O'Shaughnessy, Brian Emeritus Reader in Philosophy, King's College London
Print publication date: 2003 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-925672-3
doi:10.1093/0199256721.003.0022
 

Brian O'Shaughnessy
The concept of an appearance is bona fide and rule-governed. It is such that appearances can be shared, which suggests that a visual appearance is a complex universal, compounded out of colour and spatial appearance. The only appearance material objects have is their look, because uniquely in the case of sight when the Attention lands upon its colour it lands upon the object, and it lands upon the object through landing upon its secondary quality. We experience the visual appearance when we perceive the bearer to be endowed with those visible qualities that visually individuate it for us. Now the primary appearance in Physical Reality is the look of a material object, a ‘look in the round’, upon which aspect-appearance is dependent. The relation between the two is charted, together with the vital role of the understanding in experiencing ‘looks in the round’, an experience that depends upon knowledge of the objective physical situation in which it occurs. Finally, the criteria of visibility are spelt out.
Keywords: appearance, aspect-appearance, colour, look, material object, seeing, spatial appearance, visibility
doi:10.1093/0199256721.003.0022
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Part I Consciousness
Part II The Attention and Perception
Part III Seeing
Part IV Perception and the Body