Distinguished Lecture Series: Alva Noë (Berkeley)
According to Actionism, perceptual consciousness depends constitutively on perceivers’ practical grasp of the significance of movement and action for perceptual experience. This position – versions of which have been developed in O’Regan and Noë 2001, Hurley and Noë 2003 and Noë 2004 (with important antecedents in Hurley 1998) – does not identify perception and action, but proposes that a distinct kind of sensorimotor understanding is exercised in perceptual experience. It has been suggested – by Goodale 2001, Block 2005, Jacob and Jeannerod 2003, and Clark, among others – that Actionism runs up against evidence from neuropsychology that demonstrates the insulation of perceptual function from action-related states and processes, and also, that action-related states and processes are insulated from the influence of perceptual consciousness. I argue that this isn’t so. I argue that to understand the relation between perception and action, and, in particular, to understand the findings about two-visual systems in question, we need a view such as Actionism.
Alva Noë, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of California Berkeley; until July 2008 Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Map and Directions to Lecture Hall (pdf 105 kb)
Programme February-May 2008 (pdf 57 kb)
All are welcome!
