%T Perception, Causation, Disjunction
%L discovery10137499
%A J Hyman
%O This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
%D 2022
%C Abingdon, UK
%B Wittgenstein and Beyond
%E C Pfisterer
%E N Rathgeb
%E E Schmidt
%X British philosophy of perception conducted a step-by-step retreat from empiricism in the twentieth century, as Lockean indirect realism and phenomenalism gave way to the modern causal theory of perception advanced by Paul Grice and defended by Peter Strawson, and as that theory came under attack by Paul Snowdon, Mike Martin, and others, under the banner of disjunctivism. In this chapter, I focus almost exclusively on Grice, Strawson, and Snowdon. I do not attempt a comprehensive assessment of their views about perception. Instead, I begin with some introductory comments, placing the modern causal theory against its empiricist background, and then examine Strawson’s argument in favour of the theory and Snowdon’s objection to it. I do not contest the objection. On the contrary, I press it further, against the disjunctivism that Snowdon himself defends. The burden of my argument is that the retreat from empiricism has not gone far enough.
%I Routledge