Representative Theory Of Perception Research Articles

Replies to Coliva, Leite, and Stroud

Here I cast some doubt on Professor Coliva’s interpretive claim that Moore’s “Proof of an external world” is addressed to idealism, not skepticism, and explore the consequences for our understanding of the final paragraphs of the paper. In response to Professor Leite, I examine the disagreement between us on whether the global skeptical hypotheses can be refuted by ordinary evidence. Finally, after analyzing the logic of the skeptical argumentation, I attempt an answer to Professor Stroud’s question about the staying power of the representative theory of perception.

Did Locke Hold the Representative Theory of Perception?

Locke’s equivocal usage of the term ‘idea’ in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding has led to different interpretations of his theory of perception regarding the external world. First, the traditional and orthodox philosophers have interpreted the term ‘idea’ as a mental entity of a specific kind, i.e. a mental image, locked up inside the mind. This is referred to as the crude form of representationalism. Secondly, Woozley has pointed out that the word ‘idea’ can be interpreted as ‘meaning of words’, permitting the presentation of Locke’s theory of perception regarding the external world in a more sophisticated form in contrast to the crude form of representationalism. However, there are no good reasons to hold that Locke consistently adhered to either of these two views. Locke’s theory of perception regarding external world cannot even be termed as direct realism. The present paper attempts an in-depth study of the views expressed by several philosophers in this context and shows that some kind of representationalism does appear to be present in Locke’s theory of perception regarding the external world.

Y a-t-il un « mentalisme » cartésien ?

Does Cartesian «Mentalism » Exist ? This article aims at questioning the topic of the so-called “ mentalism” and “ internalism” which are currently attributed to Descartes, especially by some major authors in the contemporary philosophy of mind (for instance Daniel Dennett, Hilary Putnam and John Searle). The goal is to identify what could, in Descartes'' original philosophy and original texts, particularly in the Dioptrics and in the Meditations on First Philosophy, resist such an interpretation ; an interpretation which qualifies Cartesianism, and Cartesian epistemology, through the notions of “ central theatre” and “ representative theory of perception. Against this traditional reading, we develop two main claims. First, the disjunction at work in Descartes'' philosophy between the category of representation and the category of resemblance ; such a disjunction is related to the identification of ideas with the “ conceptions of thought”. Second, the irreducibility of the Cartesian theory of ideas as regards the theory of “ sense data”, whose origin may be more easily located within Lockean empiricism. Finally, we examine the heterodoxy of Descartes'' so-called mentalism in relationship with his original, non psychological, conception of the Thinking Subject (“ Ego sum, ego existo”) : a Thinking Subject which may be understandable otherwise than through the frame of a “ philosophy of “ consciousness”.

Representation, Presentation and the Epistemic Role of Perceptual Experience

In this paper I argue that the representational theory of perception, on which the world is represented as being a certain way in perceptual experience, cannot explain how there can be a genuinely epistemic connection between experience and belief. I try to show that we are positively required to deny that perceptual consciousness is contentful if we want to make its fitness for epistemic duties intelligible. (So versions of the representational theory on which experience has a merely causal purchase on belief are not considered.) But my aim is not just negative. I try to defeat representationalism in such a way as to motivate a robustly presentational theory of perception. According to such a theory, perceptions are relations not between a subject and a content but between a subject and an ordinary object (such that if the relation holds at t, an appropriate subject and object must exist at t, and the object must be presented to the subject). I end by sketching an account of perceptual experience that is meant to show that, contrary to a very popular misconception, there is a way to conceive perceptual consciousness as relational and presentational (not intentional and representational) that does not succumb to the celebrated ‘myth of the Given’.

代表象説のどこが間違っているのか

Representative theory of perception has used the analogy of watching television screens to explain the perception of material objects. To this analogy, there has been a wellknown objection. Contemporary representative theorists, called "New representationalism", claim to have a way out of the objection, and I shall argue that their argument is well-grounded. Seeing things through television screens can be direct perception of those things. Unfortunately, however, this argument has its own drawback, and one of the essential ideas of representative theory would have to be compromised, i.e. that the subject cannot be aware of sensedata.

LOCKE ON SENSITIVE KNOWLEDGE AND THE VEIL OF PERCEPTION – FOUR MISCONCEPTIONS1

Abstract: Interpreters of Locke's Essay are divided over whether to attribute to him a Representational Theory of Perception (RTP). Those who object to an RTP interpretation cite (among other things) Locke's Book IV account of sensitive knowledge, contending that the account is incompatible with RTP. The aim of this paper is to rebut this kind of objection – to defend an RTP reading of the relevant Book IV passages. Specifically, I address four influential assumptions (about sensitive knowledge) cited by opponents of an RTP interpretation and argue that in each case the assumption is false.

SYMPOSIUM: LOCKE AND THE VEIL OF PERCEPTION Preface

Abstract: This Symposium comprises five papers on Locke's theory of sense perception. The authors are John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Martha Bolton. There are also comments on the papers, both individually and as a group, by Vere Chappell. In addition to Locke's view of perception, the papers deal with the nature of Lockean ideas and with the question whether Locke is committed to skepticism regarding the external world. The authors (and the commentator) disagree in their readings of Locke on these issues, but most maintain – and some argue – that he holds a representative theory of perception, and that he is not an external‐world skeptic.

Form in Coleridge, and in Perception and Art More Generally

We should not think of aesthetic form in terms of shape, but rather, as Susanne Langer argues, as a reflection of "orderliness" or relation. When thinking of form, we should not think of Keats's Grecian urn (embodying in its shape the beauty of the eternal)--not, at least, if this leads us to think of the urn's reified shape as somehow fundamental and therefore a kind of language. Rather, we should think of the relation between binary code and the image it produces on a computer screen, as prototypically "formal." Such images certainly do have shape, but those shapes are the product of underlying acts (here a set of computer instructions), which accordingly are more fundamental. This allows us to understand Coleridge's mature insistence on the reciprocal formality of the Father and the Son (for in any case the Son cannot have "shape" in any spatial sense). It also allows us to rehabilitate Coleridge's problematic concept of organic form. Building on Louis Arnaud Reid's arguments against the representative theory of perception, I argue that the qualitative dimensions of everyday sensory perceptions cannot in themselves be characterized by primary qualities like spatial shape, for it is absurd to think that we have anything like Polaroid snapshots floating around within our synapses. Rather, the qualitative dimensions of sensory perception (colour, perceived shape, and so forth) are "presentations" of the relevant aspects of the world--presentations which bear a formal relation rather than immediate likeness to the world. Sense-perception is thus "formal." And we can thus also claim that an art work formally embodies its meanings; that the concept of "form" has work to do; and that form is implicitly qualitative, being characterized by texture, sound qualities, shapeliness, etc..

Intentionality and the representative theory of perception

Presentation des critiques de la conception intentionnelle de la perception de Husserl issues de la theorie traditionnelle representative de la perception, et implications ontologiques

The absolute network theory of language and traditional epistemology: On the philosophical foundations of Paul Churchland's scientific realism1

Paul Churchland's philosophical work enjoys an increasing popularity. His imaginative papers on cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology are widely discussed. Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), his major book, is an important contribution to the debate on realism. Churchland provides us with the intellectual tools for constructing a unified scientific Weltanschauung. His network theory of language implies a provocative view of the relation between science and common sense. This paper contains a critical examination of Churchland's network theory of language, which is the foundation of his philosophy. It is argued that the network theory should be seen as deriving its point from traditional empiricism. The network theory enables the empiricist to resist the phenomenalistic temptations inherent in his position, and to build a realist philosophy on the basis of the representative theory of perception. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the representative theory is ...

Sense-impressions: A New Model

It seems to me that there are a large number of philosophers who believe that to admit that perception essentially involves the occurrence of sense-impressions in the sense of visual, tactual, aural, olfactory or gustatory sensations is to be committed to either a representative realist or phenomenalist theory of perception. From this point paths may diverge: some take the view that the reasons for admitting sense-impressions are sound and, therefore, that either representative realism or phenomenalism needs to be defended; others say that both representative realism and phenomenalism are incoherent, so that sense-impressions just cannot be admitted. In this paper I wish to argue that the initial belief is false; one can allow an essential role in perception to sense-impressions without being committed to either theory of perception. I shall argue that the belief that one cannot is due to the use in almost all philosophical theories in which sense-impressions are postulated of an inappropriate model of the role of these impressions. I shall suggest a more appropriate model. One philosopher who takes the first of the paths I have mentioned is J. L. Mackie,1 one who takes the second is D. M. Armstrong.2 Mackie argues that John Locke's distinction between the primary and secondary qualities of material objects (which quite clearly entails the admission into perception of an essential element of sensation-the ideas of the secondary as well as of the primary qualities) requires some sort of representative theory of perception (ibid p. 8). Objections to the representative theory must therefore be seen as fatal to the Lockean distinction (ibid, p. 28). Since Mackie finds at least one of Locke's arguments for the distinction convincing, he sets out to circumvent the objection to the representative theory. Armstrong, on the other hand, argues

A Defense of Locke and The Representative Theory of Perception

This paper is a defense of the “representative theory of perception” in general, and Locke's views about perception in particular. It is intended only as a limited defense, but one against those objections which recently have been taken thoroughly to discredit both the general theory and Locke's particular position. The chief of these objections is that the representative theory leads inevitably to skepticism about the existence of objective material things. George Pitcher finds this objection to the representative theory completely persuasive and so well established that it scarcely requires discussion:It is just here [in the area of justifying perceptual knowledge of the world] that the most serious and notorious deficiencies of sense-datum theories are encountered. If the sense-datum theorist maintains the existence of physical objects, … as ordinarily conceived, then his claim that sense-data are metaphysically distinct from anything in the physical world commits him to a version of representative realism. The enormous epistemological difficulties [due to their skeptical consequences] faced by theories of this kind are well known, and I shall not say anything about them, except that I regard them as insuperable ….

The Representative Theory Of Perception

In this paper I wish to propose and defend a form of the Representative Theory of Perception (RTP). According to this version of the theory, when a subject perceives some object x to be in a state P1 he does so by being aware of some modfication M1 (from a range M1,M2, … Mn) of some object E. The subject's way of perceiving any one of a range of objects x,y,z, … is that of being aware of some modification of E (leaving it open whether E is the subject himself, a person, an ego or a sense-field, e.g., a visual field). It will be a necessary condition of someone's perceiving x to have property P1 that E be modified in some way. And in order for the modifications of E to be representations, a given property P1 will need to be causally related, characteristically, to one or more specific modifications, M1,M2, … Mn, of E. (For simplicity, instead of taking the physical states or modifications P1,P2, … Pn to be states of individual physical objects, I shall assume them to be modifications of the physical world (in toto) symbolized by ‘X'.)