Postdoctoral Fellow | Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College
tiina [dot] rosenqvist [at] gmail [dot] com
Research Project #1:
Perception by Agents
A central focus of my research is on how humans and other animals perceive, interact with, and interpret their environments, with an emphasis on visual perception and pain. I am particularly interested in the functions of perceptual systems and the subject-dependence of perceptual experience. I take an interdisciplinary approach to my work, integrating insights from various fields such as neuroscience, psychology, and visual ecology. I also take seriously the problem cases that often get overlooked in the philosophical literature. These include interpersonal and interspecies variation, illusions, and purported instances of top-down modulation of sensory experience. I seek to maximize the explanatory power of my views, build bridges between disciplines, and expound on the idea that minded organisms are embodied agents coupled closely to their environments.
I argue that the function of color vision is to help organisms manifest perceptual competences, and that color experiences are correct when they result from competence-enhancing processing. In a similar vein, I argue that the function of pain is to enhance the manifestation of behavioral competences, and that our pain experiences are correct when they are useful. On a more general level, I reject the widely held view that perception is in the business of representing the objective world "as it is."
Published and Forthcoming Papers
1
Seeing with color: Psychophysics and the function of color vision
Synthese 202, 20 (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04226-y
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2
Color and Competence:
A new view of color perception
Viejo, J.M., Sanjuán, M. (eds) Life and Mind. Interdisciplinary Evolution Research, vol 8. Springer, Cham. (2023).
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30304-3_5
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Papers in Progress
“Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction” (in draft) [ABSTRACT]
"Pain, Color, and Agent-Centered Perception" (in draft) [ABSTRACT]
"Philosophy of Color: A Novel Typology" [ABSTRACT]
"Chronic Pain and the Phenomenal World"
“Pain and Cognitive Penetration: Insights from Neuroscience”
"What Perceptual Agreement Does and Doesn't Show"