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The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Episode 115, 'Intellectual Seemings' with Laura Gow (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion)

The Panpsycast Philosophy Podcast

Jack Symes | Andrew Horton, Oliver Marley, and Rose de Castellane

Education, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Courses

4.8 β€’ 612 Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 12 February 2023

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our sensory experiences make up the fabric of our worlds. It's a fabric that keeps us warm; a fabric that makes the world worth living in. If you couldn't hear the cry of your new-born child, if you couldn't taste your grandfather's famous brussels sprouts at Christmas, or feel the embrace of your lifelong partner, then your life wouldn't just include less experiences, but less meaning. Given the value we place on our sensory experiences, it seems important that we understand the nature of them. What is happening, exactly, when we hear, taste, and feel? What are sensory experiences made of?

In this episode, we'll be exploring the nature of sensory phenomenology with Dr Laura Gow, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Formerly of Warwick University, Cambridge University, and the University of Antwerp, Dr Gow – whose work focuses on the philosophy of perception and the metaphysics of consciousness – is one of the UK's leading phenomenologists. From hallucinations and colour to empty space and silence, Laura's research covers a broad range of topics, but in this episode we'll be focusing on transparency.

According to the transparency view, when we undergo a perceptual experience, the only properties we're aware of are located externally. There are no perceptual properties, says Gow, inside of us – despite what it may seem.


This episode is produced in partnership with the Philosophy and the Future project at the University of Liverpool. For more information about philosophy at Liverpool, head over to www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy.


Contents

Part I. Everything is Clear

Part II. Further Analysis and Discussion


Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Pan

0:02.0

Psygast

0:04.0

P

0:05.0

P

0:06.0

P

0:08.0

Phaired So before we get into some of your wider views on Part two, further analyses and discussion.

0:22.8

So before we get into some of your wider views on consciousness law, I'd like to begin

0:26.5

this section by contrasting the view you outlined in a previous section with some of the

0:30.7

other theories we've discussed on the show before.

0:32.5

So just to remind listeners, in the previous installment, you outlined a case for transparency.

0:37.4

That is why you

0:38.2

think our sensory experience involves the awareness of externally located objects and properties,

0:43.9

but not an awareness of the features of those experiences. And then you introduce this idea of

0:48.8

intellectual seeming and use this to bat away a bunch of counter-examples, which contests the

0:53.4

transparency view. Now, in our interview with bunch of counter examples which contest the transparency view.

0:54.2

Now, in her interview with Michelle Montague, she attacked the transparency view.

0:58.8

And drawing from her hero, Franz Mantano, she claimed that consciousness is, quote, a self-imitating

1:04.2

phenomenon. That is, when you're having an experience, you're always aware that you're having

1:09.3

the experience. All conscious experiences, she said,

1:12.7

are in part made up of being aware of them. So she called this the awareness of awareness thesis.

1:18.4

That, as the slogan goes, conscious experiences are ones that you are aware of having.

1:24.3

Now, the transparency view says that you cannot become aware of the properties of your own

...

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