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行政院國家科學委員會專題研究計畫 成果報告

意識、意向性與經驗的非概念性內涵(II-I)

計畫類別: 個別型計畫 計畫編號: NSC93-2411-H-002-101- 執行期間: 93 年 08 月 01 日至 94 年 07 月 31 日 執行單位: 國立臺灣大學哲學系暨研究所 計畫主持人: 梁益堉 報告類型: 精簡報告 處理方式: 本計畫可公開查詢

中 華 民 國 94 年 8 月 1 日

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研究計畫中英文摘要

1. 計畫中文摘要 本計畫將研究心靈哲學的一個重要論爭:知覺經驗是否具有非概念性的內容 (nonconceptual content)?根據概念論(conceptualism),我們之所以能說經驗是 關於外在世界,以及經驗能提供理由來支持信念,完全是由於經驗所具有的概念 性內容(conceptual content)。根據非概念論(nonconceptualism),雖然對經驗進 行描述需要運用概念能力(conceptual capacities),但若因此認為概念是經驗的構 成成分,或認為經驗只具有概念性的內容,則是一項嚴重錯誤。在這兩年的計畫 裏(2004 & 2005),我將處理關於此論爭的三個重要議題。第一,檢驗非概念論 的一個重要論證:the Fineness of Grain Argument。我將設法指出,這個論證無 法擊潰概念論。第二,檢驗非概念論的另一個重要論證;根據此論證,要擁有知 覺經驗並不需要具備相關的概念。我打算指出,對於此論證是否成功,概念論與 非概念論現有的主張和理由均不能令人滿意。我會對此議題提出自己的立場。第 三,探討經驗與證成(justification)之間的關係:為了解釋經驗如何提供理由來 支持信念,是否非得訴諸經驗的概念性內容不可?我會根據對這些議題的研究, 提出對於「概念論-非概念論」之論爭的整體主張。 關鍵詞:經驗內容,概念論,非概念論

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2. 計畫英文摘要

This project investigates an important debate in the philosophy of mind: Does perceptual experience have nonconceptual content? According to conceptualism, it is because the content of experience is exclusively conceptual that we are entitled to say that our experience is about the external world and that experience can justify

empirical beliefs. According to nonconceptualism, although we need to exercise conceptual capacities to describe experience, it is a fundamental mistake to think that experience is thereby constituted by concepts or that experience possesses only conceptual content. In this two-year project (2004 & 2005), I plan to tackle three issues related to this debate. First, I will examine an important argument for nonconceptualism―theFineness of Grain Argument. I intend to show that this argument is not able to refute conceptualism. Second, I will examine another argument for nonconceptualism, according to which one can have perceptual experience without having relevant concepts. I intend to show that the current arguments offered by both conceptualists and nonconceptualists are wanting, and then propose my own view on this issue. Third, I will investigate the relation between experience and justification. More specifically, I want to address the issue: Does the content of experience has to be exclusively conceptual in order to properly explain how experience provides justification for empirical beliefs? Based on the research on these issues, I will propose my overall position on the

conceptualism-nonconceptualism debate regarding the content of experience.

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目錄

I.

成果報告內容

1. 研究目的 2. 文獻探討 3. 研究方法 4. 結果與討論

II. 參考文獻

III. 計畫成果自評

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I.

成果報告內容

1. 研究目的

In this two-year project I investigate the conceptualism-nonconceptualism debate regarding the content of experience. The reason why I think this project is important is that, as Christopher Peacocke points out, many fundamental questions are

inseparable from this debate: How is conceptual content to be individuated? What does it mean to possess a concept? What is the relationship between animal and human perception? And what is the basis of our conception of objectivity?1 As I see it, this debate is also related to issues such as the debate between internalism and externalism about justification, the structure of mental representation, and whether the idea of the Given is really a myth. Whether perceptual experience possesses

nonconceptual content will significantly affect how to solve all these issues. I intend to address three major issues involved in this debate: (1) the fineness of grain argument, (2) animal perception, and (3) the relation between experience and justification. In the first year (2004-2005), I examine the fineness of grain argument against

conceptualism. In the second year (2005-2006), I will investigate the other two issues. In the remaining of this section I introduce the debate between conceptualism and nonconceptualism and the fineness of grain argument.

Many philosophers agree that perceptual experience has representational

content─ experience represents things in a certain way.2 With regard to the nature of the representational content of experience, there is a debate concerning the relation between our conceptual capacities and the content of experience. One way to describe the debate is as follows.3 According to conceptualism, our conceptual capacities are constitutive of the representational content of experience. Experience has its content partly in virtueoftheinvolvementofthesubject’sconceptual capacities.4 According to this view, the only kind of content that experience

possessesisconceptualcontent―thecontentofexperienceisexclusively conceptual. Conceptual content constitutes both the intentionality of experience and the empirical justification that experience provides for beliefs. It is because the content of

experience is conceptual that we are entitled to say that our experience is about the

1

Peacocke (2001, 239).

2

For a recent exception, cf. Travis (2004).

3

For various formulations of the debate, cf. Heck (2000); Byrne (2005); Tye (2005); Chuard (forthcoming); Speaks (forthcoming).

4

Conceptual capacities are capacities of using concepts. McDowell suggests that they are also passively involved in the content of experience. McDowell (1994, especially 9-13, 24-34, 66). The qualification “partly”here is to leave room for the idea that, besides conceptual capacities, the external world also makes essential contribution to the content of experience.

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empirical world and that experience can justify empirical beliefs.5 So, to have an experience that represents how things are in a certain way and provides justification for empirical beliefs, the subject must possess the relevant concepts that are required to specify the content of the experience. On the contrary, according to

nonconceptualism, to consider the content of experience as representational does not imply that it is conceptual. Although our abilities to use concepts are required in order to describe what we experience, it is a serious mistake to think that experience is thereby constituted by conceptual capacities.6 According to this view, the content of experience is not exclusively conceptual. Perceptual experience has nonconceptual content that is different in kind from conceptual content.7 It is nonconceptual content that ultimately explains perceptual intentionality and empirical justification.8 To undergo an experience with a particular representational content, the subject does not have to possess the relevant concepts.

The fineness of grain argument is an important criticism against conceptualism. Consider one formulation of this argument:

Before me now, for example, are arranged various objects with various shapes and colors, of which, it might seem, I have no concept. My desk exhibits a whole host of shades of brown, for which I have no names. The speakers to the sides of my computer are not quite flat, but have curved faces; I could not begin to describe their shape in anything like adequate terms. The leaves on the trees outside my window are fluttering back and forth, randomly, as it seems to me, as the wind passes over them ―Yet my experience of these things represents them far more precisely than that, far more distinctively, it would seem, than any

characterization I could hope to formulate, for myself or for others, in terms of the concepts I presently possess. The problem is not lack of time, but lack of

descriptive resources, that is, lack of the appropriate concepts. (Heck, 2000, 489-490)

The basic idea of this passage is that perceptual experience cannot be exclusively conceptual because its content is much richer and finer grained than our conceptual capacities such that the latter can never fully characterize the former. I have focused on the fineness of grain aspect of the criticism.

5

McDowell (1994) ch. 1 and 2. Brewer (1999) ch. 5 and 6.

6

Peacocke (1992); Crane (1992); Alston (1999, 2002); Heck (2000).

7

This is what Heck calls “the content view”in (2000, 485). Byrne calls it content nonconceptualism in (2005, 233-234).

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2. 文獻探討

The conceptualists, such as McDowell and Brewer, reply to the fineness of grain argument that although wedon’tpossessenough generalconceptsforthistask,wecan employ demonstrative concepts like this color and that shape to capture all the

fine-grained details of experience. McDowell says:

In thepresenceoftheoriginalsample,“thatshade”can give expression to a conceptofashade;whatensuresthatitisaconcept… isthattheassociated capacity can persist into the future, if only for a short time, and that, having persisted, it can be used also in thoughts about what is by then the past, if only the recent past. What is in play here is a recognitional capacity, possibly quite short-lived, that sets in with experience. (McDowell, 1994, 57)

The conceptualists contend that having perceptually-based demonstrative concepts can be considered as having a kind of recognitional capacity, and that such a capacity can be as finely grained as the content of experience, hence can fully capture all the details of experience.9 Let us call this the Demonstrative Concept Strategy.

Many philosophers have recently argued that this conceptualist response fails.10 They contend that appealing to demonstrative concepts does not provide a feasible account of the fine-grained content of experience. I discuss two criticisms against the Demonstrative Concept Strategy: first, our capacities of exercising demonstrative concepts are limited by memory capacities, but perception is not so constrained. The Demonstrative Concept Strategy fails because one can make fine-grained perceptual discriminations without having the relevant demonstrative concepts. With regard to this criticism, I focus on Sean Kelly’s version. Kelly’sargumentagainst

conceptualism is this. Recognitional capacity essentially depends on memory, but perception does not. To re-identify a particular shade of color, one has to be able to hold it in memory to compare it against other samples on later occasions. But to perceive the shade does not require one to remember it at a later time. We can have perceptual experiences with specific contents but fail to satisfy the re-identification condition for the relevant demonstrative concepts. We are able to make fine-grained perceptual discriminations without having the relevant demonstrative concepts that articulate the content of experience. The content of experience, therefore, cannot be characterized by demonstrative concepts.

Second, experience is explanatorily prior to our possession of demonstrative concepts. It is having a certain experience that explains how one obtains a

demonstrative concept, but not vice versa. Hence demonstrative concepts cannot be considered as constitutive of the content of experience. With regard to this criticism,

9

McDowell (1994) ch. 3, and Brewer, (1999) ch. 5.

10

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I focus on Richard Heck’s version. Heck claims that demonstrative concepts, such as

this color and that shape, are grounded in perception in the sense that one has them only because he or she is currently undergoing or has recently undergone certain

experiences (together with suitable pointing to the perceived objects). This is

something with which the conceptualists would agree, yet Heck argues that a difficulty for conceptualism is embedded in this point. Heck says,

Suppose we say, with McDowell, that my having certain demonstrative concepts is partially constitutive of the world’s appearing to me in a particular way. How then can my having that concept be explained by my having such an experience? There would not seem to be sufficient distance between my having the experience and my possessing the concept for the former to explain the latter. So, if such an explanation were wanted, the content of the experience would have to be stated in terms that did not involve these demonstrative concepts . . . The content of

perceptual experience would have to be treated as nonconceptual (in the relevant respects). (Heck, 2000, 492).

According to Heck, it is having a certain experience that explains how one comes to have the relevant demonstrative concept, not the other way around. Experience is

explanatorily prior to demonstrative concepts. If the demonstrative concept is considered to be part of the content of the experience, the explanation of how one obtains these demonstrative concepts through experience would involve the concept itself (Heck, 2000, 492). To avoid circularity, Heck contends, the content of experience has to be regarded as nonconceptual.

Based on my research, I have come to the conclusion that both criticisms against the Demonstrative Concept Strategy can be replied by the conceptualists. More specifically, I think the conceptualists can respond to these criticisms by appealing to vision science and infant cognition. I will state my thoughts in section 4 of this report.

3. 研究方法

I have studied and examined various philosophers’works that attacked the Demonstrative Concept Strategy with regard to the fineness of grain argument, especially by Sean Kelly and Richard Heck. I have also considered how may the conceptualists best respond to these criticisms. I have found some empirical data in visual science and infant cognition that have bearings on this issue. It has turned out that my way of defending conceptualism is different from McDowell’s and Brewer’s.

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4. 結果與討論

Now I want to present, very briefly, what I think are the best ways to reply to the two criticisms against the Demonstrative Concept Strategy. The details of my arguments can be found in my paper, “Perception and Demonstrative Concept.” My response to Kelly has two parts. The first part is that there is no fundamental

difference between discriminatory and recognitional capacities such that the former picks out nonconceptual content and the latter conceptual content. Interruption only makes them different in degree with regard to performance, not different in kind. If, as agreed both by Kelly and McDowell, recognitional capacities can be regarded as conceptual, there is no obvious reason why discriminatory capacities should not be considered as conceptual as well. In principle, if discriminatory capacity can be as fine-grained as the content of experience, so can recognitional capacity. In this sense, the Demonstrative Concept Strategy remains tenable.

The second part of the conceptualist response to Kelly’s argument is this. Failing to re-identify a particular shade of color in the scenario described by Kelly does not on its own imply that the subject does not have the relevant recognitional capacity. Kelly’s scenario against conceptualism is persuasive only if that, in those cases where the subject correctly re-identifies the exact same shade of color, he or she is simply guessing. But this is not the case, at least not the best explanation of it. A better account, I suggest, is that when visual conditions are normal the subject acquires a partial recognitional capacity, hence a partial grip of the relevant recognitional concept, during the first test. The conceptualist can then reply to Kelly that recognitional capacities are context-dependent and susceptible to “noises”such that they can be manifested only in some but not all situations.

With regard to Heck’s objection, my reply is as follows. From the conceptualist standpoint, to perceive an object is to be able to discriminate and re-identify the object. In this sense, neither perception nor recognitional capacity is explanatorily prior to each other. To say this is not to deny that without perception the relevant

demonstrative concepts such as this color and that shape can be acquired. For the conceptualist’s position, I propose, is that concepts need not be linguistic-like. The conceptualist can distinguish between linguistic and nonlinguistic concepts. Those that are properly expressed by “this color”and “that shape,”etc., are linguistic concepts. To be able to exercise linguistic concepts to characterize the content of experience, one must first learn the meaning of these words. Infants’innate

recognitional capacities can be considered as a kind of nonlinguistic concept. Infants are endowed with such capacities long before they can speak. Hence, conceptualism is able to accommodate the idea that perception is explanatorily prior to linguistic demonstrative concepts, because this is consistent with the view that the content of experience can be fully captured by infants’innate and nonlinguistic recognitional

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capacities. Moreover, to reply to Heck’s criticism of circularity, the conceptualist can appeal to the possibility of learning that infants’nonlinguistic concepts can later develop into be linguistic concepts. For example, in later years they learn the meaning of the corresponding color words and shape words. There is no need to resort to nonconceptual content in this regard. Therefore, the explanatory circularity can be avoided, and the Demonstrative Concept Strategy remains intact.

II. 參考文獻

Allen, Colin. 1999. “Animal Concepts Revisited: the Use of Self-Monitoring as an Empirical Approach,”in Erkenntnis, 51, 33-40.

Alston, W. 1999. “Back to theTheory ofAppearing,”in Philosophical Perspectives, 13, Epistemology, pp. 181-203.

Alston, W. 2002. “Sellarsand the‘Myth oftheGiven’.”in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LXV, No. 1, pp. 69-86.

Bermúdez, José. 2003a. Thinking Without Words, Oxford University Press.

Bermúdez, José. 2003b. “Nonconceptual Mental Content,”in Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy.

Brewer, Bill. 1999. Perception and Reason, Oxford University Press.

Byrne, Alex. 2005. “Perception and conceptualContent,”in E.Sosaand M.Steup,eds.,

Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Blackwell Publishers, 231-250.

Carey, Susan, and Elizabeth Spelke. 1994. “Domain-Specific Knowledge and

Conceptual Change,”in Hirschfeld and Gelman (eds.), Mappping the Mind: Domain

Specificity in Cognition and Culture, Cambridge University Press, 169-200.

Carey, Susan, and Fei Xu. 2001. “Infants Knowledge of Objects: beyond Object-Files and Object Tracking,”in Cognition, 80, 179-213.

Chuard, Philippe. forthcoming. “Demonstrative Concepts without Re-identification,” in Philosophical Studies.

Crane, Tim. 1992. “TheNonconceptualContentofExperience”,in The Contents of Experience, Tim Crane ed., Cambridge University Press, 136-157.

Devitt, Michael, and Kim Sterelny. 1999. Language and Reality, 2ed edition, Blackwell Publishers.

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Dokic, Jérôme, and Élisabeth Pacherie. 2001. “Shades and Concepts,”in Analysis 61.3, July, 193-202.

Evans, Gareth. 1973. “The Causal Theory of Names,”in Proceedings of the

Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 47, 187-208.

Evans, Gareth. 1982. The Varieties of Reference, Oxford University Press.

Heck, Richard. 2000. “NonconceptualContentand the‘SpaceofReasons’,”in

Philosophical Review, Vol. 109, No. 4, 483-523.

Kelly, Sean. 2001. “DemonstrativeConceptsand Experience,”in Philosophical Review, Vol. 110, No.3, 397-420.

McDowell, John. 1994. Mind and World, Harvard University Press.

McDowell, John. 1998. “Reply to Commentators,”in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, June, 403-431.

Noë, Alva. 2004. Action in Perception, MIT Press.

Quinn, Paul, and Peter Eimas. 1998. “Evidence for a Global Categorical

Representation of Humans by Young Infants,”in Journal of Experimental Child

Psychology, 69, 151-174.

Quinn, Paul. 2002. “Category Representation in Infants,”in Current Directions in

Psychological Science, 11, 66-70.

Peacocke, Christopher. 1992. A Study of Concepts, The MIT Press.

Peacocke, Christopher. 1998. “NonconceptualContentDefended,”in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, June, 381-388.

Peacocke, Christopher. 2001. “DoesPerception HaveA NonconceptualContent?”in

Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 98, 239-264.

Speaks, Jeff. forthcoming.“IsThereA Problem AboutNonconceptualContent?”in

Philosophical Review.

Stalnaker, Robert. 2003. “What Might Nonconceptual Content Be?”reprinted in Y. H. Gunther (ed.), Essays on Nonconceptual Content, The MIT Press, ch. 4, 95-106. Stephan, Achim. 1999. “Are Animals Capable of Concepts?”in Erkenntnis, 51, 79-92.

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Travis, Charles. 2004. “The Silence of the Senses,”in Mind, Vol. 113, January 2004, 57-94.

Tye, Michael. 2005. “NonconceptualContent,Richness,And FinenessOfGrain,”in T. Gendler & J. Hawthorne, eds., Perceptual Experience, Oxford University Press.

Wright, Wayne. 2003. “McDowell, Demonstrative Concepts, and Nonconceptual Representational Content,”Disputatio, 14, May, 37-51.

III. 計畫成果自評

Here I like to make a few comments on my research regarding the fineness of grain argument against conceptualism. First, with regard to the current debate, how exactly “concepts”and “contents”should be construed are complicated issues. Three major views about what concepts are: (1) Fregean sense, (2) mental representations in the head, and (3) cognitive abilities that can be manifested in behavior. Although I favor (3) and will argue that it is useful for conceptualism, I won’t be able to fully defend it in this paper. For now, suffice it to say that concepts are components of thoughts. The debate between conceptualism and nonconceptualism, according to the version that I describe here, is whether concepts are also components of perceptual experience. There are also three general approaches to understanding contents: (1) Fregean Thoughts, (2) Russellian propositions, and (3) sets of possible worlds. It is controversial which approach is the best in explaining the content of experience. Fortunately, my discussion of the fineness of grain argument may proceed without having to solve these issues first.11

Second, some critics have said that even if the fineness of grain argument can be satisfactorily replied it does not imply that conceptualism is true.12 This is correct, since the conceptualists have other issues to worry about, for example, it is

controversial whether only conceptual content can provide justification for beliefs. Also, as mentioned above, characterization does not imply constitution. However, this point by itself is not harmful to conceptualism. It is important to note that, for McDowell and Brewer, to show that conceptualism is able to respond to the fineness of grain argument is not how they argue for their positions in the fist place. They do not claim that being able to fully and conceptually characterize the content of experience automatically establishes that experience is constituted by conceptual capacities. Their main and positive argument is that conceptualism is required by a proper account

11

For more clarifications of the debate, cf. Byrne (2005); Tye (2005); Chuard (forthcoming); Speaks (forthcoming).

12

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of empirical justification and perceptual intentionality. The significance of the fineness of grain argument lies in the negative side that, as mentioned above, if it sustains it will provide a strong reason to put conceptualism in doubt. My aim here is to relieve the negative threat from conceptualism.

Third, since my suggestions will be related to huge empirical researches such that the issues will not be completely settled until enough empirical data have been

collected, they at most point to a useful direction to defend conceptualism. But I hope to show that these suggestions will have a merit in the current debate, that is, in addition to the McDowell’s and Brewer’s approaches that are somewhat transcendental in the Kantian sense, conceptualism can be defended in an empirical way.

Finally, I have written a paper on this topic, titled “Perception and Demonstrative Concepts.” I have presented earlier versions of this paper in the 4thInternational Conference on Logic and Cognition (China, Guangzhou), and the Conference on Experience and Truth (Taipei). Both conferences are held in June 2005. In these two conferences I discussed my views with Prof. Bob Brandom and Prof. Anil Gupta, and received useful comments from them. I will continue to revise this paper in the months to come.

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行政院國家科學委員會補助國內專家學者

出席國際學術會議報告

報告人

姓名

梁益堉

服務機構

及職稱

國立台灣大學哲學系

助理教授

時間

會議

地點

2004 年 8 月 8 ~ 14 日

奧地利 Kirchberg

本會核定

補助文號 93-2914-l-194-038-A1

會議

名稱

(中文) 第二十七屆國際維根斯坦會議

(英文) 27

th

International Wittgenstein Symposium

發表

論文

題目

(中文) 內在表徵論與知覺之幕

(英文) Internalist Representationalism and the Veil of Perception

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14

報告內容應包括下列各項: 一、參加會議經過

This conference is an annual international meeting held by the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, which is a famous philosophical society that promotes the research of Wittgenstein’sphilosophy. Buttheimportanceofthemeeting isnotlimited to Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The topic of thisyear’s conference is very significant─Experience and

Analysis. It is to consider two big strands within philosophy in the 20thcentury─analytic philosophy and phenomenology. The focus of the Wittgenstein Symposium this year is to investigate the relationships between these two poles and everything that lies in-between.

I attended several sections in the conference, mainly in Section 2: Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology, Section 3: Intentionality and Consciousness, Section 4: Intentionality, Reference, and Meaning, and Section 5: Theories of Perception. All of them are relevant and helpful to my research.

二、與會心得

This was my second time to present my work in an international conference. I received good comments both in my section and afterwards. It was a very great experience to me. This conference provided a great chance for me to meet with international scholars and have discussion with them. It also helped me to be aware of the research programs of many international scholars. The greatest benefit I got was that this time I was able to discuss philosophical issues with some important philosophers like Michael Tye, José Luis Bermúdez and Charles Siewert in person. In the next page I outline some of the papers that I found interesting and closely relevant to my current research.

三、建議

This kind of conference is a good chance for philosophers and logician in Taiwan to present their works to the international academic community. This conference holds every four years. My suggestion is that we should encourage more scholars to attend it.

四、攜回資料名稱及內容

(1) Experience and Analysis: Contributions of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, Vol. XII, 2004, ISSN 1022-3398. This volume contains the full texts of all the papers

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五、其他

(1) In “Direct Realism, Disjunctivism and the Common Sensory Core,”Richard Schantz defends a direct realist view of perception. He contrasts his position with John

McDowell’s version of the disjunctive theory of perception. According to McDowell, we must once and for all reject the traditional assumption that perception and illusion share a highest common factor. Schantz tries to save precisely this assumption and to show that it is compatible with direct realism. Hence one does not have to be afraid of the drastic epistemological consequences emphasized by advocates of disjunctivism. I think this is a new and very interesting position. It brings an alternative option into an ancient yet alive debate about the nature of perception.

(2) In “The Limits of Phenomenology,”John Searle contends that the central question in contemporary philosophy is: How, it at all, can we give an account of the human reality—of language, mind, society, rationality, free will, etc.—that is consistent with what we know about the more basic reality as described by physics and chemistry. One might think that phenomenology, with its emphasis on human reality, would provide a powerful tool. Searle argues that this is not the case. He thinks that there is a kind of idealism implicit in the actual practice of phenomenologists, and tries to show its limitations. Searle clearly holds a strong version of naturalism or physicalism about reality, which obviously will not be welcome by phenomenologists. In the conference, Searle and Dagfinn FØllesdal had a good exchange.

(3) In “A. D. Smith’s Phenomenological Refutation of the Argument from Illusion,” Staudacher critically discusses a recent defense of Direct Realism by A. D. Smith. The Argument form Illusion questions our common sense assumption that the immediate objects of perceptual awareness are physical objects. The central premise of this argument claims that whenever something appears to a subject to possess a sensory quality, there is something of which the subject aware which does possess does possess that quality. Smith tries to refute this premise with the help of what he calls the “phenomenological constancy”of perception. Staudacher criticizes that Smith’s view ultimately cannot cope satisfactorily with perceptual illusions and it leads to implausible consequences. This is an interesting debate because it involves certain interactions between analytic and continental philosophy about perception.

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Internalist Representationalism and the Veil of Perception

Caleb Liang

Department of Philosophy National Taiwan University

In a series of papers, Shoemaker proposes a version of internalist

representationalism that aims to reconcile the possibility of inverted spectrum with the

transparency of experience, and to give an essential role to qualia in experience. This

view is criticized by Michael Tye, and defended by Kriegel and by Shoemaker himself.

In this paper, I investigate this debate from the epistemological point of view. Tye

contends that Shoemaker’s view brings in a veil of perception that goes against the

intuition of direct contact with the world. I intend to examine whether the defenses

by Kriegel and Shoemaker are successful.

1. Shoemaker’s Internalist Representationalism

According to Shoemaker, the phenomenal character of experience consists in a

certain kind of representational content. This makes his position a form of

representationalism. But he also thinks that it is possible for two subjects to be

spectrum inverted relative to each other without anyone misrepresenting the things

perceived. When Jack and Jill look at a ripe tomato, both of their experiences

represent the tomato as red, yet while Jack’s experience is phenomenally like ours,

Jill’s is phenomenally like the experience when Jack and we see green leaves.

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transparency of experience. When Jack and Jill introspect, what they are directly

aware of are properties of the tomato, not of their experiences.

The key is that, according to Shoemaker, experience carries two kinds of

representational content. One is wide and subject-independent. When Jack and Jill

represent the tomato as red, what their experiences represent is the color red of the

tomato―an intrinsic and objective property of the surface of the physical object. Call

it objective redness. In this sense, Jack’s experience and Jill’s share the same

representational content. Call it objective content. The other kind of content is

narrow and subject-relative. Besides objective colors, physical objects also have

relational properties that produce or are disposed to produce certain qualia in

individual perceivers (Shoemaker 1994, 2002). These properties are relational

because what sorts of qualia are produced or are disposed to be produced depend partly

on the internal nature of the subject. Since Jack and Jill are spectrum inverted, when

both looking at the ripe tomato they are directly aware of different relational properties:

Jack is introspectively confronted with a relational property P1 that elicits (or is

disposed to elicit) Q1 (red qualia), and Jill is introspectively confronted with a

different relational property P2 that elicits (or is disposed to elicit) Q2 (green qualia)

(Shoemaker 1994, Kriegel 2002). Shoemaker calls these relational properties

phenomenal properties (or appearance properties).

For Shoemaker, qualia are intrinsic properties of experience in virtue of which the

experience has its phenomenal character. Phenomenal character is representation of

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phenomenal content (Shoemaker 2002). On Shoemaker’s account, phenomenal

properties are properties of things in the environment, so the transparency of

experience is respected. But phenomenal properties are also subject-relative. Jack’s

and Jill’s experiences have different phenomenal characters that are constitutively

determined by different types of qualia, Q1 and Q2, hence contain different

phenomenal content (Shoemaker 1994). The possibility of inverted spectrum is then

preserved. Shoemaker thinks that internalist representationalism is the only way to

embrace both the transparency of experience and the possibility of inverted spectrum,

and the only way for the representationalist to do justice to the intrinsic and subjective

aspect of experience.

2. Tye’s Objection

According to Tye, the main consequence of Shoemaker’s view is that “colors are

not basically seen.”(Tye 2000) What Tye means is that on Shoemaker’s account

colors are not directly seen, but only indirectly by seeing the related phenomenal

properties. Shoemaker holds that, since Jack’s and Jill’s experiences have different

phenomenal characters, “the properties represented by their color experiences include

properties that are not colors.”(Shoemaker 2002) That is, the phenomenal properties

that they directly perceive are not themselves colors. Tye criticizes that this is

counterintuitive. We have an ordinary intuition that, when one’s experience is

veridical, what one directly sees are colors of things. Yet on Shoemaker’s account,

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experience is veridical, why suppose that what he directly sees is by definition not the

color red itself but something else?

Tye contends, by distinguishing between the phenomenal properties of a color and

the color itself Shoemaker’s view “effectively draws a veil over the colors.”(Tye 2000)

The result is, it is epistemically possible for the phenomenal properties to be visually

perceived by a subject but the color itself is missing. Since our direct consciousness

reaches only phenomenal properties, there is no epistemic guarantee that the object

really has the color we take it to have or “indeed that it has any color at all.”(Tye 2000)

Such a cost seems too high to bear.

3. Kriegel’s Defense Examined

In articulating the veil of perception objection, Tye says, “Drawing this veil is

tantamount to erecting an appearance/reality distinction for the colors themselves.

The coherence of such a distinction is dubious at best.”(Tye 2000) Kriegel contends

that the distinction does not generate real threat against internalist representationalism.

He considers and refutes the following possible readings of Tye’s criticism: (1) If

what Tye means is that the appearance/reality distinction cannot coherently apply to

colors, then he is mistaken because he himself is an objectivist about color (Tye 2000).

Taking colors to be objective properties is just to acknowledge that it is possible for a

viewer to be wrong about colors. (2) Tye might mean that internalist

representationalism implies that we can only know the colors that things appear to

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if it is the case that objective colors cannot be experienced, this by no means follows

that they cannot be known. One can have knowledge about objective colors by

inferring form visual experience of phenomenal properties (Kriegel 2002). (3)

Maybe Tye’s point is that it is implausible that objective colors cannot be experienced.

In reply, Kriegel says,

[T]his in itself is no embarrassment to a theory of visual experience … That experience represents only the way things appear to be is why thinking is

cognitively needed. … It is only the content of beliefs that concern the way things really are. (Kriegel 2002)

Kriegel’s view is that experience is about how things appear to us. To ascertain or to

take a stance on how things really are is the task of thought, not of experience. Thus,

the appearance/reality distinction is appropriate. Based on these replies, Kriegel

concludes that Tye’s criticism fails.

I contend that Kriegel’s replies do not provide a successful defense. Consider

(1). I don’t think Tye’s talk of the appearance/reality distinction is the best way to

articulate the idea of veil of perception. A better way, I suggest, is to use the notion

of epistemic intermediary. I will say more about this later. What I want to call

attention here is Kriegel’s remark regarding the distinction and color objectivism. He

says,

If there are objective facts about colors, then any subject may get those wrong, and when she does, things will appear to her to have colors that in reality they do not have. (Kriegel 2002)

What does it mean to say that things may appear to a subject to have colors that in

reality they do not have? One possibility is that for Kriegel the content of visual

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Does the perceptual error take place at the level of experience or at the level of belief?

Kriegel’s remark seems to suggest the former. Recall that according to internalist

representationalism experience carries both phenomenal content and objective content.

The relation between them is that, Kriegel says, “experience carries, immediately,

phenomenal content, and only mediately, objective content,”and that “An experience

carries the objective content it does only by virtue of carrying the phenomenal content

it does.”(Kriegel 2002) On this account, perceptual error happens when the

objective content of experience misrepresents objective colors. Since phenomenal

content underlies objective content, it is phenomenal content that is ultimately

responsible for perceptual misrepresentation. As we shall see later, this conflicts with

Kriegel’s third reply.

Consider (2). Kriegel claims that even if objective colors cannot be experienced,

one can still have inferential knowledge about them. But this is in fact giving up

immediate knowledge about color, which violates our ordinary intuition that, when we

see things veridically, we immediately know their colors without making any inference.

Also, if knowledge about color can only be inferential, we will have to abandon the

notion of noninferential justification.

With regard to (3), Kriegel says, “experience represents only the way things

appear to be … It is only the content of beliefs that concern the way things really are.”

(Kriegel 2002) This is problematic. First, it amounts to that the content of

experience is only about phenomenal properties, not about objective properties, which

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content. Second, Kriegel’s suggestion is that perceptual error takes place only at the

level of belief or judgment. This is explicit when he says, “to perceive the moon as

appearing one inch across is not to be under an illusion. It is only when the

experience is endorsed by a judgment to the effect that the moon really is one inch

across that one falls into error.”(Kriegel 2002) This conflicts with his first reply that

the content of visual experience can get objective colors wrong. Third, if the content

of experience is only about how things appear to us, and if error only happens at the

level of judgment, never at the level of experience, then the content of experience

would always be true. This is surely counterintuitive.

4. Shoemaker’s Defense Examined

Shoemaker’s defense is different. According to him, it is misleading to say that

on the internalist representationalist account objective colors are not basically seen.

He thinks that phenomenal color properties are just ways that the color of an object can

phenomenally present itself to the subjects, and one cannot see the color of an object

without seeing it phenomenally appearing to one in a certain way (Shoemaker 2000,

2002). And it is not by accident that an object possesses certain phenomenal color

properties. The object has them in virtue of its possessing certain objective colors.

Shoemaker further says, “Appearance properties must be individuated not only by the

sorts of experience they produce or are disposed to produce, but also by the kind of

causation involved in the production of these experiences.”(Shoemaker 2002) This

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related. Jack perceives a ripe tomato as phenomenally red because the tomato is

objectively red. Hence, by seeing the phenomenal redness of the tomato, Jack also

sees it as objectively red. Likewise, Jill perceives the tomato as phenomenally green

because it is objectively red. By seeing the phenomenal greenness of the tomato, Jill

also sees it as objectively red. In this sense, Shoemaker contends, it is wrong to say

that objective colors are not basically seen, and it is not possible that an object can

have certain phenomenal color properties without having any objective color at all.

Shoemaker claims that it is by perceiving phenomenal color properties that we see

objective colors. He seems to take this as a commonsensical claim, as he says, “the

relation of the phenomenal property to the color is analogous to that of the facing

surface of a table to the whole table.”(Shoemaker 2000) I find this analogy

problematic. A table is ordinarily considered as a whole, i.e., not part of another

physical object. When we see the facing surface of a table, we take ourselves to be

seeing the whole table. This is because seeing the facing surface of a table is seeing

the table. But as mentioned above, the phenomenal redness that one directly

perceives is by definition not objective redness. If so, even though phenomenal color

properties and objective colors are causally related such that in veridical perception it

is not possible for one to see phenomenal color properties without also seeing

objective colors, it is still that objective colors are seen only indirectly.

Tye’s phrase that colors are “not basically seen”might not be the best way to

express this point. A better way, I suggest, is to say that since on Shoemaker’s

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indirectly or mediately. That is, phenomenal color properties are a kind of epistemic

intermediary. Consider the notion of perceptual error that might be implied in

Shoemaker’s account. There are two possibilities: (1) The subject mistakenly takes

the phenomenal content of his experience to be a good reason to think that the real

color of the object is red. So construed, perceptual error lies at the level of belief.

(2) The objective content of the subject’s experience misrepresents objective colors

because its phenomenal content misrepresents the corresponding phenomenal color

properties. So construed, perceptual error is at the level of experience. More needs

to be said about these possibilities. But it seems to me that both suggest that

phenomenal color properties play the role of epistemic intermediary regarding our

knowledge about objective colors.

If so, Shoemaker’s view faces a familiar skeptical problem. Epistemically, since

objective colors are not directly seen, one can always get real colors wrong. We need

not go as far as Tye to doubt whether the object in view really has any color at all.

But the following worry remains: Since we don’t have direct knowledge about colors,

it is epistemically possible that although things do have colors, their colors are never

what we take them to have. This is counterintuitive enough. So I conclude that, like

Kriegel, Shoemaker’s response to Tye’s criticism is unsatisfactory. Any defense of

internalist representationalism has to take the epistemological relation between

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Literature

Kriegel, Uriah 2002 “Phenomenal Content”, Erkenntnis 57, 175-198.

Shoemaker, Sydney 1994 “Phenomenal Character”Noủs 28, 21-38

Shoemaker, Sydney 2000 “Phenomenal Character Revisited”, Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research 60, 465-468.

Shoemaker, Sydney 2001 “Introspection and Phenomenal Character”, reprinted in:

David Chalmers (ed.) Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings,

Oxford University Press, 2002.

Shoemaker, Sydney 2002 “Content, Character, and Color II: A Better Kind of

Representationalism”, NEH presentation, 1-20.

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