ABSTRACT

It seems plausible that visual experiences of darkness have perceptual phenomenal content that clearly differentiates them from absences of visual experiences. I argue, relying on psychological results concerning auditory attention, that the analogous claim is true about auditory experiences of silence. More specifically, I propose that experiences of silence present empty spatial directions like ‘right’ or ‘left’, and so have egocentric spatial content. Furthermore, I claim that such content is genuinely auditory and phenomenal in the sense that one can, in principle, recognize that one is experiencing silence. This position is far from obvious, as the majority of theories concerning silence perception do not ascribe perceptual phenomenal content to experiences of silence.

摘要

黑暗的视觉体验具有感知现象的内容，这似乎是合理的，这清楚地将它们与缺乏视觉体验区分开来。我根据有关听觉注意力的心理学结果论证，类似的主张对于沉默的听觉体验是正确的。更具体地说，我提出沉默的体验呈现空的空间方向，如“右”或“左”，因此具有以自我为中心的空间内容。此外，我声称这样的内容是真正的听觉和非凡的，因为原则上一个人可以认识到一个人正在经历沉默。这一立场远非显而易见，因为大多数关于沉默感知的理论并未将感知现象内容归因于沉默体验。