Ecological and sensorimotor theories of perception build on the notion of action-dependent invariants as the basic structures underlying perceptual capacities. In this paper we contrast the assumptions these theories make on the nature of perceptual information modulated by action. By focusing on the question, how movement specifies perceptual information, we show that ecological and sensorimotor theories endorse substantially different views about the role of action in perception. In particular we argue that ecological invariants are characterized with reference to transformations produced (...) in the sensory array by movement: such invariants are transformation-specific but do not imply motor-specificity. In contrast, sensorimotor theories assume that perceptual invariants are intrinsically tied to specific movements. We show that this difference leads to different empirical predictions and we submit that the distinction between motor equivalence and motor-specificity needs further clarification in order to provide a more constrained account of action/perception relations. (shrink)

Sensorimotor enactivism takes perceptual experience to be constituted by a kind of attunement to sensorimotor contingencies – law‐like relations between sensory inputs and bodily activity. The chemical senses have traditionally been construed as especially simple and passive, and a number of philosophers have argued that flavour and smell are problem cases for the sensorimotor approach. In this article, I respond to these objections to the sensorimotor approach, and in doing so offer the beginnings of a sensorimotor account of the chemical (...) senses. (shrink)

In the current literature, discussions of cognitive penetrability focus largely either on interpreting empirical evidence in ways that is relevant to the question of modularity :343–391, 1999; Wu Philos Stud 165:647–669, 2012; Macpherson Philos Phenomenol Res, 84:24–62, 2012) or in offering epistemological considerations regarding which properties are represented in perception :519–540, 2009, Noûs 46:201–222, 2011; Prinz Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 434–460, 2006). In contrast to these debates, in this paper, I explore conceptual issues regarding how we ought (...) to understand the “cognitive” side of cognitive penetrability. I argue that it is only on its most narrow construal that a full-fledged defense of cognitive impenetrability has been forwarded. Specifically, I argue that the defenders of modularity have tacitly identified cognitive states with propositional states, and have thus only defended the idea that early perceptual systems are immune to the impacts of propositional knowledge. My aim then is to raise doubts about the identification of cognitive states with propositional ones. In particular, by focusing on skill, I will broaden the conceptual space for a greater number of states to have the potential to impact perceptual processing in a way that would constitute a genuine instance of cognitive penetrability. (shrink)

The main idea of this book is that perceiving is a way of acting. Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do. Think of a blind person tap-tapping his or her way around a cluttered space, perceiving that space by touch, not all at once, but through time, by skillful probing and movement. This is, or at least ought to be, our paradigm of what perceiving is. The world makes itself available to (...) the perceiver through physical movement and interaction. In this book I argue that all perception is touch-like in this way: perceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession of bodily skills. What we perceive is determined by what we do ; it is determined by what we are ready to do. In ways I try to make precise, we enact our perceptual experience; we act it out. (shrink)