En su caracterización del contenido no conceptual, Christopher Peacocke realiza un esfuerzo constante por diferenciar el contenido no conceptual protoproposicional que propone del contenido de tipo conceptual. En este trabajo analizaré tales esfuerzos para concluir que resultan infructuosos, llevando al autor a lo que podría denominarse como una rotulación incorrecta del contenido protoproposicional como no conceptual. Para ello, reconstruiré la posición no conceptualista de Peacocke y señalaré, mediante los ejemplos que el mismo autor ofrece, la gran similitud que existe entre (...) ciertos contenidos y procesos paradigmáticamente conceptuales, y los ejemplos de contenidos y procesos que el autor considera como protoproposicionales y presuntamente no conceptuales. (shrink)

While it may be a datum of common sense that perceptual experiences can justify beliefs, there is no clear consensus about how they can do so. According to what I call “inferentialism,” perceptual experiences can justify beliefs because perceptual experiences have propositional contents and thus can serve as reasons for belief. A critical commitment of inferentialism is that justification requires the obtaining of a nonarbitrary or nonaccidental semantic relation between justifier and justified, a requirement that I call semantic appropriateness (SA). (...) By contrast, reliabilists reject SA and argue that perceptual experiences can justify beliefs because perceptual experiences are part of a reliable belief‐forming process. In this paper, I explore whether a commitment to SA inevitably leads to a commitment to inferentialism. This exploration is largely motivated by doubts over whether perceptual experiences have propositional contents. If those doubts prove to be well‐founded, then it seems either that perceptual experiences cannot justify beliefs or that some form of reliabilism is true. I argue that although we should take the doubts seriously, there is a way to make sense of SA that does not require inferentialism. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers and scientists have argued or accepted that it is impossible to learn primitive sensory concepts like “blue” and “red”. This paper defends a more qualified picture. I try to show that some received characterisations of “learning” are nonequivalent and point towards different learning-nonlearning distinctions. And, on some ways of specifying such a distinction, it might be correct that we do not and cannot “learn” a concept of blue. But on other ways of specifying such a (...) distinction, we can and do sometimes “learn” a concept of blue from experiences of blue. The latter part of the argument connects with some traditional “abstractionist” views, and I defend the present claims in view of some widely circulated concerns about “abstracting” concepts from experience. I close with some reflections on how one might, in view of all this, think about “the learning-nonlearning distinction”. (shrink)

Conceptualism conceives of perceptual experience as a source of reasons. This claim can be read in two ways: in a strong reading, perceptual experience is taken to provide necessary and sufficient conditions to justify doxastic states. In a weak reading, it is assumed to provide only the materials to form reasons, which are conceived as “hybrid entities” made from perceptual contents plus doxastic force. The paper shows that whereas the strong version is in error, the weak version is committed to (...) a dualistic understanding of perception-judgment transitions. This result leads to three further conclusions: conceptualism cannot rule out the existence of nonconceptual content, it is a version of the Myth of the Given, and pace conceptualists, only beliefs can justify other beliefs. (shrink)

This dissertation proposes the central elements of a Social Enactive Theory of Perception. According to SEP, perception consists in sensory-based practices of interaction with objects, events, and states of affairs that are socially constituted. I oppose the representational view that perception is an indirect contact with the world, consists of the passive receiving and processing of sensory input, is in need of constant assessment of accuracy, and is a matter of individuals alone. I share the basic enactivist insight that perception (...) is a type of activity, but I depart from standard enactivism on the grounds of its individualistic bias and its limited conception of activity. Instead of motor actions, I formulate the concept of perceptual practices as the appropriate framework to understand perception. Perception is woven into socially informed, contextual, sensory-based everyday activities, such as food, dance, and dress, and even seemingly independent, basic perceptual activities and concepts are constituted by such practices. Perceptual individual interactions instantiate social perceptual practices but are not just repetitions of a script. We perceive objects in virtue of perspectives or appearances, not in spite of them, and on this basis I offer SEPâs take on experience, properties, and contents. I conceive perceptual experience as finely grained interactions between subjects and objects, both of which are spatially, temporally, and pragmatically situated. Objects and their sensory properties are perceived dynamically and always in multiple appearances. Perceptual content offers a pragmatic specification of the perceptual objects in the specific ways they appear to subjects. For SEP, perception is normatively structured. SEPâs perceptual normativity is not a worry about a supposed constant threat that our perceptions be nonveridical, but about the placement of perceptual things in a system of possibilities and expectations, cast in terms of degrees of fulfillment of expectations and in a horizon of pragmatic significance, both of which are functions of the socially constituted interactions between a perceiver and a rich theory of appearances. (shrink)

The so-called ‘re-identification condition’ (Kelly 2011) has played an important role in the most prominent argument for nonconceptualism, the argument from fineness of grain. A number of authors have recently argued that the condition should be modified or discarded altogether, with devastating implications for the nonconceptualist (see, e.g., Brewer 2005, Chuard 2006). The aim of this paper is to show that the situation is even more dire for nonconceptualists, for even if the re-identification condition remains in its original form, the (...) argument from fineness of grain still fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. The paper's central case rests on two claims: according to the first, if the re-identification condition holds, then some beliefs will represent some properties nonconceptually; and according to the second, if some beliefs represent some properties nonconceptually, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism in any relevant sense. It follows that if the re-identification condition holds, the argument from fineness of grain fails to make the case for nonconceptualism. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that Hegel’s concept of sensation can be fruitfully read against the background of the recent distinction between state vs. content nonconceptualism. I) I provide a brief outline of the distinctions that characterize the debate between state and content nonconceptualism. II) I discuss Hegel’s concept of sensation, arguing that Hegel’s concept of sensation is compatible with a certain version of content conceptualism that is combined with a ‘weak’ state nonconceptualism for adult, rational subjects and with a (...) ‘strong’ state nonconceptualism for non-rational animals and infants. III) I conclude my paper by illustrating some features of Hegel’s conception of mental content starting from distinctions that characterize the debate on state vs. content nonconceptualism. (shrink)

From the first-person point of view, seeing a red square is very different from thinking about a red square, hearing an alarm sound is very different from thinking that an alarm is sounding, and smelling freshly-roasted coffee is very different from thinking that there is freshly-roasted coffee in one’s vicinity. How might the familiar contrast between representing a fact in thought and representing it in perception be captured? One influential idea is that perceptual states are phenomenally conscious whereas thoughts are (...) not. However, those theorists who hold that thoughts have a distinctive kind of phenomenal character – often known as “cognitive phenomenology” – cannot account for the contrast between thought and perception in this manner. This paper examines the various options that are available to advocates of cognitive phenomenology for capturing the experiential contrast between thought and perception, and argues that each of them faces serious challenges. (shrink)