International symposium
Cognition and Interpretation

Institute of philosophy,
Zagreb, October 10-11, 2003

Snježana Prijić-Samaržija (Rijeka)
Some epistemological consequences of dual-aspect theory of visual perception

One of the most fundamental epistemological questions is following: Can we know about the world as it really is, or we are restricted to knowledge of the world as it is shaped and coloured by our own thoughts and experience? We have tried to participate in this big epistemological discussion by consider one rather more specific question: Can we perceive the world as it really is, or we are restricted to perception of the world as it is shaped and coloured by our own thoughts and experience? In seeking whether perceptual beliefs represent “how things really are” or they only deliver a certain perspective on things, we obviously pursue a sort of realist/anti-realist’s debate regarding perception. In this paper we have appealed on the Joel Norman’s dual aspect-theory about visual perception in the quest whether perception functions as a representer of how world really is or rather as a producer or distorter. He recognized that the results of impressive and conclusive amount of neurophysiologic, neuropsychological and psychophysical experiments strongly suggest that there are two visual systems – dorsal and ventral systems – with specific modes of functioning but with the complementary contribution to the perception. We have tried to derive some epistemological consequences from dual-aspect theory of perception with an aim to show that such a theory of visual perception does not support the assumed realist’s epistemological theses.