Seeing and Perceptual Content

<p>There are two widely held assumptions about perception: <em>ascriber-independence</em> (the view that the facts regarding what a subject perceives, as well as what her perceptual states represent, are independent of the interests of those attributing the relevant states to her), and <em>determinacy</em> (the view that perceptual content is relatively determinate). I challenge both of these assumptions, and develop a new approach to perceptual content, with implications for theories of mental content more broadly. In chapter one, I address the question of whether, in addition to low-level features, vision represents ordinary objects. I argue that there is just no fact of the matter. In chapter two, I defend a contextualist account of object-seeing: one that illuminates the inscrutability thesis defended in chapter 1. Finally, in chapter three, I address the question of whether the contents of vision are object-dependent. I argue that it is simply indeterminate whether the particulars we perceive enter into the contents of our perceptual states. I then address various worries about the indeterminacy thesis, arguing that we should embrace the view that there are multiple, equally acceptable, ways to assign contents to our perceptual experiences.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Phillips, Ben S

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jesse Prinz

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• David Rosenthal
• Gary Ostertag
• Peter Godfrey-Smith
• Michael Devitt

• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Science
• perception; perceptual content; object seeing; contextualism; indeterminacy

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1405

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-2424