Perceptual content and sensorimotor expectations

Abstract

I distinguish between two kinds of sensorimotor expectations: agent- and object-active ones. Alva Noë's answer to the problem of how perception acquires volumetric content illicitly privileges agentactive expectations over object-active expectations, though the two are explanatorily on a par. Considerations which Noë draws upon concerning how organisms may 'off-load' internal processes onto the environment do not support his view that volumetric content depends on our embodiment; rather, they support a view of experience which is restrictive of the body's role in perception. My objections undercut central arguments which Noë gives for his brand of enactivism. © 2010 The Author The Philosophical Quarterly © 2010 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly. Published by Blackwell Publishing.