Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality
A Reply to Jerry Fodor
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14432180 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul M Churchland (University of California San Diego, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1988 |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 167-187 |
| Publication date | 1988-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8248 • E-ISSN: 1539-767X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1086/289425 |
| OpenAlex | W13090314 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 72 |
| References cited | 18 |
The doctrine that the character of our perceptual knowledge is plastic, and can vary substantially with the theories embraced by the perceiver, has been criticized in a recent paper by Fodor. His arguments are based on certain experimental facts and theoretical approaches in cognitive psychology. My aim in this paper is threefold: (1) to show that Fodor's views on the impenetrability of perceptual processing do not secure a theory-neutral foundation for knowledge; (2) to show that his views on impenetrability are almost certainly false; and (3) to provide some additional arguments for, and illustrations of, the theoretical character of all observation judgments
Character (mathematics) · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Doctrine · Epistemology · Foundation (evidence) · Metaphysics · Neutrality · Perception · Philosophy of mind · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology
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The Subject-oriented Approach to Knowledge and the Role of Human Consciousness
An Introduction to the Philosophy of Psychology
The Experimental Philosophy
Varieties of Progress
The Advancement of Science
Realism and Scientific Progress
Dissolving Rationality
The Organization of Cognitive Labor
Legend's Legacy
The Microstructure of Scientific Change
Darwin's Achievement
Is vision continuous with cognition?
A better best system account of lawhood
How we know our minds
Cognition does not affect perception
The Cognitive Penetrability of Perception
Indexing the World? Visual Tracking, Modularity, and the Perception–Cognition Interface
What's a Theory to do… with Seeing? or Some Empirical Considerations for Observation and Theory
Knowledge and the Aesthetics of Nature
Objectivity in the News
Vision and Visuality in Buddhism and Beyond
Churchland posmoderno
The dichotomy myth and reason revisited from the perspective of Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd. A critical assessment
Against Perceiving Meanings
Is Perception Stimulus-Dependent
The contents of racialized seeing
Knowing how to listen
A defense of cognitive penetration and the face-race lightness illusion 1
On perceptual expertise
Semantics without semantic content
Expert Knowledge by Perception
Perceptual malleability
Cognitive penetration and informational encapsulation
The perceptual learning of socially constructed kinds
The perception/cognition distinction
Perceptual Learning, Categorical Perception, and Cognitive Permeation
Coding, counting and cultural cartography
The cognitive penetrability of perception
Modularist explanations of experience and other illusions
Cognitive penetration of early vision in face perception
The Eye's Mind
Seeing and Conceptualizing
Cognitive Penetration of Colour Experience
A Reply to Churchland's “Perceptual Plasticity and Theoretical Neutrality”
Effect of pregnancy on food consumption and consciousness factors associated with food satisfaction
A Realist Theory of Empirical Testing Resolving the Theory-Ladenness/ Objectivity Debate
The pre-theoreticality of moral intuitions
Problems of empirical solutions to the theory-ladenness of observation
Knowledge and cognitive integration
How Philosophy Lost Perceptual Expertise
Content
Neural plasticity and concepts ontogeny
Is phenomenal force sufficient for immediate perceptual justification
Active externalism, virtue reliabilism and scientific knowledge
How we load our data sets with theories and why we do so purposefully
A Test of the Scientific Method
Observations, Theories and the Evolution of the Human Spirit
Deep Plasticity
The Neurobiology of Observation
The Theory-Ladenness of Observation and the Theory-Ladenness of the Rest of the Scientific Process
The Epistemic Role of Core Cognition
Algorithm and Parameters
Ethnography, Belief Ascription, and Epistemological Barriers
Sexual Desire and the Phenomenology of Attraction
Religion as an Evolutionary Byproduct
Border Disputes
Cognitive Penetrability of Perception
Cognitive Penetration and the Epistemology of Perception
Aesthetics and Cognitive Science
Perceptual learning
Reductionism, Connectionism, and the Plasticity of Human Consciousness
Knowledge and the flow of information
Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind
Computation and cognition
The structure of scientific revolutions
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Psychosemantics
Reason, Truth and History
Two Grades of Evidential Bias
Observation Reconsidered
Concepts and Mechanisms of Perception
| Unique citing works | 72 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,89 |
| Citation span | 1988 - 2026 (39) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 70 |