In The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality (2022), Grant Tavinor claims that VR is a technologically fancy kind of picturing and, more specifically, that VR headsets elicit proper seeing-in experiences. According to Tavinor, seeing a virtual environment through a stereoscopic headset elicits the same twofold experience as ordinary pictures: users simultaneously perceive the three-dimensional depicted scene – the virtual environment – and the bidimensional surface responsible for displaying such a scene. In this critical note, I argue that this is (...) a wrong characterization of the visual experience VR stereoscopic headsets elicit. I maintain that VR visual experiences are not twofold, but onefold. When using a VR headset, we do not perceive the configuration as an organizational structure; our visual system does not represent, even unconsciously, the properties of the configuration as such. My argument proceeds in two directions: first, through a phenomenological analysis of VR experience, and, second, by corroborating these phenomenological observations with evidence from perceptual psychology. I conclude that, if VR environments are to be considered bona fide pictures, it is not because they elicit a twofold seeing-in experience. (shrink)

Alberto Voltolini (2021) has recently claimed that mirrors are bona fide pictures, for they are grasped via what he identifies as the defining characteristic of a picture: a certain seeing-in experience. Voltolini refines the somewhat elusive concept of seeing-in, originally described by Wollheim, and then demonstrates its applicability to mirror experience. However, in this paper, I contend that Voltolini's improved version of seeing-in does not aptly describe the experience of viewing mirrors. In fact, according to the first (...) aspect of Voltolini’s reconceived seeing-in, the configurational fold of a seeing-in experience must be an enriched perception of the picture’s vehicle that grasps how the vehicle’s elements are perceptually arranged. But, contra Voltolini, I argue that this does not hold true for the experience of looking at mirrors. Indeed, when looking at mirrors, we don't perceive the configuration as an organizational structure; our visual system does not represent, even unconsciously, the properties of the mirror’s configuration as such. Mirror experience does not include an enriched perception of the picture’s vehicle; it does not grasp how the vehicle’s elements are perceptually arranged. My argument proceeds in two directions: firstly, through a phenomenological analysis of mirror experience and secondly, by corroborating these phenomenological observations with evidence from perceptual psychology. Thus, I conclude that if mirrors are to be considered bona fide pictures, it is not because they elicit a (reconceived) seeing-in experience. (shrink)

Two questions are addressed in this paper. First, what is it to see? I argue that it is veridical experience of things outside the perceiver brought about by looking. Second, what is it to see a material object? I argue that it is experience of an occupant of a spatial region that is a logical subject for other visual features, able to move to another spatial region, to change intrinsically, and to interact with other material objects. I show how this (...) theory is different from the idea that object-seeing is merely the visual segregation of a region of the visual field. Finally, I argue that we do not object-see objects reflected in mirrors, surfaces of back-lit objects, and depictions of objects. (shrink)

Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. These essays show that aspect-seeing was not simply one more topic of investigation in Wittgenstein’s later writings, but, rather, that it was a pervasive and guiding concept in his efforts to turn philosophy’s attention to the actual conditions of our common life in language. Arranged in sections that highlight the pertinence of the aspect-seeing remarks to aesthetic and moral perception, (...) self-knowledge, mind and consciousness, linguistic agreement, philosophical therapy, and “seeing connections,” the sixteen essays, which were specially commissioned for this volume, demonstrate the unity of not only Philosophical Investigations but also Wittgenstein’s later thought as a whole. They open up novel paths across familiar fields of thought: the objectivity of interpretation, the fixity of the past, the acquisition of language, and the nature of human consciousness. Significantly, they exemplify how continuing consideration of the interrelated phenomena and concepts surrounding aspect-seeing might produce a fruitful way of doing philosophy. The volume includes a concordance for the unnumbered remarks in the various editions of Philosophical Investigations, including the latest (4th) edition. (The front matter is posted here. The introduction - "Seeing Aspects in Wittgenstein" - appears below under "Published articles."). (shrink)

Starting from the assumption that one can literally perceive someone's anger in their face, I argue that this would not be possible if what is perceived is a static facial signature of their anger. There is a product–process distinction in talk of facial expression, and I argue that one can see anger in someone's facial expression only if this is understood to be a process rather than a product.

When looking at a scene, observers feel that they see its entire structure in great detail and can immediately notice any changes in it. However, when brief blank fields are placed between alternating displays of an original and a modified scene, a striking failure of perception is induced: identification of changes becomes extremely difficult, even when changes are large and made repeatedly. Identification is much faster when a verbal cue is provided, showing that poor visibility is not the cause of (...) this difficulty. Identification is also faster for objects mentioned in brief verbal descriptions of the scene. These results support the idea that observers never form a complete, detailed representation of their surroundings. In addition, results also indicate that attention is required to perceive change, and that in the absence of localized motion signals it is guided on the basis of high-level interest. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that Edmund Husserl’s theory of depiction describes a three-fold experience of seeing something in pictures, whereas Richard Wollheim’s theory is a two-fold experience of seeingin. The aim of this article is to show that Wollheim’s theory can be interpreted as a three-fold experience of seeing-in. I will first give an overview of Wollheim and Husserl’s theories of seeing-in, and will then show how the concept of figuration in Wollheim’s theory is analogous to the (...) concept of the image subject as the depicted object in Husserl’s theory. I will claim that our experience of non-figurative pictures is a two-fold seeing-in, while that of figurative pictures is a three-fold seeing-in. (shrink)

Large changes in a scene often become difficult to notice if made during an eye movement, image flicker, movie cut, or other such disturbance. It is argued here that this _change blindness_ can serve as a useful tool to explore various aspects of vision. This argument centers around the proposal that focused attention is needed for the explicit perception of change. Given this, the study of change perception can provide a useful way to determine the nature of visual attention, and (...) to cast new light on the way that it is?and is not?involved in visual perception. To illustrate the power of this approach, this paper surveys its use in exploring three different aspects of vision. The first concerns the general nature of _seeing_. To explain why change blindness can be easily induced in experiments but apparently not in everyday life, it is proposed that perception involves a _virtual representation_, where object representations do not accumulate, but are formed as needed. An architecture containing both attentional and nonattentional streams is proposed as a way to implement this scheme. The second aspect concerns the ability of observers to detect change even when they have no visual experience of it. This _sensing_ is found to take on at least two forms: detection without visual experience (but still with conscious awareness), and detection without any awareness at all. It is proposed that these are both due to the operation of a nonattentional visual stream. The final aspect considered is the nature of visual attention itself?the mechanisms involved when _scrutinizing_ items. Experiments using controlled stimuli show the existence of various limits on visual search for change. It is shown that these limits provide a powerful means to map out the attentional mechanisms involved. (shrink)

It is natural to say that when we acquire a new concept or concepts, or grasp a new theory, or master a new practice, we come to see things in a new way: we perceive phenomena that we were not previously aware of; we come to see patterns or connections that we did not previously see. That natural idea has been applied in many areas, including the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of language. And, in (...) reflecting on the character of philosophy itself, Wittgenstein himself associates the introduction of a new concept in philosophy with the discovery of a new way of looking at things (PI §401), and says that the point of presenting us with an imagined example may be to change our way of looking at things (PI §144). The paper considers four interrelated questions about this association between seeing-as and change, novelty, or innovation. 1. Is there an important difference between the case where the change in someone’s way of seeing things involves the invention or discovery of a completely new concept, a completely new theory etc., and the case where it involves the person’s coming to understand an existing concept or theory? 2. Is there a special connection between seeing-as and conceptual or theoretical change or creativity: a connection that does not obtain between seeing-as and using or applying a familiar theory or system of concepts? 3. In cases where seeing-as is associated with novelty or creativity, is there any sense in which the fact that someone sees things in a new way can help to explain their conceptual or theoretical creativity? 4. To the extent that there is some association between seeing-as and novelty or creativity, why if at all does it matter that one experiences things in a certain way? Would someone who was aspect-blind be any worse off with respect to creativity or innovation than the rest of us? And if so, why? (shrink)

This article is a reflective case-study presenting and analysing the findings of ‘Thinking Is Seeing’, a practice-led research project we conducted between March and April 2017 under the Tate Exchange platform. The project focused on Tate Liverpool’s _Constellations_, the pioneering way of exhibiting works from the Tate collection motivated by thematic, chronological, or interpretative links identified through extended curatorial research. -/- The philosophical background informing our research is the role that perception apportions to thought: a _constellation_, literally a collection (...) of celestial objects, or more widely a set of any other things, events, (art)works, and experiences signifies a process of identifying connections, categorising meanings, drawing inferences. In other words, it signifies _thinking_. As Norman Maclean puts it: ‘All there is to thinking […] is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.’ (_A River Runs through It and Other Stories_. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017 (=1976), pp. 105–106.) This organic relation between thinking and seeing, where the one is but a prerequisite for the other, also echoes Theodor W. Adorno’s notion of a ‘constellation’: ‘Becoming aware of the constellation in which a thing stands is tantamount to deciphering the constellation which, having come to be, it bears within it.’ (_Negative Dialectics_, translated by E. B. Ashton. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973 (=1966), p. 163.) -/- Against this background and given that the aim of the _Constellations_ is —to quote Francesco Manacorda— ‘to empower people to come and make their own thinking inside these rooms’, we investigated the ways in which _Constellations_ work as an exchange between art, curatorial gesture, and public engagement. What difference does it make to one’s appreciation of, say, Barnett Newman’s _Untitled Etching #1_ when one attends to those features of the work that make it part of a given curatorial narrative (like a _Constellation_)? Do members of the public feel empowered to challenge the perspective of the curator in recognising affinities within a _Constellation_ and construct new narratives? -/- In order to tackle these research questions, we deployed participatory research during three public interactive workshops, which incorporated philosophical inquiry through structured discussion, reflective questioning, and shared criticism. This article shows how the practice of philosophical inquiry within the community, helps us understand that _seeing_ art happens through _understanding_ art and _vice versa_, while empowering participants to articulate exciting new interpretations. (shrink)

Comment on Brogaard's Seeing and Saying (OUP 2018).

Seeing is not believing, contrary to what popular idioms might claim. But what exactly is the difference? This question is the focus of The Border Between Seeing and Thinking, the long-awaited monograph by philosopher Ned Block.

I defend the view that it is not impossible to see the impossible. I provide two examples in which one sees the impossible and defend these examples from potential objections. Theories of depiction should make room for impossible depictions.

Austere relationalism combines two claims. First, the phenomenal character of perception is at least partially constituted by the perceived items. Second, perception doesn’t consist in representing the perceived items as being a certain way. Recently, Daniel Kalpokas, Avner Baz, and Søren Overgaard have cast doubt on the ability of austere relationalism to account for the peculiar phenomenology of aspect-seeing. I show that this explanatory challenge can be met. Some of the claims made by the critics can be resisted, whereas (...) other can be accommodated into austere relationalism. Most notably, I argue that austere relationalists should acknowledge that aspect-seeing is enabled by unconscious perceptual judgment. This not only allows them to meet the challenge, but also provides the means to reconcile the apparently belief-independent phenomenology of aspect-seeing with the arguably indispensable role that concepts and recognition play in it. (shrink)

Defenders of moral perception have famously argued that seeing value is relevantly similar to seeing color. Some critics think, however, that the analogy between color-seeing and value-seeing breaks down in several crucial respects. Defenders of moral perception, these critics say, have not succeeded in providing examples of non-moral perception that are relevantly analogous to cases of moral perception. Therefore, it can be doubted whether there is such a thing as moral perception at all. I argue that, (...) although the analogy between color perception and moral perception does indeed break down in several crucial respects, that conclusion does not weaken the case of defenders of moral perception, because better analogies are available. If defenders of moral perception seek to draw support from an analogy, then seeing emotion will protect them better against criticisms than will seeing color. (shrink)

What does it take to see how autistic people participate in social interactions? And what does it take to support and invite more participation? Western medicine and cognitive science tend to think of autism mainly in terms of social and communicative deficits. But research shows that autistic people can interact with a skill and sophistication that are hard to see when starting from a deficit idea. Research also shows that not only autistic people, but also their non-autistic interaction partners can (...) have difficulties interacting with each other. To do justice to these findings, we need a different approach to autistic interactions—one that helps everyone see, invite, and support better participation. I introduce such an approach, based on the enactive theory of participatory sense-making and supported by insights from indigenous epistemologies. This approach helps counteract the homogenising tendencies of the “global mental health” movement, which attempts to erase rather than recognise difference, and often precludes respectful engagements. Based in the lived experiences of people in their socio-cultural-material and interactive contexts, I put forward an engaged—even engaging—epistemology for understanding how we interact across difference. From this perspective, we see participatory sense-making at work across the scientific, diagnostic, therapeutic, and everyday interactions of autistic and non-autistic people, and how everyone can invite and support more of it. (shrink)

Contrary to Block's assertion, “identity-crowding” does not provide an interesting instance of object-seeing without object-attention. The successful judgments and unusual phenomenology of identity-crowding are better explained by unconscious perception and non-perceptual phenomenology associated with cognitive states. In identity-crowding, as in other cases of crowding, subjects see jumbled textures and cannot individuate the items contributing to those textures in the absence of attention. Block presents an attenuated sense in which identity-crowded items are seen, but this is irrelevant to the debate (...) about phenomenal experience of an object in the absence of object-attention. Finally, even unconscious object perception in identity-crowding likely involves an attention-like selective process. (shrink)

I open my eyes and see that the lemon before me is yellow. States like this—states of seeing that $p$ —appear to be visual perceptual states, in some sense. They also appear to be propositional attitudes (and so states with propositional representational contents). It might seem, then, like a view of perceptual experience on which experiences have propositional representational contents—a Propositional View—has to be the correct sort of view for states of seeing that $p$ . And thus we (...) can’t sustain fully general non-Propositional but Representational, or Relational Views of experience. But despite what we might initially be inclined to think when reflecting upon the apparent features of states of seeing that $p$ , a non-propositional view of seeing that $p$ is, I argue, perfectly intelligible. (shrink)

Much recent work on empathy in philosophy of mind and cognitive science has been guided by the assumption that minds are composed of intracranial phenomena, perceptually inaccessible and thus unobservable to everyone but their owners. I challenge this claim. I defend the view that at least some mental states and processes—or at least some parts of some mental states and processes—are at times visible, capable of being directly perceived by others. I further argue that, despite its initial implausibility, this view (...) receives robust support from several strands of empirical research. (shrink)

In a 2010 article Turri puts forward some powerful considerations which suggest that Williamson's view of knowledge as the most general factive mental state is false. Turri claims that this view is false since it is false that if S sees that p, then S knows that p. Turri argues that there are cases in which (A) S sees that p but (B) S does not know that p. In response I offer linguistic evidence to suppose that in propositional contexts (...) “see” does not have the sort of meaning (a purely perceptual meaning) which would sustain Turri's claims about the cases he offers (specifically, the (A) verdicts). (shrink)

The problem of other minds has a distinguished philosophical history stretching back more than two hundred years. Taken at face value, it is an epistemological question: it concerns how we can have knowledge of, or at least justified belief in, the existence of minds other than our own. In recent decades, philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists and primatologists have debated a related question: how we actually go about attributing mental states to others (regardless of whether we ever achieve knowledge or rational (...) justification in this domain). Until the mid-nineties, the latter debate – which sometimes goes under the name of the “mindreading” debate – was characterized by a fairly clear-cut opposition between two theoretical outlooks: “theory-theory” (TT) and “simulation theory” (ST). Theory-theorists typically argued that we attribute mental states to others on the basis of a “theory of mind” that is either constructed in early infancy and subsequently revised and modified (Gopnik 1996), or else is the result of maturation of innate mindreading “modules” (Baron-Cohen 1995). (shrink)

I argue that we can visually perceive others as seeing agents. I start by characterizing perceptual processes as those that are causally controlled by proximal stimuli. I then distinguish between various forms of visual perspective-taking, before presenting evidence that most of them come in perceptual varieties. In doing so, I clarify and defend the view that some forms of visual perspective-taking are “automatic”—a view that has been marshalled in support of dual-process accounts of mindreading.

Visitors is a hybrid art film fusing photography and music into a complex abstract texture for the attention of the viewer. It is also a requiem for our ‘New Order for the Ages’ in which humanity grows more and more technologically interconnected and communality means being alone together. We argue that Visitors can be experienced as a seeing aid designed to situate the viewer bewilderingly as needing to reacquire the capacity to see human beings as human beings. This is (...) achieved by various cinematic strategies of dépaysement, which render the familiar uncommon again by enabling us to recapture the uncanniness of what it is to be human. Most strikingly, seeing one another anew is facilitated in Visitors by the autonomous gradual musical processes of Philip Glass’s minimalist score, which not only affords a musical narrative for the imagery but also binds the film ironically to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. (shrink)

Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience supervenes upon its representational content. The phenomenon of blurry vision is thought to raise a difficulty for this position. More specifically, it is alleged that representationalists cannot account for the phenomenal difference between clearly seeing an indistinct edge and blurrily seeing a distinct edge solely in terms of represented features of the surrounding environment. I defend representationalism from this objection by offering a novel account of the (...) phenomenal difference between these two kinds of cases. (shrink)

This is the introduction to Seeing Wittgenstein Anew, eds. William Day & Victor J. Krebs (Cambridge UP, 2010), a collection of essays on Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on aspect-seeing. Section 1: Why Seeing Aspects Now?; Section 2: The Importance of Seeing Aspects; Section 3: The Essays. (The front matter to Seeing Wittgenstein Anew appears above under "Books.").

Perception is a central means by which we come to represent and be aware of particulars in the world. I argue that an adequate account of perception must distinguish between what one perceives and what one's perceptual experience is of or about. Through capacities for visual completion, one can be visually aware of particular parts of a scene that one nevertheless does not see. Seeing corresponds to a basic, but not exhaustive, way in which one can be visually aware (...) of an item. I discuss how the relation between seeing and visual awareness should be explicated within a representational account of the mind. Visual awareness of an item involves a primitive kind of reference: one is visually aware of an item when one's visual perceptual state succeeds in referring to that particular item and functions to represent it accurately. Seeing, by contrast, requires more than successful visual reference. Seeing depends additionally on meta-semantic facts about how visual reference happens to be fixed. The notions of seeing and of visual reference are both indispensable to an account of perception, but they are to be characterized at different levels of representational explanation. (shrink)

This book argues that there is a joint in nature between seeing and thinking, perception, and cognition. Perception is constitutively iconic, nonconceptual, and nonpropositional, whereas cognition does not have these properties constitutively. The book does not appeal to “intuitions,” as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including experiments in neuroscience and psychology. The book argues that cognition affects perception, i.e., that perception is cognitively penetrable, but that this does not impugn the joint in nature. A key part (...) of the argument is that we perceive not only low-level properties like colors, shapes, and textures but also high-level properties such as faces and causation. Along the way, the book explains the difference between perception and perceptual memory, the differences between format and content, and whether perception is probabilistic despite our lack of awareness of probabilistic properties. The book argues for perceptual categories that are not concepts, that perception need not be singular, that perceptual attribution and perceptual discrimination are equally fundamental, and that basic features of the mind known as “core cognition” are not a third category in between perception and cognition. The chapter on consciousness leverages these results to argue against some of the most widely accepted theories of consciousness. Although only one chapter is about consciousness, much of the rest of the book repurposes work on consciousness to isolate the scientific basis of perception. (shrink)

Ordinary cases of object seeing involve the visual perception of space and spatial location. But does seeing an object require such spatial perception? An empirical challenge to the idea that it does comes from reflection upon Bálint's syndrome, for some suppose that in Bálint's syndrome subjects can see objects without seeing space or spatial location. In this article, I question whether the empirical evidence available to us adequately supports this understanding of Bálint's syndrome, and explain how the (...) aforementioned empirical challenge can be resisted. (shrink)

After presenting evidence about categorization behavior, this paper argues for the following theses: 1) that there is a border between perception and cognition; 2) that the border is to be characterized by perception being modular (and cognition not being so); 3) that perception outputs conceptualized representations, so views that posit that the output of perception is solely non-conceptual are false; and 4) that perceptual content consists of basic-level categories and not richer contents.

This article focuses on social perception, an area of research that lies at the interface between the philosophy of perception and the scientific investigation of human social cognition. Some philosophers and psychologists appeal to resonance mechanisms to show that intentional and goal-directed actions can be perceived. Against these approaches, I show that there is a class of simple goal-directed actions, whose perception does not rely on resonance. I discuss the role of the superior temporal sulcus as the possible neural correlate (...) of perception of goal-directed actions. My proposal is intermediate between claims according to which we perceive intentional actions and claims according to which we cannot perceive goal-directed actions. 1Preliminary Clarifications and Methodology2Does the Perception of Goal-Directed Actions Rest on Resonance?3What Are the Neural Correlates of Social Perception?4From Neural Correlates to the Experience of Goal-Directed Actions5The Development of the Perception of Goal-Directed Actions: A Possible New Role for Resonance6Conclusion: Seeing Goal-Directedness of Actions and Social Perception. (shrink)

In the constitution of contemporary image theory, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy has undoubtedly become a major conceptual reference. Rather than trying to establish what Wittgenstein’s own image theory could possibly look like, this paper would like to critically assess some of the advantages as well as some of the quandaries that arise when using Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘seeing-as’ for addressing the plural realities of images. While putting into evidence the tensions that come into play when applying what was initially a (...) theory of the gaze to a theory of the image, the paper shall subsequently discuss three modes of iconic vision: the propositional seeing-as, the projective seeing-in and the medial seeing-with. (shrink)

According to unconscious perception hypothesis (UP), mental states of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious seeing can occur unconsciously. The proponents of UP often support it with empirical evidence for a more specific hypothesis, according to which colours can be seen unconsciously (UPC). However, UPC is a general claim that admits of many interpretations. The main aim of this paper is to determine which of them is the most plausible. To this end, I investigate how adopting various conceptions (...) of colour and perceptual phenomenal character affects UPC’s resilience to objections. This brings me to the conclusion that the most plausible reading of UPC is the one according to which the phenomenal character of colour perception (i) is constituted by colours qua primitive mind-independent qualities of the environment and (ii) is not essentially tied to consciousness. My conclusion not only identifies the most plausible interpretation of UPC, but also highlights and supports an unorthodox version of the relational theory of perception, which is a perfectly viable yet so far overlooked stance in the debate about unconscious perception. (shrink)

Do we (sometimes) perceive apples as edible? One could argue that it is just a manner of speaking to say so: we do not really see an object as edible, we see it as having certain shape, size and color and we only infer on the basis of these properties that it is. I argue that we do indeed see objects as edible, and do not just believe that they are. My argument proceeds in two steps. First, I point out (...) that Susanna Siegel's influential argument in favor of the claim that we represent sortal properties perceptually does not work. Second, I argue that we can fix this argument if we replace the sortal property in question with the property of being edible, climbable or Q-able in general. (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)

In this paper, I offer an account of our knowledge of other minds based on V. C. Aldrich's account of aesthetic perception, according to which there is a sense in which we literally see other minds.

According to the standard view of pictorial reference, a picture produces singular thought in virtue of both its appearance and its history. Zeimbekis (2010) challenges this view, arguing that the perception of the picture's appearance does not contribute to the production of singular thought. The paper defends the standard view from Zeimbekis' challenge, specifying the roles of appearance and history in pictorial reference. While knowledge about the picture's history allows one to identify the standpoint from which to see the scene (...) depicted, the perception of the picture's appearance exploits that standpoint to single out individuals in that scene. (shrink)

A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and recognitional content about its external subject. But how is this possible, since all that a viewer can actually see is the picture's own design? I argue that the most plausible explanation is that a picture's design has a dual function. It both encodes artistically relevant design content, and in turn that design content encodes the subject content of the picture--producing overall a double content structure. Also, it is highly desirable (...) that a resulting double content theory for pictures should be closely integrated with a related double content account of perceptual content generally, so as to avoid suspicions of ad hoc theorizing that would apply only to pictorial content. The resulting theory should also be able to explain the inevitable ambiguities involved in abstracting two levels of visual content from a single visible surface, as well as explaining the systematic relations between the two kinds of content. I provide an orientational theory--based on a recently developed spatial logic of orientational concepts--for this purpose, and show how depictive and perceptual content in general can be usefully explained in these orientational terms. This account of picturing also integrates well with a previously developed, more generic double content theory of art, and it is also plausible in cognitive science terms. (shrink)

This essays assesses Steve Wykstra's original CORNEA.

Visualizing and mental imagery are thought to be cognitive states by all sides of the imagery debate. Yet the phenomenology of those states has distinctly visual ingredients. This has potential consequences for the hypothesis that vision is cognitively impenetrable, the ability of visual processes to ground perceptual warrant and justification, and the distinction between cognitive and perceptual phenomenology. I explore those consequences by describing two forms of visual ambiguity that involve visualizing: the ability to visually experience a picture surface as (...) flat after it has caused volumetric nonconceptual contents, and the ability to use a surface initially perceived as flat to visualize three-dimensional scenes. In both cases, the visual processes which extract viewer-centered volumetric shapes have to rely solely on monocular depth cues in the absence of parallax and stereopsis. Those processes can be cognitively penetrated by acts of visualizing, including ones that draw on conceptual information about kinds. However, the penetrability of the visual processes does not weaken their ability to provide perceptual warrant and justification for beliefs. The reason is that picture perceptions—whether they are stimulus -driven or based on acts of visualizing—are different to object perceptions both phenomenologically and in terms of their functional roles as states. Thus, although the penetrability of the visual processes does mean that subjects can have visual experiences with contradictory contents, perceptual belief is adopted at most towards one set of contents, and questions of warrant and justification are raised only for those contents. A rule-proving exception is provided by trompe-l’oeils. (shrink)

When characterizing the content of a subject’s perceptual experience, does their seeing an object entail that their visual experience represents it as being a certain way? If it does, are they thereby in a position to have perceptually-based thoughts about it? On one hand, representationalists are under pressure to answer these questions in the affirmative. On the other hand, it seems they cannot. This paper presents a puzzle to illustrate this tension within orthodox representationalism. We identify several interesting morals (...) which may be drawn in response, each of which teaches us something interesting and important about perceptual experience and its interface with cognition and related phenomena. (shrink)

The ‘man born blind restored to light’ was one of the foundational myths of the Enlightenment, according to Foucault. With ophthalmic surgery in its infancy, the fascination by the sighted with blindness and what the blind might ‘see’ after sight restoration remained largely speculative. Was being blind, as Descartes once remarked, like ‘seeing with the hands’? Did evidence from early cataract operations begin to resolve epistemological debates about the relationship between vision and touch in the newly sighted, such as (...) the famous ‘Molyneux Question’ posed by William Molyneux to John Locke? More recently, how have autobiographical accounts of blind and vision impaired writers and poets advanced the sighted public’s understanding of blind subjectivity? -/- Through an unfolding historical, philosophical and literary narrative that includes Locke, Molyneux and Berkeley in Britain, and Diderot, Voltaire and Buffon in France, this book explores how the Molyneux Question and its aftermath has influenced attitudes towards blindness by the sighted, and sensory substitution technologies for the blind and vision impaired, to this day. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of US states have adopted laws that require pregnant women to have an ultrasound examination, and be shown images of their foetus, prior to undergoing a pregnancy termination. In this paper, I examine one of the basic presumptions of these laws: that seeing one’s foetus changes the ways in which one might act in regard to it, particularly in terms of the decision to terminate the pregnancy or not. I argue that mandatory ultrasound laws (...) compel women into a position of moral spectatorship and require them to recognise the foetus as a being for whom they are responsible, particularly through empathic responses to ultrasound images. The approach I propose extends the project of a bioethics of the image and highlights the need for a critical analysis of the political mobilization of empathy in discussions of abortion. (shrink)

In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical (...) positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion. (shrink)

How do I know that I see a cat? A curiously under-asked question. The paper tries to answer it.

It is difficult to express integral consciousness using ordinary language because of the inherent tendency of language to separate and distinguish. Jean Gebser, in The Ever-Present Origin, suggested concepts such as transparency and diaphaneity as ways to access integral consciousness, and the Gnostic text The Thunder, Perfect Mind (TPM) is written from the perspective of a being with integral consciousness. I use Jean Gebser’s concepts of transparency and diaphaneity to explicate TPM, an enigmatic, paradoxical poem in the Nag Hammadi Library. (...) Because TPM is written from the perspective of an integral being, one who is All-of-It (i.e., paradoxical completeness rather than a consistent but incomplete persona), the poem calls the reader to embody such a perspective of being All-of-It, thereby enabling one to get beyond the limitations of either/or languaging and thinking by apperceiving the transparency of experience in space and through time. (shrink)

This paper connects ideas from twentieth century Gestalt psychology, experiments in vision science, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. I propose that when we engage in simple sensorimotor tasks whose successful completion is open, our behavior may be motivated by practical perceptual awareness alone, responding to invariant features of the perceptual field that are invisible to other forms of perceptual awareness. On this view, we see more than we think we see, as evidenced by our skillful bodily behavior.