Traditional accounts of the perception/cognition divide tend to draw it in terms of subpersonal psychological processes, processes into which the subject has no first-person insight. Whatever betides such accounts, there seems to also be some first-personally accessible difference between perception and thought. At least in normal circumstances, naïve subjects can typically tell apart their perceptual states from their cognitive or intellectual ones. What are such subjects picking up on when they do so? This paper is an (...) inconclusive search for an answer. At its end, I conclude, without joy, that we may have to simply accept the perception/cognition distinction as a primitive and inexplicable bright line within the sphere of conscious phenomena. (shrink)

Recent discussions have fixated on the distinction between perception and cognition. How should recognition be understood in light of this distinction? The relevant sense of recognition involves a sensitivity to particulars from one's past. Recognizing the face of a familiar friend is one instance of this phenomenon, as is recognizing an object or place that one has viewed before. In this article, I argue that recognition is an interface capacity that straddles the border between perception and (...) class='Hi'>cognition. (shrink)

One of Brian Loar’s most central contributions to contemporary philosophy of mind is the notion of phenomenal intentionality: a kind of intentional directedness fully grounded in phenomenal character. Proponents of phenomenal intentionality typically also endorse the idea of cognitive phenomenology: a sui generis phenomenal character of cognitive states such as thoughts and judgments that grounds these states’ intentional directedness. This combination creates a challenge, though: namely, how to account for the manifest phenomenological difference between perception and cognition. In (...) this paper, I argue that there is in fact no obvious account of this difference. I consider three main approaches: in terms of high-level vs. low-level contents, of conceptual vs. nonconceptual content, and of propositional vs. objectual content. After arguing against each, I conclude by considering the phenomenal-intentionalist’s options moving forward. (shrink)

This volume addresses key questions related to how content in thought is derived from perceptual experience. It includes chapters that focus on single issues on perception and cognition, as well as others that relate these issues to an important social construct that involves both perceptual experience and cognitive activities: aesthetics. While the volume includes many diverse views, several prominent themes unite the individual essays: a challenge to the notion of the discreet, and non-temporal, unit of perception, a (...) challenge to the traditional divide between perception and cognition, and a challenge to the traditional divide between unconscious and conscious intentionality. Additionally, the chapters discuss the content of perceptual experience, the value of traditional notions of content, disjunctivism, adverbialism, and phenomenal experience. The final section of essays dealing with perception and cognition in aesthetics features work in experimental aesthetics and unique perspectives from artists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art. ists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art. (shrink)

This volume addresses key questions related to how content in thought is derived from perceptual experience. It includes chapters that focus on single issues on perception and cognition, as well as others that relate these issues to an important social construct that involves both perceptual experience and cognitive activities: aesthetics. While the volume includes many diverse views, several prominent themes unite the individual essays: a challenge to the notion of the discreet, and non-temporal, unit of perception, a (...) challenge to the traditional divide between perception and cognition, and a challenge to the traditional divide between unconscious and conscious intentionality. Additionally, the chapters discuss the content of perceptual experience, the value of traditional notions of content, disjunctivism, adverbialism, and phenomenal experience. The final section of essays dealing with perception and cognition in aesthetics features work in experimental aesthetics and unique perspectives from artists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art. ists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art. (shrink)

On many of the idealized models of human cognition and behavior in use by philosophers, agents are represented as having a single corpus of beliefs which (a) is consistent and deductively closed, and (b) guides all of their (rational, deliberate, intentional) actions all the time. In graded-belief frameworks, agents are represented as having a single, coherent distribution of credences, which guides all of their (rational, deliberate, intentional) actions all of the time. It's clear that actual human beings don't live (...) up to this idealization. The systems of belief that we in fact have are fragmented. Rather than having a single system of beliefs that guides all of our behavior all of the time, we have a number of distinct, compartmentalized systems of belief, different ones of which drive different aspects of our behavior in different contexts. It's tempting to think that, while of course people are fragmented, it would be better (from the perspective of rationality) if they weren't, and the only reason why our fragmentation is excusable is that we have limited cognitive resources, which prevents us from holding too much information before our minds at a time. Give us enough additional processing capacity, and there'd be no justification for any continued fragmentation. I argue that this is not so. There are good reasons to be fragmented rather than unified, independent of the limitations on our available processing power. In particular, there are ways our belief-forming mechanisms—including our perceptual systems—could be constructed that would make it better to be fragmented than to be unified. And there are reasons to think that some of our belief-forming mechanisms really are constructed that way. (shrink)

Since Darwin, the idea of psychological continuity between humans and other animals has dominated theory and research in investigating the minds of other species. Indeed, the field of comparative psychology was founded on two assumptions. First, it was assumed that introspection could provide humans with reliable knowledge about the causal connection between specific mental states and specific behaviors. Second, it was assumed that in those cases in which other species exhibited behaviors similar to our own, similar psychological causes were at (...) work. In this paper. we show how this argument by analogy is flowed with respect to the case of second-order mental states. As a test case, we focus on the question of how other species conceive of visual attention, and in particular whether chimpanzees interpret seeing as a mentalistic event involving internal states of perception, attention, and belief. We conclude that chimpanzees do not reason about seeing in this manner, and indeed, there is considerable reason to suppose that they do not harbor representations of mental states in general. We propose a reinterpretation model in which the majority of the rich social behaviors that humans and other primates share in common emerged long before the human lineage evolved the psychological means of interpreting those behaviors in mentalistic terms. Although humans, chimpanzees, and most other species may be said to possess mental states, humans alone may have evolved a cognitive specialization for reasoning about such states. (shrink)

In this chapter, I critically examine two of the main approaches to colour categorization in cognitive science: the perceptual salience theory and linguistic relativism. I then turn to reviewing several decades of psychological research on colour categorical perception (CP). A careful assessment of relevant findings suggests that most of the experimental effects that have been understood in terms of CP actually fall on the cognition side of the perception-cognition divide: they are effects of colour language, (...) for example, on memory or decision-making. (shrink)

This article focuses on the analysis of the geo-politics and body-politics of being, and perception as the key concepts in the decolonial option grounded in the spatiality and corporeality of our cognitive and perceptive mechanisms. Revived spatiality refers in this case not only to a physical space that we inhabit but also to our bodies as specific spatial entities – the privileged white male bodies or the damned, non-white, dehumanized and often gendered and sexualized bodies from the underside of (...) modernity. The article presents a decolonial interpretation of the human/non-human binary aimed at rethinking the fundamental modern/colonial division into anthropos and humanitas and the subsequent animalization of large human groups. The main questions are then what does it mean to be animalized by and in modernity and what ways out are possible, desired and attainable for the dehumanized others? The main goal of the article is to further question liberal Western humanism from a decolonial perspective, without yet dropping this concept altogether, and considering instead another humanism model suggested by Sylvia Wynter. Contemporary critical anti-humanist and “other humanism” theories often find a much more accurate and immediate realization through artistic metaphors and activist art projects than traditional theory, problematizing the border between the human and the animal, the man-made and the natural, the individual and the communal. Therefore, the article dwells at some length on one such project balancing between art and critical anthropology – the works of the Northern Caucasus decolonial artist Taus Makhacheva. (shrink)

Holistic perception is an antidote to the subject–object divide, a divide that leads to a mechanistic understanding of the world and can see human beings only in terms of parts, without a robust articulation of wholeness. In this piece, I argue that philosopher of science Henri Bortoft offers an empirically grounded theory, based on consciousness studies, which recasts the problem of the many and the one, offering insight into just such a holistic perception. I further argue (...) that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's philosophy of unity and multiplicity agrees in many respects with that of Bortoft. However, Coleridge draws further implications of his philosophy for Trinitarian theology. I will argue, in line with Bortoft and Coleridge, that perception is a hinge point in this discussion, allowing the move between the discussion of wholeness, subjectivity, and identity. I conclude that a holistic perceptual shift reconstitutes the human person in a way that is theologically significant, especially with respect to Christian Trinitarian doctrine. (shrink)

Recently, several theorists have proposed that we can perceive a range of high-level features, including natural kind features (e.g., being a lemur), artifactual features (e.g., being a mandolin), and the emotional features of others (e.g., being surprised). I clarify the claim that we perceive high-level features and suggest one overlooked reason this claim matters: it would dramatically expand the range of actions perception-based theories of action might explain. I then describe the influential phenomenal contrast method of arguing for high-level (...) perception and discuss some of the objections that have been raised against this strategy. Finally, I describe two emerging defenses of high-level perception, one of which appeals to a certain class of perceptual deficits and one of which appeals to adaptation effects. I sketch a challenge for the latter approach. (shrink)

Colour has long been a source of fascination to both scientists and philosophers. In one sense, colours are in the mind of the beholder, in another sense they belong to the external world. Colours appear to lie on the boundary where we have divided the world into 'objective' and 'subjective' events. They represent, more than any other attribute of our visual experience, a place where both physical and mental properties are interwoven in an intimate and enigmatic way. -/- The last (...) few decades have brought fascinating changes in the way that we think about 'colour' and the role 'colour' plays in our perceptual architecture. In Colour Perception: Mind and the physical world, leading scholars from cognitive psychology, philosophy, neurophysiology, and computational vision provide an overview of the contemporary developments in our understanding of colours and of the relationship between the 'mental' and the 'physical'. With each chapter followed by critical commentaries, the volume presents a lively and accessible picture of the intellectual traditions which have shaped research into colour perception. -/- Written in a non-technical style and accessible to an interdisciplinary audience, the book will provide an invaluable resource for researchers in colour perception and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

In book 10 of the Republic we find a new argument for the division of the soul. The argument’s structure is similar to the arguments in book 4 but, unlike those arguments, it centres on a purely cognitive conflict: believing and disbelieving the same thing, at the same time. The argument presents two interpretive difficulties. First, it assumes that a conflict between a belief and an appearance—e.g. disbelieving that a stick partially immersed in water is, as it appears, bent—entails a (...) conflict between beliefs. Prima facie, there is only one belief, the belief that contradicts the appearance. Second, it is unclear what parts of the soul Plato intends to divide between: some argue that it is, as in book 4, a partition between a rational and a non-rational part; others argue that it is a new partition between a higher and a lower subdivision of the rational part. This paper offers solutions to both difficulties through an analysis of what Plato means by φαινόμενα, ‘appearances’, and δόξαι, ‘beliefs’. It is argued, first, that the relevant appearances are entirely sensory but nonetheless sufficiently belief-like to (a) warrant being called δόξαι and (b) oppose, by themselves, our beliefs; there is no need for a third mental state, a belief that assents to the appearance. A second claim concerns a central line in the argument, 602e4–6, that has served as the primary evidence that the partition is within the rational part of the soul. Those who wish to avoid this conclusion generally resort to alternative, and less natural, translations of 602e4–6. It is argued that this is unnecessary: once we have correctly understood sensory appearances, we see that the standard translation of 602e4–6 in fact entails a division between a rational and a non-rational part of the soul. (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)

Face perception, perhaps the most highly developed visual skill in humans, is mediated by a distributed neural system in humans that is comprised of multiple, bilateral regions. We propose a model for the organization of this system that emphasizes a distinction between the representation of invariant and changeable aspects of faces. The representation of invariant aspects of faces underlies the recognition of individuals, whereas the representation of changeable aspects of faces, such as eye gaze, expression, and lip movement, underlies (...) the perception of information that facilitates social communication. The model is also hierarchical insofar as it is divided into a core system and an extended system. The core system is comprised of occipitotemporal regions in extrastriate visual cortex that mediate the visual analysis of faces. In the core system, the representation of invariant aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the fusiform gyrus, whereas the representation of changeable aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the superior temporal sulcus. The extended system is comprised of regions from neural systems for other cognitive functions that can be recruited to act in concert with the regions in the core system to extract meaning from faces. (shrink)

Research on human infants has begun to shed light on early-developing processes for segmenting perceptual arrays into objects. Infants appear to perceive objects by analyzing three-dimensional surface arrangements and motions. Their perception does not accord with a general tendency to maximize figural goodness or to attend to nonaccidental geometric relations in visual arrays. Object perception does accord with principles governing the motions of material bodies: Infants divide perceptual arrays into units that move as connected wholes, that move (...) separately from one another, that tend to maintain their size and shape over motion, and that tend to act upon each other only on contact. These findings suggest that o general representation of object unity and boundaries is interposed between representations of surfaces and representations of objects of familiar kinds. The processes that construct this representation may be related to processes of physical reasoning. (shrink)

Embodied cognition is one of the foremost areas of study and research in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and debates in this exciting subject and essential reading for any student and scholar of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six parts: Historical (...) Underpinnings Perspectives on Embodied Cognition Applied Embodied Cognition: Perception, Language and Reasoning Applied Embodied Cognition: Social and Moral Cognition and Emotion Applied Embodied Cognition: Memory, Attention and Group Cognition Meta-Topics. The early chapters of the Handbook cover empirical and philosophical foundations of embodied cognition, focusing on Gibsonian, phenomenological and cybernetic approaches. Subsequent chapters cover additional, important themes common to work in embodied cognition, incuding embedded , extended and enactive cognition as well as chapters on embodied cognition and empirical research in perception, language, reasoning, social and moral cognition, emotion, consciousness, memory and learning and development. (shrink)

According to the two visual systems model, the visual processing of objects divides into semantic and pragmatic processing. We provide various criteria for this distinction. Further, we argue that both the semantic and pragmatic processing of visual information about objects should be divided into low-level processing and high-level processing. Finally, we re-evaluate the contribution of the human parietal lobe to the concious visual perception of spatial relations among objects.

This collection of essays brings together research on sense modalities in general and spatial perception in particular in a systematic and interdisciplinary way. It updates a long-standing philosophical fascination with this topic by incorporating theoretical and empirical research from cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology. The book is divided thematically to cover a wide range of established and emerging issues. Part I covers notions of objectivity and subjectivity in spatial perception and thinking. Part II focuses on the canonical distal (...) senses, such as vision and audition. Part III concerns the chemical senses, including olfaction and gustation. Part IV discusses bodily awareness, peripersonal space, and touch. Finally, the volume concludes with Part V, on multimodality. Spatial Senses is an important contribution to the scholarly literature on the philosophy of perception that takes into account important advances in the sciences. (shrink)

Perception, Action, and Consciousness: Sensorimotor Dynamics and Two Visual Systems is a state-of-the-art collection whose main goal is to explore, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the relationship between action and perception. A second goal of the volume is to investigate how perception and action interact specifically in the production of phenomenal awareness. In presenting and contrasting the major perspectives on the field, this volume marks a good sign of the progress being made on the nature of phenomenally conscious (...) visual experience. By combining theoretical and empirical approaches it also contributes to the debate in key domains of the cognitive sciences .The book contains a useful editorial introduction written by the Editors and six sections further divided into fifteen chapters. In the first part of this review I briefly summarize the content of each section. Having offered an outline of the volume, I then turn my attention to the main theme of the collection, which is the dichotomy between action-oriented theories of perception and the two visual systems hypothesis and look at the dialectic underlying this debate. (shrink)

This research project analyzes a strategy for teaching philosophy in secondary school inspired by Socratic dialogue, which aims at the creation and effective management of cognitive dissonance as a tool for promoting critical thinking, called Socratic Challenge (SC). The research originates from workshops held in the years 2016/2019 in a technical and vocational institute in the province of Varese, in which I participated as the creator and conductor, involving the voluntary participation of about 150 students. The research questions are: What (...) are the characteristics of the Socratic Challenge? Can it constitute a teaching methodology to be proposed? Under what conditions? Within what project framework? The empirical research is qualitative, naturalistic, and exploratory (Lumbelli, 1984), specifically a self-study (Hamilton & Pinnegar 2009), divided into two phases. In the first phase, data regarding motivation and perceptions of training impact were collected through in-depth interviews of students (16) and analyzed using the criteria of reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2019). In the second phase, the workshops were repeated remotely in technical and vocational institutes in Milan and the province, involving 113 students who were surveyed with a qualitative questionnaire. The workshops were recorded and the discussion interactions were analyzed according to a qualitative inductive approach that refers to Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006). Results show how this dialogical instructional strategy in philosophy teaching can be considered an effective alternative to the historical-philosophical approach predominant in the Italian tradition (Illetterati 2007). (shrink)

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim (...) that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities. (shrink)

Theories of emotions traditionally divide into two categories. According to some researchers, emotions are or essentially involve evaluative thoughts or judgments. These are called cognitive theories. According to other researchers, an emotion can occur without any thought. These are called non-cognitive theories. Some defenders of non-cognitive theories argue that emotions are action tendencies, others say they are feelings, and still others say they are affect programs, which encompass a range of internal and external events. One of the most celebrated (...) non-cognitive theories owes, independently, to William James and Carl Lange. According to them, emotions are perceptions of patterned changes in the body. I think the perceptual theory of emotions is basically correct, but it needs to be updated. In this discussion, I will offer a summary and defence.The question I am addressing bears on the question of modularity. Within cognitive science, there is a widespread view that perceptual systems are modular. (shrink)

Recent years have seen recurring episodes of tension between proponents of freedom of speech and advocates of the disenfranchised. Recent survey research attests to the ideological division in attitudes toward free speech, whereby conservatives report greater support for free speech than progressives do. Intrigued by the question of whether “canceling” is indeed a uniquely progressive tendency, we conducted a vignette-based experiment examining judgments of offensiveness among progressives and conservatives. Contrary to the dominant portrayal of progressives and conservatives, our study documented (...) ideological symmetry in their evaluations of offensive speech. When faced with utterances whose content matters to them, both conservatives and progressives viewed outgroup speakers as more offensive than ingroup speakers. A second contribution of this chapter is to provide a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanism implicated in evaluating outgroup speech as more offensive than ingroup speech. Our results suggest that perception of offensiveness is mediated by ascriptions of intent: we tend to attribute negative intent to the speaker whenever we deem their utterances to be offensive, even against the explicitly stated speaker’s background attitudes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The difference between perception and cognition seems introspectively obvious in many cases. Perceiving and thinking have also been assigned quite different roles, in epistemology, in theories of reference and of mental content, in philosophy of psychology, and elsewhere. Yet what is the nature of the distinction? In what way, or ways, do perception and cognition differ? The paper reviews recent work on these questions. Four main respects in which perception and cognition have been (...) held to differ are discussed. First, their phenomenal character, such as the often-remarked vivacity or immediacy of perception. Second, the way in which they represent the world, e.g. the non-propositional nature of the contents, or non-discursive character of the vehicles, that have been held to characterise perceptual representation. Third, their place in cognitive architecture, i.e., roughly, in the information-flow of the mind, such as their alleged (non-)modularity. Fourth, their mind-world relations, e.g. the way in which perceptions seem to be tightly causally linked with distal or proximal stimuli. Against this background, we distinguish some main options for an account of the perception/cognition distinction, in particular concerning whether there is one, several, or no interesting and principled distinction(s) to be drawn here. (shrink)

When “divided attention” methods were discovered in the 1950s their implications for conscious experience were not widely appreciated. Yet when people process competing streams of sensory input they show both selective processesandclear contrasts between conscious and unconscious events. This paper suggests that the term “attention” may be best applied to theselection and maintenanceof conscious contents and distinguished from consciousness itself. This is consistent with common usage. The operational criteria for selective attention, defined in this way, are entirely different from those (...) used to assess consciousness. To illustrate the scientific usefulness of the distinction it is applied to Posner's brain model of visual attention. It seems that features that are often attributed to attention—like limited capacity—may more accurately be viewed as properties of consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics by Rafal BankaJana S. Rošker (bio)Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics. By Rafal Banka. Albany, New York: SUNY, 2022. Pp. vii+ 230. Hardcover $95,00, isbn 978-1-4384-8923-4. In his book Cognition and Practice: Li Zehou's Philosophical Aesthetics, Rafal Banka delves into the cognitive philosophy of Li Zehou, one of the most significant and influential Chinese philosophers of our (...) time. Banka not only provides a deeper understanding of Li's work, but he also places his studies on beauty and aesthetic experience in close proximity to current international research in philosophical aesthetics that places great importance on the embodiment and embeddedness of the subject. By delving into Banka's analysis of the cognitive dimensions of Li Zehou's aesthetics, readers can gain a deeper understanding of how this philosopher approaches the intersection of aesthetics and cognition. Through Banka's interpretation, Li's specific view on the intricate relationship between sensory perception and mental processes is highlighted, offering readers the potential for a more nuanced conception of his philosophical perspective. Banka's contribution to our understanding of Li's theories of cognition is deeply intertwined with the methodological framework and theoretical approach used in his work. The former is based upon an analytical perspective that enables him to identify key themes and concepts in Li's cognition theory, as well as to critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his approach. By employing this framework, Banka provides a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of Li's cognitive dimensions that is grounded in rigorous examination. In addition to the methodological framework, the comprehensive theoretical approach that Banka applies in his study is also integral to understanding Li Zehou's contribution to the theory of perception on an international level. The book is divided into three distinct parts, each of which explores a different aspect of Li's philosophy. In the first part, Banka examines Li's main sources of inspiration, specifically the philosophers and philosophies that have significantly influenced and contributed to his own work. This section primarily focuses on classical Confucianism, Marxist historical materialism, and Li's unique reinterpretations of Immanuel Kant's philosophies, particularly those presented in his second and third critiques. [End Page 1]In the first three chapters that constitute this first part, Banka offers a clear and comprehensive analysis of how Li Zehou has viewed Kant's apriorism through the lens of Confucianism and integrated it with Marxist materialist foundations, revealing the coherence with his theory of anthropological ontology. By highlighting the interconnectedness of these diverse influences, Banka illuminates the unique synthesis of ideas that form the foundation of Li's philosophy. Through his detailed analysis, Banka shows how Li Zehou managed to create a synthesis between the dynamic elements of historical materialism on the one hand, and Kant's transcendentalism on the other. In Li's system, the concepts of the empirical and the transcendental are interacting in a dynamic, correlative and mutually complementary way. They are both parts of a processual philosophy in which movement is always followed by a standstill. In such a worldview, they always appear as essentially interrelated and interdependent realms of life. Banka provides a comprehensive explanation of the theoretical foundations that underpin the interactive and complementary nature of these two systems. This has culminated in the development of Li's groundbreaking new theory on the transformation of the empirical into the transcendental. In the second part of the book, the author delves into Li's own philosophical system, specifically focusing on his concepts of "subjectality" and beauty. These concepts are not axiologically theorized but instead arise from subjective interactions between human beings and the external world. Through a detailed and logically consistent analysis, the author demonstrates how Li's aesthetics is compatible with contemporary experience-oriented theories that are redefining the discipline on an international level. In chapters 4 and 5, the much-discussed concept of subjectality is viewed from a highly productive perspective, starting from the very center of the notion itself, where a subject actively interacts with the external reality, which in turn shapes its inwardness. The author convincingly demonstrates... (shrink)

A venerable view holds that a border between perception and cognition is built into our cognitive architecture and that this imposes limits on the way information can flow between them. While the deliverances of perception are freely available for use in reasoning and inference, there are strict constraints on information flow in the opposite direction. Despite its plausibility, this approach to the perception-cognition border has faced criticism in recent years. This article develops an updated version (...) of the architectural approach, which I call the dimension restriction hypothesis (DRH). According to DRH, perceptual processes are constrained to compute over a bounded range of dimensions, while cognitive processes are not. This view allows that perception is cognitively penetrable, but places strict limits on the varieties of penetration that can occur. The article argues that DRH enjoys both theoretical and empirical support, and also defends the view against several objections. (shrink)

Philosophy, scientific psychology, and common sense all distinguish perception from cognition. While there is little agreement about how the perception–cognition boundary ought to be drawn, one prominent idea is that perceptual states are dependent on a stimulus, or stimulus-dependent, in a way that cognitive states are not. This paper seeks to develop this idea in a way that can accommodate two apparent counterexamples: hallucinations, which are prima facie perceptual yet stimulus-independent; and demonstrative thoughts, which are prima (...) facie cognitive yet stimulus-dependent. The payoff is not only a specific proposal for marking the perception–cognition boundary, but also a deeper understanding of the natures of hallucination and demonstrative thought. (shrink)

Perception is sensory awareness. Cognition is reflective awareness. Consciousness is awareness-as-such. In Indian psychology, as represented by Samkhya-Yoga and Advaita Vedanta systems, consciousness and mind are fundamentally different. Reality is the composite of being (sat), knowing (cit) and feeling (ananda). Consciousness is the knowledge side of the universe. It is the ground condition of all awareness. Consciousness is not a part or aspect of the mind. Mind is physical and consciousness is not. Consciousness does not interact with the (...) mind, the brain or any other physical objects or processes. Nor does it have any causative role in mental activity. Hence the existence of consciousness does not interfere or upset the apparently closed physical system. Mind in this view is the interfacing instrumentality that faces consciousness on one side and the brain and the rest of the physical world on the other. Mind is closely connected with the different systems of the brain. In normal perceptions, the mind takes the forms of objects via the channels of the sensory system and the processes in the brain. The forms themselves are non-conscious representations of the world of objects. The mental forms (vrittis) become conscious experiences in the light of the purusha. The vritti in sensory form is perception and with the reflection of the purusha it becomes cognition. All conscious perceptions are therefore cognitions. (shrink)

Descartes, the textbooks say, divided human beings, or at least their minds, from the natural world. This is not just the consequence of metaphysical dualism, but of the concomitant indirect ‘ideas’ theory of perception. On the standard view, the soul must dimly infer the nature of the external world from the meagre, fragmentary, and often misleading input which is causally transmitted from objects through the nervous system to the brain and, ultimately, to the pineal gland. The metaphysical solipsism of (...) the cogito, on this picture, has its psychophysiological counterpart in the way Descartes sets all goings-on in nature at such a distance from the knowing subject who is temporarily and imperfectly united with a physical body. We cannot be sure, after all, that there are human beings rather than mere automata under the hats and cloaks we see from our window. (shrink)

This article investigates Hegel's later theory of perception and cognition, identifying and analysing its general assumptions about the relation among the mind's activities. These often unremarked upon assumptions, I claim, continue to underwrite recent interpretive controversies. I demonstrate how a correct understanding of such assumptions points us toward an alternative interpretation of Hegel's model of the mind. I argue that this new model changes how we understand (a) Hegel's later notion of ‘non-conceptual content’ and (b) his distinction between (...) human and animal minds—two areas that constitute the fault line dividing interpretations of late Hegel. To isolate the relevant assumptions, I use Matthew Boyle's influential conceptual distinction between ‘additive’ and ‘transformative’ models of rationality. I demonstrate that Hegel himself addresses the basic issues characterizing this distinction and clarify how approaching his work in these terms presents considerable interpretative and conceptual advantages, including allowing us to defend the position that Hegel adopts a ‘transformative’ framework of mind. To support this argument, this paper closely analyses Hegel's treatment of sensation (Empfindung), which has not yet been systematically addressed by scholars. I show how sensation can be best understood as part of Hegel's later ‘transformative’ framework for cognition. I also show how this framework can be extended to other parts of Hegel's theory. (shrink)

This two-volume set provides a comprehensive overview of the multidisciplinary field of Embodied Cognition. With contributions from internationally acknowledged researchers from a variety of fields, _Foundations of Embodied Cognition_ reveals how intelligent behaviour emerges from the interplay between brain, body and environment. Covering early research and emerging trends in embodied cognition, Volume 1 _Perceptual and Emotional Embodiment_ is divided into four distinct parts, bringing together a number of influential perspectives and new ideas. Part one opens the volume with (...) an overview of theoretical perspectives and the neural basis of embodiment, before part two considers body representation and its links with action. Part three examines how actions constrain perception of the environment, and part four explores how emotions can be shaped and structured by the body and its activity. Building on the idea that knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval are intimately interconnected with sensory and motor processes, _Foundations of Embodied Cognition_ is a landmark publication in the field. It will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students from across the cognitive sciences, including those specialising in psychology, neuroscience, intelligent systems and robotics, philosophy, linguistics and anthropology. (shrink)

In his enormously influential The Modularity of Mind, Jerry Fodor (1983) proposed that the mind was divided into input modules and central processes. Much subsequent research focused on the modules and whether processes like speech perception or spatial vision are truly modular. Much less attention has been given to Fodor's writing on the central processes, what would today be called higher‐level cognition. In “Fodor's First Law of the Nonexistence of Cognitive Science,” he argued that central processes are “bad (...) candidates for scientific study” and would resist attempts at empirical analysis. This essay evaluates his argument for this remarkable claim, concluding that although central processes may well be “messier” than input modules, this does not mean that they cannot be studied and understood. The article briefly reviews the scientific progress made in understanding central processes in the 35 years since the book was published, showing that Fodor's prediction is clearly falsified by massive advances in topics like decision making and analogy. The essay concludes that Fodor's Law was not based on a clear argument for why the complexities of central systems could not be studied but was likely based on intuitions and preferences that were common in psychology at the time. (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)

The philosophy of emotions has long been dominated by the view called «cognitivism». According to it, emotions are characterized not by mere physical impulses but by a cognitive evaluation of their object. However, despite their success, cognitive theories have to deal with various objections and are divided on how to answer to them. In this essay I want to defend the form of cognitivism claimed by Martha Nussbaum from the most common criticisms. After a brief summary of her account, I (...) confront some of the objections that have been raised against it. In Section 2 I deal with the classic problem of emotions in infants and animals, which lack linguistic abilities. Later, I confront the potential problem represented by cases in which one’s emotion and reasoned judgment seem to differ: in paragraph 3 I consider irrational phobias and fears, to show how they can be accounted for in terms of judgments and thoughts, and not only of perceptions; in paragraph 4 I deal with the objection that «judgementalist» theories violate the «principle of charity», for they ascribe an excessive irrationality to people. I argue that experimental evidence suggest that it is not implausible to assume that people have contradictory beliefs under conditions of uncertainty, and that perceptual theories of emotion fail to account for some fundamental aspects of these phenomena. Finally, in paragraph 5, I deal with the objection according to which a cognitive-evaluative theory cannot explain the sense of passivity that we commonly experience in emotions. (shrink)

Abstract. Our human condition is often defined in terms of human fallibility; we are human specifically because we fail to live up to our own expectations. This paper explores various conceptions of one form of human fallibility: self-control failure. Self-control failure is examined through two conceptualizations, with each conceptualization observed through a corresponding theological and psychological lens: first, as the result of a divided, conflicted humanity, as understood by the Catholic Doctrine of Original Sin and psychological Dual-Process Theories of (...) class='Hi'>Cognition; and second, as the result of limited goal perception, as understood by Islamic conceptions of human memory and psychological Construal Level Theory. A concluding discussion considers two broader implications of the preceding analysis: first, that an appropriate understanding of human fallibility can help us to mitigate its effects, and second, that a conversation regarding overlapping concepts across academic disciplines and religious traditions can enrich understanding of said concepts. (shrink)

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been recognized as a promising tool for investigating the causal relationship between specific brain areas of interest and behavior. However, the reproducibility of previous tDCS studies is often questioned because of failures in replication. This study focused on the effects of tDCS on one cognitive domain: beauty perception. To date, the modulation of beauty perception by tDCS has been shown in two studies:Cattaneo et al. (2014)andNakamura and Kawabata (2015). Here, we aimed at (...) replicating their studies and investigating the effects of tDCS on beauty perception using the following parameters: (1) cathodal stimulation over the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) (Nakamura and Kawabata, 2015); (2) anodal stimulation over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC) (Cattaneo et al., 2014). We also performed a more focal stimulation targeting the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to determine the optimal stimulation site for modulating beauty perception (3). Participants rated the subjectively-perceived beauty of the images before and after the tDCS administration. We divided images into four clusters according to the obtained scores in our preliminary study and examined changes in beauty ratings in each image cluster separately to exclude factors, such as stimuli attributions that may reduce tDCS effects. The results showed no strong effects of tDCS with the same parameters as in previous studies on beauty rating scores in any image cluster. Likewise, anodal stimulation over the OFC did not result in a change in rating scores. In contrast to previous studies, the current study did not corroborate the effects of tDCS on beauty perception. Our findings provide evidence regarding the recent reproducibility issue of tDCS effects and suggest the possible inflation of its effects on cognitive domains. (shrink)

This research sets out to study and compare the effects of story watching on television and story listening by an elder on children’s cognitive skills, specifically in building up their vocabulary and comprehension. A total of two hundred children aged between 7 to 12 years from low socio-economic background were selected through matching. They were divided into two different groups based on the medium they were exposed to, either oral or visual. The study took place in laboratories set at four (...) different schools in Karachi, Pakistan. Ten stories were told to the half children, while the other group watched 10 animated episodes having same content for 10 consecutive weeks. Children’s perception and vocabulary skills were evaluated through questionnaires, which were filled out after each story. Results affirmed the hypothesis that story listening is more effective than cartoon watching in terms of cognitive learning. The study is beneficial for various disciplines of social sciences including psychology, sociology, education and mass communication. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 35-53 [Access article in PDF] "Truth Is What Works": Francisco J. Varela on Cognitive Science, Buddhism, the Inseparability of Subject and Object, and the Exaggerations of Constructivism—A Conversation Francisco J. Varela Bernhard Poerksen Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Universität Hamburg Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) studied biology in Santiago de Chile, obtained his doctorate 1970 at Harvard University with a dissertation on the (...) insect eye, and worked there for some time in the laboratory of Torsten Wiesel, the later Nobel Laureate for medicine. From his scientific beginnings as a researcher in biology, he not only studied and practiced biology but, resisting the dominating mainstream, pursued a research program that ignored and broke down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research program is best characterized as experimental epistemology, a concept introduced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybernetician Warren S. McCulloch. Francisco J. Varela's great aspiration was to examine and answer the philosophical ur-question of cognition with scientific precision and with the help of the best possible theoretical framework. [End Page 35]Having obtained his doctorate, he went back to Chile to work as a professor of biology together with Humberto R. Maturana. He contributed to the writing of the theory of autopoiesis, which was to cause a furor in the world of science as a universally applicable explanatory model. After the overthrow of Allende and the installation of the dictatorship by the putsch general Pinochet, Francisco J. Varela first escaped to Costa Rica, then became a professor at the American University of Colorado and University of New York, and finally returned in 1980 to the University of Chile in Santiago for five years. Temporary positions as guest professor for neurobiology, philosophy, and cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland, and France led him to Paris in the end, where he worked as research director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique until his death on May 28, 2001.In his research work embracing cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and immunology, Francisco J. Varela, constantly inspired by his fundamental interest in the key questions of epistemology, gave the epistemological debate a new orientation. In his thinking he refuses to accept the strict separation of subject and object, of knower and known, which as a rule unites realists and constructivists alike. Francisco J. Varela rejects the fundamental dualism dividing mind and world, which had shaped Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not subscribe to the idea that human individuals can invent their own realities—blindly and arbitrarily, and without experiencing any resistance from the external world and all other things given. He equally distances himself, however, from the diametrically opposite position that overstates the eigenpower of the world of objects. The external world and all other things given cannot determine what happens in an organism. Varela's claim is that individual and world create each other. The Computational Model of the Mind Poerksen: The ancient key questions of philosophy are at the center of modern cognitive science. What is the essence of the mind? Do our conceptions represent a given world, which is independent from our minds? What is the formative power of external objects over our perceptions? How does cognition function? The search for an adequate answer and an improved understanding of the human mind has led many cognitive scientists to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a kind of computer. Memory is taken to be a store. Thinking and perceiving are understood as data processing in the sense that an independent external world is computationally transformed into symbols and represented in the organism in this manner. You are very critical of this view. Why?Varela: If the brain is considered as a kind of computer, then cognitive research is limited to discovering certain self-sufficient shapes—the symbols—together with the rules [End Page 36] governing them—the programs. But this search for symbols and programs will never be profitable because it... (shrink)

The question of whether perception can be penetrated by cognition is in the limelight again. The reason this question keeps coming up is that there is so much at stake: Is it possible to have theory-neutral observation? Is it possible to study perception without recourse to expectations, context, and beliefs? What are the boundaries between perception, memory, and inference (and do they even exist)? Are findings from neuroscience that paint a picture of perception as an (...) inherently bidirectional and interactive process relevant for understanding the relationship between cognition and perception? We have assembled a group of philosophers and psychologists who have been considering the thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability in light of these questions (Abdel Rahman & Sommer, 2008; Goldstone, Landy, & Brunel, 2011; Lupyan, Thompson-Schill, & Swingley, 2010; Macpherson, 2012; Stokes, 2011). Rather than rehashing previous arguments which appear, in retrospect, to have been somewhat ill-posed (Pylyshyn, 1999), this symposium will present a thesis of cognitive (im)penetrability that is at once philosophically satisfying, empirically testable, and relevant to the questions that cognitive scientists find most interesting. (shrink)

Recent research in cognitive and computational neuroscience portrays the neocortex as a hierarchically structured prediction machine. Several theorists have drawn on this research to challenge the traditional distinction between perception and cognition – specifically, to challenge the very idea that perception and cognition constitute useful kinds from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. In place of this traditional taxonomy, such theorists advocate a unified inferential hierarchy subject to substantial bi-directional message passing. I outline the nature of this (...) challenge and then raise two objections to the cognitive architecture it proposes as a replacement: first, standard ways of characterising this inferential hierarchy are in tension with the representational reach of conceptual thought; second, there is compelling evidence that commonsense reasoning is structured around highly domain-specific intuitive theories that are difficult to situate within a single hierarchy. (shrink)