On March 24th 2017, we held a Research Day on the theme of perception. In the morning, our own Derek Matravers spoke on ‘Visualising Representations’…

Summary: When we visualise a tree, do we imagine seeing a tree, or just imagine the visual appearance of a tree? This esoteric question (the ‘dependency thesis’) has been much debated to the neglect of another possibility: that sometimes, although certainly not all the time, when we visualise a tree we imagine (or imagine seeing) a visual representation of a tree. This paper considers the motivation for making this suggestion, and its plausibility.

…and in the afternoon, Louise Richardson (University of York) gave a talk on ‘Smelling Sweetness’…

Summary: There are a number of obstacles to thinking that we can smell – olfactorily perceive – properties such as sweetness and saltiness. The most serious of these is the role of learning in their aetiology, which has suggested to some that what we might think of as ‘smelling sweetness’ is in fact a form of smell-taste synaesthesia. I argue that the claim that sweetness can be smelled is defensible, and that accepting it does not require taking on any controversial assumptions.