Caleb Liang

Caleb Liang (Ph. D. Indiana-Bloomington, 2001) is associate professor of philosophy at National Taiwan University. His research interests are in the philosophy of mind and perception. He and his collaborator recently published “Higher-Order Thought and Pathological Self: the Case of Somatoparaphrenia” in Analysis (2009), and “Self-Consciousness and Immunity” in Journal of Philosophy (2011).

Perceptual Objectivity and Vision Science

Caleb Liang

Department of Philosophy

National Taiwan University

   What is the most fundamental relationship between visual perception and the world? Most philosophers of perception have felt no need to take empirical research into consideration. In recent years, this situation has begun to change. This paper discusses the most advanced theory in this new development by Tyler Burge.

   In Origins of Objectivity (2010), Burge applies his well-known anti-individualism to perceptual psychology. According to his perceptual anti-individualism (PAI), the natures and individuation of perceptual states constitutively depend on relations, including causal relations, between perceivers and the environment. Perception delineates the lower border of representational mind and exhibits the most basic sort of objectivity. This view, he argues, is presupposed by the empirical research of perceptual psychology, particularly vision science. I raise three issues to examine Burge’s positive theory of perception. First, I consider two essential ideas of Burge’s theory: the representational function of perception and the proximality principle. I point out that there is a serious tension between these two claims. Second, I discuss what Burge calls the biological functions of perception. I argue that the current best empirical accounts in this regard run counter to some central aspects of PAI. Third, I consider some empirical theories of vision and argue that none of them can be considered as providing the sort of empirical support that PAI requires. Vision science neither uniquely nor substantially favors PAI. I conclude that, pace Burge, perceptual anti-individualism is not the only framework within which vision science can be understood.