The Contents of Visual Experience

What do we see? We are visually conscious of colors and shapes, but are we also visually conscious of complex properties such as being John Malkovich? In this book, Susanna Siegel develops a framework for understanding the contents of visual experience, and argues that these contents involve
all sorts of complex properties. Siegel starts by analyzing the notion of the contents of experience, and by arguing that theorists of all stripes should accept that experiences have contents. She then introduces a method for discovering the contents of experience: the method of phenomenal contrast.
This method relies only minimally on introspection, and allows rigorous support for claims about experience. She then applies the method to make the case that we are conscious of many kinds of properties, of all sorts of causal properties, and of many other complex properties. She goes on to use the
method to help analyze difficult questions about our consciousness of objects and their role in the contents of experience, and to reconceptualize the distinction between perception and sensation. Siegel's results are important for many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind,
epistemology, and the philosophy of science. They are also important for the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of vision.

Author: Susanna Siegel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 08/01/2012
Pages: 234
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780199931248

About the Author

Susanna Siegel is Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She has been named 2012 Walter Channing Cabot Fellow.

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