Description
Book SynopsisTyler Burge presents an original study of the most primitive ways in which individuals represent the physical world. By reflecting on the science of perception and related psychological and biological sciences, he gives an account of constitutive conditions for perceiving the physical world, and thus aims to locate origins of representational mind.
Trade ReviewAs a history, Origins of Objectivity provides an illuminating position from which to view our most recent philosophical inheritance. As a philosophical account of the nature of perceptual representation, it offers an explanatorily rich, empirically grounded, comprehensive theory. As a method, it is an exemplar of the power of empirically informed philosophical inquiry. * Rebecca Copenhaver, Mind *
the most important book in the philosophy of mind for several decades ... with its publication the subject ought to enter a new, more mature phase ... an immensely distinguished contribution to this fundamental topic in philosophy. * Christopher Peacocke, Times Literary Supplement *
Origins of Objectivity is Tyler Burge's long-awaited first monograph. It is an absolutely terrific work, conceived and executed at a scale and level of ambition rarely seen in contemporary philosophy. The book's primary aim is to contribute a theory of perception; more broadly, however, it also delivers a subtle and nuanced query into the place of distinctively psychological capacities in the natural order. One can only hope that the book will come to shape discussions in the philosophy of mind and perception for years to come, not just in terms of its specific doctrines -- bold and persuasive as they are -- but also in terms of its methods. Burge's integration of insights from a vast range of empirical sciences with philosophical reflection stands out as a model for emulation. * Endre Begby, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
a comprehensive, sophisticatedly argued, and empirically well-informed critique ... unquestionably an important and impressive work in the philosophy and psychology of perception. Its scope is large, its thesis novel and wideranging in import, and its critical assessments of competing theories insightful and
Table of ContentsPreface ; PART I ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Basic Terminology: What the Questions Mean ; 3. Anti-Individualism ; PART II ; 4. Individual Representationalism in the Twentieth Century's First Half ; 5. Individual Representationalism after Mid-Century: Preliminaries ; 6. Neo-Kantian Individual Representationalism: Strawson and Evans ; 7. Language Interpretation and Individual Representationalism: Quine and Davidson ; PART III ; 8. Biological and Methodological Backgrounds ; 9. Origins ; 10. Origins of Some Representational Categories ; 11. Glimpses Forward
