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From: eyal@wisdom.BITNET (Eyal mozes)
Newsgroups: mod.ai
Subject: Re: Representationalist Perception
Message-ID: <8607100457.AA12123@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 10-Jul-86 00:57:24 EDT
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Posted: Thu Jul 10 00:57:24 1986
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> The
> 'representatonalist' account of perception does NOT claim that instead of
> perceiving the world, we perceive internal representations of the world.
> That would indeed be a position with many difficulties.  Rather, it says
> that the WAY we perceive the world is BY making representations of it.
> The data structures are, to put it simply, the output of the perceptual
> process, not its input.

I would agree with Gibson (and with Kelley) that this boils down to the
same thing.

The "output" of perception (if such a term is appropriate) is our
awareness. Realists claim that this awareness is directly of external
objects. Representationalists, on the other hand, claim that we are
directly aware only of internal representations, created by a process
whose input are external objects; this means that we are aware of
external objects only INDIRECTLY. That is the position Gibson and
Kelley argue against, and I think they do understand it accurately.

Note that the above applies only to PERCEPTUAL representationalists.
It does not apply to COGNITIVE representationalists, who may agree that
perception is direct, but claim that internal representations are then
formed for the purpose of conceptual thinking. Gibson claimed that
concept-formation is direct as well; but on this point, Kelley
disagrees with him (this is indicated by his discussion of the issue in
chapter 7 of "The Evidence of the Senses"; by his paper "A Theory of
Abstraction", published in "Cognition and Brain Theory", vol. 7, no. 3
and 4, Summer/Fall 1984; and by his references to Ayn Rand's
"Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology").

        Eyal Mozes

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