Department of History and Philosophy of Science will hold the 50th Tokyo Colloquium of Cognitive Philosophy. Everyone is welcome.

Date & Time: 26 November (Wednesday), 2014, 18:00-20:00
Venue: the 14th Building, Room 710 on the 7th floor, Komaba Campus

Presenter: John O'Dea (The university of Tokyo)
Title: "What is a Sense Modality? Replies to Objections".

Abstract
I believe that humans have five senses – hearing, seeing, touching, tasting smelling. Common as this idea is in everyday discourse, it is standardly denied or seriously questioned in philosophical and scientific circles. One of the reasons for this is that it is not obvious why we divide our perceptual contact with the world into just five types, or why these five specific types, or even what these five are, as types. I have previously defended the view (it does not originate with me) that the five sense modalities of everyday discourse are the five ways we perceptually explore the world. This is one of the subtle ways, I think, in which the possibility for action is embedded into perceptual experience. And it means that there is a very good reason why there are five (and only five) human senses. In this talk, I elaborate and defend the idea against recent objections.