Compositionality, iconicity, and perceptual nonconceptualism

Abstract

This paper concerns the role of the structural properties of representations in determining the nature of their content. I take as a starting point Fodor's (2007) and Heck's (2007) recent arguments making the iconic structure of perceptual representations essential in establishing their content as content of a different (nonconceptual) kind. I argue that the prima facie state–content error this strategy seems to display is nothing but a case of “state–content error error,” i.e., the mistake of considering that the properties that characterize the type of content certain representations have are indeed independent of their structural properties. I also consider another objection to the general strategy, namely that it falls short of showing that the nonconceptual content of perceptual experiences thus established is the kind of content that figures in true explanations of intentional behavior. I concede this point in respect of Fodor's version of the strategy, while denying that it has any bearing on Heck's approach. The success of this objection in Heck's case ultimately depends, I argue, upon an unjustified commitment to a certain empirically suspect model of perception.

• Compositionality
• Iconicity
• Nonconceptual Content

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Richard Heck and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Research for this paper was supported by the Spanish government via the research project FFI2008-06164-C02-02, the CONSOLIDER INGENIO 2010 Program, grant CSD2009-0056, and by the Catalan government via the consolidated research group GRECC, SGR2009-1528.

Notes

[1] In what follows, unless otherwise noted, I shall be referring to the (non)conceptualism debate as it appears within this tradition.

[2] This is not an exhaustive list. See also Martin (1992) and Heck (2000).

[3] Technically speaking perceptual experiences, unlike, e.g., beliefs, are not mental states, but conscious mental events or episodes. However, like, e.g., beliefs, those mental events have semantically evaluable contents. In the aim of clarity, I’ll tend to talk about the content of perceptual states or the content of perceptual representations and would thus ignore this distinction. Nothing in my argument depends on this treatment.

[4] They are also called “the absolute” and “the relative” nonconceptualist theses (Speaks, 2005).

[5] Susan Hurley (2010) speaks of a “causal-constitutive error error.” This is a small tribute to her.

[6] The slogan is an accurate slogan on a neo-Fregean view of concepts. I’ll return to this in section 4.

[7] On a possible worlds account of content, such as, e.g., Stalnaker's (1998), all content becomes nonconceptual, but in a rather uninteresting way.

[8] Compare, e.g., Peacocke's (1992) “Principle of Dependence”: “There can be nothing more to the nature of a concept than is determined by a correct account of the capacity of a thinker who has mastered the concept to have propositional attitudes to contents containing that concept (a correct account of ‘grasping the concept’)” (p. 5)

[9] Jacob and Jeannerod (2003) follow Clark and characterize, not their notion of visuomotor content, but the conscious nonconceptual content of visual perception as content that “is not geared towards the guidance and control of action. Rather, it is geared towards the ‘selection’ of objects that can be either goals for visually guided actions or food for thought” (p. 16).

[10] This certainly seems to be one of the referees’ worry.

[11] This second way in which a state can provide a subject with reasons is closely related to what Dretske (2006) calls a “justifying reason.”

[12] Thanks to Andy Clark for clarifying this point in a personal communication.

[13] Where reflection includes introspective awareness of the subject's own mental states, a priori knowledge, and memory of all knowledge thus acquire. Pryor (2001) labels this view “simple internalism” (p. 104).

[14] There are, however, compelling arguments (see, e.g., Heck, 2000; Peacocke, 2001) against this allegation, arguments that show that perceptual nonconceptualism is indeed consistent with epistemic internalism.

[15] With thanks to one of the referees for identifying this point so clearly.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Josefa Toribio

Josefa Toribio is an ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.