Abstract
William Alston’s Theory of Appearing has attracted considerable attention in recent years, both for its elegant interpretation of direct realism in light of the presentational character of perceptual experience and for its central role in his defense of the justificatory force of Christian mystical experiences. There are different ways to account for presentational character, however, and in this article we argue that a superior interpretation of direct realism can be given by a theory of perception as dynamic engagement. The conditions for dynamic engagement are such that there can be no absolute discontinuity between individual perceptual experiences and more public forms of inquiry, and this requirement has radical consequences for the prima facie justificatory force of religious experience.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alston W.P. (1990) Externalist theories of perception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51(Fall): 73–97
Alston W.P. (1991) Perceiving God: The epistemology of religious experience. Cornell University Press, Ithaca
Alston W.P. (1993) The reliability of sense perception. Cornell University Press, Ithaca
Alston W.P. (1999) Back to the theory of appearing. Philosophical Perspectives 13(Oct): 181–203
Alston W.P. (2002) Sellers and the myth of the given. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65(1): 69–86
Clark A. (1997) Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Deacon T.W. (1997) The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. W. W. Norton & Company, New York
Dennett D.C. (2005) Sweet dreams: Philosophical obstacles to a science of consciousness. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Dewey J. (1958) Experience and nature. Dover Publications, New York
Gibson J.J. (1986) The ecological approach to visual perception. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ
Grimes J. (1996) On the failure to detect changes in scenes across saccades. In: Akins K. (eds) Perception. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 89–109
Hardin C.L. (1986) Color for philosophers: Unweaving the rainbow. Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis
Hume D. (2000) A treatise of human nature. Oxford University Press, New York
Jackson F. (1986) What Mary didn’t know. Journal of Philosophy 83(5): 291–295
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology (2 vols). New York: Henry Holt.
Kant, I. (1929). Critique of pure reason (trans: Smith, N. K). London: Macmillan.
Noë A. (2004) Action in perception. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Reed E.S. (1996) Encountering the world: Toward an ecological psychology. Oxford University Press, New York
Skarda C.A. (1999) The perceptual form of life. Journal of Consciousness Studies 6(11–12): 79–93
Varela F.J., Thompson E., Rosch E. (1991) The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Whitehead A.N. (1959) Symbolism: Its meaning and effect. Macmillan Company, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Barrett, N.F., Wildman, W.J. Seeing is believing? How reinterpreting perception as dynamic engagement alters the justificatory force of religious experience. Int J Philos Relig 66, 71–86 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-008-9195-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-008-9195-4