<DIV align=justify> Why subscribe and read Disputatio aims at publishing high-quality articles on any aspects of analytical philosophy (broadly construed), written in either English or Portuguese. Why submit Disputatio is the leading philosophy journal in the Portuguese-speaking world. It has been classified in category Q2 of the SCImago Journal Rank for the third consecutive year and in category A2 of Qualis. It was also classified in category INT2 (previously B) of the 2011 ERIH ranking of the European Science Foundation and in category B in the 2010 Australian Association of Philosophy and the Australian Research Council ranking. Disputatio practices triple-blind refereeing. On average, the reviewing process takes around four months. Similarity Check Plagiarism Screening System The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. Detailed description of the Similarity Check System can be found at: <A href="https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/">www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/</A> <HR> Sponsors Disputatio is currently sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (UIDP/00310/2020). <IMG style="HEIGHT: 49px; WIDTH: 184px" alt="Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia" src="https://www.degruyter.com/staticfiles/images/journals/DISP_FCTlogo.jpg"> </DIV>

International Journal of Philosophy

Disputatio

In June 2016, David Chalmers delivered the Petrus Hispanus Lectures at the LanCog research group, University of Lisbon, on the subject of objects, properties, and perception in virtual reality environments. The paper resulting from these lectures was subsequently published in <italic>Disputatio</italic> as “The Virtual and the Real” (vol. IX, 2017, No. 46, pp. 309–52). In it, Chalmers defends <italic>virtual realism</italic>, according to which virtual objects are bona fide digital objects with virtual counterparts of perceptible properties such as colour and shape, and perception in virtual reality environments is typically veridical rather than illusory. This special issue collects responses to Chalmers due to Claus Beisbart, Jesper Juul, Peter Ludlow, Neil McDonnell and Nathan Wildman, Alyssa Ney, Eric Schwitzgebel, and Marc Silcox; together with a detailed response by Chalmers to each paper.

Abstract

Keywords

<article-title>SI: Chalmers on Virtual Reality Introduction</article-title>

SI: Chalmers on Virtual Reality Introduction

{"article-title":"SI: Chalmers on Virtual Reality Introduction"}

What is the status of a cat in a virtual reality environment? Is it a real object? Or part of a fiction? Virtual realism, as defended by D. J. Chalmers, takes it to be a virtual object that really exists, that has properties and is involved in real events. His preferred specification of virtual realism identifies the cat with a digital object. The project of this paper is to use a comparison between virtual reality environments and scientific computer simulations to critically engage with Chalmers’s position. I first argue that, if it is sound, his virtual realism should also be applied to objects that figure in scientific computer simulations, e.g. to simulated galaxies. This leads to a slippery slope because it implies an unreasonable proliferation of digital objects. A philosophical analysis of scientific computer simulations suggests an alternative picture: The cat and the galaxies are parts of fictional models for which the computer provides model descriptions. This result motivates a deeper analysis of the way in which Chalmers builds up his realism. I argue that he buys realism too cheap. For instance, he does not really specify what virtual objects are supposed to be. As a result, rhetoric aside, his virtual realism isn’t far from a sort of fictionalism.

<article-title>Virtual Realism: Really Realism or only Virtually so? A Comment on D. J. Chalmers’s <italic>Petrus Hispanus</italic> Lectures</article-title>

Virtual Realism: Really Realism or only Virtually so? A Comment on D. J. Chalmers’s  Lectures

Are virtual objects real? I will claim that the question sets us up for the wrong type of conclusion: Chalmers (2017) argues that a virtual calculator (like other entities) is a real calculator when it is “organizationally invariant” with its non-virtual counterpart—when it performs calculation. However, virtual reality and games are defined by the fact that they always selectively implement their source material. Even the most detailed virtual car will still have an infinite range of details which are missing (gas, engines, pistons, fuel, chemical reactions, molecules, atoms). This means that even the most detailed virtual object will still have fictional aspects. Rather than argue that virtual objects are, or aren’t, real, it is preferable to think of overlaps and continuities between the fictional and the real, where even the most painstakingly detailed virtual reality implementation of a non-virtual object is still <italic>art</italic>: a human process of selection and interpretation. Virtual reality should therefore not be philosophically understood just as a technological implementation on a trajectory to perfection, but as a cultural artifact which derives its value in part from its simplification and difference from its source material.

<article-title>Virtual Reality: Fictional all the Way Down (and that’s OK)</article-title>

Virtual Reality: Fictional all the Way Down (and that’s OK)

{"article-title":"Virtual Reality: Fictional all the Way Down (and that\u2019s OK)"}

David Chalmers argues that virtual objects exist in the form of data structures that have causal powers. I argue that there is a large class of virtual objects that are social objects and that do not depend upon data structures for their existence. I also argue that data structures are themselves fundamentally social objects. Thus, virtual objects are fundamentally social objects.

<article-title>The Social Furniture of Virtual Worlds</article-title>

{"article-title":"The Social Furniture of Virtual Worlds"}

Are the objects and events that take place in Virtual Reality genuinely real? Those who answer this question in the affirmative are <italic>realists</italic>, and those who answer in the negative are <italic>irrealists</italic>. In this paper we argue against the realist position, as given by Chalmers (2017), and present our own preferred <italic>irrealist</italic> account of the virtual. We start by disambiguating two potential versions of the realist position—weak and strong— and then go on to argue that neither is plausible. We then introduce a <italic>Waltonian</italic> variety of <italic>ictionalism</italic> about the virtual, arguing that this sort of irrealist approach avoids the problems of the realist positions, fits with a unifying theory of representational works, and offers a better account of the phenomenology of engaging in virtual experiences.

<article-title>Virtual Reality: Digital or Fictional?</article-title>

{"article-title":"Virtual Reality: Digital or Fictional?"}

According to phenomenal functionalism, whether some object or event has a given property is determined by the kinds of sensory experiences such objects or events typically cause in normal perceivers in normal viewing conditions. This paper challenges this position and, more specifically, David Chalmers’s use of it in arguing for what he calls virtual realism.

<article-title>On Phenomenal Functionalism about the Properties of Virtual and Non-virtual Objects</article-title>

On Phenomenal Functionalism about the Properties of Virtual and Non-virtual Objects

I defend a how-possibly argument for Kantian (or Kant*-ian) transcendental idealism, drawing on concepts from David Chalmers, Nick Bostrom, and the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction. If we are artificial intelligences living in a virtual reality instantiated on a giant computer, then the fundamental structure of reality might be very different than we suppose. Indeed, since computation does not require spatial properties, spatiality might not be a feature of things as they are in themselves but instead only the way that things necessarily appear to us. It might seem unlikely that we are living in a virtual reality instantiated on a non-spatial computer. However, understanding this possibility can help us appreciate the merits of transcendental idealism in general, as well as transcendental idealism’s underappreciated skeptical consequences.

<article-title>Kant Meets Cyberpunk</article-title>

{"article-title":"Kant Meets Cyberpunk"}

In “The Virtual and the Real,” David Chalmers argues that there is an epistemic and ontological parity between VR and ordinary reality. My argument here is that, whatever the plausibility of these claims, they provide no basis for supposing that there is a similar parity of <italic>value</italic>. Careful reflection upon certain aspects of the transition that individuals make from interacting with real-world, physical environments to interacting with VR provides a basis for thinking that, to the extent that there are good reasons to deny the reality of virtual objects, there are also reasons to place a correspondingly <italic>higher</italic> value upon the experience of interacting with a VR environment. Chalmers’ assumption to the contrary arises from a subtle misrepresentation of how the phenomenon of <italic>cognitive penetration</italic> works in the perception of virtual objects, and from an unwillingness to acknowledge how our attitudes toward virtual environments are conditioned by the values we adopt when engaged in gameplay.

<article-title>The Transition into Virtual Reality</article-title>

{"article-title":"The Transition into Virtual Reality"}

I reply to seven commentaries on “The Virtual and the Real”. In response to Claus Beisbart, Jesper Juul, Peter Ludlow, and Neil McDonnell and Nathan Wildman, I clarify and develop my view that virtual are digital objects, with special attention to the nature of digital objects and data structures. In response to Alyssa Ney and Eric Schwitzgebel, I clarify and defend my spatial functionalism, with special attention to the connections between space and consciousness. In response to Marc Silcox, I clarify and develop my view of the value of virtual worlds, with special attention to the case where we experience these worlds as virtual.

<article-title>The Virtual as the Digital</article-title>

{"article-title":"The Virtual as the Digital"}

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Editors-in-Chief Ricardo Santos (University of Lisbon) Elia Zardini (Universidad Complutense Madrid) Managing Editors José Mestre (University of Lisbon) Diogo Santos (University of Lisbon) Advisory Board Daniel Dennett (Tufts University) Michael Devitt (City University of New York) Kit Fine (New York University) Manuel García-Carpintero (University of Barcelona) Paul Horwich (New York University) Christopher Peacocke (University of Columbia) Pieter Seuren (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics) Charles Travis (King’s College London) Timothy Williamson (University of Oxford) Editorial Board Helen Beebee (University of Manchester) João Branquinho (University of Lisbon) Pablo Cobreros (University of Navarra) Annalisa Coliva (University of Irvine) Josep Corbí (University of Valencia) Esa Díaz-León (University of Barcelona) Paul Égré (Institut Jean Nicod) Fernando Ferreira (University of Lisbon) Roman Frigg (London School of Economics) Pedro Galvão (University of Lisbon) Manuel García-Carpintero (University of Barcelona) Kathrin Glüer-Pagin (University of Stockholm) Adriana Silva Graça (University of Lisbon) Sally Haslanger (MIT) Guido Imaguire (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) António Lopes (University of Lisbon) Ofra Magidor (University of Oxford) Teresa Marques (University of Barcelona) José Martínez (University of Barcelona) Manuel Pérez-Otero (University of Barcelona) Josep Prades (University of Girona) Duncan Pritchard (University of Edinburgh) Wlodek Rabinowicz (University of Lund) Sònia Roca (University of Stirling) Sven Rosenkranz (University of Barcelona) Marco Ruffino (UNICAMP) Pablo Rychter (University of Valencia) Pedro Santos (University of Algarve) Jennifer Saul (University of Sheffield) Célia Teixeira (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) David Yates (University of Lisbon) Technical Editor José Mestre (University of Lisbon) Publisher De Gruyter Poland Bogumiła Zuga 32A Str. 01-811 Warsaw, Poland T: +48 22 701 50 15

<DIV align=justify> Disputatio is an international journal of philosophy in the analytic tradition. It is currently owned by the Philosophy Centre of the University of Lisbon and managed by the LanCog research group. The journal is a non-profit publishing venture. Since 2013, it has been published exclusively online as a fully open access journal. Disputatio was founded in 1996 by a group of philosophers led by João Branquinho, including António Branco, Fernando Ferreira, Frederico Marques and João Sàágua. It was published by the Portuguese Philosophical Society until 2002. Former editors include M.S. Lourenço, Fernando Ferreira, João Branquinho, Teresa Marques and Célia Teixeira. Since 2017, the journal has been jointly edited by Ricardo Santos and Elia Zardini. Rejection Rate: <UL> <LI>80% </LI></UL> </DIV>

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Volume 11 (2019): Issue 55 (December 2019) Special Issue: Chalmers on Virtual Reality

Volume 11 (2019): Issue 55 (December 2019)

Issues

Journal & Issues

Disputatio

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Volume 11 (2019): Issue 55 (December 2019)
Special Issue: Chalmers on Virtual Reality

Journal & Issue Details

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Articles

You can read the target article (Chalmers 2017, “The Virtual and the Real”) under discussion in this Special Issue here: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0009

You can read the target article (Chalmers 2017, “The Virtual and the Real”) under discussion in this Special Issue here: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0009

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Issues

Journal & Issues

Disputatio

Search

Volume 11 (2019): Issue 55 (December 2019)Special Issue: Chalmers on Virtual Reality

Journal & Issue Details

Search

Articles

You can read the target article (Chalmers 2017, “The Virtual and the Real”) under discussion in this Special Issue here: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0009

You can read the target article (Chalmers 2017, “The Virtual and the Real”) under discussion in this Special Issue here: https://doi.org/10.1515/disp-2017-0009

Plan your remote conference with Sciendo

Volume 11 (2019): Issue 55 (December 2019)
Special Issue: Chalmers on Virtual Reality