Priscian on Perception

An aporia posed by Theophrastus prompts Priscian to describe the process by which perception formally assimilates to its object as a progressive perfection. I present an interpretation of Priscian’s account of perception’s progressive perfection. And I consider a dilemma for the general class of accounts to which Priscian’s belongs based on related problems raised by Plotinus and Aquinas

Perception and Extramission in De quantitate animae

Augustine is commonly interpreted as endorsing an extramission theory of perception in De quantitate animae. A close examination of the text shows, instead, that he is committed to its rejection. I end with some remarks about what it takes for an account of perception to be an extramission theory and with a review of the strength of evidence for attributing the extramission the- ory to Augustine on the basis of his other works

Sound and Image

We hear sounds, and their sources, and their audible qualities. Sounds and their sources are essentially dynamic entities, not wholly present at any given moment, but unfolding through their temporal interval. Sounds and their sources, essentially dynamic entities, are the bearers or susbtrata of audible qualities. Audible qualities are qualities essentially sustained by activity. The only bearers of audible qualities present in auditory experience are essentially dynamic entities. Bodies are not, in this sense, essentially dynamic entities and so are not present in our auditory experience. Though absent in auditory experience, we may, nonetheless, attend to bodies in audition, when an audible sound-generating event in which they participate presents a dynamic aural image of them

The Event of Rarefaction: A Defence and Development of The Wave Theory of Sound

I defend and develop a traditional view in the metaphysics of sound, The Wave Theory of Sound. According The Wave Theory, as developed herein, sounds are not patterned disturbances so much as their propagation. And the propagation of a patterned disturbance is not a form of travel, but a dynamic in-formation, the wave-form successively inhering in diferently located parts of the dense and elastic medium. This conception, along with the assumption that we hear not only sounds but their sources, has the resources to address many of the most recent criticisms of this traditional view

Timaeus on Color Mixture

Now with extra footnotes, by editorial demand! Final version accepted by Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. This essay consists in a trick and a potential insight. The trick consists in a minimalist interpretation of color mixture. The account of color mixture is minimalist in the sense that, given certain background assumptions, there is no more to Timaeus’ account of color mixture than the list of the chromatic pathēmata and the list of how these combine to elicit perceptions of all the colors. The only potential controversial elements of the minimalist interpretation are the relevant background assumptions and the interpretation of the chromatic pathēmata. The potential insight concerns a motive that Plato, in the guise of Timaeus, may have for presenting an account of color mixture. Specifically, I shall argue that on the minimalist interpretation, Plato may be read as reconciling the Democritrean four color scheme with an older tradi- tion where white and black are the fundamental chromatic opposition. As we shall see, this bears on the interpretation of the chromatic pathēmata

Perception and Extramission in De quantitate animae

Augustine is commonly interpreted as endorsing an extramission theory of perception in De quantitate animae. A close examination of the text shows, instead, that he is committed to its rejection. The discussion ends with some remarks about what it takes for an account of perception to be an extramission theory and with a review of the strength of evidence for attributing the extramission theory to Augustine on the basis of his other works

Moral Pyrrhonism and Noncognitivism

An epistemic, as opposed to a motivational, argument for noncognitivism. Book chapte

Monism and pluralism

Most philosophers are colour monists, and if they are realists, they likely believe that there are a plurality of colours- that things are blue, yellow, and red, mauve and magenta, and many other colours, both named and unnamed. Nor is colour pluralism the claim that objects can be multi-coloured. Though colour monism is the orthodox position in the philosophy of colour, it is rarely held explicitly with its commitments articulated clearly. The colour pluralist concedes to the monist that there is a unity to a plurality of colours displayed in the relations of similarity and difference, determination, and exclusion in which they stand. The pluralist was represented as retaining the colour monist’s commitment to colour realism. However, the attribution of realism to the colour monist was made on the back of a particular, and particularly strong, characterization of colour eliminativism-that nothing is or could be coloured