An ecological approach to disjunctivism

Carvalho, Eros Moreira de

doi:10.1007/s11229-019-02253-2

Synthese

2019

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02253-2

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An ecological approach to disjunctivism

Eros Moreira de Carvalho

Abstract: In this paper I claim that perceptual discriminatory skills rely on a suitable type of environment as an enabling condition for their exercise. This is because of the constitutive connection between environment and perceptual discriminatory skills, inasmuch as such connection is construed from an ecological approach. The exercise of a discriminatory skill yields knowledge of affordances of objects, properties, or events in the surrounding environment. This is practical knowledge in the first-person perspective… Show more

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Cited by 3 publications

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“…SeeMcDowell (2013, p. 23-24) for a defense of an analogous point in the context of disjunctivism about appearances. SeeCarvalho (2021) for an ecological account of McDowell's disjunctivism.…”

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Acting in light of the facts: an ecological approach

Vogelmann

2023

Rev. Filos. Aurora

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We conceive of ourselves as capable of acting in response to normative reasons. Given that normative reasons are facts, this self-conception entails that we are capable of acting in response to facts. Arguments from error cases might seem to force us to deflate this self-conception, for they seem to show that to act in light of a fact must simply be a way of acting in light of a belief. The starting point of this paper is the rejection of this deflationary view. In order to reject the argument from error cases, we should adopt a disjunctive view of motivating reasons. According to this view there are two distinct ways of acting in light of a consideration: acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief. Disjunctivism about motivating reasons, however, is the target of a skeptical challenge grounded in a cognitivist account of the mind. According to this account, cognition is to explained in terms of the manipulation of representations and there is no meaningful difference between acting in light of a fact and acting in light of a belief: in both cases, one decides in light of a representation. The goal of this paper is to defend disjunctivism from this objection. In order to do so I appeal to Gibson’s ecological psychology. I argue that the ecological account of perception allows us to hold that in the case of actions guided by perception we act in light of the facts themselves (not representations of those facts) and that the same approach can be extended to cover cases in which we act in light of sensorily unavailable facts.

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Acting in light of the facts: an ecological approach

Vogelmann

2023

Rev. Filos. Aurora

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Theatre Hunger: An Underestimated ‘Scaling Up’ Problem

Downey

2024

Erkenn

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The proponents of ecological and enactive approaches (e-approaches) to cognitive science find common cause in rejecting representation as a core explanatory posit. In its stead, they suggest that cognitive scientists work with non-representational explanations that emphasise embodied interaction. The ‘scaling up’ objection to e-approaches says that, whilst their non-representational explanatory toolkit might well account for ‘basic’ cognitive capacities, it will founder when confronted with the ‘representation hunger’ of ‘higher’ cognition. Proponents of e-approaches tend to focus their attention upon the scaling up problem posed by truth-conditional language, with it being thought that non-perceptual experiences readily submit to a non-representational analysis. In this paper I argue that non-perceptual experiences possess an oft overlooked, non-linguistic kind of ‘representation hunger’— they hunger for a private mental space within which the representational function of standing-in for is performed. I contend that such theatre hunger poses serious difficulties for e-approaches which they are presently ill-placed to satiate. Hence, I conclude that the theatre hunger of non-perceptual experiences presents a much more serious problem for e-approaches than is often acknowledged.

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O disjuntivismo ecológico e o argumento causal

Carvalho

2023

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Resumo: Neste artigo, argumenta-se que a abordagem ecológica da percepção oferece recursos para desarmar o argumento causal contra o disjuntivismo. Segundo o argumento causal, como os estados cerebrais que proximamente antecedem a experiência perceptiva e a experiência alucinatória correspondente podem ser do mesmo tipo, não haveria, portanto, uma boa razão para rejeitar que a experiência perceptiva e a experiência alucinatória correspondente tenham fundamentalmente a mesma natureza. O disjuntivismo com respeito à natureza da experiência seria, assim, falso. Identificam-se três suposições que apoiam o argumento causal: a suposição da indistinguibilidade, a suposição da linearidade e a suposição da duplicação. De acordo com a abordagem ecológica da percepção, essas suposições não se sustentam, abrindo espaço para a defesa de uma versão ecológica do disjuntivismo. Episódios perceptivos se estendem ao longo do tempo e são supervenientes ao sistema organismo-ambiente. Eles também podem ser distinguidos dos “correspondentes” episódios de alucinação, por serem o resultado de um processo controlado de sintonização, ao passo que as alucinações são passivas e refratárias às atividades de exploração e sintonização. Por fim, o disjuntivismo ecológico, na medida em que é imune ao argumento causal, se mostra vantajoso em relação aos disjuntivismos negativo e positivo.

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An ecological approach to disjunctivism

Cited by 3 publications

References 33 publications

Acting in light of the facts: an ecological approach

Acting in light of the facts: an ecological approach

Theatre Hunger: An Underestimated ‘Scaling Up’ Problem

O disjuntivismo ecológico e o argumento causal

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