What is distinctive about the senses?
For the most part, philosophical discussion of the senses has been concerned with what distinguishes them from one another, following Griceâs treatment of this issue in his âRemarks on the sensesâ (1962). But this is one of two questions which Grice raises in this influential paper. The other, the question of what distinguishes senses from faculties that are not senses, is the question I address in this thesis. Though there are good reasons to think that the awareness we have of our bodies is perceptual, we do not usually think of bodily awareness as a sense. So in particular, I try to give an account of what it is that is distinctive about the five familiar modalities that they do not share with bodily awareness. I argue that what is distinctive about vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell, is that perception in all these modalities has enabling and disabling conditions of a certain kind. These enabling and disabling conditions are manifest in the conscious character of experience in these modalities, and exploited in active perceptual attentionâ in looking, listening, and so on. Bodily awareness has no such enabling conditions. The five familiar senses having this distinctive feature, and bodily
Richardson, Louise Fiona
B Philosophy (General)
What is distinctive about the senses?. For the most part, philosophical discussion of the senses has been concerned with what distinguishes them from one another, following Griceâs treatment of this issue in his âRemarks on the sensesâ (1962). But this is one of two questions which Grice raises in this influential paper. The other, the question of what distinguishes senses from faculties that are not senses, is the question I address in this thesis. Though there are good reasons to think that the awareness we have of our bodies is perceptual, we do not usually think of bodily awareness as a sense. So in particular, I try to give an account of what it is that is distinctive about the five familiar modalities that they do not share with bodily awareness. I argue that what is distinctive about vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell, is that perception in all these modalities has enabling and disabling conditions of a certain kind. These enabling and disabling conditions are manifest in the conscious character of experience in these modalities, and exploited in active perceptual attentionâ in looking, listening, and so on. Bodily awareness has no such enabling conditions. The five familiar senses having this distinctive feature, and bodily
distinctive sens part philosophical_discussion sens concerned distinguishes one_another follow grice treatment issue question grice raise influential paper question distinguishes sense faculty sens question_address thesis though good_reason think awareness body perceptual usually think bodily awareness sense particular try give_account distinctive familiar modality share bodily awareness argue distinctive vision touch hearing taste smell perception modality enable disable condition certain_kind enable disable condition manifest conscious character experience modality exploit active perceptual attention look listen bodily awareness enable condition familiar sens distinctive_feature bodily