Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?

There is a traditional scepticism about whether the world "out there" really is as we perceive it. A new breed of hyper-sceptics now challenges whether we even have the perceptual experience we think we have. According to these writers, perceptual consciousness is a kind of false consciousness. This view grows out of the discovery of such phenomena as change blindness and inattentional blindness, which show that we can all be quite blind to changes taking place before our very eyes. Such radical scepticism has acute and widespread implications for the study of perception and consciousness. The writings collected in this volume explore these implications. The contributors are scientists and philosophers at the forefront of this research, and include well-known authors such as psychologists Susan Blackmore and Arien Mack, and philosophers Andy Clark and Daniel Dennett. They have an gift for bringing these paradoxical issues to life and sharing their excitement with the non-specialist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0907845231
• ISBN13: 9780907845232
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Imprint Academic (Ips)
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.9" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

Balanced Volume on a Radical New Breed of Scepticism

IS THE VISUAL WORLD A GRAND ILLUSION?, edited by Alva Noë, tackles an interesting "new breed" of scepticism. Unlike traditional scepticism, which asks whether the world "as it really is out there" is as we perceive it to be, this new breed of sceptics ask whether "we have the perceptual experience we think we have." Given growing work in perceptual theory, including work on illusions, change blindness, and inattentional blindness, some philosophers and perceptual theorists claim that our experience of the world must be a "Grand Illusion" insofar as we fail to "perceive" objects and events that are located smack-dab in the middle of our visual field. On a personal note, I took an upper-level seminar on this new area of perceptual theory and we used this volume as one of our textbooks. IS THE VISUAL WORLD A GRAND ILLUSION? is a balanced sampling, containing well-written articles from camps that answer the title question both positively and negatively. All of the articles are interesting and thought provoking. If you're looking for some of the most up-to-date work in perceptual theory that connects with broad issues of consciousness, you've come to the right place. In order to save you some time from looking at the list of contributors to this volume, I've provided a list: Alva Noë - "Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion?" Daniel C. Dennett - "How Could I Be Wrong? How Wrong Could I Be? Susan Blackmore - "There Is No Stream of Consciousness" Bruce Bridgeman - "The Grand Illusion and Petit Illusions: Interactions of Perception and Sensory Coding" Eric Schwitzgebel - "How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery" Dana H. Ballard - "Our Perception of the World Has To Be an Illusion" Davies, Hoffman, & Rodriguez - "Visual Worlds: Construction or Reconstruction?" Frank H. Durgin - "The Tinkerbell Effect: Motion Perception and Illusion" Arien Mack - "Is the Visual World a Grand Illusion? A Response" Daniel T. Levin - "Change Blindness Blindness As Visual Metacognition" Charles Siewert - "Is Visual Experience Rich or Poor" Jonathan Cohen - "The Grand Grand Illusion Illusion" Mark Rowlands - "Two Dogmas of Consciousness" Andy Clark - "Is Seeing All It Seems? Action, Reason, and the Grand Illusion" As you can see, there are some real heavy-hitters in this bunch and the volume has proved very helpful. Even if you are approaching perceptual theory for the first time, this new area of scepticism will fascinate you and many of these articles will prove accessible.