[MaFLa] Cognitive Penetration of Colour Experience: Rethinking the Issue in Light of an Indirect Mechanism

[Krisztina Biber]

The CEU Philosophy Department cordially invites you to a talk 
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Fiona Macpherson (University of Glasgow)) 
on
Cognitive Penetration of Colour Experience: Rethinking the Issue in
Light of an Indirect Mechanism

Tuesday, 24 November 2009, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412

ABSTRACT

Can the phenomenal character of perceptual experience be altered by the
states of one’s cognitive system, for example, one’s thoughts or
beliefs? If one thinks that this can happen (at least in certain ways
that are identified in the paper) then one thinks that there can be
cognitive penetration of perceptual experience; otherwise, one thinks
that perceptual experience is cognitively impenetrable. I claim that
there is one alleged case of cognitive penetration that cannot be
explained away by the standard strategies one can typically use to
explain away alleged cases. The case is one in which it seems
subjects’ beliefs about the typical colour of objects affects their
colour experience. I propose a two-step mechanism of indirect cognitive
penetration that explains how cognitive penetration may occur. I show
that there is independent evidence that each step in this process can
occur. I suspect that people who are opposed to the idea that perceptual
experience is cognitively penetrable will be less opposed to the idea
when they come to consider this indirect mechanism and that those who
are generally sympathetic to the idea of cognitive penetrability will
welcome the elucidation of this plausible mechanism.

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