Blindsight and philosophy

Journal/Book: Philos Psychol. 1998; 11: PO Box 25, Abingdon OX14 3UE, Oxfordshire, England. Carfax Publ Co. 137-159.

Abstract: The evidence of blindsight is occasionally used to argue that we can see things, and thus have perceptual belief, without the distinctive visual awareness accompanying normal sight; thereby displacing phenomenality as a component of the concept of vision. I maintain that arguments to this end typically rely on misconceptions about blindsight and almost always ignore associated visual (or visuomotor) pathologies relevant to the lessons of such cases. More specifically, I conclude, first, that the phenomena very likely do not result from dissociations within a single system, bus from the interaction of evolutionarily distinct, if interacting, systems; second, that a closer study of spared motor abilities indicates that verbal responses of patients result not from degraded vision but from proprioception; and, finally, above chance verbal responses, being forced guesses, are not tentative beliefs and cannot become beliefs just by training patients to have more confidence in their responses.

Note: Article Vision G, Temple Univ, Dept Philosophy, Philadelphia,PA 19122 USA

Keyword(s): GRASPING MOVEMENTS; TEMPORAL CORTEX; VISUAL FUNCTION; VISION; COLOR

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