Perceptual Capacities

Abstract

Perception is constitutively a matter of discriminating and singling out particulars by employing perceptual capacities. To be a perceiver is to possess such capacities, to perceive is to employ them, and employing them constitutes perceptual states. What are perceptual capacities? Drawing on work in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology, Chapter 2 develops an account of perceptual capacities. It includes an analysis of their function, their individuation and possession conditions, their physical and informational base, as well as their repeatability, fallibility, and the asymmetry of their employment in perception, on the one hand, and hallucination and illusion, on the other. In providing this analysis, the chapter gives an account of the general elements of perception.