Early and Late Vision: Their Processes and Epistemic Status

Abstract

In this chapter, I elaborate my thesis that a stage of visual processing, namely, late vision, is Cognitively Penetrated (CP). The CP of late vision results in states with hybrid, that is visual/iconic and semantic/symbolic contents. The conceptual modulation of late vision notwithstanding, I argue that late vision is a perceptual stage rather than a stage of discursive thought. My main claim is that instead of discursive inferences, late vision involves pattern matching processes, and I discuss the perception of ambiguous figures to sybstantiate my claim. I also argue that early vision, too, does not involve discursive inferences and that both late and early vision involve some sort of abductive reasoning.