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Ecological Psychologies As Philosophies of Perception

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Ecological Psychologies As Philosophies of Perception Faculty of Arts Department of Philosophy Ecological Psychologies as Philosophies of Perception On Explaining how we Perceive what we can Do Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy at the University of Antwerp to be defended by Jan Van Eemeren Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Erik Myin Antwerp, 2018 Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte Departement Wijsbegeerte Ecologische Psychologie als Filosofie van Waarnemen Over Verklaren hoe we Waarnemen wat we kunnen Doen Proefschrift voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van doctor in de wijsbegeerte aan de Universiteit Antwerpen te verdedigen door Jan Van Eemeren Promotor: Prof. Dr. Erik Myin Antwerpen, 2018 Voor Stef en Médard CONTENTS Introducing the Philosophy of Perception ........................................................1 1 Introducing Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Perception .........................9 1.1 INTRODUCING JAMES GIBSON ................................................................................... 9 1.2 INTRODUCING THE ENVIRONMENT........................................................................... 10 1.3 ECOLOGICAL INFORMATION ................................................................................... 12 1.3.1 Ecological optics vs. the poverty of the stimulus argument .................. 12 1.3.2 Invariants of the ambient optic array .................................................... 16 1.3.3 Affordances ............................................................................................ 19 1.4 SO HOW DOES IT WORK? ........................................................................................ 23 1.5 A NEW APPROACH TO KNOWING ............................................................................. 26 1.6 GIBSON’S ASSESSMENT OF THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ITS SHORTCOMINGS ..................... 29 1.7 LEARNING ........................................................................................................... 31 1.8 EXPERIMENTAL APPLICATIONS: STAIR CLIMBING AND GANNETS DIVING ....................... 33 1.8.1 Plummeting gannets: the “tau” hypothesis ............................................ 33 1.8.2 Visual guidance of stair climbing ........................................................... 34 1.9 CONCLUDING REMARKS ......................................................................................... 36 2 Reception of Gibson’s theory of Direct Perception .................................. 39 2.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 39 2.2 PICKUP AND/OR INFERENCE .................................................................................... 43 2.3 ESTABLISHMENT ANALYSIS OF GIBSONIAN INFORMATION .......................................... 50 2.4 CONCEPTS OF PERCEPTION ..................................................................................... 52 2.5 MISPERCEPTION ................................................................................................... 61 2.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS ......................................................................................... 63 | vii 3 Turvey, Shaw, Reed and Mace: In reply to Fodor and Pylyshyn .............. 67 3.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 67 3.2 EXPLANATION IN ECOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY: ECOLOGICAL LAWS ................................ 72 3.2.1 Laws relating occurrent properties to affordances ............................... 73 3.2.2 Laws relating optical properties to occurrent properties ..................... 76 3.2.3 Intensional versus extensional analysis of natural laws ....................... 78 3.2.4 Construction of the predicate “to perceive” ........................................... 84 3.3 CONCLUDING REMARKS: THE ECOLOGICAL VIEW ON INTENTIONALITY .......................... 92 4 The Neogibsonian Approach to the Ontology and the Epistemology of Perception ........................................................................................................ 97 4.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 97 4.2 INDIRECTNESS AND EVIDENCE IN EPISTEMOLOGY OF PERCEPTION .............................. 101 4.2.1 Direct realism and the problem of the external world ........................ 101 4.2.2 Against the representational view of perceptual experience ............... 103 4.2.3 Ecologically improved empiricism: on PoS and dualism ..................... 105 4.2.4 A Possible worlds semantics for the concept of perception ................. 109 4.3 NATURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY ............................................................................. 114 4.3.1 Quine’s radical departure from classical epistemology ...................... 114 4.3.2 A benchmark for the ecological conceptions of perception ................. 120 4.3.3 More traces of old epistemology in Shaw et al. ................................... 121 4.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS ....................................................................................... 123 5 Evolutionary Critiques on the Neogibsonians........................................ 131 5.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 131 5.2 SPECIFYING INFORMATION AND SYMMETRY ............................................................ 135 5.3 CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF “SPECIFYING INFORMATION” ................................................ 139 5.4 IMPLAUSIBILITY OF SYMMETRY AND SPECIFICATION ................................................ 144 viii | CONTENTS 5.5 OBJECTIONS FROM EVOLUTIONARY THINKING ......................................................... 147 5.5.1 Naturalising perception ....................................................................... 147 5.5.2 Two reflections on W&C’s evolutionary critique ................................. 152 5.5.3 The paradox of learning and realism ................................................... 156 5.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS ....................................................................................... 158 6 Towards Evolutionary-ecological Explanations of Perceptual Abilities 163 6.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 163 6.2 RAMSEY’S REPRESENTATION RECONSIDERED ........................................................... 166 6.3 NAÏVE PSYCHOLOGY ............................................................................................ 172 6.4 DOING WITHOUT REPRESENTING ........................................................................... 179 6.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS: FROM STAIR CLIMBING AS NAÏVE PHYSICS TOWARDS AN ECOLOGICAL ACCOUNT OF NAÏVE PSYCHOLOGY ............................................................. 188 6b An Evolutionary-ecological RECtification of Transitive Inference among Chickens .......................................................................................................... 195 6.6 CASE ANALYSIS: THINKING CHICKENS .................................................................... 195 6.7 EVOLUTIONARY-ECOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF TRANSITIVE INFERENCE ................ 198 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 209 References ...................................................................................................... 219 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ 231 Abstract ........................................................................................................... 233 Samenvatting .................................................................................................. 235 | ix INTRODUCTION Introducing the Philosophy of Perception How we think about perception—about seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting—is determined at least partly by the answer to the question as to why we think about perception. Presumably all thinking about phenomena is motivated by the desire of better understanding. But when we think about complex matters, that understanding often depends on the perspective or motivation we bring to the table. In this dissertation two perspectives, associated with two motives for thinking about perception, are analysed; two perspectives that have played major roles in the philosophy and psychology of perception. We will consider two answers to the question as to why we would think about perception and look at the consequences these answers have for our understanding of the phenomenon. Considering just two perspectives entails that we will neglect all others. This requires a justification, a task we take up in this introduction. We will first sketch the two perspectives we do treat, and then justify our neglect of a third one. The first perspective on perception we will consider is that of epistemology. If it is assumed that knowledge of the world originates in perception—the central thesis of empiricism—then certain consequences for the concept of perception might be expected. The second perspective is that of natural science. If it is assumed that perception is a natural phenomenon and that the methods of the natural sciences are adequate to study it, this too poses constraints on its conceptualisation. In traditional epistemology—the philosophical discipline that is occupied with knowledge and justification—the idea that the motive influences
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