Varieties of Perceptual Content
Final Report Abstract
During my stay in Berkeley, I have written two papers: Are representationalism and naïve realism compatible? and Campbell on Representationalism. In the first paper, I distinguish between three different conceptions of perceptual content, namely the appears-looks conception, the accuracy conception, and the possibility-of-inaccuracy conception and I argue that if one takes the first two conceptions as a basis, then, just as many representationalists assume, the claim that perceptions have content is compatible with naïve realism. Only if one takes the possibility-of-inaccuracy conception as a basis, which is often ignored by representationalists, naïve realism turns out to be incompatible with representationalism. There are two significant differences between my research fellowship proposal and my paper: The first is that whereas in the research fellowship proposal I do not take a stand on the question of which conception of representationalism representationalists should put forward, in my paper I argue that representationalism should be understood as the position that perceptual experiences have content in the sense of the possibility-of-inaccuracy conception. Secondly, only during may stay in Berkeley did I realize that there is not only one version of the possibility-of-inaccuracy conception, but that one has to distinguish between two different versions of this conception, which I call Weak and Strong possibility-of-inaccuracy. I argue that some versions of naïve realism are incompatible with the claim that perceptions have content in the sense of Weak possibility-of-inaccuracy, but that all versions of naïve realism are incompatible with the claim that perceptions have content in the sense of Strong possibility-of -inaccuracy. In Campbell on Representationalism I examine Campbell’s main argument against representationalism in the first two chapters of his book Berkeley’s Puzzle. Campbell’s fundamental assumption in these chapters is that sensory experience has a certain epistemic role, namely the role of grounding a conception of mind-independent objects, but that it could not have this role if it was (only) a matter of having perceptual representations. In my paper I distinguish between two different arguments for this claim and I argue that both are nor persuasive. Furthermore, I examine what exactly is the status of Campbell’s critique of representationalism: Does he intend to refute representationalism? Or does he only want to show that since understanding sensory experiences as perceptual representations is not sufficient for explaining their epistemic role, we have to understand perceptual experiences not only as representations but also as relations to mind-independent objects? I show that given Campbell’s conception of representations, even if his arguments were persuasive, they would only prove that perceptual experiences have to be relations, but they would leave open whether they are also representations.
