The Border Between Seeing and Thinking

Description

Philosopher Ned Block argues in this book that there is a "joint in nature" between perception and cognition and that by exploring the nature of that joint, one can solve mysteries of the mind. The first half of the book introduces a methodology for discovering what the fundamental differences are between cognition and perception and then applies that methodology to isolate how perception and cognition differ in format and content. The second half draws consequences for theories of consciousness, using results of the first half to argue against cognitive theories of consciousness that focus on prefrontal cortex. Along the way, Block tackles questions such as: Is perception conceptual and propositional? Is perception iconic or more akin to language in being discursive? What is the difference between the format and content of perception, and do perception and cognition have different formats? Is perception probabilistic, and if so, why are we not normally aware of this probabilistic nature of perception? Are the basic features of mind known as "core cognition" a third category in between perception and cognition? This book explores these questions not by appeals to "intuitions," as is common in philosophy, but to empirical evidence, including experiments in neuroscience and psychology. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Enquiries concerning use outside the scope of the licence terms should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press. Cover Half-Title Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents Preface 1. Introduction Consciousness Pure perception What is a joint? Constitutivity vs. explanatory depth The contents of perception Realism about perceptual and cognitive representation Three-​layer methodology Higher “capacity” in perception (whether conscious or not) than cognition Armchair approaches to the perception/​cognition border Conceptual engineering If there is a fundamental difference between perception and cognition, why don’t we see the border in the brain? Interface of perception with cognition Why should philosophers be interested in this book? Roadmap 2. Markers of the perceptual and the cognitive Adaptation Perception vs. cognition in language Different kinds of adaptation Visual hierarchy The use of adaptation in distinguishing low-​level from high-​level perception The use of adaptation in distinguishing perception from cognition Semantic satiation Rivalry Pop-​out Interpolation of illusory contours Neural markers of perception and cognition Other markers of perception Phenomenology Summary 3. Two kinds of seeing-​as and singular content Burge and Schellenberg on singular content Attribution and discrimination Ordinary vs. technical language Bias: Perception vs. perceptual judgment Evaluative perception 4. Perception is constitutively nonpropositional and nonconceptual Concepts and propositions Format/​content/​state/​function The nonpropositional nature of perception Conjunction Negation Disjunction Atomic propositional representations Rivalry and propositional perception How do iconicity, nonconceptuality, and nonpropositionality fit together? Laws of appearance Bayesian “inference” Bayesian realism 5. Perception is iconic; cognition is discursive Iconicity, format, and function Iconicity and determinacy Structure Analog tracking and mirroring Analog magnitude representations Mental imagery Holism Integral vs. separable Iconic object-​representations in perception Object files in working memory Memory involving perceptual representations 6. Nonconceptual color perception Perceptual category representations Infant color categories Infants’ failure to normally deploy color concepts Color constancy Working memory again Experiments on babies’ working memory representations Adult nonconceptual color perception Is high-​level perception conceptual? Systematicity again Modality 7. Neural evidence that perception is nonconceptual “No-​report” paradigm vs. “no-​cognition” paradigm Another “no-​report” paradigm 8. Evidence that is wrongly taken to show that perception is conceptual Fast perception Cognitive access to mid-​level vision 9. Cognitive penetration is common but does not challenge the joint Cognitive impenetrability: Recent history Perceptual set Ambiguous stimuli Spatial attention Feature-​based attention Dimension restriction Mental imagery 10. Top-​down effects that are probably not cases of cognitive penetration Figure/​ground Memory color 11. Modularity 12. Core cognition and perceptual analogs of concepts Perception of causation Core cognition 13. Consciousness Phenomenal consciousness vs. access consciousness Global workspace Higher order thought Alleged evidence for higher order thought theories of consciousness Prefrontalism and electrical stimulation of the brain Overflow Biological reductionism Direct awareness Teleological approaches Fading qualia Consciousness and free will 14. Conclusions References Author Index Subject Index