Perception Test prep Flashcards
Content from weeks 6-8 on perception
What is the central question in the philosophy of perception?
What are the objects of perception? What do we directly perceive?
What phenomena motivate the problem of perception?
Perceptual illusions and hallucinations.
How does the problem of perception challenge our ordinary understanding?
It suggests that perception may not be direct awareness of the external world.
What is the main argument that generates the problem of perception?
The argument from illusion.
What is the base case of the argument from illusion?
In an illusion, we seem to perceive something that isn’t there, like a bent pencil.
What does the argument from illusion conclude about the objects of perception?
That we always perceive sense-data, not external objects.
What is naive realism?
The view that we directly perceive mind-independent objects and their qualities.
How does naive realism respond to the argument from illusion?
By rejecting the argument’s inferences; illusions are cases of seeing how things look under certain conditions.
What is indirect realism?
The view that we perceive mind-dependent sense-data, and infer the existence of external objects.
What skeptical consequence does indirect realism lead to?
A “veil of perception” between the mind and the external world.
What is disjunctivism?
A form of naive realism that holds veridical and non-veridical perceptions differ in nature.
How does disjunctivism respond to the argument from illusion?
By rejecting that there must be a common element between veridical and non-veridical cases.
What is phenomenalism?
The view that statements about the external world are just statements about actual or possible sense experiences.
How does phenomenalism relate to idealism?
It leads to a form of idealism, the view that reality is fundamentally mental.
What is intentionalism/representationalism?
The view that perceptual states are representations of the world with “intentional content”.
How does intentionalism/representationalism explain perceptual error?
In non-veridical cases, perceptual states misrepresent the world.
What is the “Phenomenal Principle” and how is it challenged?
The inference from “X appears Y” to “There is something that is Y”. Critics argue this inference is fallacious.
What are the two forms of intentionalism/representationalism?
One accepts qualia (qualia theory), the other eliminates them (eliminativism).
What is the relationship between sense-data and qualia?
Qualia are often considered the qualitative properties of sense-data.
What is the “veil of perception”?
A metaphor for the skeptical idea that perception doesn’t directly access the external world, but only mental representations.
What are the three worlds in perception, and how are they connected?
Physical world (stimuli), neural world (brain activity), and psychological world (subjective experience) are connected through perception but are distinct.
What is transduction in perception?
Sensory receptors transduce physical stimuli into neural impulses in the brain.
How does the jelly bean experiment demonstrate the connection between the three worlds?
Physical stimuli (taste, smell) are transduced into neural impulses, which the brain combines to create the subjective experience of flavour.
What does the falling tree question reveal about perception?
It highlights the difference between physical air vibrations and the psychological experience of sound, which only exists when the brain interprets neural impulses.