A Study of Perceptual Systems in Phenomenology and Ecological Psychology

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What is the nature of perception? By tradition, perception is often regarded as the basic model of consciousness. The aim of this study is to examine the nature of perception, by means of comparing the phenomenological theory on perception with other perceptual theories in 19^<th>-20^<th> centuries. To explore a little further into this theme, three points need to be made.The first point is to classify various perceptual theories into three general types : 1)direct realism, 2)representative realism, 3)idealism. Direct realism accepts realist view of physical world and takes perceptual access to this world to be direct. Representative realism accepts realist view of physical world too, but takes perceptual access to this world to be mediated by some kind of representations. Idealism refuses both realist view of physical world and directness of perceptual access to the world.The second point is to inquire the conflict between representational theory of perception and anti-representational theory of it. To put it more concretely, it is needed to compare two important stances about perception : representative realism (computational approaches or connectionism) and direct realism (Gibson's ecological psychology of perception).The third point is to focus attention to idealism and investigate some types of it. They may fall into two categories : 1)material idealism (Berkeley, Descartes), 2)formal idealism (Kant).If we try to situate phenomenological interpretation of perception into the logical geography of perceptual theory that was delineated from three points in the above, it will clear that the concept "perceptual systems" is characteristics, not only of Gibsonian approach, but also of Husserlian view of perception. Although it is important to note the differences between them (the former is based on the direct realism, the latter is a kind of idealism), we can find the interactionisitic understandings of perception in them.