Perceptual Presence

There are different ways to bring a cypress tree to mind. We might think about a
tree, speak about it, or imagine it. The cypress might come to us unbidden in
memory, or in dream. But we might also see a cypress tree, or feel its branches in
our hands. This way of bringing the tree to mind is distinctive because the tree
itself seems to be present in our experience. Our experience has perceptual
presence.

In this doctoral thesis, I defend an account of perceptual presence. My account
has descriptive and explanatory aspects. In the descriptive account, I argue that
perceptual presence is a strand of phenomenal character whereby experience
manifestly depends on mind-independent objects. I identify two forms of
manifest dependence, manifest spatial dependence and manifest temporal
dependence. Each form reflects the apparent fulfilment of an enabling condition
for successful perception. My explanatory account locates perceptual presence
within a metaphysical framework. I argue that perceptual presence can be
accommodated within a point of view-act-object framework, and reject appeals to
an attitude-content framework. I also reject the view that presence is not
perceptual at all.

Both the descriptive and explanatory aspects of the thesis are guided by the aim
of placing perceptual experience within a broader account of the mind. This
involves attending to the similarities and differences between perceptual
experience and other kinds of experience, both in their phenomenal character and
functional role. Sensory imagination and experiential memory are especially
valuable here, for though their phenomenal characters are in some ways like that
of perceptual experience, they don’t possess presence. As a companion to my
account of perceptual presence, I offer an account of the phenomenal pastness of
experiential memory. Pastness is to be explained by experiential memory’s
characteristic pattern of dependence both on its objects and its subject.