Jørgen Dyrstad (KCL)

We  commonsensically take it that one of the functions of perception is to  enable us to enter in cognitive contact with a variety of elements  populating one’s environment, including events in which ordinary  material objects participate. The case of auditory perception poses a  challenge to accommodate this function of perception. A set of  phenomenological considerations seems to suggest that the only objects  present in auditory perceptual experience are sounds and not events in  which ordinary material objects participate. One approach to resisting  this view, found in the literature, is to characterise the nature of  sounds and their ontological relationship with events in which ordinary  material objects participate and, consequently, to derive an account of  auditory perception that allows that sounds aren’t the only objects  present in auditory perception. I argue that this approach fails by  putting forward a puzzle about the nature of auditory perceptual  experience. The puzzle purports to show that sounds sufficiently  determine the auditory perceptual experiences we undergo and exclude  events in which material objects participate from doing so. After  providing some motivation for the puzzle and addressing some worries, I  will point to the direction of my solution and, hence, of an alternative  approach to argue that events in which ordinary material objects  participate are present in auditory perceptual experience.