Sensorimotor theory claims that what you do and what you know how to do constitutes your visual experience. Central to the theory is the claim that such experience depends on a special kind of knowledge or understanding. I assess this commitment to knowledge in the light of three objections to the theory: the empirical implausibility objection, the learning/post-learning objection and the causal-constitutive objection. I argue that although the theory can respond to the first two objections, its commitment (...) to know-how ultimately renders it vulnerable to the third and arguably most serious objection. I then suggest that sensorimotor theory has two options: concede the causal-constitutive objection or challenge it. I shall argue for the latter. I will claim that a radical sensorimotor theory offers the best means of responding to this objection. (shrink)

If embodied models no longer address the symbol grounding problem and a conceptual system can step in and resolve categorizations when embodied simulations fail, then perhaps the next step in theory-building is to isolate the unique contributions of embodied simulation. What is a disembodied conceptual system incapable of doing with respect to semantic processing or the categorization of smiles?

O’Regan and Noë’s sensorimotor approach rejects the old-fashioned view that perceptual experience in humans depends solely on the activation of internal representations. Reflecting a wealth of empirical work, for example active vision, the approach suggests that perceiving is, instead, a matter of bodily exploration of the outside environment. To this end, the approach says the perceiver must deploy knowledge of sensorimotor contingencies, the ways sense input changes with movement by the perceiver or object perceived. Clark has observed (...) that the approach faces a challenge accounting for the experience of temporal duration, since event-like properties cannot be characterised by reference to the sensory consequences of possible movements. This paper argues that the account can best be shored up by emphasising, more than Noë does, the dependence of perceptual experience, in general, on temporally extended, organismic interaction with the outside environment. The paper argues, moreover, that an ‘extensionalist’ account of temporal experience could help make sense of object experience, which is itself, plausibly, an experience of temporal duration. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perceptual experience claims that perception is constituted by bodily interaction with the environment, drawing on practical knowledge of the systematic ways that sensory inputs are disposed to change as a result of movement. Despite the theory’s associations with enactivism, it is sometimes claimed that the appeal to ‘knowledge’ means that the theory is committed to giving an essential theoretical role to internal representation, and therefore to a form of orthodox cognitive science. This paper (...) defends the role ascribed to knowledge by the theory, but argues that this knowledge can and should be identified with bodily skill rather than representation. Making the further argument that the notion of ‘representation hunger’ can be replaced with ‘prima facie representation hunger’, it concludes that although the theory could optionally be developed scientifically in part by reference to internal representation, it makes a strong and natural fit with anti-representationalist embodied or enactive cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper draws on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to sketch a phenomenological interpretation of the enactivist notion of sensorimotor understanding. I begin by situating Noë’s enactive theory of vision in relation to Husserlian phenomenology. I then raise three related objections to Noë’s treatment of sensorimotor understanding in terms of practical knowledge of possibilities for action. Finally, I appeal to Phenomenology of Perception to show how two of its major operative concepts – the ‘body schema’ and ‘sedimentation’ – can (...) help to plug the gaps in Noë’s account. (shrink)

There is an increasing agreement in the cognitive sciences community that our sensations are closely related to our actions. Our actions impact our sensations from the environment and the knowledge we have of it. Cognition is grounded in sensori-motor coordination. In the perspective of implementing such a performance in artificial systems, there is a need for a model of sensori-motor coordination. We propose here such a model as based on the generation of meaningful information by a system submitted to (...) a constraint [1]. Systems and agents have constraints to satisfy which are related to their nature (stay alive for an organism, avoid obstacle for a robot, …). We propose here to use an existing meaning generation process where a system submitted to a constraint generates a meaningful information (a meaning) when it receives an information that has a connection with the constraint [2]. The generated meaning is precisely the connection existing between the received information and the constraint of the system. The generated meaning is used to trigger an action that will satisfy the constraint. The generated meaning links the system to its environment. A Meaning Generator System (MGS) has been introduced as a building block for higher level systems (agents). The MGS allows to link sensation and action through the satisfaction of the constraint of the system/agent. We use the MGS in a model which is based on constraint satisfaction for sensori-motor coordination in agents, be they organic or artificial. The meaning is generated by and for the agent that hosts the MGS. Such approach makes possible an addressing of the concept of autonomy through the intrinsic or artificial nature of the constraint to be satisfied (organisms with intrinsic constraints/autonomy, artificial systems with artificial constraints/autonomy). The systemic nature of the MGS also allows to position the groundings of the generated meaning as being in or out of the MGS, and correspondingly identify the constructivist and objectivist components of the generated meaning. The approach presented here makes available a sensori-motor coordination by meaning generation through constraint satisfaction with groundings of the generated meaning. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I propose a middle-ground between a perceptual model of self-knowledge, according to which the objects of self-awareness are accessed through some kind of causal mechanism, and a rationalist model, according to which self-knowledge is constituted by one's rational agency. Through an analogy with the role of the exercises of sensorimotor abilities in rationally grounded perceptual knowledge, self-knowledge is construed as an exercise of action-oriented and action-orienting abilities. This view satisfies the privileged access condition usually (...) associated with self-knowledge without entailing an insurmountable gap between self- knowledge and knowledge of other minds. RESUMO Proponho um meio-termo entre um modelo perceptual de autoconhecimento, segundo o qual os objetos de autoconhecimento são acessadas mediante um tipo de mecanismo causal, e um modelo racionalista, segundo o qual o autoconhecimento é constituído pela agência racional. Por analogia ao papel que o exercício de habilidades sensório-motoras desempenham no conhecimento perceptual racionalmente fundado, autoconhecimento é entendido como um exercício de habilidades que são orientadas pela e orientam a ação. Essa imagem satisfaz a condição de acesso privilegiado que geralmente é associada ao autoconhecimento sem implicar uma lacuna intransponível entre autoconhecimento e conhecimento de outras mentes. (shrink)

Sensorimotor enactivism is the view that the content and the sensory modality of perceptual experience are determined by implicit knowledge of lawful regularities between bodily movements and patterns of sensory stimulation. A proponent of the explanatory argument for sensorimotor enactivism holds that this view is able to provide an intelligible explanation for why certain material realizers give rise to certain perceptual experiences, while rival accounts cannot close this “explanatory gap”. However, I argue that the notion of the (...) “material realizer” of perceptual experience is ambiguous. On a narrow construal, the explanatory gap cannot be bridged, not even by enactivism. On a wide construal, enactivism gets a grip on the explanatory gap, but to the same extent do established theories of consciousness. Thus, on both horns of the dilemma, the explanatory power of enactivism is not superior to more traditional theories of conscious experience. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s transcendental account of the role of the lived body in sense-making is a precursor to Alva Noë’s recent work on the enactive, embodied mind, specifically his notion of “sensorimotor knowledge” as a form of embodied sense-making that avoids representationalism and intellectualism. Derrida’s deconstructive account of meaning—developed largely through a critique of Husserl—relies on the claim that meaning is structured through the complication of the “interiority” of consciousness by an “outside,” and thus might be thought (...) to lend itself to theories of mind such as Noë’s that emphasize the ways in which sense-making occurs outside the head. But while Derrida’s notion of “contamination” rightly points to an indeterminateness of meaning in an outside, extended, concrete lived world, he ultimately reduces meaning to a structure of signification. This casts indeterminateness in terms of absence, ignoring the presence of non-linguistic phenomena of embodied sense-making central to both the contemporary enactivist program and to the later Husserl, who is able to account for the indeterminateness of meaning in lived experience through his distinction between sense and more exact linguistic meaning. Husserl’s transcendental theory of meaning also allows for a substantive contribution to sense-making from the side of the perceived object—an aspect missing from Noë’s account. Thus, in contrast to Derrida and to Noë, Husserl accounts for sense-making in terms of both the lived body and the lived world. (shrink)

Pylyshyn restricts cognitively penetrable vision to late vision, whereas he does not make any distinction between different kinds of penetrating cognition. I argue that this approach disconnects early vision content from late vision content and blurs the distinction between the latter and the content of thought. To overcome this problem I suggest that we should not distinguish between different kinds of visual content but instead introduce a restriction on the kind of cognition that can directly penetrate visual experience. In particular, (...) I suggest that visual experience, unlike thought, is directly penetrated only by practical non-propositional knowledge. I specify this weak cognitive penetrability in anti-representational terms. In particular, I suggest that the dependence of visual content on practical non-propositional knowledge should be conceived as a rational non-inferential relation, for it is in this way that we can account for the distinctive content of visual experience. (shrink)

Pylyshyn restricts cognitively penetrable vision to late vision, whereas he does not make any distinction between different kinds of penetrating cognition. I argue that this approach disconnects early vision content from late vision content and blurs the distinction between the latter and the content of thought. To overcome this problem I suggest that we should not distinguish between different kinds of visual content but instead introduce a restriction on the kind of cognition that can directly penetrate visual experience. In particular, (...) I suggest that visual experience, unlike thought, is directly penetrated only by practical non-propositional knowledge. I specify this weak cognitive penetrability in anti-representational terms. In particular, I suggest that the dependence of visual content on practical non-propositional knowledge should be conceived as a rational non-inferential relation, for it is in this way that we can account for the distinctive content of visual experience. (shrink)

According to proponents of the sensorimotor contingency theory of perception (Hurley & Noë 2003, Noë 2004, O’Regan 2011), active control of camera movement is necessary for the emergence of distal attribution in tactile-visual sensory substitution (TVSS) because it enables the subject to acquire knowledge of the way stimulation in the substituting modality varies as a function of self-initiated, bodily action. This chapter, by contrast, approaches distal attribution as a solution to a causal inference problem faced by the subject’s (...) perceptual systems. Given all of the available endogenous and exogenous evidence available to those systems, what is the most probable source of stimulation in the substituting modality? From this perspective, active control over the camera’s movements matters for rather different reasons. Most importantly, it generates proprioceptive and efference-copy based information about the camera’s body-relative position necessary to make use of the spatial cues present in the stimulation that the subject receives for purposes of egocentric object localization. (shrink)

In sensorimotor integration, representation involves an anticipatory model of the action to be performed. This model integrates efferent signals (motor commands), its reafferent consequences (sensory consequences of an organism’s own motor action), and other afferences (sensory signals) originated by stimuli independent of the action performed. Representation, a form of internal modeling, is invoked to explain the fact that behavior oriented to the achievement of future goals is relatively independent from the immediate environment. Internal modeling explains how a cognitive system (...) achieves its goals despite variations in the environment with insufficient and noisy sensory–perceptual data. In a self that acts intentionally on the environment, knowledge is dependent upon the necessity to guide actions directed toward an aim. The self-inner model, a representation of internal and external environments (including reafferent and afferent messages) and also of the behavior plans and desirable future states (aims) and efferent intentions (motor planning and motor command messages), is intrinsically linked to a thinking capacity, which is supposed to emerge from the binding of multiple influences. Thinking emerges when higher behavior strategies are considered possible and capable of leading to aims or the fulfillment of intentions. In this model, symbolization processes are projective and anticipatory and, in this way, beyond present referents. Symbolization occurs linked to action planning, command, and regulation in mental simulation. Meaning is related to an inner sense of a self that acts over the environment. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s original account of “higher-order” cognition as fundamentally embodied and enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy inspired theories that deemphasize overlaps between conceptual knowledge and motor intentionality or, on the contrary, focus exclusively on abstract thought. In contrast, this paper explores the link between Merleau-Ponty’s account of motor intentionality and his interpretations of our capacity to understand and interact productively with cultural symbolic systems. I develop my interpretation based on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of two neuropathological modifications of motor intentionality, the (...) case of the brain-injured war veteran Schneider, and a neurological disorder known as Gerstmann’s syndrome. Building on my analysis of Schneider’s sensorimotor compensatory performances in relation to his limitations in the domains of algebra, geometry, and language usage, I demonstrate a strong continuity between the sense of embodiment and enaction at all these levels. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations, I argue that “higher-order” cognition is impaired in Schneider insofar as his injury limits his sensorimotor capacity to dynamically produce comparatively more complex differentiations of any given phenomenal structure. I then show how Merleau-Ponty develops and specifies his interpretation of Schneider’s intellectual difficulties in relation to the ambiguous role of the body, and in particular the hand, in Gerstmann’s syndrome. I explain how Merleau-Ponty defends the idea that sensorimotor and quasi-representational cognition are mutually irreducible, while maintaining that symbol-based cognition is a fundamentally enactive and embodied process. (shrink)

The recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in light of the impressive capabilities of transformer-based Large Language Models (LLMs), have reignited the discussion in cognitive science regarding whether computational devices could possess semantic understanding or whether they are merely mimicking human intelligence. Recent research has highlighted limitations in LLMs’ reasoning, suggesting that the gap between mere symbol manipulation (syntax) and deeper understanding (semantics) remains wide open. While LLMs overcome certain aspects of the symbol grounding problem through human feedback, they (...) still lack true semantic understanding, struggling with common-sense reasoning and abstract thinking. This paper argues that while adding sensory inputs and embodying AI through sensorimotor integration with the environment might enhance its ability to connect symbols to real-world meaning, this alone would not close the gap between syntax and semantics. True meaning-making also requires a connection to subjective experience, which current AI lacks. The path to AGI must address the fundamental relationship between symbol manipulation, data processing, pattern matching, and probabilistic best guesses with true knowledge that requires conscious experience. A transition from AI to AGI can occur only if it possesses conscious experience, which is closely tied to semantic understanding. Recognition of this connection could furnish new philosophical insights into longstanding practical and philosophical questions for theories in biology and cognitive science and provide more meaningful tests of intelligence than the Turing test. (shrink)

Embodied cognitive theories predict that linguistic conceptual representations are grounded and continually represented in real world, sensorimotor experiences. However, there is an on-going debate on whether this also holds for abstract concepts. Grammar is the archetype of abstract knowledge, and therefore constitutes a test case against embodied theories of language representation. Former studies have largely focussed on lexical-level embodied representations. In the present study we take the grounding-by-modality idea a step further by using reaction time (RT) data from (...) the linguistic processing of nominal classifiers in Chinese. We take advantage of an independent body of research, which shows that attention in hand space is biased. Specifically, objects near the hand consistently yield shorter RTs as a function of readiness for action on graspable objects within reaching space, and the same biased attention inhibits attentional disengagement. We predicted that this attention bias would equally apply to the graspable object classifier but not to the big object classifier. Chinese speakers (N = 22) judged grammatical congruency of classifier-noun combinations in two conditions: graspable object classifier and big object classifier. We found that RTs for the graspable object classifier were significantly faster in congruent combinations, and significantly slower in incongruent combinations, than the big object classifier. There was no main effect on grammatical violations, but rather an interaction effect of classifier type. Thus, we demonstrate here grammatical category- specific effects pertaining to the semantic content and by extension the visual and tactile modality of acquisition underlying the acquisition of these categories. We conclude that abstract grammatical categories are subjected to the same mechanisms as general cognitive and neurophysiological processes and may therefore be grounded. (shrink)

In this chapter, I put forward and sustain an articulation of the notion of bodily skill based on ecological psychology, and I show how it is relevant for the debate between Dreyfus and McDowell about skillful coping and also for the debate about whether know-how is reducible or not to propositional knowledge. The right metaphor to understand bodily skills is not the computer metaphor but the radio metaphor. These skills result from a process of organism attunement to its environment.

According to “actionism” (Noë 2010), perception constitutively depends on implicit knowledge of the way sensory stimulations vary as a consequence of the perceiver’s self-movement. My aim in this contribution is to develop an alternative conception of the role of action in perception present in the work of Gareth Evans using resources provided by Ruth Millikan’s biosemantic theory of mental representation.

Olfactory perception provides a promising test case for enactivism, since smelling involves actively sampling our surrounding environment by sniffing. Smelling deploys implicit skillful knowledge of how our movement and the airflow around us yield olfactory experiences. The hybrid nature of olfactory experience makes it an ideal test case for enactivism with its esteem for touch and theoretical roots in vision. Olfaction is like vision in facilitating the perception of distal objects, yet it requires us to breath in and physically (...) contact the sensory object in a manner similar to touch. The paper offers an analysis of the central theoretical components of enactivism, whose soundness and empirical viability are tested using the empirical literature on sniffing. It will be shown that even if sniffing is an essential component of olfaction, the motoric component is not necessary for perceiving smells, which is contrary to the most crucial tenet of enactivism. Thus, the paper concludes that the theory cannot account for olfactory perception. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of perceptual consciousness offers a form of enactivism in that it stresses patterns of interaction instead of any alleged internal representations of the environment. But how does it relate to forms of enactivism stressing the continuity between life and mind? We shall distinguish sensorimotor enactivism, which stresses perceptual capacities themselves, from autopoietic enactivism, which claims an essential connection between experience and autopoietic processes or associated background capacities. We show how autopoiesis, autonomous agency, and affective dimensions (...) of experience may fit into sensorimotor enactivism, and we identify differences between this interpretation and autopoietic enactivism. By taking artificial consciousness as a case in point, we further sharpen the distinction between sensorimotor enactivism and autopoietic enactivism. We argue that sensorimotor enactivism forms a strong default position for an enactive account of perceptual consciousness. (shrink)

Sensorimotor Theory is the claim that it is our practical know-how of the relations between our environments and us that gives our environmental interactions their experiential qualities. Yet why should such interactions involve or be accompanied by experience? This is the ‘absolute’ gap question. Some proponents of SMT answer this question by arguing that our interactions with an environment involve experience when we cognitively access those interactions. In this paper, I aim to persuade proponents of SMT to accept the (...) following three claims. First, that appeals to cognitive access fail to answer the absolute gap question. Second, that SMT can be read in a way that rejects the gap question. Third, that if proponents of SMT are prepared to read SMT in a way that rejects the absolute gap question, then they can also reject the claim that cognitive access is needed to explain experience. (shrink)

Since the publication of Timothy Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits, knowledge-first epistemology has become increasingly influential within epistemology. This paper discusses the viability of the knowledge-first program. The paper has two main parts. In the first part, I briefly present knowledge-first epistemology as well as several big picture reasons for concern about this program. While this considerations are pressing, I concede, however, that they are not conclusive. To determine the viability of knowledge-first epistemology will require (...) philosophers to carefully evaluate the individual theses endorsed by knowledge-first epistemologists as well as to compare it with alternative packages of views. In the second part of the paper, I contribute to this evaluation by considering a specific thesis endorsed by many knowledge-first epistemologists – the knowledge norm of assertion. According to this norm, roughly speaking, one should assert that p only if one knows that p. I present and motivate this thesis. I then turn to a familiar concern with the norm: In many cases, it is intuitively appropriate for someone who has a strongly justified belief that p, but who doesn't know that p, to assert that p. Proponents of the knowledge norm of assertion typically explain away our judgments about such cases by arguing that the relevant assertion is improper but that the subject has an excuse and is therefore not blameworthy for making the assertion. I argue that that this response does not work. In many of the problem cases, it is not merely that the subject’s assertion is blameless. Rather, the subject positively ought to make the assertion. Appealing to an excuse cannot be used to adequately explain this fact. (Nor can we explain this fact by appealing to some other, quite different, consideration.) Finally, I conclude by briefly considering whether we should replace the knowledge norm of assertion with an alternative norm. I argue that the most plausible view is that there is no norm specifically tied to assertion. (shrink)

Sensorimotor expectations concern how visual experience covaries with bodily movement. Sensorimotor theorists argue from such expectations to the conclusion that the phenomenology of vision is constitutively embodied: objects within the visual field are experienced as 3-D because sensorimotor expectations partially constitute our experience of such objects. Critics argue that there are two ways to block the above inference: to explain how we visually experience objects as 3-D, one may appeal to such non-bodily factors as expectations about movements (...) of objects, not the perceiver, or to the role of mental imagery in visual experience. But instead of using sensorimotor expectations to explain how objects are experienced within the visual field, we can instead use them to explain our experience of the visual field itself and, in particular, our experience of its limits; that is, our ever-present visual sense of there being more to see, beyond what’s currently within the visual field. Crucially, this inference from sensorimotor expectations to the constitutive embodiment of visual phenomenology is not threatened by the above two challenges. I thus present here a sensorimotor theory of the phenomenology of the visual field, that is, our experience of our visual fields as such. (shrink)

In Posterior Analytics 71b9 12, we find Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge. The definiens is taken to have only two informative parts: scientific knowledge must be knowledge of the cause and its object must be necessary. However, there is also a contrast between the definiendum and a sophistic way of knowing, which is marked by the expression “kata sumbebekos”. Not much attention has been paid to this contrast. In this paper, I discuss Aristotle’s definition paying due attention (...) to this contrast and to the way it interacts with the two conditions presented in the definiens. I claim that the “necessity” condition ammounts to explanatory appropriateness of the cause. (shrink)

In his latest book, Michael Devitt rejects Chomsky’s mentalist conception of linguistics. The case against Chomsky is based on two principal claims. First, that we can separate the study of linguistic competence from the study of its outputs: only the latter belongs to linguistic inquiry. Second, Chomsky’s account of a speaker’s competence as consisiting in the mental representation of rules of a grammar for his language is mistaken. I shall argue, first, that Devitt fails to make a case for separating (...) the study of outputs from the study of competence, and second, that Devitt mis-characterises Chomsky’s account of competence, and so his objections miss their target. Chomsky’s own views come close to a denial that speaker’s have knowledge of their language. But a satisfactory account of what speakers are able to do will need to ascribe them linguistic knowledge that they use to speak and understand. I shall explore a conception of speaker’s knowledge of language that confirrns Chomsky’s mentalist view of linguistics but which is immune to Devitt’s criticism. (shrink)

In this paper I defend the view that knowledge is belief for reasons that are both objectively and subjectively sufficient from an important objection due to Daniel Whiting, in this journal. Whiting argues that this view fails to deal adequately with a familiar sort of counterexample to analyses of knowledge, fake barn cases. I accept Whiting’s conclusion that my earlier paper offered an inadequate treatment of fake barn cases, but defend a new account of basic perceptual reasons that (...) is consistent with the account of knowledge and successfully deals with fake barns. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory is an influential account of perception and phenomenal qualities that builds, in an empirically supported way, on the basic claim that conscious experience is best construed as an attribute of the whole embodied agent's skill-driven interactions with the environment. This paper, in addition to situating the theory as a response to certain well-known problems of consciousness, develops a sensorimotor account of why we are perceptually conscious rather than not.

Recent work in philosophy and cognitive science shows that knowledge is the norm of our social practice of assertion, in the sense that an assertion should express knowledge. But why should an assertion express knowledge? I hypothesize that an assertion should express knowledge because the point of assertion is to transmit knowledge. I present evidence supporting this hypothesis.

On the face of it, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s views bear a strong resemblance to contemporary disjunctivist theories of perception, especially John McDowell’s epistemological disjunctivism. Like McDowell (and other disjunctivists), Merleau-Ponty seems to be a direct realist about perception and holds that veridical and illusory perceptions are distinct. This paper furthers this comparison. Furthermore, it is argued that elements of Merleau-Ponty’s thought provide a stronger case for McDowell’s kind of epistemological view than McDowell himself provides. Merleau-Ponty’s early thought can be used to (...) develop a unique version of epistemological disjunctivism that is worth consideration alongside contemporary views on perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

Vogel, Sosa, and Huemer have all argued that sensitivity is incompatible with knowing that you do not believe falsely, therefore the sensitivity condition must be false. I show that this objection misses its mark because it fails to take account of the basis of belief. Moreover, if the objection is modified to account for the basis of belief then it collapses into the more familiar objection that sensitivity is incompatible with closure.

The paper argues that knowledge is not closed under logical inference. The argument proceeds from the openness of evidential support and the dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, to the conclusion that knowledge is open. Without attempting to provide a full-fledged theory of evidence, we show that on the modest assumption that evidence cannot support both a proposition and its negation, or, alternatively, that information that reduces the probability of a proposition cannot constitute evidence for its truth, (...) the relation of evidential support is not closed under known entailment. Therefore the evidence-for relation is deductively open regardless of whether evidence is probabilistic or not. Given even a weak dependence of empirical knowledge on evidence, we argue that empirical knowledge is also open. On this basis, we also respond to the strongest argument in support of knowledge closure. Finally, we present a number of significant benefits of our position, namely, offering a unified explanation for a range of epistemological puzzles. (shrink)

The history of western philosophy is split to its core by a long-standing, fundamental dispute. On the one hand there are the so-called empiricists, like Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell, the logical positivists, A. J. Ayer, Karl Popper and most scientists, who hold empirical considerations alone can be appealed to in justifying, or providing a rationale for, claims to factual knowledge, there being no such thing as a priori knowledge – items of factual knowledge that are accepted (...) on grounds other than the empirical. And on the other hand there are the so-called rationalists, like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bradley, McTaggart, who hold that a priori knowledge does exist, and even plays a crucial role in science. This long-standing dispute is resolved by the line of thought developed in this essay. The empiricists were right to deny the existence of a priori knowledge where this means factual knowledge of apodictic certainty justified independently of any appeal to experience. They were wrong, however, to deny the existence of a priori knowledge where this means conjectural items of factual knowledge whose acceptance is justified independently of any appeal to experience. Science requires there to be a priori knowledge in this latter sense, and two items of such knowledge will be exhibited. In addition to resolving this empiricist/rationalist dispute, the essay also develops a new conception of science – aim-oriented empiricism – and solves the long-standing problem of what it means to say of a theory that it is unified or explanatory. Furthermore, aim-oriented empiricism does not just change our conception of science; it requires that science itself needs to change. Science needs to become much more like the 17th century conception of natural philosophy, intermingling consideration of testable theories with consideration of untestable metaphysical, epistemological and methodological ideas. The whole relationship between science and the philosophy of science is transformed. The philosophy of science, construed as the exploration and critical assessment of rival ideas about what the aims and methods of science ought to be, ceases to be a meta-discipline, and becomes an integral part of science – or natural philosophy – itself. (shrink)

According to the sensorimotor account, vision does not imply theconstruction of internally generated representations of the environment, butit isthe skillful exercise of the sensorimotor contingencies obeying sense-specific laws. In this short study, I focus on the notion of “sensorimotor law” and characterize the kind of explanation providedby the sensorimotor theory as a form of covering law model. I then question the nature of such sensorimotor laws and describe them as mechanisms. I show that a mechanistic (...) interpretation provides a better account of the sensorimotor invariances, which fosters us to rebalance the explanatory burden of sensorimotor action and information. Finally, I show that the question of the roleof representations within the sensorimotor theory should be reconsidered. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of vision and visual consciousness is often described as a radical alternative to the computational and connectionist orthodoxy in the study of visual perception. However, it is far from clear whether the theory represents a significant departure from orthodox approaches or whether it is an enrichment of it. In this study, I tackle this issue by focusing on the explanatory structure of the sensorimotor theory. I argue that the standard formulation of the theory subscribes to (...) the same theses of the dynamical hypothesis and that it affords covering-law explanations. This however exposes the theory to the mere description worry and generates a puzzle about the role of representations. I then argue that the sensorimotor theory is compatible with a mechanistic framework, and show how this can overcome the mere description worry and solve the problem of the explanatory role of representations. By doing so, it will be shown that the theory should be understood as an enrichment of the orthodoxy, rather than an alternative. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to identify the obstacles facing the application of knowledge management and its impact on performance at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorei from the point of view of employees and to detect the differences between the average views of the study sample on the subject of the study according to some variables such as (gender, nature of work, Education Level, specialization, years of experience). The study followed the descriptive analytical method and the questionnaire as a tool (...) for study. It was distributed to 74 employees. After the questionnaire was distributed, the data was collected and coded and entered into the computer and processed statistically using the SPSS program. The study found that the percentage of approval of the obstacles to the application of knowledge management at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorei differed between few and large, and the relative weight of the axis was complete (68.2). The degree of awareness of the workers of the reality of performance excellence at the University of Palestine Technical-Kadoorei was between medium and very large. There is an impact of the constraints of the application of knowledge management on performance excellence at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorei. In light of the results of the previous study, the researchers recommended that the importance of knowledge management should be taken into account in order to raise the university's reputation and reputation at home and abroad and improve its services to students and the local community. And to promote the exchange of experiences and knowledge with local, regional and international universities in order to enhance the knowledge and preserve it and provide modern and sophisticated scientific techniques and use them in administrative and academic work at the university. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have investigated various ways in which non‐epistemic evaluations can affect knowledge attributions. For example, several teams of researchers (Beebe and Buckwalter 2010; Beebe and Jensen 2012; Schaffer and Knobe 2012; Beebe and Shea 2013; Buckwalter 2014b; Turri 2014) report that the goodness or badness of an agent’s action can affect whether the agent is taken to have certain kinds of knowledge. These findings raise important questions about how patterns of folk knowledge attributions should influence philosophical (...) theorizing about knowledge. (shrink)

Our ability to tell stories about ourselves has captivated many theorists, and some have taken these developments for an opportunity to answer long-standing questions about the nature of personhood. In this essay I employ two skeptical arguments to show that this move was a mistake. The first argument rests on the observation that storytelling is revisionary. The second implies that our stories about ourselves are biased in regard to our existing self-image. These arguments undercut narrative theories of identity, but they (...) leave room for a theory of narrative self-knowledge. The theory accommodates the first skeptical argument because there are event descriptions with retrospective assertibility conditions, and it accommodates the second argument by denying us epistemic privilege in regard to our own past. The result is that we do know our past through storytelling, but that it is a contingent feature of some of our stories that they are about ourselves. (shrink)

Mirror neuron research has come a long way since the early 1990s, and many theorists are now stressing the heterogeneity and complexity of the sensorimotor properties of fronto-parietal circuits. However, core aspects of the initial ‘ mirror mechanism ’ theory, i.e. the idea of a symmetric encapsulated mirroring function translating sensory action perceptions into motor formats, still appears to be shaping much of the debate. This article challenges the empirical plausibility of the sensorimotor segregation implicit in the original (...) mirror metaphor. It is proposed instead that the teleological organization found in the broader fronto-parietal circuits might be inherently sensorimotor. Thus the idea of an independent ‘purely perceptual’ goal understanding process is questioned. Further, it is hypothesized that the often asymmetric, heterogeneous and contextually modulated mirror and canonical neurons support a function of multisensory mapping and tracking of the perceiving agents affordance space. Such a shift in the interpretative framework offers a different theoretical handle on how sensorimotor processes might ground various aspects of intentional action choice and social cognition. Mirror neurons would under the proposed “social affordance model” be seen as dynamic parts of larger circuits, which support tracking of currently shared and competing action possibilities. These circuits support action selection processes—but also our understanding of the options and action potentials that we and perhaps others have in the affordance space. In terms of social cognition ‘ mirror ’ circuits might thus help us understand not only the intentional actions others are actually performing—but also what they could have done, did not do and might do shortly. (shrink)

Proponents of enactivism should be interested in exploring what notion of action best captures the type of action-perception link that the view proposes, such that it covers all the aspects in which our doings constitute and are constituted by our perceiving. This article proposes and defends the thesis that the notion of sensorimotor dependencies is insufficient to account for the reality of human perception, and that the central enactive notion should be that of perceptual practices. Sensorimotor enactivism is (...) insufficient because it has no traction on socially dependent perceptions, which are essential to the role and significance of perception in our lives. Since the social dimension is a central desideratum in a theory of human perception, enactivism needs a notion that accounts for such an aspect. This article sketches the main features of the Wittgenstein-inspired notion of perceptual practices as the central notion to understand perception. Perception, I claim, is properly understood as woven into a type of social practices that includes food, dance, dress, music, etc. More specifically, perceptual practices are the enactment of culturally structured, normatively rich techniques of commerce of meaningful multi- and inter-modal perceptible material. I argue that perceptual practices explain three central features of socially dependent perception: attentional focus, aspects’ saliency, and modal-specific harmony-like relations. (shrink)

Joint attention is a social-cognitive phenomenon in which two or more agents direct their attention together towards the same object. Definitions range from this rather broad conception to more specific definitions which require that, in addition, attention be directed to the same aspect of that object and that agents need to be mutually aware of their jointly attending. Joint attention is an important coordination mechanism in joint action. The capacity for engaging in joint attention, in particular in the sense of (...) this narrower definition, is frequently taken to indicate the presence of theory of mind in the participating agents, and is also implicated in the development of theory of mind. However, the prominence of sensorimotor components in establishing and sustaining episodes of joint attention — e.g., eye and head movements, pointing and vocalizations — suggests that sensorimotor approaches to social interaction may be well-placed to account for important parts of joint attention without invoking theory-of-mind abilities, and may therefore provide a valuable alternative to approaches emphasizing theory of mind. In particular, sensorimotor accounts may explain aspects of joint attention through the dynamics and regularities in the sensorimotor processes that coordinate the activities of the agents. (shrink)

Anderson suggests that theories of sensorimotor grounding are too narrow to account for his findings of widespread supporting multiple different cognitive I call some of the methodological assumptions underlying this conclusion into question, and suggest that his examples reaffirm rather than undermine the special status of sensorimotor processes in cognitive evolution.

Epistemic contextualism (‘EC’), the view that the truth-values of knowledge attributions may vary with the context of ascription, has a variety of different linguistic implementations. On one of the implementations most popular in the early days of EC, the predicate ‘knows p’ functions semantically similarly to gradable adjectives such as ‘flat’, ‘tall’, or ‘empty’. In recent work Jason Stanley and John Hawthorne have presented powerful arguments against such implementations of EC. In this article I briefly systematize the contextualist analogy (...) to gradable adjectives, present Stanley’s argument against the analogy, and offer a contextualist response that abandons the analogy in favor of modeling the semantics of ‘knows p’ along the lines of quantifier expressions. I then present Hawthorne’s objection to the views presented, and finally conclude by outlining an argument to the effect that ‘knows p’ is an automatic indexical and as such to be expected to function differently from many other indexicals that the term has been compared to in the literature. I finally point out that no analogy should be expected to be perfect, and that no harm is done by postulating some unique behavior of ‘knows p’. (shrink)

In discussion of the interpretation of quantum mechanics the terms ‘ontic’ and ‘epistemic’ are often used in the sense of pertaining to what exists, and pertaining to cognition or knowledge respectively. The terms are also often associated with the formal definitions given by Harrigan and Spekkens for the wavefunction in quantum mechanics to be ψ-ontic or ψ-epistemic in the context of the ontological models framework. The formal definitions are contradictories, so that the wavefunction can be either ψ-epistemic or ψ-ontic (...) but not both. However, we argue, nothing about the informal ideas of epistemic and ontic interpretations rules out wavefunctions representing both reality and knowledge. The implications of the Pusey–Barrett–Rudolph theorem and many other issues may be rethought in the light of our analysis. (shrink)

I argue that these inconsistencies in wording and practice reflect the existence of two distinct Aristotelian views of inquiry, one peculiar to the Posterior Analytics and the other put forward in the Physics and practiced in the Physics and in other treatises. Although the two views overlap to some degree (e.g. both regard a rudimentary understanding of the subject as an essential first stage), the view of the syllogism as the workhorse of scientific investigation and the related view of inquiry (...) as a search for the ‘missing middle terms’ turn out to be ideas peculiar to the Analytics. Conversely, the techniques of analysis and differentiation highlighted in the Physics account receive only cursory attention in the Analytics. However, when we consider the character of Aristotle’s own inquiries, on both scientific and philosophical topics, it becomes clear that it is the Physics rather than the Posterior Analytics that gives us Aristotle’s considered view the path to knowledge. (shrink)

John Locke is known within anthropology primarily for his empiricism, his views of natural laws, and his discussion of the state of nature and the social contract. Marilyn Strathern and Marshall Sahlins, however, have offered distinctive, novel, and broad reflections on the nature of anthropological knowledge that appeal explicitly to a lesser-known aspect of Locke’s work: his metaphysical views of relations. This paper examines their distinctive conclusions – Sahlins’ about cultural relativism, Strathern’s about relatives and kinship – both of (...) which concern the objectivity of anthropological knowledge. Although Locke’s own views of relations have been neglected by historians of philosophy in the past, recent and ongoing philosophical discussions of Locke on relations create a productive trading zone between philosophy and anthropology on the objectivity of anthropological knowledge that goes beyond engagement with the particular claims made by Sahlins and Strathern. (shrink)

Suppose we consider knowledge to be valuable because of the role known propositions play in practical reasoning. This, I argue, does not provide a reason to think that knowledge is valuable in itself. Rather, it provides a reason to think that true belief is valuable from one standpoint, and that justified belief is valuable from another standpoint, and similarly for other epistemic concepts. The value of the concept of knowledge is that it provides an economical way of (...) talking about many epistemic concepts that are valuable in itself from one standpoint or another. In this way knowledge is like a Swiss Army Knife; a Swiss Army Knife is not useful as such on any occasion, but it provides an efficient way of carrying around different tools that are useful in themselves on different occasions. (shrink)

This paper defends Michel Foucault’s notion of archaeology of knowledge against the influential and putatively devastating criticism by Dreyfus and Rabinow that Foucault’s archaeological project is based on an incoherent conception of the rules of the discursive practices it purports to study. I argue first that Foucault’s considered view of these rules as simultaneously implicit and historically efficacious corresponds to a general requirement for the normative structure of a discursive practice. Then I argue that Foucault is entitled to that (...) view despite the charges to the contrary by Dreyfus and Rabinow. I also explain in detail how the argument by Dreyfus and Rabinow arises from a misunderstanding of Foucault’s archaeological project as transcendental inquiry, while archaeology of knowledge is, in fact, a diagnostic project. The result is a novel understanding of the notion of archaeology of knowledge that enables a reassessment of Foucault’s philosophical work in connection with current debates regarding the relationship between reflection and practice in the structure of thought. (shrink)

Amidst the broad divergence in opinion of philosophers and scientists at understanding reality that has lent character to the historical epochs of the Philosophical enterprise, the crucial realization has always been, of the necessity of Epistemology in our entire program of making inquiry into ‘What Is’. This realization seems born out of the erstwhile problem of knowing. Epistemology, which investigates the nature, sources, limitations and validating of knowledge, offers a striking challenge here. Since we have no direct access to (...) our world around us, outside of the subjective experience offered us by our senses, we are handicapped at making comparisons of our beliefs with a concrete world, out there, or with elements of the world. Our statements about the world seem to stand alone, buffeted against the intimidating tide of possible contradicting circumstances. Our putative claims to knowledge, therefore, face the exigency of justification. Ayer, expressing the urgency of resolving this persisting lacuna, provides an alternative criterion of knowing, as ‘having the right to be sure’. Thus, it is this deep-seated concern that has evolved, over time, to become the primary thrust of the project of Epistemology, raising the controversy over which, of Epistemology or Metaphysics, is to be accorded the prime status of first philosophy. However, Aquinas is wise to build his epistemological premise on a firm metaphysical support, clarifying the needed development from being to knowledge. For, being has to first exist to constitute the object of perception, belief, and knowledge. Accordingly, our exposition of Aquinas’ epistemology will first take a cursory look at the theoretical and historical background to Aquinas’ Philosophy, before offering a general characterization of his theory of knowledge. Then, the paper will discuss his concept of sense perception as a basis for all knowing, followed closely by an analysis of cognition and Scientia. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to provide an overview of conceptual approaches to incorporating a decision maker’s non-knowledge into economic theory. We will focus here on the particular kind of non-knowledge which we consider to be one of the most important for economic discussions: non-knowledge of possible consequence-relevant uncertain events which a decision maker would have to take into account when selecting between different strategies.

This paper discusses the definition and sources of knowledge according to Ibn 'Arabi, the leading Sufi master of Andalusia (Muslim Spain).