals in order to understand TEs, agrees with the main idea, but proposes a more structured view of capacities or “competences” active in the understanding and answering. Intuitions are important, and they are voice of competencies, at least in the good case. Finally, on the normative level, it argues for the view of justification as being structured, containing both a priori and a posteriori elements.
94. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Osamu Kiritani Naming and Necessity From a Functional Point of View
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The aim of this paper is to develop a new connection between naming and necessity. I argue that Kripke’s historical account of naming presupposes the functional necessity of naming. My argument appeals to the etiological notion of function, which can be thought to capture the necessity of functionality in historical terms. It is shown that the historical account of naming entails all conditions in an etiological defi nition of function.
95. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Anguel Stefanov The Conundrum of Time Travel
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Time travel is a theme that provokes scientific curiosity, as well as philosophical speculation. The problems it raises, however, are being tackled by science fiction only, and are still not resolved by science either theoretically, or practically. My aim here is, firstly, to present some curious facts about time travel and to have a look at the nature of different ontological constraints confronting time travel; secondly, to outline three cases for which time travel might be meaningfully contended; and thirdly, to defend the “unexpected” claim that human conscious presence in the world is the genuine-and-natural time travel.
96. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Noriaki Iwasa Moral Applicability of Agrippa’s Trilemma
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According to Agrippa’s trilemma, an attempt to justify something leads to either infinite regress, circularity, or dogmatism. This essay examines whether and to what extent the trilemma applies to ethics. There are various responses to the trilemma, such as foundationalism, coherentism, contextualism, infinitism, and German idealism. Examining those responses, the essay shows that the trilemma applies at least to rational justification of contentful moral beliefs. This means that rationalist ethics based on any contentful moral belief are rationally unjustifiable.
97. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Timothy Williamson Replies to Trobok, Smokrović, and Miščević on the Philosophy of Philosophy
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I reply to critical discussions by Majda Trobok, Nenad Smokrović, and Nenad Miščević on theses and arguments from my book The Philosophy of Philosophy. I take issue with them on matters such as the following. Should philosophical questions apparently about the world be taken at face value, or are they implicitly metalinguistic or metaconceptual? Are there ‘epistemologically analytic’ sentences that one can understand only if one has a (possibly unmanifested) disposition to accept them? Can ‘philosophical intuitions’ be explained as the products of separable domain-specific competencies?
98. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Are Dispositions to Believe Constitutive for Understanding?
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T. Williamson argues against the thesis he recognizes as one of the inferentialist basic idea that he formulates as understanding/assent link, the claim that the assent to a sentence (believing a thought, at conceptual level) is constitutive for understanding it. This paper aims to show that appropriately articulated dispositional theory, could plausibly account for a weak version of inferentialism.
99. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Iris Merkač Parsons’ Mathematical Intuition: a Brief Introduction
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The paper offers one of Parsons’ main themes in his book Mathematical Thought and Its Objects of 2008 (Cambridge University Press, New York): the role of intuition in our understanding of arithmetic. Our discussion does not cover all of the issues that have relevance for Parsons’ account of mathematical intuition, but we focus on the question: whether our knowledge that there is a model for arithmetic can reasonably be called intuitive. We focus on this question because we have some concerns about that.
100. Croatian Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 13 > Issue: 2
Philipp Haueis Vagueness and Mechanistic Explanation in Neuroscience
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The problem of fuzzy boundaries when delineating cortical areas is widely known in human brain mapping and its adjacent subdisciplines (anatomy, physiology and functional neuroimaging). Yet, a conceptual framework for understanding indeterminacy in neuroscience is missing, and there has been no discussion in the philosophy of neuroscience whether indeterminacy poses an issue for good neuroscientific explanations. My paper addresses both these issues by applying philosophical theories of vagueness to three levels of neuroscientific research, namely to (i) cytoarchitectonic studies at the neuron level (ii) intra-areal neuronalinteraction measured by the BOLD-signal of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and (iii) inter-areal connectivity between different cortical areas. The rest of the paper explores how this framework can be extended to mechanistic explanations in neuroscience. I discuss a semantic and an ontic interpretation of vagueness in mechanistic explanations and argue how both become scientifically interesting from the perspective of a philosophy of scientific practice.