Perception with and without concepts : searching for a nonconceptualist account of perceptual content

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2013

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Arıkan Sandıkçıoğlu, Pakize

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It is agreed upon by many philosophers that perception represents the world to be in a certain way. However, there is disagreement among those philosophers about whether perceptual content is conceptual or not. The aim of this thesis is to provide a clear presentation of the debate and to propose an account of nonconceptual perceptual content that can tackle many philosophical problems related to the issue. Conceptualism about perceptual content is the view that perceptual content is wholly conceptual. Proponents of this view claim that a subject cannot be in a contentful perceptual state without possessing concepts that fully characterize the content of his experience. The main motivation behind conceptualism is the justificatory role perception is supposed to play in forming perceptual beliefs. It is claimed that if perceptual content provides rational ground or reason for forming perceptual beliefs, it has to be conceptual just like the belief it is a reason for. However, there are several philosophical problems that arise from such an understanding of perceptual content. Most of them mainly derive from the implausibility of the claim that a subject needs to possess every concept that figures in the characterization of the content of his perceptual state. So, nonconceptualism is based on the assumption that a contentful perceptual state can occur albeit the absence of all or some concepts that characterize the content. Therefore, in this thesis I aim to provide a notion of nonconceptual perceptual content that is epistemically relevant, i.e. that can ground perceptual beliefs in spite of its nonconceptual character.

Subject Keywords

Perception (Philosophy)., Conceptualism.

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http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615614/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22284

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

P. Arıkan Sandıkçıoğlu, “ Perception with and without concepts : searching for a nonconceptualist account of perceptual content,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2013.