Unconscious perception and central coordinating agency
Philosophical Studies 178 (12):3869-3893 (2021)
Abstract
One necessary condition on any adequate account of perception is clarity regarding whether unconscious perception exists. The issue is complicated, and the debate is growing in both philosophy and science. In this paper we consider the case for unconscious perception, offering three primary achievements. First, we offer a discussion of the underspecified notion of central coordinating agency, a notion that is critical for arguments that purportedly perceptual states are not attributable to the individual, and thus not genuinely perceptual. We develop an explication of what it is for a representational state to be available to central coordinating agency for guidance of behavior. Second, drawing on this explication, we place a more careful understanding of the attributability of a state to the individual in the context of a range of empirical work on vision-for-action, saccades, and skilled typing. The results place pressure on the skeptic about unconscious perception. Third, reflecting upon broader philosophical themes running through debates about unconscious perception, we highlight how our discussion places pressure on the view that perception is a manifest kind, rather than a natural kind. In doing so, we resist the tempting complaint that the debate about unconscious perception is merely verbal.Author Profiles
DOI
10.1007/s11098-021-01629-w
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Citations of this work
The modularity of the motor system.Myrto Mylopoulos - 2021 - Philosophical Explorations 24 (3):376-393.
References found in this work
The Epistemic Role of Consciousness.Declan Smithies - 2019 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.
Controlled and automatic human information processing: Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory.Richard M. Shiffrin & Walter Schneider - 1977 - Psychological Review 84 (2):128-90.