Perception, causation, and objectivity
By: edited by Johannes Roessler, Hemdat Lerman and Naomi Eilan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 372
ISBN-13: 9780199692040; 9780199692057
Subjects: Perception (Philosophy); Wahrnehmung; Kausalität; Objektivität; Causation; Objectivity; Kognitionswissenschaft
Description: "To be a 'commonsense realist' is to hold that perceptual experience is (in general) an immediate awareness of mind-independent objects, and a source of direct knowledge of what such objects are like. Over the past few centuries this view has faced formidable challenges from epistemology, metaphysics, and, more recently, cognitive science. However, in recent years there has been renewed interest in it, due to new work on perceptual consciousness, objectivity, and causal understanding. This volume collects nineteen original essays by leading philosophers and psychologists on these topics. Questions addressed include: What are the commitments of commonsense realism? Does it entail any particular view of the nature of perceptual experience, or any particular view of the epistemology of perceptual knowledge? Should we think of commonsense realism as a view held by some philosophers, or is there a sense in which we are pre-theoretically committed to commonsense realism in virtue of the experience we enjoy or the concepts we use or the explanations we give? Is commonsense realism defensible, and if so how, in the face of the formidable criticism it faces? Specific issues addressed in the philosophical essays include the status of causal requirements on perception, the causal role of perceptual experience, and the relation between objective perception and causal thinking. The scientific essays present a range of perspectives on the development, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, of the human adult conception of perception. Features: 19 brand-new essays, specially written by a leading team of experts; interrogates fundamental assumptions about how we experience the world; interdisciplinary and far-reaching; draws together philosophical and psychological approaches to perception."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Tackling Berkeley's puzzle / Quassim Cassam; title: Relational vs Kantian responses to Berkeley's puzzle / John Campbell; title: Experiential objectivity / Naomi Eilan; title: Realism and explanation in perception / Bill Brewer; title: Epistemic humility and causal structuralism / James Van Cleve; title: Seeing what is so / Barry Stroud; title: Causation in commonsense realism / Johannes Roessler; title: Perceptual concepts as non-causal concepts / Paul Snowdon; title: Perception and the ontology of causation / Helen Steward; title: Vision and causal understanding / William Child; title: The perception of absence, space, and time / Matthew Soteriou; title: Perception, causal understanding, and locality / Christoph Hoerl; title: Causal perception and causal cognition / James Woodward; title: Children's understanding of perceptual appearances / Matthew Nudds; title: Perspective-taking and its foundation in joint attention / Henrike Moll and Andrew N. Meltzoff; title: A two-systems theory of social cognition : engagement and theory of mind / Martin Doherty; title: Development of understanding of the causal connection between perceptual access and knowledge state / Elizabeth J. Robinson; title: Social and physical reasoning in human-reared chimpanzees : preliminary studies / Jennier Vonk and Daniel J. Povinelli.