Edward J Green
Biographic Data
| ID | 713063 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edward J Green |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edward J |
| FAMILY NAME | Green |
| SIGNATURE | GREEN E J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5607-8139 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1963 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Perceptual abstraction
Perception puts us in touch with highly determinate properties of objects, such as fine‐grained color shades and detailed surface shapes. However, most of our immediate perceptual judgments concern more abstract properties, such as the property of being a dog, or of being red simpliciter . So, how does perception attune us to abstract properties despite its evident determinacy? This paper argues that perception can be sensitive to abstract proper…
Hill on perceptual relativity and perceptual error
Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent pr…
Perceptual categorization and perceptual concepts
Conceptualism is the view that at least some perceptual representation is conceptual. This paper considers a prominent recent argument against Conceptualism due to Ned Block. Block's argument appeals to patterns of color representation in infants, alleging that infants exhibit categorical perception of color while failing to deploy concepts of color categories. Accordingly, the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy must be non-…
Whither naïve realism? – I
Different authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve perceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another leading atte…
A Pluralist Perspective on Shape Constancy
The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at the…
Representing shape in sight and touch
We represent shape in both sight and touch, but how do these abilities relate to one another? This issue has been discussed in the context of Molyneux's question of whether someone born blind could, upon being granted sight, identify shapes visually. Some have suggested that we might look to real‐world cases of sight restoration to illuminate the relation between visual and tactual shape representations. Here, I argue that newly sighted perceiver…
The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience
The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience is the puzzle of reconciling the apparent differences between our visual and haptic experiences of shape with their apparent similarities. This paper proposes that we can resolve the cross‐modal puzzle by reflecting on another puzzle. The puzzle of perspectival character challenges us to reconcile the variability of shape experience through shifts in perspective with its constancy. An attractive approach…
Binding and differentiation in multisensory object perception
Perceptual attribution and perceptual reference
Perceptual representations pick out individuals and attribute properties to them. This paper considers the role of perceptual attribution in determining or guiding perceptual reference to objects. We consider three extant models of the relation between perceptual attribution and perceptual reference–all attribution guides reference, no attribution guides reference, or a privileged subset of attributions guides reference–and argue that empirical e…
What Is an Object File
The notion of an object file figures prominently in recent work in philosophy and cognitive science. Object files play a role in theories of singular reference, object individuation, perceptual memory, and the development of cognitive capacities. However, the philosophical literature lacks a detailed, empirically informed theory of object files. In this article, we articulate and defend the multiple-slots view, which specifies both the format and…
The Perception-Cognition Border: A Case for Architectural Division
A venerable view holds that a border between perception and cognition is built into our cognitive architecture and that this imposes limits on the way information can flow between them. While the deliverances of perception are freely available for use in reasoning and inference, there are strict constraints on information flow in the opposite direction. Despite its plausibility, this approach to the perception-cognition border has faced criticism…
What Do Object Files Pick Out
Many authors have posited an “object file” system, which underlies perceptual selection and tracking of objects. Several have proposed that this system internalizes principles specifying what counts as an object and relies on them during tracking. Here I consider a popular view on which the object file system is tuned to entities that satisfy principles of three-dimensionality, cohesion, and boundedness. I argue that the evidence gathered in supp…
A Theory of Perceptual Objects
Objects are central in visual, auditory, and tactual perception. But what counts as a perceptual object? I address this question via a structural unity schema, which specifies how a collection of parts must be arranged to compose an object for perception. On the theory I propose, perceptual objects are composed of parts that participate in causally sustained regularities. I argue that this theory falls out of a compelling account of the function …
Spatial perception: The perspectival aspect of perception
When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect-an aspect that remains stable across changes in pers…
Psychosemantics and the Rich/Thin Debate1
Edwin Green Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey I consider the issue of whether perceptual content is -rich‖ or -thin,‖ using the lens of psychosemantics.As a case study, I examine Neander's (2017) recent psychosemantic theory of perceptual representations, which supports a thin view of perceptual content.I argue that the view faces difficulties, and that these difficulties trace directly to the component that makes it thin-friendly.I sho…
A comment on the Epple and Riordan paper
Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information
Recent work in game theory has shown that, in principle, it may be possible for firms in an industry to form a self-policing cartel to maximize their joint profits. This paper examines the nature of cartel self-enforcement in the presence of demand uncertainty. A model of a noncooperatively supported cartel is presented, and the aspects of industry structure which would make such a cartel viable are discussed.
Have Degree Will Travel: A Consulting Job for AID in Africa
The Reasonable Man: Legal Fiction or Psychosocial Reality
This paper explores the judgmental process involved in the determination of liability in accident cases. The law of negligence, unlike other branches of the civil law and the criminal law, lacks a body of substantive rules by which a jury may determine the legality of conduct. The acts of one person which may result in property loss or physical injury to another are extremely varied. This variety makes it all but impossible to specify, in advance…
The Learning Process and Programmed Instruction
What Is an Object File
The notion of an object file figures prominently in recent work in philosophy and cognitive science. Object files play a role in theories of singular reference, object individuation, perceptual memory, and the development of cognitive capacities. However, the philosophical literature lacks a detailed, empirically informed theory of object files. In this article, we articulate and defend the multiple-slots view, which specifies both the format and…
The Perception-Cognition Border: A Case for Architectural Division
A venerable view holds that a border between perception and cognition is built into our cognitive architecture and that this imposes limits on the way information can flow between them. While the deliverances of perception are freely available for use in reasoning and inference, there are strict constraints on information flow in the opposite direction. Despite its plausibility, this approach to the perception-cognition border has faced criticism…
A Theory of Perceptual Objects
Objects are central in visual, auditory, and tactual perception. But what counts as a perceptual object? I address this question via a structural unity schema, which specifies how a collection of parts must be arranged to compose an object for perception. On the theory I propose, perceptual objects are composed of parts that participate in causally sustained regularities. I argue that this theory falls out of a compelling account of the function …
The Reasonable Man: Legal Fiction or Psychosocial Reality
This paper explores the judgmental process involved in the determination of liability in accident cases. The law of negligence, unlike other branches of the civil law and the criminal law, lacks a body of substantive rules by which a jury may determine the legality of conduct. The acts of one person which may result in property loss or physical injury to another are extremely varied. This variety makes it all but impossible to specify, in advance…
Perceptual attribution and perceptual reference
Perceptual representations pick out individuals and attribute properties to them. This paper considers the role of perceptual attribution in determining or guiding perceptual reference to objects. We consider three extant models of the relation between perceptual attribution and perceptual reference–all attribution guides reference, no attribution guides reference, or a privileged subset of attributions guides reference–and argue that empirical e…
Spatial perception: The perspectival aspect of perception
When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect-an aspect that remains stable across changes in pers…
Have Degree Will Travel: A Consulting Job for AID in Africa
A Pluralist Perspective on Shape Constancy
The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at the…
Psychosemantics and the Rich/Thin Debate1
Edwin Green Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey I consider the issue of whether perceptual content is -rich‖ or -thin,‖ using the lens of psychosemantics.As a case study, I examine Neander's (2017) recent psychosemantic theory of perceptual representations, which supports a thin view of perceptual content.I argue that the view faces difficulties, and that these difficulties trace directly to the component that makes it thin-friendly.I sho…
Perceptual categorization and perceptual concepts
Conceptualism is the view that at least some perceptual representation is conceptual. This paper considers a prominent recent argument against Conceptualism due to Ned Block. Block's argument appeals to patterns of color representation in infants, alleging that infants exhibit categorical perception of color while failing to deploy concepts of color categories. Accordingly, the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy must be non-…
What Do Object Files Pick Out
Many authors have posited an “object file” system, which underlies perceptual selection and tracking of objects. Several have proposed that this system internalizes principles specifying what counts as an object and relies on them during tracking. Here I consider a popular view on which the object file system is tuned to entities that satisfy principles of three-dimensionality, cohesion, and boundedness. I argue that the evidence gathered in supp…
The Learning Process and Programmed Instruction
The Reasonable Man: Legal Fiction or Psychosocial Reality
This paper explores the judgmental process involved in the determination of liability in accident cases. The law of negligence, unlike other branches of the civil law and the criminal law, lacks a body of substantive rules by which a jury may determine the legality of conduct. The acts of one person which may result in property loss or physical injury to another are extremely varied. This variety makes it all but impossible to specify, in advance…
Have Degree Will Travel: A Consulting Job for AID in Africa
Noncooperative Collusion under Imperfect Price Information
Recent work in game theory has shown that, in principle, it may be possible for firms in an industry to form a self-policing cartel to maximize their joint profits. This paper examines the nature of cartel self-enforcement in the presence of demand uncertainty. A model of a noncooperatively supported cartel is presented, and the aspects of industry structure which would make such a cartel viable are discussed.
A comment on the Epple and Riordan paper
Psychosemantics and the Rich/Thin Debate1
Edwin Green Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey I consider the issue of whether perceptual content is -rich‖ or -thin,‖ using the lens of psychosemantics.As a case study, I examine Neander's (2017) recent psychosemantic theory of perceptual representations, which supports a thin view of perceptual content.I argue that the view faces difficulties, and that these difficulties trace directly to the component that makes it thin-friendly.I sho…
What Do Object Files Pick Out
Many authors have posited an “object file” system, which underlies perceptual selection and tracking of objects. Several have proposed that this system internalizes principles specifying what counts as an object and relies on them during tracking. Here I consider a popular view on which the object file system is tuned to entities that satisfy principles of three-dimensionality, cohesion, and boundedness. I argue that the evidence gathered in supp…
A Theory of Perceptual Objects
Objects are central in visual, auditory, and tactual perception. But what counts as a perceptual object? I address this question via a structural unity schema, which specifies how a collection of parts must be arranged to compose an object for perception. On the theory I propose, perceptual objects are composed of parts that participate in causally sustained regularities. I argue that this theory falls out of a compelling account of the function …
Spatial perception: The perspectival aspect of perception
When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect-an aspect that remains stable across changes in pers…
The Perception-Cognition Border: A Case for Architectural Division
A venerable view holds that a border between perception and cognition is built into our cognitive architecture and that this imposes limits on the way information can flow between them. While the deliverances of perception are freely available for use in reasoning and inference, there are strict constraints on information flow in the opposite direction. Despite its plausibility, this approach to the perception-cognition border has faced criticism…
Binding and differentiation in multisensory object perception
Perceptual attribution and perceptual reference
Perceptual representations pick out individuals and attribute properties to them. This paper considers the role of perceptual attribution in determining or guiding perceptual reference to objects. We consider three extant models of the relation between perceptual attribution and perceptual reference–all attribution guides reference, no attribution guides reference, or a privileged subset of attributions guides reference–and argue that empirical e…
What Is an Object File
The notion of an object file figures prominently in recent work in philosophy and cognitive science. Object files play a role in theories of singular reference, object individuation, perceptual memory, and the development of cognitive capacities. However, the philosophical literature lacks a detailed, empirically informed theory of object files. In this article, we articulate and defend the multiple-slots view, which specifies both the format and…
Representing shape in sight and touch
We represent shape in both sight and touch, but how do these abilities relate to one another? This issue has been discussed in the context of Molyneux's question of whether someone born blind could, upon being granted sight, identify shapes visually. Some have suggested that we might look to real‐world cases of sight restoration to illuminate the relation between visual and tactual shape representations. Here, I argue that newly sighted perceiver…
The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience
The puzzle of cross‐modal shape experience is the puzzle of reconciling the apparent differences between our visual and haptic experiences of shape with their apparent similarities. This paper proposes that we can resolve the cross‐modal puzzle by reflecting on another puzzle. The puzzle of perspectival character challenges us to reconcile the variability of shape experience through shifts in perspective with its constancy. An attractive approach…
Whither naïve realism? – I
Different authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve perceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another leading atte…
A Pluralist Perspective on Shape Constancy
The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at the…
Hill on perceptual relativity and perceptual error
Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent pr…
Perceptual categorization and perceptual concepts
Conceptualism is the view that at least some perceptual representation is conceptual. This paper considers a prominent recent argument against Conceptualism due to Ned Block. Block's argument appeals to patterns of color representation in infants, alleging that infants exhibit categorical perception of color while failing to deploy concepts of color categories. Accordingly, the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy must be non-…
Perceptual abstraction
Perception puts us in touch with highly determinate properties of objects, such as fine‐grained color shades and detailed surface shapes. However, most of our immediate perceptual judgments concern more abstract properties, such as the property of being a dog, or of being red simpliciter . So, how does perception attune us to abstract properties despite its evident determinacy? This paper argues that perception can be sensitive to abstract proper…
Psychology (16 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Perception (11 works) · Multisensory perception and integration (10 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Visual perception and processing mechanisms (9 works) · Artificial Intelligence (7 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works)