The geometry of visual experience

Abstract

In this thesis I examine what the geometry of visual experience is. This is a question which to some has had an a priori answer, and to some its relevance to philosophy has been considered questionable. I argue that the question is of philosophical concern partly because it generates an interesting form of the argument from illusion against Direct Realism, and partly because it concerns the phenomenal character of visual experience. I consider and offer objections to a number of arguments, both a priori and empirical, for the conclusion that the geometry of visual experience is not the same as the geometry of the physical environment. Three proposals are argued against: that visual experience underdetermines a geometry; that the geometry is of the spherical non-Euclidean type; and that the geometry is of the hyperbolic non- Euclidean type.