Perceptions "present" objects as red, as round, etc.-- in general as possessing some property. This is the "perceptual content" of the title, And the article attempts to answer the following question: what is a materialistically adequate basis for assigning content to what are, after all, neurophysiological states of biological organisms? The thesis is that a state is a perception that presents its object as "F" if the "biological function" of the state is to detect the presence of objects that are (...) "F". The theory contrasts with causal/informational theories, and with internalist theories, for example those which assign content on the basis of introspected feel. Its advantages are that it permits perceptual error while at the same time allowing content to be expressed in terms of external properties. The argument of the paper is illustrated throughout by examples from biology and computational psychology. (shrink)

In Color for Philosophers C. L. Hardin argues that chromatic objectivism?a view which identifies colour with some or other property of objects?must be false. The upshot of Hardin's argument is this: there is, in fact, no principled correlation between physical properties and perceived colours. Since that correlation is a minimal condition for objectivism, objectivism is false. Mohan Matthen, who accepts Hardin's conclusion for what can be called "simple objectivism," takes it that an adaptationist theory of biological function applied to colour (...) is able to surmount the problems Hardin describes. It is Matthen's view that I am primarily concerned with in this paper. I will argue that it entails an overly simple view of adaptive value?as, perhaps, do all objectivist views. (shrink)

RésuméFrank Jackson et Robert Pargetter défendent l'idée que la couleur rouge est lapropriété, quelle qu'elle soit, qui cause ou causerait l'apparition de rouge dans notre expérience visuelle. Ceci empêche la couleur rouge d'être une propriété dispositionnelle, soutiennent-ils, puisque les propriétés dispositionnelles sont causalement inertes. Pour des raisons similaires, Us concluent aussi que la couleur rouge ne peut pas être une propriété disjonctive. Mais, comme ils s'en rendent bien compte, plusieurs propriétés physiques différentes sont telles qu'elles causeraient l'apparition de rouge. Ils (...) suggèrent done de relativiser la couleur rouge aux observateurs, aux conditions d'observation et aux moments du temps. Je soutiens, contre Jackson et Pargetter, que leur solution se heurte aux mêmes objections que celles qu'ils adressent aux interprétations dispositionnelle et disjonctive. (shrink)

What ecological advantages do animals gain by being able to detect, extract and exploit wavelength information? What are the advantages of representing that information as hue qualities? The benefits of adding chromatic to achromatic vision, marginal in object detection, become apparent in object recognition and receiving biological signals. It is argued that this improved performance is a direct consequence of the fact that many animals' visual systems reduce wavelength information to combinations of four basic hues. This engenders a simple categorical (...) scheme that permits a rich amount of sensory information to be rapidly and efficiently employed by cognitive machinery of limited capacity. (shrink)