Roberts, Pendaran, Allen, Keith Malcolm orcid.org/0000-0002-3219-2102 and Schmidtke, Kelly (2020) Reflective intuitions about the causal theory of perception across sensory modalities. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. ISSN 1878-5166
Abstract
Many philosophers believe that there is a causal condition on perception, and that this condition is a conceptual truth about perception. A highly influential argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to Gricean style thought experiments. Do the folk share the intuitions of philosophers? Roberts et al. (2016) presented participants with two kinds of cases: Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a mirror and a pillar) and Non-Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a clock and brain stimulation). They found that a substantial minority agreed that seeing occurs in the Non-Blocker cases, and that in the Blocker cases significantly less agreed that seeing occurs. They thus hypothesized that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition than with a causal condition. This paper continues this line of enquiry with two new experiments. The paper investigates the generality and robustness of Roberts et al.’s findings by expanding the sense modalities tested from only vision to audition and olfaction as well. The paper also uses Gricean style thought experiments as a case study for investigating the “reflection defense” against the negative project in experimental philosophy. Our results replicate and extend Roberts et al.’s study and support their hypothesis that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition. They also provide an empirical reason to doubt the reflection defense.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Author(s) |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Philosophy (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 01 May 2020 15:20 |
Last Modified: | 15 Dec 2024 00:08 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:159948 |
Download
Filename: Roberts2020_Article_ReflectiveIntuitionsAboutTheCa.pdf
Description: Roberts2020_Article_ReflectiveIntuitionsAboutTheCa
Licence: CC-BY 2.5