The significance of high-level content

Silins, Nicholas

doi:10.1007/s11098-012-9991-7

Cited by 28 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“… Silins () gives the example of seeing a DVD still in its wrapping near a friend's TV. You believe that she hasn't watched the movie yet.…”

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confidence: 99%

Looks and Perceptual Justification

McGrath

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Imagine I hold up a Granny Smith apple for all to see. You would thereby gain justified beliefs that it was green, that it was apple, and that it is a Granny Smith apple. Under classical foundationalism, such simple visual beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning your experience. Under dogmatism, some or all of these beliefs are justified immediately by your experience and not by reasons you possess. This paper argues for what I call the looks view of the justification of simple visual beliefs. According to the looks view, such beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning how the relevant things look. Unlike under classical foundationalism, under the looks view as I develop it, these reasons are public. They are public with respect to both their content and possession: with respect to content, they are not about ourselves and our experiences, and with respect to their possession, many people can have the very same looks‐related reasons.

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“… Silins () gives the example of seeing a DVD still in its wrapping near a friend's TV. You believe that she hasn't watched the movie yet.…”

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confidence: 99%

Looks and Perceptual Justification

McGrath

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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“…On a more generous rendering of the perceptual landscape, the foundationalist's workload would appear to be lighter, as she can appeal to a comparatively rich base of perceptual experiences to explain how our full range of beliefs is justified (Lyons, ; Macpherson, ; Masrour, ; cf. Silins, ; Sosa, ).…”

Section: High‐level Perception and Why It Mattersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent issues in high‐level perception

Helton

2016

Philosophy Compass

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Recently, several theorists have proposed that we can perceive a range of high-level features, including natural kind features (e.g., being a lemur), artifactual features (e.g., being a mandolin), and the emotional features of others (e.g., being surprised). I clarify the claim that we perceive high-level features and suggest one overlooked reason this claim matters: it would dramatically expand the range of actions perception-based theories of action might explain. I then describe the influential phenomenal contrast method of arguing for high-level perception and discuss some of the objections that have been raised against this strategy. Finally, I describe two emerging defenses of high-level perception, one of which appeals to a certain class of perceptual deficits and one of which appeals to adaptation effects. I sketch a challenge for the latter approach. Suppose there is a cat lounging in a hammock. The weight of the cat's body pushes the fabric of the hammock down, creating a bulge in the bottom of the hammock. 1 In looking at this scene, what do you visually perceive? On one view, you perceive merely the shapes and colors of the cat and of the hammock. On another view, you visually perceive the colors and shapes of the cat and of the hammock, and you additionally perceive the cat as a cat, the hammock as a hammock, and the bulge in the hammock as caused by the weight of the cat. On this latter view, visual perception can represent a range of high-level features, since it can represent features other than the visual domain's paradigmatic low-level features of shape and color. 1 This example is from Siegel (2010, 121).

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“…Siegel, Genone, Bengson and Nanay are undeniably right about this: since the naïve realist understands perception to be a relation, they cannot help themselves to talk of properties represented by perception, but will instead talk of properties detected by perception (or talk of properties of which the subject is 'visually aware', or is 'acquainted with', etc.). Heather Logue (2013), Nicholas Silins (2013) and Indrek Reiland (2014) also engage the debate over KP while suggesting that one can remain neutral on the matter of whether representationalism or naïve realism is true. 5 Accordingly, the dialectical situation appears to be this: while naïve realists cannot investigate whether KP is true via investigating whether Rep KP is true, they can instead join the debate by investigating something like the following:…”

Section: Bengson Later Claimsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, it has been claimed by Susanna Siegel (, pp. 487–489) that if KP is true, then perception immediately justifies a greater number of beliefs than if it were false: if an object can look to be a tomato, then we can have immediate justification from perception for believing that object to be a tomato, whereas we cannot have immediate justification from perception for believing this proposition if all perception represents about the object is its redness and roundness (see Silins, , for dissent).…”

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confidence: 99%

Kind Properties and the Metaphysics of Perception: Towards Impure Relationalism

Cavedon-Taylor

2015

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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A central debate in contemporary philosophy of perception is between those who believe that perceptual experience is a detection relation of sensory awareness (naïve realists) and those who hold that it is representational mental state akin to belief (representationalists). Another key debate is between those who think we can perceptually experience natural or artifactual kind properties, e.g., 'being a tomato', 'being a doorknob', etc. and those who think we cannot. Current consensus is that these debates are entirely unrelated; in particular, the possibility of perceiving natural or artifactual kinds is said to have no consequences for whether perception is relational or representational. This consensus is wrong, however. At best, naïve realism only vindicates the possibility of perceptually experiencing natural or artifactual kind properties by making substantial assumptions about the metaphysics of such properties, something the representationalist avoids. At worst, naïve realism is incompatible with the possibility of perceptually experiencing natural and artifactual kinds. The solution for naïve realists who do wish to accommodate such a possibility is to embrace a disunified metaphysics of perception, one that combines both relational and representational events. Call such a view 'impure relationalism.' This paper centres on the following thesis:

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The significance of high-level content

Cited by 28 publications

References 44 publications

Looks and Perceptual Justification

Looks and Perceptual Justification

Recent issues in high‐level perception

Kind Properties and the Metaphysics of Perception: Towards Impure Relationalism

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