Perceptual Experiences and their Parts
Abstract
What is the phenomenal structure of our perceptual experiences? In this talk, I suggest that perceptual experiences – like consciousness in general – have a mereological structure, that is, a structure in which the most basic relation is that of parthood. I do not provide any definitive argument for this view. I just want to suggest (i) that the mereological approach is untouched by the usual objections coming from the proponents of the Unified Field Theory (James, Searle, Tye), (ii) that the Unified Field Theory faces some important difficulties of its own