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  Conceptual and Nonconceptual Perceptual Experience

Introduction

Some philosophers such as McDowell argue that in order for perception to play a role

in judgements, perception must be primarily conceptual. According to conceptualists, if

perception were nonconceptual then we could not use perception as a reason for our beliefs

and judgements (See McDowell 1996, Brewer 2002). In this paper, I want to firstly argue that

perception has nonconceptual content and secondly that such content can rationally guide

conceptual judgements. The problem lying behind the conceptualist view is that it takes only

propositional content as providing possible correctness conditions for judgements. In the

following, I will argue that perception is imagistic, map-like or in analog form as Dretske put

forward, ( Dretske 1981) thus, perception differs in kind from conceptual content the

paradigm of which is propositions and beliefs. Given that perception and conceptual content

differ in kind in terms of fineness of grain, situation dependency and richness of content, (See

Kelly 2001, Heck 2000) perceptual content cannot be reducible to conceptual content which is

coarse grained, general and situation independent. I will argue however that the irreducibility

of perception to conceptual content does not imply an absolute lack of connectedness between

them. Conceptual judgements can be rationally responsive to perceptual experience even if

this experience does not have the relevant conceptual content. Thus, propositions and other

beliefs are not the only things that can provide accuracy conditions for conceptual judgement,

but image-like or map-like perception can play such a role in rational guiding as well. In

saying this, I am suggesting that we should reply Davidsonian claim that the only thing that

can justify a belief is another belief. So, my claim is in order for conceptualization and

rational guidance, the primary perceptual experience need not to be conceptual and in order to

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argue for nonconceptualism we do not need to deny that there is a rational linkage between

perception and judgement.

In this way, I also want to shed light on the epistemological problems such as

circularity that arises if we were to accept conceptualist view. That is, if concepts are at work

from the very beginning of perceptual experience as McDowell claims, then we would fail to

account for concept acquisition and the way concept penetration changes the phenomenology

of perceptual experience (See Siegel 2012, and Macpherson 2012). However, if we accept

that part-whole relation is different in perception than the part whole relationship in

propositional content, then we will account for how the whole in perception is immediately

given and how conceptualization of perceptual content is a matter of degree and is an endless

process. The fact that the same perceptual experience can be articulated in myriad ways shows

that perception is more than we can discursively exploit, and thus there will always remain an

unarticulated residue between the content of perceptual experience and conceptual content.

In the first part of the paper, I will elaborate on why perceptual content should rather

be regarded as nonconceptual and elucidate traditional arguments that emphasize perception’s

difference in kind from conceptual content. In the second part of paper, I will explain that

even though perceptual content is conceptualizable and can be the object of thought as

McDowell claims, there is an unbridgeable gap between perceptual and conceptual content

due to the fact that conceptual capacities can develop independently from perceptual

experience.

What we mean by terms Concept and Content?

Before delving into the debate, I firstly want to clarify in what sense I will use the

terms concept and content. In this particular debate, concepts are generally handled as

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Fregean senses.1 According to Frege different terms might refer to the same object. Gold and

the element with 79 atom number refer to the same object, but their senses are different. We

can make this distinction between mode of presentation and referent for any semantic

category whether it be a kind term, a proper name, a phrase or a whole sentence. What we

mean by concepts in this debate is Fregean “sense”. Following the distinction Frege made

between sense and reference, I will also apply the distinction between the object and the

representation of the object. Just as there are different senses of the same referent, there are

different modes of presentation of the same object. Thus, there is a distinction between how

things are represented and what is represented. While “how things are represented” bears

similarity to modes of presentation of a referent, the object is similar to the referent. In Frege,

the referent might remain the same, but senses might differ. Thus, the same referent can have

different modes of presentation in terms of its sense. Here, the distinction between perceptual

content and perceptual object is in parallel to the distinction between sense and referent. There

is a distinction between object and the representation of the perceptual object, since the same

object can convey different contents because there are different modes of presentation of the

same perceptual object. Perception is perspectival and perceptual objects have various modes

of presentation whether it have imagistic or conceptual content, thus modes of presentation of

the perceptual object is not tantamount to the perceptual object. The object is given from a

perspective, or can be given in thinking or in imagining or remembering mode, but they are

not identical to the object, rather they are different modes of presentation of an object.

Henceforth, I will call representation of an object as perceptual content or perceptual

1 Here, it is also crucial to point out that even though concepts are usually considered to be Fregean senses, they are generally not clearly defined. The confusion partly stems from the fact that philosophers stipulate what concepts are and describe what it means to have conceptual capacities or abilities. As McDowell says: “It is important that the connection between conceptual capacities and rationality is a stipulation. It is not that there is a universally shared idea of conceptual capacities, which determines a subject matter about whose properties people disagree.” Rather than defining what concepts are, we can investigate them as what they are for. Thus, the important thing is the function of conceptual capacities in rational thinking rather than defining an essential property of conceptual capacity. And as Crane states: “It seems, then, that to understand what concepts are, we need to understand what it is to possess a concept.” Given that there is no universal definition of what concepts are, both sides in general describe what it is to have concepts.

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experience. All I mean by content is made up of modes of presentation of an object. Here, I

will additionally argue that if the senses might differ in accordance with “the way the object is

given”, then not only the semantic content but also psychological aspect of perception gains

importance. That is, the way I see object and the properties I ascribe to it might differ, thus

what experiences convey to me might differ from someone else’s experience.

However, let me immediately underline the possible problem that can arise when a

conceptualist expands her notion of concepts to the extent that it involves discriminational

capacities. If what we mean by conceptuality of content is that we can discriminate each

object from the other in terms of at least basic categories such that it is an object, round, has

color etc., then, such a view will fail to give an account of concept possession and its

influence both in the phenomenal character of experience and the novel concept’s influence in

the web of inferential relations. The claim that categorial understanding is always at play will

be trivially true and the discussion rolls over to insignificance as it does not give an account of

how various ways of conceptualization can make a difference to the phenomenal character of

experience. But, there is certainly a difference in phenomenology of experience prior to

relevant concept acquisition. As recently argued, perceptual experience is penetrated by

conceptual capacities we have and “the way things are” influenced by subject’s conceptual

repertoire (Siegel 2012, Macpherson 2012). Assuming that cognitive penetration thesis is true,

that is, if phenomenological experience is determined by subject’s particular conceptual

abilities, then the issue at hand matters to account for subjective life of phenomenological

experience. That is, if I am able to categorize an object differently prior to the acquisition of

the relevant concept, then a theory should give an account for the difference. In this sense, the

problem with the conceptualist view is this: if perception has always been conceptual all the

way down, then the role of perception in the production of knowledge and formation of

beliefs would be undermined. By attributing concepts to the primary perception, conceptualist

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would appeal to the phenomena it wants account for. As Prinz states: “If one theory of

concepts is compatible with a more plausible, independently motivated theory of acquisition

then it should be preffered over an incompatible theory.”2

Secondly, let’s clarify why the notion of content is crucial for our purposes. What

conceptualists argue is that the presentation of how things are “thus and so” in perceptual

experience is the ground for judgements since perception stands in reason-giving relation to

judgements. Perception is an intelligible presentation of how things are and we can use “how

things are” as reasons in judgements. According to Siegel, who firstly endorses content view,

perceptual experience delivers some content to us, just as a picture, a book, or a newspaper

conveys information to us. In this sense, contents of belief are the conditions under which a

belief state is true, similarly contents of perception is the condition for judgements to be true

or false (Siegel 2010: 30). In this sense, perceptual contents are accuracy conditions. That is,

perception determines truth and falsity of observational claims and judgements. If we assign

veridicality to a statement, it shows that there is something else to which we compare belief

statements’ accuracy. “If something is accurate, then there is something else in relation to

which it is accurate.” (Siegel 2010: 31) And, in the case of observational beliefs, we compare

observational beliefs to what is given to us in perceptual content. The accuracy conditions of

content are crucial for the debate because the main motivation behind conceptualism is that

perception stands in a reason giving relation to judgements, thus perception and beliefs have

an epistemological proximity.

So far, both conceptualists and nonconceptualists can agree that perceptual experience

has content. 3 However, nonconceptualists argue that there is more to perceptual content than

2 See Prinz, Jesse, Furnishing The Mind, Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis. (Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press 2002), 9. And see Toribio,Josefa, “Nonconceptual Content”, Philosophy Compass 2/3 (2007),p. 449. “The distinction between conceptual and nonconceptual content becomes philosophically interesting only when we assume more demanding theories of concept possession.”

3 First of all, there can be nonconceptual perceptual experience and nonconceptual content of perceptual experience. Some nonconceptualists deny that there is any content in perception as they hold that perception is a

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propositional content can deliver, because perception and conceptual content differ in kind. 4

In the next section, I will argue for why perceptual experience is nonconceptual and how it

still can rationally guides judgements.

The Relationship between Nonconceptual Content and Judgements

The reasons for perceptual experience’s difference in kind is that perception is finely–

grained, situation dependent, and has a rich content, while concepts are coarse grained,

general and subtracts from the richness of perceptual content. In perceiving things, we can

make more discriminations than our conceptual repertoire allows, hence, representational

capacities are more finely grained than concepts which are usually determined after the

experience. Thus, perceptual or representational capacities outstrip conceptual capacities, and

subjects do not need to have relevant concepts in order to undergo perceptual experience. So

far, the discussion seems to revolve around the distinctions between how representational

content can differ from conceptual content, the paradigm example of which are propositional

attitudes and beliefs. If we are content with making distinctions between how representational

direct knowledge of how things are, and there is no representation of how things are For Mulligan, for instance, simple seeing is primitive certainty and it is not connected to cognitive values as content and beliefs are. Perception is primitively certain because in perceiving, we do not double the reality. Thus, for Mulligan, even nonconceptual content is closer to propositional content than perception is connected to beliefs.”Only in the case of illusion and hallucination, is it necessary to introduce mental (nonconceptual) content. We can now see that this view of simple seeing and the intuition that primitive certainty involves no doubling of reality are made for one another. If simple seeing is just primitive visual certainty then of course it involves no content.” For Mulligan, simple seeing is certain knowledge of things, then, there is no content through which we perceive reality. Mulligan’s explanation for how perception plays a role in judgement, is that primitively certain perception’s relation to propositional content is probabilistic. Perception provides criteria for which proposition can be more likely to be true and more appropriate to grasp perceptual certainty. But perception or criteria do not come in degrees, while cognitive beliefs come in varying degrees of accuracy.

4 Here, I will not delve into the distinction between nonconceptual perceptual experience and nonconceptual content of perceptual experience. Some nonconceptualists deny that there is any content in perception as they hold that perception is a direct knowledge of how things are, and there is no representation of how things are. For Mulligan, for instance, simple seeing is primitive certainty and it is not connected to cognitive values as content and beliefs are. Perception is primitively certain because in perceiving, we do not double the reality. Thus, for Mulligan, even nonconceptual content is closer to propositional content than perception’s connection to beliefs. “Only in the case of illusion and hallucination, is it necessary to introduce mental (nonconceptual) content. We can now see that this view of simple seeing and the intuition that primitive certainty involves no doubling of reality are made for one another. If simple seeing is just primitive visual certainty then of course it involves no content.” For Mulligan, simple seeing is certain knowledge of things, then, there is no content through which we perceive reality. Mulligan’s explanation for how perception plays a role in judgement, is that primitively certain perception’s relation to propositional content is probabilistic. Perception provides criteria for which proposition can be more likely to be true and more appropriate to grasp perceptual certainty. But perception or criteria do not come in degrees, while cognitive beliefs come in varying degrees of accuracy.

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capacities in perception differ from conceptual content, then the debate might turn to a matter

of emphasis. The debate becomes more interesting when conceptualists claim that

nonconceptual content cannot play a justificatory role in judgements. I hold that there is a

relationship between perceptual content and conceptual content, but this relationship is not

strict as conceptualists argue.

The first reason is that, as distinctions between perceptual and conceptual content

shows, the part whole relationship in perception and judgement is not the same. While the

“whole”, rich, finely-grained “image” is given in perception, when we try to convey the

descriptions of an image with concepts, they will fail to grasp it by default, since through

concepts we can grasp a part of an image. To give an example for an image, let’s think about

maps. There can be various maps which represent the same place, one can depict its

highways, the other could depict its metro stations or the other might depict its vegetation. All

maps are the accurate depiction of the same place. Or, there could be a richly detailed map

that depicts various aspects of a city, and which can be the basis for different kinds of maps. If

the first type of map is accurate, it can be used as a basis for designing various different kinds

of maps. To put it in another way, the first type of map, if it itself is accurate, can provide

accuracy conditions for the drawing of the second type of map. One conclusion that can be

drawn from the example is that what justifies a belief is not another belief as Davidson claims.

But, an image can play a role in forming different accurate images as well as different beliefs.

As Gibson also concedes the distinct character of an image, he says:

But the essence of a picture is just that its information is not explicit. The invariants cannot be put into words or symbols. The depiction captures an awareness without describing it. The record has not been forced into predications and propositions. There is no way of describing the awareness of being in the environment at a certain place. Novelists attempt it, of course, but they cannot put you in the picture in anything like the way the painter can. (Gibson, )

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The relationship between maps or images and verbal description of a map or an image is

similar to the relationship between perceptual and conceptual content. In this sense,

perceptual content might play a role in judgements since its being richly-detailed image-like

character does not amount to its having a mysterious content. Moreover, perceptual content

can determine which judgements can be true or false, however, that does not mean perceptual

content is completely conceptualized since there can be infinitely various ways of

conceptualization of the same content. As Siegel also argues that one part of depiction of

perceptual content can be true while other parts are false or missing ( Siegel 2011, 32). The

judgement related to a part of content will fail to grasp richness of content, even though it is

compatible with the content’s accuracy. Concepts, such as red, table, animal etc. grasps

universally communicable properties that are shared by many other objects5, but in perceiving

things, we perceive particular objects which are concretely given. To put it more simply, an

image is not a concept and cannot be identical to a concept, thus an image cannot be reduced

to a concept or to a set of concepts. And when we look at the arguments in favor of

nonconceptualism, we see that they focus on the distinct characteristic features of an image

which are fineness of grain, situated dependency and richness of content. In this sense, it is

argued that perception which is different in kind from concepts cannot be conceptual. But

such a distinction should not lead us to deny that there is any relationship between how we

perceive and what we judge. There is a relationship, just as there is relation between a map

and the verbal explanation of the map, but the latter cannot grasp the former by nature. Or, we

might create different kinds of map which represents the same place, which are all accurate or

which depicts some part of the same place in accurate way. These various modes of

presentations of the same place are not identical to the same place, as they grasp some part of

the same place in a more detailed and proper way.

5Generality constraint as Evans has firstly endorsed is: “If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has a conception.”

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As recently emphasized by many philosophers, the only correctness conditions are not

propositions. Images, pictures and maps can also be accurate without being true or false as

propositions. In this sense, my views are closer to Dretske who makes a distinction between

analog and digital representations in Seeing and Knowing (1969). According to Dretske, if

content conveys us only the information that a is F and no other information, then it is in a

digital form. If content conveys additional information about F, then it is in analog form.

While conceptual content is in digital form, perceptual content is in analog form. Since an

image cannot be reduced to an abstract concept, as the image is more finely-grained then

concept through which we try to subsume objects under predicates, perceptual content cannot

be reduced to conceptual content. When we conceptualize perceptual content, there will be

inevitably loss of richness of content since conceptual content is an abstraction and comes in

degrees of accuracy, while perception is determined and involves finely-grained details. Thus,

perceptual content’s accuracy conditions are not only propositions and concepts. Given that

an image is not a concept, perceptual experience cannot be identical to propositions. As Hopp

articulates:

For what the argument assumes is that only propositional contents can be correct or incorrect. But this is not so (Burge 2003). An accurate map of the United States will depict Texas as being larger than Ohio. But it does not do so by expressing a proposition. Maps are not made of the right kind of stuff to express propositions. No map could only contain the information that Texas is larger than Ohio. Indepicting their respective sizes, it will also depict their respective shapes and locations. And maps do not have negations: you cannot draw a map whose content is merely that Texas is not larger than Ohio (Millikan 2004: 93). Pictures are another good example. A portrait of Napoleon can be accurate or inaccurate, and it can depict how something is. But it does not express a proposition. If it did, it would have a negation. If something like a map or a picture, which to all appearances is a massively simpler representational vehicle than a perceptual experience, can manage to depict facts without expressing propositions or judgments, it is not at all obvious that perceptual experiences cannot do so without having them as contents.

Thus, given that the only correctness conditions are not propositions, we do not need

to argue for conceptual content in order to show that perception can play a role in judgements.

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One might argue that perceiving a picture is having some beliefs about it. That is, we perceive

things ‘thus and so’ and we depict it. However, the structure of perceptual experience cannot

be grasped by propositions which subsume subjects or members under a predicate.6 On the

other hand, picture-like character of an image does not impose on perceiver any particular

predicate, but still, the picture-like perception can make some judgements more probable if it

depicts some part of it in an accurate way. Thus, the only ground for judgements is not other

judgements or beliefs as Davidson claims. Rather, perceptual experience is more similar to the

intricately detailed image which allows for myriad ways of conceptualization that comes in

degrees. In this sense, not only beliefs but nonconceptual, image-like content which does not

involve the relevant concept can make some judgements more probable if it grasps some part

of the content more accurately.

The second crucial distinction of perceptual experience from conceptual content is the

phenomenal aspect of perception which is concretely and particularly given to a subject

(Crane 2013). We perceive how things are, yellowness of the lemon, greenness of leafs and

children’s playing football and it is true that content have a semantic aspect as there is

something conveyed to us which we can use as reasons in our judgements.7 But, there is also

phenomenological and psychological aspect of perceptual experience which is specifically

given to a subject. Concrete and particular character of perceptual experience distinguishes it

from being merely a semantic content. That is, we not only perceive what we perceive, but

there is a concrete way that an experience is given to us. Not only what we perceive is

relevant but how we perceive is also relevant in order to understand the phenomenology of

6 Kant also points out the difference of aesthetic judgement from scientific judgements which subsume some members under a predicate. Free play of imagination in aesthetic experience allows subject to entertain concepts but we confront with a failure to find an appropriate concept. 7 Given that perception has a phenomenal and an intentional character, the objects may not be the same as we experience them That is, perceptual experience always has a phenomenal character and phenomenal character of perception might remain the same although the object of perception changes. I will not specifically argue whether we perceive things as they are in themselves or whether we represent reality in the sense that we duplicate it. Here, my aim will be to shed light on the reasons why perceptual content is nonconceptual.

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perceptual experience (Crane 2013). So, the distinction is needed again between how things

are represented and what is represented. Perceptual object is represented in a situation-

dependent way since there is always a subject who perceives from a perspective. Perceptual

objects always take place in a context, that is, I not only perceive there is a table in front of

me, but I also perceive that table is besides the wall, has a round shape etc. And, concepts are

too general to grasp context or situation dependent perception (See Kelly, 2001). That is, the

concept red does not grasp the red color we see in an ambient light or in sunlight which makes

difference in phenomenology of experience. Moreover, we can express the same content, but

we cannot share the “vehicle of content” since a particular subject experiences how things are

in a particular time.8 As Crane specifically argues for vehicle of content, he states that it is not

only content that is conveyed to the subject, but there is also a form of the content in which

way the content is given (2013: 16). That is, perceptual experience is concretely and

particularly given to the subject in a certain way, in a context and from a point a view.

Perception’s concrete and particular givenness is a spatiotemporally not a repeatable content

as it is specifically given to particular subject under specific conditions.9 Since content is

given to a subject and psychological dimension cannot be denied of subject, content cannot

independently be thought of both phenomenological and psychological aspect of the subject.

For conceptualists such a distinction is not relevant because the same object conveyed to the

subject in perceptual experience can be expressed in conceptual content as well. The semantic

content of perception can be same as the content conveyed by propositions, and in this sense,

the way things are given is not relevant. For instance, McDowell states: “Of course what

rationality confers is only the capacity to live a life that is one’s own in the sense I’m

gesturing at. To what extent the capacity is exercised, and in which regions of life, depends on

8 Bergson9 Bergson

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all kinds of factors.”10 McDowell is right that psychological incapacity is not tantamount to

logical impossibility of expressibility of semantic content. One might fail to characterize her

perceptual experience, but such a psychological incapacity does not give any harm to

semantic expressibility. But, what if semantic content of perceptual experience is determined

by the phenomenology of experience? If a mode of presentation of an object differs variously

in accordance with the context and it influences the semantic content of experience, then the

phenomenal character of experience will be crucial to the semantic content. We can do away

with psychological aspect in the analysis of semantic content, but, when it comes to

perception, we cannot overlook the psychological aspect of perception. As Crane states:

But in embracing a purely semantic conception of the content of experience, they go too far in rejecting psychologism about the psychological. Psychologism about logic is an extreme thesis, and surely false. Psychologism about the psychological, on the other hand, is very likely to be true.(2014, 255)

In contrast to McDowell who does away with psychological aspect of perception, my view is

closer to Crane who states the vehicle of content is crucial as when we try to account for a

specific perceptual episode of experience, we would also want to convey context-dependent

details of experience. That is, characteristics of perception such as situation dependency, and

the vehicle of content play a role in justifying judgements. Even though perceptual episodes

are particularly given to the subject and not repeatable, we try to account for the particular

aspects of perceptual episodes. In that sense, the only thing that matters in justification of

reasons is not only semantics but psychology as well.11 As Crane puts it again:

if one is trying to characterise the phenomenology of a particular experiential episode, then it is not irrelevant to that phenomenology that the episode involves a specific kind of ‘vehicle’ in this sense. One might even say that where the phenomenological conception of content is concerned, we should

10  McDowell, John, Having the World in View, Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, (Harvard University Press, 2009), 139.11 See Crane, Aspects of Psychologism, 255 “But in embracing a purely semantic conception of the content of experience, they go too far in rejecting psychologism about the psychological. Psychologism about logic is an extreme thesis, and surely false. Psychologism about the psychological, on the other hand, is very likely to be true.”

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not make the distinction between vehicle and content: it is central to the phemomenology of an experience that what is conveyed to the subject includes its specific vehicle.

There is one more problem that needs to be dealt with. Conceptualists concede the

specific characteric features of perceptual experience, but they still argue that those specific

aspects of perception can be the object of thought. That is, even though specific

characteristics of perceptual experience such as fineness of grain, context dependency or

richness of experience are conceded by conceptualists as well, they still argue that concepts

can be rendered more finely-grained to account for experience. In the next section, I will

explain why there will remain a gap between perceptual experience and conceptual content

even though we accept the thesis that perceptual objects can be the object of thought and

concepts can be rendered more finely-grained in order to grasp specific characteristics of

perceptual experience.

Conceptualization as a Matter of Degree

In the first section, I have pointed out that an account of perception has to explain how

acquisition of concepts can change the phenomenology of experience assuming that cognitive

penetration is true. In this part, I will show that conceptualist account of perception fails to

explain the acquisition of concept since conceptualization is not an either or issue, but rather it

is a matter of degree. If conceptualization does not come to an end, I will argue that there will

remain an unarticulated residue in perceptual experience.

In fact, conceptualists make a distinction between perception and conceptualized

content. For example, McDowell concedes the fact that conceptual capacities are at play in

perception does not mean that perceptual experience is conceptualized. Still, he argues that

conceptual capacities are at work in perceptual experience so that judging of perceptual

content is possible. According to McDowell, the significance of spontaneous activity of

conceptual capacities depends on at least three reasons: the first reason is to ground the

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rationality of subjects as opposed to nonrational animals. Unlike animals, we are able to

report the reasons for our actions since, say, we have the concept of danger, but the animal

merely discriminates the danger.(McDowell …) What McDowell means by conceptuality of

perceptual experience is the subject’s capacity to be responsive to reasons, an ability that

characterizes free agency. McDowell points out that articulating reasons for actions or beliefs

is not necessary for the exercise of conceptual capacities. The spontaneous activity of

concepts does not need to involve judgement, but it is a judgeable content in the sense that we

can articulate what we perceive. Thus, there is a distinction between what is conceptual and

what is conceptualized. Not every perceptual experience is conceptualized, and surely,

perceptual experience does not have subtitles, still, perception is conceptual in the sense that it

is a conceptualizable content. Even if we do not have the word to describe perceptual

experience we can demonstrate the experience as ‘that’ experience as such and such. The

significance of conceptual capacities lies in their articulability and in our ability to use

perceptual experience in reasoning. For McDowell, conceptual capacities are always

spontaneously at play and there is no ‘sheer receptivity’ or “myth of the given” in which the

content of perception is ineffable or mysterious. The empirical and observational beliefs can

be traced back to their reasons and inferences even though those reasons in perception do not

need to be inferential themselves.12 Thus, perceptual experience is the ground for empirical

judgements, so conceptual capacities are spontaneously at play in perception. The upshot is,

by conceptuality, McDowell emphasizes rationality of human being and the possibility of

using perceptual experience as reasons for actions and beliefs.

There are a few problems with this view. Firstly, subjects’ having conceptual

capacities is about the capacity of judgement. It is not about the capacity of perception.

Animals perceive, but they do not judge. Then, it follows that judgement is not the necessary

condition for perception. So, conceptual capacities’ being at work in perception does not

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make perception conceptual. Moreover, responsiveness to reasons does not require that the

content of experience is conceptual: rather, all needed is that the object of experience is

conceptualizable and that the perceptual content can provide accuracy conditions for the

exercise of conceptual capacities. And nonconceptulists does not argue against

conceptualizability. As Crane states:

McDowell insists that the content of an intuition is conceptual, but this is consistent with not every aspect of the content actually being conceptualised, or thought about, or made the content of a judgement (2009a: 264; see also 2009b: 346-7). The view that not everything that is presented in an experience is conceptualised is one I find very plausible; but I would prefer to call it the view that experience has non-conceptual content! (2013: 20-21)

In the previous section, I have elucidated that nonconceptual content of perception is

not a hindrance for rational guidance of judgements. And it does not mean that perceptual

experience has a mysterious content. It also does not mean that we have to forsake free

agency if perceptual experience is not conceptual. The point is merely that perceptual and

conceptual content differ in kind, thus they cannot be thoroughly grasped through each other.

Secondly, another lack in conceptual account is that it fails to show how our capacity

of judgement varies independently from perception. To exemplify, we are not merely content

with what is seen, because perception can be conceptualized endlessly in myriad ways.

Conceptualization comes in varying degrees of accuracy after perceptual experience, thus, we

need to say that conceptualization and perception are independent processes. Since perception

and conceptualization processes vary independently, we can also entertain thoughts about

non-perceptual objects, and none of these imaginative acts are limited to concrete knowledge

of objects in perceptual experience. In thought, we can think of objects that are not available

in perception and combine various properties that are specific to a particular object in

perception. In this sense, due to the distinction between the capacity of judgement and the

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content of perceptual experience, there is a gap between how things appear to us and how we

judge them.

Thirdly, our concepts or judgements do not only change top-down, from cognition to

perception as cognitive penetration theses show, but concepts also change in a bottom-up

way, from perception to cognition. That is, if our judgements are related to perceptual

experience, then we need to concede that new perceptual object can change judgements or

lead us to form different judgements that explain novel perceptual object. That is, a novel

experience of perceptual object which we do not know how to categorize might inform us

about the possibly novel structural unities. With a novel kind of experience, our articulation of

the perceptual experience as ‘thus and so’ might remain insufficient in relation to novel one

since that the latter might play a role in the description of former ones. A color that we have

never seen before may change our description of the color we already know. We can start

describing the color we are already familiar with as darker or lighter in relation the novel

color we see. There is always a possibility that a novel object might change categorization of

the older ones. Here, McDowell might say that it is firstly the perceptual experience that

allows for discursive exploitation of primary experience that determines which concepts we

will find appropriate to entertain that content. Thus, he can conclude that it is firstly

conceptual perception that determines relevant concepts we can use in judgements. However,

even though we need a minimal categorical conceptual framework to entertain the content

properly, we can never be sure where our descriptions will end as the most appropriate and

finely-grained description of the content. Given that experience of novel objects is endless,

categorization of them is an endless task as well. In this sense, perceptual experience cannot

be exploited by concepts even though concepts can be rendered more finely-grained to grasp

the accuracy of perceptual experience. Here, it would be trivially true to argue that every

object is encountered in a familiarity and there is not a “radically new object.” If an

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experience changes the character of previous ones, then insisting on familiarity will trivialize

the matter since if a theory merely shows that every object falls into a category in a way or in

another, it would fail to give an account of change in the phenomenology of experience. Thus,

even though we accept that perceptual experience is intelligible and articulazible in an

accurate way, the fact that discursive exploitation cannot express the whole content is still

crucial for nonconceptualist position. Even though, we accept that categorial understanding is

at play, we cannot overlook the fact that there are degrees of accurate depiction or articulation

and the influence of articulation in the phenomenology of experience.13 The possibility of

articulation creates a gap between what is conceptualized and perceptual experience which is

partly responsible for the lack in perceptual experience.

Lastly, the problem in conceptualist view is about perception’s epistemic role in

judgements. For conceptualists, we can articulate how things are “thus and so” in primary

perceptual experience. However, we not only judge how things are in perception but we also

attribute different descriptions to a state of affairs or to an object by inferring judgements that

are in relation to other judgements we have. Judgements do not merely depend on perception,

but they are related to other judgements. In this sense, the capacity of judgement does not

only depend on perception but it is also fed by our conceptual repertoire and accumulated

knowledge. How I will judge perceptual object depends on the inferential relations among

other judgements. If I know that good cheese smells bad, I can infer that the cheese might be

qualified since it smells bad. If I do not have the knowledge that good cheese smells bad, I

can infer that the cheese has gone stale. If judgements depend on former judgements I have,

then the judgements upon the same perceptual object might differ from person to person. It

might be difficult for some people to understand the applicability of some concepts for some 13 The need to account for degrees of knowledge is the reason why Hopp proposes a solution like concept authenticity. He says: “A person possesses a concept authentically just in case she has sufficiently reliable, nondeferential capacities to identify its object over a sufficintly wide range of conditions and environments. I will, for ease of exposition, refer to this as “concept authenticity”, like the authenticity of selves but unlike the authenticity of dollor bills, is something that comes in degrees.” Hopp, Perception and Knowledge, 195.

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situations, or it might be troubling to make sense of the recombinability of some concepts

which can play a role in inferential relations for understanding.14 The judgements I employ

about perception are weakened or strengthened by other judgements I have.

Since judgements are in relation to other judgements, we can use the same experience

as a reason for various different judgements; or, the same perceptual episode can justify

different judgements. For instance, if I see my friend's hat at the house, I might use perceptual

information as a reason for my judgement that my friend came home. But, if someone

informed me that he does not use that hat anymore, I can infer that he had forgotten it some

time ago. Thus, which perceptual experience I will use as a reason for a judgement also

depends on my background knowledge regarding the situation in question. Which perceptual

content will play a role as an overweighting reason in judgements depend on former

judgemets and it depends on the complexity of inferential relations. Thus, the relationship

between perception and judgements is not direct, rather it is mediated by former judgements

that determine which reasons we are going to use to form judgements. In this sense, the claim

that perception is conceptual, because there is a continuity between perception and judgement

is misleading, because what makes judgements possible about perception is not only

perceptual knowledge but also other judgements. Even though it is accepted that “how things

are thus and so” are operative in judgement, the objects of perception and objects of

judgements might not always be the same and there is not a necessary continuation between

judgement and perception.15 The capacity of judgement does not depend merely on the

continuity between perception and judgement since the objects of perception are not

14 As Elizabeth Camp nicely elaborates in her article on “Generality Constraint and Categorial Restrictions”, making sense of concepts are not limited to categorial restrictions and hearer might develop inferential roles of metaphors. “For instance, many combinations of concepts are too complex to be entertained by any finite thinker. Someone might be barred from entertaining some thoughts because they are too psychologically troubling, or even because a physio- logical reaction prevents the neural states corresponding to two specific concepts from co-occurring.” (2004, 211). 15 See Hopp, Perception and Knowledge, 207

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necessarily the objects of judgement, they can vary independently.16 Moreover, the

compositionality of thought is not on a par with the compositionality in the content of

perception. While we cannot play with the compositionality of perceptual experience we can

play with the compositionality of concepts.17 The capacity for compositionality of concepts

makes it possible to describe the same experience in myriad ways.

It lies beyond the scope of this paper to explain an embodied account of concepts, but I

want to point out why embodied account of concepts fails for the same reasons I showed

conceptual account of perception fails. Similar to McDowell, Noë argues for conceptuality of

perception and he claims that even at the level of embodiment, there are rules of normativity,

and even sensorimotor abilities are conceptual. To proceed from the standard example of

color, Noë claims that we understand the structural properties of color space in such a way

that for any given shade, we can embrace it in thought, even though we have never seen it

before and are not able to recognize it.” Objects have sensory profiles in structural relation to

other objects. “Red is more like yellow, as a rule, than it is like blue, and blue is more like

green than it is like red.”18 When Noë replies to Kelly’s argument of context-dependency of

perception which cannot be grasped by context-independent concepts, Noë asserts that:  “It is

true that for each shade we do not have a unique name. But the structural uniformities of color

space make possible, as it were, conceptualization of any given shade, for they make available

the possibility of color-concept-formulae.”19 If concepts are formulaic, then we can grasp all

finely-grained objects at least in a structural relationship, similar to an object and not similar

to other. Concepts are lawlike and formulaic and in this sense they are capacities to

discriminate prior to more finely grained words. Since one of the objection to conceptualism

16 Ibid.17 And concepts do not necessarily limited to generality constraint that Evans proposes. We can construct much more meaningful sentences with compositionality of concepts. See Camp, Elizabeth, “The Generality Constraint and Categorial Restrictions”, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.54, No.21518 Ibid.13719 Ibid.194

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is that concepts remain too general to grasp the richness of intuitive content of perception

changes, such a formulaic account of concepts seems to accomodate the problem of

contextuality and situation dependency, and what we expect are the dependent properties of

an object. Noë might be right in that we perceive dependent and contingent properties of an

object. But, as I have showed in the previous section, when try to express perceptual content,

we aim to express context-dependent properties of the situation which is not repeatable and

are particularly and concretely given to a subject. In this sense, grasping a color as a formula

is not sufficient to accurately express perceptual content since perceptual experience is not

only have a semantic content, but it also involves a phenomenological aspect.

Moreover, as we have showed, capacity of judgement varies independently of

perceptual experience as well as sensorimotor abilities, thus perceptual experience cannot

only constituted by sensorimotor skills and abilities, but it also involves reasoning, inferring,

recognition that comes in degrees.20 Perceptual experience is not only limited to embodied

perspectival aspect of objects, but it is also related to our concepts of objects which is

infinitely open to re-cognition and re-discovery. On the contrary, Noë asserts: “In effect, there

is no new experience. It’s all familiar. There is nothing new under the sun. It is all

comprehended by what we understand, by the structural spaces in which perspectival

properties and apparent colors are located.”( Noë, 198) However, Noë overlooks the fact that

we not only discover about objects but we also discover new modes of presentation of

concepts of perceptual objects is also crucial aspect of perceptual experience. That is, even

though we conceptualize perceptual objects, understanding of two concepts as referring to the

same thing is staggering and crucial exploration for perceptual experience. Coming to

20 Clark notices that merely sensorimotor account do not capture the dual aspect of perception. “For fine-grained action control requires the extraction and use of radically different kinds of information (from the incoming visual signal) than does recognition, report, recall, and reasoning. The former requires a constantly updated, egocentrically specified, exquisitely distance- and orientation-sensitive encoding of the visual array. The latter requires a degree of object constancy and the recognition of items by category and significance irrespective of the fine-detail of location, viewpoint, and retinal image size.” See Clark, Andy, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford University Press, 2010, 183.

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understand that Hesperus is Bosphorus will enrich our perspective of the object. The failure to

account for such recognition is a lack in a theory that aims to account for phenomenology of

experience.

Conclusion

 In this paper, I endeavored to show that perceptual content and conceptual content

differ in kind, thus perceptual content cannot be grasped by concepts. Secondly, I argued that

even though perception is conceptualizable as both sides agree, there is no end to

conceptualization process since capacity of judgement varies independently of perception. In

order not to trivialize the argument and to show that the debate is beyond the matter of

emphasis, what must be examined is not only the continuity between perceptual experience

and judgement but also their independency. The fact that perceptual experience can be judged

in various ways creates the gap between the capacity of judgement and the perceptual

experience as well as it underpins their continuity. Then, one can still argue for

nonconceptualism without denying the rational linkage between perceptual experience and

judgement. In order to concede the fact that there is a continuity between perception and

judgement, we do not need to accept that both perceptual experience and the conceptual

content have the same content.

References

Clark, A.(2010). Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford University Press.

Camp, E. (2004) “The Generality Constraint and Categorial Restrictions”, The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.54, No.215

Crane T.(2014) “The Given” in Aspects of Psychologism, (Harvard University Press).

Crane T.(2014) “Nonconceptual Content” in Aspects of Psychologism, (Harvard University Press)

Prinz, J. (2002). Furnishing The Mind, Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis. (Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press).

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McDowell, J.(2009), Having the World in View, Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, (Harvard University Press,)

Mulligan K. (2003) “Simple Seeing and Understanding” in Hallvard Fossheim, Tarjei Mandt Larsen, and John Rickard Sageng (eds.), NonConceptual Aspects of Experience. Oslo: Unipub forlag, (Proceedings of the 2000 Melbu Conference on Non-Conceptual Content), ISBN: 82-7477-118-4. 2003. 27-44.

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