Alva Noë Experience and the Active Mind

This paper investigates a new species of skeptical reasoning about visual experience that takes its start from developments in perceptual science (especially recent work on change blindness and inattentional blindness). According to this skepticism, the impression of visual awareness of the environment in full detail and high resolution is illusory. I argue that the new skepticism depends on misguided assumptions about the character of perceptual experience, about whether perceptual experiences are ‘internal’ states, and about how best to understand the relationship between a person’s or animal’s perceptual capacities and the brain-level or neural processes on which they depend. I propose a conception of perceptual experience as a form of skillful engagement with the environment on the part of the whole person or animal. We find certain things about seeing puzzling, because we do not find the whole business of seeing puzzling enough. – Wittgenstein (1953/1958, 212)