Abstract
I defend both conceptualists and nonconceptualists against an attack which has been leveled at them by critics such as Byrne (Perception and conceptual content In: Steup M, Sosa E (eds) Contemporary debates in epistemology. Blackwell, Malden, pp 231-250, 2005), Speaks (Philos Rev 114:359–398, 2005), and Crowther (Erkenntnis 65:5–276, 2006). They distinguish a ‘state’ reading and a ‘content’ reading of ‘(non)conceptual’ and argue that many arguments on either side support only the respective state views, not the respective content views. To prepare the ground for my defense, I argue for an understanding of the state view in terms of concept exercise rather than concept possession and provide an overview of versions of conceptualism and nonconceptualism of different strengths. I then argue that conceptualists and nonconceptualists tacitly accept a so-called ‘state-to-content’ principle, show that existing defenses of this principle fail, and provide a new defense of it. It draws on the sources of the nonconceptualism debate, viz. the need to do justice both to the phenomenology of experience and to its epistemological role and to account for the existence of perceptual content and thought content. I argue that epistemological considerations together with considerations from the subject’s perspective support the claim that conceptual thought has conceptual and propositional content, whereas nonconceptual experience has nonconceptual and non-propositional content.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The distinction was first clearly stated by Heck (2000).
- 3.
Traditionally, the state view is framed in terms of concept possession. I will stick with this for now, for the critics also start from this understanding of the state view. As will become apparent below, their arguments lose some plausibility if we conceive the state view in terms of concept exercise instead.
- 4.
- 5.
Crane (1992b, 141) is an exception, although his distinctions are not very clear. He discusses an unsatisfactory version of the content view before suggesting an understanding of ‘conceptual’ that seems to involve both state and content view elements. He proposes to define conceptual content “in terms of whether its constituent concepts need to be possessed in order for something to be in that state.” (my emphasis). I will return to Crane’s rather helpful suggestions in Sect. 3.4 and in Chap. 5
- 6.
Note that I will only be concerned with the question of how to arrive at the content view from the state view. This is reasonable because, as discussed in Sect. 2.1.3, I take the issue to be how ascriptions of mental content should be constrained. The most natural way to proceed is to start from the subject’s psychology and then to investigate whether, or how, it limits the kinds of mental content we can ascribe to her.
- 7.
Note that Byrne criticizes only the transition from state nonconceptualism to content nonconceptualism. (See Byrne 2005, 235.) He defines content nonconceptualism in such a way that it is incompatible with state conceptualism. So he guarantees that state conceptualism entails content conceptualism by fiat. Speaks’s and Duhau’s criticism are focused on nonconceptualism also. However, the critics of nonconceptualism defend the general claim that concept possession requirements on mental states have no impact on the structure of their contents. If this works against nonconceptualism, it also works against conceptualism.
- 8.
That this is true is especially clear on Byrne’s particular version of content nonconceptualism, which states merely that experience and thought have two different kinds of content: “non-conceptual content is not conceptual content, where the latter is characterized […] as belief content” (Byrne 2005, 233).
- 9.
In his terms, experience content can be conceptual in the possessional sense, yet nonconceptual in the compositional sense, and vice versa.
- 10.
See Speaks (2005, fn. 21).
- 11.
The same points are argued in Speaks (2005, 375/376).
- 12.
The conceptualist has no quarrel with the following consequences of (S2C): if a content-bearing mental state does not require the exercise of all the requisite concepts, then its content is nonconceptual; if a mental content is nonconceptual, then it is the content of a mental state that does not necessarily involve the exercise of all the relevant concepts. For he simply denies that there are content-bearing nonconceptual mental states, and also that there are nonconceptual mental contents.
Again “all the concepts needed to specify” is tied to a canonical description. The subject is not required to exercise all imaginable concepts that specify a content, but only one for each element of the content, corresponding to her perspective on the world.
- 13.
As to which concepts exactly are needed to specify p, these are limited by the need for a canonical specification, as suggested by Cussins (2003), see above.
- 14.
This possibility is excluded on Byrne’s definition above: According to him, if it is not possible to be in a mental state without possessing all the relevant concepts, then its content is conceptual.
- 15.
Chuard (2007) defines conceptual states via concept exercise as well. Roskies (2008, 635) requires concept deployment. McDowell holds that concepts are not exercised, but “drawn on” (McDowell 1994a, 9) or “actualized” (McDowell 2009c, 11) in experience. This terminology is supposed to accommodate the intuition that we do not actively put together our perceptual experiences, but that we are settled with them. I complain about this obscure talk of actualizing conceptual abilities in Chap. 5 and Sect. 7.3.
- 16.
Things are complicated by the fact that Gennaro himself (p. 55) takes experiences to be complex mental states that themselves involve unconscious higher-order thoughts. His argument for conceptualism is not phrased in terms of his own view, but in terms of higher-order thought theory generally.
As a side note, Gennaro (2012, 138/139) claims that he endorses content conceptualism, but as a matter of fact his conceptualism falls on the side of state conceptualism. It is concerned with the concepts the subject has to possess, not with the kind of content her experience has.
- 17.
Thanks to Susanne Mantel for helping me to get clearer on this point.
- 18.
This way of demarcating the views has the following added advantage: It avoids Hanna’s worry that “the conceptualist can always win” by weakening his claim so much that any mental state or content will be conceptual, for
[n]o mental states can represent the world without some possible (i.e., not necessarily any contemporary or conspecific actual) cognizer’s dispositional (i.e., not necessarily manifest or occurrent) possession of the concepts required to … specify their content. (Hanna 2008, 49/50)
It thereby also avoids Hanna’s extreme requirement on the nonconceptualist to show that experience has an essentially nonconceptual content, which is not even in principle conceptualizable. Generally speaking, to defend (S2C), we want a more committed starting point on the state side (the subject’s requirement to exercise rather than the possibility that some cognizer’s possibly possesses the concept) to facilitate taking the step to the content side.
- 19.
My thanks go to Niko Strobach for pressing me on this point.
- 20.
A similar distinction is presented as a distinction between total and partial nonconceptualism by Byrne (2005).
- 21.
This allows that some mental contents may be constituted by both Fregean senses and Russellian components, say. They would thereby already be counted as (minimally) nonconceptual contents. More on this below.
- 22.
I have made some suggestions as to what is required for a content to be propositional above in Sect. 2.1.1
- 23.
The critics’ attack, discussed in the previous Sect. 3.2, might in principle be relevant to propositionalism and non-propositionalism as well. Maybe the fact that the subject has to exercise (or does not have to exercise) the relevant concepts in order to be in a certain mental state has an impact on whether its content is propositional or not. The critics’ requirement for a simple account of perceptual reasons lends support to propositionalism. Non-propositional contents cannot easily stand in justificatory relations to the propositional contents of belief. See Chap. 7
- 24.
The same goes for (S2C), which is concerned only with content-bearing mental states.
- 25.
For a similar way of dividing logical space with respect to these views, see Van Cleve (2012, 426). Analogous distinctions for content views are on Van Cleve’s p. 425. Van Cleve distinguishes between different strengths of conceptualist views as well. This is not in line with the conceptualist’s intentions.
- 26.
That this is so will become evident in Sect. 7.2 and Chap. 8 Note that McDowell (1994a, 64) allows that animals and infants who possess no concepts have perceptual experiences that involve no content, but only “perceptual sensitivity”. This is why it is important to restrict the state view claims to content-bearing mental states.
- 27.
Think back to the features of perceptual transparency and openness to the world. The nonconceptualist might think that perceptual experiences necessarily exhibit these features; she might believe that, necessarily, perceptual experience has them only to the extent that it does not involve the exercise of the relevant concepts. (For belief lacks transparency and openness to the world—this might well be blamed on its being a conceptual state.) It would follow that all perceptual experiences are necessarily minimally nonconceptual.
- 28.
- 29.
Where conceptual mental states are understood in terms of exercise of all the relevant concepts, and conceptual content in terms of Fregean content.
- 30.
Where nonconceptual states include minimally nonconceptual states, and nonconceptual contents minimally nonconceptual contents.
- 31.
Similar considerations appear in Crane (1992b, 144–148), but are there not aimed at a defense of (S2C) or the step from a state view to a content view.
- 32.
Contrary to (S2C)’s left-to-right direction.
- 33.
These last two views are contrary to (S2C)’s right-to-left direction.
- 34.
The following relates to my discussion in Sect. 2.1.3. There, I distinguished between first-person and third-person views of mental content ascription.
- 35.
That grasp of the concepts constituting a proposition is standardly taken to be essential to having an attitude towards it is also apparent from the fact that just this is claimed in a standard introductory textbook to the philosophy of language. In response to the objection that propositions, as abstract objects, cannot help us understand what sentence meanings are, Lycan (2003, 84) quotes Moore, who points out that entertaining a proposition is nothing more fanciful than apprehending a sentence’s meaning.
- 36.
Note that I am not requiring Bermúdez to provide an account of how propositions can do any serious explanatory work. Rather, I am suggesting that we should just waive such a requirement for everyone involved in the debate.
- 37.
The same goes for perceptual content as sets of possible worlds.
- 38.
Obviously, this is true provided one holds that thought content consists in Fregean propositions. And it conflicts with (S2C) only if one also holds that perceptual experience does not involve the exercise of all the relevant conceptual abilities.
- 39.
A very clear statement of his argument and a criticism can be found in Duhau (2009).
- 40.
See Sect. 2.2.1.3 above.
- 41.
Heck (2007, 128; 132).
- 42.
Heck holds that, when seeing two disconnected patches of the same shade of blue, I can still wonder whether they are the same shade. He thinks that this cannot happen when I employ the same concept twice. See Sect. 4.2 below.
- 43.
I think that Toribio (2011, 179) has the same in mind when she insists that only thoughts have a “canonical decomposition”, even though she is talking about the mental representations involved in thought. (She takes this expression from Fodor (2007), who is also concerned with mental representations.)
- 44.
Note that Toribio here claims that Russellian contents are problematic for perceptual experiences as well because they cause trouble for intentional action explanations. In the same article, (p. 359, fn. 10), she declares that she is not arguing for content conceptualism either, even though the passage just quoted seems to suggest just this. I will gloss over these issues in my own interpretation of her argument.
- 45.
I brought up a similar case above in Sect. 2.1.3. Again, assume for the example that Peter Parker exists.
- 46.
See, for instance, Olson and Svensson (2005, 205) for this terminology.
- 47.
However, I will strengthen this defense against the critics with respect to epistemic reasons in the next section.
- 48.
Recall that (S2C), in slogan form, says that mental states have conceptual content if and only if they are conceptual mental states, and that they have nonconceptual content if and only if they are nonconceptual mental states. Conceptual mental states are ones that require the subject to exercise all the relevant conceptual abilities; conceptual contents are exclusively Fregean contents.
- 49.
See Sect. 2.1.3.
- 50.
Scenario contents can respect the believability principle, but are problematic when it comes to providing a simple (importation) account of perceptual justification.
- 51.
Note that only the blanket Russellianism views gain support from the Publicity Constraint.
I leave out the corresponding views that posit possible-worlds contents, for Heck’s arguments, together with (MC), indeed throw a bad light on this option. Also, the theoretical need for extensional contents can be met by Russellian propositions—discussing the possible-worlds option would unnecessarily increase the confusing amount of different possibilities.
A further option that is not part of these opposing views is the combination of state conceptualism with content nonconceptualism, which would result in conceptual perceptual states with nonconceptual content. This view is not motivated by the principle of believability, the importation model of perceptual justification, or the Publicity Principle.
- 52.
Here the other part of Kant’s slogan from the introduction is relevant: “Thoughts without content are empty.” Kant (1787/1970, A51/B75)
- 53.
This will be my starting point in Chap. 7 This worry looms large in McDowell’s and Brewer’s thought.
- 54.
- 55.
See Sect. 2.1.3.
- 56.
For instance, in debates between realists and anti-realists about mental states and contents, or about our theory of mind. It may be demanded of nonconceptualists and conceptualists that they also engage in such debates; but this is clearly a distinct project.
- 57.
They tend to be foundationalists to the extent that they assign immediate justificatory relevance to perceptual experience. They tend to be internalists in that they demand or at least allow that the subject has to be aware of her perceptual reasons. See Brewer (1999), McDowell (1994a), Tye (1995), Peacocke (2001a), Bermúdez and MacPherson (1998), Bermúdez (2009), and Heck (2000). Note that Tye, to the best of my knowledge, is the only one in this list who endorses externalism. The fact that the epistemological worry and the corresponding epistemological presumptions are central to the best available defense of (S2C) should give those who so far reject internalism or foundationalism reason to change their minds.
- 58.
- 59.
I will return to epistemological internalism in Sect. 7.4.
- 60.
The terms ‘subpersonal level’ and ‘personal level’ apply to explanations of mental phenomena that focus on parts of individuals (hence, subpersonal) and the whole individual or person (hence, personal), respectively. Subpersonal theories deal with topics such as computational processes in the perceptual modules or neural structures. Personal-level theories are theories concerned with the acting and thinking person. Personal-level states are typically identified as ones that are accessible to consciousness or rationally integrated with the individual’s propositional attitudes. Cf. Bermúdez (2005, 30/31).
- 61.
I acquire this justified belief in response to my visual experience. How to make sense of this, and whether it commits us to conceptualism, will be discussed in Chap. 7
- 62.
This leaves room for an explanation of my conceptual abilities on the basis of representational vehicles.
Note that this account fits nicely with the idea introduced above that possessing a concept requires the subject to have the respective inferential abilities, and that to exercise it is to exercise the relevant conceptual abilities.
- 63.
See above, Sect. 2.2.1.3.
- 64.
In Sect. 2.1.3, I highlighted the fact that this issue is central to philosophy of perception.
- 65.
As before, an appeal to representational vehicles will not help the critics. If the vehicles are irrelevant to the subject’s conscious experience, they cannot contribute to its justificatory powers; if they impact the subject’s conscious experience, they are reflected in her perceptual content.
- 66.
This is the reason why McDowell (2009a, 261) endorses the claim that perceptual content has an intuitional rather than a propositional structure.
Note that possible-worlds propositions do not fare any better in this respect. The perceiver’s immediate environment does not strike her to be a set of possible worlds. Instead, she is simply confronted with objects in her immediate environment (and their properties and relations).
- 67.
In Sect. 4.1.4, a related problem will show up as the claim that Fregean senses are too fine-grained to capture the content of perceptual experience.
Modest Nonconceptualism allows that Fregean senses may sometimes be involved in perceptual content, for instance, in the visual experience of the duckrabbit and other ambiguous figures. This is compatible with C-NC-ism min . Note that one attraction of minimal nonconceptualism is that it can allow for conceptual changes to have an immediate impact on the content of experience, for it can allow that different Fregean senses will be included in the relevant experience contents. Thus, this view can accommodate problems for nonconceptualism caused by ambiguous figures, as presented by Macpherson (2006) and Gennaro (2012, 151–156). Obviously, such an account would have to deal with the phenomenological implausibilities of Fregean senses in perceptual content.
- 68.
Another option, not open to the discussants, is to ascribe two distinct kinds of phenomenal content, such as a Fregean content and a Russellian content, to experience to dissolve the tension. I have suggested previously that this is possible. However, in the nonconceptualism debate, perceptual content is supposed to account for how the world perceptually appears to the subject. The very same phenomenal content is supposed to exert rational constraints on the content of thought and to be involved in the (internalistically conceived) justification of belief. Moreover, in typical perceptual experiences, a subject is aware of only one content. Seeing as respect of the subject’s perspective is a defining feature of the debate, its participants had better not ascribe several distinct contents to her perceptual experiences to meet conflicting theoretical needs.
This consideration also disqualifies a recent conceptualist proposal by Bengson et al. (2011). According to it, what we would normally call perceptual experience involves two distinct conscious mental states, a content-bearing perceptual experience and a state of sensory awareness, which has no content but relates the subject directly to certain perceived properties and relations. Bengson et al. (2011) do not say much about how these two states are related, but to the extent that they really are distinct, their view is incompatible with how the world strikes the subject. For in undergoing one particular perceptual experience, she is not undergoing two distinguishable conscious states, one of experience and one of awareness.
- 69.
What of McDowell’s recent view that perceptual content is conceptual, but not propositionally structured? I will mostly ignore this view in the following. For one, I am trying to reduce complexity. For another, I am not sure what to make of his “intuitional unity”. Finally, one of the main advantages of conceptualism (which relates back to the epistemological worry) is due to its endorsement of propositionalism: It makes possible a highly plausible account of perceptual justification in terms of inferences.
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Schmidt, E. (2015). Nonconceptual Content. In: Modest Nonconceptualism. Studies in Brain and Mind, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18902-4_3
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