Author Description
Wylie Breckenridge offers a fresh understanding of the character of visual experience by deploying the methods of semantics. He develops a theory of what we mean by the 'look' sentences that we use to describe the character of our visual experiences, and on that basis develops a theory of what it is to have a visual experience with a certain character. The result is a new and stronger defence of a neglected view, the adverbial theory of perception.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the nature of visual experience by applying semantic analysis to the language used to describe perceptual states. Wylie Breckenridge, a philosopher specializing in the philosophy of mind, utilizes linguistic methodology to examine 'look' sentences. By analyzing the structure of these descriptions, he constructs a formal theory regarding the character of visual experience and provides a robust defense of the adverbial theory of perception.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- A semantic framework for analyzing perceptual reports
- A detailed defense of the adverbial theory of perception
- An examination of the relationship between language and visual phenomenology
Scope Limits
- The text does not provide an empirical neuroscientific account of vision
- It does not engage extensively with non-analytic traditions of phenomenology
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars in the philosophy of perception recognize this work as a significant contribution to the debate between representationalist and adverbialist accounts of experience. Readers frequently note the technical density of the prose, which requires a strong background in analytic philosophy to fully grasp the arguments presented.
Page Count:
176
Publication Date:
2018-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0192524410
ISBN-13:
9780192524416
Philosophy
Perception
Epistemology
Mind & Body
Philosophy of
Semantics