The Brains Blog — perception

2. (Ir)rational perception

Recall the example discussed in my earlier post: Jill and Jack: Jill fears (without good reason) that Jack is angry with her. As a result of her fear, Jack’s face looks angry to her when she sees it. If you saw Jack, you’d see his neutral expression for what it is. There’s …

1. An epistemic puzzle

Susanna Siegel April 4, 2017 April 3, 2017 Epistemology / perception / Susanna Siegel: The Rationality of Perception

On a traditional conception of the human mind, reasoning can be rational or irrational, but perception cannot. Perception is simply a source of new information, and cannot be assessed for rationality. I argue that this conception is wrong. Drawing on examples involving racism, emotion, self-defense law, and scientific theories, The Rationality …

CFA: Perception and Justified Belief

John Schwenkler February 22, 2017 February 22, 2017 CFPs / Epistemology / perception

Call for Submissions: Workshop on Perception and Justified Belief (Bochum, June 2017) We invite submissions of extended abstracts for presentation at the workshop. The aim of the workshop is to discuss the relation between perception and justified belief, and issues relevant to the relation. For instance, we are interested in debates concerning: …

Perceiving Plants

Chauncey Maher February 21, 2017 February 21, 2017 books / Chauncey Maher: Plant Minds / perception

In What a Plant Knows, Daniel Chamowitz reports what plant biologists apparently have known for a long time: although plants generally stay in one place (they’re sessile), they actively negotiate their environments. Not just their cells, like all living cells, constantly do things, but whole plants and their parts—their roots, …

Final CFP: The Philosophical Significance of Molyneux’s Question

John Schwenkler February 6, 2017 February 6, 2017 CFPs / perception

This is a final reminder that submissions for the conference on The Philosophical Significance of Molyneux’s question, at the University of York from June 5-6, 2017, are due by February 15. The invited speakers are Becko Copenhaver, M.G.F. Martin, Mohan Matthen, and L.A. Paul. For further details and to submit your work, visit spinperceptionnetwork.wordpress.com/mq/.

Perception: Representational Properties and Phenomenological Properties

Michelle Montague February 1, 2017 January 31, 2017 Color / Consciousness / Michelle Montague: The Given / perception / representation

Consider the visual experience of a normally functioning subject who consciously sees a red ball in front of her in daylight. This experience has representational properties, it is of or about something, e.g. the red ball, and it has phenomenological properties, e.g. there is something it is like to see …

What Is Given in Experience?

Michelle Montague January 30, 2017 January 29, 2017 Consciousness / Content / Michelle Montague: The Given / perception / Phenomenology

I called my book The Given (Oxford University Press, 2016) because I set out to answer the question, What is given in experience? What does one have to do in order to give an adequate characterization of how the world is given to us, an adequate characterization of how we …