Do We Visually Experience Objects’ Occluded Parts

Bibliographic Data

ID21409046
AuthorsMatt E M Bower (0000-0003-2864-2980, Texas State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume51
Issue4
Pages239-255
Publication date2021-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0045-5091 • E-ISSN: 1911-0820
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/can.2021.22
OpenAlexW3199920803
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited46

A number of philosophers have held that we visually experience objects’ occluded parts, such as the out-of-view exterior of a voluminous, opaque object. That idea is supposed to be what best explains the fact that we see objects as whole or complete despite having only a part of them in view at any given moment. Yet, the claim doesn’t express a phenomenological datum and the reasons for thinking we do experience objects’ occluded parts, I argue, aren’t compelling. Additionally, I anticipate and reply to attempts to salvage the idea by appeal to perceptual expectation and amodal completion. Lastly, I address potential concerns that the only way to capture the phenomenal character of perceiving voluminous objects is to say experience outstrips what’s in view, providing a description of such experience without any implication of that idea

Aesthetics · Amodal perception · Appeal · Epistemology · Object (grammar) · Perception · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology

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