The Problem of Perception

Sense-perception has long been a preoccupation of philosophers. One pervasive and traditional problem, sometimes called “the Problem of Perception”, is created by the phenomena of perceptual illusion and hallucination: if these kinds of error are possible, how can perception be what we ordinarily understand it to be, an openness to and awareness of the world? The present entry is about how these possibilities of error challenge the intelligibility of the phenomenon of perception, and how the major theories of experience in the last century are best understood as responses to this challenge.

[size=30]1. The Ordinary Conception of Perceptual Experience

In this section we spell out the ordinary conception of perceptual experience. There are two central aspects to this: Openness (§1.1) and Awareness (§1.2).

1.1 Openness

On our ordinary conception of perceptual experience, perceptual experience is a form of “openness to the world” McDowell (1994: 111). We understand this more precisely as follows:
Openness: Perceptual experience, in its character, involves the presentation (as) of ordinary mind-independent objects to a subject, and such objects are experienced as present or theresuch that the character of experience is immediately responsive to the character of its objects.
To clarify this, we can break it down into two components: Mind-Independence (§1.1.1), andPresence (§1.1.2).

1.1.1 Mind-Independence

The first component of Openness is,
Mind-Independence: perceptual experience involves the presentation (as) of ordinary mind-independent objects.
On ‘object’: we assume a broad understanding of ‘object’ to encompass perceptible entities in mind-independent reality including material objects, but also features and other entities (e.g., events, quantities of stuff). Mind-Independence is thus a claim otherwise expressed as follows: perceptual experience is a presentation of, or is as of, a public, mind-independent subject-matter. On ‘ordinary’: Mind-Independence concerns familiar perceptible things, things that we admit as part of common sense ontology.
As P.F. Strawson argued, reflection on ordinary perceptual experience supports a characterization of it in terms of Mind-Independence: “mature sensible experience (in general) presents itself as, in Kantian phrase, an immediate consciousness of the existence of things outside us” (1979: 97). Strawson begins his argument by asking how someone would typically respond to a request for a description of their current visual experience. He says that it is natural to give the following kind of answer: “I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of the elms; I see the dappled deer grazing in groups on the vivid green grass…” (1979: 97). There are two ideas implicit in this answer. One is that the description talks about objects and properties which are, on the face of it, things distinct from this particular experience. The other is that the description is “rich”, describing the nature of the experience in terms of concepts like deer and elms and the setting sun. The description of the experience is not merely in terms of simple shapes and colours; but in terms of the things we encounter in the “lived world” in all their complexity. As Heidegger puts it,
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اقتباس :: We never … originally and really perceive a throng of sensations, e.g., tones and noises, in the appearance of things…; rather, we hear the storm whistling in the chimney, we hear the three-engine aeroplane, we hear the Mercedes in immediate distinction from the Volkswagen. Much closer to us than any sensations are the things themselves. We hear the door slam in the house, and never hear acoustic sensations or mere sounds. (Heidegger (1977: 156); quoted in Smith (2002: 105))

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It may be that descriptions of experience like this involve a commitment to the existence of things outside the experience; but surely it is possible to describe experience without this commitment? So let us suppose that we ask our imagined perceiver to repeat their description without committing themselves to the existence of things outside their experience, but without falsifying how their experience seems to them. Strawson claims that the best way for them to respond is to say “I had a visual experience such as it would have been natural to describe by saying that I saw…” and then to add the previous description of the trees and the deer etc. We give a description of our experience in terms of the ordinary objects of our world. And we do this even if we are trying not to commit ourselves to the existence of these objects.
Strawson’s claim that perceptual experience strikes us as if it satisfies what we’re calling Mind-Independence is not a philosophical theory, one that would (for example) refute scepticism, the view that we cannot know anything about the mind-independent world (see the entry onskepticism). Rather, it should be a starting point for philosophical reflection on experience (1979: 94). This is why this intuitive datum of consciousness is not supposed to rule out idealism, the view that the objects and properties we perceive are in fact mind-dependent (see the entry on idealism). The idealist need not disagree with Strawson that reflection on ordinary experience supports Mind-Independence. They will just hold that, for philosophical reasons, this is not how experience really is. Mind-Independence, they can say, is intuitively appealing but ultimately false as a characterization of experience and its objects.

1.1.2 Presence

The second component of Openness itself involves two components. First, the phenomenal character of an experience has something to do with its presented objects: experience is, in its character, a presentation of, or as of, ordinary objects; and second the character of perceptual experience involves the presentation of ordinary objects as present or there in that it is immediately responsive to the character of its objects.
Presence: the character of perceptual experience itself involves the presentation (as) of ordinary objects in such a way that it is immediately responsive to the character of its presented objects.
When we reflect upon how the phenomenal character of experience is, and try to “turn inwards” to describe the nature of the experience itself, the best way to do this is to describe the objects of experience and how they seem to us. It seems a simple matter to move to the further claim that the way these objects actually are is part of what determines the phenomenal character of an experience.
But this is to move too fast. For what can be said here about experience can also be said about belief: it is widely accepted that if I want to reflect upon the nature of my beliefs, the best way to do this is to describe the object or content of my belief: that is, what it is in the world that my belief is about. The things my beliefs are about can be as ‘objective’ as the things I perceive. So what is distinctive of the dependence of perceptual experience on its objects?
One answer is that when an object is perceptually experienced, it is experienced as “there”, “given” or “present to the mind” in a way in which it is not in belief, thought and many other mental states and events. Experience seems to involve a particular kind of “presence to the mind”. This “presence” goes beyond the mere fact that the objects of experience must exist in order for the experience to be veridical. For the objects of knowledge must exist too, but states of knowledge do not, as such, have presence in the same way as perceptual experiences—except, of course, in the case when one knows something is there by perceiving it. (Compare here the phenomenon Scott Sturgeon calls “scene immediacy” (2000: Chapter 1)).[/size]

So what is this perceptual presence? Compare perceptual experience with pure thought. Pure thought, like experience, goes straight out to the world itself. But a difference between them is that in the case of thought, how the object of thought is at the moment one is thinking of it does not in any way constrain one’s thinking of it; but in the case of perception it does. One’s perception of a snow covered churchyard is immediately responsive to how the churchyard is now, as one is perceiving it. But one’s (non-perceptual) thought need not be: in the middle of winter, one can imagine the churchyard as it is in spring, covered in autumn leaves, and one can think of it in all sorts of ways which are not the ways it presently is. This is not available in perception, because perception can only confront what is presently given: in this sense, it seems that you can only see or hear or touch what is there. It is because of this that perception is sometimes said to have an immediacy or vividness which thought lacks: this vividness derives from the fact that perceived objects and their properties are actually given to the perceiver when being perceived, and determine the nature of the character of the experience.
Openness is the combination of Mind-Independence, and Presence. It is most clearly understood when it applies to those perceptual experiences involved in genuine perception (e.g., when one sees a snow covered churchyard for what it is). But we understand Openness as applying more broadly to even perceptual experiences which don’t involve perceptual contact with the world. This is why we have formulated it in terms of the presentation ‘(as) of’ ordinary objects. For instance, take pure hallucinations of the sort we will consider in §2.2 below. Suppose one has an hallucination of a snow covered churchyard for what it is, even when there is no such churchyard there to be perceived. Here, Mind-Independence characterizes one’s experience. For one’s experience is still as of a public mind-independent scene: the apparent objects of such hallucinatory experiences are ordinary objects. And, in a sense, Presence holds. The hallucination is, in its character as of the snow covered churchyard, and the churchyard seems to be there, present to one, such that the character of the experience is constrained by that apparent scene.

1.1.3 Transparency

Some recent writers on perception have defended a thesis which has become known as the transparency of experience (see Harman (1990); Speaks (2009); Tye (1992, 1995, 2000); Thau (2002); and for critical discussions of this idea, Martin (2002), Smith (2008), Stoljar (2004) and Soteriou (2013)). Transparency is normally defined as the thesis that reflection on, or introspection of, what it is like to have an experience does not reveal that we are aware of experiences themselves, but only of their mind-independent objects. There are two claims here: (i) introspection reveals the mind-independent objects of experience, and (ii) introspection does not reveal non-presentational features of experience (that is, features of the character of experience not traceable merely to the appearance of some object or feature in the environment).
Transparency is similar to Openness. The latter claim does involve something like (i). ButTransparency is not the same as Openness, for it is not obvious that (ii) is part of our intuitive conception of experience. We do not have to hold that the phenomenal character of experience is exhausted (or completely determined) by the nature of the objects and qualities which are presented in experience. This claim can be disputed. For example, a scene can look very different when one removes one’s glasses: one’s visual experience of the churchyard then becomes hazy and blurred. But it can be argued that this phenomenal difference in experience need not derive from any apparent or represented difference in the objects of experience. Rather, it seems to be a difference in the way in which those objects are experienced (although see Tye (2000) for a different understanding of this phenomenon). So there are reasons for thinking that (ii) is not part of the common sense conception of experience. (For further discussion on seeing blurrily see Smith (2008), Allen (2013), and French (2014). For a different challenge to (ii) see Richardson (2010) and Soteriou (2013: Chapter 5)).

1.2 Awareness

Openness can characterize perceptual experience which doesn’t involve genuine perceptual contact with the world. But it is part of our ordinary way of thinking about perceptual experience that we sometimes make perceptual contact with the world. Thus, we come to the second component of our ordinary conception of perceptual experience:
Awareness: perceptual experience sometimes gives us perceptual awareness of ordinary mind-independent objects.
For instance, in seeing a snow covered churchyard for what it is, one has a visual experience, and is visually aware of a snow covered churchyard. (Here we understand perception as a conscious state or event—as something which is or involves perceptual experience—which is a mode of awareness).

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The Problem of Perception

[size=30]1. The Ordinary Conception of Perceptual Experience

1.1 Openness

1.1.1 Mind-Independence

1.1.2 Presence

The Problem of Perception :: تعاليق

1.1.3 Transparency

1.2 Awareness

The Problem of Perception

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