This paper provides a novel argument against conceptualism, the claim that the content of human experience, including perceptual experience, is entirely conceptual. Conceptualism entails that the content of experience is limited by the concepts that we possess and deploy. I present an argument to show that such a view is exceedingly costly—if the nature of our experience is entirely conceptual, then we cannot account for concept learning: all perceptual concepts must be innate. The version of nativism that results is incompatible (...) with naturalistic accounts of concept learning. This cost can be avoided, and concept learning accounted for if nonconceptual content of experience is admitted. (shrink)

It's a common idea in philosophy that we possess a peculiar kind of "phenomenal concept" by which we can think about our conscious states in "inner" and "direct" ways, as for example, when I attend to the way a current pain feels and think about this feeling as such. Such phenomenal ways of thinking figure in a variety of theoretical contexts. The bulk of this article discusses their use in a certain strategy – the phenomenal concept strategy – for defending (...) the physicalist view that conscious states are reducible to brain states. It also considers, more briefly, how phenomenal concepts have been used to defend dualism about consciousness, and how they have been used to explain our special access to our consciousness. It concludes with a discussion about whether, and in what more precise sense of the term, we at all possess "phenomenal concepts" of our conscious states. (shrink)

This compilation of references includes all references for the knowledge-how chapters included in Bengson & Moffett's edited volume. The volume and the compilation of references may serve as a good starting point for people who are unfamiliar with the philosophical literature on knowledge-how.

After many years of neglect, philosophers are increasingly turning their attention to the emotions, and recently we have seen a number of different accounts of emotion. In this article, we will first consider what facts an account of emotion needs to accommodate if it is going to be acceptable. Having done that, we will then consider some of the leading accounts and see how they fare in accommodating the facts. Two things in particular will emerge. First, an adequate account of (...) emotion cannot be provided without taking into account a wide range of issues in philosophy of mind that extend beyond the emotions in particular. Secondly, the diversity of emotional phenomena makes it especially hard to provide anything like a comprehensive account of emotion; philosophers not only disagree over what are the essential properties of emotion, but also over what are central cases. (shrink)

Some recent surveys of the modern philosophical debate over the existence of non-conceptual perceptual content have concluded that the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual representations is largely terminological. To remedy this terminological impasse, Robert Hanna and Monima Chadha claim that non-conceptualists must defend an essentialist view of non-conceptual content, according to which perceptual states have representational content whose structure and psychological function are necessarily distinct from that of conceptual states. Hanna and Chadha additionally suggest that non-conceptualists should go “back to (...) Kant” to find the most defensible version of an essentialist content non-conceptualism. I propose instead that non-conceptualists go back even further to the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti, so that they may not only find historical precedent for an essentialist content view, but also some better arguments in its favor. This essay reconstructs Dharmakīrti's essentialist non-conceptualism about the contents of conscious sensory representations and the refined theory of conceptualization that it presupposes. In particular, I examine his arguments from the proprietary phenomenology of sensory experience, the cognitive encapsulation of sensory processing, as well as the iconic format of sensory representations, and assess the strength of these arguments relative to their modern counterparts. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nonconceptual theory of mystical ineffability which claims that mystical experiences can’t be expressed linguistically because they can’t be conceptualized. I discuss and refute two objections against it: (a) that unconceptualized experiences are impossible, and (b) that the theory is ad hoc because it provides no reason for why mystical experiences should be unconceptualizable. I argue against (a) that distinguishing different meanings of ‘object of experience’ leaves open the possibility of non-empty but objectless nonconceptual experiences. I show (...) that (b) is a valid objection but can be countered by a new theory of mystical non-conceptuality: mystical experiences are not conceptual because the specific mode of mystical consciousness prevents conceptualization. The dissolution of the subjectivity of consciousness during mystical experiences undermines the very foundation of the possibility of conceptual thought and thus renders them ineffable. (shrink)

This paper connects the debate regarding perceptual representation of high-level properties and the debate regarding non-conceptual perceptual representation. I present and defend a distinction between representationally-complex properties and properties that are simpler to represent and offer ways of assessing whether a property is representationally complex. I address conditions under which such a property might be non-conceptually represented and conclude that most representationally-complex properties are simply too complex to be non-conceptually represented. Thus, most mental states that represent representationally-complex properties must be (...) conceptual. This conclusion is relevant for a variety of philosophical theories (perception, ethics, emotions, pain) and is especially dramatic with respect to accounts according to which a mental state can non-conceptually represent such properties. As a test case for applying my argument I consider a group of such accounts: non-conceptual perceptual views of emotions, which my argument entails are false. I end by considering the implications my argument has for different theories. -/- . (shrink)

I argue that the debate about the reason-giving character of perception, and, derivatively, the contemporary debate about the nature of the conceptual content of perception, is best viewed as a confrontation with refined versions of the following three independently plausible, yet mutually inconsistent, propositions: Perceptual apprehension Some perceptions provide reasons directly Exclusivity Only beliefs provide reasons directly Bifurcation No perception is a belief I begin with an evaluation and refinement of each proposition so as to crystallize the source of the (...) difficulties that dominate our thinking about the reason-giving character of perception. I argue that the contemporary literature is broadly split between those denying Bifurcation and those denying Perceptual apprehension. Though Exclusivity, too, has been target to criticism, its grip on our thinking has all too often been underestimated. As a result, a proper denial or modification of Exclusivity is yet wanting. Overcoming Exclusivity involves a considerable challenge that has not been adequately acknowledged or met—to develop a substantive account of nonconceptual apprehension. Getting a clearer understanding of the nature, the source, and possible resolution of this challenge is the primary aim of this paper. (shrink)

This paper develops a mechanistic account of basic mental agency by identifying similarities between two of its major exemplars: endogenous attention and imagination. Five key similarities are identified: i) that both capacities are driven by currently prioritised goals that are either person-level or apt to become person-level. ii) that both deliver their outputs to the working memory iii) that both range across all and only conceptual contents; iv) that both proceed under the guidance of norms and/or habits; and v) that (...) both directly activate rather than inhibit content. These five features are consolidated by proposing that basic mental agency is essentially the power to call for conceptual content and hold it within our working memories. (shrink)

Some stories generate in us a peculiar experience of intense narrative engagement. This common experience, which we call narrative immersion, has been the object of a vast literature in psychology and other disciplines. Philosophers, however, have only recently engaged with this topic and the tendency has been to explain it by postulating specific kinds of mental states. We propose a different approach, explaining narrative immersion by means of a particular distribution of attention over the content of ordinary mental states. First, (...) we provide a characterization of narrative immersion based on studies by psychologists and other theorists. Then, we discuss alternative views and develop our own proposal. We articulate how attention works as we engage with the narrative, and how the adequate distribution of attention over the mental states involved in understanding the storyworld can offer the resources to explain the characteristic features of narrative immersion. Unlike alternative proposals, ours avoids the need to postulate controversial mental states. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we clarify the notion of immunity to error through misidentification with respect to the first-person pronoun. In particular, we set out to dispel the view that for a judgment to be IEM it must contain a token of a certain class of predicates. Rather, the importance of the IEM status of certain judgments is that it teaches us about privileged ways of coming to know about ourselves. We then turn to examine how (...) perception, as a state with nonconceptual content, can give rise to judgments that are IEM. On one view, the ‘inheritance model’ of immunity, perception gives rise to such judgments because perception itself is IEM. We argue that this model is misguided, and, instead, suggest and elucidate an alternative view: perception gives rise to judgments that are IEM by virtue of containing implicitly self-related or self-concerning information. (shrink)

In this paper I consider one of the influential challenges to the notion that perceptual experience might be completely conceptually structured, a challenge that rests on the idea that conceptual structure cannot do justice to the fineness of grain of perceptual experience. In so doing, I canvass John McDowell's attempt to meet this challenge by appeal to the notion of demonstrative concepts and review some criticisms recently leveled at McDowell's deployment of demonstrative concepts for this purpose by Sean D. Kelly. (...) Finally, I suggest that, though Kelly's criticisms might challenge McDowell's original presentation of demonstrative concepts, a modified notion of demonstrative concepts is available to the conceptualist that is proof against Kelly's criticisms. (shrink)

In recent times, Evans’ idea that mental states could have non-conceptual contents has been attacked. McDowell (Mind and World, 1994) and Brewer (Perception and reason, 1999) have both argued that that notion does not have any epistemological role because notions such as justification or evidential support, that might relate mental contents to each other, must be framed in conceptual terms. On his side, Brewer has argued that instead of non-conceptual content we should consider demonstrative concepts that have the same fine (...) grainess of non-conceptual contents while having conceptual structure. In what follows I will argue that, first, that the notion of demonstrative concept is not viable and, second, that there is an epistemological role for non-conceptual content. (shrink)

O objetivo do texto é não apenas explicar a contribuição da filosofia de Nietzsche no atual debate em torno da filosofia das emoções, por meio da aproximação teórica com o emocionismo de Jesse Prinz – especialmente da abordagem das emoções entendidas como sentimento –, mas, sobretudo, defender a tese da compatibilidade da abordagem cognitiva e não cognitiva das emoções. Assim, se por um lado, emoções são acompanhadas de sinais somáticos, por outro lado, emoções também representam preocupações (Prinz) ou avaliações (Nietzsche) (...) sobre algo no mundo. A tese compatibilista auxilia na solução de duas sérias objeções ao sentimentalismo: a determinação do conteúdo das emoções e a individualização das experiências emocionais. Essa conclusão é mais bem compreendida, além disso, por meio da hipótese disposicional. (shrink)

Toribio argues against my thesis that the cognitive penetrability (CP) of the content of early vision is a necessary and sufficient condition for this content to be nonconceptual content (NCC)–the MET (mutually entailing thesis). Her main point is that MET presupposes a non-standard, causal interpretation of NCC that either trivializes NCC or fails to engage with the contemporary literature on NCC, in which the property of being nonconceptual is not construed in empirical but in constitutive terms. I argue that Toribio's (...) arguments presuppose views of NCC that clash with important themes in the nonconceptualist literature, and that constitutive considerations concerning NCC are inextricably linked with causal considerations since the latter are required to address the concerns that led philosophers to postulate NCC. (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)

En este artículo se presentan algunas consideraciones relativas al debate sobre si el contenido de la experiencia perceptiva es o no conceptual. En particular, se pretende formular una crítica general al proyecto conceptualista de John McDowell apelando a algunas de sus asunciones de fondo –asunciones relativas a los requisitos que toda teoría sobre la relación entre percepción y juicio ha de cumplir, y que en su caso le conducen a considerar necesaria la tesis de que los contenidos de la percepción (...) son conceptuales. Se argumentará que la postura desarrollada por Husserl en Erfahrung und Urteil ofrece una alternativa en la cual se cumplen aquéllos requisitos sin necesidad de apelar a conceptos en el nivel de los contenidos perceptivos. Finalmente, se sugerirá que la perspectiva genética husserliana permite ofrecer un retrato de la experiencia perceptiva que, a diferencia del de McDowell, permite respetar ciertas intuiciones que parecen relevantes acerca de la misma.In this paper I present some considerations on the debate about whether the contents of perceptual experiences are conceptual or not. In particular, I intend to formulate a general critique to John McDowell’s conceptualist project appealing to some of its background assumptions –assumptions regarding the requirements that any theory about the relation between perception and judgment should meet, and which lead him to take as necessary the thesis that the contents of perception are conceptual. It will be argued that the stance expounded by Huserl in Erfahrung und Urteil offers an alternative in which those requirements are met without the need to appeal to concepts at the level of the contents of perception. Finally, I will suggest that the Husserlian genetic perspective, unlike McDowell’s stance, ends up offering a picture of perceptual experience that can accommodate certain intuitions about it that seem relevant. (shrink)