Abstract
It is frequently alleged that a round plate viewed from an oblique angle looks elliptical, and that when one tree is in front of another that is the same intrinsic size, the front one looks larger than the rear one. And yet there is also a clear sense in which the plate viewed from an angle looks round, and a clear sense in which the two trees look to be the same size. According to the Dual Content Theory (DCT), what explains these and other similar phenomena is that perceptual experiences present us with two different sorts of spatial properties: intrinsic and perspectival spatial properties. I will argue that the Dual Content Theory is false because it rests on flawed phenomenological descriptions of the experience of spatial properties. The only conditions under which a plate tilted away and an ellipse look alike, or two objects which are different in size look the same size, is when at least one of the objects being compared is misperceived. I will consider several responses to the arguments I present, and conclude by suggesting that abandoning DCT would constitute an improvement upon Noë’s enactive theory of perception.
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Notes
One important difference between Schellenberg’s account and those of Noë and Tye is that, on her view, in perception we are aware of both intrinsic and situational properties without, however, often being able to tell which properties are intrinsic and which are situational. See Schellenberg 2008, p. 68.
The angular size of an object from p is the size of the visual angle whose vertex is at p and whose intersecting lines connect to the object’s extremities. We can then characterize an object’s perspectival shape (or “angular shape”) as determined by the totality of all such visual angles generated by every pair-wise taking of its parts. Two objects A and B will have the same perspectival shape when “for each pair of parts of A, there is a corresponding pair of parts of B, such that the distances between any two parts of A are in fixed proportion to the corresponding parts of B” (Huemer 2001, p. 121).
Noë writes, “perception has two moments, the encounter with how things appear and the encounter with how things are. We experience the world by experiencing how it looks” (Noë 2004, p. 85). Schellenberg argues for a different but related claim, namely that our perceptual knowledge of an object’s intrinsic properties is epistemically dependent on our perceptual knowledge of its situation-dependent properties, a claim that is supported by the intuition that “one perceives an object’s intrinsic properties because of the way the object is presented” (Schellenberg 2008, p. 75). Accordingly, “the question of how subjects can have perceptual knowledge of objects cannot be answered by insisting that we perceive intrinsic properties directly” (Schellenberg 2008, p. 58).
Sean Kelly claims that, on Noë’s view, “we always experience both the real and the apparent property of an object” (p. 684). Although Kelly, as we will see, agrees that we can experience both intrinsic and apparent properties, we cannot experience both simultaneously. Kelly’s view, then, does not qualify as a version of DCT as I understand it. Nor, of course, does it qualify as a version of the view as he understands it.
See Briscoe 2008 for an excellent discussion. Schellenberg maintains that while distance and orientation are among the situational features upon which the way an object is presented partially supervenes, they need not be among the properties represented in an experience. Accordingly, “subjects can perceive the trees to be different in size given their location, without being aware of their location with respect to the trees” (Schellenberg 2008, p. 68). It seems to be Schellenberg’s view that there are certain spatial properties, namely the situation-dependent ones, which will appear the same no matter which distance and orientation our experiences present their objects as having, provided that the actual distance and orientation remain constant. The examples which follow will, I think, cast this claim into considerable doubt with respect to both shape and size. Schellenberg is, however, undoubtedly right to claim that we are not always presented with the precise distance and orientation of an object. It’s also the case that we do not need to perceive those features precisely in order to see shapes. Our experience of the moon, for instance, presents it as round, even though it does not present us with its precise distance. It is not silent about its distance, however. There are a lot of possible answers to the question “How far away is the moon?” that can be ruled out on the basis of visual experience, such as “at the tip of my eyelash” or “between that tree and me.” Furthermore, the indeterminate way in which we perceive the moon’s distance largely accounts for the fact that its intrinsic size is presented so indeterminately. It also explains, in part, the fact that our perception of its shape is nonveridical. It looks flat, though it’s a spheroid. In order for it to appear veridically, our experience would have to present its center as closer to us than its edges.
Even when an object’s parts appear to be located on a plane oriented at a right angle to the line of sight, some of its parts will appear to be located further away from you than others if the experience is veridical. The wall at which I am now directly looking appears, veridically, to be flat, but its center appears—again veridically—to be closer to me than its edges. If all of its parts looked to be the same distance away, then the wall would look as though it were, like Reid’s visible figures, on the inside of a sphere. Even if all objects look as though they are on a plane perpendicular to the line of sight—a doctrine remarkable both for its open defiance of plain phenomenological fact and for the allegiance it has commanded—this cannot be because we do not perceive depth at all or because all objects appear to be at one distance-in-depth, since even the parts of such a plane will neither be nor appear to be the same distance from our eyes.
One reason is that it is part of the phenomenology of our visual perception of three-dimensional objects that they not only just happen to have hidden parts, but they look like they have hidden parts. Having hidden parts that could be revealed by changes in orientation is itself something specified by the content of a typical experience of such an object. This claim is not, as A.D. Smith points out, an “incursion into the pure phenomenology of the ‘objective’ knowledge that physical objects have unperceived sides.” Rather, “Physical objects appear like that—i.e. as having more to them than is revealed in one glance—and we take them to be like that” (A. D. Smith 2008, p. 324). And not having hidden parts—being fully in view—is also part of the phenomenological character of the veridical experience of two-dimensional objects. It affects the way they look. If the content of one’s experience presented a two-dimensional object as having hidden parts and sides, then the two-dimensional object would likely look, nonveridically, to be shaped otherwise than it in fact is.
Some of Noë’s remarks, taken in isolation, suggests that plate’s looking elliptical from here is sufficient for it to look round. “We experience the plate as circular precisely because we encounter its elliptical look from here” (Noë 2004, p. 78). Encountering its “elliptical look from here” can only be a necessary, not a sufficient condition, of experiencing its circularity, however. We also experience the elliptical look of an ellipse from here, but in doing so we do not invariably have a nonveridical experience of it as circular. Fortunately, Noë’s theory has the resources to explain why D looks different from E, even from here. What makes it the case that I see the plate as intrinsically circular is that the body of sensorimotor knowledge that I enact in each case differs. A perception of the plate as round involves different anticipations of how its look will vary with bodily movements from those involved in seeing an ellipse as intrinsically elliptical.
Overgaard rightly accuses Tye of a similar mistake. According to Tye, we need to say that the two trees in some sense look the same size because under atypical conditions in which we lose sight of the relative distances, “the nearer tree would still look larger from here” (Tye 2000, p. 79). Overgaard responds that this example “only shows that when a more distant object no longer appears more distant than a nearer object of the same size, then the former will look smaller than the latter. But this is perfectly compatible with the view that normally, the object further away just looks further away and not smaller” (Overgaard 2010, p. 278).
Schellenberg 2008, p. 61. On the same page, she illustrates this as follows: “Say I am looking at the round rim of a cup from directly above. From such a location, the rim of the cup is presented as round.” She points out, however, that even in matching cases, the situation-dependent property and the intrinsic property are metaphysically distinct. What matching could possibly amount to when it comes to intrinsic size, I do not know. If there is some distance at which an object’s apparent size matches its intrinsic size, it certainly won’t be the same for all objects. Presumably whiskers and specks of dust are best perceived at distances very different from those that are optimal for perceiving skyscrapers, mountains, and the Earth.
“Uncertain Circles,” in Shepard 1990, p. 49.
“Terror Subterra,” in Shepard 1990, p. 47. Note that since the two images themselves have identical visual angles and would be occluded by patches of the same size, they should look the same size. That they don’t is itself an argument against DCT.
Of course, there might be some people who can see objects as having incompatible properties simultaneously; the Waterfall Illusion suggests that we all can in some cases (Crane 1988). But that doesn’t change the fact that seeing the plate as both round and elliptical simultaneously would involve seeing it as having two properties that it could not have simultaneously.
For a good criticism of this proposal, see Overgaard 2010, p. 274–5.
Sean Kelly (2004: §1), for instance, provides an example contrasting the same objects when they are perceived as buildings in an Old West town (saloons, banks) and when they are perceived as fixtures on a movie set. This is not a case in which the two experiences have an identical component, differing only in that we “go beyond” that component in different ways. Rather, even the fronts of the structures look different under these conditions. Merleau-Ponty provides many examples designed to illustrate the non-self-sufficiency of “sensations.” “A wooden wheel placed on the ground is not, for sight, the same thing as a wheel bearing a load” (Merleau-Ponty 1962, p. 60). And Husserl, who is largely responsible for discovering the phenomenon of presence as absence, writes that the sensuous or intuitive contents in perception, which are responsible for presenting us with objects and properties, are nothing for themselves; they are appearances-of only through the intentional horizons that are inseparable from them (Husserl 2001, p. 43).
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Hopp, W. No such look: problems with the dual content theory. Phenom Cogn Sci 12, 813–833 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-012-9287-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-012-9287-6