Scientific Observation Is Socio-Materially Augmented Perception: Toward a Participatory Realism

by 

Tom Froese

Embodied Cognitive Science Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 1919-1 Tancha, Onna 904-0495, Okinawa, Japan

Academic Editors: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and Marcin J. Schroeder

Philosophies 2022, 7(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7020037

Received: 28 February 2022 / Revised: 29 March 2022 / Accepted: 29 March 2022 / Published: 30 March 2022

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies – Part 3)

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Abstract

There is an overlooked similarity between three classic accounts of the conditions of object experience from three distinct disciplines. (1) Sociology: the “inversion” that accompanies discovery in the natural sciences, as local causes of effects are reattributed to an observed object. (2) Psychology: the “externalization” that accompanies mastery of a visual–tactile sensory substitution interface, as tactile sensations of the proximal interface are transformed into vision-like experience of a distal object. (3) Biology: the “projection” that brings forth an animal’s Umwelt, as impressions on its body’s sensory surfaces are reconfigured into perception of an external object. This similarity between the effects of scientific practice and interface-use on the one hand, and of sensorimotor interaction on the other, becomes intelligible once we accept that skillful engagement with instruments and interfaces constitutes a socio-material augmentation of our basic perceptual capacity. This enactive interpretation stands in contrast to anti-realism about science associated with constructivist interpretations of these three phenomena, which are motivated by viewing them as the internal mental construction of the experienced object. Instead, it favors a participatory realism: the sensorimotor basis of perceptual experience loops not only through our body, but also through the external world. This allows us to conceive of object experience in relational terms, i.e., as one or more subjects directly engaging with the world. Consequently, we can appreciate scientific observation in its full complexity: it is a socio-materially augmented process of becoming acquainted with the observed object that—like tool-use and perceiving more generally—is irreducibly self, other-, and world-involving. View Full-Text

Keywords: mind–body problem; sensory substitution; direct perception; enactive cognition; tool-use; fact–value gap; philosophy of mind; cognitive science; philosophy of science; consciousness

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