Publisher's Synopsis
This book investigates the claim that perceptual qualities such as colours, tastes, and sounds are mind-dependent or relative rather than objective characteristics of the world as it exists independently of us. According to this view, the gulf between appearance and reality is vast, and bridgeable not in perceptual experience, but only in physical theory and philosophical analysis.;The author examines the 17th-century origins of this conception and sketches its historical development. He provides a detailed analysis of the notions of sensation and perception and highlights the confusion between scientists and philosophers in their discussions of these notions.;In the course of his analysis, Peter Hacker addresses concepts of different perceptual qualities, examining classical conundrums.
