A Examination of Noë's Theory of Color Perception

• Main Authors: Hsieh, Chia-Ching, 謝嘉慶
• Other Authors: Cheng, Hsi-Heng
• Format: Others
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/wsqr46

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 哲學研究所 === 104 === My aim in this MA thesis is, on the ground of enactive approach, to consider the objections proposed by Keith Allen to Alva Noë’s theory of color perception. Alva Noë proposed the enactive approach as a theory of perception, which includes an account of color experience and an ontology of color, called phenomenal objectivism. This approach argues that perception requires an implicit understanding of sensorimotor knowledge, and colors, on the other hand, are relational properties between objects and the environment. Keith Allen rejects this kind of account because he believes that phenomenal objectivism provides an account of color nature that would fail to explain the phenomenon of color perception, especially the phenomenon of perceptual presence and the required sensorimotor knowledge is complicated and too demanding for the normal people to have. I believe that all the difficulties that Allen mentions can be resolved by examining the enactive approach more carefully: actual color as a sensorimotor profile can explain the phenomenon of perceptual presence, that is, color constancy, and sensorimotor knowledge is bodily skill that normal perceivers know how to exercise very well. But there remains a problem: the enactive approach we currently have is not enough for answering the intuition behind those objections: a particular shade is somehow connected to an particular actual color. Therefore, I provide a thesis of “normal condition”to accommodate the intuition without compromising Noë’s enactive approach. This thesis goes well with the enactive approach and explains why an actual color is always named after a particular apparent color. keywords: enactive approach, sensorimotor knowledge, color, perception, perceptual presence, color constancy.