Perception under construction is a new online seminar in philosophy of perception, which finds ts origin in the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Perception. The Handbook will mirror the shifting theoretical landscape of contemporary philosophy of perception. Not only has there been an increase in research on philosophy of perception but also a shift to more empirically informed philosophical methods, as well as the newfound interest in the diversity of perceptual modalities beyond vision. Moreover, there has been an influx of young trendsetting philosophers developing areas well beyond the well-worn debates of the past centuries.

The seminar will give a chance for the contributors to present their work in progress and gain feedback. It will be open to PhDs, Post-docs, and philosophers working in these areas.

Each seminar will include two short talks (20mn each) and discussion on a bimonthly rhythm. On Thursday every two weeks at 4:30pm (Paris) | 10:30am (East coast) | 7:30am (West coast).
The first session will be on Thursday 24th September.

Organizers : Frédérique de Vignemont (Institut Jean Nicod) | Elvira di Bona (University of Turin) | Benjamin Young (University of Nevada)

The seminars will take place online only :
https://nyu.zoom.us/j/96034025135

Next sessions

Sept. 24, 2026
Oct. 8, 2026
Oct. 22, 2026

Programme

Session 1 | September 24, 2026

Mohan Matthen, University of Toronto

"The Individuation of the Senses"
Perception is best regarded as a single modular system spread out over much of the cortex, with the exception of some parts of the (especially human) forebrain, and devoted to the creation, in real time, of a single cognitive map of the subject’s surroundings. However, philosophers, starting from Aristotle and right down to mid-century icons of analytic philosophy such as H. P. (Paul) Grice, contentiously treat the external sense-modalities as entirely separate and self-contained systems, with multisensory cognitive maps assembled from their unimodal components. They are operating, no doubt, under the influence of phenomenal appearance—Grice explicitly so—which does indeed present the modalities separately. However, this evidence is highly contentious, since phenomenal appearance is an effect of some delimited stage of sensory processing and cannot properly be used as direct evidence of global facts concerning sensory processing as a whole. In this entry, I probe these ways of separating the senses. One diagnostic tool that I will use prominently is Molyneux’s Question, which has long been thought to give strong but defeasible evidence of separate senses. I shall show that in fact there are many Molyneux Questions and that these don’t all go in the same direction when closely examined. In the end, I will argue, evidence for the separation of the senses remains inconclusive. At best, it establishes only that they are separate in some phase of processing. But we know antecedently that they are separate at least to some limited degree because they correspond to distinct input-transducers. The open question, then, is what significance this evidence has and whether separation at this level implies a significant distinction. My aim is to show that the distinction, though real, has limited significance for the proper understanding of perception.

•

Casey O’Callaghan, Washington University

"Multi-modal perception"
Human perception occurs in several sensory modalities. In this respect, sense perception is multi-modal. Nevertheless, theorizing about perception and perceptual consciousness in science and in philosophy prior to recent decades has been predominantly unisensory. Unisensory approaches treat each sense in isolation or in abstraction from each other. Such approaches investigate capacities, processes, and mechanisms associated with one sense, ignoring or controlling for contributions from others. Unisensory approaches rely on two implicit assumptions : Independence : each sense is explanatorily independent from the others. Completeness Assembling accounts of individual senses yields an explanatorily exhaustive account of perception and perceptual consciousness. However, recent psychophysics and neuroscience demonstrate that senses interact extensively. Perceptual processes associated with one sense can impact and reshape those associated with another. Some novel perceptual capacities rely on the coordinated use of multiple senses. Each can reshape perceptual consciousness at a time and over time. This challenges the explanatory independence and the explanatory completeness of individual senses. Sense perception thus cannot fully be understood by treating the senses wholly in isolation or in abstraction from each other. On the positive side, the coordinated use of several senses enhances the coherence and the reliability of sense perception, extends its reach, and makes possible novel varieties of perceptual consciousness. This chapter presents the case that, in human beings, perceptual processes and functions, perceptual capacities, and two facets of perceptual consciousness — awareness and experience (or phenomenality) are richly or deeply multi-sensory. However, this need not challenge the distinctness of our senses. Human perception and perceptual consciousness can occur in distinct, if overlapping, sensory modalities. The key is that our senses are not mutually exclusive perceptual modalities.

—

Session 2 | October 8, 2026

Christopher Peacocke, Columbia University and Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London

"Identifiers in Music Perception and Beyond"
When you hear an emotion in a passage of music, the way in which the emotion is given to you is highly distinctive. It conveys what it is like to experience the emotion. It also does so without you having to experience the emotion itself. The way is subjectively identificatory. Subjectively identificatory ways feature also in the perception of expressive action, in imagination, and in autobiographical memory. I call these ways ‘identifiers’. Identifiers come in varying degrees of specificity. Identifiers can be present in a mental state without the subject possessing any general concept of the kind of mental state to which they refer. Their distinctive combination of properties contributes to the special properties of musical perception and representation. While these identifiers are a species of phenomenal concept, they are quite different from the phenomenal concepts that have previously been recognized. Identifiers are essential to our ability to think in specific ways both about our own mental states, and in thinking and knowing about the mental states of others. I present a positive theory of identifiers, and extend the theory to cover closely related ways in which objective states of affairs can be presented in subjectively identificatory ways. Identifiers play a crucial role in the explanation of certain pathologies, not only the amusias, but also in alexithymia and aphantasia. In such pathologies, identifiers are either absent in the subject, or else not properly connected with perceptual states. The relation of identifiers to these pathologies suggests various directions for future empirical and conceptual research.

•

Jonathan Mitchell, Cardiff University

"Peripersonal Space and Peripersonal Experience"
We traditionally think of there as being a sharp division between external space and our bodies. External space is ‘out there’, separated from our body, with the skin serving as the boundary between ourselves and the external world. The notion of peripersonal space overturns this traditional picture. A significant body of evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that our perceptual systems process external objects in the space in close proximity to our bodies (up to 30-50cm) in a distinctive way, and critically as different from far space. Philosophers of cognitive science and perception have increasingly taken an interest in peripersonal space, principally with a view to detailing the computational principles characteristic of peripersonal processing, and specifying kinds of representational contents that figure in non-conscious peripersonal perception. However, a vexed question concerns whether we enjoy some form of awareness of peripersonal space as special, as a distinctive form of peripersonal spatial awareness. In this chapter, I provide an overview of various options for characterising peripersonal spatial awareness, including in terms of visual appearance properties, felt mandates, and an increased ‘sense of perceptual presence’. I suggest that we do best, in the end, to think of such awareness in relation to tactile expectations and tactile possibilities. I close with some thoughts on further avenues for philosophical research on peripersonal experience.

—

Session 3 | October 22, 2026

•

Gabriel Siegel, University of Iowa

"Vestibular Sense"
The vestibular sense processes information from inner ear mechanisms to detect changes in head orientation, the direction of gravitational pull and bodily acceleration. This sense is one of the most phylogenetically primitive and pervasive senses across the animal kingdom. Organisms must use vestibular sensitivity to gravity to maintain postural stability and successfully move across their environment. This chapter provides a philosophical introduction to the vestibular sense. First, I provide a brief overview of the vestibular sensory transduction mechanisms and describe some of the computational problems the vestibular system solves. Second, I consider some of the vestibular sense’s sensibles. In other words, I provide a tentative answer to the following question : what are some of the worldly and/or bodily components to which the vestibular sense is sensitive ? In this chapter, my focus will be on orientational relations between the head and gravity. Considering sensory awareness of these relations, I speculate about whether the vestibular sense is properly construed as an interoceptive or exteroceptive sense modality. I provide motivations for both perspectives. Third, I discuss whether the vestibular sense is properly construed as perceptual or whether it should be understood as a non-perceptual sensory system, again providing considerations for both positions. Fourth, I discuss whether the vestibular sense contributes to phenomenal consciousness, again entertaining opinions on both sides of this debate. Fifth, I discuss why attention to the vestibular sense is a fruitful line of philosophical inquiry into the nature of perceptual awareness and consciousness more broadly. Among other topics, I discuss the connection between vestibular awareness and self-consciousness in both philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. To conclude, I briefly outline future directions for philosophical research on the vestibular sense.

—

Session 4 |

Previous sessions