On Perceiving Absence

Abstract

Can we really perceive absences, i.e., things that aren’t there? Sartre tells us that when he arrived late for his appointment at the café, he saw the absence of his friend Pierre (who did not wait for him). Is that really what he saw? Where was it, exactly? Why didn’t Sartre see the absence of other people who were not there? Why did other people who were there not see the absence of Pierre? The perception of absences gives rise to a host of conundrums and is constantly on the verge of conceptual confusion. Here I focus on the need to distinguish the following cases: (i) perceiving an absence, (ii) perceiving something that is absent, (iii) perceiving that something is absent, and (iv) perceiving something as an absence.

About the Speaker

Achille C. Varzi is the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, USA, and was elected a member of Academia Europaea in 2019. He has published extensively in logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and literature. His book Mereology, co-authored with Aaron J. Cotnoir, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. He serves as an editor of The Journal of Philosophy and an editor for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as well as an associate or advisory editor for several other philosophical journals and book series.