Episode 5: Jocelyn Benoist discusses the philosophy of perception
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What draws philosophers to the study of perception instead of just science?
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Matt Tykman.
And I'm Mark Hopwood.
With us today is Jocelyn Benoit, White's visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris I. And he's here to talk to us about the philosophy of perception. Jocelyn Benoit, welcome. Hello. Happy to be with you. So I guess the first question we'd like to ask is a lot of people might wonder what interests philosophers specifically about perception. You know, we might ordinarily think of of perception as the sort of topic that neuroscientists study or that cognitive scientists study. Or that psychologist study, what's the nature of the interest that philosophers specifically take in perception?
Yeah, I think that of course it depends on uh the kind of conception you might endorse of philosophy. It's clear that there is no unity about that among philosophers. But uh in my view, what is essential to philosophy, it is some kind of requirement of conceptual analysis. So the take that philosophy might have on perception, it's necessarily something about the analysis of the concept of Of perception or the kind of concepts of ours that might essentially depend on perception. From that point of view, there's a substantial difference between a philosophical take on perception and uh the kind of approach that might be developed on the side of hard science. Personally I don't take that the task of philosophy about perception is to develop any kind of theory of perception.
It's much more about conceptual actual elucidation that might help us in avoiding some kind of confusion that might be possible about the concept of reception as it is used either in the ordinary language or by more substantial theories like the ones of sciences.
Okay, so rather than going into the lab and asking people about what they see or some such experiment, a philosopher is interested in thinking about the concept of perception. Um what does the concept of perception entail, how is it used, and is interested in disentangling confusions that might potentially ensue when we sort of drift off and forget about how the term perception is actually used. I wonder if maybe we could talk about an example of this kind of conceptual analysis. What's an example of
I think f first maybe uh I should add something about the relation with uh empirical observations. My view is not at all that the philosopher shouldn't pay any attention to that. I think it might be pretty important obviously about such question as perception, but the point is that the aim of philosophy as such is not to present any kind of alternative theory to the one that for instance might be developed by empirical psychology. Philosophy shouldn't be any other kind of psychology. There is no competition between philosophy and psychology about all that. But it's clear that some results of psychology might be absolutely decisive in order to make full sense of the concrete views we might have or some concepts about perception.
And from that point of view there might be a link between conceptual analysis and more empirical views. though things are not completely apart from one another, there might be a connection. But the point is much more a point about the purpose of the the project such. About possible conceptual confusions, I think that there is one that is really substantial and that is enduring in the philosophical tradition about perception and it's something philosophy should cure. It's uh let's say that's very strong tendency to approach that question of perception always from the point of view of some kind of theory of knowledge. With that idea that perception, it is essentially something that should be dealt with as some kind of knowledge.
And then the question is how far should we trust or not that knowledge? What are the conditions of possibility of that knowledge as such? Uh how far that knowledge should be opposed to other kind of knowledge. and such things.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What draws philosophers to the study of perception instead of just science?
0:19–4:28
2
How do philosophers use conceptual analysis to clarify the concept of perception?
4:28–8:56
3
Why is the traditional epistemological framing of perception considered a mistake?
8:56–13:14
4
How does the distinction between ‘local’ perception problems and the overall reality of the world arise?
13:14–16:22
5
What role do perspectival differences and individual sensory equipment play in perception?
16:22–20:56
6
How can empirical findings from psychology and neuroscience inform philosophical views on perception?
20:56–25:36
7
Why does the notion of perception involve both objects and features rather than a single simple category?
25:36–29:29
8
What is the final take‑away about the pluralistic nature of perception and its philosophical significance?
29:29–34:16
Speakers
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