Varieties of PresenceMain description: The world shows up for us-it is present in our thought and perception. But, as Alva Noë contends in his latest exploration of the problem of consciousness, it doesn't show up for free. The world is not simply available; it is achieved rather than given. As with a painting in a gallery, the world has no meaning-no presence to be experienced-apart from our able engagement with it. We must show up, too, and bring along what knowledge and skills we've cultivated. This means that education, skills acquisition, and technology can expand the world's availability to us and transform our consciousness. Although deeply philosophical, Varieties of Presence is nurtured by collaboration with scientists and artists. Cognitive science, dance, and performance art as well as Kant and Wittgenstein inform this literary and personal work of scholarship intended no less for artists and art theorists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, and anthropologists than for philosophers. Noë rejects the traditional representational theory of mind and its companion internalism, dismissing outright the notion that conceptual knowledge is radically distinct from other forms of practical ability or know-how. For him, perceptual presence and thought presence are species of the same genus. Both are varieties of exploration through which we achieve contact with the world. Forceful reflections on the nature of understanding, as well as substantial examination of the perceptual experience of pictures and what they depict or model are included in this far-ranging discussion. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ability absent achieve access affordances amodal perception appearance argued argument from illusion baseball basic Brandenburg Gate can’t causal chapter character circular claim cognitive coin looks coin’s color conception context criticism deny depict Dreyfus enables ence encounter example existential phenomenologists explain fact Frege Gödel grasp Heidegger hidden Hillary Clinton home run Hubert Dreyfus idea insist insofar intellectual kind knowledge language linguistic lives looks elliptical mean merely mind modality movements nature Noë object one’s optic ataxia ourselves over-intellectualizing perceive perceptual consciousness perceptual constancy perceptual experience perceptual presence perceptual sense perspectival phenomenology phenomenon philosophy pictorial picture possibility practical precisely problem properties qualia question reason relation representation rience sensations sensorimotor skills sensorimotor understanding sensory shape sort style suppose talk theory third-realm thought tion tomato tual ture Varieties of Presence veridical visual experience visual field wall world shows yellow