Externalist Theories of Perception

I term externalist theories of perception have been dominant throughout the modern period. Let me explain the term. First, a of as I am using that term, attempts to answer the question, What is it to perceive a certain physical object? It seeks to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for this. Restricting ourselves to reasonably sensible theories, all the contenders hold that one necessary condition for my seeing a certain tree is that I have a visual experience of a certain sort. Must this be a conscious experience? And does the notion of an unconscious experience make sense? I myself want to recognize unconscious perception, but I have no time here for the question of how to construe the experiential component of unconscious perception. Therefore, I shall restrict the discussion to conscious perception. restrictions are to be put on the character of the visual experience involved? If there are to be such restrictions they will be formulated differently by different accounts of the nature of sensory experience. Thus the sense datum account will put the restrictions in terms of the character of the sense data of which one is aware, the adverbial theory in terms of the way or mode of sensing involved; and so on. However, there is a prior question as to whether any such restriction is called for. Since it is possible for me to be genuinely seeing that tree under conditions in which it looks radically different from the way it is, are there any limits to this? If not, then there are no limits to the kind of visual experience that could be involved.' Since this issue is peripheral to my central concerns in this paper, I shall pass it by. The question on which I will be focusing is: What

Cognitive science · Epistemology · Externalism · Internalism and externalism · Perception · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology

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