This article reviews the enactive approach to perception, which defends the role of objects, the subject and the environment in the configuration of the phenomenal character of perception, that is, the qualitative dimension of experience. Initially the case of hallucination and its implications in the understanding of the phenomenal character of perception is retaken. Then, two positions within analytic philosophy of perception, representationalism and disjunctivism, are critically explored. Finally, enactivism is presented as a more promising alternative.

According to a standard representationalist view cognitive capacities depend on internal content-carrying states. Recent alternatives to this view have been met with the reaction that they have, at best, limited scope, because a large range of cognitive phenomena—those involving absent and abstract features—require representational explanations. Here we challenge the idea that the consideration of cognition regarding the absent and the abstract can move the debate about representationalism along. Whether or not cognition involving the absent and the abstract requires the positing (...) of representations depends upon whether more basic forms of cognition require the positing of representations. (shrink)

Experiential imagination consists in an imaginative projection that aims at simulating the experiences one would undergo in different circumstances. It has been traditionally thought to play a role in how we build our lives, engage with other agents, and appreciate art. Although some philosophers have recently expressed doubts over the capacity of experiential imagination to offer insight into the perspective of someone other than our present-selves, experiential imagination remains a much sought-after tool. This paper substantiates pessimism about the epistemological value (...) of these uses of experiential imagination by developing an embodied approach. Our thesis is that experiential imagination is _robustly embodied_ because the _sociohistorically situated_ body makes an irreducible contribution to the imaginative project, and that, as such, it is constrained by who we are as _concrete_ agents. We argue that experiential imagination is an embodied, virtual exploration of imagined scenarios that depends on our situated history of sensorimotor and affective interactions. We conclude that experiential imagination is much more limited than commonly acknowledged, as it can hardly be divorced from who we are and where we have been. (shrink)

In this paper, I will examine the question of the space of visual imagery. I will ask whether in visually imagining an object or a scene, we also thereby imagine that object or scene as being in a space unrelated to the space we’re simultaneously perceiving or whether it is the case that the space of visual imagination is experienced as connected to the space of perceptual experience. I will argue that the there is no distinction between the spatial content (...) of visualization and the spatial content of visual perception. I will base my conclusion on two uncontroversial, empirically confirmed aspects of imagery: the perspectival character of imagery, and the possibility of superimposing an imagined object upon the perceived scene. (shrink)

In his Meditations On First Philosophy, Descartes points out the awakedreaming indistinguishability problem, which calls into question the reliability of our knowledge about the external world. The argument can be understood as follows: P1) Nothing can rule out the subject being duped into believing she is in X when she is actually in Y. P2) A person can know that she is in Y only if there is something to rule out her being duped into believing she is in X (...) when she is actually in Y. C) Hence, the subject cannot know that she is in Y. The problem can be interpreted in the form of A1 where X represents a dream state and Y represents an awake state. It can also be interpreted in the form of A2 where X represents an awake state and Y represents a dream state. I define the problem in the form of A1 and A2. The problem also involves an epistemological aspect and a phenomenological aspect. The epistemological aspect concerns the question of whether dream states and awake states are fundamentally indistinguishable. If so, the problem would be irresolvable in principle and result in a great epistemic threat. The phenomenological aspect concerns how the experience appears to the subject and affects the judgment she makes about her current state. In order to fully resolve the problem, as I will argue, we need to show that both A1 and A2 are unsound and resolve both aspects of the problem. McGinn, Ichikawa, and Sosa try to resolve the awakedreaming indistinguishability problem by defending the imagination view of dreaming. Among the three, Ichikawa holds the strongest version, where he denies that percepts and beliefs occur in dreams; McGinn denies percepts occur in dreams while Sosa denies beliefs occur in dreams. I argue that their arguments, namely drawing a sharp distinction between percepts and images along with denying beliefs occur in dreams, are misguided. They fail to resolve any form or any aspect of the indistinguishability problem. My goal of this research is to reinvigorate the imagination view of dreaming. Instead of holding a sharp distinction between percepts and images along with denying belief occur in dreams, I attempt to bridge the gap between lucid dreaming and non-lucid dreaming to defend this view. I contend that the imagination view of dreaming, upon modification, can resolve the problem. (shrink)

In this contribution I outline some ideas on what the pragmatist model of habit ontology could offer us as regards the appreciation of the constitutive role that imagery plays for social action and cognition. Accordingly, a Deweyan understanding of habit would allow for an understanding of imagery in terms of embodied cognition rather than in representational terms. I first underline the motor character of imagery, and the role its embodiment in habit plays for the anticipation of action. Secondly, I reconstruct (...) Dewey's notion of imaginative rehearsal in light of contemporary, competing models of intersubjectivity such as embodied simulation theory and the narrative practice hypothesis, and argue that the Deweyan model offers us a more encompassing framework which can be useful for reconciling these approaches. In this text I am mainly concerned with sketching a broad picture of the lines along which such a project could be developed. For this reason not all questions are given equal attention, and I shall concentrate mainly on the basic ideas, without going directly into the details of many of them. (shrink)