Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy) PDF
Preview Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
Philosophy of Perception A Contemporary Introduction William Fish First published 2010 by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechani- cal, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, includ- ing photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fish, William, 1972– Philosophy of perception : a contemporary introduction / William Fish. p. cm. — (Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy Includes bibliographical references. [etc.] 1. Perception (Philosophy) I. Title. B828.45.F57 2009 121’.34—dc22 2009036467 ISBN 0-203-88058-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0-415-99911-1 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-415-99912-X (pbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-88058-7 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-99911-3 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-99912-0 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-88058-6 (ebk) For Freya, Anya, and Finlay Contents Acknowledgments xi 1 Introduction: Three key principles 1 Overview 1 Three key principles 3 Conclusion 9 Questions 9 Notes 9 2 Sense datum theories 11 Overview 11 The Phenomenal Principle and misleading experiences 11 Sense data and the Common Factor Principle 13 The time lag argument 15 Sense datum theory formalized 16 Sense datum theory and the two hats 18 Sense datum theory and the Representational Principle 23 The sensory core theory 23 Percept theory 24 Sensory core theory, percept theory, and the two hats 27 Metaphysical objections to mental objects 29 Questions 30 Notes 30 Further reading 31 3 Adverbial theories 33 Overview 33 Adverbialism 36 Adverbialism and metaphysics 37 The many property problem 39 The complement objection 43 Adverbialism and the two hats 44 Questions 47 viii Contents Notes 47 Further reading 48 4 Belief acquisition theories 51 Overview 51 Perception as the acquisition of beliefs 52 Belief acquisition theory and the two hats 54 Perception without belief acquisition 56 Perception, belief, and our conceptual capacities 59 Acquiring new concepts 61 Blindsight 63 Questions 63 Notes 63 Further reading 64 5 Intentional theories 65 Overview 65 Varieties of intentionalism 66 Theories of perceptual content 71 How do experiences get their contents? 77 Representationalism and the two hats 78 Questions 82 Notes 82 Further reading 85 6 Disjunctive theories 87 Overview 87 The causal objection 89 Epistemological disjunctivism 91 Disjunctivism about metaphysics 91 Disjunctivism about content 92 Disjunctivism about phenomenology 94 Naive realism 96 Disjunctive theories of hallucination 98 Disjunctivism and illusion 104 Disjunctivism and the two hats 106 Questions 108 Notes 109 Further reading 110 7 Perception and causation 113 Overview 113 The causal theory of perception 118 Questions 121 Contents ix Notes 121 Further reading 123 8 Perception and the sciences of the mind 125 Overview 125 Theoretical paradigms and their underlying assumptions 126 Important phenomena 128 Perception, cognition, and the phenomenal 134 Color vision and color realism 140 Questions 145 Notes 145 Further reading 146 9 Perception and other sense modalities 149 Overview 149 Individuating the senses 149 Touch, hearing, taste, and smell 157 How distinct are the senses? 161 Questions 162 Note 163 Further reading 163 References 165 Index 175 Acknowledgments Thanks to everybody I’ve talked philosophy of perception with over the years—there really are too many of you to mention individually, but I’m very grateful to you all. Particular thanks are due to my recent graduate philoso- phy of perception class: Rhys Burkitt, Malcolm Loudon, Justin Ngai, Louise Nicholls, Hayden Shearman, Jeremy Smith, and Marcel Zentveld-Wale, who, over the course of a semester, worked through a draft of this book with me. I am also very grateful to Ned Block, Alex Byrne, Tim Crane, Dave Chalmers, Stephen Duffin, Kati Farkas, Heather Logue, Stephen Hill, Susanna Schellenberg, and two anonymous readers, who provided me with valuable advice and suggestions at various stages of the project. I am indebted to them all for their input. Thanks also to the Journal of Consciousness Studies, for permission to reproduce the synesthesia pop-out figures; Random House, for permission to reproduce the picture of the vase-face illusion; Behavioral and Brain Sciences, as well as Alex Byrne and Dave Hilbert, for permission to reproduce the cone sensitivity and metamer graphs; and the Hackett Publishing Company for permission to reproduce the opponent-processing schematic and graph. Finally, thanks to Beth, for all of her support, and to my children—Freya, Anya, and Finlay—who make it all worthwhile. This book is dedicated to them.
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