A Theory of Sentience

by Austen Clark

Overview

Austen Clark offers a general account of the forms of mental representation that we call "sensory." Drawing on the findings of current neuroscience, Clark defends the hypothesis that the various modalities of sensation share a generic form that he calls "feature-placing." Sensing proceeds by picking out place-times in or around the body of the sentient organism, and characterizing qualities (features) that appear at those place-times. The hypothesis casts light on many other troublesome phenomena, including the varieties of illusion, the problem of projection, the notion of a visual field, and the existence of sense-data.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198238515
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	05/25/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Austen Clark is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Table of Contents

1. Quality Space; 2. Qualities and their Places; 3. Places Phenomenal and Real; 4. Sensing and Reference; 5. The Feature-Placing Hypothesis; 6. True Theories, False Colours; References; Index