Naïve realism and unconscious perception: A reply to Berger and Nanay

Abstract

Berger and Nanay (2017, henceforth B&N) claim that naïve realism struggles to accommodate the existence of unconscious perception. Since there is said to be excellent evidence that perception of the same fundamental kind can occur, both consciously and unconsciously, this presents a problem for the view; it places a burden on the naïve realist to adequately address the phenomenon. Can this burden be met? After considering, and rejecting, three possible routes to an affirmative answer, B&N suggest a negative one. However, so far as we can see, all three routes considered remain perfectly plausible ways of addressing unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. In each case, the burden then seems to remain with B&N, or their sympathisers, to make a case against the naïve realist, rather than vice versa. 1. The first route considered by B&N would involve denying the existence of unconscious perception. If adequately defended, this would amount to showing that naïve realism is under no obligation to account for the phenomenon-a view that has recently been defended by Phillips (2016). However, despite acknowledging Phillips' proposal, B&N simply state that it is one they are 'dubious' of. They do not actually engage with Phillips' arguments, something that would take them 'too far afield' (427). On a charitable reading, this might be because B&N see a fundamental problem with the whole approach. They note that even if Phillips' rejection of the current empirical evidence for unconscious perception was sound, it would leave naïve realism 'hostage to forthcoming experimental results' (ibid.). For B&N, this conflicts with naïve realism's claim to be a pretheoretical view of perception since it commits the view to empirical predictions that will be alien to the folk. But this is quite mistaken. Naïve realism, as a philosophical theory of perception, purports to provide a rich and sophisticated account of sense perception that vindicates an important and pretheoretically compelling claim: that mind independent objects feature as genuine constituents in perceptual experience. But this does not commit the naïve realist to all consequences of their view being equally amenable to common sense or pre-theoretical reflection (see Fish 2010: ch.6; Martin 2004: 39-40). Nor does it require the view to remain non-committal on the interpretation of complex experimental findings (see Campbell 2010). Rather, it leaves open the possibility that the view might make complex empirical predictions that offer to vindicate its (more intuitive) core

Unconscious Perception Reconsidered

“… See also Block's opening statement in Phillips and Block (: 169), and Berger and Nanay (). As discussed in Anaya and Clarke () (see also Phillips in Phillips and Block ), such arguments can be resisted in various ways (e.g., by exploiting the so‐called “third‐relatum” in Campbell and Brewer's versions of relationalism). The present discussion suggests a stronger line: the theorist who celebrates the fact that their view can accommodate unconscious perception is simply exposing what should be an embarrassing fact, namely that their account of the intrinsic nature of perception (e.g., in terms of representational content) fails to explain why perception has a phenomenal nature. …”

Amodal completion and relationalism

“…Relationalism has been criticized from various angles. It has been argued that it cannot account for unconscious perception or else it is forced to take conscious and unconscious perception to be radically different phenomena (Berger and Nanay, 2016 , see also Anaya & Clarke, 2017 ; Phillips, 2018a , 2018b ). Or that it cannot explain the top-down influences on perception (Campbell & Cassam, 2014 , see also Siegel, 2011 , MacPherson, 2012 , Teufel & Nanay, 2017 ).…”

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.…”