Philosophy Research Seminar: Dr Jonathan Mitchell (Manchester)

Abstract: According to the Self-Location Thesis certain types of visual experiences have self-locating and so first-person (or de se), spatial contents. Such self-locating contents are typically specified in terms of relational egocentric terms. So understood, visual experiences provide one source for the claim that there is a kind of self-consciousness found in experiential states. This paper critically examines the Self-Location Thesis with respect to a specific class of dynamic-reflexive visual experiences, which involve the movement of an object toward the location of the perceiving subject. The main aim of this paper is to offer an alternative interpretation of such cases which resists attributing them self-locating content, arguing for a replacement with a non-conceptual equivalent of the indexical ‘here’, by way of a h-replacement account.

4.4
Roscoe Building
Manchester

Dr Stephen Ingram