The Non‐conceptual Content of Perceptual Experience: Situation Dependence and Fineness of Grain

Abstract

I begin by examining a recent debate between John McDowell and Christopher Peacocke over whether the content of perceptual experience is non‐conceptual. Although I am sympathetic to Peacocke's claim that perceptual content is non‐conceptual, I suggest a number of ways in which his arguments fail to make that case. This failure stems from an over‐emphasis on the “fine‐grainedness” of perceptual content ‐a feature that is relatively unimportant to its non‐conceptual structure. I go on to describe two other features of perceptual experience that are more likely to be relevant to the claim that perceptual content is non‐conceptual. These features are 1) the dependence of a perceived object on the perceptual context in which it is perceived and 2) the dependence of a perceived property on the object it is perceived to be a property of.