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A Clearer Vision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Lawrence A. Shapiro
Lawrence A. Shapiro*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin—Madison
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park St., Madison, WI 53706–1475.
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Abstract

Frances Egan argues that the states of computational theories of vision are individuated individualistically and, as far as the theory is concerned, are not intentional. Her argument depends on equating the goals and explanatory strategies of computational psychology with those of its algorithmic level. However, closer inspection of computational psychology reveals that the computational level plays an essential role in explaining visual processes and that explanations at this level are nonindividualistic and intentional. In conclusion, I sketch an account of content in which content does the sort of explanatory work that Egan denies is possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 131 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

For helpful comments and discussion I thank Tom Bontly, Berent Enç, Malcolm Forster, Gary Hatfield, Eric Saidel, Doug Smith, Elliott Sober, Denis Walsh, and two anonymous reviewers for this journal.

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