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The article presents an alternative to the understanding of vision in an embedded and situated perception compared to the contemporary perception that vision is an interpretive and constructive process. It shows how the alternative understanding of vision emerges from viewing the visual system as situated in the environment in which it worked closely with a fact of the standard view. It explains why the the inferential account of vision is usually held in contemporary cognitive science.

Standard models of visual perception hold that vision is an inferential or interpretative process. Such models are said to be superior to competing, non-inferential views in explanatory power. In particular, they are said to be capable of explaining a number of otherwise mysterious, visual phenomena such as multi-stable perception. Multi-stable perception paradigmatically occurs in the presence of ambiguous figures, single images that can give rise to two or more distinct percepts. Different interpretations are said to produce the different percepts. In this paper, I argue that a non-inferential account of visual perception is just as capable of explaining multi-stable perception. I propose an embedded understanding of vision, and show how the embedded account can, after properly qualifying them, use the explanatory resources of the inferential view to explain just what such a view explains. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We investigated the possible causes of perceptual switching in ambiguous figures. Ambiguous figures are a special class of visual stimuli that can give rise to at least two alternative interpretations. Because the figures themselves stay the same, these stimuli are particularly suitable to study the dynamic changes in our visual apparatus that enable us to see the world in different ways. Recent studies stress the importance of both low-level (sensory) and high-level (cognitive) processes in switching. We show that these processes lead to switching independently, and that, when they co-occur, they do not occur at exactly the same time. We take these results to indicate that perceptual switching is a radically multiply realizable process, in that various neurological states can instantiate it in a single individual from time to time. We reflect on the consequences of this conclusion for experiential realism, in particular the notion that embodiment misleads us in identifying psychological types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a proposal for an alternative way of understanding seeing-as that does not appeal to the concept application thesis (CAT). It discusses the evidence that makes the CAT plausible. Reasons to accept the CAT are explained. Also examined is the Directing Optical Gaze (DOG) view that seeing-as involves seeing something in a way which is driven by the features of an object wherein one pays attention.

Philosophers of perception widely agree that sensory properties, like color, are represented in perceptual experience. Arguments are usually needed to establish that something other than sensory properties, for example three-dimensional objects or kind properties, are part of perceptual content. Call the idea that sensory properties are represented in perceptual experience the Sensation View (SV). Given its widespread acceptance, we may expect to find strong reasons for holding SV. In this paper, I argue that we lack such reasons: SV is largely unjustified. We have surprisingly poor justification for thinking that sensory properties are represented in perception. By focusing on the case of vision, I show that an embedded understanding of visual perception, and empirical evidence in cognitive psychology, indicate that SV is far from warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents comments on the philosophy of Jerrold Katz regarding mathematics that is realist in ontology and rationalist in epistemology. Questions for systematic views concerning rational belief revision; Need to develop a no contact epistemology for mathematics; Argument for changing the truth value of one of the constitutive principles.