In "Perception: First Form of Mind", Tyler Burge develops an understanding of the most primitive type of representational mind: perception. Focusing on its form, function, and underlying capacities, as indicated in the sciences of perception, Burge provides an account of the representational content and formal representational structure of perceptual states, and develops a formal semantics for them. The account is elaborated by an explanation of how the representational form is embedded in an iconic format. These structures are then situated in current theoretical accounts of the processing of perceptual representations, with an emphasis on the formation of perceptual categorizations. An exploration of the relationship between perception and other primitive capacities-conation, attention, memory, anticipation, affect, learning, and imagining-clarifies the distinction between perceiving, with its associated capacities, and thinking, with its associated capacities. Drawing on a broad range of historical and contemporary research, rather than relying on introspection or ordinary talk about perception, "Perception: First Form of Mind" is a scientifically rigorous and agenda-setting work in the philosophy of perception and the philosophy of science.

PrefacePart I: Perception1:Introduction2:Perception3:Perceptual Constancy: A Central Psychological Natural KindPart II: Form4:Some Basics about Perception and Perceptual Systems5:Perceptual Reference Requires Perceptual Attribution6:Form and Semantics of Perceptual Representational Contents7:Perceptual Attributives and Referential Applications in Perceptual Constancies8:Egocentric Indexing in Perceptual Spatial and Temporal Frameworks9:The Iconic Nature of PerceptionPart III: Formation10:First-formed Perception11:Intra-saccadic Perception and Recurrent Processing12:Further Attributives: Primitive Attribution of Causation, AgencyPart IV: System13:Perceptual-level Representation and Categorization14:Perceptual-level Conation and Relatively Primitive, Perceptually Guided Action15:Perceptual Attention16:Perceptual Memory I: Shorter Term Systems17:Perceptual Memory II: Visual Perceptual Long-Term Memory18:Perceptual Learning, Perceptual Anticipation, Perceptual Imagining19:Perception and Cognition20:Conclusion

Tyler Burge is Flint Professor of Philosophy, UCLA, where has taught since 1971. He has held visiting positions at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Munich, Bayreuth, Bologna, and Zurich. He has delivered numerous named lecture series, including the Locke Lectures, Dewey Lectures, Whitehead Lectures, Kant Lectures, Petrus Hispanus Lectures, and Nicod Lectures. His work has made contributions to philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychologyepistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and the history of philosophy. He has published four books with OUP: Origins of Objectivity (2010) and three volumes of essays, Truth, Thought, Reason (2005), Foundations of Mind (2007), and Cognition through Understanding (2013).