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Skill, Nonpropositional Thought, and the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception

  • Special Section Article: Theory-Ladenness
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Abstract

In the current literature, discussions of cognitive penetrability focus largely either on interpreting empirical evidence in ways that is relevant to the question of modularity (Pylyshyn Behav Brain Sci 22(3):343–391, 1999; Wu Philos Stud 165(2):647–669, 2012; Macpherson Philos Phenomenol Res, 84(1):24–62, 2012) or in offering epistemological considerations regarding which properties are represented in perception (Siegel Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 481–503, 2006, Philos Q 59(236):519–540, 2009, Noûs 46(2):201–222, 2011; Prinz Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 434–460, 2006). In contrast to these debates, in this paper, I explore conceptual issues regarding how we ought to understand the “cognitive” side of cognitive penetrability. I argue that it is only on its most narrow construal that a full-fledged defense of cognitive impenetrability has been forwarded. Specifically, I argue that the defenders of modularity (DOM from hereon) have tacitly identified cognitive states with propositional states, and have thus only defended the idea that early perceptual systems are immune to the impacts of propositional knowledge. My aim then is to raise doubts about the identification of cognitive states with propositional ones. In particular, by focusing on skill, I will broaden the conceptual space for a greater number of states to have the potential to impact perceptual processing in a way that would constitute a genuine instance of cognitive penetrability.

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Notes

  1. In particular, I have in mind prominent defenders of cognitive impenetrability like Pylyshyn (1999, 2001, 2003) and Raftopoulos (2001, 2006, 2009) and Raftopoulos and Müller (2006).

  2. Of course, we should be careful to distinguish between the qualitative character of a perceptual event and the judgment of that qualitative character. One could claim that qualitative experience changes as a result of cognition, but that one’s conscious experience does not reflect this change. Or, that qualitatively the lines appear similar in length but that we judge them as different, and our judgment is not impacted by our knowledge. But the latter claim is rather odd since there doesn’t seem to be a dispute as to whether intentional states can affect judgment, and the former would simply imply that Fodor is wrong about modularity.

  3. In this quote, Fodor is focusing on the lexical module, but he is adamant that what will be true of language processing will also be true of perceptual input systems.

  4. Pylyshyn confronts this same problem. He says: “it is consistent with the present framework that new complex processes could become part of the early vision system over time: cognitive impenetrability and diachronic change are not incompatible” (2003, 88). Like Fodor, Pylyshyn simply states, but does not argue for why we should accept that modularity is sustained when long-term cognitive penetration occurs.

  5. Again, see Churchland quote above.

  6. This is the DOM position.

  7. There is a way of using “cognitive” where it refers to any process that contributes to cognition, or any process that takes place in the brain. I hope it is clear, that it is not this weaker sense of the word that I am using here.

  8. A huge number of philosophical misunderstandings, it seems, are rooted in the fact that different theorists have different conceptions of what it is to be a concept. See, for instance, Peacocke and McDowell. It is a great fortune, then, to have Fodor explicitly state what he takes the concept “concept” to entail. It is only Fodor’s conception of concepts that I am working with here. Other concepts of “concept” may not be subject to the same characterizations or objections. For the purposes of my argument, however, such issues are entirely irrelevant.

  9. It is interesting to note that this characteristic of concepts makes it impossible that concepts are definitions. This is because, quite obviously, definitions require concepts and so, any concepts would be dependent on others.

  10. To be clear, this refusal to identify concepts with one context is not at all peculiar to Fodor. Even theories of demonstrative concepts such as those presented by Evans (1982), McDowell (1994), Brewer (1999) and Kelly (2001) claim that the minimal requirement on having a concept is meeting the re-identification constraint—this means that having a concept requires being able to identify it or use it in different contexts.

  11. “[A] sufficient condition for having the concept C is: being able to think about something as a C (being able to bring the property C before the mind as such, as I’ll sometimes put it)” Fodor, LOT 2, 138.

  12. I should note that there are many different notions of a concept floating around the philosophical literature. It should be clear that I am only concerned with the DOM notion. It should be clear that the more minimal one’s notion of a concept is, the less my criticisms will apply.

  13. See Fridland (2012) for a full account of this problem.

  14. This construal follows Stanley’s account of knowing how. Stanley states that “I have argued that in acquiring a skill, we first learn various rules. Practice allows us to move from the initial stage in which we repeatedly have to consult these rules, to skilled action, where we can act directly upon them.” (2011b, 247).

  15. See Millikan (2004) for more on the connection between the level of ability and the number of circumstances in which an ability can be performed.

  16. One may object that demonstrative concepts are not context-independent in the way I have suggested. We should notice, however, that though rooted in their contexts, demonstratives are not tied to those contexts in any way that would prevent them from being re-identified at various times and in various ways. After all, a prerequisite for being a demonstrative concept that is accepted by everyone from Evans to McDowell is that one has the ability to recognize at different times and possibly even through different means, the property, event, or object that falls under the concept (cf. Evans 1982, Brewer 1999, McDowell 1994 and 1998, Kelly 2001).

  17. One can think of motor routines or sequences as potentially having an element-like structure. As I’m arguing, however, this kind of structure is not context-independent in a way that can make it genuinely conceptual.

  18. For more on inverted goggles see also Gibson (1979).

  19. For more on the two-visual systems see Goodale and Milner (1992, 2004) and Milner and Goodale (1995, 2010).

  20. See Pylyshyn (1999, 347) for a discussion of motor-system modulation.

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    Ellen R. Fridland

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Fridland, E.R. Skill, Nonpropositional Thought, and the Cognitive Penetrability of Perception. J Gen Philos Sci 46, 105–120 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-015-9286-8

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