Vision, Sign, and Inference

Abstract

In this paper I defend the thesis that perceiving—and by implication, vision—is inferential or semiotic. Whenever a person sees an object, that object’s stimulation of the perceiver functions as a sign that is interpreted in the conscious response of the perceiver; the stimulation functions as a premise from which the perceiver infers a conclusion which is a conscious response. The argument has two basic steps. 1) Perception is a three-termed relationship between the object perceived, a mediating element, and a conscious response; certain facts about how we perceive with the minor sense are taken into account, and cases of identical stimuli resulting in different responses are suggested as evidence that perception is mediated. 2) This mediating element takes the form of a sign which is interpreted by the conscious response, or a set of premises for which the conscious response is a conclusion; some of Charles Sanders Peirce’s ideas about perception and signs are developed—especially his concept of a percept and a perceptual judgment, and his classification of signs. There is an important similarity between the perceptual world taken as a system of signs and the system of signs we ordinarily think of as visible language. Just as we learn to read, we learn to perceive.