4 - Phenomena reconsidered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
Summary
The purpose of this chapter is to place the results of the previous chapters onto a map of possible perceptual theories rather than to establish a single correct theory of perception. The latter task is at present beyond me. The aim, then, is to outline several general types of theories of perception that are compatible with the earlier results and with later chapters to come. At least six types may actually meet these requirements. In section I, two quite popular theory types, computational models and Gibsonian models, are considered, as is a less wellknown model derived from Thomas Reid (1785/1969). In section II, I will be bolder, outlining three, mostly original, theories of perception, also compatible with the earlier and later results. These latter theories, as a group, have several virtues.
Of two subtexts to this chapter, the first concerns phenomena. The central thrust of the first three chapters has been that phenomena play a lesser role in our lives than we heretofore might have thought. In particular, it has been shown that no natural kind of phenomena is visual, or aural, or tactile, and so on. There is not even a natural kind of phenomena constituting pain phenomena, let alone pain itself. It has been argued that perception is primarily a kind of immediate judgment that defines one boundary of the senses, that the senses are not definable in terms of phenomenal types.
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- Consciousness and the Origins of Thought , pp. 98 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996