Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Repository | Journal | Volume | Article

236970

The double content of perception

John Dilworth

pp. 225-243

Abstract

Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y′(X′) as a higher level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y′(X′) must be ’de-contextualized’ or decoded to arrive at the X-related content X′, resulting in a double content structure for perceptual data, that persists in higher-order conscious perceptual content. Some implications and applications of this DC view are also discussed.

Publication details

Published in:

(2005) Synthese 146 (3).

Pages: 225-243

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-004-6209-3

Full citation:

Dilworth John (2005) „The double content of perception“. Synthese 146 (3), 225–243.