Browsing by Author "Vaus, Sander"

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Cognitive Penetrability of Perception in Predictive Brains
(Tartu Ülikool, 2016) Vaus, Sander; Cohnitz, Daniel, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofiateaduskond; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofia osakond
The debate over whether perception is cognitively penetrable, in order to remain philosophically interesting and relevant, should be unpacked in terms of discerning whether propositional states can directly modulate the low-level phenomenal features of one’s perceptual experience. For this, it should also engage with cognitive science, and it is by proposing a scientifically feasible mechanism of how cognitive penetrability could obtain that there is even a reason for considering it. The predictive coding model of perception provides a framework within which such a mechanism can be motivated. By framing perception as a process of probabilistic inference, wherein top-down models of the world are tested against bottom-up error signals, we can discern whether propositional attitudes could affect the inhibitory and excitatory signaling of sensory neurons in a way that either promotes or inhibits the top-down predictive model that constitutes one’s perceptual experience, all the while preserving the necessary kind of relation between perception and cognition. In a three dimensional variation of the Ebbinghaus illusion, this can in fact be shown to happen, establishing cognitive penetrability of perception and a working mechanism by which this could take place.
The normativity of truth in cognitive evaluation
(Tartu Ülikool, 2014) Vaus, Sander; Cohnitz, Daniel, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofia ja semiootika instituut
In this essay I will defend Stephen Stich’s pragmatic theory of cognitive evaluation. The most striking feature of his view is that it doesn’t place truth center-stage as a criterion of a good cognitive system. In fact, he argues that having true beliefs is of little value, both intrinsically and instrumentally, and what we should really want is to have beliefs that allow us to attain the things that we actually value. This view is contested by Hilary Kornblith, who argues that even if truth is not something we value intrinsically, then it is always of instrumental value for attaining the things that we actually want to attain. For him, truth plays a pre-eminent role in cognitive evaluation, and placing value on truth is thus pragmatically preferable.