Postdoctoral Fellow | Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College
tiina [dot] rosenqvist [at] gmail [dot] com
Research
My current research focuses on philosophy of perception, particularly visual perception and pain. My approach is empirically-guided: instead of leading with intuitions, conceptual analysis, and other a priori methods, I ask what ecology, psychophysics, and neuroscience can tell us about the fundamental "goal(s)" of perceptual systems.
When it comes to color vision, I suggest that the conception that best accommodates and explains the available empirical data is the idea that the goal of color visual systems is to help animals better perceive their environments and satisfy their ecological needs rather than to track and represent some stable, mind-independent properties of distal objects and scenes. I further propose that color vision plays an enhancement role with respect to certain important (species-specific) perceptual competences, i.e., that it is competence-embedded. The notion of competence-embeddedness helps make sense of a wide variety of color perceptual phenomena, including many problem cases. For example, we can understand some textbook color illusions as special cases where the relevant perceptual competences place divergent demands on the color visual system and where the color visual system is forced to "choose" between those demands.
The notions of perceptual competence and competence-embeddedness can be used to reconceptualize the early modern distinction between primary and secondary qualities. I suggest that we understand primary qualities as the kinds of properties that we can competently perceive and secondary qualities as the kind of properties that are involved in the competent perception of primary qualities.
I also use the notion of competence-embeddedness to approach pain. I argue that whereas the competences that embed color vision are perceptual competences (in most animals), the competences that embed pain are behavioral or cognitive ones. Pain is not a bodily disturbance detector but a sophisticated context-dependent security system. In addition, I have ongoing interest in the phenomenon of chronic maladaptive pain and the testimonial exchanges involving chronic pain patients.
Publications
[2] Seeing with color: Psychophysics and the function of color vision. Synthese 202, 20 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04226-y Use this link for view-only, full-text access: https://rdcu.be/dgk7j
[1] Color and Competence: A New View of Color Perception. In: 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 Use this link for view-only, full-text access: https://rdcu.be/df3Zl
Work in Progress
[*] [Title removed for blind review]
[*] "Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
[*] [Title removed for blind review]
[*] "Philosophy of Color: A Novel Typology"
[*] "Pain and Color: A Unified Account"
Recent and Upcoming Presentations
(Selected)
"Pain, Its Function, and Why it Matters"
-- Dartmouth Cognitive Science Program Weekly Speaker Series. 2023.
"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
-- International Society for the Philosophy of the Sciences of the Mind (ISPSM) Webconference. 2023.
"Perceptual Competences and the Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction"
-- Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. 2023.
"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"
--Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Louisville, KY, USA. 2023.
"Pain is not a Bodily Disturbance Detector"
--Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) XI, University of Salamanca-ECyT, Spain. 2022.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
--The 3rd Context, Cognition and Communication Conference: Varieties of Meaning and Content, University of Warsaw, Poland. 2022.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
--The 3rd Joint Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) and the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), University of Milan, Italy. 2022.
“Seeing with Color: Insights from Psychophysics”
--Language, Culture and Mind 9: Sensory Experience and Communication, University of Almería, Spain. 2022
Comments on Christopher Masciari's "Contingent Perceptual Experience"
-- Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSPP) Annual Conference, Mobile, AL, USA. 2022.
"What (on Earth) Are Color Visual Systems Doing?"
--Virtual Vision Futures, York University, Canada. 2021 (delivered virtually).
"Color Illusions and the "Competence-Embeddedness" of Color Perception"
--Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences (PBCS) X, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. 2021 (delivered virtually).
“Philosophy of Color: Lessons from Neuroscience?”
--6th Annual Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (SCAN) Retreat, University of Pennsylvania, USA. 2020.
Dissertation Summary
The mainstream view in contemporary analytic philosophy is that perception is primarily in the business of representing the mind-independent world as it is. My dissertation explores an alternative conception: that the goal of perception is to guide successful action and that perceptions do not need to track mind-independent properties to play this action-guiding role. I focus on two types of perception: color perception and pain perception. I start with the former and advocate a pragmatist, empirically-guided approach which begins by inquiring into the function of color vision. After arguing that none of the extant philosophical views of color are satisfactory, I answer the function question by focusing on systematic color perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists. I argue that the human color visual system is an enhancement system: that is, its job is to help us better discriminate, track, and recognize meaningful objects, properties, and relations. I then build on this idea using the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness.’ I propose that color vision is embedded in a network of competences: the aim of color vision is to help organisms manifest these competences, and color experiences are correct when they result from competence-enhancing processing. The framework is explanatorily robust. For example, it allows me to conceptualize many textbook color illusions as special cases of successful color perception where the demands of the relevant competences clash. Finally, I use the notion of ‘competence-embeddedness’ to develop a new account of pain. I argue that the pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector, but a sophisticated, context-responsive security system whose primary goal is to help organisms manifest important behavioral and cognitive competences.
Abstract: What is the function of color vision? In this paper, I focus on perceptual phenomena studied in psychophysics and argue that the best explanation for these phenomena is that the color visual system is a perceptual enhancement system. I first introduce two rival conceptions of the function of color vision: that color vision aims to detect or track the fine-grained colors of distal objects and scenes (Seeing Color) and that it aims to help organisms discriminate, detect, track and/or recognize ecologically important objects, properties, and relations more directly (Seeing with Color). I then discuss two kinds of systematic perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists: approximate color constancy and color induction. I argue from the premise that Seeing with Color better accommodates and explains these phenomena to the conclusion that it is the conception that an empirically-guided philosopher of color ought to adopt.
Abstract: What is the function of pain? A popular view in contemporary philosophy is that the pain system is a bodily disturbance detector: pain states track/detect and represent bodily disturbances and the phenomenal character of the (sensory dimension of) pain supervenes on this representational content. The view can accommodate paradigmatic pain cases, e.g., when pain follows from stepping on a nail. Once we consider more complex pain phenomena, however, it has seemingly little to offer. In this paper, I discuss dissociation between pains and bodily disturbances, variation in pain thresholds, the effects of repeated stimulation on experienced pain intensity, and the modulation of pain experience by cognitive and emotional states. I argue that these phenomena suggest that the pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector, but a sophisticated security system.
Abstract: I have two main goals in this paper. My first goal is to sketch a new view of color perception. The core of the view can be expressed in the following two theses: (i) the overarching function of color vision is to enable and enhance the manifestation of relevant (species-specific) competences and (ii) color experiences are correct when they result from processing that directly and non-accidentally subserves the manifestation of such competences. My second goal is to show that the view can accommodate and account for a wide variety of color perceptual phenomena, including many problem cases. Importantly, the framework allows us to differentiate between two kinds of good cases of color perception: ideal cases where the demands of the relevant competences converge and non-ideal cases where the demands of the relevant competences diverge and clash.
Abstract: My goal in this paper is to re-conceptualize the Early Modern distinction between primary and secondary qualities. The original distinction is metaphysical: primary qualities (e.g., shapes and sizes) are intrinsic or “real” properties of external objects, whereas secondary qualities (e.g., colors and smells) are perceiver-dependent in some way. My re-conceptualization is epistemological: I focus on the kinds of knowledge that different types of perceptual processing ground. I propose that we understand primary qualities as the kind of properties that we can competently perceive and secondary qualities as the kind of properties that play an enhancement role in the competent perception of primary qualities. With this framework in place, we can tell a coherent and explanatorily robust story about (human) perceptual processing.
