The extended mind hypothesis (Clark and Chalmers in Analysis 58(1):7–19, 1998; Clark 2008) is an influential hypothesis in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I argue that the extended mind hypothesis is born to be wild. It has undeniable and irrepressible tendencies of flouting grounding assumptions of the traditional information-processing paradigm. I present case-studies from social cognition which not only support the extended mind proposal but also bring out its inherent wildness. In particular, I focus on cases of action-understanding and (...) discuss the role of embodied intentionality in the extended mind project. I discuss two theories of action-understanding for exploring the support for the extended mind hypothesis in embodied intersubjective interaction, namely, simulation theory and a non-simulationist perceptual account. I argue that, if the extended mind adopts a simulation theory of action-understanding, it rejects representationalism. If it adopts a non-simulationist perceptual account of action-understanding, it rejects the classical sandwich view of the mind. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what the attitude of hope consists in. We argue that shortcomings in recent theories of hope have methodological roots in that they proceed with little regard for the rich body of literature on the emotions. Taking insights from work in the philosophy of emotions, we argue that hope involves a kind of normative perception. We then develop a strategy for determining the content of this perception, arguing that hope is a perception of practical reasons. (...) Our proposal stands in contrast with familiar views on which hope is fundamentally about the good. We conclude by considering the increasingly popular idea that some hopes are non-intentional and thus, by implication, non-perceptual. We reply by arguing that our perceptual theory plausibly generalizes to these instances of hope. (shrink)

This paper, in opposition to the standard theories of social cognition found in psychology and cognitive science, defends the idea that direct perception plays an important role in social cognition. The two dominant theories, theory theory and simulation theory , both posit something more than a perceptual element as necessary for our ability to understand others, i.e., to “mindread” or “mentalize.” In contrast, certain phenomenological approaches depend heavily on the concept of perception and the idea that (...) we have a direct perceptual grasp of the other person’s intentions, feelings, etc. This paper explains precisely what the notion of direct perception means, offers evidence from developmental studies, and proposes a non-simulationist interpretation of the neuroscience of mirror systems. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to offer a new theory of moods, according to which moods are perceptual experiences that represent undetermined objects as possessing specific evaluative properties. I start by listing a series of features that moods are typically taken to possess and claim that a satisfactory theory of moods must be able either to explain why moods genuinely possess these features or to explain these appearances away in a non-ad hoc way. I show that (...) my account provides a plausible explanation of all the main features of moods. I conclude by addressing some objections against my account. (shrink)

This essay raises a challenge for the perceptual theory of emotion. According to the perceptual theory, emotions are perceptual states that represent values. But if emotions represent values, something should explain why. In virtue of what do emotions represent the values they do? A psychosemantics would answer this, and that’s what the perceptual theorist owes us. To date, however, the only perceptual theorist to attempt a psychosemantics for emotion is Jesse Prinz. And Prinz’s (...) theory, I argue, faces an important difficulty: It makes the pairing of any given emotion with its respective value entirely arbitrary. But that’s a problem. It seems—and this is a major contention of this essay—that an emotion, in virtue of how it feels, bears a natural or non-arbitrary link to the value it represents. And this datum makes it all the more difficult to provide a viable psychosemantics for the evaluative content of emotion. (shrink)

All non-relational views of perceptual experience face Jackson's famous many-property problem. I argue that the original problem, and the existing responses to it, have focused too closely on the controversial terminology for which adverbialism is best known. We can also direct Jackson's many-property problem explicitly onto the adverbialist's metaphysics, generating a new challenge. The responses contemporary adverbialists and non-relationalists have made to the original objection are not successful against this challenge. We need a new non-relational account. I sketch an (...) outline of a new theory, and motivate the view by explaining how it can respond successfully to this additional challenge. -/- . (shrink)

Perception is riddled with cases of reliable misperception. These are cases in which a perceptual state is tokened inaccurately any time it is tokened under normal conditions. On the face of it, this fact causes trouble for theories that provide an analysis of perceptual content in non-semantic, non-intentional, and non-phenomenal terms, such as those found in Millikan (1984), Fodor (1990), Neander (2017), and Schellenberg (2018). I show how such theories can be extended so that they cover such cases (...) without giving up their core commitments. (shrink)

Among the means of valid cognition, the one which appears first in every enumeration, which was considered as being the basis of all other means of knowledge and which was considered as a legitimate method of knowledge by all schools of Indian thought is perception (pratyakṣa). With regard to perception, we can naturally expect such questions as ‘what is it to perceive’ or ‘what do we mean when we say that something is perceived’. It is generally believed that the philosophical (...) theories of perceptions are really theories about what we mean by ordinary perceptual statements. In considering our knowledge about the external world, the philosopher tends to consider the way in which perception can and does provide us with the knowledge and the nature, extent and certainty of knowledge it provides us with. It is a well acknowledged fact that perception is the fundamental source of knowledge. In Buddhist epistemology, a systematic discussion on perception is found in the writings of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya with vṛitti, who belongs to Yogācāra school of Buddhism of Mahayana tradition. An attempt has been made in this paper to explain and examine critically the first chapter of Pramāṇasamuccaya with vṛitti, i.e., perception with special reference to Non-Buddhist schools, namely Nyāyayikas, Vaiśeṣikas, Sāṁkhyans and Mīmāṁsakas. To explain it, the paper has been divided into three sections. Section I deals with Dignāga’s theory of perception and examination of non-Buddhist school's theory of perception, section II deals with Dignāga’s examination of nature of Perception with reference to non-Buddhists schools and section III deals with conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper we (i) identify the notion of ‘essentially non-conceptual content’ by critically analyzing the recent and contemporary debate about non-conceptual content, (ii) work out the basics of broadly Kantian theory of essentially non-conceptual content in relation to a corresponding theory of conceptual content, and then (iii) demonstrate one effective application of the Kantian theory of essentially non-conceptual content by using this theory to provide a ‘minimalist’ solution to the problem of perceptual self-knowledge which (...) is raised by Strong Externalism. (shrink)

Perceptual filling-in for vision is the insertion of visual properties (e.g., color, contour, luminance, or motion) into one’s visual field, when those properties have no corresponding retinal input. This paper introduces and provides preliminary empirical support for filled/non-filled pairs, pairs of images that appear identical, yet differ by amount of filling-in. It is argued that such image pairs are important to the experimental testing of theories of consciousness. We review recent experimental research and conclude that filling-in involves brain activity (...) with relatively high integrated information (Phi) compared to veridical visual perceptions. We then present filled/non-filled pairs as an empirical challenge to the integrated information theory of consciousness, which predicts that phenomenologically identical experiences depend on brain processes with identical Phi. (shrink)

I argue that Kant’s theory of art meets the challenge of strong non-perceptual art, an idea I extrapolate from James Shelley’s account of non-perceptual art. I endorse the spirit of Shelley’s account, but argue that his examples fail to support his case because he does not distinguish between strong and weak non-perceptual art. The former has no perceptible properties relevant to its appreciation as art; the latter is not exhausted by appreciation of those perceptible properties it (...) does have. I show this by comparing Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain and Robert Barry’s All the things I know. For Kant, appreciating art aesthetically as art requires: (1) awareness that it is art and (2) responsiveness to the ideas presented. Taken together, this allows Kant to accommodate strong non-perceptual art. I consider three challenges to this view: (a) Kant is committed to a representational theory of art; (b) Kant is committed to a restrictive formalism about aesthetic judgements of art; (c) Kant’s understanding of aesthetic pleasure commits him to a perceptual theory of art. I reply that: (i) this is grounded in empirical generalizations external to Kant’s theory; (ii) Kant’s strong formalist views are at odds with his account of ‘subjective purposiveness’, and the latter has priority; (iii) Kant is offering a general theory of art, which must accommodate both literature and strong non-perceptual art. (shrink)

James Shelley has raised the important question of whether it is possible to have aesthetic experiences of imperceptible artworks. This issue is important for determining whether or not the aesthetic theory of art can deal with certain cases of conceptual art. Shelley has argued that it is possible to have aesthetic experiences of imperceptibilia. And in this article, I concur with him, though for reasons different from his. Nevertheless, I go on to argue that this still fails to vindicate (...) the aesthetic theory of art. (shrink)

Theories of consciousness divide over whether perceptual consciousness is rich or sparse in specific representational content and whether it requires cognitive access. These two issues are often treated in tandem because of a shared assumption that the representational capacity of cognitive access is fairly limited. Recent research on working memory challenges this shared assumption. This paper argues that abandoning the assumption undermines post-cue-based “overflow” arguments, according to which perceptual conscious is rich and does not require cognitive access. Abandoning (...) it also dissociates the rich/sparse debate from the access question. The paper then explores attempts to reformulate overflow theses in ways that don’t require the assumption of limited capacity. Finally, it discusses the problem of relating seemingly non-probabilistic perceptual consciousness to the probabilistic representations posited by the models that challenge conceptions of cognitive access as capacity-limited. (shrink)

We introduce a new version of the perceptual retouch model. This model was used for explaining properties of temporal interaction of successive objects in reaching conscious representation. The new model incorporates two interactive binding operations – binding features for objects and binding the bound feature-objects with a large scale oscillatory system that corresponds to perceptual consciousness. Here, the typical result of masking experiments – second object advantage in conscious perception – is achieved by applying the effects of a (...) common synchronizing oscillator with a delay. This delayed modulation of each of the feature-binding first-order oscillators that represent emerging and decaying neural activities of each of the objects guarantees that the oscillating synchrony of the feature-neurons of the following object is higher than the synchrony of the feature-neurons of the first presented object. Thus we model the fact that the following object dominates the preceding object in conscious perception. We also show the capacity of the model to simulate illusory misbinding of features from different objects. The third qualitative effect, the relative release of the first object from backward masking is achieved by priming the non-specific oscillatory modulation ahead in time. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory is an influential, non-mainstream account of perception and perceptual consciousness intended to improve in various ways on orthodox theories. It is often taken to be a variety of enactivism, and in common with enactivist cognitive science more generally, it de-emphasises the theoretical role played by internal representation and other purely neural processes, giving theoretical pride of place instead to interactive engagements between the brain, non-neural body and outside environment. In addition to offering a distinctive account (...) of the processing that underlies perceptual consciousness, the sensorimotor theory aims to offer a new and improved account the logical and phenomenological character of perceptual experience, and the relation between physical and phenomenal states. Since its inception in a 2001 paper by O’Regan and Noë, the theory has prompted a good deal of increasingly prominent theoretical and practical work in cognitive science, as well as a large body of secondary literature in philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of perception. In spite of its influential character, many of the theory’s most basic tenets are incompletely or ambiguously defined, and it has attracted a number of prominent objections. This thesis aims to clarify the conceptual foundations of the sensorimotor theory, including the key theoretical concepts of sensorimotor contingency, sensorimotor mastery, and presence-as-access, and defends a particular understanding of the respective theoretical roles of internal representation and behavioural capacities. In so doing, the thesis aims to highlight the sensorimotor theory’s virtues and defend it from some leading criticisms, with particular attention to a response by Clark which claims that perception and perceptual experience plausibly depend on the activation of representations which are not intimately involved in bodily engagements between the agent and environment. A final part of the thesis offers a sensorimotor account of the experience of temporally extended events, and shows how with reference to this we can better understand object experience. (shrink)

Journal of Mind and Behavior 28 no. 2 , pp. 135-156. The self-prompting theory of consciousness holds that conscious perceptual experience occurs when non-routine perceptual data prompt the activation of a plan in an executive control system that monitors perceptual input. On the other hand, routine, non-conscious perception merely provides data about the world, which indicatively describes the world correctly or incorrectly. Perceptual experience instead involves data that are about the perceiver, not the world. Their (...) function is that of imperatively prompting the perceiver herself to do something (hence. (shrink)

The Perceptual Hypothesis is that we sometimes see, and thereby have non-inferential knowledge of, others' mental features. The Perceptual Hypothesis opposes Inferentialism, which is the view that our knowledge of others' mental features is always inferential. The claim that some mental features are embodied is the claim that some mental features are realised by states or processes that extend beyond the brain. The view I discuss here is that the Perceptual Hypothesis is plausible if, but only if, (...) the mental features it claims we see are suitably embodied. Call this Embodied Perception Theory. I argue that Embodied Perception Theory is false. It doesn't follow that the Perceptual Hypothesis is implausible. The considerations which serve to undermine Embodied Perception Theory serve equally to undermine the motivations for assuming that others' mental lives are always imperceptible. (shrink)

Perceptual completion fills the gap for discrete perception to become continuous. Similarly, dynamic perceptual completion provides an experience of dynamic continuity. Our recent discovery of the ‘happening’ element of DPC completes the total experience for dynamism in the flow of time. However, a phenomenological explanation for these experiences is essential. The Snapshot Hypotheses especially the Dynamic Snapshot View provides the most comprehensive explanation. From that understanding the ‘two times’ problem can be addressed. The static time of spacetime cosmologies (...) has been irreconcilable with the dynamic FOT. Dismissing the FOT as an illusion is unsatisfactory. Therefore, we provide four hypotheses for the TTP.1) Since cosmological static time demands that all events are discrete, DPC elements for dynamism should likewise be expected to be discrete and accounted for by a snapshot phenomenology such as the DSV. 2) If temporality can be demonstrated to be similar to apparent motion by being a snapshot phenomenon and not demanding temporal extension it would confirm the DSV and permit reconciliation with static time. 3) If the ‘present moment’ is subjective as static time theories suggest, it should be possible experimentally for an observer to choose his own ‘present’ by moving to various points in the past with the aid of virtual reality. 4) If dynamism e.g. motion can be precluded without significant information loss or violating physics principles it is a cognitive add-on, thereby contradicting non-static time theories which suggest that time is ‘real.’ We confirm those hypotheses. (shrink)

Cognitive Theories of emotions have enjoyed great popularity in recent times. Allegedly, the so-called Perceptual Theory constitutes the most attractive version of this approach. However, the Perceptual Theory has come under increasing pressure. There are at least two ways to deal with the barrage of objections, which have been mounted against the Perceptual Theory. One is to argue that the objections work only if one assumes an overly narrow conception of what perception consists in. (...) On a better and more liberal understanding of perception, the objections lose their force. The other is to stress that the differences between emotions and sensory perceptions can be explained by focusing on a new analogy. As I will argue, emotions have interesting similarities with magnitude representations, such as the representation of distance. Such representations are plausibly thought to be analog and non-conceptual, but by contrast to sensory perceptions, such as colour perceptions, they do not lie at the sensory periphery. This new analogy makes room for a novel and attractive theory of emotions, the Receptive Theory, which allows for a positive and epistemologically fruitful characterization of emotions. (shrink)

Aesthetic non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express genuinely aesthetic beliefs and instead hold that they work primarily to express something non-cognitive, such as attitudes of approval or disapproval, or desire. Non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express aesthetic beliefs because they deny that there are aesthetic features in the world for aesthetic beliefs to represent. Their assumption, shared by scientists and theorists of mind alike, was that language-users possess cognitive mechanisms with which to objectively grasp abstract rules fixed independently of human (...) responses, and that cognizers are thereby capable of grasping rules for the correct application of aesthetic concepts without relying on evaluation or enculturation. However, in this article I use Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations to argue that psychological theories grounded upon this so-called objective model of rule-following fail to adequately account for concept acquisition and mastery. I argue that this is because linguistic enculturation, and the perceptual learning that’s often involved, influences and enables the mastery of aesthetic concepts. I argue that part of what’s involved in speaking aesthetically is to belong to a cultural practice of making sense of things aesthetically, and that it’s within a socio-linguistic community, and that community’s practices, that such aesthetic sense can be made intelligible. (shrink)

There are perceptual states whose representational content cannot even in principle be conceptual. If that claim is true, then at least some perceptual states have content whose semantic structure and psychological function are essentially distinct from the structure and function of conceptual content. Furthermore the intrinsically “orientable” spatial character of essentially non-conceptual content entails not only that all perceptual states contain non-conceptual content in this essentially distinct sense, but also that consciousness goes all the way down into (...) so-called unconscious or subpersonal mental states. Both my argument for the existence of essentially non-conceptual content and my theory of its structure and function have a Kantian provenance. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on a kind of perceptual states that we call perceptual motivations, that is, perceptual experiences that plausibly motivate us to act, such as itching, perceptual salience and pain. Itching seems to motivate you to scratch, perceiving a stimulus as salient seems to motivate you to attend to it and feeling a pain in your hand seems to motivate actions such as withdrawing from the painful stimulus. Five main accounts of perceptual (...) motivation are available: Descriptive, Conative, Imperativist, Reflexive and Dual Content views. Some of these have been developed in detail and others are natural extensions of existing views. However, we argue that none provides a satisfactory account of the target perceptual states. Driven by the failings of each account, we identify three conditions that any satisfactory theory of perceptual motivation must meet: Direct Motivational Force, Non-Obligatory Force and Intention-Independent Influence. Then we offer an account that attempts to fulfil these conditions: the Affordance Model. This model of perceptual motivation is premised on the claim that each of the target states involves the perception of a specific affordance for action and the triggering of Automatic Motor Initiations. We suggest that AMIs can explain the motivational force of these perceptual states. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on a kind of perceptual states that we call perceptual motivations, that is, perceptual experiences that plausibly motivate us to act, such as itching, perceptual salience and pain. Itching seems to motivate you to scratch, perceiving a stimulus as salient seems to motivate you to attend to it and feeling a pain in your hand seems to motivate actions such as withdrawing from the painful stimulus. Five main accounts of perceptual (...) motivation are available: Descriptive, Conative, Imperativist, Reflexive and Dual Content views. Some of these have been developed in detail and others are natural extensions of existing views. However, we argue that none provides a satisfactory account of the target perceptual states. Driven by the failings of each account, we identify three conditions that any satisfactory theory of perceptual motivation must meet: Direct Motivational Force, Non-Obligatory Force and Intention-Independent Influence. Then we offer an account that attempts to fulfil these conditions: the Affordance Model. This model of perceptual motivation is premised on the claim that each of the target states involves the perception of a specific affordance for action and the triggering of Automatic Motor Initiations (AMIs). We suggest that AMIs can explain the motivational force of these perceptual states. (shrink)

Some recent surveys of the modern philosophical debate over the existence of non-conceptual perceptual content have concluded that the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual representations is largely terminological. To remedy this terminological impasse, Robert Hanna and Monima Chadha claim that non-conceptualists must defend an essentialist view of non-conceptual content, according to which perceptual states have representational content whose structure and psychological function are necessarily distinct from that of conceptual states. Hanna and Chadha additionally suggest that non-conceptualists should go (...) “back to Kant” to find the most defensible version of an essentialist content non-conceptualism. I propose instead that non-conceptualists go back even further to the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti, so that they may not only find historical precedent for an essentialist content view, but also some better arguments in its favor. This essay reconstructs Dharmakīrti's essentialist non-conceptualism about the contents of conscious sensory representations and the refined theory of conceptualization that it presupposes. In particular, I examine his arguments from the proprietary phenomenology of sensory experience, the cognitive encapsulation of sensory processing, as well as the iconic format of sensory representations, and assess the strength of these arguments relative to their modern counterparts. (shrink)

The Perceptual Hypothesis is that we sometimes see, and thereby have non‐inferential knowledge of, others' mental features. The Perceptual Hypothesis opposes Inferentialism, which is the view that our knowledge of others' mental features is always inferential. The claim that some mental features are embodied is the claim that some mental features are realised by states or processes that extend beyond the brain. The view I discuss here is that the Perceptual Hypothesis is plausible if, but only if, (...) the mental features it claims we see are suitably embodied. Call this Embodied Perception Theory. I argue that Embodied Perception Theory is false. It doesn't follow that the Perceptual Hypothesis is implausible. The considerations which serve to undermine Embodied Perception Theory serve equally to undermine the motivations for assuming that others' mental lives are always imperceptible. (shrink)

This paper connects the debate regarding perceptual representation of high-level properties and the debate regarding non-conceptual perceptual representation. I present and defend a distinction between representationally-complex properties and properties that are simpler to represent and offer ways of assessing whether a property is representationally complex. I address conditions under which such a property might be non-conceptually represented and conclude that most representationally-complex properties are simply too complex to be non-conceptually represented. Thus, most mental states that represent representationally-complex properties (...) must be conceptual. This conclusion is relevant for a variety of philosophical theories (perception, ethics, emotions, pain) and is especially dramatic with respect to accounts according to which a mental state can non-conceptually represent such properties. As a test case for applying my argument I consider a group of such accounts: non-conceptual perceptual views of emotions, which my argument entails are false. I end by considering the implications my argument has for different theories. -/- . (shrink)

This book provides an accessible and up-to-date discussion of contemporary theories of perceptual justification that each highlight different factors related to perception, i.e., conscious experience, higher-order beliefs, and reliable processes. The book’s discussion starts from the viewpoint that perception is not only one of our fundamental sources of knowledge and justification, but also plays this role for many less sophisticated animals. It proposes a scientifically informed reliabilist theory which can accommodate this fact without denying that some of our (...) epistemic abilities as human perceivers are special. This allows it to combine many of our intuitions about the importance of conscious experience and higher-order belief with the controversial thesis that perceptual justification is fundamentally non-evidential in character. (shrink)

The essays that follow grew out of a workshop held at the Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley, in March 2018, on the topic of conceptuality and non-conceptuality in Buddhist philosophy. Discussions at the workshop focused specifically on the tenability of the claim made by the two Buddhist epistemologists Dignāga and Dharmakīrti that perceptual cognitions are non-conceptual and yet also contribute to the contents of conceptual thought. The four contributions collected here present just a few of the (...) resulting reflections.This essay explores the Dharmakīrtian1 notion of a "concept" in the specific context of a "pseudo-perception", that is, cognitive events that... (shrink)

Perception is said to have assertoric force: It inclines the perceiver to believe its content. In contrast, perceptual imagination is commonly taken to be non-assertoric: Imagining winning a piano contest does not incline the imaginer to believe they actually won. However, abundant evidence from clinical and experimental psychology shows that imagination influences attitudes and behavior in ways similar to perceptual experiences. To account for these phenomena, I propose that perceptual imaginings have implicit assertoric force and put forth (...) a theory—the Prima Facie View—as a unified explanation for the empirical findings reviewed. According to this view, mental images are treated as percepts in operations involving associative memory. Finally, I address alternative explanations that could account for the reviewed empirical evidence—such as a Spinozian model of belief formation or Gendler’s notion of alief—as well as potential objections to the Prima Facie View. (shrink)

Perceptual disjunctivism is a controversial thesis about perception. One familiar characterization of the thesis maintains that there is no common epistemic kind that is present in both veridical and non-veridical cases of perception. For example, the good case, in which one sees a yellow lemon, and the bad case, in which one hallucinates a yellow lemon, share a specific first-person phenomenology, being indistinguishable from the first-person point of view; however, seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon do (...) not, according to the disjunctivist, share a common epistemic kind. There are two types of disjunctivism: epistemological vs. metaphysical. John McDowell, 243–255, 2011, Philosophical Explorations, 16, 259–279, 2013) has articulated, refined, and defended one kind of disjunctivism. Tyler Burge, 1–78, 2005, Philosophical Explorations, 13, 43–80, 2011) has objected to many forms of disjunctivism, arguing that they are all inconsistent with the proximality principle in the vision sciences. PP requires an ability-general kind in common between relevantly similar perceptual states, such as seeing a yellow lemon and hallucinating a yellow lemon, which disjunctivism denies. Against the background of this debate some analytic epistemologists, such as Michael Martin, Alan Millar, 176–198, 2007), Berit Brogaard, 46–73, 2011), Duncan Pritchard, and Heather Logue, 105–133, 2013) remain attracted to some version of disjunctivism. Brogaard and Pritchard each have gone on to articulate and defend a version. Pritchard’s, for example, defends epistemological disjunctivism. Martin, Millar, and Logue, by contrast, have defended the idea that the disjunctivist is right about something, but perhaps not wholly correct about the nature of perception. In what follows, I articulate and defend the view that an interesting kind of disjunctivism is to be found through a reading of the Nyāya School of classical Indian philosophy. I articulate a version of perceptual disjunctivism informed by Nyāya perceptual theory that is not derivable from any single Nyāya philosopher. The view I offer is inspired by work on disjunctivism both in Anglo-analytic philosophy and in Nyāya scholarship, such as by Dasti and Phillips, 535–540, 2010), Ganeri, 541–550, 2010), Dasti, 1–15, 2012), Phillips, Vaidya, 562–585, 2013), and Schiller, 1–18, 2019). Importantly, the causal account I offer is distinct from Grice’s single-factor causal theory of perception by crucially involving a multi-factor causal theory of perception. My work on Nyāya perceptual theory derives primarily from Jaysankar Shaw’s account of Nyāya on the sources of knowledge, which is distinct from Stephen Phillips’ well-known account of Nyāya epistemology. Shaw’s theory has been developed and refined through textual analysis and dialectical engagement with the twentieth century Nyāya Pundit Philosopher, Viśvabandhu Tarkatīrtha. Like other modern Nyāya scholars, such as B. K. Matilal, A. Chakrabarti, 1–8, 2010), M. Chadha, J. Ganeri, and S. Phillips, 104–113, 2001, 2012), J. Shaw’s account shows how Nyāya epistemology is a living and continuing form of Indian philosophy. My goal here is twofold. On the one hand, I articulate multi-factor causal disjunctivism and show how it can be applied to the McDowell-Burge debate over the viability of disjunctivism and naïve realism. On the other hand, I aim to start a cross-cultural epistemological conversation with those that have contributed to the Anglo-analytic debate in anthologies, such as Haddock and Macpherson, Byrne and Logue, and introductions, such as Soteriou. The hope is that a cross-cultural epistemological investigation into disjunctivism will lead to better epistemic theorizing about the nature of perception. (shrink)

One of the promising approaches to the problem of perceptual consciousness has been the representational theory, or representationalism. The idea is to reduce the phenomenal character of conscious perceptual experiences to the representational content of those experiences. Most representationalists appeal specifically to non-conceptual content in reducing phenomenal character to representational content. In this paper, I discuss a series of issues involved in this representationalist appeal to non-conceptual content. The overall argument is the following. On the face of (...) it, conscious perceptual experience appears to be experience of a structured world, hence to be at least partly conceptual. To validate the appeal to non-conceptual content, the representationalist must therefore hold that the content of experience is partly conceptual and partly non-conceptual. But how can the conceptual and the non-conceptual combine to form a single content? The only way to make sense of this notion, I argue, leads to a surprising consequence, namely, that the representational approach to perceptual consciousness is a disguised form of functionalism. (shrink)

Perception of the external world is an essential part of the animal (including human) life, both as a source of knowledge and as a way to survive. Medieval authors accepted this view, and despite general concerns about the reliability of the senses in the acquisition of certain and objective knowledge, they thought that for the most part our perceptual system gets things right when it comes to the perceptual features of things—but not always. Our article focuses on thirteenth- (...) and fourteenth-century philosophical discussions of illusions and other types of perceptual errors. Reception of incorrect information, misjudgments concerning perceptual objects, the binding problem, and similar cases that explain perceptual errors will be analyzed. We discuss what might be called medieval Aristotelian/Avicennian theories of perception and the internal senses (drawing mainly from Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas), as well as the so-called perspectivist accounts of perception, especially that by Alhacen. Finally, we take up a debate between Peter Auriol and his critics, which contains elements that can be seen as precursors of later skeptical worries. The concern here is that, just like in contemporary discussions leading to disjunctivism, the absence of a secure way to distinguish between veridical and non-veridical perception leads to a general worry about the reliability of our experience of the world. (shrink)

Gestalt theory is discussed as one main precursor of synergetics, one of the most elaborated theories of self-organization. It is a precursor for two reasons: the Gestalt theoretical view of cognitive order-formation comes dose to the central ideas of self-organization. Furthermore both approaches have stressed the significance of non-linear perceptual processes (such as multistability) for the solution of the mind-brain problem. The question of whether Gestalt theory preferred a dualistic or a monistic view of the mind-body relation (...) is answered in that there was a preference for dualism in epistemological questions and for monism in the mind-brain relation. The latter was attained by the concept of psychophysical isomorphism. This concept, although widely misunderstood in many respects, was criticized on the basis of neurobiological findings. One main objection was the neglect of the importance of the elementary neurophysiological processes. A distinction between macroscopic and microscopic brain processes seemed to be required. This idea was taken up in synergetics which postulates a bottom-up and top-down interaction between these two levels. Macroscopic order emerges from elementary brain processes and, at the same time, has a backward slaving effect to the microscopic level In the light of such holistic emergentism, the question whether macroscopic order states might be attractors for psychological meanings is discussed. (shrink)

According to John McDowell, representational perceptual content is conceptual through and through. This paper criticizes this view by claiming that there is a certain kind of representational and non-conceptual perceptual content that is sensitive to bodily skills. After a brief introduction to McDowell's position, Merleau-Ponty's notion of body schema and Gibson's notion of affordance are presented. It is argued that affordances are constitutive of representational perceptual content, and that at least some affordances, the so-called 'conditional affordances', are (...) essentially related to the body schema. This means that the perceptual content depends upon the nature of the body schema. Since the body schema does not pertain to the domain that our conceptual faculties operate upon, it is argued that this kind of perceptual content cannot be conceptual. At least some of that content is representational, yet it cannot feature as non-demonstrative conceptual content. It is argued that if it features as demonstrative conceptual content, it has to be captured by private concepts. Since McDowell's theory does not allow for the existence of a private language, it is concluded that at least some representational perceptual content is non-conceptual. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that McDowell's brand of disjunctivism about perceptual knowledge is ill‐motivated. First, I present a reconstruction of one main motivation for disjunctivism, in the form of an argument that theories that posit a “highest common factor” between veridical and non‐veridical experiences must be wrong. Then I show that the argument owes its plausibility to a failure to distinguish between justification and warrant (where “warrant” is understood as whatever has to be added to true belief to (...) yield knowledge). (shrink)

Dogmatism holds that an experience or seeming that p can provide prima facie immediate justification for believing p in virtue of its phenomenology. Dogmatism about perceptual justification has appealed primarily to proponents of representational theories of perceptual experience. Call dogmatism that takes perceptual experience to be representational "representational phenomenal dogmatism." As we show, phenomenal seemings play a crucial role in dogmatism of this kind. Despite its conventional appeal to representational theorists, dogmatism is not by definition committed to (...) any particular view of perceptual experience. Naive realists and disjunctivists who hold that perceptual experience is a perceptual relation of direct acquaintance can also endorse dogmatism. Indeed, we argue that they ought to do so. Otherwise, they cannot maintain that relationalism about perceptual experience has an epistemic advantage compared to the representational view. We then show that even if we grant that relationalism has this advantage, only dogmatism that takes perceptual experience to be representational can be extended to account for non-deductive inferential justification. As an account of the latter is required to avoid succumbing to skepticism, relationalism, we argue, does not have the epistemic advantage its defenders claim it has. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop and defend a new adverbial theory of perception. I first present a semantics for direct-object perceptual reports that treats their object positions as supplying adverbial modifiers, and I show how this semantics definitively solves the many-property problem for adverbialism. My solution is distinctive in that it articulates adverbialism from within a well-established formal semantic framework and ties adverbialism to a plausible semantics for perceptual reports in English. I then go on to present (...) adverbialism as a theory of the metaphysics of perception. The metaphysics I develop treats adverbial perception as a directed activity: it is an activity with success conditions. When perception is successful, the agent bears a relation to a concrete particular, but perception need not be successful; this allows perception to be fundamentally non-relational. The result is a novel formulation of adverbialism that eliminates the need for representational contents, but also treats successful and unsuccessful perceptual events as having a fundamental common factor. (shrink)

Interface theory is the hypothesis that inferential, representational theories of perception entail that fitness, not truth, dictates the evolution of perceptual systems. They show, with simulations, that “veridical” perceptual mappings (ones that preserve at least some of the structure of the world) are routinely out-competed by “non-veridical” interfaces (ones that make no attempt to preserve that structure). They therefore take particular aim at the direct perception, ecological approach to perception and work to show that such a system, (...) even if technically an option, would never be selected for by evolution. This paper defends the ecological approach from this novel, existential attack by showing that the ecological hypothesis is so different in kind to the inferential, representational view of perception that it simply falls outside the scope of interface theory’s critiques; ecological psychology remains a viable scientific endeavor. This analysis will show that, far from being a radical new approach to perception, interface theory is simply a clear and elegant formalization of mainstream representational psychology, and any implications interface theory may have belong solely to that branch of science. (shrink)

Supporters of the Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion mainly explore emotions from the perspective of cognitive evaluation and advocate that emotions are evaluative judgments. The Perceptual Theories of Emotion have made some modifications to the evaluative judgment of emotions, attempting to propose better theories. The Perceptual Theories of Emotion advocate verifying the similarities between emotions and perceptions through analogical reasoning. However, the Perceptual Theories of Emotion also have their problems. Compared to the Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion (...) and the Perceptual Theories of Emotion, the Embodied Emotion Theory has significant advantages, mainly reflected in avoiding the drawbacks of over-intellectualize emotions by evaluative judgments; infants and animals can also understand emotions through non-conceptualized ways of self-awareness and understanding of social rules and norms; the core relational property of emotions revealed in the embodied emotion theory demonstrates the action orientation of emotions, connects the organism’s body and external environment, and integrates both biological and social aspects, further clarifying the complexity and diversity of emotions. (shrink)

According to non-conceptualist interpretations, Kant held that the application of concepts is not necessary for perceptual experience. Some have motivated non-conceptualism by noting the affinities between Kant's account of perception and contemporary relational theories of perception. In this paper I argue (i) that non-conceptualism cannot provide an account of the Transcendental Deduction and thus ought to be rejected; and (ii) that this has no bearing on the issue of whether Kant endorsed a relational account of perceptual experience.

Originally formulated as a theory of perception, ecological psychology has shown in recent decades an increasing interest in language. However, a comprehensive approach to language by ecological psychology has not yet been developed, as there is neither a naturalist philosophy of language nor one that takes ecological psychology as its scientific background. Our goal here is to argue that a subject naturalist and non-factualist framework can open the possibility of an expressivist analysis of perceptual judgments that is compatible (...) with the ecological understanding of perception, showing that such utterances do not work as descriptions of facts or states-of-affairs, but rather say something about the practical requirements necessary to display a perceptual vocabulary. We will also argue that this approach allows an understanding of perceptual content as clusters of socially-mediated affordances. If our proposal is sound, it would constitute a first and fruitful approximation toward establishing a naturalist link between embodied cognitive science and philosophy of language. (shrink)

Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi‐pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the “traditional” symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with (...) recentsituated cognition and active visionapproaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non‐discursiveness, creativity, and seeing as) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non‐discursive and relates it closely to seeing as. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought. (shrink)

Quality-space theory (QST) explains the nature of the mental qualities distinctive of perceptual states by appeal to their role in perceiving. QST is typically described in terms of the mental qualities that pertain to color. Here we apply QST to the olfactory modalities. Olfaction is in various respects more complex than vision, and so provides a useful test case for QST. To determine whether QST can deal with the challenges olfaction presents, we show how a quality space (QS) (...) could be constructed relying on olfactory perceptible properties and the olfactory mental qualities then defined by appeal to that QS of olfactory perceptible properties. We also consider how to delimit the olfactory QS from other modalities. We further apply QST to the role that experience plays in refining our olfactory discriminative abilities and the occurrence of olfactory mental qualities in non-conscious olfactory states. QST is shown to be fully applicable to and useful for understanding the complex domain of olfaction. (shrink)

We provide the first demonstration of an artificial neural network encoding the perceptual templates that form an important component of the high level strategic understanding developed by experts. Experts have a highly refined sense of knowing where to look, what information is important and what information to ignore. The conclusions these experts reach are of a higher quality and typically made in a shorter amount of time than those of non-experts. Understanding the manifestation of such abilities in terms of (...) both the psychology of expert performance and the underlying neural mechanisms constitutes one of the most challenging problems in the cognitive sciences. Using perceptual templates we show how the amount of contextual information can change significantly even within a given task, the relationship between local and non-local contexts and finally why there is very little correlation between measures of intelligence and level of expertise in many of the most complex tasks performed by humans. (shrink)

There is a long-Standing tradition in philosophy that certain metaphysical theories of perceptual experience, if true, would lead to scepticism about the external world, whereas other theories, if true, would develop a non-sceptkal epistemology. I investigate these claims in the context of current metaphysical theories of sense-perception and argue that choice of perceptual ontology is of very limited help in developing a non-sceptical epistemology. Theorists who hold that perception is an intentional state have some advantage in explaining how (...) perceptual experiences serve as justifying reasons for empirical beliefs. Alston and others have argued that a successful defence of a contemporary version of naïve realism would secure further epistemological advantages. I argue that this is not the case. A complete explanation of experience's reason-giving power involves factors beyond the metaphysical nature of experience. (shrink)

Crispin Wright has advanced a number of arguments to show that, in addition to evidential warrant, we have a species of non-evidential warrant, namely, “entitlement”, which forms the basis of a particular view of the architecture of perceptual justification known as “epistemic conservatism”. It is widely known, however, that Wright's conservative view is beset by a number of problems. In this article, I shall argue that the kind of warrant that emerges from Wright's account is not the standard truth-conducive (...) justification, but what is known as the deontological conception of justification. It will be argued that the deontological justification has features that make it a better candidate for representing a conservative architecture. These results will be reinforced by showing how the deontological framework can make better sense of a recent theory of justified belief that takes its inspiration from Wright's conservative account. Thus understood, we may see the liberalism–conservatism controversy as actually an extension of the older debate over which conception of justification, truth-conducive or deontological, can best represent the epistemic status of our belief-forming practices. (shrink)

This paper proposes a biosemiotic conception of theories, as non-intentional organic theories, which is based on an analysis and comparison of philosopher Norwood Russell Hanson’s account of theories and zoologist Jakob von Uexküll’s theory of organisms. It is argued that Hanson’s proposals about scientific theories and their relation to observation are semiotic in nature and that there exists a correspondence between Hanson’s depiction of the relationship between theories, observation, and reality and von Uexküll’s views on the relationship between organisms (...) and their environments. This correspondence supports an account of theories that depicts them as organic extensions of our perceptual physiology. Among the epistemological consequences of this account are the following: The kind of correspondence that is established through theories between a subject and reality is related rather to a subject’s actions than to a faithful representation of every aspect of the world, it suggests a strong emphasis on the creative aspects of knowledge acquisition, and it urges a reassessment of the evolutionary epistemology of theories. (shrink)

The idea of nonconceptual contents proposes that there are mental contents at the level of the experiencing person that are individuated independently of ‘anything to do with the mind.’ Such contents are posited to meet a variety of theoretical and explanatory needs concerning concepts and conceptual mental contents which are individuated in terms having to do with the mind. So to examine the idea of nonconceptual content we need to examine whether we really need to posit such content and whether (...) there is a coherent, viable way of doing so. I will examine the idea of nonconceptual contents by considering Christopher Peacocke's attempt, in his Study of Concepts, to posit such contents.Three principal kinds of considerations motivate positing non-conceptual content: epistemological, phenomenological, and explanatory-psychological. A theory of knowledge might posit nonconceptual content in order to show that our experience contains the justificatory base for empirical thought as its own proper part. Non-conceptual content might also be posited in order to account for the finely detailed or determinate phenomenological character of perceptual experience. (shrink)

God is omniscient; therefore, He knows that ‘the flower in my hand is red.’ If God knows that ‘the flower in my hand is red,’ then He knows it perceptually. God does not know anything perceptually. It is clear that the set of propositions – form an inconsistent triad. This is one of four problems with which Avicenna was engaged concerning God's knowledge of particulars, which I call the problem of perceptual knowledge. In order to solve PPK and three (...) other problems, Avicenna has developed a theory concerning God’s knowledge of particulars. Secondary literature around Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars has mostly directed its attention to give an account of Avicenna’s positive theory rather than the problems which that theory was designed to solve. But this paper will not do the same thing as this secondary literature. In contrast, in this paper, I will concentrate on the characterization of one of the problems, i.e., PPK, because of which Avicenna has presented his positive theory of God’s knowledge of particulars. In short, this paper aims to show why Avicenna deems explaining God’s knowledge of, say, the redness of a flower, via his accepted theory of perception as problematic. In this regard, I will extract three versions of PPK based on Avicenna's philosophy and through it will shed some light on Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars. (shrink)