Bishop J. M. & Martin A. O. (2014) Contemporary sensorimotor theory: A brief introduction. In: Bishop J. M. & Martin A. O. (eds.) Contemporary sensorimotor theory. Springer, Heidelberg: 1–22. https://cepa.info/2525
Excerpt: ‘Sensorimotor Theory’ offers a new enactive approach to perception that emphasises the role of motor actions and their effect on sensory stimuli. The seminal publication that launched the field is the target paper co-authored by J. Kevin O’Regan and Alva Noë and published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) for open peer commentary in 2001. In the central argument of their paper, O’Regan and Noë suggest radically shifting the nexus of research in visual perception away from analysis of the raw visual patterns of stimulation, to refocus on the law-like changes in visual stimulation brought about as a result of an agent’s actions in the [light-filled] world. A key consequence of this change is a new way of characterising objects by the unique set of ‘sensorimotor correspondences’ that define the characteristic changes in objective appearance brought about by the agent-object interactions [in the world]. These characteristic correspondences relating the movement of any object relative to the agent define its sensorimotor dependencies [qua world]; an agents practical knowledge of these sensorimotor dependencies constitutes its visual experience. Thus in O’Regan and Noë’s sensorimotor theory, perhaps for the first time, we have a rich, testable, psychological (and philosophically grounded) theory that accounts for why our conscious experience of the world appears as it does. This is a significant achievement and one that, in our opinion, goes a long way to answering at least some of the hard problems of consciousness.
Daanen P. (2009) Conscious and non-conscious representation in social representations theory: Social representations from the phenomenological point of view. Culture & Psychology 15(3): 372–385.
Verheggen and Baerveldt’s (2007) recent paper critiques the concept of ‘sharedness’ in Social Representations Theory (SRT). However, these arguments against sharedness are themselves founded upon an implicit argument against the role of ‘representation’ in SRT. This constitutes what I call the phenomenological critique of SRT. From a discussion of Heidegger’s phenomenology one can better understand Verheggen and Baerveldt’s argument. By concentrating on anchoring and objectification, the notion of ‘representation’ can be conceived as both a ‘conscious’ and a ‘non-conscious’ account of meaning. A Heideggerian phenomenological approach can unify the conscious and non-conscious elements of SRT into a common framework. Such phenomenological appreciation of SRT can contribute to a theory of meaning for cultural psychology.
This article offers an account and defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with references to the so-called maker’s knowledge tradition. Its main thesis is that Plato’s ‘‘user’s knowledge’’ tradition should be complemented, if not replaced, by a constructionist approach to philosophical problems in general and to knowledge in particular. Epistemic agents know something when they are able to build (reproduce, simulate, model, construct, etc.) that something and plug the obtained information into the correct network of relations that account for it. Their epistemic expertise increases with the scope and depth of the questions that they are able to ask and answer. Thus, constructionism deprioritises mimetic, passive, and declarative knowledge that something is the case, in favour of poietic, interactive, and practical knowledge of something being the case. Metaphilosophically, constructionism suggests adding conceptual engineering to conceptual analysis as a fundamental method.
In this paper I explore a brand of scepticism about perceptual experience that takes its start from recent work in psychology and philosophy of mind on change blindness and related phenomena. I argue that the new scepticism rests on a problematic phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then consider a strengthened version of the sceptical challenge that seems to be immune to this criticism. This strengthened sceptical challenge formulates what I call the problem of perceptual presence. I show how this problem can be addressed by drawing on an enactive or sensorimotor approach to perceptual consciousness. Our experience of environmental detail consists in our access to that detail thanks to our possession of practical knowledge of the way in which what we do and sensory stimulation depend on each other.
Pépin Y. (1994) Savoirs pratiques et savoirs scolaires: une représentation constructiviste de l’éducation. Revue des sciences de l’éducation 20(1): 63–85. https://cepa.info/5945
According to the theory of constructivism, development and transformation of practical knowledge are a vital process that is unavoidable and that occurs without there being necessarily an intention to educate or to learn. A human being can effectively consider the circumstances of his or her existence when he or she produces this kind of knowledge: one always knows something that is relatively viable for oneself! Contrary to traditional writings that evaluate practical knowledge according to their degree of conformity to “established” school knowledge, the analysis proposed here considers that it is formal school learning that should be subjected to the constraints of pratical informal learning.