Author: Roy Sorensen File Type: pdf If a spinning disk casts a round shadow does this shadow also spin? When you experience the total blackness of a cave, are you seeing in the dark? Or are you merely failing to see anything (just like your blind companion)? Seeing Dark Things uses visual riddles to explore our ability to see things that do not reflect light. Shadows and holes are anomalies for the causal theory of perception, which states that anything we see must be a cause of what we see. This requirement neatly explains why you see the front of a books jacket and not its rear when you look at it face-on. However, the causal theory has trouble explaining how you manage to see the black letters on its surface. The letters are made visible by the light they fail to reflect rather than by the light they reflect. Nevertheless, Roy Sorensen defends the causal theory of perception by treating absences as causes. His fourteen chapters draw heavily on common sense and psychology to vindicate the assumption that we perceive absences. Seeing Dark Things is philosophy for the eye. It contains fifty-nine figures designed to prompt visual judgment. Sorensen proceeds bottom-up from observation rather than top-down from theory. He regards detailed analysis of absences as premature he hopes a future theory will refine the pictorial thinking stimulated by the books riddles. Just as the biologist pursues genetics with fruit flies, the metaphysician can study absences by means of shadows. Shadows are metaphysical amphibians with one foot on the terra firma of common sense and the other in the murky waters of nonbeing. Sorensen portrays the causal theory of perceptions confrontation with the shadows as a triumph against alien attack - a victory that deepens a theory that resonates profoundly with common sense and science. In sum, Seeing Dark Things is an unorthodox defense of an orthodox theory. Seeing Dark Things is an adventurous philosophical exercise in the ontology and epistemology of the commonsense world. Its treatment of the many puzzles that surround such putative negative entities as shadows and holes will make it a classic on the literature on privations for many yeas to come. The book is also a wonderful example of how philosophy can be done without falling into the traps of the academic rigmarole. Sorensen is truly unique in his capacity to bring together classic philosophers, contemporary authors, and ticklish anecdotes. - Achille Varzi, Columbia UniversityThis is a wonderful book, full of a profound, unsettling cleverness and weirdly satisfying counter-intuitiveness that the subject requires...a great book. - Richard Marshall, BookforumSorensen is an extraordinarily fertile and imaginative philosopher, drawing widely on philosophy, physics, biology and vision science to mine his chosen quarry. His arguments, anecdotes and examples are always engaging. Add them to his effortless style and you have a rare commodity - a book of serious philosophy that many non-professionals will enjoy. - Ian Phillips, Times Literary Supplement Sorensens book is certainly fascinating and richly thought-provoking... he argues carefully and clearly in favour of his key claims, all of which merit very serious consideration, even if they sometimes provoke one to construct and defend alternative views. That, however, is surely the hallmark of the very best kind of philosophy writing. Seeing Dark Things is a model of this kind. - E.J. Lowe, PhilosophyReviewSorensen is an extraordinarily fertile and imaginative philosopher, drawing widely on philosophy, physics, biology and vision science to mine his chosen quarry. His arguements, anecdotes and examples are always engaging. Add them to his effortless style and you have a rare commodity - a book of serious philosophy that many non-professionals will enjoy Ian Phillips, Times Literary Supplement Seeing Things is a marvellous book...Sorensen has a remarkable gift for uncovering puzzles and raising hard questions. Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions is far less important than the philosophical insight one gains by reflecting on his riddles. Ian Phillips, Times Literary Supplement Sorensens book is certainly fascinating and richly thought-provoking... he argues carefully and clearly in favour of his key claims, all of which merit very serious consideration, even if they sometimes provoke one to construct and defend alternative views. That, however, is surely the hallmark of the very best kind of philosophy writing. Seeing Dark Things is a model of this kind. E.J. Lowe, Asian Studies About the AuthorRoy Sorensen is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of A Brief History of the Paradox, Vagueness and Contradiction, Pseudo-Problems, Thought Experiments, and Blindspots.

Author: Jocelyn Maclure File Type: pdf Secularism the definition of this word is as practical and urgent as income inequalities or the paths to sustainable development. In this wide-ranging analysis, Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor provide a clearly reasoned, articulate account of the two main principles of secularismequal respect, and freedom of conscienceand its two operative modesseparation of Church (or mosque or temple) and State, and State neutrality vis-a-vis religions. But more crucially, they make the powerful argument that in our ever more religiously diverse, politically interconnected world, secularism, properly understood, may offer the only path to religious and philosophical freedom.Secularism and Freedom of Conscience grew out of a very real problemQuebecs need for guidelines to balance the equal respect due to all citizens with the right to religious freedom. But the authors go further, rethinking secularism in light of other critical issues of our time. The relationship between religious beliefs and deeply-held secular convictions, the scope of the free exercise of religion, and the place of religion in the public sphere are aspects of the larger challenge Maclure and Taylor address how to manage moral and religious diversity in a free society. Secularism, they show, is essential to any liberal democracy in which citizens adhere to a plurality of conceptions of what gives meaning and direction to human life. The working model the authors construct in this nuanced account is capacious enough to accommodate difference and freedom of conscience, while holding out hope for a world in which diversity no longer divides us.(20111224)ReviewThis little book is a philosophical novella whose greatest virtue is that it may actually be read by both religious thinkers and academic philosophers--two audiences of slight interaction--and perhaps even ignite a sustained dialogue between them.--Philip S. Gorski, Yale UniversityCharles Taylor and Jocelyn Maclure elucidate the constitutive principles of secularism in this brief, well-structured, carefully argued work of philosophical analysis...Taylor and Maclure have written a sophisticated conceptual analysis. Not everyone will agree with all of their pronouncements, but their work certainly enhances ones understanding of the meaning and nature of secularism.--Graeme Voyer (Winnipeg Free Press )Taylor and Maclure have collaborated to present a clear, compelling and common-sense analysis of the vexed issue of church and state in contemporary politics. They commend a liberal-pluralist approach to cultural difference.--Dennis OBrien (America ) About the AuthorJocelyn Maclure is Professeur agrege de philosophie at Universite Laval.Charles Taylor is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at McGill University.