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SUMMARY:Spatial experience: more than mere structure - Peter Epstein (Facu
 lty of Philosophy)
DTSTART:20190213T130000Z
DTEND:20190213T143000Z
UID:TALK118324@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Matt Farr
DESCRIPTION:According to a widely-held view of spatial experience known as
  structuralism\, perceptual representations of spatial features are merely
  structurally isomorphic to abstract Euclidean geometry\; they do not them
 selves comprise substantive Euclidean concepts. Building off of a distinct
 ion between geometrical and merely metaphorical spaces developed by Tim Ma
 udlin\, I show that this structuralist view fails to explain the way in wh
 ich we apply our Euclidean concepts to the spatial features we perceive. F
 or\, on the structuralist picture\, the results of Euclidean geometry woul
 d be equally applicable in perception to any set of features isomorphic to
  Euclidean space. Colours are one such set of features: their variations a
 long the dimensions of hue\, saturation and brightness can be used to gene
 rate a (metaphorical) colour 'space' that maps onto the structure of Eucli
 dean space. But we do not perceive colours\, in spite of their being isomo
 rphic to the features we reason about in Euclidean proof\, as instances of
  Euclidean spatial relations – we do not see groups of objects as\, say\
 , square in virtue of their colour properties. It is only when we perceive
  the literal spatial features of objects – for example\, when we see a c
 hessboard as a square – that we take our geometrical concepts to be appl
 icable. This shows that\, unlike in the case of colour\, the connection be
 tween our spatial experience and our geometrical reasoning is more than me
 rely structural.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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