Abstract: If a spinning disk casts a round shadow does the shadow also spin? When the cave guide turns out the light so that you can experience the total blackness, are you seeing in the dark? Or are you merely failing to see anything (just like your blind companion)? Seeing Dark Things uses visual riddles to explore our ability to see shadows, silhouettes, black ants, plus some things that are only metaphorically “dark” such as holes. These dark things are anomalies for the causal theory of perception: anything we see must be a cause of what we see. Roy Sorensen defends the causal theory of perception by treating absences as causes. With the help of fifty-nine figures, Sorensen proceeds bottom up from observation rather than top down from theory.Shadows are metaphysical amphibians with one foot on terra firma of common sense and the other in the murky waters of nonbeing. Seeing Dark Things portrays the causal theory of perception's confrontation with the shadows as a triumph against alien attack. Lessons from the parried threat deepen a theory that resonates strongly with common sense and science. Thus the book is an unorthodox defense of an orthodox theory.

Keywords: shadows, holes, absence, perception, causal, dark