Robertson I (2023)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2023
Book Volume: 202
Article Number: 173
Journal Issue: 6
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-023-04385-y
Building on the landmark O’Regan and Noë (Behav Brain Sci 24:939–973, 2001) that introduced us to the sensorimotor theory of perception, Alva Noë has continued to develop and defend a highly influential enactivist account of perception. Said account takes perceptual experience to be mediated by sensorimotor knowledge (knowledge of the law-like relations that hold between bodily movements and sensory changes). In recent work, Noë has argued that we should construe sensorimotor knowledge as a kind of conceptual knowledge. One significant theoretical advantage of his account, he contends, is that it allows us to better characterize our embodied coping skills by way of showing how they are manifestations of a conceptual-and-yet-not-representational kind of understanding. He argues that both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist accounts of skill alike assume that conceptual understanding must be wedded to explicit judgement, and therefore have failed to correctly characterize the role of understanding in skilled performance. This paper argues against Noë’s contention that skilled action is always permeated with understanding. It argues additionally that Noë’s of unorthodox notion of conceptual understanding is unstable and, if it were adopted, would over-intellectualize the role of perception in action. The paper concludes by arguing that doing so frees us up to take more seriously the enactivist options for understanding skilled performance without introducing notions of conceptual understanding at all.
APA:
Robertson, I. (2023). The unbearable rightness of seeing? Conceptualism, enactivism, and skilled engagement. Synthese, 202(6). https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04385-y
MLA:
Robertson, Ian. "The unbearable rightness of seeing? Conceptualism, enactivism, and skilled engagement." Synthese 202.6 (2023).
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