title: Perceptual representation, veridicality, and the interface theory of perception.
abstract: Hoffman, Singh, and Prakash (henceforth, HSP) argue that perception was not selected for veridical representation, hence that, contrary to a very widespread consensus, there's much less of the latter than you might expect in perception. And they put forward an alternative "interface" theory, on which perception is an adaptively useful but truth-obscuring veil between perceiver and perceived. But HSP's case against veridical perception, and their case for an alternative account, turn crucially on significant misapprehensions in the early going about what veridicality amounts to. In this paper I'll identify this mistake, and then argue that it both undercuts HSP's arguments against perceptual veridicality and prevents them from seeing that their own preferred conception of perception is itself committed to veridical representation, rather than an alternative to it. In the end, I'll conclude, HSP give us no reasons to abandon the standard view that perception veridically represents the world.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0119, USA. joncohen@aardvark.ucsd.edu.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cohen
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D006801:Humans; D010465:Perception; D011582:Psychological Theory
keywords: Content; Perception; Representation; Veridicality