Consciousness and Perceptual Experience: An Ecological and Phenomenological Approach
Cambridge University Press, 7/25/2013
EAN 9781107004511, ISBN10: 1107004519
Hardcover, 468 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 3 cm
Language: English
This book describes and proposes an unusual integrative approach to human perception that qualifies as both an ecological and a phenomenological approach at the same time. Thomas Natsoulas shows us how our consciousness - in three of six senses of the word that the book identifies - is involved in our activity of perceiving the one and only world that exists, which includes oneself as a proper part of it, and that all of us share together with the rest of life on earth. He makes the case that our stream of consciousness - in the original Jamesian sense minus his mental/physical dualism - provides us with firsthand contact with the world, as opposed to our having such contact instead with theorist-posited items such as inner mental representations, internal pictures, or sense-image models, pure figments and virtual objects, none of which can have effects on our sensory receptors.
1. Introduction
concepts of consciousness
2. Skepticism regarding consciousness
3. The normal waking state
4. Contact with the world
5. Environment
6. The life-world
7. Perceptual content
8. Experiential presence
9. Viewing
10. Inner awareness
11. Conclusion
against virtual objects.