Visual Phenomenology
Michael Madary
The MIT Press September 21, 2017 DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035453.001.0001 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues that visual perception is best described as an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment, supported by both phenomenological description and empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience. |
Abstract
The main argument of the book is as follows: (1) The descriptive premise: The phenomenology of vision is best described as an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. (2) The empirical premise: There are strong empirical reasons to model vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment. (AF) Conclusion: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. The book consists of three parts and an appendix. The first part of the book makes the case for premise (1) based on descriptive claims about the nature of first-person experience. The initial support for (1) in Chapter 2 is based on the fact that visual experience has the general features of being perspectival, temporal, and indeterminate. Chapter 3 includes an argument for (1) based on the possibility of surprise when appearances do not change as we expect, and Chapter 4 contains a discussion of the content of visual anticipations. The second part of the book focuses on empirical support. Chapter 5 covers a range of evidence from perceptual psychology that motivates premise (2). Chapter 6 turns to evidence from neuroscience, including recent work in predictive coding. The seventh chapter shows how evidence for the two-visual systems hypothesis can be re-interpreted in support of (2). The third part of the book turns to general methodological questions (Chapter 8) and the relationship between visual perception and social cognition (Chapter 9). The appendix addresses the ways in which Husserlian phenomenology relates to the main theme of the book.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: a framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From dopamine to salience to psychosis--linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 10
- Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access from the perspective of capacity-unlimited working memory Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences July 30, 2018
- The rational role of the perceptual sense of reality Mind & Language October 19, 2022
- Levinas's Philosophy of Perception The Southern Journal of Philosophy December 1, 2017
- The Objective Sense of Visual Experience and the Inadequacy Claim June 5, 2026
- The Modal-Ability View Articulated June 5, 2026
and 5 more in the library