The Causal Theory Of Perception

The Causal theory is an old theory. It has different content in different era. The contemporary causal theory doesn’t concern with the concrete realizing mechanism about the causal process in perception, rather, it concerns with the nature of perception and the relation between the concept of perception and causation.There are two central questions in this thesis:how to understand the causation involved in the perception in the pre-scientific or philosophical sense; in what sense that the concept of perception is a causal conception.Chapter one formulates the content of causal theory of perception and two arguments of it.Chapter two examines the objection coming from the disjunctivism of perception and responses of causal theory of perception. Disjunctivists argue that we do not understand perception following the way of causal theory of perception, and the disjunctive concept of experience is a better understanding than the non-disjunctive concept of experience implied in the causal theory——the former has advantage in the epistemological aspect. Child as a causalist suggests that there are two kinds of compatiblism of disjunctivism and causal theory:mentalism and physicalism. Steward resolves the conflict between disjunctivism and causal theory by illuminating that the ontological status of causation in perception should be understood as fact rather than events.Chapter three and chapter four discuss about what it takes for the concept of perception to be a kind of causal concept. Chapter three firstly introduces three dimensions in talking about causal concepts, and then examines the possibility to view the concept of perception as a causal concept in these three senses in turn. I argue that only the third understanding is right. Thus the concept of perception is a kind of causal concept should means that our ordinary thinking about vision is a kind of causal thinking. There are two sorts of opinion in interrupting this suggestion. Orthodox causalists insist that the concept of perception must represent or be conceived causal process. While the liberal causalists deny this, they suggest that the concept of perception only need to represent the perception to be controlled by enabling or defeating conditions. Orthodox causlists agrue that the claim that suggested by liberal causalism seems to be trivial.To prove that the accusation of liberal causalism by orthodox ones are unreasonable, chapter four agrues that the difference-making conception of causation underlying liberal causalism is independent from the geometrical/mechanical conception underlying orthodox causalism in terms of the manifestation of causation and causal cognition of subject.At last, the thesis defends the view that the concept of causation should be the kind of causal concept based on the difference-making understanding of causation.