| In the dissertation I identify the 'perspectival content' of perception. The concept of perspectival content is influenced by the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl as well as recent work on embodied perception by Alva Noe. I argue that perspectival content is non-representational, which creates a challenge for the representationalism of Michael Tye, Fred Dretske, and Alva Noe. Then I discuss ways in which perspectival content might be modeled mathematically. In particular, I suggest that models of perspectival content will fit well with recent work on the coarse-graining of dynamical systems models of neural activity (work by Harald Atmanspacher and Peter beim Graben). In the final parts of the dissertation, I argue that my model of perceptual content has advantages over a similar model recently proposed by David Chalmers (2005). I also discuss how my model is not susceptible to versions of the critique of 'the given' by Wilfrid Sellars and Michael Williams and address some general concerns about the object of perception. |
