Direct Realism and the Extended Mind
Oxford Scholarship Online July 19, 2018 J. Christopher Maloney
Representationalism, the view that perception is a type of cognitive representation, is correct in treating perception as representation but wrong to claim that perceptual content determines phenomenal character—the subjective feel of experience. Instead, the form of a perceptual representation constitutes phenomenal character. Direct realism is true: perception is a form of cognition in which the representation and the represented object are identical. Other cognitive representations are distinct from what they represent, but perceptual representation extends the mind into the world by casting the perceived object as a self-referential demonstrative. This fusion provides direct acquaintance with what is seen exactly as it is seen, thereby determining phenomenal character.