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The Neurobiology of Observation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Daniel Gilman
Daniel Gilman*
Affiliation:
College of Medicine The Pennsylvania State University
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, The Penn State University, College of Medicine, Department of Humanities, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, P.O. Box 850, Hershey, PA 17033.
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Abstract

Paul Churchland has recently argued that empirical evidence strongly suggests that perception is penetrable to the beliefs or theories held by individual perceivers (1988). While there has been much discussion of the sorts of psychological cases he presents, little has been said about his arguments from neurology. I offer a critical examination of his claim that certain efferents in the brain are evidence against perceptual encapsulation. I argue that his neurological evidence is inadequate to his philosophical goals, both by itself and taken in concert with his psychological evidence.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 496 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Special thanks are due to Ron McClamrock and William Wimsatt for their comments on, and criticism of, an early version of this discussion.

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