TY - JOUR
T1 - The Role of Valence in Perception
T2 - An ARTistic Treatment
AU - Jacobson, Hilla
N1 - Funding Information: My research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation, grant 1001/17. For helpful comments and conversations, I am grateful to David Bain, Ned Block, David Chalmers, Jonathan Cohen, Susanna Siegel, Preston Werner, and two anonymous referees. I thank the participants of the Philosophy of Mind Discussion Group in at New York University, of the Philosophy of Emotions Conference at the City University of New York, and of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2020 conference for the illuminating discussions. I am especially indebted to Arnon Cahen for his invaluable feedback throughout the process of writing this article. My greatest debt is to Hagit Benbaji, my philosophical and ‘real-life’ soulmate, whose continuous criticisms, suggestions, and insights played a crucial role in shaping the views presented in this article. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by Cornell University.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - Attempts to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences have so far largely focused on their sensory aspects. The first aim of this article is to support the claim that (perceptual) phenomenal character has another, significant, aspect—the phenomenal realm is suffused with valence. What it’s like to undergo perceptual experiences—from pains to supposedly “neutral” visual experiences—standardly feels good or bad to some degree. The second aim is to argue, by appealing to theoretical and empirical considerations pertaining to the phenomenon of (perceptual) valence-variance, that perceptual valence cannot be accounted for by extending the prevalent representationalist account of phenomenal character. Thus, a revision in the understanding of phenomenal character is called for. Finally, the phenomenon of valence-variance serves to make some headway toward defending a new Attitudinal-Representational Theory of perceptual valence, according to which perceptual valence is constituted by first-order conative attitudes directed toward the representational objects of experiences.
AB - Attempts to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences have so far largely focused on their sensory aspects. The first aim of this article is to support the claim that (perceptual) phenomenal character has another, significant, aspect—the phenomenal realm is suffused with valence. What it’s like to undergo perceptual experiences—from pains to supposedly “neutral” visual experiences—standardly feels good or bad to some degree. The second aim is to argue, by appealing to theoretical and empirical considerations pertaining to the phenomenon of (perceptual) valence-variance, that perceptual valence cannot be accounted for by extending the prevalent representationalist account of phenomenal character. Thus, a revision in the understanding of phenomenal character is called for. Finally, the phenomenon of valence-variance serves to make some headway toward defending a new Attitudinal-Representational Theory of perceptual valence, according to which perceptual valence is constituted by first-order conative attitudes directed toward the representational objects of experiences.
KW - Affective perception
KW - Attitudinal-representational theory
KW - Evaluativism
KW - Pain
KW - Phenomenal character
KW - Representationalism
KW - Valenced perception
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122191377&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-9263939
DO - https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-9263939
M3 - Article
SN - 0031-8108
VL - 130
SP - 481
EP - 531
JO - The Philosophical Review
JF - The Philosophical Review
IS - 4
ER -