Mohan Matthen

University of Toronto | U of T · Department of Philosophy

Artworks are rationally evaluable and comparable within their art form, but not from outside. Beethoven's string quartets cannot be evaluated against works of Hindustani music. This is the problem of evaluative diversity: local commensurability, global indeterminacy. This article sketches an approach to the problem based on novel conceptions of aes...

Aristotle held that perception consists in the reception of external sensory qualities (or sensible forms) in the sensorium. This idea is repeated in many forms in contemporary philosophy, including, with regard to vision, in the idea (still not firmly rejected) that the retinal image consists of points of colour. In fact, this is false. Colour is...

Two questions are addressed in this paper. First, what is it to see? I argue that it is veridical experience of things outside the perceiver brought about by looking. Second, what is it to see a material object? I argue that it is experience of an occupant of a spatial region that is a logical subject for other visual features, able to move to anot...

Hedonism is the view that pleasure is the only thing that has final, or non-derivative, value: other things are valuable only to the extent that they produce pleasure. In this context, pleasure may be narrowly conceived as an agreeable sensation, or functionally as a psychological response that reinforces a subject’s propensity to perform the actio...

Tom Roberts’ Coogee Beach is a topographically meticulous rendering of a well‐known landmark. Michael Newall suggests that it is an exact rendering of the colour. According to him, a moth could camouflage itself on Robert's brushstrokes. This seems to me mistaken on two fronts. First, colour is not atomistically rendered: what the eye sees is not t...

Vision is organized around material objects; they are most of what we see. But we also see beams of light, depictions, shadows, reflections, etc. These things look like material objects in many ways, but it is still visually obvious that they are not material objects. This chapter articulates some principles that allow us to understand how we see t...

Molyneux asked whether a newly sighted man would recognize and distinguish a sphere and a cube by sight alone, assuming that he could previously do this by touch. The most historically important responses to Molyneux arise from views that apply uniformly to questions about the transferability of representations of (not just shape, but) any arbitrar...

Mazviita Chirimuuta proposes a new “adverbialist” ontology of color. I argue that ontological disputes in the philosophy of color are uniformly terminological. Chirimuuta's proposal too is a terminological variant on others, though it has some hortatory value in directing attention to aspects of color science that have hitherto been neglected. On a...

Over the past fifteen years there has been a considerable amount of debate concerning what theoretical population dynamic models tell us about the nature of natural selection and drift. On the causal interpretation, these models describe the causes of population change. On the statistical interpretation, the models of population dynamics models spe...

This paper presents a new account of the pleasure we take in art. It distinguishes first between two types of pleasure. Relief or r-pleasure is transient and marks the end of a state that is difficult to maintain. Facilitation or f-pleasure accompanies an activity and lasts as long as the activity does. It motivates this activity and optimizes it b...

Listening effort helps explain why people who are hard of hearing are prone to fatigue and social withdrawal. However, a one-factor model that cites only effort due to hardness of hearing is insufficient as there are many who lead happy lives despite their disability. This paper explores other contributory factors, in particular motivational arousa...

The Fifth Eriksholm Workshop on "Hearing Impairment and Cognitive Energy" was convened to develop a consensus among interdisciplinary experts about what is known on the topic, gaps in knowledge, the use of terminology, priorities for future research, and implications for practice. The general term cognitive energy was chosen to facilitate the broad...

Stephen Davies’ book The Artful Species is a nuanced and learned attempt to show how evolution does, and does not, account for the human capacity to produce and appreciate beautiful things. In this critical note, his approach to aesthetic pleasure is examined. Aesthetic pleasure, it is argued, is a state that encourages us to continue with our perc...

In this Handbook entry, I review how colour similarity spaces are constructed, first for physical sources of colour and secondly for colour as it is perceptually experienced. The unique hues are features of one of the latter constructions, due initially to Hering and formalized in the Swedish Natural Colour System. I review the evidence for a physi...

Philosophy of perception is a sub-discipline that has gained tremendous prominence since the middle nineteen eighties. This is a collection of 46 surveys written by distinguished experts.

How many senses do humans possess? Five external senses, as most cultures have it—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste? Should proprioception, kinaesthesia, thirst, and pain be included, under the rubric bodily sense? What about the perception of time and the sense of number? Such questions reduce to two. 1. How do we distinguish a sense from ot...

Christopher Gauker argues that no concept can be extracted from perceptual experience and that imagistic thought cannot draw boundaries between one kind and another. Here, it is argued, on the contrary, that images have extension and are consequently Fregean concepts. Hume’s theory of abstraction as indifference is offered as an account of extra-se...

Kant argued that the perceptual representations of space and time were templates for the perceived spatiotemporal ordering of objects, and common to all modalities. His idea is that these perceptual representations were specific to no modality, but prior to all—they are pre-modal, so to speak. In this paper, it is argued that active perception—purp...

In this review of Hutto and Myin's Radicalizing Enactivism, I question the adequacy of a non-representational theory of mind. I argue first that such a theory cannot differentiate cognition from other bodily engagements such as wrestling with an opponent. Second, I question whether the simple robots constructed by Rodney Brooks are adequate as mode...

Christopher Gauker argues that no concept can be extracted from perceptual experience and that imagistic thought cannot draw boundaries between one kind and another. Here, it is argued, on the contrary, that images have extension and are consequently Fregean concepts. Hume’s theory of abstraction as indifference is offered as an account of extra-se...

Introduction: Russell's Natural Kinds Is Biological Homeostasis Historical? Intrinsic Properties Redux Population Structure Conclusion: Are Species Duplicable?

Introduction. Playing a game of squash, my opponent hits a drop shot to the left corner. I run to the front of the court – I do not bump into him or the walls as I do. Then, seeing that the ball has bounced high, I step out on my right foot, and hit the ball high on the front wall for a cross-court lob.What kind of visual information allows me to p...

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.

Denis Dutton died a day or two after Christmas in 2010. I had the good fortune to meet him in February 2010, when I participated in an Author-Meets-Critics session on The Art Instinct at the American Philosophical Association, Central Division. (The Critical Notice that follows is a development of my comments there.) Dennis was a passionate, intell...

What colour does a white wall look in the pinkish light of the late afternoon? Philosophers disagree: they hold variously that it looks pink, white, both, and no colour at all. A new approach is offered. After reviewing the dispute, a reinterpretation of perceptual constancy is offered. In accordance with this reinterpretation, it is argued that pe...

Vision subserves two kinds of function. First, it classifies objects for creating and updating the databases that help an organism keep track of the state of the world (descriptive vision). Second, it contributes to the guidance of the organism's body as it interacts with its surroundings (motion-guiding vision). Motion-guiding vision generally ope...

This chapter presents a semantic theory of color experience, on which color experience represents or denotes color properties, and attributes these properties to visual objects. Utilizing the concept of representation is vital to any semantic theory, and in the theory offered here, the semantic relationships operate via the vehicle of a systematic...

The statistical interpretation of the Theory of Natural Selection claims that natural selection and drift are statistical features of mathematical aggregates of individual-level events. Natural selection and drift are not themselves causes. The statistical interpretation is motivated by a metaphysical conception of individual priority. Recently, Mi...

Leading philosophers and scientists consider what conclusions about color can be drawn when the latest analytic tools are applied to the most sophisticated color science. © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

A hitherto neglected form of explanation is explored, especially its role in population genetics. "Statistically abstractive explanation" (SA explanation) mandates the suppression of factors probabilistically relevant to an explanandum when these factors are extraneous to the theoretical project being pursued. When these factors are suppressed, the...

We have argued elsewhere that natural selection is not a cause of evolution, and that a resolution-of-forces (or vector addition) model does not provide us with a proper understanding of how natural selection combines with other evolutionary influences. These propositions have come in for criticism recently, and here we clarify and defend them.We d...

This paper defends two theses about sensory objects. The more general thesis is that directly sensed objects are those delivered by sub-personal processes. It is shown how this thesis runs counter to perceptual atomism, the view that wholes are always sensed indirectly, through their parts. The more specific thesis is that while the direct objects...

Standard biological and philosophical treatments assume that dramatic genotypic or phenotypic change constitutes instantaneous speciation, and that barring such saltation, speciation is gradual evolutionary change in individual properties. Both propositions appear to be incongruent with standard theoretical perspectives on species themselves, since...

Standard biological and philosophical treatments assume that dramatic genotypic or phenotypic change constitutes instantaneous speciation, and that barring such saltation, speciation is gradual evolutionary change in individual properties. Both propositions appear to be incongruent with standard theoretical perspectives on species themselves, since...

The specialization of visual function within biological function is reason for introducing “homology thinking” into explanations of the visual system. It is argued that such specialization arises when organisms evolve by differentiation from their predecessors. Thus, it is essentially historical, and visual function should be regarded as a lineage...

Endogenous depression is highly correlated with low levels of serotonin in the central nervous system. Does this imply or suggest that this sort of depression just is this neurochemical deficit? Scorning such an inference, Antonio Damasio writes: If feeling happy or sad … corresponds in part to the cognitive modes under which your thoughts are oper...

Philosophy of Biology is a rapidly expanding field. It is concerned with explanatory concepts in evolution, genetics, and ecology. This collection of 25 essays by leading researchers provides an overview of the state of the field. These essays are wholly new; none of them could have been written even ten years ago. They demonstrate how philosophica...

John Campbell argues that visual attention to objects is the means by which we can refer to objects, and that this is so because conscious visual attention enables us to retrieve information about a location. It is argued here that while Campbell is right to think that we visually attend to objects, he does not give us sufficient ground for thinkin...

are color categories the evolutionary product of their usefulness in communication, or is this an accidental benefit they give us? it is argued here that embodiment constraints on color categorization suggest that communication is an add-on at best. thus, the steels & belpaeme (s&b) model may be important in explaining coordination, but only at the...

Homeostatic Property Cluster (HPC) theory suggests that species and other biological taxa consist of organisms that share certain similarities. HPC theory acknowledges the existence of Darwinian variation within biological taxa. The claim is that "homeostatic mechanisms" acting on the members of such taxa nonetheless ensure a significant cluster of...

Seeing, Doing, and Knowing is a philosophical framework for thinking about sensory systems as active devices for data extraction B rather than, in the traditional way, as passive recorders of ambient energy patterns. Sensory systems are automatic sorting machines that assign real-world objects to classes. A sense feature is the property of belongin...

The central thesis of Austen Clark's (2000: all Clark page references are to this work unless otherwise noted) deep and highly original treatment of "sentience" is that sensory appearance breaks down into two components, qualitative and spatial. Thus, when one is subject to a sense impression, one has an "appearance of quality Q at region R". He ho...

It has been claimed that certain forms of individual essentialism render the Theory of Natural Selection unable to explain why any given individual has the traits it does. Here, three reasons are offered why the Theory ought to ignore these forms of essentialism. First, the trait-distributions explained by population genetics supervene on individua...

Byrne & Hilbert are right that it might be an objective fact that a particular tomato is unique red, but wrong that it cannot simultaneously be yellowish-red (not only objectively, but from somebody else's point of view). Sensory categorization varies among organisms, slightly among conspecifics, and sharply across taxa. There is no question of tru...

Natural selection explains why humans have eyes: eyes are useful for getting around in an illuminated world; without them we would get around a lot less effectively, at much greater risk, and with a great deal less appreciation of potential mates. One might think, therefore, that natural selection explains why you or I—humans as we are—have eyes. B...

Etude de la relation entre l'adaptation, la selection naturelle, et les autres facteurs explicatifs de la theorie evolutionniste. Rejetant la notion de presentation informelle chez P. Kitcher, l'A. presente un modele causal coherent, inspire de la structure statistique de la genese des populations.

Selectionist models date back to Empedocles in Ancient Greece. The novelty of Darwinian selection is that it is able to produce adaptively valuable things without being sensitive to adaptive value. Darwin achieved this result by a restriction of environmental feedback to the replicative process. Immune system selection definitely does not respect t...

Scientists are often bemused by the efforts of philosophers essaying a theory of colour: colour science sports a huge array of facts and theories, and it is unclear to its practitioners what philosophy can or is trying to contribute. Equally, philosophers tend to be puzzled about how they can fit colour science into their investigations without com...

Argues that Aristotle regarded the universe, or Totality, as a single substance with form and matter, and that he regarded this substance together with the Prime Mover as a self-mover

Elliott Sober maintains ([19384], [1995]) that explanation by natural selection may show why all (most, some) humans have an opposable thumb, but cannot show why any particular human has one, Karen Neander ([1995a], [1995b]) argues that this is false because natural selection is 'cumulative'. It is argued here, on grounds independent of its cumulat...

Seeing, Doing, and Knowing is a philosophical framework for thinking about sensory systems as active devices for data extraction B rather than, in the traditional way, as passive recorders of ambient energy patterns. Sensory systems are automatic sorting machines that assign real-world objects to classes. A sense feature is the property of belongin...

Paul Thompson's new book, The Structure of Biological Theories , is about the formalization of evolutionary biology. He is primarily concerned, he says, with the logical, epistemological, and methodological aspects of biological theorizing. The main theme of the book is the opposition between what Thompson calls the syntactic and the semantic conce...

Though there are good reasons for thinking that sociobiology is capable of contributing to the solution of one of the central problems of philosophical ethics, the problem of other-benefitting behaviour, philosophers have not welcomed the new discipline with open arms. This has been so for three reasons: it is said that sociobiology studies behavio...

In à recent issue of Dialogue , Leo Groarke attempts to defend the claim that Parmenides was committed to an atemporal reality. He argues like this: (1) In the Parmenidean dictum “[It] is and cannot not be” (B2.4), “is” means “exists”, and is in the present tense (536). (2) (According to Parmenides) there is nothing that fails to exist (536). (3) I...

My purpose in this paper is to investigate the ontological structure of the theory that Plato ascribes to Protagoras in the Theaetetus (152–160). My interest is not just historical—what I wish to do is to explore the contemporary significance of Plato's Protagorean thesis, especially with regard to the theory of truth and the theory of perception....

It seems to be a part of the oral and written tradition of contemporary philosophy that Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam have resurrected a kind of Aristotelianism about natural kinds by reference to purely semantic ideas. Thus in a recent issue of the Journal of Philosophy, M. R. Ayers writes that according to Kripke and Putnam: “The names ‘gold’, ‘t...

A main point of my article, as I see it, is that we can solve Putnam's problem, as articulated in the first paragraph of section three, without recourse to the definition of “natural-kind term” as “rigid designator of a natural kind”. I had three main objections to this definition: (a) It makes the classification of a term as a natural-kind term de...

In this paper I shall examine Aristotle's treatment of a certain puzzle concerning change. In section I, I shall show that within a certain standard framework for the semantics of subject-predicate sentences a number of things that Aristotle wants to maintain do not make sense. Then, I shall outline a somewhat non-standard account of the semantics...

What were Aristotle's aims in the Categories ? We can probably all agree that he wanted to say something about different uses of the verb ‘to be’ – something relevant to ontology. The conventional interpretation goes further: it has Books Γ and Z of the Metaphysics superseding theories put forward in the Categories . We should expect then that the...