Perceiving the World

Perceiving the World PDF Author: Bence Nanay
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199741905
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
This volumes collects new essays by top philosophers, all on the theme of perception while also making connections between perception and other philosophical areas like epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of action. Perception has become a major area of philosophical interest, with a number of important collections and monographs appearing recently. This may partly be due to the growing use of empirical and neuroscientific data by philosophers of mind. The contributors in this volume represent the high quality of current scholars (many OUP authors) working in the area, among them Jesse Prinz, Fred Dretske, Susanna Siegel, and Benj Hellie. Some of the questions they raise include, What is the object of perception? How can perception give rise to knowledge? What is the link between perception and action? Between perception and belief? How do we perceive colors? What do animals perceive? How do empirical findings inform traditional philosophical thinking about perception? Does perception represent the world? What are the properties that are represented in perception? Nanay also provides a detailed introduction surveying the state of the field. This volume contains new work by some of the top figures in the field on a broad topic of interest.

The World of Perception

The World of Perception PDF Author: Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000154904
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 85

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Book Description
'In simple prose Merleau-Ponty touches on his principle themes. He speaks about the body and the world, the coexistence of space and things, the unfortunate optimism of science – and also the insidious stickiness of honey, and the mystery of anger.' - James Elkins Maurice Merleau-Ponty was one of the most important thinkers of the post-war era. Central to his thought was the idea that human understanding comes from our bodily experience of the world that we perceive: a deceptively simple argument, perhaps, but one that he felt had to be made in the wake of attacks from contemporary science and the philosophy of Descartes on the reliability of human perception. From this starting point, Merleau-Ponty presented these seven lectures on The World of Perception to French radio listeners in 1948. Available in a paperback English translation for the first time in the Routledge Classics series to mark the centenary of Merleau-Ponty’s birth, this is a dazzling and accessible guide to a whole universe of experience, from the pursuit of scientific knowledge, through the psychic life of animals to the glories of the art of Paul Cézanne.

Perception

Perception PDF Author: Dennis Proffitt
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250219124
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
A groundbreaking popular psychology book that explores the deep connection between our body and our brain. Over decades of study, University of Virginia psychologist Dennis Proffitt has shown that we are each living our own personal version of Gulliver’s Travels, where the size and shape of the things we see are scaled to the size of our bodies, and our ability to interact with them. Stairs look less steep as dieters lose weight, baseballs grow bigger the better players hit, hills look less daunting if you’re standing next to a close friend, and learning happens faster when you can talk with your hands. Written with journalist Drake Baer, Perception marries academic rigor with mainstream accessibility. The research presented and the personalities profiled will show what it means to not only have, but be, your unique human body. The positive ramifications of viewing ourselves from this embodied perspective include greater athletic, academic, and professional achievement, more nourishing relationships, and greater personal well-being. The better we can understand what our bodies are—what they excel at, what they need, what they must avoid—the better we can live our lives.

Essential Psychology

Essential Psychology PDF Author: Philip Banyard
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1526482053
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 857

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Book Description
With a vivid narrative writing style for undergraduates, this third edition gives students a firm foundation in all areas covered on accredited British Psychological Society degree courses.

Thinking and Perceiving

Thinking and Perceiving PDF Author: Dustin Stokes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351747460
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Human beings are in contact with the world through their minds. One can make sensory perceptual contact with the world: One sees the tree and hears its leaves flutter. And one makes cognitive contact with the world: One forms beliefs about the tree, memories of how it was in the past, and expectations of how it will be in the future. Can the first, perception, be influenced in important ways by the second, cognition? Do cognitive states such as memories, beliefs, and expectations affect what one perceives through the senses? And what is the importance of these possible relations to how we theorize and understand the human mind? Possible cognitive influence on perception (sometimes called "cognitive penetration of perception") has been long debated in philosophy of mind and cognitive science: Some argue that such influence occurs, while others argue that it does not or cannot. In this excellent introduction and overview of the problem, Dustin Stokes examines the following: The philosophical and scientific background to cognition and perception Contemporary ways of distinguishing cognition and perception Questions about the representational content of perception versus cognition Distinct theories of mental architecture: modularity versus malleability Consequences for epistemology, philosophy of science, and aesthetics Philosophical and scientific research on perceptual attention Perceptual skill, learning, and expertise Perceptual content, objectivity, and cultural bias. Additional features, such as chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, make Thinking and Perceiving an ideal resource for students of philosophy of mind and psychology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive science.

Seeing Things as They are

Seeing Things as They are PDF Author: John R. Searle
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199385157
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive account of the intentionality of perceptual experience. With special emphasis on vision Searle explains how the raw phenomenology of perception sets the content and the conditions of satisfaction of experience. The central question concerns the relation between the subjective conscious perceptual field and the objective perceptual field. Everything in the objective field is either perceived or can be perceived. Nothing in the subjective field is perceived nor can be perceived precisely because the events in the subjective field consist of the perceivings, whether veridical or not, of the events in the objective field. Searle begins by criticizing the classical theories of perception and identifies a single fallacy, what he calls the Bad Argument, as the source of nearly all of the confusions in the history of the philosophy of perception. He next justifies the claim that perceptual experiences have presentational intentionality and shows how this justifies the direct realism of his account. In the central theoretical chapters, he shows how it is possible that the raw phenomenology must necessarily determine certain form of intentionality. Searle introduces, in detail, the distinction between different levels of perception from the basic level to the higher levels and shows the internal relation between the features of the experience and the states of affairs presented by the experience. The account applies not just to language possessing human beings but to infants and conscious animals. He also discusses how the account relates to certain traditional puzzles about spectrum inversion, color and size constancy and the brain-in-the-vat thought experiments. In the final chapters he explains and refutes Disjunctivist theories of perception, explains the role of unconscious perception, and concludes by discussing traditional problems of perception such as skepticism.

The Spell of the Sensuous

The Spell of the Sensuous PDF Author: David Abram
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307830551
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Winner of the International Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception. For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate." How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth? In The Spell of the Sensuous David Abram draws on sources as diverse as the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, Balinese shamanism, Apache storytelling, and his own experience as an accomplished sleight-of-hand of magician to reveal the subtle dependence of human cognition on the natural environment. He explores the character of perception and excavates the sensual foundations of language, which--even at its most abstract--echoes the calls and cries of the earth. On every page of this lyrical work, Abram weaves his arguments with a passion, a precision, and an intellectual daring that recall such writers as Loren Eisleley, Annie Dillard, and Barry Lopez.

Drawing and Perceiving

Drawing and Perceiving PDF Author: Douglas Cooper
Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Evolving from a drawing course taught to first-year architecture students, this text teaches the foundations, taking the point of view that drawing is fundamentally a tactile and kinesthetic act (for which the author gives credit to Kimon Nicolaides and his book The Natural Way to Draw. Theory, exercises, and examples combine to present the art of drawing as an "act of making rather than as an act of viewing." May be the one drawing book architecture students need, and certainly should interest art students and others outside of architecture as well. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Knowing by Perceiving

Knowing by Perceiving PDF Author: Alan Millar
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191072311
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Epistemological discussions of perception usually focus on something other than knowledge. They consider how beliefs arising from perception can be justified. With the retreat from knowledge to justified belief there is also a retreat from perception to the sensory experiences implicated by perception. On the most widely held approach, perception drops out of the picture other than as the means by which we are furnished with the experiences that are supposed to be the real source of justification-experiences that are conceived to be no different in kind from those we could have had if we had been perfectly hallucinating. In this book a radically different perspective is developed, one that explicates perceptual knowledge in terms of recognitional abilities and perceptual justification in terms of perceptually known truths as to what we perceive to be so. Contrary to mainstream epistemological tradition, justified belief is regarded as belief founded on known truths. The treatment of perceptual knowledge is situated within a broader conception of epistemology and philosophical method. Attention is paid to contested conceptions of perceptual experience, to knowledge from perceived indicators, and to the standing of background presuppositions and knowledge that inform our thinking. Throughout, the discussion is sensitive to ways in which key concepts figure in ordinary thinking while remaining resolutely focused on what knowledge is, and not just on how we think of it.

Does Perception Have Content?

Does Perception Have Content? PDF Author: Berit Brogaard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199395241
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Within the contemporary philosophical debates over the nature of perception, the question of whether perception has content in the first place recently has become a focus of discussion. The most common view is that it does, but a number of philosophers have questioned this claim. The issue immediately raises a number of related questions. What does it mean to say that perception has content? Does perception have more than one kind of content? Does perceptual content derive from the content of beliefs or judgments? Should perceptual content be understood in terms of accuracy conditions? Is naive realism compatible with holding that perception has content? This volume brings together philosophers representing many different perspectives to address these and other central questions in the philosophy of perception.