Location: online via Zoom
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (CET)

Prof. Dr. Susanna Schellenberg (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Rutgers University – USA)

The Nature of Spatiotemporal Perspectives

We each occupy a specific location in the space-time manifold. As a consequence, we each have a specific spatiotemporal perspective. How things are from one spatio-temporal location differs from how they are from another. Different facts are available at different locations. Having a spatiotemporal perspective is the most primitive form of a subjective perspective. I argue that an organism can have such a primitive subjective perspective without any reflexive capacities and so without the capacity for self-representation. If my argument is right, this implies that many biological organisms other than humans can have a subjective perspective. I argue moreover that our human subjective perspective can amount to no more than such a primitive perspective. While our subjective perspective can be rich and involve self-consciousness, it can be primitive and akin to that of an organism much less cognitively sophisticated. 

Please request the Zoom link from pina(at)fh-potsdam.de