What is “perception research” anyway?
J. Koenderink
Perception May 15, 2023 DOI: 10.1177/03010066231174982 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that perception is a prereflective, intrinsically meaningful mental figment that is its own explanation, distinct from apperception and concepts, which are not intrinsically meaningful and are explained through other concepts. The author contends that the notion of "sensation" underlying one set of items is an unfortunate philosophical construct and that those subitems are not genuinely distinct. |
Abstract
I appreciate item 2, because consciousness implies sapience, whereas perception proper is sentience. Item 4 is clearly irrelevant to the present issue. So we need to consider only items 1 and 3. In item 3 the two subitems are not really different and they rely on the notion of “sensation,” which is an unfortunate concept framed by philosophers (Gassendi, 1658; Russell, 1912). So item 1 is what we primarily need to consider. The dictionary apparently differentiates between what has been called perception and apperception here (Descartes, 1649; Leibniz, 1714). The item “a mental image: CONCEPT” would certainly rank as apperception. It lies above the level of bare awareness. A “perception” is a mental figment at the level of awareness, that is prereflective. It is meaningful by its very nature (Riedl, 1980; Koenderink, 2014), a perception is its own explanation. That is different from conceptions. A concept’s meaning is explained in terms of other concepts. Concepts are not intrinsically meaningful (Koenderink, 2019). The distinction