WIPS

Title: "Perceiving as self-caused"

Abstract

Much has been written about the self-monitoring mechanism in cognitive psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. However, theorists have yet to provide a systematic account of the perceptual phenomenology underpinned by this mechanism, especially in non-pathological contexts. In this paper, I provide an account of this important, yet neglected, aspect of perceptual experience. I refer to this agential feature of perceptual experience as the phenomenology of perceiving as self-caused (or ‘familiarity*’ for short). My account of familiarity* consists of two claims. First, I argue that familiarity* is not represented in perceptual experience. Rather, it is best modeled as a type of intentional mode that perceivers bear to contents. Second, I argue that the presence of familiarity* is a function of the degree of agential control perceivers have over alterations to perceptual content. To illustrate the proposed account, I use the bodily senses as a case study. I show that familiarity* is differentially present among different bodily senses. This differential presence is explained by the varying degrees of agential control perceivers have over changes to the perceptual content.