Perception: A Philosophical Overview

Perception is a sub section that comes under theory of knowledge. It is commonly accepted that “Sense perception is the use of our senses to acquire information about the world around us and to become acquainted with objects, events, and their features” (Craig, 1998, p. 287). Normally, five senses are used to perceive. They are sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. It is problematic when it comes to the usage of the word ‘perception’. We should decide the way in which we are going to use the term. 

The debate among philosophers about perception is an aged one. They have come up with different interpretations. There arose several difficulties regarding perception. What if our senses mislead us to perceive illusions, then those illusions could lead use towards improper assumptions. It will gain improper knowledge. 

Perception can be in two forms. They are the perception that is with the ordinary people and the extra sensory perception that has with the enlightened people. The ones who have extra sensory perception can define things as they are and they can define all the things one perceives. However, the ordinary people see things as they appear to them. 

There are sense datum theories of perception. Some philosophers have suggested that we are not aware of the things, entities or objects in the world. Nevertheless, we are aware only about the things which depend on the mind for the existence. To illustrate, ‘I would be aware of an entity which depends for its existence on my awareness of it’ (Craig, 1998, p. 289). Philosophers have referred sense-datum for that type of entities. 

Furthermore, there are intentional theories of perception. This relates with the beliefs of people, as one believes that Argentina will win the football world cup while others believe on something else. People are familiar with that the fact that one may think that something is true when it does not happen. To illustrate, ‘an intentional theory of perception claims that the case of perceptual experience is parallel to these examples: perceptual experience is intentional, and allows for incorrectness in its content, and non-existence of its objects in just the way that beliefs and judgments may do so’ (Craig, 1998, p. 291).

Perception is a highly philosophical problem that has an aged history. Even though many philosophers have introduced many interpretations that problems is still a philosophical problem.

Philosophical Background of Perception

The debate regarding perception is an aged one. Both eastern and western philosophers, religious leaders have emphasized on perception since it directly affects to the theory of knowledge, which is considered as the study of nature, scope, conditions, and the limits of knowledge. The historical background of perception has briefly discussed under following categories. 

-Greek period

-Medieval period

-Modern period

-Eastern views

Greek period

Sophists 

The sophists are a group of people who have originated during fifth century BC, and used knowledge in order to earn money. They have spoke on perception as a way of limiting knowledge. Protagoras who was one of the sophists, emphasized on individual relativity. According to him “man is the measure of everything, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not” (Peris, 2007, p. 199). Simply this means that everything will be relative according to the person who experience them or perceive them. To illustrate, the way one perceive weather will be subjective to each person since it is something that will be relative to the experienced person. 

Aristotle

Aristotle who is the greatest philosopher in the western philosophical history, have given an account on perception. According to Aristotle each sense has a sense organ, medium and its own proper objects. ‘Medium’ in the sense of air, water etc and ‘proper object’ in the sense of color, sound and sight. In other words it is a qualification of external phenomena. He has identified perception as causal process. 

He suggested three levels; level A-potentiality1, level B-actuality1 (potentiality2) and level C-actuality2.the one from potentiality1 to actuality1 is considered as an alteration and the one from potentiality2 to actuality2 is considered as not an alteration. Simply, he indicates perception as an alteration, which can be defined as a process of a change of a quality. The reception of perceptible form is the definition of perception by Aristotle. Physiological and cognitive are the main two interpretations of that doctrine. Physiological defines the sense organ that perceives the quality of the perceived object and cognitive lines are the senses that make people to be aware about the perceived quality of the particular object.

Plato 

Plato is another great philosopher who had done an outstanding contribution to the field of philosophy. In Theaetetus, Plato does not give a certain answer to the question of what exactly the knowledge is. Nevertheless, in Theaetetus he emphasized that knowledge is equal to the perception and to the true belief. Plato rejected the claim of Protagoras on perception. In Theaetetus he stated that, “According to us, the man who sees has acquired knowledge of what he sees, as sight, perception and knowledge are agreed to be the same thing. But the man who sees and has acquired knowledge of the thing he saw, if he shuts his eyes remembers but does not see it…but to say ‘he doesn’t see’ is to say ‘he doesn’t know’ if ‘sees’ is ‘knows’?...then we have this result, that a man who has come to know something and sill remembers it doesn’t know it because he didn’t see it?”

He places man in between perceptional and rational status. The main fact in Platonic view is that he assumes that knowledge is equal to perception.  

Modern period

Empiricists 

According to empiricists, the knowledge comes from sensory experience or perception. One could get knowledge only if one perceives something. John Lock, Berkley and Hume are considered as the most influential empiricists in 18th century. Lock mentioned in his book; and essay concerning and human understanding that the knowledge that human beings gain is a posteriori, which is based on experiences. The concept of tabula rasa describes that. According to Berkley, the god fills the gap between humans and the objects when people are not able to perceive them. 

Immanuel Kant 

Immanuel Kant is the first German philosopher who reconciled rationalism and empiricism. Perception and appearance is one of the sub themes in Kantian philosophy. Perception comes into debate as a doubt between appearance and reality. Mind is an active participant that means it is a passive recipient. After meeting the external world, the mind activates. 

According to Kant, impressions or sensations come through space and time. Nevertheless, it is not a direct knowledge as empiricists emphasized it. Those impressions are raw materials or just data. It indirectly gets the sensation. Knowledge is constructed through appearance since the mind does not know about the things in themselves. 

According to Kant, “concepts without percepts are empty and percepts without concepts are blind”. Pure reason carries the matters of the mind to the phenomenal world. Nevertheless, those matters of the mind cannot take percepts from the objects like gods. There can be occur illusions from the appearances. Kant included that in the transcendental dialectics as transcendental illusion. He brings three categories of transcendental concepts. They are speculative psychology, speculative cosmology, and speculative theology. 

In conclusion, the view of perception of Kant can be summarized as follows. There are meaningless sensations and impression in the external world. There is a linear process to make them as percepts. Those meaningless sensations and impressions are constructed into percepts through space and time with the help of the levels of sensations.

Eastern views

Buddhism

 

The Buddhist term for perception is ‘saṃjñā’, which can be defined as perceiving the qualities of the object. Perception is a sub theme under theory of knowledge. According to the Buddhism, we have two-fold perceptions. They are perception and extra sensory perception. In madhupiṇdhika sutta, which is translated as the discourse of honey-ball, is the eighth discourse that comes under sihananda chapter. The Buddha states that,

“perception we gained through our sensory objects is the chief cause for the origin of propensity to attachment, repugnance, views, perplexity, pride attachment to becoming, ignorance, taking sticks, taking weapons, quarrelling, contending, disputing, accusation, slander and lying speech” (Dhammananda thero, 2009, p. 309).

The Buddha has stated four main necessary requirements of perception. They can be listed as following. 

-“That the internal visual sense organ-the eye-is intact;

-That the external physical object coming into the percipient’s range of vision;

-Sensory impingement, and

-An appropriate act of awareness on the part of the percipient’ (Kalansuriya, 2003, p. 154).

Conclusion 

There were many interpretations on perception from the early Greek period. Sometimes there is a similarity between those ideas. However, mostly they are different from each other. As such, interpretations can be different since everyone believe their own understanding. 

Perception is a way we used to gain knowledge from the phenomenal world. For that, there should be something as an object to perceive and there should be a perceiver in order to grab the perception. If there is a barrier between the object and perceiver, then the perception can be wrongly understood. It leads to wrong assumptions and it will gain improper knowledge. Therefore, it is clear that the perception is a key important fact in theory of knowledge. 

Furthermore, most of contemporary social issues have occurred with the misperception. When people perceive things, they use reason in order to identify things. However, the capacity of reasoning would be different from person to person. To illustrate, in ordinary life we perceive things as they appear to us. Nevertheless, there might be a different story behind these incidents. 

Perception does not only perceive physical objects since even in dreams we perceive things. We identify things when we are sleeping and most of the time we can memorize them. We see things as real in our dreams. Therefore, sensory organs are not essential when it comes to perception. However, sensory organs are an essential fact when perceiving things in the phenomenal world. Brain functions, senses, and consciousness acts as a whole in order to perceive something. 

Just seeing something does not lead to gain knowledge. It should be perceived in a correct manner. For that, one needs the support of the mind, reason, sensory organs, past experiences etc. Then only one can perceive things as it is. Otherwise illusions will directs us to wrong perceptions as mirage. 

Works Cited

Craig, E. (Ed.). (1998). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Routledge.

Dhammananda thero, H. (Ed.). (2009). Pravacana. Buddhasravaka Bhikku University.

Kalansuriya, A. D. (2003). The discourse and Wittgenstein (2nd edition ed.). Sri Lanka: The Compassion Buddhist Institute.

Peris, M. (2007). The Philosophers of Ancient Greece. Colombo: Godage International Publishers (PVT) Ltd.