Direct Perception : The View from Here

The view that perception is direct holds that a perceiver is aware of or in contact with ordinary mind-independent objects, rather than mind-dependent surrogates thereof. In this paper I try to articulate an account of direct perception from a Gibsonian point of view, located within the wider terrain of cognitive science and psychology. James Gibson's ecological theory proposes that perception is a relation in which an active agent is in contact with behaviorally relevant features and properties of its environment; this relation is causally supported by perceptual systems that are attuned to information which specifies those features and properties. I will argue that the theory offers the means to resist the main lines of attack on direct perception, including the Arguments from Illusion, Hallucination, Appearances, and Underspecification. In so doing, it also suggests a positive account of illusions and hallucinations, as well as the intentional (object-directed) and perspectival (from here) aspects of perception.