Volume 46, Issue 1, Spring 2008
René Jagnow
Pages 45-67
Disappearing Appearances
On the Enactive Approach to Spatial Perceptual Content
Many viewers presented with a round plate tilted to their line of sight will report that they see a round plate that looks elliptical from their perspective. Alva Noë thinks that we should take reports of this kind as adequate descriptions of the phenomenology of spatial experiences. He argues that his so-called enactive or sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content explains why both the plate’s circularity and its
elliptical appearance are phenomenal aspects of experience. In this paper, I critique the phenomenal adequacy of Noë’s sensorimotor account of spatial perceptual content. I begin by showing that some of
its central claims are in conflict with the phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then argue that shape appearances have no phenomenal reality, thus undermining this central motivation for his account.