School of History and Philosophy of Science

RESEARCH SEMINAR

[The University of Sydney]

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Proprioception and Knowledge of the External World in the Long 18th Century
Antonia LoLordo (University of Virginia)

Dates: Monday, 03/08/2026
Start Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Madsen Building (F09), Room 331
How to register: Free, no registration required

Website: 
https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/<https://t.e2ma.net/click/sn2rqy/gm1o2zgb/s7ty93e>



Abstract: Mary Shepherd says that motion (or the power of motion) is a sixth 
sense (or sixth sense organ).  I argue that she is talking about 
proprioception.  Shepherd thus holds that proprioception plays a crucial role 
in acquiring knowledge of the external world, as well as in acquiring the 
concepts involved.  I further argue that proprioception plays a role in 
knowledge of the external world for many of her predecessors as well—for 
example, the Berkeley of the New Theory, Condillac, Hume, and Reid—although 
unlike Shepherd, they do not distinguish proprioception from the sense of touch.

Bio: Antonia LoLordo is George C. and Clare F. Downing Memorial Professor at 
the University of Virginia.  Her work includes Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of 
Early Modern Philosophy (Cambridge), Locke’s Moral Man (Oxford), an edition of 
Mary Shepherd’s Essays on the Perception of an External Universe (Oxford), and 
Mary Shepherd (Cambridge), as well as articles on Cugoano, Descartes, Edwards, 
Gassendi, Hume, Locke, Malebranche, and Shepherd.  She is currently working on 
a book on proprioception and knowledge of the external world in the 18th 
century.






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