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Perception and Memory Beyond Representationalism and Relationalism

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Perception and Memory Beyond Representationalism and Relationalism Perception and Memory Beyond Representationalism and Relationalism André Sant’Anna Perception and Memory Beyond Representationalism and Relationalism André Sant’Anna A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Otago June 2018 To my parents, Sidnei and Teresa. Acknowledgments First and foremost, I am extremely grateful to my supervisors Kirk Michaelian, Andrew Moore, and Cathy Legg. Their guidance during these three years have helped me enor- mously. Thanks to Andrew for taking interest in my project when I first applied to Otago and for providing insightful feedback to my thesis all the way through. Thanks also for always reminding me of the importance of thinking about the ‘big picture’ of my project. Thanks to Cathy for accepting to join my supervisory panel halfway through and for making yourself available to discuss my thesis at any time. Our conversations about pragmatism, Peirce, and perception were fundamental in shaping my way of thinking about these topics. I’m especially grateful to my primary supervisor, Kirk Michaelian, who has not only been an exemplary supervisor, but also a mentor and a friend. Thanks for being patient and for always being available to read many of my drafts, even the rough ones. Your guidance and willingness to always help me to improve were essential to my development as a philosopher. I’d also like to thank Ruth Millikan, who was extremely kind to help me, an unknown undergraduate student from Brazil, during the process of applying to graduate school, and particularly for telling me about Otago and for first putting me in touch with the depart- ment. Thanks also to Colin Cheyne for taking interest in my project and for handling my application at Otago. I’m grateful to the Philosophy Department at the University of Otago for all their sup- port during these years. The friendly and extremely professional atmosphere provided by the department were essential to the development of my thesis. Thanks also to Chloe Wall, Ali Hossein Khani, Manuel Lechthaler, Ünsal Çimen, and Guillermo Badia for their friend- ship and stimulating conversations. I would like to thank my parents, Sidnei and Teresa, for their ongoing support from the time I first decided to study philosophy to my decision to move to New Zealand to do my PhD. None of this would have been possible if it were not for their support. I’m also immensely grateful to my wife, Ligia, for all her support and partnership during these three years of hard work. Besides providing valuable feedback to the thesis itself, her love and understanding were essential to overcome the inevitable hardships of writing a PhD thesis. I’d also like to express my gratitude to the University of Otago for granting me a Doc- toral Scholarship to write my thesis, to the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for funding my visit, from October to December 2017, to the Ruhr-University Bochum to work on my thesis, and to Markus Werning for being a wonderful host. Parts of this thesis have been previously published in academic journals. Chapter 2, “Perception pragmatized”, was published in Philosophia 46(2): 411–432, 2018. Chapter 3, “Thinking about events”, is forthcoming in Review of Philosophy and Psychology and Chapter 5, “The hybrid contents of memory” is forthcoming in Synthese. I’m grateful to Springer Nature for granting me permission to reproduce them here. Finally, the Appendix Chapter, “Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory”, is forthcoming in Unisinos Journal of Philosophy. Abstract This thesis is a collection of five self-standing articles dealing with different issues relating to representationalism and relationalism in contemporary philosophy of perception and con- temporary philosophy of memory. The main goal is to motivate a hybrid approach, where insights from representationalism and relationalism are reconciled, to current debates in both domains. The thesis is divided in two parts. Part I, which deals with perception, starts by seeking alternative relational views of perception by relying on ideas from classical pragmatism. These attempts further result in the development of a hybrid theory of per- ception, grounded on the pragmatist theory of perception offered by Charles Peirce, that is more sympathetic to “austere” versions of relationalism. Part II, which deals with memory, starts by exploring the prospects of representationalism and relationalism to account for the objects of memory and the objects of episodic hypothetical thought. Relational accounts are further explored in this context for, despite their historical importance, they have been unpopular recently due to the difficulty they face in dealing with memory errors. Finally, as a positive proposal, I offer a hybrid theory of memory that is influenced by hybrid theories of perception. Besides calling the attention of philosophers of memory to the importance of taking relationalism seriously, this hybrid theory provides a novel theoretical framework for contemporary philosophers of memory. Contents Introduction 1 1. Indirect and direct realism . 3 2. Perception . 7 2.1 Representationalism . 7 2.2 Relationalism . 10 3. Memory . 12 3.1 Representationalism . 12 3.2 Relationalism . 14 4. Towards a hybrid approach . 16 5. The thesis . 19 I Perception 22 1 Contextualizing perception 23 Introduction . 23 Outline . 24 1.1 Perceptual error and the nature of perceptual experiences . 25 1.1.1 Perceptual error . 25 1.1.2 Relationalism and naïve realism . 28 1.2 Perceptual contextualism . 32 1.2.1 The resistance view of experiences . 32 1.2.2 Pragmatic contexts . 36 i 1.2.3 Perceptual contextualism and disjunctivism . 45 1.3 Objections . 48 1.3.1 Objection 1: Veridical hallucinations . 48 1.3.2 Objection 2: Illusions . 51 1.3.3 Objection 3: Representationalism by the back door? . 52 2 Perception pragmatized 55 Introduction . 55 Outline . 57 2.1 The nature of perception . 58 2.2 Peirce’s theory of perception . 63 2.3 The pragmatic view . 69 2.3.1 The representational aspect of perception . 69 2.3.2 The relational aspect of perception . 72 2.3.3 The veridicality of perception . 78 2.4 Conclusion . 84 II Memory 85 3 Thinking about events 86 Introduction . 86 Outline . 88 3.1 From the objects of memory to the objects of episodic hypothetical thought 89 3.2 Direct realism and extreme disjunctivism . 92 3.2.1 Motivating direct realism . 92 3.2.2 Extreme disjunctivism . 93 3.3 Representationalism and the silence of episodic hypothetical thought . 102 3.3.1 Motivating representationalism . 102 3.3.2 The silence of episodic hypothetical thought . 103 3.4 The pragmatist alternative . 106 ii 3.4.1 Motivating pragmatism . 107 3.4.2 Applying pragmatism . 111 3.4.3 Avoiding disjunctivism . 116 3.5 Pragmatism and autonoesis . 125 4 Failing to remember 129 Introduction . 129 Outline . 131 4.1 Introduction . 131 4.2 The relational analysis of remembering . 135 4.3 Unsuccessful remembering . 140 4.3.1 The problem of confabulation . 142 4.3.2 The problem of misremembering . 149 4.4 Conclusion . 154 5 The hybrid contents of memory 156 Introduction . 156 Outline . 159 5.1 The objects of episodic memory . 159 5.2 Towards a hybrid view of memory . 164 5.2.1 Hybrid contents . 169 5.2.2 Error revisited . 172 5.2.3 Indistinguishability revisited . 177 5.2.4 Epistemic particularity revisited . 177 5.3 Hybridism and the philosophy of memory . 178 5.3.1 The co-temporality problem . 179 5.3.2 Continuism vs. discontinuism . 182 5.4 Objections . 189 5.4.1 The character of memory vs. the objects of memory . 189 5.4.2 The temporality of the objects of perception and memory . 190 iii 5.4.3 Autonoetic consciousness . 191 5.4.4 Disjunctivism again? . 192 Conclusion 194 Appendix 198 A Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory 198 Introduction . 198 Outline . 199 A.1 Introduction (paper) . 199 A.2 Episodic memory and mental time travel . 200 A.3 Mental time travel and the philosophy of memory . 204 A.3.1 The causal theory of memory . 205 A.3.2 Mental time travel and our knowledge of the past . 209 A.3.3 The objects of mental time travel . 212 A.3.4 The metaphysics of mental time travel . 214 A.4 Conclusion . 217 Bibliography 232 iv Introduction This thesis explores the disputes between representationalist and relationalist views of per- ception and memory in contemporary philosophy of perception and philosophy of memory. The main goal is to motivate a hybrid approach, where insights from representationalism and relationalism are reconciled, to current debates in the area. As a first introductory step to this project, I should say a few words about the nature of the chapters and the structure of the thesis. In terms of structure, the thesis is organized as a collection of publishable papers. It is composed of five self-standing articles and an appendix corresponding to a short discussion article. The articles were produced with the purpose of being submitted to specialist journals. Three of them have been accepted for publication (Chapters 2, 3 and 5, plus the discussion article in the Appendix A), one of them is under review (Chapter 4), and one of them is currently in the process of being revised for resubmission (Chapter 1). Since they are self-standing pieces of work, the issue of how they fit together to compose a PhD dissertation becomes central. One natural strategy to address this would be to re-write the chapters and try to arrange the seemingly unrelated pieces in a way that would produce a convincing narrative addressing a certain problem or question. I decided not to pursue this strategy here. The main reason for not pursuing it is that doing so would produce an artificial and inac- curate picture of how my thinking about the relevant issues evolved during my PhD.
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