Jakab-talk @ 3rd Mind Society meeting

Hello Everyone! Budapest Mind Society, 3rd Meeting: http://www.personal.ceu.hu/students/03/Istvan_Aranyosi/Budapest_Mind_Societ… Zoltán Jakab, Cognitive Science, Budapesti Mûszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem (Technical University Budapest) "Perceptual content: an objection to externalism" October 20, 2004, 5 PM, Department of Philosophy, CEU, Zrínyi utca 14, 4th floor, room 412. ABSTRACT: I start by arguing for one important difference between visual perception of shape and that of color. Visual representation of shapes is compositional, whereas that of colors is representationally atomic. This difference explains a few other features of visual perception. The first is that shape is absolute whereas color is relative, even though both shapes and colors are reasonably taken to be physical properties. The second is that vision is revelatory with respect to shape and space but it is not revelatory with respect to color. Finally, there is one way in which shape perception is normative, and color perception is not. Shape percepts encode the structure of the corresponding stimuli, and this imposes constraints on which percept can correctly track which stimulus. There is no such constraint in color perception, due to the fact that color percepts are representationally atomic.This picture in turn gives rise to an anti-externalist argument about perceptual content which, in my opinion, is quite compelling. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll send out a reminder around the 17th of October, 2004. Cheers, István