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Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Douglas Odegard
Douglas Odegard
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Extract

I Shall offer a realist theory of perception which in an important sense is neither direct nor representational nor causal.

Let us say that we directly perceive something if perceiving it enables us to know of its existence without having evidence of its existence. In this sense, direct perception allows us to have “direct knowledge” of what we perceive. For example, I see after-images directly, since I can know of their existence without having visual evidence of their existence. I do not have to look at them with my eyes. Granted, I do need evidence in order to know that they are after-images; but not in order to know of their existence as colours or shapes. Also, I do have to see them in order to know that they exist. But this is not a condition of having evidence. It is only a condition of their existence, which in turn is a truth condition of my knowing.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1978 , pp. 72 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1978

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References

Notes

1 Malcolm, Contrast Norman, “Direct Perception,” in Knowledge and Certainty (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963).Google Scholar

2 See Mates, , “Sense Data,” Inquiry, 10 (1967), p. 229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See Austin, , Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), pp. 115–17.Google Scholar

4 See Quinton, , The Nature of Things (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), pp. 189–90.Google Scholar

5 For example, see Gasking, Douglas, “Avowals,” in Analytical Philosophy, edited by Butler, R.J., first series (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962).Google Scholar

6 Contrast Malcolm on counting after-images, in “Direct Perception,” p. 77.

7 See Anscombe, , “The Intentionality of Sensation: a Grammatical Feature,” in Analytical Philosophy, edited by Butler, R.J., second series (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965).Google Scholar

8 For difficulties with interchanging external-object expressions, see Dretske, Fred, Seeing and Knowing (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

9 See Chisholm, , Perceiving: a Philosophical Study (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957), pp. 115–20Google Scholar. For a critique of adverbial analyses, see Jackson, Frank, “The Existence of Mental Objects,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 13 (1976), pp. 33–40.Google Scholar

10 See Pitcher, , A Theory of Perception (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

11 Hirst, R.J., The Problems of Perception (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959), p. 34.Google Scholar

12 See Jones, , “After-Images,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 9 (1972), pp. 150–58.Google Scholar

13 See Price, , Perception (London: Methuen, 1932), Chapter 1.Google Scholar

14 See Hirst, The Problems of Perception, p. 33.

15 See Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, pp. 87–102.

16 See Austin, Sense and Sensibilia, pp. 44–54.

17 Locke, , Perception and Our Knowledge of the External World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967), pp. 168–69.Google Scholar

18 See Grice, , “The Causal Theory of Perception,” Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 35 (1962), pp. 121–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 See Locke, Perception and Our Knowledge of the External World, pp. 170–71.

20 Contrast Grice, “The Causal Theory of Perception”; Chisholm, Perceiving, Chapter 10. Compare Dretske, Seeing and Knowing, pp. 50–53; New, Christopher, “Look, No Eyes,” Analysis, 36 (1975–76), pp. 137–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Compare Dretske, Seeing and Knowing. Armstrong, Contrast D.M., Perception and the Physical World (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961)Google Scholar; Pitcher, A Theory of Perception. See also, Close, D., “What is Non-epistemic Seeing?,” Mind, 85 (1976), pp. 161–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pappas, G.S., “Seeinge and Seeingn,” Mind, pp. 171–88.Google Scholar

22 See George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 8.

23 Ryle, , The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949), p. 213.Google Scholar

24 See Mackie, J.L., Problems from Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), Chapter 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Grice, “The Causal Theory of Perception.”