Abstract
In the article two viewpoints on the mind’s influence on perception are considered. One of them was developed on the assumption that perception is a nonproblematic source of knowledge about the world, which is free from mind’s influence—perception as a mirror-image. Another viewpoint is perception as action, i.e. active search and gathering the relevant information, its processing and evaluation. First viewpoint has dominated in philosophy for a long time, the second one has been developing in psychology from the 80th of the 20th century. The aim of the paper is to examine some philosophically significant corollaries from both positions concerning objectiveness, epistemological status of an observation, truth, meaning of name. Analysis showed that perception as action is non-compatible with many traditional concepts, and it goes both against empiricism and against realism as it involves some critical arguments, e.g. theory ladenness of observations, underdetermination of theory by facts, the historical development of a scientific fact.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adam, M. (2004). Why worry about theory dependence? Circularity, minimal empiricality and reliability. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 18, 117–132.
Bacon, F. (2000). The new organon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bruner, J. (1973). Going beyond the information given. New York: Norton.
Descartes, R. (1988). ‘Rules for the direction of our native intelligence’, Descartes: Selected philosophical writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Duhem, P. (1905). La Théorie Physique: Son Objet, Sa Structure. Paris: Marcel Rivière; 2nd Ed., 1914. Translated by P. P. Wiener as: 1954, 1962, 1977, The aim and structure of physical theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Feyerabend, P. K. (1975). Against method. London: New Left Books.
Fleck, L. (1979, 1935). Genesis and development of a scientific fact. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Franklin, A. (1986). The neglect of experiment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galilei, G. (1967). Dialogue concerning the two chief world systems (2nd Ed., trans. Stillman Drake). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Galison, P. (1987). How experiments end. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hacking, I. (1983). Representing and intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hanson, N. R. (1958). Patterns of discovery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heidelberger, M. (2003). Theory-ladenness and scientific instruments in experimentation. In H. Radder (Ed.), 2003, pp. 233–262.
Hon, G. (2003). The idols of experiment: transcending the “etc. list”. In H. Radder (Ed.), 2003, pp. 174–197.
Hubel, D. (1989). Auge und Gehirn—Neurobiologie des Sehens. Heidelberg: Spectrum Verlag.
Hume, D. (2003, 1888). A Treatise of human nature. Courier Dover Publications.
Kosso, P. (1998). Appearance and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of physics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kripke, S. A. (1980). Naming and necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Kuffler, S. (1953). Discharge patterns and functional organization of mammalian retina. Journal of Neurophysiology, 16, 37–68.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Maxwell, G. (1962). The ontological status of theoretical entities. In H. Feigl & G. Maxwell. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Scientific Explanation, Space & Time, Minnesota.
Miller, G. A., Galanter E., & Pribram K. H. (1960). Plans and the structure of behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston.
Minsky, M. (1975). A framework for representing knowledge. In P. Winston (Ed.). The psychology of computer vision (pp. 211–277). McGraw-Hill.
Neisser, U. (1976). Cognition and reality. Principles and implications of cognitive psychology. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co.
Popper, K. R. (1934). Logik der Forschung, First published in English in 1959: The Logic of Scientific Discovery.
Quine, W. V. (1950). Identity, ostension, and hypostasis. Journal of Philosophy, 47, 621–633.
Quine, W. V. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. Philosophical Review, 60, 20–43.
Radder, H.: (1996). In and about the world: Philosophical studies of science and technology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Radder H. (Ed.) (2003). The philosophy of scientific experimentation. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Russell, B. (1996). An inquiry into meaning and truth (352 pp.). London: Routledge.
Suppe, F. (1999). The positivist model of scientific theory. In R. Klee (Ed.). Scientific inquiry. Readings in the philosophy of science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tarski, A. (1956, 1936, 1935). The concept of truth in formalized languages (trans. J. H. Woodger). In Logic, semantics, metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Van Fraassen, B. (1980). The scientific image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wisdom, J. O. (1971). Observations as the building blocks of science in 20th-century scientific thought. In Boston Studies in the 1970 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (pp. 212–222). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Hans Radder, Professor of philosophy of science and technology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for helpful suggestions to improve this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Storozhuk, A. Perception: Mirror-Image or Action?. J Gen Philos Sci 38, 369–382 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-007-9044-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-007-9044-7