Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception

Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception PDF Author: Maurice Mandelbaum
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142143170X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Originally published in 1964. In four essays, Professor Mandelbaum challenges some of the most common assumptions of contemporary epistemology. Through historical analyses and critical argument, he attempts to show that one cannot successfully sever the connections between philosophic and scientific accounts of sense perception. While each essay is independent of the others, and the argument of each must therefore be judged on its own merits, one theme is common to all: that critical realism, as Mandelbaum calls it, is a viable epistemological position, even though some schools of thought hold it in low esteem.

Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception

Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception PDF Author: Maurice Mandelbaum
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142143170X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
Originally published in 1964. In four essays, Professor Mandelbaum challenges some of the most common assumptions of contemporary epistemology. Through historical analyses and critical argument, he attempts to show that one cannot successfully sever the connections between philosophic and scientific accounts of sense perception. While each essay is independent of the others, and the argument of each must therefore be judged on its own merits, one theme is common to all: that critical realism, as Mandelbaum calls it, is a viable epistemological position, even though some schools of thought hold it in low esteem.

Philosophy, Science and Sense-perception

Philosophy, Science and Sense-perception PDF Author: Maurice H Mandelbaum
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Reliability of Sense Perception

The Reliability of Sense Perception PDF Author: William P. Alston
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501720546
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Why suppose that sense perception is an accurate source of information about the physical environment? More generally, is it possible to demonstrate that our basic ways of forming beliefs are reliable? In this book, a leading analytic philosopher confronts this classic problem through detailed investigation of sense perception, the source of beliefs in which we place the most confidence. Carefully assessing the available arguments, William P. Alston concludes that it is not possible to show in any noncircular way that sense perception is a reliable source of beliefs. Alston thoroughly examines the main arguments that have been advanced for the reliability of sense perception, including arguments from the various kinds of success we achieve by relying on the sense perception, arguments that some features of our sense experience are best explained by supposing that it is an accurate guide, and arguments that there is something conceptually incoherent about the idea that sense perception is not reliable. He concludes that all of these arguments that are not disqualified in other ways are epistemically circular, for they use premises based upon the very source in question. Alston then suggest that the most appropriate response to the impossibility of showing that our basic sources of beliefs are reliable is an appeal to the practical rationality of engaging in certain socially established belief-forming practices. The Reliability of Sense Perception will be welcome by epistemologists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of science.

Phenomenal Qualities

Phenomenal Qualities PDF Author: Paul Coates
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198712715
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
A team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists explore the nature of phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences, and the ways in which they fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience.

Philosophy of Perception

Philosophy of Perception PDF Author: William Fish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135838542
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The philosophy of perception investigates the nature of our sensory experiences and their relation to reality. Raising questions about the conscious character of perceptual experiences, how they enable us to acquire knowledge of the world in which we live, and what exactly it is we are aware of when we hallucinate or dream, the philosophy of perception is a growing area of interest in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. William Fish’s Philosophy of Perception introduces the subject thematically, setting out the major theories of perception together with their motivations and attendant problems. While providing historical background to debates in the field, this comprehensive overview focuses on recent presentations and defenses of the different theories, and looks beyond visual perception to take into account the role of other senses. Topics covered include: the phenomenal principle perception and hallucination perception and content sense-data, adverbialism and idealism disjunctivism and relationalism intentionalism and combined theories the nature of content veridicality perception and empirical science non-visual perception. With summaries and suggested further reading at the end of each chapter, this is an ideal introduction to the philosophy of perception.

Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science

Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Patrick A. Heelan
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520908090
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Drawing on the phenomenological tradition in the philosophy of science and philosophy of nature, Patrick Heelan concludes that perception is a cognitive, world-building act, and is therefore never absolute or finished.

Perception, Theory, and Commitment

Perception, Theory, and Commitment PDF Author: Harold I. Brown
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226076188
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
With originality and clarity, Harold Brown outlines first the logical empiricist tradition and then the more historical and process-oriented approach he calls the “new philosophy of science.” Examining the two together, he describes the very transition between them as an example of the kind of change in historical tradition with which the new philosophy of science concerns itself. “I would recommend it to every historian of science and to every philosopher of science. . . . I found it clear, readable, accurate, cogent, insightful, perceptive, judicious, and full of original ideas.” —Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Isis “The best and most original aspect of the book is its overall conception.” —Thomas S. Kuhn Harold I. Brown is professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University.

Spatial Senses

Spatial Senses PDF Author: Tony Cheng
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032092195
Category : Perception (Philosophy)
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
This collection of essays brings together research on sense modalities in general and spatial perception in particular in a systematic and interdisciplinary way. It updates a long-standing philosophical fascination with this topic by incorporating theoretical and empirical research from cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology. The book is divided thematically to cover a wide range of established and emerging issues. Part I covers notions of objectivity and subjectivity in spatial perception and thinking. Part II focuses on the canonical distal senses, such as vision and audition. Part III concerns the chemical senses, including olfaction and gustation. Part IV discusses bodily awareness, peripersonal space, and touch. Finally, the volume concludes with Part V on multimodality. Spatial Senses is an important contribution to the scholarly literature on the philosophy of perception that takes into account important advances in the sciences.

A Multisensory Philosophy of Perception

A Multisensory Philosophy of Perception PDF Author: Casey O'Callaghan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192570420
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Most of the time people perceive using multiple senses. Out walking, we see colors and motion, hear chatter and footsteps, smell petrichor after rain, feel a breeze or the brush of a shoulder. We use our senses together to navigate and learn about the world. In spite of this, scientists and philosophers alike have merely focused on one sense at a time. Nearly every theory of perception is unisensory. This book instead offers a revisionist multisensory philosophy of perception. Casey O'Callaghan considers how our senses work together, in contrast with how they work separately and independently, and how one sense can impact another, leading to surprising perceptual illusions. The joint use of multiple senses, he argues, enables novel forms of perception and experience, such as multisensory rhythms, motions, and flavors that enrich aesthetic experiences of music, dance, and gustatory pleasure.

Seeing, Doing, and Knowing

Seeing, Doing, and Knowing PDF Author: Mohan Matthen
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191533289
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Seeing, Doing, and Knowing is an original and comprehensive philosophical treatment of sense perception as it is currently investigated by cognitive neuroscientists. Its central theme is the task-oriented specialization of sensory systems across the biological domain. Sensory systems are automatic sorting machines; they engage in a process of classification. Human vision sorts and orders external objects in terms of a specialized, proprietary scheme of categories - colours, shapes, speeds and directions of movement, etc. This 'Sensory Classification Thesis' implies that sensation is not a naturally caused image from which an organism must infer the state of the world beyond; it is more like an internal communication, a signal concerning the state of the world issued by a sensory system, in accordance with internal conventions, for the use of an organism's other systems. This is why sensory states are both easily understood and persuasive. Sensory classification schemes are purpose-built to serve the knowledge-gathering and pragmatic needs of particular types of organisms. They are specialized: a bee or a bird does not see exactly what a human does. The Sensory Classification Thesis helps clarify this specialization in perceptual content and supports a new form of realism about the deliverances of sensation: 'Pluralistic Realism' is based on the idea that sensory systems coevolve with an organism's other systems; they are not simply moulded to the external world. The last part of the book deals with reference in vision. Cognitive scientists now believe that vision guides the limbs by means of a subsystem that links up with the objects of physical manipulation in ways that bypass sensory categories. In a novel extension of this theory, Matthen argues that 'motion-guiding vision' is integrated with sensory classification in conscious vision. This accounts for the quasi-demonstrative form of visual states: 'This particular object is red', and so on. He uses this idea to cast new light on the nature of perceptual objects, pictorial representation, and the visual representation of space.