Marcel Chelba: Stereoperspectival Epistemology (Steps forward with ChatGPT)

This dialogue explores a novel conceptual bridge between auditory physiology and Marcel Chelba’s (Kantian-inspired) stereoperspectival epistemology. Starting from the empirical puzzle of why stereo headphone listening produces a dominant “backward” auditory localization—while visual perception anchors spatial origin firmly in front—the discussion reveals a deep structural analogy between sensory processing and epistemic constitution. Auditory spatial perception arises only through the integration of two irreducible acoustic perspectives (the left and right ears), whose differences in timing, intensity, and spectral filtering generate a synthesized spatial direction that is absent from either channel alone. This physiological mechanism exemplifies the stereoperspectival model, according to which knowledge emerges from the tension and complementarity of dual perspectives rather than from any singular, self-sufficient viewpoint. The dialogue further shows how evolutionary factors, multimodal integration, and hemispheric specialization confirm the inherently perspectival, non-given nature of spatial cognition. The result is a new, interdisciplinary formulation: auditory localization functions as a natural, neurophysiological instantiation of stereoperspectival epistemology, providing empirical grounding for Chelba’s broader philosophical framework.