John Dilworth Professor  Department of Philosophy  Western Michigan University   Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008, U.S.A.

Recent Publications

Books

The Double Content of Art (New York: Prometheus Books, 2005). Information  Amazon
The Double Content view is the first comprehensive theory of art that is able to satisfactorily explain the nature of all kinds of artworks in a unified way — whether paintings, novels, or musical and theatrical performances. The basic thesis is that all such representational artworks involve two levels or kinds of representation: a first stage in which a concrete artifact represents an artwork, and a second stage in which that artwork in turn represents its subject matter.

Articles (PDF links)

(Forthcoming)  "Realistic Virtual Reality and Perception." Philosophical Psychology.
Realistic uses of Virtual Reality (VR) technology closely integrate user training on virtual objects with VR-assisted user interactions with real objects. This paper shows how my Interactive Theory of Perception (ITP) may be extended to cover such cases. Virtual objects are explained as concrete models (CMs) that have an inner generation mechanism, and the ITP is used to explain how VR users can both perceive such local CMs, and perceptually represent remote real objects. Also, concepts of modeling and representation are distinguished. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how the ITP methodology developed here could be extended to iconic external representations and models generally.

"Semantics Naturalized: Propositional Indexing Plus Interactive Perception," Language and Communication 29 (2009), pp. 1-25.
A concrete proposal is presented as to how semantics should be naturalized. Rather than attempting to naturalize propositions, they are treated as abstract entities that index concrete cognitive states. In turn the relevant concrete cognitive states are identified via perceptual classifications of worldly states, with the aid of an interactive theory of perception. The approach enables a broadly realist theory of propositions, truth and cognitive states to be preserved, with propositions functioning much as abstract mathematical constructs do in the non-semantic sciences, but with a much more specific propositional indexing scheme than previous naturalistic proposals were able to achieve.

"Free Action as Two Level Voluntary Control," Philosophical Frontiers 3 (2008), pp. 29-45.
The naturalistic voluntary control (VC) theory explains free will and consciousness in terms of each other. It is central to free voluntary control of action that one can control both what one is conscious of, and also what one is not conscious of. Furthermore, the specific cognitive ability or skill involved in voluntarily controlling whether information is processed consciously or unconsciously can itself be used to explain consciousness. In functional terms, it is whatever kind of cognitive processing occurs when a conscious state is voluntarily chosen. This leads to a bivalent view of cognitive processing in which there is voluntary choice either of non-routine (conscious) or routine (unconscious) kinds of processing. On this VC account, consciousness could not exist without its being possible to voluntarily choose a non-routine kind of processing.  But what makes voluntary choice itself possible? The VC theory appeals to the evolutionary inadequacy of a purely low level routine/non-routine (RN) control system that lacks voluntary control. A two level causal system in which a sophisticated upper voluntary level controls the lower RN system offers much more explanatory power and evolutionary fitness. Since the upper level is partly causally independent of the lower level, its decisions are not determined by the lower level-- hence free voluntary control is possible. So both consciousness and free voluntary control must have evolved together.

"Semantic Naturalization Via Interactive Perceptual Causality," Minds and Machines 18 (2008), pp. 527-546.
A novel semantic naturalization program is proposed. Its three main differences from informational semantics approaches are as follows. First, it makes use of a perceptually based, four-factor interactive causal relation in place of a simple nomic covariance relation. Second, it does not attempt to globally naturalize all semantic concepts, but instead it appeals to a broadly realist interpretation of natural science, in which the concept of propositional truth is off-limits to naturalization attempts. And third, it treats all semantic concepts as being purely abstract, so that concrete cognitive states are only indexed by them rather than instantiating them.

"The Abstractness of Artworks and its Implications for Aesthetics," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66:4 (Fall 2008), pp. 341-353.
Artworks have at least some necessary content properties, as do abstract entities such as propositions. But no concrete item, whether an object, event, process etc., could have any necessary content property. So no artwork could be identical with a concrete item. Hence artworks must be abstract. I also argue that artworks are only contingently connected with concrete items, just as propositions are only contingently linked to their linguistic tokens.

"The Propositional Challenge to Aesthetics,"  British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (April 2008), pp. 115-144.
It is generally accepted that Picasso might have used a different canvas as the vehicle for his painting 'Guernica', and also that the artwork 'Guernica' itself necessarily represents a certain historical episode--rather than, say, a bowl of fruit.  I argue that such a conjunctive acceptance entails a broadly propositional view of the nature of representational artworks.  In addition, I argue--via a comprehensive examination of possible alternatives--that, perhaps surprisingly, there simply is no other available conjunctive view of the nature of representational artworks in general.

"Conscious Perceptual Experience as Representational Self-Prompting," Journal of Mind and Behavior 28 no. 2 (2007), pp. 135-156.
The self-prompting theory of consciousness holds that conscious perceptual experience occurs when non-routine perceptual data prompt the activation of a plan in an executive control system that monitors perceptual input. On the other hand, routine, non-conscious perception merely provides data about the world, which indicatively describes the world correctly or incorrectly. Perceptual experience instead involves data that are about the perceiver, not the world. Their function is that of imperatively prompting the perceiver herself to do something (hence "self-prompting") via the monitoring activities of her executive control system. The theory explains both phenomenal consciousness and "what it is like" to be perceptually conscious of an item. In addition, as applied to early perceptual attention, the self-prompting theory can explain how and why consciousness evolved.

"Representationalism and Indeterminate Perceptual Content," Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 no. 3 (2007), pp. 369-387.
Representationalists who hold that phenomenal character can be explained in terms of representational content currently cannot explain counter-examples that involve indeterminate perceptual content, such as in the case of objects seen blurrily by someone with poor eyesight, or objects seen vaguely in misty conditions. But this problem can be resolved via provision of a more sophisticated double content (DC) view, according to which the representational content of perception is structured in two nested levels.   I start by outlining the DC view via consideration of four closely related cases of perceptual imprecision. Then, after a demonstration that the DC view can also explain imprecise photographic content, inadequacies in the more standard single content (SC) view are demonstrated. The results are then generalized so as to apply to the content of any kinds of non-conventional representation. The paper continues with evidence that a DC account provides a moderate rather than extreme realist account of perception, and it concludes with an initial analysis of the failure of nomic covariance accounts of information in indeterminacy cases.

"In Support of Content Theories of Art," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 no. 1 (2007), pp. 19-39.
A content theory of art would identify an artwork with the meaningful or representational content of some concrete artistic vehicle, such as the intentional, expressive, stylistic, and subject matter-related content embodied in, or resulting from, acts of intentional artistic expression by artists. Perhaps surprisingly, the resultant view that an artwork is nothing but content seems to have been without theoretical defenders until very recently, leaving a significant theoretical gap in the literature.
     I present some basic arguments in defence of such a view, including the following. Content views of linguistic communication are ubiquitous, so why should they not be applicable in artistic cases as well? Also, propositional accounts of language involve two kinds of content (the proposition expressed by a sentence, plus the worldly state of affairs it represents), both of which kinds can be used in explaining artworks. In addition, the differing modal properties of artworks and concrete artefacts can be used to show that artworks could not be, or include, such physical artefacts.

"Imaginative versus Analytical Experiences of Wines," in ed. Fritz Allhoff, Wine and Philosophy (New York: Blackwell, 2008), pp. 81-94.
The highly enjoyable experiences associated with drinking good wines have been widely misunderstood.  It is common to regard wine appreciation as an analytical or quasi-scientific kind of activity, in which wine experts carefully distinguish the precise sensory qualities of each wine, and then pass on their accumulated factual knowledge to less experienced wine enthusiasts.  However, this model of wine appreciation is seriously defective.  One good way to show its defects is to provide a better and more fundamental scientific account of what is involved in wine appreciation.  In order to do so, I outline a novel, evolutionarily based theory of perceptual consciousness that explains why there must be imaginative as well as analytical kinds of experiences of wines.  In addition, imaginative wine experiences, unlike typical imaginative artistic experiences, may be shown to involve highly individualistic, improvisatory elements that help to give wine drinking a unique place among the recreational arts.

"A Reflexive Dispositional Analysis of Mechanistic Perception," Minds and Machines 16 no. 4 (2006), pp. 479-493.
The field of machine perception is based on standard informational and computational approaches to perception. But naturalistic informational theories are widely regarded as being inadequate, while purely syntactic computational approaches give no account of perceptual content. Thus there is a significant need for a novel, purely naturalistic perceptual theory not based on informational or computational concepts, which could provide a new paradigm for mechanistic perception.  Now specifically evolutionary naturalistic approaches to perception have been--perhaps surprisingly--almost completely neglected for this purpose. Arguably perceptual mechanisms enhance evolutionary fitness by facilitating sensorily mediated causal interactions between an organism Z and items X in its environment. A 'reflexive' theory of perception of this kind is outlined, according to which an organism Z perceives an item X just in case X causes a sensory organ zi of Z to cause Z to acquire a disposition toward the very same item X that caused the perception. The rest of the paper shows how an intuitively plausible account of mechanistic perception can be developed and defended in terms of the reflexive theory. Also, a compatibilist option is provided for those who wish to preserve a distinct informational concept of perception.

"Representation as Epistemic Identification," Philo 9 no. 1 (2006), pp. 12-31.
In a previous Philo article, it was shown how properties could be ontologically dispensed with via a representational analysis: to be an X is to comprehensively represent all the properties of an X. The current paper extends that representationalist (RT) theory by explaining representation itself in parallel epistemic rather than ontological terms. On this extended RT (ERT) theory, representations of X, as well as the real X, both may be identified as providing information about X, whether partial or comprehensive. But that information does not match ontological, property-based analyses of X, so it is epistemically fundamental--hence supporting a broadly conceptualist rather than nominalist metaphysics.

"Perception, Introspection and Functional Consonance," Theoria 72 no. 4 (2006), pp. 299-318.
What is the relation between a perceptual experience of an object X as being red, and one's belief, if any, as to the nature of that experience?   A traditional Cartesian view would be that, if indeed object X does seem to be red to oneself, then one's resulting introspective belief about it could only be a conforming belief, i.e., a belief that X perceptually seems to be red to oneself--rather than, for instance, a belief that X perceptually seems to be green to oneself instead.  I offer some non-Cartesian, functionalist reasons supporting such an introspective certainty view, based on a concept of logical consonance of perceptual dispositions, according to which both experience-based and belief dispositions cannot diverge in their content, on pain of their having inconsistent manifestations in relevant situations, such as color-sorting tasks.  In addition, other views of introspection are criticized from the perspective of this consonance view.

"Perceptual Causality Problems Reflexively Resolved," Acta Analytica 20 no. 3 (2005), pp. 11-31.
Causal theories of perception typically have problems in explaining deviant causal chains.   They also have difficulty with other unusual putative cases of perception involving prosthetic aids, defective perception, scientifically extended cases of perception, and so on.   But I show how a more adequate reflexive causal theory, in which objects or properties X cause a perceiver to acquire X-related dispositions toward that very same item X, can provide a plausible and principled perceptual explanation of all of these kinds of cases.  A critical discussion of David Lewis's perceptual descriptivist views is also provided, including a defense of the logical possibility of systematic misperception or perceptual error for a perceiver, in spite of its empirical improbability.

"A Naturalistic, Reflexive Dispositional Approach to Perception," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 no. 4 (Winter 2005), pp. 583-601.
A naturalistic concept of perception should be epistemically continuous with naturalistic elements in more traditional concepts of perception, biologically possible and functionally effective, mechanistically realizable, and capable of resolving or avoiding, at least in principle, standard causality problems with respect to perception when incorporated into an appropriate naturalistic theory of perception. A reflexive dispositional theory is provided that can fully satisfy all of these requirements, as well as providing a preliminary account of perceptual intentionality and non-veridical perceptual content.

"The Perception of Representational Content," The British Journal of Aesthetics 45 no. 4 (October 2005), pp. 66-89.
How can it be true that one sees a lake when looking at a picture of a lake, since one's gaze is directed upon a flat dry surface covered in paint?   An adequate contemporary explanation cannot avoid taking a theoretical stand on some fundamental cognitive science issues concerning the nature of perception, of pictorial content, and of perceptual reference to items that, strictly speaking, have no physical existence.  A solution is proposed that invokes a broadly functionalist, naturalistic theory of perception, plus a double content analysis of perceptual interpretation, which permits non-supervenient, culturally autonomous modes of reference to be generated and artistically exploited even in a purely physical world.  In addition, a functionalist concept of broad or 'spread' reference replaces the traditional precise intentional concept of reference, which previously made reference to non-existent items theoretically intractable.

"The Reflexive Theory of Perception,"  Behavior and Philosophy 33 (2005), pp. 17-40.
The Reflexive Theory of Perception (RTP) claims that perception of an object or property X by an organism Z consists in Z being caused by X to acquire some disposition D toward X itself.  This broadly behavioral perceptual theory explains perceptual intentionality and correct versus incorrect, plus successful versus unsuccessful, perception in a plausible evolutionary framework.  The theory also undermines cognitive and perceptual modularity assumptions, including informational or purely epistemic views of perception, in that, according to the RTP, any X-caused and X-directed dispositions are genuinely perceptual--including affective, attitudinal, and immediately activated purely action-directed behavioral dispositions.  Thus the RTP has the potential to provide the foundations for a broadly behavioral counter-revolution in cognitive science.

"Susanne Langer,"  in Borchert, Donald, ed. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006.

"The Double Content of Perception," Synthese 146 no. 3 (September 2005), pp. 224-243.
Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects.  But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed?  I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself.  On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y'(X') as a higher level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data.   Hence the relevant perceptual data Y'(X') must be 'de-contextualized' or decoded to arrive at the X-related content X', resulting in a double content structure for perceptual data, that persists in higher-order conscious perceptual content.  Some implications and applications of this DC view are also discussed.

"A Double Content Theory of Artistic Representation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 no. 3 (Summer 2005), pp. 249-260.
The representational content or subject matter of a picture is normally distinguished from various non-representational components of meaning involved in artworks, such as expressive, stylistic or intentional factors. However, I show how such non subject matter components may themselves be analyzed in content terms, if two different categories of representation are recognized--aspect indication for stylistic etc. factors, and normal representation for subject matter content.
On the account given, the relevant kinds of content are hierarchically structured, with relatively unconceptualized lower level aspectual contents encoding or symbolizing higher level conceptualized representational subject matter.   Such an account is strongly supported by the latest findings of cognitive science regarding levels of conceptualization. The paper also demonstrates how the account given is compatible with the actual pictorial competence of normal viewers of visual artworks.

"Dual Recognition of Depth and Dependent Seeing," Interdisciplines: Art and Cognition Workshop, June 2005.  HTML.
An explanation of the seeing of depth both in reality and in pictures requires a dual content theory of visual recognition. In addition, there are two necessary conditions on genuine seeing of depth-related content. First, the right kinds of dependence relations must hold between a physical picture, its content and its perceiver, and second, the perceiver must be in an appropriate, functionally defined perceptual state.

"The Twofold Orientational Structure of Perception," Philosophical Psychology 18, no. 2 (April 2005), pp. 187–203.
I argue that perceptual content involves representations both of aspects of objects, and of objects themselves, whether at the level of conscious perception, or of low level perceptual processing--a double content structure. I present an 'orientational' theory of the relations of the two kinds of perceptual content, which can accommodate both the general semantic possibility of perceptual misrepresentation, and also species of it involving characteristic perceptual confusions of aspectual and intrinsic content. The resulting theoretical structure is argued to be a broadly methodological or logical one, rather than a substantive theory that is open to empirical refutation.

"Reforming Indicated Type Theories," The British Journal of Aesthetics 45 no. 1 (January 2005), pp. 11-31.
There is some intuitive plausibility to the idea that composers create musical works by indicating sonic types in a historical context. But the idea is technically indefensible as it stands, requiring a thorough representational reform that also eliminates the type-theoretic commitments of current versions. On the reformed account, musical 'indication' is an operation of high level representational interpretation of concrete sounds, that can both explain the creativity of composers, and the often successful interpretations of their listeners. This approach also bypasses contentious issues regarding the status of both indicated and 'initiated' types, as extensively discussed in the BJA.

Review of David Davies, Art as Performance (Blackwell, 2004), The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 no. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 77-80.

"Resemblance, Restriction and Content-Bearing Features," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 no. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 67-70.
In "A Restriction for Pictures and Some Consequences for a Theory of Depiction", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61, 4 (2003): 381-394, Michael Newall defended a resemblance view of depiction. He concentrated on pictures X involving a perpendicular view of the physical surface of another picture Y, and argued that the actual restrictions on what picture X can depict of Y's physical surface are best explained by a strict resemblance or similarity view. But I show that there are many problems with his approach, so that overall it is no more successful than more standard resemblance views of depiction.

"Naturalized Perception Without Information," The Journal of Mind and Behavior 25 no. 4 (2004), pp. 349-368.
The outlines of a novel, fully naturalistic theory of perception are provided, that can explain perception of an object X by organism Z in terms of reflexive causality. On the reflexive view proposed, organism Z perceives object or property X just in case X causes Z to acquire causal dispositions reflexively directed back upon X itself. This broadly functionalist theory is potentially capable of explaining both perceptual representation and perceptual content in purely causal terms, making no use of informational concepts. However, such a reflexive, naturalistic causal theory must compete with well entrenched, supposedly equally naturalistic theories of perception that are based on some concept of information, so the paper also includes some basic logical, naturalistic and explanatory criticisms of such informational views.

"Internal Versus External Representation," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 no. 1 (2004), pp. 23-36.
I argue that the concept of representation is ambiguous: a picture of 'a man', when there is no actual man that it depicts, both does, in one sense, and does not, in another sense, represent 'a man'--hence the need for a distinction of internal from external representation.  Internal representation is also defended from reductive, non-referential alternative views, and from 'prosthesis' views of picturing, according to which seeing a picture of an actual man just is seeing through the picture to that actual man himself.  The view also provides a strong foundation for a theory of reference to fictional entities.

"Artistic Expression as Interpretation," The British Journal of Aesthetics 44 no. 1 (January 2004), pp. 10-28.
According to R. G. Collingwood in The Principles of Art, art is the expression of emotion--a much-criticized view. I attempt to provide some groundwork for a defensible modern version of such a theory via some novel further criticisms of Collingwood, including the exposure of multiple ambiguities in his main concept of expression of emotion, and a demonstration that, surprisingly enough, his view is unable to account for genuinely creative artistic activities. A key factor in the reconstruction is a replacement of the concept of expression with that of interpretation: what artists do is to interpret, rather than express, their initial emotions, in creative ways that may go far beyond their initial impulses. Thus more broadly the paper attempts to show that the concept of interpretation is just as central to understanding artistic creativity as it is in the analysis of the critical appreciation of artworks.

"A Representationalist Approach to Generality," Philo 6 no. 1 (2003), pp. 216-234.
There are no unicorns, but there are representations of them, hence motivating an explanation of discourse about the property 'unicorn' in terms of discourse about representations of unicorns.  I show how to extend this strategy to apply to any kind or property terms.  References to property instances may be explained as references to comprehensive representations of them, which represent all of the (supposed) properties of such an instance--unlike 'ordinary' representations, which are distinctive in that they represent only some limited subset of such properties, through use only of some proper subset of their own (supposed) properties.  This representationalist approach results in a very economical naturalist ontology, which has no need for properties.

"A Refutation of Goodman's Type-Token Theory of Notation," Dialectica 57 no.3 (2003), pp. 330-336.

"A Counter-Example to Theatrical Type Theories," Philosophia 31 nos. 1-2 (October 2003), pp. 165-170.

 "Ariadne Revisited," Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003). Online File

"Ariadne at the Movies," Contemporary Aesthetics 1 (2003). Online File

"Medium, Subject Matter and Representation," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 41 no. 1 (Spring, 2003), pp. 45-62.

"Pictorial Orientation Matters," The British Journal of Aesthetics 43 no.1 (January 2003), pp. 39-56.

"The Fictionality of Plays," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 no. 3 (Summer 2002), pp. 263-273.

"Three Depictive Views Defended," The British Journal of Aesthetics 42 no. 3 (July 2002), pp. 259-278.

"Varieties of Visual Representation," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 32 no. 2 (June 2002), pp. 183-205.

"Four Theories of Inversion in Art and Music," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 40 no. 1 (Spring 2002), pp. 1-19.

"Theater, Representation, Types and Interpretation," American Philosophical Quarterly 39 no. 2 (April 2002), pp. 197-209.

"A Representational Theory of Artefacts and Artworks," The British Journal of Aesthetics 41 no. 4 (October 2001), pp. 353-370.

"Artworks Versus Designs," The British Journal of Aesthetics 41 no. 2 (April 2001), pp. 162-177.

Review of Joseph Margolis, What, After All, Is a Work of Art? (Penn State Press, 1999), Philosophy in Review XX no. 2 (April 2000).

Review of Richard L. Anderson, American Muse (Prentice Hall, 1999), The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 no. 1 (Winter 2000), pp. 84-85.

Review of Aaron Ridley, R. G. Collingwood (Phoenix, 1998), The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 no. 3 (Summer 1999), pp. 390-392.

"Is Ridley Charitable to Collingwood?," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 no. 4 (Fall 1998), pp. 393-396.

Aesthetics 512, Spring 2007
Philosophy of Mind, SEP Articles
Philosophy of Mind 540, Fall 2006
 

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Last Updated: June 18, 2009