Awareness

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Casey O'Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Perceptual Awareness ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness

Perceptual capacities need not be reflected as such in perceptual consciousness. Thus, a subject could possess multisensory perceptual capacities while perceptual consciousness remains sense specific. For instance, a subject could detect and differentiate novel intermodal features without corresponding, irreducibly multisensory perceptual awareness. In response, this chapter argues that perceptual awareness of an object or feature sometimes is constitutively, irreducibly multisensory. In particular, it argues that the exercise of multisensory perceptual capacities can serve to make features that are not otherwise perceptible available to conscious subjects for use in thought, reasoning, and rational action. Multisensory perception thereby fixes which features are occurrently accessible to conscious perceiving subjects. The implication is that multisensory perceptual awareness cannot fully be captured in terms of sense-specific awareness.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-202
Author(s):  
Casey O'Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Philosophy Of Perception

This chapter recounts the arguments and conclusions reached in preceding chapters concerning the respects in which perception and perceptual consciousness involve the coordinated use of multiple senses. It provides a synopsis of considerations favoring a richly multisensory account of perceptual processes, capacities, awareness, and experience. It retraces the book’s approach to differentiating senses construed as bundles of perceptual capacities unified and distinguished by the manner in which they are exercised, and to distinguishing perception from extraperceptual cognition by means of the explanatory roles the distinction plays in empirical psychology, rational psychology, and phenomenology. It describes the theoretical consequences of multisensory perception, negative and positive, and it explains their significance. The chapter concludes with the implications and future directions for a multisensory philosophy of perception.

Experience

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-153
Author(s):  
Casey O'Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
The Senses

This chapter argues that perceptual experience is richly multisensory. In particular, phenomenal consciousness is constitutively and irreducibly multisensory. The reason is that the phenomenal character of a conscious multisensory episode can include more than what is associated with each of the respective senses plus whatever accrues due to simple co-consciousness. Exercising multisensory capacities thus makes a phenomenal difference to perceptual consciousness. This difference can obtain whether or not it would enable a subject to discriminate between two otherwise equivalent experiences. It follows that the character of a perceptual episode is not exhausted by what belongs to each of the senses. Therefore, not all perceptual experience is modality specific. Coordination among the senses thus makes possible new forms of perceptual consciousness. Multisensory perception extends the varieties of experience.

The Inclusion Calculation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melody E. Valdini
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Political Careers ◽  
Women Candidates ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Large N ◽  
Gender Quota ◽  
Open The Doors

Power-holders and gate-keepers in political parties and governments continue to be primarily men. How are they responding to the increasing numbers of women who are seeking leadership roles in politics? Are they angels who embrace equality and fling open the doors to power? Are they devils who block women at every turn? Are they powerless against the increasing tide of feminism and inadvertently succumbing to the push for power from women? Most likely, these male elites are primarily concerned with maintaining their own power, which drives their reaction to women’s political inclusion. The Inclusion Calculation examines women’s inclusion from the perspective of men in power and offers a novel approach to understanding differences in women’s descriptive representation. The book argues that with declining legitimacy it is valuable for male elites to “strategically feminize,” associating themselves or their party with women, because citizens will interpret the increased presence of women as meaning that the party or government is becoming more honest, cooperative, and democratic. Using a combination of case studies from Latin America, Europe, and Africa, as well as large-N analyses, the book provides evidence that male elites are more likely to increase the number of women candidates on party lists or adopt a gender quota when “feminizing” is advantageous to the political careers of men. Women’s exclusion from government, then, is not a product of their own lack of effort or ability but rather a rational action of men in power to keep their power.

Seeing, Knowing, and Doing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Action ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Discriminative Response ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This book provides an overall theory of perception and an account of knowledge and justification concerning the physical, the abstract, and the normative. It has the rigor appropriate for professionals but explains its main points using concrete examples. It accounts for two important aspects of perception on which philosophers have said too little: its relevance to a priori knowledge—traditionally conceived as independent of perception—and its role in human action. Overall, the book provides a full-scale account of perception, presents a theory of the a priori, and explains how perception guides action. It also clarifies the relation between action and practical reasoning; the notion of rational action; and the relation between propositional and practical knowledge. Part One develops a theory of perception as experiential, representational, and causally connected with its objects: as a discriminative response to those objects, embodying phenomenally distinctive elements; and as yielding rich information that underlies human knowledge. Part Two presents a theory of self-evidence and the a priori. The theory is perceptualist in explicating the apprehension of a priori truths by articulating its parallels to perception. The theory unifies empirical and a priori knowledge by clarifying their reliable connections with their objects—connections many have thought impossible for a priori knowledge as about the abstract. Part Three explores how perception guides action; the relation between knowing how and knowing that; the nature of reasons for action; the role of inference in determining action; and the overall conditions for rational action.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno and
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Processing ◽  
Multisensory Processing ◽  
Multisensory Perception ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
Multisensory Interactions ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
New Perspective

Multisensory interactions in perception are pervasive and fundamental, as we have documented throughout this book. In this final chapter, we propose that contemporary work on multisensory processing is a paradigm shift in perception science, calling for a radical reconsideration of empirical and theoretical questions within an entirely new perspective. In making our case, we emphasize that multisensory perception is the norm, not the exception, and we remark that multisensory interactions can occur early in sensory processing. We reiterate the key notions that multisensory interactions come in different kinds and that principles of multisensory processing must be considered when tackling multisensory daily-life problems. We discuss the role of unisensory processing in a multisensory world, and we conclude by suggesting future directions for the multisensory field.

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