What does it take to perceive a sensible property, such as an object’s colour? It has been argued that there conditions on perceiving a property which are not conditions on perceiving an object (e.g. Millar 2022, 2023). We may count as seeing an object no matter how it looks to us or how little we can tell about it; but seeing its colour is, the view holds, more demanding. If a blue bead in pink light looks black, we surely see the bead, but do wesee its colour? If intuitions diverge, how do we decide?In this paper, I present a challenge to any conditions on perceiving an object’s property that appeal either to how the object appears to us or to what we can judge about it. The challenge turns on the difficulty of drawing a line between cases of ordinary perceptual variation, where everyone agrees that we perceive the target property even though it looks a bit different across conditions, and cases where perception is deeply misleading as to the nature of the property, as with the black-looking bead. There are many kinds of failures involved in property perception which do not fit the traditional category of illusion and are not cases of failing to perceive the target property(e.g. Kalderon 2011, Macpherson & Batty 2016, Alford-Duguid 2020). Minimal conditions on property perception allow for a better account of both ordinary perceptual variation and the variety of failures in property perception.I conclude by outlining a distinction between perceiving as a perceptual relation andattributions of states of perceivinga property P to subjects (e.g. ‘she could see the bead’s colour’)which we make in everyday discourse. This distinction, I suggest, helps us make sense of the diverging intuitions about limiting cases like the black-looking blue bead.

In this paper, I explore the prospects for essential representationalism about perceptual experience (ER).

ER: For every phenomenal property in the class Φ, there is some representational property such that, necessarily, if perceptual experience has that phenomenal property then it has that representational property.

ER is a substantive philosophical claim because, if true, it can be used to explain the fundamental role of perceptual experience in grounding the intentionality of other mental states (Loar 2003; Kriegel 2011; Pautz 2013) and the cognitive-epistemic role of perceptual experience (Tye 2014; Dretske 2003). These explanatory virtues have led to the wide acceptance of ER among philosophers of perception. They have also, however, led to a general indifference towards pursuing independent arguments for ER. I contend that ER, in fact, requires an argument. This need is even greater after David Papineau’s (2021) recent attack on ER.

The paper has the following structure. First I discuss methodological problems encountered by attempts to establish ER. Next, I defend ER by way of an imagination-based argument from visual emergence. Doing so, I hope, avoids the relevant methodological problems. I conclude by address some possible objections to my thesis and ER in general.

In the reminder of this abstract I restrict myself to briefly introducing my argument for ER presented in detail in the second part of the paper.

Take my current visual experience of a white coffee cup with blue spots (henceforth: Cup_E). Cup_E is a case of distinctively experiential presentation in the sense that it meets criteria specified by the following thesis:

Experiential Presentation: Even without interpretation or augmentation by higher-order mental states, perceptual experience represents its objects by rendering them phenomenally present to a subject’s consciousness.

Phenomenal presence is sometimes cashed out in terms of transparency of experience vis-à-vis perceived objects and properties that are not represented as properties of the subject. But phenomenal presence is more than just transparency and objectivity of perceptual experience: perceptual experience by making things phenomenally present, seems to make us aware of the mind-independent particulars that are truth-makers of perceptual content (Pryor 2000: 547, fn. 37; Chudnoff 2012; Dorsch 2018; Berghofer 2020). I take the term “phenomenal presence” to be an intuitively understandable placeholder for the distinctively experiential and perceptual way of representing the environment.

Now, the question is whether the subject can have a non-representational phenomenal equivalent of Cup_E; call this equivalent Φ-Cup_E. Φ-Cup_E would be phenomenally equivalent to Cup_E but devoid of its representational properties.

On CR (a negation of ER), the phenomenal characters of Cup_E and Φ-Cup_E consist of the same mental picture, only, in the former case, it happens to represent the blue-spotted white coffee cup. Now, suppose that a subject undergoes experience Φ-Cup_E. However, at some point, this experiential episode changes in one aspect: Φ-Cup_E becomes Cup_E. This change will be a case of the emergence of the mental picture’s representational aspect. CR does not provide reasons to think that this kind of representational-aspect emergence is impossible. In fact, CR predicts that such an emergence would remain phenomenology unaffected: the emergence of the representational aspect is phenomenally ‘seamless’. I contend that this prediction is implausible in light of phenomenological considerations following from the Experiential Presentation thesis. An argument to this effect can be expressed in the following concise form:

The argument from visual emergence

P1 If ER is false, then the emergence of Cup_E from Φ-Cup_E does not change the phenomenal character constituted by the underlying mental picture.

P2 If the emergent experience is a case of experiential presentation, then the emergence of a representational aspect of experience in this case changes the phenomenal character constituted by the underlying mental picture.

P3 Cup_E is a case of experiential presentation.

P4 It is not true that the emergence of Cup_E from Φ-Cup_E does not change the phenomenal character constituted by the underlying mental picture.

∴ ER is true.

P1 is simply a CR’s prediction. The conclusion follows from P1 and P4 by modus tollens. P4 follows from P2 and P3. P3 means that Cup_E is a case of perceptual experience in the sense implied by the Experiential Presentation thesis. Experiential Presentation is independently plausible and accepted by CRists (see Papineau 2021: 9–11, 95–97, 114–115). CRists must deny P2. As such, P2 is the only premise that requires support. I shall argue that our experience-based imagination strongly supports P2. CRist cannot reject P2 without undermining the Experiential Presentation thesis. CR has no resources to explain a genuinely experiential aspect of perceptual representation. Without augmentation by the ad hoc claims, CR predicts no phenomenal difference in cases of visual emergence in which we should expect such a difference (e.g. in Gestalt cases). Even if it does not conclusively rule out CR, the implausibility of this prediction speaks strongly in favour of ER.

References

Berghofer, P. (2020) ‘Towards a phenomenological conception of experiential justification’, Synthese, 197: 155–183.

Chudnoff, E. (2012) ‘Presentational Phenomenology’, in: S. Miguens & G. Preyer (eds.), Consciousness and Subjectivity. Frankfurt am Main: Ontos Verlag.

Dorsch, F. (2018) ‘The Phenomenal Presence of Perceptual Reasons’, in: F. Dorsch & F.Macpherson (eds.), Phenomenal Presence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Dretske, F. (2003) ‘Experience as representation’, Philosophical Issues, 13: 67–82.

Kriegel, U. (2011) The Sources of Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Loar, B. (2003) ‘Phenomenal intentionality as the basis of mental content’, in: M. Hahn & B. Ramberg (eds.), Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Papineau, D. (2021) The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pautz, A. (2013) ‘Does Phenomenology Ground Mental Content?’, In U. Kriegel (ed.), Phenomenal Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pryor, J. (2000) ‘The skeptic and the dogmatist’, Noûs 34: 517–549.

Tye, M. (2014) ‘Transparency, qualia realism and representationalism’, Philosophical Studies, 170: 39–57.

1. According to naïve realism, the phenomenal character of perception is at least partially constituted by the perceived items. Some of the most influential naïve realists claim that this is so because perception is a primitive non-representational relation of conscious acquaintance with mind-independent items in one’s environment (Brewer, 2011; Campbell, 2002). Call it ‘standard naïve realism’ (SNR). While SNR defines perception in relation to consciousness, there’s a lot of evidence suggesting that perception can occur unconsciously. But SNR-theorists don’t see unconscious perception as a counterexample to their view. They insist that unconscious perception, if it exists, is not an episode of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious perception (French & Phillips, 2023; Phillips, 2018).
2. However, the naïve realist can accommodate the claim that episodes of the same fundamental kind as ordinary conscious perception can occur unconsciously. This can be done by specifying naïve realism along the lines of Pure Relationalism (PR), an idea identified by Stoneham (Stoneham, 2008). According to PR, perception isn’t a state of the subject, but a relation in the world that enables the subject to form certain beliefs and behave in certain ways. Perceiving is having something before the mind, in the sense that the perceived items are available for reason and judgement, but their being perceived doesn’t itself involve any mental act. It follows that perceptual phenomenal character is diaphanous, i.e. entirely constituted by the perceived items (cf. Stoneham, 2008, p. 315). Because the perceived items are mind-independent, and thereby also consciousness-independent, diaphaneity makes it logically possible that perceptual phenomenal character isn’t inherently conscious. The PR-theorist can maintain that perceptual phenomenal character is only conscious when the subject becomes conscious of what they are perceptually related to. Therefore, PR predicts that perception can occur unconsciously. Another reason why this alternative formulation of naïve realism is possible is that the main motivations of naïve realism apply to both conscious and unconscious perception (Zięba, 2019).
3. Given the foregoing, one may wonder why any naïve realist would still prefer SNR over PR. After all, specifying naïve realism in terms of PR buys the naïve realist a more unified account of perception. The SNR-theorist may argue that conscious and unconscious perception should be classified differently due to their radically different potentials for action-guidance and knowledge acquisition, but it’s unclear whether a difference of this sort is a good reason to consider conscious and unconscious perception as fundamentally different.
4. I will argue that this disagreement has its source in diverging intuitions that SNR-theorists and PR-theorists most likely have about the mark of the mental. Notice first that perception is one of the most obvious examples of the mental. Most philosophers of mind would arguably agree that if the term ‘mental’ refers to anything at all, it certainly refers to perception. Now, the SNR-theorist construes perception as conscious and non-representational, while resisting the suggestion that an episode of the same fundamental kind as conscious perception can occur unconsciously. This indicates that the SNR-theorist is prone to believe that consciousness is the mark of the mental. According to Stoneham’s PR, by contrast, unconscious perception is possible, but perception isn’t a mental state (Stoneham, 2008, pp. 310–311, 313). On this view, the mark of the mental can be identified with either consciousness or intentionality (or both), but always at the cost of locating perception beyond the boundaries of the mental. Because it seems so obvious that perception is a mental phenomenon, the PR-ist conception of perception qua non-mental relation is highly counterintuitive, which is precisely why most naïve realists won’t see PR as a genuine alternative to SNR, despite the ability of the former to accommodate unconscious perception.
5. Nevertheless, taking a closer look at various approaches to the problem of the mark of the mental brings one to the conclusion that the best option for the PR-theorist is to embrace the view that there is no mark of the mental. The construal of perception as conscious acquaintance, as well as the ensuing denial to consider unconscious perception as genuine perception, are in perfect agreement with the Cartesian view that consciousness is the mark of the mental. But if one instead construes perception (again, one of the most obvious examples of the mental) as a not essentially conscious non-representational relation (i.e. along the lines of PR), one ends up corroborating the diagnosis of Richard Rorty, who has famously argued that the category of the mental lacks underlying unity (Rorty, 1979).
6. One important consequence of this move is that it completely eradicates the pressure to find a common denominator between all phenomena traditionally regarded as mental. For if Rorty is right that there’s no mark of the mental, that pressure is most likely hindering our attempts to explain those phenomena by forcing us to fit them into some unifying explanatory pattern or theory. Most notably, dispensing with the mark of the mental eliminates the pressure to attribute representational content to all phenomena traditionally considered mental (notice that some of those phenomena are less apt to have representational content than others, e.g. moods vs. thoughts). Since one of the main motivations of naïve realism is skepticism about attributing such content to perception, Rorty’s approach lends support not only to PR, but also to naïve realism in general.

References
Brewer, B. (2011). Perception and its Objects. Oxford University Press.
Campbell, J. (2002). Reference and Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
French, C., & Phillips, I. (2023). Naïve Realism, the Slightest Philosophy, and the Slightest Science. In B. McLaughlin & J. Cohen (Eds.), Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Mind (pp. 363–383). Wiley-Blackwell.
Phillips, I. (2018). Unconscious Perception Reconsidered. Analytic Philosophy, 59(4), 471–514.
Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton University Press.
Stoneham, T. (2008). A Neglected Account of Perception. Dialectica, 62(3), 307–322.
Zięba, P. J. (2019). Naïve Realism about Unconscious Perception. Synthese, 196(5), 2045–2073.