scholarly journals On Dependency between Wishes and Perception

Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
A. I. Ponomarev ◽  
K. G. Frolov
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Sensory Perception ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Wishful Thinking ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Early Vision ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemological Status

Introduction. Empirical studies of recent years convincingly show that the character of sensory perception can be influenced by non-cognitive mental states of the agent, such as her desires. The aim of the paper is to analyze how this causal connection between agent's wishes and her sensations can affect the epistemological status of dependent sensations.Methodology and sources. The author examines S. Siegel's argument on this issue. S. Siegel argues that the empirically proven dependence of sensations on desires (wishful seeing) should lead to a decrease of the epistemological status of sensations to the same extent as the dependence of beliefs on desires (wishful thinking) leads to a decrease of the epistemological status of these beliefs. Thus Siegel's argument concludes that the phenomenon of wishful seeing deprives us of any reason to accept sensations as credible evidence of the states of the world. So, this is an argument in favor of skepticism.Results and discussion. The article discusses two main strategies for rejecting Siegel's argument. According to the first strategy proposed by R. Long, sensations are not so similar to beliefs that one can conclude that their epistemological status should be decreased on the basis of their dependence on desires. According to another strategy for refuting Siegel's argument, proposed by A. Raftopoulos, the influence of desires on perception does not extend to early vision. Early vision is free from the influence of higher order conscious mental states. The dependence of the results of sensory perception on other mental states is reduced to the influence of these states on the agent's attention. At the same time, attention can be volitionally controlled and can be trained. Therefore dependent perception under certain conditions can be rationally accepted.Conclusion. Thus, the article shows that, even though perception is dependent on other non-cognitive mental states, such as desires, this dependence does not necessarily lead to a decrease in the epistemological status of sensations, so sensations can be rationally accepted under certain conditions. This means that Siegel's argument for skepticism is not compelling.

The Emotional Dimension to Sensory Perception

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-255
Author(s):  
Lana Kühle
Keyword(s):  
Multisensory Integration ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Sensory Perception ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Emotional Dimension ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
The World

This chapter considers how we might understand the effect that emotions have on the justification of our perceptual beliefs about the world, beliefs that we acquire from a variety of sensory modalities—audition, gustation, olfaction, and so on. The chapter takes the problem to be associated with one of two forms of perceptual influence: penetration or multisensory integration. In any given perceptual moment there are multiple sensory modalities and mental states at play, each affecting the overall experience. Whether we understand the influence of emotion on perception as a form of non-perceptual penetration or a form of non-visual sensory perception of the inner body—interoception—the potential epistemological difficulties remain: How can we be said to acquire justified beliefs and knowledge on the basis of such influenced perceptual experience? As has been the norm, only the five exteroceptive senses of vision, audition, olfaction, taste, and touch are typically discussed in the context of sensory perception. However, as this chapter argues, there is strong reason to accept the claim that emotional experience is a form of interoception, and that interoception ought to be considered when discussing sensory perception. In this way, then, the chapter proposes that clarifying the role played by interoception in sense perception across modalities is necessary if we are to make progress on the epistemological problems at hand.

Subjectivity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Francescotti
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Intentional State ◽  
Explanatory Gap ◽  
Qualitative Character ◽  
Intentional States ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Consider those aspects of the world that are the way they are in virtue of how we think about them, or the way we feel about them, or how we view them. Those are the subjective aspects of the world. What makes them subjective can be understood via the notion of an intentional state. The label ‘intentional state’ is often used to refer to mental states that have intentionality. These mental states (including but not limited to thoughts, beliefs, desires and perceptual images) are representational; they represent the world as being a certain way. They are mental states with ‘aboutness’; they are about objects, features and/or states of affairs. Using ‘intentional state’ to refer to mental states with intentionality, a subjective fact about some item x may be defined as a fact that obtains in virtue of someone’s intentional states regarding x. Objective facts are those that are not subjective. So an objective fact about x may be defined as one that does not obtain by virtue of anyone’s intentional state regarding x. Subjectivity is often mentioned in the philosophy of mind because so much of mentality is subjective, with a special brand of subjectivity present in the case of conscious experience. Whenever one has an intentional state, consciously or non-consciously, there is a subjective fact. Suppose an individual s has an intentional state directed toward some item x. Then the fact that s is representing x is, obviously, a function of s’s intentional state regarding x, which makes the fact that s is representing x a subjective fact. Assuming, also, that the intentional state is conscious, there is an additional element of subjectivity involved. Suppose you are visually perceiving a tree and your visual perception is a conscious mental state. Then not only are you representing the tree to yourself; it also seems that you are in some way aware of your representation of the tree. That this extra element of subjectivity seems to be present in the case of conscious experience is part of the reason ‘higher-order’ accounts of consciousness are so attractive. Higher-order accounts capture the intuition that if a mental state is conscious, then its host is aware of the mental state in some suitable way (while adding that the right sort of higher-order awareness is also sufficient for the target state’s being conscious). A higher-order account arguably does capture the unique way in which conscious experience is subjective. There is the subjective, perspectival element characteristic of intentional states in general, including those that are non-conscious. And there is the special brand of subjectivity found in conscious experience, where one’s intentionality is directed toward one’s own mental states. Now suppose that mental representation can be understood purely physically; suppose there is a true and complete account in purely physical terms of what it is for a mental state to have the content it has. Then, one might think, with a higher-order theory we can close the infamous explanatory gap between the physical and the phenomenal components of consciousness. Some have noted, however, that within the realm of the phenomenal we should distinguish between the subjective character of a conscious state and its qualitative character, where the latter is the way the mental state feels and the former is its feeling a certain way for-a-subject. There is reason to doubt that any higher-order account can explain why a mental state has the qualitative character it has, or any qualitative character at all. Yet, even if higher-order accounts fail to solve the hard problem of consciousness, by failing to close the explanatory gap between the physical and the qualitative aspects of consciousness, it is tempting to think that with a higher-order account we might be able to close the explanatory gap between its physical and its subjective character.

Employee engagement and the work-family conflict relationship: The role of personal and organisational resources

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-138
Author(s):  
Okechukwu Ethelbert Amah
Keyword(s):  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Family Conflict ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Hierarchical Regression ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
Conservation Of Resources ◽  
Work Family Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Operational Issues

Organisations in Africa face constant challenges on account of internal operational issues, and the economic and political situation on the continent. Hence, organisations in Africa and indeed all over the world are expected to be continuously efficient and effective in the use of scarce resources in order to survive. Accordingly, studies conducted all over the world, including in Africa, have established that high employee engagement is beneficial to organisations, because engaged employees exhibit discretionary behaviour that achieves superior business results. However, some studies suggest that organisations are also faced with the undesirable situation in which highly engaged employees experience high levels of work-family conflict. This relationship has implications for both productivity and ethical aspects, and past empirical studies have been unable to suggest a way out. This study proposes that, on the basis of the conservation of resources model and job demand and resources model, organisational and personal resources could play a major role in resolving the dilemma. Hierarchical regression analysis confirmed that organisational resources, servant leadership and personal resources were able to provide a solution, so that individuals with high values of these resources experienced less work-family conflict. The study also discussed the practical implications of the results for HRM and sustainability HRM.

Vagueness and the World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Bacon
Keyword(s):  
Higher Order ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

According to a fairly widespread assumption, there is some definite collection of completely factual or fundamental propositions upon which all truths supervene and which are unaffected by vagueness. This assumption manifests itself in formal models of vagueness as well—for example, the supervaluationist who represents propositions as sets of world-precisification pairs may divide logical space into propositions that only depend on the world-coordinate. This chapter argues that this assumption leads to paradoxes of higher-order vagueness, and, ultimately, should be rejected in favour of a weaker notion of fundamentality or factuality. It suggests an alternative picture in which there is vagueness ‘all the way down’: logical-space can be divided into basic propositions that settle all precise matters, but it is vague where those divisions lie.

Seeming to Seem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Order Theory ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
First Person ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Higher Order Theory ◽  
The Third Person

Dennett’s account of consciousness starts from third-person considerations. I argue this is wise, since beginning with first-person access precludes accommodating the third-person access we have to others’ mental states. But Dennett’s first-person operationalism, which seeks to save the first person in third-person, operationalist terms, denies the occurrence of folk-psychological states that one doesn’t believe oneself to be in, and so the occurrence of folk-psychological states that aren’t conscious. This conflicts with Dennett’s intentional-stance approach to the mental, on which we discern others’ mental states independently of those states’ being conscious. We can avoid this conflict with a higher-order theory of consciousness, which saves the spirit of Dennett’s approach, but enables us to distinguish conscious folk-psychological states from nonconscious ones. The intentional stance by itself can’t do this, since it can’t discern a higher-order awareness of a psychological state. But we can supplement the intentional stance with the higher-order theoretical apparatus.

Can Synaesthesia Present the World as it Really Is?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Sollberger
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
The World

Can some synaesthetic experiences be treated as veridical perceptual experiences, i.e. as conscious mental states in which worldly objects and their features perceptually appear as they really are? Most empirical scientists and philosophers working on synaesthesia answer this question in the negative. Contrary to this prevailing opinion, Mohan Matthen’s ‘When is Synaesthesia Perception?’ (Chapter 8, this volume) argues that such a dismissive approach to the epistemic properties of synaesthetic experiences is not mandatory. Matthen claims that there is conceptual room for a more tolerant approach according to which at least one variety of synaesthesia, which he calls ‘direct synaesthesia’, is epistemically on a par with everyday non-synaesthetic perception. The aim of this chapter is to evaluate the idea of ‘direct synaesthesia’ and to assess whether the accepted dogma that synaesthesia is always prone to error has to go.

Does context matter? Examining robbery reporting in a high crime country

2021 ◽  
pp. 174889582110313
Author(s):  
Wilson Hernández ◽  
Katrina R Heimark
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Multilevel Modeling ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Violent Victimization ◽  
The World ◽  
Victimization Rate ◽  
Global North ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
High Crime

Most empirical studies that examine why individuals report property crimes to the police have focused on Global North countries where crime rates are low. This study is situated in the most violent area of the world, Latin America, and examines Peru, which has the highest robbery victimization rate in the Americas. This article examines the applicability of theories of crime reporting in this Global South context using a large sample and multilevel modeling. We find that trust in the police has no impact on the reporting of the robbery of one’s cellphone, purse or wallet. The theories of rational choice and Black’s stratification of law provide strong explanations for the reporting of robbery of these personal items. Individuals of higher social status and those who reside in districts with low levels of social disadvantage are more likely to report, as well as those who have experienced violent victimization.

The open subject and translations from nature: Answers to the Anthropocene in contemporary poetry (Gennadij Ajgi, Les Murray, Christian Lehnert)

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962110386
Author(s):  
Henrieke Stahl (Trier)
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Perception ◽  
Contemporary Poetry ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
The World ◽  
Hierarchical Levels ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Living Being

With the help of the concepts ‘aura’ and ‘autopoiesis’, the relationship between poetry and natural phenomena can be defined as a ‘translation from nature’. Gennadij Ajgi translates his auratic manner of perceiving into poetry. For him, the poem becomes an epistemic medium transcending the sensory perception of nature for a hidden, spiritual level. Les Murray, conversely, demonstrates an autopoietic understanding of nature: The poet himself becomes the medium of the living being. Christian Lehnert takes up impulses from both orientations. He combines the opposing concepts so that they correspond to the hierarchical levels of his religious and metaphysical vision of the world. The three authors all aim to alter the attitude of humans towards nature through their ‘translation from nature into poetry’ so that humankind will open itself towards nature and raise it from an object which can be instrumentalised to an autonomous subject on equal footing with humanity itself.

The Ethical Summons Extended by Le Clézio’s “Martin” and Other Casualties of Peer-Victimization

Janus Head ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-135
Author(s):  
Keith Moser ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Peer Victimization ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
The World ◽  
Effects Of Bullying ◽  
Invaluable Tool

This interdisciplinary essay investigates J.M.G. Le Clézio’s short story “Martin” from the collection entitled La Fièvre (Fever) from the lens of recent empirical studies related to bullying. The 2008 Nobel Laureate in Literature creates a rending portrait of the physical and cerebral anguish suffered by casualties of peer-victimization. The profound inner turmoil experienced by the protagonist Martin mirrors the searing pain felt by millions of innocent victims around the world on a daily basis. Although the nefarious, long-term effects of bullying are often dismissed by misinformed individuals as a reflection of “boys being boys,” research unequivocally demonstrates that bullying is a global pandemic that should be taken seriously. In this disquieting narrative from the early part of his illustrious career, Le Clézio extends an ethical summons to the reader which compels us to think harder about the dire social consequences of bullying. Specifically, the tragic dénouement leaves little room for ambivalence concerning the author’s position related to the anguish experienced by casualties of peer-victimization. In “Martin,” it is the destabilizing realism that attacks the sensibilities of the reader the most. Although this text is a work of fiction, it deeply resonates with the reader given that deplorable incidents, which leave deep inner scars, like the one described in “Martin” occur far too often all across the globe. When analyzed in conjunction with the disconcerting research compiled by international scholars from around the world, “Martin” is an invaluable tool that allows us to catch a small glimpse of the unbearable torment felt by the victims of these heinous crimes.

Social Attribution and Explanation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Hilton
Keyword(s):  
Visual Perception ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Situation Models ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Human Visual Perception ◽  
Social Attribution ◽  
Text Understanding ◽  
Causal Selection ◽  
Partial Correction

Attribution processes appear to be an integral part of human visual perception, as low-level inferences of causality and intentionality appear to be automatic and are supported by specific brain systems. However, higher-order attribution processes use information held in memory or made present at the time of judgment. While attribution processes about social objects are sometimes biased, there is scope for partial correction. This chapter reviews work on the generation, communication, and interpretation of complex explanations, with reference to explanation-based models of text understanding that result in situation models of narratives. It distinguishes between causal connection and causal selection, and suggests that a factor will be discounted if it is not perceived to be connected to the event and backgrounded if it is perceived to be causally connected to that event, but is not selected as relevant to an explanation. The final section focuses on how interpersonal explanation processes constrain causal selection.

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