Sensory Perception

Sensory Perception
Author: Friedrich G. Barth
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3211997504

Sensory perception: mind and matter aims at a deeper understanding of the many facets of sensory perception and their relations to brain function and cognition. It is an attempt to promote the interdisciplinary discourse between the neurosciences and psychology, which speaks the language of cognitive experiences, and philosophy, which has been thinking about the meaning and origin of consciousness since its beginning. Leading experts contribute to such a discourse by informing the reader about exciting modern developments, both technical and conceptual, and by pointing to the big gaps still to be bridged. The various chapters provide access to scientific research on sensory perception and the mind from a broad perspective, covering a large spectrum of topics which range from the molecular mechanisms at work in sensory cells to the study of the unconscious and to neurophilosophy.

Sense-Perception And Matter

Sense-Perception And Matter
Author: Lean, Martin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2013-07-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1136307451

First published in 1999. This is Volume IX of twenty-one of a series on Cognitive Psychology. Written in 1953, this book offers a critical analysis of C.D. Broad’s argument in Chapter IV The Mind and Its Place in Nature concerning ‘Sense Perception and Matter’ and his Theory of Perception.

Phenomenal Qualities

Phenomenal Qualities
Author: Paul Coates
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2015
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0198712715

A team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists explore the nature of phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences, and the ways in which they fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience.

A Multisensory Philosophy of Perception

A Multisensory Philosophy of Perception
Author: Casey O'Callaghan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2019-12-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192570420

Most of the time people perceive using multiple senses. Out walking, we see colors and motion, hear chatter and footsteps, smell petrichor after rain, feel a breeze or the brush of a shoulder. We use our senses together to navigate and learn about the world. In spite of this, scientists and philosophers alike have merely focused on one sense at a time. Nearly every theory of perception is unisensory. This book instead offers a revisionist multisensory philosophy of perception. Casey O'Callaghan considers how our senses work together, in contrast with how they work separately and independently, and how one sense can impact another, leading to surprising perceptual illusions. The joint use of multiple senses, he argues, enables novel forms of perception and experience, such as multisensory rhythms, motions, and flavors that enrich aesthetic experiences of music, dance, and gustatory pleasure.

Sensation and Perception

Sensation and Perception
Author: Mike May
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Total Pages: 127
Release: 2009
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1438119615

Examines how the human brain receives, processes, and comprehends information through the five senses.

Phenomenal Qualities

Phenomenal Qualities
Author: Paul Coates
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2015-08-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191021318

What are phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences? How do the phenomenal aspects of conscious experiences relate to brain processes? To what extent do experiences represent the things around us, or the states of our own bodies? Are phenomenal qualities subjective, belonging to inner mental episodes of some kind, and merely dependent on our brains? Or should they be seen as objective, belonging in some way to the physical things in the world around us? Are they physical properties at all? The problematic nature of phenomenal qualities makes it hard to understand how the mind is related to the physical world. There is no settled view about these issues, which concern some of the deepest, and most central, problems in philosophy. Fourteen original papers, written by a team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists and set in context by a full introduction, explore the ways in which phenomenal qualities fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. The topics covered include: phenomenal concepts, the relation of sensory qualities to the modalities, the limits of current theories about physical matter; problems about the nature of perceptual experience, projectivism, and the extent to which perception is direct; non-conceptual content, the representational nature of pain experience, and the phenomenology of thought; and issues relating to empirical work on synaesthesia, psychological theories of attention, and prospects for unifying the phenomenal array with neurophysiological accounts of the brain. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience.

The Reliability of Sense Perception

The Reliability of Sense Perception
Author: William P. Alston
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2018-07-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501720546

Why suppose that sense perception is an accurate source of information about the physical environment? More generally, is it possible to demonstrate that our basic ways of forming beliefs are reliable? In this book, a leading analytic philosopher confronts this classic problem through detailed investigation of sense perception, the source of beliefs in which we place the most confidence. Carefully assessing the available arguments, William P. Alston concludes that it is not possible to show in any noncircular way that sense perception is a reliable source of beliefs. Alston thoroughly examines the main arguments that have been advanced for the reliability of sense perception, including arguments from the various kinds of success we achieve by relying on the sense perception, arguments that some features of our sense experience are best explained by supposing that it is an accurate guide, and arguments that there is something conceptually incoherent about the idea that sense perception is not reliable. He concludes that all of these arguments that are not disqualified in other ways are epistemically circular, for they use premises based upon the very source in question. Alston then suggest that the most appropriate response to the impossibility of showing that our basic sources of beliefs are reliable is an appeal to the practical rationality of engaging in certain socially established belief-forming practices. The Reliability of Sense Perception will be welcome by epistemologists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers of science.