Leaps in Perception: Towards a Philosophy of Imaginatively-endowed Perceiving
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2023
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Haverford College. Department of Philosophy
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Thesis
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
Inquiry into our perception soon leads us to a kind of skepticism, whereby we not only doubt that our senses give us access to the objective world, we doubt they give us access to anything at all. This is the problem of perception. At the heart of this problem lies a distance between us and the world. Introducing the concept of perceptive faith, I argue that our fundamental attitude towards the world is thus one of leaping. Using the lens of the leap, I first consider the way perception unfolds within us. I emphasize the importance of theorizing perception as a lived perceiving, and suggest that imagination may be necessary for our perceiving, as that which allows us to bridge the gaps and give life to them. I then consider two analytic theories of perception, drawing out their phenomenological sensibility, and suggest that if intentionalism begins to tie the world to us, enactivism embeds us firmly in the world. The distance between the world and us thus seems to be bridged when we realize perception is an embodied and imaginatively-endowed perceiving. I contend that such premises were ignored because of a pervasive optocentrism in Western philosophy, an overvaluation of sight and a devaluation of the other senses (especially of touch) which led certain problems, questions, and conclusions to appear at the expense of others. I conclude that a philosophy of perception that emphasized the imaginary texture of the world would allow us to unproblematically encompass both our being towards and away from the world.