Abstract
My question is: does phenomenal consciousness have a critical role in explaining the way conscious perceptions achieve objective import? I approach it through developing a dilemma I label ‘Burge’s Challenge’, which is implicit in his approach to perceptual objectivity. It says, crudely: either endorse the general structure of his account of how objective perceptual import is achieved (an account I label ‘Caused Representation’), and give up on a role for consciousness. Or, relinquish Caused Representation, and possibly defend a role for consciousness. Someone I call Burge* holds we should embrace the first horn of the dilemma. A second response, roughly the relationalist approach, opts for the second horn. The third option, implicit in many current approaches to perceptual consciousness, is to reject the dilemma. The paper argues for a version of the second response. The key argument turns on the development of a sceptical challenge to justify the assumption that we perceive particular intrinsic property instantiations, rather than their structural equivalents. The suggestion will be that only the relationalist approach can meet it in the way we think it is met. If this is right, there is a prima facie case for taking relationalist responses to the dilemma seriously. I end with two objections to this response, which might be made by the real Burge in defence of opting for the first horn of the dilemma, and by phenomenal intentionalists in defence of rejecting the dilemma. I use discussion of these to highlight one of the main issues that should be pursued in order to make good the claim that we should embrace the horn of the dilemma that Burge* rejects.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For an introduction to the idea of Individual Representationalism see Burge (2010: 12–22).
For an elaboration of Burge’s own version of Caused Representation see Burge (2010: 30–59).
For this distinction see Block (1995).
There has been much debate about, and refinement of, the notion of an ‘intrinsic’ property. I am using the term very loosely, to mean only a non-structural property, and, in this context, will use ‘intrinsic’ and ‘categorical’ interchangeably.
This challenge is a generalised and highly simplified version of a central problem Newman raises for Russell’s structuralist account of our knowledge of the external world in The Analysis of Matter (see Newman 1928). For a discussion of Newman’s argument that relates it to the matters we are considering see Eilan (2013).
Of course there are other ways in which we might appeal to causation and causal explanation when accounting for what perception is, that do not commit to the separate existence claim. From now on, though, when I speak of the CTP, I will have this stipulative definition in mind. The locus classicus of the theory is Grice (1989).
In proposing this response on Burge*’s behalf, I combine two claims to be found in Lewis’s ‘Putnam’s Paradox’ (1984), each proposed as a response to a related challenge.
Here I am in agreement with Savage (1989). His paper also contains an excellent discussion of Russell’s various takes on the nature of sense-data.
This kind of appeal to acquaintance provides only a very crude initial statement of the basic idea of a relational theory, and it requires various modifications if it is to work as a theory that does justice to important features of the phenomenology of experience. For example, an immediate and obvious objection is that surely we can and do make sense of claims to the effect that things that are rectangular look square. At the very least, it is plausible that the relational theory will need modification to allow for such cases, for example by thinking of perception as a three-place relation between subject, object and physical point of view (see for example, Campbell 2005; Brewer 2011). Note too, that as I have formulated it, the relational theory does not exclude the claim that experiences also have representational contents. What it insists on denying, for our purposes, is, first, that the relation between the experience and the object perceived is causal; and, second, that we need to appeal to personal-level representational mediation to explain how basic observational properties of mind-independent objects ‘make it into’ the phenomenal character of our experiences. There is a view of perceptual experiences on which they are conceived of as states, the contents of which should be specified by appeal to world-dependent senses (see, e.g., McDowell 1996; Brewer 1999). Such views would endorse the first, anti-causal claim, but reject the second. The arguments I am presenting here do not rule out such a rejection. The postulation of ‘world dependent sense’ raises distinct issues, to do with the explanatory role of experience with respect to concept possession, and are not addressed here directly. On this, see, e.g., Campbell (2002).
For discussion of a similar acquaintance-based move in response to Newman’s objection to Russell’s 1927 version of the causal theory of perception, see Eilan (2013).
For an excellent discussion of closely related distinctions and issues see Martin (2010).
Not all versions of relationalism speak of acquaintance with property instances. This is relevant to claim (3) below, too. See, e.g., Brewer (2011), who restricts the use of ‘acquaintance’ to our relation to objects. However, they would all deliver an account of what it is to be presented with property instances that would yield materials for rejecting the phenomenal intentionalist account.
For this kind of appeal to ‘transparency’ in connection with colour, see, e.g., Campbell (2005).
Again, I am not considering appeal to the idea of world-dependent modes of presentation, which raise different problems. See footnote 12.
References
Ayer AJ (1973) The central questions of philosophy. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London
Block N (1995) On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behav Brain Sci 18:227–247
Brewer B (1999) Perception and reason. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Brewer B (2011) Perception and its objects. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Burge T (2005) Disjunctivism and perceptual psychology. Philos Topics 33:1–78
Burge T (2010) Origins of objectivity. Oxford University Press, New York
Campbell J (2002) Reference and consciousness. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Campbell J (2005) Transparency vs. revelation in color perception. Philos Topics 33:105–115
Campbell J (2009) Consciousness and reference. In: McLaughlin B, Beckermann A, Walter S (eds) Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 648–662
Campbell J (2011) Review essay on Tyler Burge, Origins of objectivity. J Philos 108:269–285
Cowey A (2010) The blindsight saga. Exp Brain Res 200:3–23
Dretske F (1997) Naturalizing the mind. MIT Press, Cambridge.
Eilan N (2013) A relational response to Newman’s objection to Russell’s causal theory of perception. Theoria 80:2
Grice P (1989) The causal theory of perception. In: Studies in the ways of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Horgan T, Tienson J, Graham G (2004) Phenomenal intentionality and the brain in a vat. In: Schantz R (ed) The externalist challenge. Walter De Gruyter
Kriegel U, Horgan T (2008) Phenomenal intentionality meets the extended mind. The Monist 91:353–380
Kriegel U, Horgan T (forthcoming) The phenomenal intentionality research program. In: Horgan, Kriegel (eds) Phenomenal intentionality: new essays. OUP, Oxford
Lewis DK (1984) Putnam’s paradox. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62:221–236
Marr D (1982) Vision. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco
Martin MGF (2002) The transparency of experience. Mind Lang 17: 376–425
Martin MGF (2010) What’s in a look? In: Nanay Bence (ed) Perceiving the world. Oxford University Press, Oxford
McDowell J (1996) Mind and world. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Newman MHA (1928) Mr. Russell’s causal theory of perception. Mind 37:137–148
Phillips I (2014) Unconscious perception reconsidered. http://www.ianbphillips.com/uploads/2/2/9/4/22946642/antwerp.pdf
Russell B (1912) The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Russell B (1913) The nature of sense-data: a reply to Dr Dawes Hicks. Mind 22(85):76–81
Savage CW (1989) Sense-data in Russell’s theories of knowledge. In: Savage SW, Anderson CA (eds) Re-reading Russell: Bertrand Russell’s metaphysics and epistemology: Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science, vol 12. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Siegel S (2010) The contents of visual experience. Oxford University Press, New York
Smithies D (2011) What is the role of consciousness in demonstrative thought? The Journal of Philosophy 108(1):5–34
Strawson PF (1979) Perception and its objects. In: Macdonald GF (ed) Perception and identity. The MacMillan Press, London
Weiskrantz L (1986/2009) Blindsight: a case study and implications. OUP, Oxford
Weiskrantz L (2002) Prime-sight and blindsight. Conscious Cogn 11(4):568–581
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eilan, N. Perceptual Objectivity and Consciousness: A Relational Response to Burge’s Challenge. Topoi 36, 287–298 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-015-9325-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-015-9325-4