Philosophy 290-5

PF Strawson introduced the problem of objective experience first in Individuals (1959) and further developed in The Bounds of Sense (1966). Drawing on Kantian themes, Strawson offered seemingly new ways of thinking about our knowledge of a mind-independent world.

We’ll be looking at Strawson’s arguments in these two works, but first we’ll put them in historical context, both with respect to the Early Modern period, and with respect to the Early Analytic rediscovery of the problem of perception. Finally, we’ll look at some of the consequences of Strawson’s discussion, and how it becomes a source for the popular idea of perceptual representation.