Raamy Majeed’s paper, ‘Do gestalt effects show that we perceive high-level aesthetic properties?’ is out now in Analysis.<\/p>\n
ABSTRACT:\u00a0Whether we perceive high-level properties is presently a source of controversy. A promising test case for whether we do is aesthetic perception. Aesthetic properties are distinct from low-level properties, like shape and colour. Moreover, some of them, e.g. being serene<\/em> and being handsome<\/em>, are properties we appear to perceive. Aesthetic perception also shares a similarity with gestalt effects, e.g. seeing-as, in that aesthetic properties, like gestalt phenomena, appear to \u2018emerge\u2019 from low-level properties. Gestalts effects, of course, are widely observed, which raises the question: do gestalt effects make it plausible that we (sometimes) perceive high-level aesthetic properties? Contra<\/em> Stokes (forthcoming), this paper argues that they don\u2019t. This is interesting in its own right, but it also points to a more general lesson, namely we should resist the temptation to appeal to gestalt effects to argue for high-level perception.<\/p>\n