Sensory Knowledge

This conceptual paper examines reasons why analytically educated learners may be reluctant to engage in sensory-based learning. Sensing is indispensable for constructing knowledge and should be employed on par with the intellect, particularly in today's complex and uncertain context. Yet, we have observed learners' reluctance to engage with sensing and attempted to understand the reasons for it. Our theoretical contribution illuminates the underlying causes of this phenomenon, thus furthering the study of sensing in the fields of individual learning and management learning. Our practical contribution prompts researchers, learners, educators, and managers to think more systematically about ways to overcome this reluctance and openly bring sensing into management learning practice on par with intellectual processing. With the help of phenomenal theorizing, the presented exploratory study identifies the following common barriers to sensorybased learning for analytically educated learners: corporate social norms against sensory-based evidence, discomfort of learning outside of one's comfort zone, inadequate vocabulary for sensory experiences, lack of sensory awareness, preference for sequential reasoning, mistrust in sensory-based evidence, dismissive attitude, and denying (or not admitting to) the use of sensing.

Em 2013, no território indígena Pitaguary. Na Retomada da Pedreira Encantada, junto com outras pessoa e movimentos sociais engajados com indígenas para resistir a mais uma expropriação de direitos que estava preste a se concretizar, em um cenário conflituoso principalmente para os que tentam assegurar o mínimo para os parentes e aliados. Foi em meio a reuniões “a boca miúda”, planos, estratégias, noites de vigília e na companhia dos Encantados que, nesse primeiro momento, fui entrando em sintonia com esse povo. Apoiando essa resistência com a difusão das imagens. Posteriormente, fui me engajando na vida da aldeia, me tornando um pesquisador, irmão e aliado. Sem nenhum conhecimento prévio do que me esperava, sem uma ideia preconcebida sobre aquele povo. Ignorância, desinformação, colonialidade? Foi na prática que fui descobrindo o povo indígena, não só no Ceará, mas também em outros territórios. Alguns anos mais tarde, os estudos de Antropologia iriam ampliar ainda mais a minha percepção. Durante esse percurso, experimentei diferentes itinerâncias dentro e fora da aldeia, aprendendo algumas habilidades e aprimorando outras. É pensando no trabalho antropológico, nos moldes propostos por Tim Ingold, que pretendo afinar essa escrita às experiências vividas e começar a pensar sobre sua proposta de educação atentiva. Portanto, é para partilhar parte dessa experiência e da produção de imagens, junto a esse povo, que me propus a escrever esse trabalho. E foi, mais ou menos nesse passo, entre idas e vindas à aldeia, que cheguei até aqui.

There are two arguments in the contemporary philosophy of visual consciousness and visual perception with which a theory of visual experience should deal. On the one hand, the Argument from Transparency that concerns the intentionality of visual experiences. On the other hand, the Argument from Revelation that concerns the epistemic role of visual experiences.

Under certain conditions, by having visual experiences (namely, a kind of sensory phenomenal state) conscious creatures have access to certain things, e.g. the blue sky, a red circle or the movement of a hand. In other terms, when a phenomenally conscious creature has a visual experience of the blue sky, the blue sky is somehow present to that creature in a visual format. This is an intuitive judgment. Appearances notwithstanding, there isn't theoretical agreement regarding the nature of what is present by having visual experiences.

Clarifying the nature of what is phenomenally present goes hand in hand with clarifying the nature of what is phenomenally absent. On the basis of this desideratum in this paper I will motivate the following conjecture: ontologically neutral analysis of the Argument from Transparency and the Argument for Revelation (and their relations) provides explanatory principles for elucidating the explananda of theory of  visual phenomenal content, which is a fundamental part of a general theory of visual experiences. I will identify and describe versions of these arguments that don't required strong ontological commitments regarding the intentional objects of visual experiences, thereby understanding their conceptual relations as providing a basic characterization of what should be explained by a theory of visual phenomenal presence.

In the first part I will describe some standard interpretations of the arguments, as well as their logical structures and their ontologically neutral alternatives. In this way, I will provide an analysis of each argument for identifying some metaphysical and epistemological assumptions associated with non-neutral versions. In the second part I will make explicit strong relations between these arguments and specify the working concepts ‘transparent’ and ‘revealed’. Furthermore, I will introduce what I'll call the Hybrid Argument – an argument that leads to three claims that jointly provide an ontologically neutral (i.e., unbiased) characterization of visual phenomenal content.