Ways of Seeing. The Scope and Limits of Visual Cognition

Ways of seeing is a book about human vision. It results from the collaboration between a philosopher and a cognitive neuroscientist. In the past forty years, cognitive neuroscience bas made many startling discoveries about the human brain, and about the human visual system in particular. This book brings many recent empirical findings, from electrophysiological recordings in animals, the neuropsychological examination of human patients, psychophysics, and developmental cognitive psychology, to bear on questions traditionally addressed by philosophers: what is the meaning of the English verb " to see "? How does visual experience yield knowledge of the world? How does visual perception relate to thought? What is the role of conscious visual awareness in visually guided actions? How does seeing actions relate to seeing objects? In the process, the book provides a new assessment of the " two visual systems " hypothesis, according to which the human visual system comprises two anatomical pathways with separable visual fonctions. The first truly interdisciplinary book about human vision, it will be of interest to students and researchers in many areas of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind.