# AUDITORY APPEARANCES **Abstract:** It might be suggested that in auditory experience elements of the material world are not apparent to us in the way they are in vision and touch, and that this constitutes a shortcoming in the kind of cognitive contact with the world provided by auditory perception. I develop this suggestion, and then set out a way of thinking about the appearances of sound-producing events that might provide a response.1 We hear sounds. Many of the sounds we hear are produced by things happening in the world around us. Hearing the sounds produced by things happening often puts us in a position to recognise those things. The following are some mundane examples: a bottle being uncorked a match being struck and igniting someone screwing up a sheet of paper into a ball the opening of a Zippo lighter a cigarette lighter being lit winding an old clock zipping up a zip These are examples of different kinds of sound-producing event. If you were to hear the sound made by one of these events, the chances are that you would be able to recognise what kind of event it was. In the first half of this paper I ask how we recognise these events, and whether our capacity to do so exploits the same kind of cognitive contact with the material world that is provided by vision and touch. For as long as we are not subject to illusion or other sensory malfunction it is possible to acquire knowledge of the material world solely on the basis of vision or touch. There is **Authors:** [[Nudds]]