The Empirical Grammar of Perception in Brentano

Brentano’s phenomenological claims on perception can be found in the the­ory of perceptual reference as well as in the philosophical, that is, descriptive psychology (1874, 1982). Brentano contends that denoting something makes sense only if it implies an intentional reference by a subject to whom some­thing appears. If generalized, this claim means that something

The Elements of Phenomena

Brentano (1982: 138-139) holds that in general the merely physiological expla­nations fail to account for the inherent articulation of perceptual phenom­ena. Regardless of the physiological level at which the correlates are identified, perception is treated as a simple state while the plurality of its constitutive elements and their connection is overlooked. However simple they

The Neutral Science of Appearances in Stumpf

Stumpf (1907) maintains that phenomenology is a “neutral science,” whose objects are different from those of natural and human sciences. As a paradigm of natural science, physics “deduces” its objects from expe­rience. Unlike the pre-modern view of science, this does not mean that the objects of physics are constructed directly from appearances of color,

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The Immanent Structural Laws of Appearances

Stumpf’s conclusion is that appearances are “objective,” that is, they are given outside of and before the subjects, and their properties do not arise by means of psychic functions but rather trigger and guide them. If psychic functions react to appearances, no perceptual change occurs that is not admitted among the variations allowed by

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Husserl and the Form of the Theories of Perception

Husserl considers phenomenology a kind of meta-theory of knowledge. He claims that a theory is not a bundle of sentences or observations. It is a rule- based connection of propositions obtained by inductive or deductive methods as well as a model of the domain of its objects (1900/1901). Philosophical or scientific theories have theoretical

Phenomenal Reality and Psychology of Perception in Metzger

Metzger (1941: 10, 25) recognizes Husserl’s phenomenological contribution to a science of perception that prevents common-sense assumptions as well as extraneous philosophical concepts and scientific findings from defining its primitives. If the latter were drawn from the known physical and physiological properties of stimulation, the research could be limited solely to those features that

Koffka on the Phenomenological Questions of Perception Science

Koffka (1955) claims that the psychological theory of perception has to address the question “why do things look as they do?” This question epitomizes the phenomenological commitment of experimental research. Koffka maintains that a valid theory of perception should answer this question to be true to perceptual experience, and is thus committed to finding

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Experience, Science and Philosophy in Kohler

Kohler’s arguments on the epistemology of perception and the scientific method show that the philosophical tenets of phenomenology have experi­mental implications. Kohler (1944) claims that phenomenology provides the foundation of philosophy and science because it demands that a construct is admitted if justified by a valid description of phenomena. Of course, the ex­planation of

Meinong on Color Manifold

Meinong (1903) makes an analysis of the abstract structure of colors, which satisfies a general tenet on the study of experience derived from Brentano. He contends that the theory of experience is the analysis of the elements and the connections that are manifested in it. Meinong (1888: 134) holds that the phenomenal elements of

The Phenomenal Array of Experience: Boundaries and Continua in Brentano

Brentano (1976) formulates the theory of boundaries and qualitative continua for a deeper analysis of the nature of the spatial element that is a constitu­tive part of appearances (1982: 104-115). The primary object of perception is composed of the local determination of the place in the visual field where it occurs and of the

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Meaning in the Perceptual Field: Figure-Ground and Contour in Rubin

In his work on the figure-ground structure, Rubin (1921) addresses similar questions to Brentano’s theory of boundaries and qualitative continua. Ru­bin was acquainted with the theories of the Brentano School and quotes the work of Meinong, Benussi and Husserl, together with Schumann (1900) and and Schapp (1910). This section emphasizes the extent to which

Katz: The Phenomenological Method and Color and Touch Modes of Appearances

Katz recognized the importance of Husserl’s philosophical phenomenology and the application of its method to his research (Spiegelberg, 1972: 43). It is true that he acknowledges that Hering had already argued the need for a phe­nomenological analysis of color and attributes to Husserl an important role in clarifying the implications of the phenomenological method,

Wertheimer: The Perception of Movement and the “Natural” Organization

The work of Wertheimer (1912a and 1923) is correctly considered to lay bare the experimental foundations of Gestalt psychology. However, it is interesting to note the phenomenological tenets of his research that are to some extent independent of the Berlin School of Gestalt theory. It is well known that the first article deals with

Goldmeier: The Phenomenal Content of Similarity and the Structure of Visual Objects

Goldmeier (1937) gives another example of how phenomenology is embedded in the experimental research into perceptual experience. Goldmeier claims that similarity (Ahnlichkeit) is a fundamental category of perception and conceptual cognition. In ordinary experience, similarity is actually perceived and its visual effects are compelling. Since the perceived similarity founds the ordering and sets the

Kanizsa: The Independence of Perception and the Autonomy of Vision Science

Kanizsa (1980) holds that the science of perception stems from questions about how and why the perceptual world is parsed into distinct objects, in particular why just these objects appear and why they are endowed with just that shape, color, size, depth, localization, motion, smell, hardness and so on. To answer these questions with

Bozzi: The Epistemological Foundation of Experimental Phenomenology

Bozzi (1989, 2002) presents the theoretical and empirical arguments in support of experimental phenomenology as the science of perception whose domain is closed in the sense that concepts, constants and variables are admitted only if their meaning and course value is bounded by observable referents. However, the primitives of the theory have to be

The Stimulus Error. Unobservable Posits and the Variety of Data in Phenomenology

Kohler (1929a: 162) states that the psychology of perception has to avoid the “stimulus error,” namely it should not confuse “the knowledge about the physical conditions of sensory experience with this experience as such.” This phenomenological point has epistemological as well as methodological impli­cations for perception science. The stimulus error derives from assuming that

Phenomenal Structures and Comparative Judgements in Phenomenology

Koffka (1917, 1922) provides a wealth of arguments to support Kohler’s phe­nomenological point. He provides an analysis of the perceptual judgements in the experimental setting and the structure of phenomenal data. If the task is the comparison between couples of colors, sounds and spatial elements, the constancy hypothesis assumes that there must be a

Perceptual and Geometrical Properties of Visual Figures in Phenomenology

Rubin reconstructs the reason for what Kohler called the stimulus error as the inconsistent use of descriptions in which terms denoting geometric and perceptual properties occur without specification of their intended interpre­tation. The use of the same terms to denote everyday material objects, visual objects and figures of elementary geometry, as well as the

The Variety of Stimulus Errors in Phenomenology

Rubin’s remarks on the role of language are similar to Bozzi’s discussion of the variety of stimulus errors (1972). Like Rubin, Bozzi claims that the stimulus er­ror stems from the fact that the same language is used to denote mechanical and projective properties as well as perceptual properties of objects. In experi­mental practice, this