Perception, causation, and objectivity / edited by Johannes Roessler, Hemdat Lerman and Naomi Eilan.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Roessler, Johannes.

Lerman, Hemdat.

Eilan, Naomi.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Perception (Philosophy).

Causation.

Objectivity.

Genre:

Aufsatzsammlung.

Physical Description:

vi, 372 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

To be a 'commonsense realist' is to hold that perceptual experience is (in general) an immediate awareness of mind-independent objects, and a source of direct knowledge of what such objects are like. Over the past few centuries this view has faced formidable challenges from epistemology, metaphysics, and, more recently, cognitive science. However, in recent years there has been renewed interest in it, due to new work on perceptual consciousness, objectivity, and causal understanding. This volume collects nineteen original essays by leading philosophers and psychologists on these topics. Questions addressed include: What are the commitments of commonsense realism? Does it entail any particular view of the nature or perceptual experience, or any particular view of the epistemology of perceptual knowledge? Should we think of commonsense realism as a view held by some philosophers, or is there a sense in which we are pre-theoretically committed to commonsense realism in virtue of the experience we enjoy or the concepts we use or the explanations we give? Is commonsense realism defensible, and if so how, in the face of the formidable criticism it faces? Specific issues addressed in the philosophical essays include the status of causal requirements on perception, the causal role of perceptual experience, and the relation between objective perception and causal thinking. The scientific essays present a range of perspectives on the development, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, of the human adult conception of perception. Book jacket.

Contents:

Tackling Berkeley's puzzle / Quassim Cassam

Relational vs Kantian responses to Berkeley's puzzle / John Campbell

Experiential objectivity / Naomi Eilan

Realism and explanation in perception / Bill Brewer

Epistemic humility and causal structuralism / James Van Cleve

Seeing what is so / Barry Stroud

Causation in commonsense realism / Johannes Roessler

Perceptual concepts as non-causal concepts / Paul Snowdon

Perception and the ontology of causation / Helen Steward

Vision and causal understanding / William Child

The perception of absence, space, and time / Matthew Soteriou

Perception, causal understanding, and locality / Christoph Hoerl

Causal perception and causal cognition / James Woodward

Children's understanding of perceptual appearances / Matthew Nudds

Perspective-taking and its foundation in joint attention / Henrike Moll and Andrew N. Meltzoff

A two-systems theory of social cognition : engagement and theory of mind / Martin Doherty

Development of understanding of the causal connection between perceptual access and knowledge state / Elizabeth J. Robinson

Social and physical reasoning in human-reared chimpanzees : preliminary studies / Jennier Vonk and Daniel J. Povinelli.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199692040

0199692041

9780199692057

019969205X

OCLC:

709682931