The Intentional Horizons of Visual Experience

How is it that we can visually experience complete three-dimensional objects despite the fact we are limited, in any given perceptual moment, to perceiving the sides facing us from a specific spatial perspective ? To make sense of this, such visual experiences must refer to occluded or presently unseen back-sides which (i) are not sense-perceptually given (which are strictly not visually experienced), and (ii) which cannot be sense-perceptually given while the subject is occupying the spatial perspective on the object that they currently are – I call this the horizonality of visual experience. Existing accounts of these horizonal references are unsatisfactory. In providing a satisfactory account, this paper argues that that the content and structure of the visual experience of complete three-dimensional objects is as follows : we are perceptually presented with the objects being perceptible from yet-to-be-determined different ego-centric locations. As part of the content of visual experience, this motivates non-propositional attitudes of anticipation. Explicating this proposal is the central positive aim of this paper.

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