Seeing and subjectivity

"Seeing and Subjectivity is a search for the emergence of subjectivity within our abilities to see. The book argues that if we are to make sense of ourselves as subjective creatures we must recognise that the notion of presentation which undergrids all our perceptual commerce with the world we inhabit is more complicated than has hitherto been realized. On the basis of a distinction between what is presented as-present and what is presented as-absent, I distinguish between two types of perceptual consciousness: "animal" perception and "reflective" perception. Reflective perception is a sophisticated and advantageous variety of perception, more so than animal perception alone, a sort of perception requiring subjectivity in the perceiver and whose most minimal form is the perception of absence. It is the enhanced perceptual capacity to see what is missing in our environments that explains the value of subjectivity to creatures like us. For it is in those situations that our seeings serve no longer simply to mirror the world of our immediate surroundings; then we are reflectively perceptual creatures"--