Seeing our world

Michael Madary

pp. 56-72

in: Maxime Doyon, Thiemo Breyer (eds), Normativity in perception, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

We do not see the visual world. We see our visual world. That is, we see a world that we share with other humans, engaged in particular cultural practices. This claim is intended to be at odds with the way that many philosophers and scientists have traditionally thought about visual content. The traditional view has it that we see surfaces and shapes, colors and objects. I would like to defend an alternative. On this alternative, visual content includes social and rational norms. The mental operations that enable intelligent social interaction — often relegated to the inner and unconscious realm of cognition — can actually unfold in plain sight, as it were. These claims all lead to the main thesis of this chapter, which is that visual content has a strong social element. Call it thesis VCS.