C. Landesman – författare

This book is a discussion of some of the major philosophical problems centering around the topic of sense perception and the foundations of human knowledge. It begins with a characterization of our common sense understanding of the role of the senses in the acquisition of belief, and it argues that scientific accounts of the processes of perception undermine salient parts of this understanding. The naive point of view of direct realism cannot be sustained in the light of a scientifically instructed understanding of perception. This critique of direct realism points to the correctness of the representative theory of perception characteristic of such early modem philosophers as Descartes and Locke, and it also endorses the subjective tum that they defended. It argues that these positions do not require introducing sense data into the picture, and thus it avoids the intractable problems that the sense datum philosophy introduces. In addition, several versions of cognitive accounts of sense perception are criticized with the result that it is unnecessary to characterize sensory processes in intentional terms. The book then turns to a leading question introduced into modem philosophy by Descartes and Locke, the question of the accuracy of the information delivered by the senses to our faculty of belief. In particular, how accurate are our representations of the secondary qualities? The case of color is considered in detail.

This book explains our common-sense understanding of perception and then defends a representative theory of perception as an alternative form of understanding more in accord with the results of science. It also argues against color realism and defends the view that nothing has color. This view is color skepticism. A chapter is devoted to defending color skepticism against a number of objections. The book ends with a discussion of our concept of knowledge and attempts to show that the representative theory of perception is not as vulnerable to skeptical arguments as has been assumed. The book will be of interest to students and teachers of philosophy. It is written in a clear and self-contained manner and is accessible to the general reader as well as to those with well-developed philosophical interests.