The Puzzle of Experience

Explores the puzzle of perceptual experience. In reflecting on our experience we may "reason" about it, or be "open" to it. These reflections generate a contradiction about the object of existence. This book explains why and how the contradiction arises, and considers solutions. If we reason in a certain way about our experience, we are driven to the conclusion that what is present to us - the object of our experience - is something that exists only in so far as it is present, hence that it is not part of the world. If, on the other hand, we simply open up to our experience, all we find is the world. This book sets out both to explain why we are entangled in this puzzle and to consider ways of solving it. In examining the puzzle, and possible solutions to it, Dr Valberg discusses relevant views of Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Strawson, as well as ideas from the recent philosophy of perception. Finally, he describes and analyses a manifestation of the puzzle outside philosophy, in everyday experience. Scholars and students of philosophy will find much to challenge and stimulate them in this original and clearly argued book.