The "Philosophical" Case Against Visual Images. A "Crucial" Experiment

Erkenntnis, 1994

2015

Our knowledge about the world grounds in perception; and a good share of it is based, particularly, on visual perception. Due to psychological and neuro-scientific research more and more details are being disclosed about the internal causal process that starts off with rather meager optical images on the retina and ends up in beliefs about the world. As philosophers, however, we must not be content with an exploration of the causal chain between those tiny optical projections on the eye’s inside and the complex, conceptually structured representation that makes up the body of our empirical knowledge. What we have to evaluate, in addition, is the epistemic quality of this process; and in this regard what matters is precisely the course of justification. The stations of this course aren’t just states of the brain, but states of the mind. Concerning the perceptual foundation of empirical knowledge, what’s of particular epistemic interest are the starting points in this course of justif...

2020

This essay proposes reflections on the figural and diagrammatic extent of representation, adopting for the purpose a particular ‘object’, i.e. time and temporality. This ‘object’ cannot be detected by our senses, but we ‘feel’ it so convincingly that we imagine a space in which things and events are immersed in time, in its flowing. It drags on to the future according to a temporality that can be regulated by the rigour of the principle of causality, or the probable relationship between beginning and end, or it advances only to return inexorably and cyclically back to itself. This essay therefore serves as an opportunity to progress along some of the many paths of representation and to observe and verify some possible extensions, reflecting on certain evidence from reasoning, different ‘excellent’ representations, or even teaching experiences. While only partial, these reflections aim to underline how a representation always and contextually acts according to two the registers of di...

While acknowledging the value of anthropology-oriented studies of rock art, this paper concerns itself with what might be non-culture-specific, that is, universal examples of both representation and perception. Rock art commentary on entoptics and phosphenes has already alerted us to the likely existence of certain types of representational universals, but my focus is on more complex representational/ perceptual phenomena, whose neural processing might be located not in the primary visual cortex, but in the higher-level areas of the parietal and temporal. I suggest two examples, which I term' narrative' and' performative', in each case analysing with reference to relevant visual markers, that is, cues which encourage us to see, 'something happening', a scene ('narrative') or a representation which most directly engages our attention ('performative'). In the process I also suggest visual exercises to test these types of representations, such as attempting to read with or against visual markers or to read competing markers simultaneously. I relate these representations and the way we perceive them to reallife perceptual situations over evolutionary time. Finally, I hypothesize as to the possible neurophysiology of the perception of 'narrative' and 'performative', concentrating on one example: the processing of aspects of what I term performative representations in the temporal lobe of monkeys (superior temporal sulcus) and humans (fusiform gyrus), giving an account of relevant scientific experiments, particularly in connection with the so-called fusiform face area (FF A).

Is temporal representation constitutively necessary for perception? Tyler Burge (2010) argues that it is, in part because perception requires a form of memory sufficiently sophisticated as to require temporal representation. I critically discuss Burge's argument, maintaining that it does not succeed. I conclude by reflecting on the consequences for the origins of temporal representation.

Purakala: Journal of Rock Art Society of India, 2010

Abstract: While acknowledging the value of anthropology-oriented studies of rock art, this paper concerns itself with what might be non-culture-specific, that is, universal examples of both representation and perception. Rock art commentary on entoptics and phosphenes has already alerted us to the likely existence of certain types of representational universals, but my focus is on more complex representational/perceptual phenomena, whose neural processing might be located not in the primary visual cortex, but in the higher-level areas of the parietal and temporal. I suggest two examples, which I term'narrative' and'performative', in each case analysing with reference to relevant visual markers, that is, cues which encourage us to see, 'something happening', a scene ('narrative') or a representation which most directly engages our attention ('performative' ). In the process I also suggest visual exercises to test these types of representations, such as attempting to read with or against visual markers or to read competing markers simultaneously. I relate these representations and the way we perceive them to real- life perceptual situations over evolutionary time. Finally, I hypothesize as to the possible neurophysiology of the perception of 'narrative' and 'performative', concentrating on one example: the processing of aspects of what I term performative representations in the temporal lobe of monkeys (superior temporal sulcus) and humans (fusiform gyrus), giving an account of relevant scientific experiments, particularly in connection with the so-called fusiform face area (FFA).

1991

Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, 2022

What are pictures ? To answer this question, one of the most successful approaches is what has been called the perceptual account. On this approach, pictures are fundamentally characterized by the way they are perceived by subjects. This principle can for example be fleshed out by claiming that pictures foster a specific type of twofold perceptual experience in subjects. By contrast, another type of account, that I shall call conventional account, is somewhat neglected nowadays because it appears as insufficient to distinguish pictures from other kinds of representations. These two types of accounts are often presented as incompatible. However, it is not obvious in what sense they are so. The aim of this paper is thus twofold. Firstly, to precisely identify the differences between the perceptual and the conventional accounts of pictures. Secondly, to suggest that there might still be a role for the conventional account. To provide support for this view, I will show that the perceptual and conventional accounts may not have the same explananda, leaving open the possibility that a theory of depiction integrating both might be built.