"Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us," writes Alva Noe. "It is something we do." In Action in Perception, Noe argues that perception and perceptual consciousness depend on capacities for action and thought -- that perception is a kind of thoughtful activity. Touch, not vision, should be our model for perception. Perception is not a process in the brain, but a kind of skillful activity of the body as a whole. We enact our perceptual experience.To perceive, according to this enactive approach to perception, is not merely to have sensations; it is to have sensations that we understand. In Action in Perception, Noe investigates the forms this understanding can take. He begins by arguing, on both phenomenological and empirical grounds, that the content of perception is not like the content of a picture; the world is not given to consciousness all at once but is gained gradually by active inquiry and exploration. Noe then argues that perceptual experience acquires content thanks to our possession and exercise of practical bodily knowledge, and examines, among other topics, the problems posed by spatial content and the experience of color. He considers the perspectival aspect of the representational content of experience and assesses the place of thought and understanding in experience. Finally, he explores the implications of the enactive approach for our understanding of the neuroscience of perception.

《现象学的观念》是胡塞尔1907年在哥廷根大学任教时的讲稿。1926年，胡塞尔当时的助手兰德格雷贝把胡塞尔的这份用速记方式写下的讲稿译成一般文字，而后胡塞尔又在上面作了修改和注释，准备出版。胡塞尔文库在1947年首先把该书作为《胡塞尔全集》的第二卷出版。《现象学的观念》的产生标志着胡塞尔一生思想发展的第二个重要转折点。在这部著作中，胡塞尔在现象学还原的道路上已基本完成了向超越论现象学的突破，从而成为一名超越论观念主义者。