Blackwell Reference Online

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Nature has contrived to have it both ways, to get the best out of fast dumb mechanisms and slow contemplative ones, by simply refusing to choose between them. ( Fodor, 1983 , p. 4) Although, as lay people, we take it for granted that perception offers us sure knowledge of the world, perception is deficient in some rather fundamental ways. It doesn't reveal all that we know about the world. Unaided, it says very little, for example, about the microscopic structure of matter. Perception can also be mistaken at the scale of the everyday, showing a host of well-known errors, so-called illusions. Yet, these obvious limitations do not shake our confidence in perceptual experience. Seeing is believing and we take perception as a reliable source to bolster our most deeply held beliefs. Yet, this seemingly natural acceptance of perception as corresponding to “reality” has not gone unchallenged. Descartes (1649) began his foundational approach to philosophy with the posture of radical doubt, raising the possibility that the material world might not exist at all, that our sensory experience could be the conceivable handiwork of a malevolent demon, cleverly constructing what we sense for some evil purpose to fool us. In a more scientific vein, a different though related question continues to be of importance. Does perception inform us directly or is perception a construction, mediated not ... log in or subscribe to read full text