Visual Phenomenology
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Madary, Michael, author.
Title: Visual phenomenology / Michael Madary.
Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016018209 | ISBN 9780262035453 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Perception (Philosophy) | Visual perception. | Phenomenology.
Classification: LCC B828.45 .M335 2016 | DDC 121/.35–dc23 LC record available at
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Sheila and the girls
Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
Part I 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 The Main Argument 3
1.2 The Sandwich or the Cycle? 5
1.3 Same Strategy, Different Results 12
2 Three Constraints 27
2.1 Visual Experience Is Perspectival 28
2.2 Visual Experience Is Temporal 32
2.3 Visual Experience Is Indeterminate 36
2.4 Thesis AF and the Three Constraints 38
3 Anticipation and Fulfillment 41
3.1 (PC) and Siegel’s Doll 41
3.2 (PC′) and Five Points about Anticipation 43
3.3 Variation in Perceptual Content 54
3.4 Visual Anticipation and Two Distinctions 56
3.5 Summary 57
4 The Question of Content 59
4.1 Introducing AF Content 59
4.2 Alternative Theories of Content and Their Shortcomings 65
4.3 On the Denial of Perceptual Content 70
viii viii
4.4 Four Problems and Three Solutions 75
4.5 Summary 86
Part II 89
5 Some Perceptual Psychology 91
5.1 Various Strands of Support 92
5.2 Rejecting the Myth of Full Detail 96
5.3 The Importance of Action 99
5.4 Facing the Resistance 103
5.5 Visual Attention 111
5.6 Objections and Replies 117
5.7 Summary 118
6 The Active Brain 119
6.1 Ongoing Cortical Dynamics 119
6.2 Neural Feedback 123
6.3 Theoretical Options 125
6.4 Summary 128
7 The Dorsal Stream and the Visual Horizon 131
7.1 Visual Consciousness and the Two Streams 131
7.2 Introducing the Visual Horizon 134
7.3 Input to the Dorsal Stream 136
7.4 Localized Damage and Illusions 138
7.5 Disturbances of Visual Motion 145
7.6 Computational Models of Dorsal Anticipation 149
Part III 153
8 The Convergence 155
8.1 Back to the Main Argument 155
8.2 The Best of Both Worlds—Symbolic Dynamics 160
8.3 Do We Need Internal Representations? 162
9 Seeing Our World 165
9.1 AF Content Is of a Shared Social World 165
9.2 Empirical Support 170
9.3 Embedded Rationality 174
ix
Appendix: Husserl’s Phenomenology 177
A.1 Finding AF in Husserl 177
A.2 Descriptive Psychology or Transcendental Phenomenology? 180
A.3 Phenomenology and the Sciences of the Mind 184
Notes 191
References 203
Index 241
… die Intentionalität ist vorwiegend der Zukunft zu gerichtet.
—E. Husserl (Husserliana XI: 156)
… all brains are, in essence, anticipation machines.
—D. Dennett (1991: 177)
Preface
This book covers two different ways of investigating visual experience. The
first way is through careful philosophical description of experience. The
second way is through the empirical sciences of the mind. The main moti-
vation behind the book is the exciting fact that these two different ways of
investigating visual experience have independently converged on the same
result. The result is the main thesis of the book: visual perception is an ongo-
ing process of anticipation and fulfillment.
The first part of the book will make the case for my thesis on the basis
of first-person description (for the most part), and the second part of the
book will turn to the empirical evidence. In the third part of the book, I will
show how the general framework can be applied in a fruitful manner. Here
I should note that the very fact that there is a convergence from historically
distinct methodologies makes a first point in favor of the result.
The book is written for philosophers and scientists, and anyone inter-
ested in human visual experience. Advanced undergraduate students
should find it accessible. I have attempted to create an exchange between
the humanities and the sciences in which results from both modes of inves-
tigation are taken seriously. At some points I engage with the contemporary
philosophical literature to an extent that might test the patience of readers
who are not professional philosophers. Such readers are invited to skim or
skip the philosophical fine points, as doing so should not take away from a
general understanding of the book.
In addition, I should be explicit that there are a number of philosophi-
cal issues that currently receive a good bit of attention, but that I will not
be addressing, at least not directly. These include metaphysical questions
about the relationship of the mind to the body (Armstrong 1999); the mys-
tery of consciousness, including the “hard problem” (Chalmers 1995) and
xii Preface
the explanatory gap (Levine 1983); the question of whether visual percep-
tion is direct or indirect (Smith 2002); and the question of what determines
the content of visual representations (Cummins 1989). Readers should not
expect an answer to the question of how the brain gives rise to visual expe-
rience, or the question of precisely where, within the brain, visual experi-
ence is located (Metzinger 2000; see section 1.3 below). Instead, I make the
case that visual experience has a particular intelligible structure, and that
empirical evidence suggests a similar structure within the information pro-
cessing of the visual system. My hope is that limited explanatory ambition
will engender surefooted progress.
Acknowledgments
Some of the main themes in this book are ones that I have been work-
ing on for several years, and I have had the good fortune of being helped
a great deal along the way. I would like to thank Adrian Alsmith, Harald
Atmanspacher, Radu Bogdan, Thiemo Breyer, Robert Briscoe, Bruce Brower,
Andy Clark, Maxime Doyon, Nivedita Gangopadhyay, Alistair Isaac, Jakob
Hohwy, the late Susan Hurley, Thomas Metzinger, Alva Noë, Lisa Quadt,
Susanna Schellenberg, Susanna Siegel, Mel Slater, Finn Spicer, Jennifer
Windt, Dan Zahavi, the Mainz Journal Club, and two anonymous reviewers
for the MIT Press. Very special thanks go to Sascha Fink, Wanja Wiese, and
Jeffrey Yoshimi, all of whom offered detailed comments on the penultimate
draft of the book. Research for this work was supported by the EC Project
VERE, funded under the EU 7th Framework Program, Future and Emerging
Technologies (Grant 257695).
Chapter 3 includes material from my “Anticipation and Variation in
Visual Content” (2013), Philosophical Studies 165, 335–347.
Chapter 7 includes material from my “The Dorsal Stream and the Visual
Horizon” (2011), Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 10, 423–438.
Chapter 9 includes material from my “Seeing Our World” (2015), in M.
Doyon and T. Breyer (Eds.), Normativity in Perception (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan).
The appendix includes material from my “Husserl on Perceptual Con-
stancy” (2012), European Journal of Philosophy 20, 145–165.
All of this material has been reworked, in many places extensively.
Abbreviations
AF: The main thesis of the book; that is, visual perception is an ongoing
process of anticipation and fulfillment.
EVM: The early vision module.
F: Factual content. Visual perception represents factual properties, which
are properties that are in principle perceivable from multiple perspectives.
PC: Perspectival connectedness. If S substantially changes her perspective
on o, her visual phenomenology will change as a result of this change (from
Siegel 2010a: 179).
PC′: Perspectival connectedness′. If S substantially changes her perspective
on o, her visual phenomenology will present different views of o’s factual
properties.
SA: Specific anticipation. Visual anticipation is more specific than indicated
in the consequent of PC.
VCS: Main thesis of chapter 9; that is, visual content has a strong social
element (for humans).
Part I
1 Introduction
1.1 The Main Argument
What is the general structure of visual experience? My answer to this ques-
tion is the main thesis of this book (abbreviated AF):
AF: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment.
But what does AF mean? Is it a claim about the phenomenology, the “what
it is like,” of visual experience, or is it a claim about the physical processes
that enable visual experience? It is both. I mean to claim that the general
structure of anticipation and fulfillment describes both the phenomenol-
ogy as well as the causal processes that enable vision. The Main Argument
of the book can be expressed as follows.
The Main Argument
(1) The descriptive premise: The phenomenology of vision is best described
as an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment.
(2) The empirical premise: There are strong empirical reasons to model
vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment.
(AF) Conclusion: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and
fulfillment.
Chapters 2 through 4 make the case for the descriptive premise, and
chapters 5 through 7 make the case for the empirical premise. Chapter 8
focuses on theoretical issues surrounding the Main Argument itself. The
final chapter of the book shows how AF motivates the claim that there is
a strong social element to perceptual content1 for humans. Here I should
also note that my defense of AF throughout the book will touch on many
of the major issues in the philosophy and sciences of visual perception.
