Action in Perception

\“Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us,\”\nwrites Alva Noë. \“It is something we do.\” In Action in Perception,\nNoë argues that perception and perceptual consciousness depend on\ncapacities for action and thought – that perception is a kind of\nthoughtful activity. Touch, not vision, should be our model for\nperception. Perception is not a process in the brain, but a kind of\nskillful activity of the body as a whole. We enact our perceptual\nexperience.To perceive, according to this enactive approach to\nperception, is not merely to have sensations; it is to have\nsensations that we understand. In Action in Perception, Noë\ninvestigates the forms this understanding can take. He begins by\narguing, on both phenomenological and empirical grounds, that the\ncontent of perception is not like the content of a picture; the\nworld is not given to consciousness all at once but is gained\ngradually by active inquiry and exploration. Noë then argues that\nperceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession and\nexercise of practical bodily knowledge, and examines, among other\ntopics, the problems posed by spatial content and the experience of\ncolor. He considers the perspectival aspect of the representational\ncontent of experience and assesses the place of thought and\nunderstanding in experience. Finally, he explores the implications\nof the enactive approach for our understanding of the neuroscience\nof perception.

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