Our next speaker will be Jeremy Dolan. Jeremy is a fourth-year Ph.D.
student in philosophy at New York University, being advised by Ned Block. He is visiting the Institut Jean Nicod this semester.
Title: "Apparent size and shape in visual experience"
Date, Time, Place: 30/11/2012, 4pm, Salle de Réunion du Pavillon Jardin
Abstract: Does a distant tree look smaller than an equally-sized tree that is
closer to you? Does the shape of a table seem to change as you look at
it from different points of view? Many theories of perception accept the
“appearance view,” according to which perceptual experience involves an
awareness of “appearances.” On such a theory, we experience a tree’s
apparent size changing as we move closer to it and a table’s apparent
shape changing as we change vantage points. I will discuss two
perceptual phenomena which motivate the appearance view, and I will
offer a simpler explanation of them which doesn’t require that we posit
“appearances.” Drawing on lessons from perceptual constancies, visual
illusions, multi-stable stimuli, and the reflections of artists, I will
propose a theory of shape and size perception which retains the common
sense view that when we see an object—unless things go awry—the only
shape we perceive is the shape that the object actually has.
