Naïve realism about unconscious perception

Abstract

Recently, it has been objected that naïve realism is inconsistent with an empirically well-supported claim that mental states of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious seeing can occur unconsciously (SFK). The main aim of this paper is to establish the following conditional claim: if SFK turns out to be true, the naïve realist can and should accommodate it into her theory. Regarding the antecedent of this conditional, I suggest that empirical evidence renders SFK plausible but not obvious. For it is possible that what is currently advocated as unconscious perception of the stimulus is in fact momentaneous perceptual awareness (or residual perceptual awareness) of the stimulus making the subject prone to judge in some way rather than another, or to act in some way rather than another. As to the apodosis, I show that neither the core of naïve realism nor any of its main motivations is undermined if SFK is assumed. On the contrary, certain incentives for endorsing naïve realism become more tempting on this assumption. Since the main motivations for naïve realism retain force under SFK, intentionalism is neither compulsory nor the best available explanation of unconscious perception.

Vaccine Hesitancy and Attitudes Toward Elite Knowledge in the United States During COVID-19

“…In philosophy, naïve realism is located under theories of perception (Genone, 2016), and debates on the matter explore visual senses and the consciousness of seeing (Fish, 2009; Zięba, 2019). Broadly, naïve realists frame reality as singular and objective (Pronin, 2007), and argue that experienced objects are located in a mind-independent world (Brewer, 2007; Genone, 2016; Zięba, 2019).…”

“…In philosophy, naïve realism is located under theories of perception (Genone, 2016), and debates on the matter explore visual senses and the consciousness of seeing (Fish, 2009; Zięba, 2019). Broadly, naïve realists frame reality as singular and objective (Pronin, 2007), and argue that experienced objects are located in a mind-independent world (Brewer, 2007; Genone, 2016; Zięba, 2019). Social psychologists describe naïve realism as ‘the tendency to assume that one’s perspective of events is a natural, unbiased reflection of objective reality and to infer bias on the part of anyone who disagrees with one’s views’ (American Psychological Association, 2022).…”

Contents of Unconscious Color Perception

“…108-109, 187;Rosenthal 2010;Vosgerau et al 2008). More generally, in philosophical works concerning unconscious perception, four types of empirical investigations are commonly acknowledged as being the most important in justifying the presence of unconscious color perception: (a) studies on blindsight involving a forced-choice task (Berger and Nanay 2016;Brogaard 2011;Dretske 2006;Phillips 2016;Zięba 2019), (b) metacontrast masking studies (Anaya and Clarke 2017;Phillips 2018;Rosenthal 2010;Taylor 2019), (c) studies concerning visual neglect (Phillips 2016), and (d) investigations demonstrating dichoptic color fusion (Block 2015). In the following sections, I discuss these types of studies in order to show that they do not provide a significant support for the equivalence thesis.…”

A Higher-Order Account of the Phenomenology of Particularity

“…Perceptual experience thus exhibits what one might call particularity in this uncontroversial way. But many philosophers of perception also maintain that particulars are often or even always part of the phenomenology ofor, to use Nagel's (1974) expression, what it is like to for subjects to have-perceptual experiences (e.g., Soteriou 2000;Martin 2002;Schellenberg 2010;2018;French & Gomes 2016;2019). In other words, in having a perceptual experience, it phenomenally seems to a subject that a specific particular, such as an external object or property instantiation, is present.…”

“…Many theorists maintain that this type of phenomenology demands special accounts of perceptual experience on which particulars somehow constitute perceptual experience, such as versions of relationalism, on which perception is a relation between perceivers and particular perceived objects (e.g., Martin 2002;2004;French & Gomes 2016;2019), or complex varieties of representationalism on which perception exhibits demonstrative or special particular-involving types of content (e.g., Soteriou 2000;Schellenberg 2010;2018). I argue here that no such account on which particulars constitute perception is required to explain phenomenological particularity-and I lay out a version of HO theory that explains it, while avoiding several problems that other theories of such phenomenology face.…”