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Perception, Introspection and Functional Consonance
Author(s) -
DILWORTH JOHN
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2006.tb00967.x
Subject(s) - introspection , psychology , perception , object (grammar) , certainty , cognitive psychology , relation (database) , epistemology , social psychology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , computer science , neuroscience , database
What is the relation between a perceptual experience of an object X as being red, and one's belief, if any, as to the nature of that experience? A traditional Cartesian view would be that, if indeed object X does seem to be red to oneself, then one's resulting introspective belief about it could only be a conforming belief, i.e., a belief that X perceptually seems to be red to oneself‐ rather than, for instance, a belief that X perceptually seems to be green to oneself instead. I offer some non‐Cartesian, functionalist reasons supporting such an introspective certainty view, based on a concept of logical consonance of perceptual dispositions, according to which both experience‐based and belief dispositions cannot diverge in their content, on pain of their having inconsistent manifestations in relevant situations, such as color‐sorting tasks. In addition, other views of introspection are criticized from the perspective of this consonance view.