An introduction to contemporary debates in philosophy of perception.

This chapter considers how Liberal Naturalism interacts with the main problems and theories in the philosophy of perception. After briefly summarising the traditional philosophical problems of perception and outlining the standard philosophical theories of perceptual experience, it discusses whether a Liberal Naturalist outlook should incline one towards or away from any of these standard theories. Particular attention is paid to the work of John McDowell and Hilary Putnam, two of the most prominent Liberal Naturalists, whose work was (...) also very influential in the philosophy of perception. There is also a section focusing on colour, an especially important topic not only for debates about perceptual experience but also for debates concerning how our ‘manifest image’ of the natural world relates to our best theories in the physical sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that it is a promising avenue of research to consider philosophy of perception to be a guide to aesthetics. More precisely, my claim is that many, maybe even most, traditional problems in aesthetics are in fact about philosophy of perception that can, as a result, be fruitfully addressed with the help of the conceptual apparatus of philosophy of perception. This claim may sound provocative, but after qualifying (...) what I mean by aesthetics (to be contrasted with philosophy of art) and by philosophy of perception, it may be easier to accept. (shrink)

Overview of recent work in philosophy of perception.

In the philosophy of perception, direct realism has come into vogue. Philosophical authors assert and assume that what their readers want, and what anyone should want, is some form of direct realism. There are disagreements over precisely what form this direct realism should take. The majority of positions in favor now offer a direct realism in which objects and their material or physical properties constitute the contents of perception, either because we have an immediate or intuitive acquaintance (...) with those objects and properties, or because our perceptual states have informational content that represents the properties of those objects (and which is not itself an object of perception and has no specifically subjective aspect). This paper considers various forms of perceptual realism, including, for purposes of comparison, the largely abandoned indirect or representative realism. After surveying the variety of perceptual realisms and considering their various commitments, I introduce some considerations concerning the phenomenology of visual space that cause trouble for most forms of direct realism. These considerations pertain to the perception of objects in the distance and, secondarily, to the perception of shapes at a slant. I argue that one of the lesser known varieties of perceptual realism, critical direct realism, can meet the challenges offered by the facts of spatial perception. (shrink)

This paper investigates the nature of reality by looking at the philosophical debate between realism and idealism and at scientific investigations in quantum physics and at recent studies of animal senses, neurology and cognitive psychology. The concept of perceptual relativity is examined and this involves looking at sense perception in other animals and various examples of perceptual relativity in science. It will be concluded that the universe is observer dependent and that there is no reality independent of the observer, (...) which is knowable to the observer. The paper concludes by an investigation of what an observer dependent universe would be like and that recognition of an observer dependent world would lead to a more open minded and tolerant world. (shrink)

Perception is our primary means of accessing the external world. What is the nature of this core mental process? Although this question is at the center of scientific research on perception, it has also long been explored by philosophers, who ask fundamental questions about our capacity to perceive: Do our different senses represent the world in commensurable ways? How much of our environment can we be aware of at one time? Which aspects of perception are ‘objective’, and (...) which ‘subjective’? What properties count as perceptual in the first place? Although these parallel research programs typically proceed independently in contemporary scholarship, previous eras recognized more active collaboration and interaction across philosophical and scientific approaches to perception. Here, we review an emerging research focus that has begun to reunite these approaches, by putting several long-standing philosophical questions to empirical test. Unlike more general sources of philosophical inspiration, the work described here draws a direct line from a prominent philosophical conjecture or thought experiment about perception to a key test of that question in the laboratory—such that the relevant experimental work would not (and even could not) have proceeded as it did without the preceding philosophical discussion. Finally, we explore themes arising from these successful interactions, and point to further philosophical questions that might be amenable to empirical approaches. (shrink)

This paper investigates the nature of reality by looking at the philosophical debate between realism and idealism and at scientific investigations in quantum physics and at recent studies of animal senses, neurology and cognitive psychology. The concept of perceptual relativity is examined and this involves looking at sense perception in other animals and various examples of perceptual relativity in science. It will be concluded that the universe is observer dependent and that there is no reality independent of the observer, (...) which is knowable to the observer. The paper concludes by an investigation of what an observer dependent universe would be like and that recognition of an observer dependent world would lead to a more open minded and tolerant world. (shrink)

This dissertation explores several illuminating points of intersection between the philosophy of perception and the philosophy of vagueness. Among other things, I argue: (i) that it is entirely unhelpful to theorize about perception or consciousness using Nagelian "what it's like" talk; (ii) that a popular recent account of perceptual phenomenology (representationalism) conflicts with our best theory of vagueness (supervaluationism); (iii) that there are no vague properties, for Evans-esque reasons; (iv) that it is impossible to insert "determinacy" (...) operators into representationalism in a truth-preserving manner; and (v) that strong versions of dualism are unable to accommodate the possibility of borderline consciousness. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Scots Philosophical Association and the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Nanay provides an original and interesting discussion of the connections between aesthetics and the philosophy of perception. According to Nanay, many topics within aesthetics are about experiences of various kinds. Aesthetics is not philosophy of perception, but there are important questions within aesthetics that we can address (...) in an interesting way by using the conceptual apparatus of the philosophy of perception.The main theme of this book is the role of attention in those perceptual experiences that are relevant for aesthetics. Nanay claims that in some paradigmatic examples of aesthetic experiences our attention is exercised in the way of being distributed across properties. He argues that various versions of distributed attention can explain our experiences of aesthetic... (shrink)

Perception is the ultimate source of our knowledge about contingent facts. It is an extremely important philosophical development that starting in the last quarter of the twentieth century, philosophers have begun to change how they think of perception. The traditional view of perception focussed on sensory receptors; it has become clear, however, that perceptual systems radically transform the output of these receptors, yielding content concerning objects and events in the external world. Adequate understanding of this process requires (...) that we think of perception in new ways—how it operates, the differences among the modalities, and integration of content provided by the individual senses. Philosophers have developed new analytic tools, and opened themselves up to new ways of thinking about the relationship of perception to knowledge. The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception is a collection of entries by leading researchers that reviews these new directions in philosophical thought. The Introduction to the Handbook reviews the history of the subject from its beginnings in ancient Greece to the nineteenth century, and the way that science and philosophy have together produced new conceptions during the last hundred years. It shows how the new thinking about perception has led to a complex web of theories. (shrink)

A recurring theme dominates recent philosophical debates about the nature of conscious perception: naïve realism’s opponents claim that the view is directly contradicted by empirical science. I argue that, despite their current popularity, empirical arguments against naïve realism are fundamentally flawed. The non-empirical premises needed to get from empirical scientific findings to substantive philosophical conclusions are ones the naïve realist is known to reject. Even granting the contentious premises, the empirical findings do not undermine the theory, given its overall (...) philosophical commitments. Thus, contemporary empirical research fails to supply any new argumentative force against naïve realism. I conclude that, as philosophers of mind, we would be better served spending a bit less time trying to wield empirical science as a cudgel against our opponents, and a bit more time working through the implications of each other’s views – something we can accomplish perfectly well from the comfort of our armchairs. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to outline Dorothy Emmet’s (1904-2000) account of perception in The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking (published in 1945). Emmet’s account of perception is part of a wider attempt to rehabilitate metaphysics in the face of logical positivism and verificationism (of the kind espoused most famously by A. J. Ayer). It is thus part of an attempt to stem the tide of anti-metaphysical thought that had become widespread in British philosophy by the middle (...) of the twentieth century. In pursuit of that aim, Emmet draws on the work of figures like A. N. Whitehead and Henri Bergson, rather than more mainstream analytic thinkers like Bertrand Russell or G. E. Moore, for inspiration. Indeed, Emmet’s ideas stand in contrast to the prevailing tides of British philosophy during her lifetime. This makes Emmet a figure of considerable historical interest; she does not fit neatly into the traditional narrative of the continental-analytic divide, proposed a way forward for metaphysics in one of its greatest times of crisis, and pre-empted certain movements in more contemporary philosophy of perception. By espousing her unique account of perception and drawing out its connections to her wider philosophy, I hope to put Emmet ‘on the map’, so to speak, of twentieth century British thought. (shrink)

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion (...) of AI; so we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.

My replies to Errol Lord, Adam Pautz, and Peter Railton's commentaries on The Rationality of Perception (2017).

It will be obvious to anyone with a slight knowledge of twentieth-century analytic philosophy that one of the central themes of this kind of philosophy is the nature of perception: the awareness of the world through the five senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing. Yet it can seem puzzling, from our twenty-first-century perspective, why there is a distinctively philosophical problem of perception at all. For when philosophers ask ‘what is the nature of perception?’, (...) the question can be confused with other, purely empirical, questions. For example: how do our sense-organs actually work? What are the mechanisms of smell and taste? How do vision and touch actually provide us with information about the world around us? There is much general agreement, in its broad outlines, about how to answer such questions empirically; but it is not clear what role, if any, philosophy has to play in answering these empirical questions. So if these were the only questions about the nature of perception, then it would not be clear exactly what the philosophy of perception is supposed to be about. (shrink)

You can perceive things, in many respects, as they really are. For example, you can correctly see a coin as circular from most angles. Nonetheless, your perception of the world is perspectival. The coin looks different when slanted than when head-on, and there is some respect in which the slanted coin looks similar to a head-on ellipse. Many hold that perception is perspectival because you perceive certain properties that correspond to the “looks” of things. I argue that this (...) view is misguided. I consider the two standard versions of this view. What I call the PLURALIST APPROACH fails to give a unified account of the perspectival character of perception, while what I call the PERSPECTIVAL PROPERTIES APPROACH violates central commitments of contemporary psychology. I propose instead that perception is perspectival because of the way perceptual states are structured from their parts. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy of consciousness aims to investigate and explain our thinking about phenomenally conscious states. Based on empirical studies, researchers have argued (a) that we lack a folk concept of consciousness, (b) that we do not think entities like Microsoft feel regret, (c) that unfelt pains are widely accepted, and (d) that people do not attribute phenomenally conscious states to duplicated hamsters. In this article, I review these and other intriguing claims about people’s understanding of phenomenal consciousness. In doing (...) so, I also show why experimental philosophy of consciousness is challenging, although perhaps not quite as daunting as studying phenomenal consciousness itself. (shrink)

Zero provides a challenge for philosophers of mathematics with realist inclinations. On the one hand it is a bona fide cardinal number, yet on the other it is linked to ideas of nothingness and non-being. This paper provides an analysis of the epistemology and metaphysics of zero. We develop several constraints and then argue that a satisfactory account of zero can be obtained by integrating an account of numbers as properties of collections, work on the philosophy of absences, and (...) recent work in numerical cognition and ontogenetic studies. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to revive wave theory in the philosophy of sound. Wave theory identifies sounds with compression waves. Despite its wide acceptance in the scientific community as the default position, many philosophers have rejected wave theory and opted for different versions of distal theory instead. According to this current majority view, a sound has its stationary location at its source. I argue against this and other alternative philosophical theories of sound and develop wave theory into a more defensible (...) form. Philosophers of sound tend to emphasise how sounds are experienced to be in their arguments. Most often, it is assumed that that which appears to be a distally located bearer of auditory properties in an auditory experience is a sound. Chapter 1 argues that if this distal entity is the sound source instead, many of the existing theories of sound will be severely affected. Chapter 2 discusses auditory perception and criticises the common assumption that we hear non-sound entities in virtue of hearing sounds. I show that this assumption begs the question against certain theories of sound and that the contrary view that sound sources can be directly heard is more plausible. If sound sources can be directly heard, then features commonly attributed to sounds based on auditory experiences might rather be features of sound sources. I examine eight of such features in Chapter 3. Only four of them survive. Chapters 4 and 5 review the existing theories of sound. After a taxonomy of existing theories of sound, each theory is criticised one-by-one. Some of them are problematic precisely because they rely on the implausible assumption that that which appears to be distally located in an auditory experience is a sound rather than a sound source. Lastly, Chapter 6 focuses on wave theory. It begins with two positive arguments for wave theory in general, followed by my replies to two common objections in the literature. I then move on to develop my version of wave theory. There are two core aspects of my view. The first one is a metaphysics of compression waves; the second is an account of what it is to hear compression waves. After comparing my view with a similar theory, I demonstrate the explanatory power of my view in two steps. First, the eight commonly accepted features of sounds examined in Chapter 3 are revisited. It turns out that my view can accommodate all of them. Second, explanations for four special sound-related phenomena are offered at the end of the chapter. I conclude in the last chapter with the suggestion that, as a philosopher, the best way to defend wave theory is to offer a better understanding of auditory perception which explains how compression waves are experienced. (shrink)

If our experiences are cognitively penetrable, they can be influenced by our antecedent expectations, beliefs, or other cognitive states. Theorists such as Churchland, Fodor, Macpherson, and Siegel have debated whether and how our cognitive states might influence our perceptual experiences, as well as how any such influences might affect the ability of our experiences to justify our beliefs about the external world. This article surveys views about the nature of cognitive penetration, the epistemological consequences of denying cognitive penetration, and the (...) epistemological consequences of affirming cognitive penetration. (shrink)

This commentary critically examines the view of the relationship between perception and memory in Ned Block's *The Border Between Seeing and Thinking*. It argues that visual working memory often stores the outputs of perception without altering their formats, allowing online visual perception to access these memory representations in computations that unfold over longer timescales and across eye movements. Since Block concedes that visual working memory representations are not iconic, we should not think of perceptual representations as exclusively (...) iconic either. (shrink)

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. These issues are central to any understanding of Kant’s critical philosophy and they bear upon contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. Fourteen specially written essays address such questions as: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? What kinds of empirical models can be given of these operations? In what sense, and in what ways, (...) are intuitions object-dependent? How should we understand the nature of the imagination? What is inner sense, and what does it mean to say that time is the form of inner sense? Can we cognize ourselves through inner sense? How do we self-ascribe our beliefs and what role does self-consciousness play in our judgments? Is the will involved in judging? What kind of knowledge can we have of the self ? And what kind of knowledge of the self does Kant proscribe? These essays showcase the depth of Kant’s writings in the philosophy of mind, and the centrality of those writings to his wider philosophical project. Moreover, they show the continued relevance of Kant’s writings to contemporary debates about the nature of mind and self. Contents: 0. Introduction Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson 1. Kant, The Philosophy Of Mind, And Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy Anil Gomes 2. Synthesis And Binding Lucy Allais 3. Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation Of Objects: Empirical Models Of Sensibility’s Operation Katherine Dunlop 4. Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent? Stefanie Grüne 5. Intuition And Presence Colin McLear 6. Imagination And Inner Intuition Andrew Stephenson 7. Inner Sense And Time Ralf M. Bader 8. Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, A Problem For (Almost) Every Interpretation Of The Refutation Of Idealism Andrew Chignell 9. A Kantian Critique Of Transparency Patricia Kitcher 10. Judging For Reasons: On Kant And The Modalities Of Judgment Jessica Leech 11. Kant On Judging And The Will Jill Vance Buroker 12. Self and Selves Ralph C. S. Walker 13. Subjects Of Kant’s First Paralogism Tobias Rosefeldt 14. The Lessons Of Kant’s Paralogisms Paul Snowdon. (shrink)

Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception - Irfan Ajvazi.

When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect—an aspect that remains stable across changes in perspective—and a perspectival aspect—an aspect that changes (...) depending on one's perspective on the object. How should we account for the perspectival aspect of spatial perception? We present a framework within which to discuss the perspectival aspect of perception and put forward three desiderata that any account of the perspectival aspect of perception should satisfy. We discuss views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of constitutively mind-dependent appearance properties as well as views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of representations of mind-independent perspectival properties. (shrink)

Perception is typically distinguished from cognition. For example, seeing is importantly different from believing. And while what one sees clearly influences what one thinks, it is debatable whether what one believes and otherwise thinks can influence, in some direct and non-trivial way, what one sees. The latter possible relation is the cognitive penetration of perception. Cognitive penetration, if it occurs, has implications for philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. This paper offers an (...) analysis of the phenomenon, its theoretical consequences, and a variety of experimental results and possible interpretations of them. The paper concludes by proposing some constraints for analyses and definitions of cognitive penetrability. (shrink)

Suppose our visual experiences immediately justify some of our beliefs about the external world — that is, justify them in a way that does not rely on our having independent reason to hold any background belief. A key question now arises: Which of our beliefs about the external world can be immediately justified by experiences? I address this question in epistemology by doing some philosophy of mind. In particular, I evaluate the following proposal: if your experience e immediately justifies (...) you in believing that p , then (i) e has the content that p , and (ii) e ’s having the content that p is fixed by what it is like to have e . I start by clarifying this proposal and surveying the case in its favour. I then argue against the proposal and develop an alternative. The discussion shows what role visual consciousness plays and does not play in the justification of perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

With Jan Degenaar and Kevin O’Regan’s (D&O) critique of (what they call) ‘autopoietic enactivism’ as point of departure, this article seeks to revisit, refine, and develop phenomenology’s significance for the enactive view. Arguing that D&O’s ‘sensorimotor theory’ fails to do justice to perceptual meaning, the article unfolds by (1) connecting this meaning to the notion of enaction as a meaningful co-definition of perceiver and perceived, (2) recounting phenomenological reasons for conceiving of the perceiving subject as a living body, and (3) (...) showing how the phenomenological perspective does a better job at fulfilling D&O’s requirement for grounding notions of mentality in ‘outer’ criteria than they do. The picture that thus emerges is one of perceptual meaning as an integration of lived, living, and behavioral aspects – a structure of behavior that cannot be captured by appeal to sensorimotor capacities alone but that is adequately illuminated by the enactive notion of adaptive autonomy. (shrink)

Religious faith may manifest itself, among other things, as a mode of seeing the ordinary world, which invests that world imaginatively (or inspiredly) with an unseen depth of divine intention and spiritual significance. While such seeing may well be truthful, it is also unavoidably constructive, involving the imagination in its philosophical sense of the capacity to organize underdetermined or ambiguous sense date into a whole or gestalt. One of the characteristic ways in which biblical narratives inspire and teach is by (...) renewing their characters’ and readers’ imagination. The texts do so not inexorably but in a similar way as (other) works of art. This paper therefore investigates the ways in which works of art engage and develop the imagination, and thereby enable renewed perceptual and cognitive engagement with the world. The paper introduces predictive processing as a helpful psychological theory for analyzing this dynamic, and outlines questions for further research. (shrink)

I argue that perception is necessarily situation-dependent. The way an object is must not just be distinguished from the way it appears and the way it is represented, but also from the way it is presented given the situational features. First, I argue that the way an object is presented is best understood in terms of external, mind-independent, but situation-dependent properties of objects. Situation-dependent properties are exclusively sensitive to and ontologically dependent on the intrinsic properties of objects, such as (...) their shape, size, and color, and the situational features, such as the lighting conditions and the perceiver’s location in relation to the perceived object. Second, I argue that perceiving intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on representing situation-dependent properties. Recognizing situation-dependent properties yields four advantages. It makes it possible to embrace the motivations that lead to phenomenalism and indirect realism by recognizing that objects are presented a certain way, while holding on to the intuition that subjects directly perceive objects. Second, it acknowledges that perceptions are not just individuated by the objects they are of, but by the ways those objects are presented given the situational features. Third, it allows for a way to accommodate the fact that there is a wide range of viewing conditions or situational features that can count as normal. Finally, it makes it possible to distinguish perception and thought about the same object with regard to what is represented. (shrink)

How does the philosophical debate between naive realism and intentionalism relate to the psychological debate between ecological theories and constructivist theories? The participants in each debate take themselves to be doing something distinctive, but I show that characterizing the distinction is difficult: the theories in both debates use inference to the best explanation to draw contingent conclusions about the constitutive nature of perception. I argue that both debates concern the metaphysics of perception, and that philosophers of perception (...) are wrong to think that constructivist and ecological theories are engaged in a distinct and non-metaphysical task. (shrink)

How much does stimulus input shape perception? The common-sense view is that our perceptions are representations of objects and their features and that the stimulus structures the perceptual object. The problem for this view concerns perceptual biases as responsible for distortions and the subjectivity of perceptual experience. These biases are increasingly studied as constitutive factors of brain processes in recent neuroscience. In neural network models the brain is said to cope with the plethora of sensory information by predicting stimulus (...) regularities on the basis of previous experiences. Drawing on this development, this chapter analyses perceptions as processes. Looking at olfaction as a model system, it argues for the need to abandon a stimulus-centred perspective, where smells are thought of as stable percepts, computationally linked to external objects such as odorous molecules. Perception here is presented as a measure of changing signal ratios in an environment informed by expectancy effects from top-down processes. (shrink)

This essay is an introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour. Why has the examination of many different aspects of colour been a prominent feature in philosophy, to such an extent that the topic is worthy of a handbook? Here are two related answers. First, colours are exceedingly familiar, seemingly simple features that become enigmatic under scrutiny, and they are difficult to capture in any familiar-sounding, unsophisticated theory. Second, through colour one can confront various problems that (...) span the breadth of philosophy, including problems pertaining to perception, the mind-body relation, the nature of science, scepticism, vagueness, meta-ethics, and aesthetics. In this introduction we elaborate and guide the reader to the essays in the rest of this volume. (shrink)

Philosophy of immunology is a subfield of philosophy of biology dealing with ontological and epistemological issues related to the studies of the immune system. While speculative investigations and abstract analyses have always been part of immune theorizing, until recently philosophers have largely ignored immunology. Yet the implications for understanding the philosophical basis of organismal functions framed by immunity offer new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology and medicine. Developed in the context of history of medicine, theoretical biology, and (...) medical anthropology, philosophy of immunology differs from these related branches of study in its focus on traditional philosophical questions concerning identity, individuality, ecology, cognition, scientific methodology and theory construction. This broad agenda derives from immunology’s multifaceted research program that has developed from its initial clinical challenges of host defense, transplantation, autoimmunity, tumor immunology, and allergy. In addition to these well-established research areas, immunity is now understood to play a central role in other physiological functions, development, ecology, and evolutionary mechanics. Holding together these diverse domains of inquiry lie philosophical commitments oriented by organismal identity. In this regard, pertinent issues are raised concerning cognition (organization of immune perception and information processing), the character of individuality (framed by the ecological context of immune-mediated assimilation and rejection), and the dynamics of complex systems (understood as holistic systems biology). Indeed, immunology, in the context of cognitive science, evolutionary biology, environmental sciences, and development provides multi-focal perspectives for philosophy of science. (shrink)

What is the biological function of perception? I hold perception, especially visual perception in humans, has the biological function of accurately representing the environment. Tyler Burge argues this cannot be so in Origins of Objectivity (Oxford, 2010), for accuracy is a semantical relationship and not, as such, a practical matter. Burge also provides a supporting example. I rebut the argument and the example. Accuracy is sometimes also a practical matter if accuracy partly explains how perception contributes (...) to survival and reproduction. (shrink)

The question of what we immediately perceive from the first-person point of view has been an issue of philosophizing since the beginning of Western philosophy. However, many philosophers have not considered all theoretical and practical consequences concerning identity and causation in perceptual experience between a perceiver and the external world. Despite their meritorious studies, philosophers have failed to completely understand how the causal series of events affects what we immediately experience. Using facts relating to perceivers, logical reasoning, introspection, and (...) philosophical theories, the aim of this research is to show that objects of sense have been contradictorily and confusedly associated with several objects in philosophy of perception. The research problem is that of whether the entity external to a perceiver is identical to the immediate object of perceptual experience. The research starts from the basic beliefs that things appear in experience and that there is causality in perceptual experience. After presenting philosophical theories of perception, the concept ‘sense-datum’, a characterization of ‘perception’, and basic arguments for perceiving the inner private sense-datum, the study examines Bertrand Russell’s and G. E Moore’s arguments for a claim that we always perceive mind-internal sense-data. This claim is problematic if ‘sense-datum’ is considered as being under the category of substance. Nonetheless, evidence for a claim in direct realism and eliminative materialism that the immediate object of perception is an external entity leads to circularity and identity problems. Finally, by means of a demonstration based on understanding and facts in perceivers and perceptual phenomena, the research concludes that the external entity is not identical to the immediate object of perceptual experience. Perceptual experience does not directly reach the external world, and the objects of sense are not independent of the perceiver. (shrink)

The question of what we immediately perceive from the first-person point of view has been an issue of philosophizing since the beginning of Western philosophy. However, many philosophers have not considered all theoretical and practical consequences concerning identity and causation in perceptual experience between a perceiver and the external world. Despite their meritorious studies, philosophers have failed to completely understand how the causal series of events affects what we immediately experience. Using facts relating to perceivers, logical reasoning, introspection, and (...) philosophical theories, the aim of this research is to show that objects of sense have been contradictorily and confusedly associated with several objects in philosophy of perception. The research problem is that of whether the entity external to a perceiver is identical to the immediate object of perceptual experience. The research starts from the basic beliefs that things appear in experience and that there is causality in perceptual experience. After presenting philosophical theories of perception, the concept ‘sense-datum’, a characterization of ‘perception’, and basic arguments for perceiving the inner private sense-datum, the study examines Bertrand Russell’s and G. E Moore’s arguments for a claim that we always perceive mind-internal sense-data. This claim is problematic if ‘sense-datum’ is considered as being under the category of substance. Nonetheless, evidence for a claim in direct realism and eliminative materialism that the immediate object of perception is an external entity leads to circularity and identity problems. Finally, by means of a demonstration based on understanding and facts in perceivers and perceptual phenomena, the research concludes that the external entity is not identical to the immediate object of perceptual experience. Perceptual experience does not directly reach the external world, and the objects of sense are not independent of the perceiver. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On the traditional picture, accidents must inhere in substances in order to exist. Berkeley famously argues that a particular class of accidents—the sensible qualities—are mere ideas—entities that depend for their existence on minds. To defend this view, Berkeley provides us with an elegant alternative to the traditional framework: sensible qualities depend on a mind, not in virtue of inhering in it, but in virtue of being perceived by it. This metaphysical insight, once correctly understood, gives us the resources to (...) solve a central problem that still plagues the philosophy of perception—the problem of how, given the power of the mind to create phenomenally rich experiences, ordinary perception can nonetheless be said to acquaint us with the mind-independent world. (shrink)

Putting forward an original analysis of perceiving as a cognitive attitude, as it contrasts with judging, believing and knowing, the author approaches several issues in the philosophy of perception, such as differences between presentation and representation, the natures of concepts and categorization, the justification of perceptual beliefs and their role in the justification of knowledge. His approach is influenced by phenomenology and by psychology and neuroscience of vision.

In the current philosophy of perception, a debate about whether concepts permeate perceptual states in constituting the perceptual object or not has been widely discussed. Analytic philosophers and phenomenologists participate in this debate likewise, but it is also a debate in Kantian scholarship since the conceptualists’ thesis goes back to Kant’s Criticism and neo-Kantians already discussing such theory against any philosophy of immediate experience long before Wilfrid Sellars had started his attack against the so-called myth of the (...) given. In light of this historical panorama, the article reconstructs Ernst Cassirer’s views on perception in order to systematically reject both Conceptualism and Non-Conceptualism. It can be shown that both positions are uncritical stances which make claims to either the absoluteness of language or perception and that much-discussed arguments such as the fineness of grain argument rely on a category mistake. The proposed solution is a view that upholds the criticism against the myth of the given, but replaces the idea of a conceptual mediation of perceptual experience with a symbolic mediation. As a consequence, perception must perform a paradoxical feat and has thus to be elastic. (shrink)

Should we do speculative cognitive science? - In present day philosophy, I see a fashion that uses empirical facts (data) to support positions that are not philosophical but empirical in nature. The argumentative structure is classical philosophy, saying that ‘this has to be that way because …’ where the ‘this’ refers to some empirical state of affairs. This kind of philosophy speculates about empirical facts in areas where we do not yet know the facts – the arguments (...) are a priori, supported by a posteriori data. This is precisely what the speculative philosophy of German Idealism was doing, e.g. in the works of Schelling or Hegel. (shrink)

This article considers Helmholtz’s relation to philosophy, including Fichte’s philosophy. Recent interpreters find Fichtean influence on Helmholtz, especially concerning the role of voluntary movement in distinguishing subject from object, or “I” from “not-I.” After examining Helmholtz’s statements about Fichte, the article describes Fichte’s ego-doctrine and asks whether Helmholtz could accept it into his sensory psychology. He could not accept Fichte’s core position, that an intrinsically active I intellectually intuits its own activity and posits the not-I as limiting and (...) determining that activity, because that account requires cognitive abilities that conflict with Helmholtz’s claim that the development of spatial perception relies primarily on associative memory and involves no direct awareness of the ego’s activity as such. Helmholtz would have known various accounts of the distinction between subject and object, or self and world, from sensory physiology, including associative accounts invoking voluntary motor movements and accounts describing checks on the perceiver’s activity. Some of the accounts cite Fichte on the I and not-I, but most do not, and none adopt Fichte’s Idealism. Finally, the article examines Helmholtz’s relation to metaphysics, finding that in all periods he rejected Fichtean Idealism and that the modest metaphysics of his mature period is a version of structural realism. (shrink)

A comparison of disjunctive theories of action and perception. The development of a theory of action that warrants the name, a disjunctive theory. On this theory, there is an exclusive disjunction: either an action or an event (in one sense). It follows that in that sense basic actions do not have events intrinsic to them.

ABSTRACT: The Reflexive Theory of Perception (RTP) claims that perception of an object or property X by an organism Z consists in Z being caused by X to acquire some disposition D toward X itself. This broadly behavioral perceptual theory explains perceptual intentionality and correct versus incorrect, plus successful versus unsuccessful, perception in a plausible evolutionary framework. The theory also undermines cognitive and perceptual modularity assumptions, including informational or purely epistemic views of perception in that, according (...) to the RTP, any X-caused and X-directed dispositions are genuinely perceptual—including affective, attitudinal, and immediately activated purely action-directed behavioral dispositions. Thus the RTP has the potential to provide the foundations for a broadly behavioral counter-revolution in cognitive science. (shrink)