The Metaphysics of Perception : Wilfrid Sellars, Perceptual Consciousness and Critical Realism

ISBN-13: 9780415284455 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 274 str.

Paul Coates;Coates Paul

Opis

This book challenges contemporary direct realist theories of perception and defends a version of the causal theory that the author locates in the critical realist tradition of which Wilfrid Sellars is the main recent exponent. The author highlights the difficulties direct realists face in providing a coherent positive account of their view. He develops an analysis of perceptual experience derived from the later writings of Sellars. According to this account experience involves both low-level concepts and a distinct sensory component. This view makes sense of the various notions of nonconceptual content appealed to in current discussion, and provides, in addition, solutions to the conceptual problems raised by recent experimental work on attention and change-blindness. An important feature of this theory is the dynamic navigational account of perception and action, which points to an underlying continuity between common sense, scientific and philosophical accounts of perceiving.

Spis treści

Chapter 1 The structure of perceptual consciousness (1): Phenomenal qualities and the two-component view
Chapter 2 The structure of perceptual consciousness (2): Concepts and the awareness of fineness of grain
Chapter 3 Hallucinations, illusions and the challenge of metaphysical scepticism
Chapter 4 The incoherence of Direct Realism
Chapter 5 Problems for the enactive approach to perception
Chapter 6 Perception, understanding and causation
Chapter 7 A navigational account of distance perception
Chapter 8 Critical Realism and the alleged transparency of experience
Chapter 9 Imagination and the unity of experience
Chapter 10 Inner experience and the possibility of knowledge

O autorze

Paul Coates