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Grace Helton (Work in progress: please do not cite)

                                                 (from: http://kremer-pigmente.de)

IJN Presentation

October 29, 2010

Two Kinds of Cognitive Penetrability

1. Cognitive Penetrability

If perceptual content can be influenced—and influenced in a certain way—by beliefs, then perception exhibits cognitive penetrability.¹ In particular, if two distinct (token) perceptual states, instanced in two distinct subjects (i) have different content, but (ii) result from the same stimuli and from the same attentional structure, and if (iii) the difference in content can be explained in terms of some difference in the subjects’ respective belief structures, we can say that at least one of the token perceptual states is cognitively penetrated. We can also say that the perceptual state type to which the relevant tokens belong is cognitively penetrable.

2. Putative Examples of Cognitive Penetrability

The dolphin case: Where a figure is ambiguous between a naked couple and dolphins, adults are more likely than children to see the naked couple.²

The anger case: Siegel hypothesizes that someone’s belief that her partner is angry might result in a perception that he is angry.³

The color case⁴ Subjects

Elm Case ⁵ Siegel hypothesizes that a tree expert might perceive elm leaves differently than a non-expert.

Pan case. Subject refuse to drink from a bedpan, even though they know it has never been used before.⁶

But are all of these cases genuine instances of penetrability? This is controversial. There are a few common strategies for arguing that a given case is not a genuine instance of cognitive penetrability, including:

The attentional strategy

The judgment strategy

3. Two Kinds of Penetrability

Inheritance vs. Mere Lending

There are two kinds of relations beliefs can stand to the perceptual states they penetrate; these are the inheritance relation and the mere lending relation. If a belief stands in the inheritance relation to some perceptual state, the belief’s influence on the perceptual state can persist even if the belief itself should ‘perish.’ If a belief stands in the mere lending relation to a perceptual state, the belief’s influence on the perceptual state cannot ‘outlive’ the belief, should the belief itself ‘perish.’

Inheritance vs. Mere Lending: Examples

A Possible Example of Inheritance: The Elm Case

A Possible Example of Mere Lending: The Curtain Case

Inheritance and Mere Lending: Definitions

Inheritance (dfn.) A (token) belief B with content p stands in the inheritance relation to some (token) perceptual state S with content q just in case: (i) B is a penetrator for S, and (ii) it is nomically possible that S should retain content q, should B cease to exist.

Mere Lending (dfn.) A (token) belief B with content p stands in the mere lending relation to some (token) perceptual state S with content q just in case: (i) B is a penetrator for S, and (ii) it is not nomically possible that S should retain content q, should B cease to exist.

4. One Reason the Inheritance/Mere Lending Distinction Matters

The Emergentist Strategy

The emergentist strategy is a way of responding to particular claims of cognitive penetrability. The strategy is this: for any putative instance of cognitive penetrability, where some belief B is claimed to penetrate some perceptual state P, claim that the relevant belief does not penetrate p but rather, that P and B both play a constitutive role in some mixed experience E.

The emergentist strategy becomes more attractive if one accepts something like the opacity of vehicle type, where this is the claim that it is not always possible, from introspection alone, to know what the representational vehicle(s) of one’s experience is (are).

The Asymmetry of Inheritance / Mere Lending Vis-à-vis The Emergentist Strategy

CLAIM 1: Putative cases of mere lending are susceptible to the emergentist strategy.

CLAIM 2: Putative cases of inheritance are not susceptible to the emergentist strategy.

Bibliography

Gendler, Tamar. ‘Alief in Action (and Reaction).’ Mind and Language. 23 (5). 552-585. 2008.

Kriegel, Uriah. ‘The Phenomenologically Manifest.’ Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. 2007. 6:115-136.

Macpherson, Fiona. ‘Cognitive Penetration of Colour Experience: Rethinking the Issue in Light of an Indirect Mechanism.’ forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

Pryor, James. ‘The Skeptic and the Dogmatist.’ Nous 34:4 (2000). 517-49.

Pylyshyn, Zenon W. 1999. ‘Is vision continuous with cognition? The case for cognitive impenetrability of visual perception.’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 22 (3):341-365.

Siegel, Susanna, ‘Cognitive Penetrability and Perceptual Justification.’ Forthcoming in Nous. Also available here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/CogPen.htm

Siegel, Susanna. ‘How Can We Discover the Contents of Experience?’ Southern Journal of Philosophy. Vol. XLV. 2006. Also available here: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/method.html

Siegel, Susanna. ‘Which Properties Are Represented in Perception?’ forthcoming in OUP’s Perceptual Experience, eds. Szabo, Gendler T. and Hawthorne, J. Also available here: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~ssiegel/papers/msKfinal.html

1 While cognitive penetrability can refer, more generally, to perceptual states that are influenced in a certain way by any mental state, for simplicity’s sake, I restrict the discussion to perceptual states influenced by beliefs.

2 Macpherson

3 Siegel

4 Macpherson

5 Siegel

6 Gendler