Appearances and the Metaphysics of Sensible Qualities: A Response to Ivanov
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Appearances and the Metaphysics of Sensible Qualities: A Response to Ivanov Andrea Giananti1,2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Siegel (The contents of visual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010) has argued that visual experience has content. Ivanov (Topoi 36:331–342, 2017) has convincingly shown that there is a confusion in Siegel’s argument between perception presenting property-instances and perception presenting properties as being instantiated. According to Ivanov, whether a revised version of Siegel’s argument succeeds depends on the metaphysics of sensible qualities. I argue that Ivanov’s argument rests on a mistake, and I conclude by suggesting how we might go about arguing for or against perceptual content. Keywords Content view · Argument from appearing · Ivanov · Siegel · Generality · Universalism · Nominalism · Tropism
1 Introduction According to the content view (henceforth CV), an uncontroversial notion of perceptual consciousness entails that perception has content (Byrne 2001; Siegel 2010; Schellenberg 2011). On the other hand, what might be termed pure relationalism says that perceptual experience consists in a primitive, nonrepresentational relation between a perceiving subject and concrete particulars (Brewer 2011; Travis 2004). Siegel (2010) focusses on vision and gives what she call the argument from appearing for CV. The first and key premise (henceforth P1) of the argument is that ‘All visual perceptual experiences present clusters of properties as being instantiated’ (2010, p. 45). The rest of the argument is (simplifying slightly) as follows: given P1, we can classify experiences as either accurate or inaccurate, depending on whether the properties that they present as instantiated actually are instantiated; so perceptual experience has accuracy conditions; the content of a state is the aspect of a state that determines its accuracy conditions; therefore, perceptual experiences have content. * Andrea Giananti [email protected] 1
Department of Philosophy, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Institute of Philosophy, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
2
It is generally acknowledged that the argument hinges on P1. Siegel defends P1 by arguing that we cannot perceive objects as shorn of properties: For you to see a cube at all, it must be part of your visual phenomenology that the cube has certain properties: as it might be, having a certain number of facing edges and surfaces, having a certain colour, location, and so on. (2010, p. 46) Ivanov (2017) has convincingly shown that the argument as it stands is question begging, because there is a difference between seeing property-instances and seeing properties as being instantiated by this or that object: Pace Siegel, what must be part of one’s visual phenomenology … is not that the cube has a certain colour, etc., but rather the colour of the cube, and so on for the rest of its sensed features. (2017, p. 334) Thus visual phenomenology only entitles us to something weaker than P1, namely: P* A
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