ONLINE FIRST
published on July 29, 2020
S?ren Overgaard
https://doi.org/10.5840/harvardreview202072732
How Not to Think of Perception
Perception seems like it puts us directly in touch with real things in our environment. But according to a popular view, perception actually does no such thing. Perceptual experiences are internally generated imagery, and we don¡¯t see what is really out there. I call this view ¡°the Hard-Nosed View,¡± and I argue that it is deeply problematic. In fact, the view is self-defeating: it undermines the very evidence supposed to establish or support the view. Indeed, if perceptual experiences are just internally generated images that generally don¡¯t reflect what is really out there, the very notion of a scientific finding is put in jeopardy. So, the Hard-Nosed View had better be false.