Overview

The epistemology and the phenomenology of perception are closely related insofar as both depend on experiences of self-evident objectivity--experiences in which the objectivity of a state of affairs is evident from within our experience of that state of affairs. Jennifer Church offers a distinctive account of perception, showing how imagining alternative perspectives and alternative possibilities plays a key role in creating and validating experiences of self-evident objectivity. Offered first as an account of what it takes to perceive ordinary objects such as birds and trees, the account is then extended to show how it is also possible to perceive such things as causes, reasons, mental states, distant galaxies, molecular arrangements, mathematical relations, and interpersonal obligations. A chapter is devoted to the phenomenology and epistemology of moral perception, including the perception of persons as such; and a chapter is devoted to the peculiarities of aesthetic perception, including the perception of artworks as such. In all of these cases, Church argues, perception can be literal (not merely figurative or metaphorical) and substantive (not merely formal or deflationary). Her account helps to explain the advantages of perceptual versus non-perceptual knowledge. It also helps to make sense of some historical discussions of the role of the imagination in acquiring and validating knowledge, in relation to Plato's cave, Descartes' explanation of rational intuition, and Kant's arguments concerning objectivity, causality, and the Categorical Imperative.

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9780199678440

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Reviews

The Review of Metaphysics

Possibilities of Perception is a stimulating, wide-ranging treatment of perception in its many guises that should be of interest to a commensurately wide audience.

Possibilities of Perception is a stimulating, wide-ranging treatment of perception in its many guises that should be of interest to a commensurately wide audience. * The Review of Metaphysics * Overall, Possibilities of Perception is a good read, especially for its several clear examples ... [Church's] book will be of more interest to anyone concerned with either the imagination and its role in experience or with epistemic, ethical and aesthetic normativity and the connections between them. Also, while they are niche audiences, Church's book should interest Collingwood scholars for its presentation and defense of a similar theory of imagination to his own, and philosophers of photography/film for its discussion of perceiving remote states of affairs (Chapter 4), which is relevant for the debate surrounding photographic transparency. * David Collins, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review *

Author Information

Jennifer Church is Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. She has written extensively on rationality and irrationality, the imagination, emotions, consciousness, and self-consciousness.

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