Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy
De se contents & attitudes (DeSe)
Convenors for Semester 2: Marie Guillot and Carlota Serrahima
Change of time: the De Se RG now takes place on Tuesdays, from 13:00 to 15:00 in the Seminar Room of the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science (Room # 4047).
In recent discussions of phenomenal consciousness, a distinction is sometimes made between the qualitative character of an experience (i.e. the specific way it feels to the subject, e.g. painful or reddish or funny) and its subjective character (Kriegel 2009), i.e. the fact that there is something it is like at all for the subject. This second component, which is discussed under a variety of names by different authors (e.g. “for-me-ness” or “mineness”, Zahavi 1999, 2005; “subjectivity”, Levine 2001), would be what makes my conscious states feel like they are mine.
The reading group will examine arguments for and against the claim that there is a distinctive sense of mineness, as well as related topics, including: bodily awareness; the sense of agency; mental actions; pathologies affecting the sense of mineness (inserted thoughts, auditory-verbal hallucinations, depersonalisation); existential feelings; etc. Some sessions may be dedicated to work-in-progress by group members.
The first five sessions, starting on 17th February 2015, will serve as preparation for the 21-22 March LOGOS conference on the sense of mineness. In these first few sessions, we plan to focus mostly on texts authored by the invited speakers. Please see the detailed schedule at the end of this page.
Convenors for Semester 1: Gregory Bochner and Marie Guillot
It is nowadays widely accepted that both de se and de re thoughts have
singular truth-conditions. The question we will discuss is whether both
types of thought have the same kind of content.
This question raises a series of semantic, cognitive and metaphysical
issues, including the following:
(1) Supposing that de se thoughts are singular, does "the problem of the
essential indexical" dissolve into more general issues concerning singular
reference, as recent sceptical voices have claimed, or does the de se still
pose specific problems?
(2) How to account for the intuition, and even the feeling experienced
both in de se and in de re thinking, that one is somehow "directly
presented" with the referent? Does that intuition register a fact about
content, or does it stem only from the singular truth-conditions? How do
the relativist and propositionalist approaches compare as accounts of this
aspect?
(3) How does this feeling of "referential presence" connect with
metaphysical issues about the individuation of the referents themselves? In
particular, does it have any bearing on the debate about Haecceitism, the
view that particulars are individuated not just by qualitative properties
Convenor:
Sessions
21 October 2014
14:00
Context, Chapter 5
Robert Stalnaker (2014)
11 November 2014
14:00
18 November 2014
14:00
Modeling a Perspective on the World
Robert Stalnaker (ms)
25 November 2014
14:00
02 December 2014
14:00
What is the Problem of the Essential Indexical?
Dilip Ninan (ms)
09 December 2014
14:00
De Se Thoughts and Immunity to Error Through Misidentification
Manuel García-Carpintero (ms)
16 December 2014
14:00
Reflections on François Recanati's 'Immunity to Error Through Misidentification: What it is and Where it Comes From'
Crispin Wright (2012)
13 January 2015
14:00
The First-Person Point of View and De se Attitudes
Wolfgang Carl
NB: this is a joint session with the Other Talks series
20 January 2015
14:00
Indexical Belief and the Problem of the Essential Circumstance
Gregory Bochner (ms)
27 January 2015
14:00
Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory
Uriah Kriegel (2009)
Chapter 4 (esp. Sections 3-5-6).
Background reading: Chapter 2 (esp. Section 3).
17 February 2015
14:00
The Self and the Phenomenal
Barry Dainton (2004).
Background readings:
- Dainton, Barry (2008), The Phenomenal Self (OUP), Sections 8.1 and 8.2.
- Zahavi, Dan & Kriegel, Uriah (2015), "For-me-ness: What It Is and What It Is Not".
24 February 2015
13:00
Subjects and Consciousness
Christopher Peacocke (2012)
03 March 2015
13:00
The Mark of Bodily Ownership
Frédérique de Vignemont (2013)
Additional reading: de Vignemont (2014), "Pain and Bodily Care: Whose Body Matters?"
10 March 2015
13:00
Feeling My Body as Mine: On Deflationism About Body Ownership
Carlota Serrahima (ms)
17 March 2015
13:00
The Self
Galen Strawson (1999)
Background readings:
- G. Strawson (2004), "Against Narrativity"
- G. Strawson (2010), "Radical Self-Awareness"
14 April 2015
13:00
Unity of Consciousness and the Problem of the Self
Dan Zahavi (2010)
Background reading:
Zahavi, D. (2005), Subjectivity and Selfhood, Chapter 5, Sections IV, V, VI
21 April 2015
13:00
Experience and Self-Consciousness
Joseph Schear (2009). [PDF ]
Additional reading: Zahavi, Dan & Kriegel, Uriah (2015), "For-me-ness: What It Is and What It Is Not".
28 April 2015
13:00
Waiting for the Self
Jesse Prinz (2011)
05 May 2015
13:00
Affording introspection: an alternative model of inner awareness
Tom McClelland (2014) [PDF ]
19 May 2015
13:00
Representationalisms, Subjective Character, and Self-Acquaintance
Kenneth Williford (2015) [PDF ]
Background readings:
- T. Schlicht (2015), "Explaining Subjective Character: Representation, Reflexivity, or Integration?" (commentary)
- K. Williford (2015), "Individuation, Integration, and the Phenomenological Subject" (reply)26 May 2015
13:00
Renewed Acquaintance
Brie Gertler (2012)
02 June 2015
13:00
TBA
Marie Guillot (ms)
09 June 2015
13:00
The sense of ownership: an analogy between sensation and action
Jérôme Dokic (2003)
Background reading: Hohwy, J. (2007): "The Sense of Self in the Phenomenology of Agency and Perception".
16 June 2015
13:00
