Abstract
According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception – specifically perception of order and duration – since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are (it is argued) not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are examined. The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Augustine, St.: 397, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pinecoffin, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1961.
Ayer, A. J.: 1940, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, Macmillan, London.
Binkofski, F. and R. A. Block: 1996, 'Accelerated Time after Left Frontal Cortex Lesion', Neurocase 2, 485–493.
Block, Richard and Dan Zakay: 2001, 'Retrospective and Prospective Timing: Memory, Attention, and Consciousness', in Hoerl and McCormack, pp. 59–76
Church, R. M. and H. Broadbent: 1990, 'Alternative Representations of Time, Number, and Rate', Cognition 37, 55–81.
Davidson, Donald: 1967, 'Causal Relations', in Essays on Actions and Events, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 149–162.
Dennett, Daniel: 1991, Consciousness Explained, Allen Lane, London.
Friedman, William J.: 1990, About Time: Inventing the Fourth Dimension, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Gibbon, J., R. M. Church, and W. Meck: 1984, 'Scalar Timing in Memory', in J. Gibbon and L.Allan (eds.), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 432: Timing and Time Perception, New York Academy of Sciences, New York.
Goldman, Alvin: 1967, 'A Causal Theory of Knowing', Journal of Philosophy 64, 357–372.
Goldman, Alvin: 1976, 'Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge', Journal of Philosophy 73, 771–791.
Grice, H. P.: 1961, 'The Causal Theory of Perception', Aristotelian Society Supplementary 35, 121–152.
Hale, Bob: 1987, Abstract Objects, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Hirsh, I. J. and J. E. Sherrick: 1961) 'Perceived Order in Different Sense Modalities', Journal of Experimental Psychology 62, 423–432.
Hoerl, Christoph and Teresa McCormack (eds.): 2001, Time and Memory: Issues in Philosophy and Psychology, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Jackson, Frank: 1977, Perception, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
James, William: 1890, The Principles of Psychology, Henry Holt, New York.
Le Poidevin, Robin: 1992, 'On the Acausality of Time, Space, and Space-Time', Analysis 52, 146–154.
Le Poidevin, Robin: 1999, 'Can Beliefs Be Caused By Their Truth-Makers?', Analysis 59, 148–156.
Le Poidevin, Robin: 2003, Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Libet, Benjamin: 1981, 'The Experimental Evidence for Subjective Referral of a Sensory Experience Backwards in Time: Reply to P. S. Churchland', Philosophy of Science 48, 182–197.
Mackie, J. L.: 1977, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Mackintosh, N. J.: 1983, Conditioning and Associative Learning, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
McTaggart, J. E.: 1908, 'The Unreality of Time', Mind 17, 457–474.
McTaggart, J. E.: 1927, The Nature of Existence, Vol. II, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Part of Chapter 33 reprinted under the title 'The Unreality of Time', in Robin Le Poidevin and Murray MacBeath (eds.), The Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993, pp. 23–34.
Mellor, D. H.: 1995, The Facts of Causation, Routledge, London.
Mellor, D. H.: 1998, Real Time II, Routledge, London.
Moore: 2001, 'Apperception and the Unreality of Tense', in Hoerl and McCormack, pp. 375–391.
Newton-Smith, W. H.: 1980, The Structure of Time, Routledge, London.
Nerlich, Graham: 1994, What Spacetime Explains, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ornstein, Robert: 1972, The Psychology of Consciousness, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Peacocke, Christopher: 1979, Holistic Explanation: Action, Space, Interpretation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Pöppel, Ernst: 1978, 'Time Perception', in Richard Held et al. (eds.), Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VIII: Perception, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 713–729.
Reichenbach, Hans: 1958, The Philosophy of Space and Time, Dover, London.
Russell, Bertrand: 1912, The Problems of Philosophy, OPUS edn., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1959.
Strawson, P. F.: 1974, 'Causation in Perception', in Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays, Methuen, London.
Swain, Marshall: 1979, Reasons and Knowledge, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.
Tooley, Michael: 1997, Time, Tense, and Causation, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Treisman, Michel: 1999, 'The Perception of Time: Philosophical Views and Psychological Evidence', in Jeremy Butterfield (ed.), The Arguments of Time, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 217–246.
Wearden, J. H.: 2001, 'Internal Clocks and the Representation of Time', in Hoerl and McCormack, pp. 37–58.
Woodrow, H.: 1951, 'Time Perception', in S. S. Stevens (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Psychology, John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 1224–1236.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Poidevin, R.L. A Puzzle Concerning Time Perception. Synthese 142, 109–142 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SYNT.0000047710.71824.b1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SYNT.0000047710.71824.b1