Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy Series

This volume addresses key questions related to how content in thought is derived from perceptual experience. It includes chapters that focus on single issues on perception and cognition, as well as others that relate these issues to an important social construct that involves both perceptual experience and cognitive activities: aesthetics. While the volume includes many diverse views, several prominent themes unite the individual essays: a challenge to the notion of the discreet, and non-temporal, unit of perception, a challenge to the traditional divide between perception and cognition, and a challenge to the traditional divide between unconscious and conscious intentionality. Additionally, the chapters discuss the content of perceptual experience, the value of traditional notions of content, disjunctivism, adverbialism, and phenomenal experience. The final section of essays dealing with perception and cognition in aesthetics features work in experimental aesthetics and unique perspectives from artists and gallerists working outside of philosophy. Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics is a timely volume that offers a range of unique perspectives on debates in philosophy of mind surrounding perception and cognition. It will also appeal to scholars working in aesthetics and art theory who are interested in the ways these debates influence our understanding of art.

Introduction

Dena Shottenkirk, Steven S. Gouveia and Manuel Curado

Section I: Perception

Chapter 1: Disjunctivism and the Internal. A Problem for McDowell’s Epistemological Disjunctivism?

Davide Dalla Rosa and Federico Sanguinetti

Chapter 2: Xenophanes’ Figs and Honey: An Essay about a Program of Philosophy of Perception

Manuel Curado

Chapter 3: A Neurophilosophical Approach to Perception

Steven S. Gouveia and Georg Northoff

Chapter 4: Smelling Molecular Structure

Benjamin D. Young

Chapter 5: "Hierarchical Bokeh" Theory of Attention

Anatoly Nichvoloda

Chapter 6: Perceiving Live Improvisation in the Performing Arts

Aili Bresnahan

Section II: Cognition

Chapter 7: Consciousness and Content in Perception

Bill Brewer

Chapter 8: Perceptual Capacities

Susanna Schellenberg

Chapter 9: Thinking Differently About Thought

Nicholas Georgalis

Chapter 10: Immediate and reflective senses

Angela Mendelovici

Chapter 11: The Unity of Unconsciousness

Tim Crane

Chapter 12: Phenomenal Experience and the Thesis of Revelation

Michelle Liu

Section III: Perception and Cognition in Aesthetics

Chapter 13: Would You Buy Absence Art?

Anya Farennikova

Chapter 14: Penetrating Beauty: Knowledge, Culture and Context in Aesthetic Perception

Jesse Prinz

Chapter 15: Gist Experience

Dena Shottenkirk

Chapter 16: How Do I Know When I Am Dancing?

Romain Bigé

Chapter 17a: Interview of James Cohan

Dena Shottenkirk

Chapter 17b: Interview of Leonel Moura

Steven S. Gouveia

Dena Shottenkirk is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Brooklyn College. Before receiving her PhD from the Graduate Center (CUNY), Shottenkirk had received an MFA in painting from Rutgers University and was employed as an art critic at both Artforum and Art in America magazines.

Manuel Curado is a Professor at the University of Minho (Portugal). He’s mainly interested in intellectual history, namely the history of the Jewish and Portuguese medicine, and the history of the representations of mental life, namely the Philosophy of Mind debate and the history of Psychiatry until the 19th century.

Steven S. Gouveia is a Ph.D. Candidate in Philosophy of Mind at the University of Minho under the supervision of Professor Manuel Curado (University of Minho) and Professor Georg Northoff (University of Ottawa), funded by the Science and Tecnhology Portuguese Foundation. More info: https://stevensgouveia.weebly.com/