In this article, I make a distinction between two versions of non-epistemicism about seeing, and bring explicitly into view and argue against a particular version defended by Dretske. More specifically, I distinguish non-epistemic seeing as non-conceptual seeing, where concept possession is assumed to be cognitively demanding, from non-epistemic seeing as seeing without noticing, where noticing is assumed to be relatively cognitively undemanding. After showing that Dretske argues for the possibility of non-epistemic seeing in both senses of the term, I target (...) his thesis that a given subject sees all the objects that are visually differentiated in her visual field, where visual differentiation does not require that she notice those objects. I argue that the notion of a visual field deployed in the formulation of the thesis cannot be phenomenal and therefore that seeing without noticing amounts to mere visual confrontation. I further argue that since the epistemicist does not deny the existence of seeing without noticing in the sense of mere visual confrontation, there is a clear sense in which Dretske's non-epistemicism turns out to be trivial. (shrink)

I Shall offer a realist theory of perception which in an important sense is neither direct nor representational nor causal.Let us say that we directly perceive something if perceiving it enables us to know of its existence without having evidence of its existence. In this sense, direct perception allows us to have “direct knowledge” of what we perceive. For example, I see after-images directly, since I can know of their existence without having visual evidence of their existence. I do not (...) have to look at them with my eyes. Granted, I do need evidence in order to know that they are after-images; but not in order to know of their existence as colours or shapes. Also, I do have to see them in order to know that they exist. But this is not a condition of having evidence. It is only a condition of their existence, which in turn is a truth condition of my knowing. (shrink)