Theories of Perceptual Experience

Theories of perception explain what we are aware of and how experience represents the world, while answering the threat from illusion and hallucination.

Definition

A theory of perceptual experience is an account of the nature of perceptual states, in particular of what the subject is immediately aware of and whether experience has representational content, that aims to accommodate veridical perception, illusion, and hallucination.

Scope

This topic covers the main accounts of perceptual experience: sense-datum theory, the adverbial theory, intentionalism or representationalism, naive realism, and disjunctivism, together with debates over the content and the admissible contents of perception.

Core questions

• Are we directly aware of external objects, of sense-data, or of representational content?
• Do veridical and hallucinatory experiences share a common nature?
• Does perceptual experience have representational content, and how rich is it?
• Which properties can be presented in perception?

Key concepts

• sense-data
• adverbialism
• intentionalism
• naive realism
• disjunctivism
• content of perception

Key theories

Intentionalism

Perceptual experiences are representational states with accuracy conditions, and their phenomenal character is fixed by their content.

Naive realism and disjunctivism

In the good case the subject is directly acquainted with mind-independent objects, and veridical and hallucinatory experiences need not share a common nature.

History

Early twentieth-century sense-datum theories gave way to adverbial and then intentionalist accounts that treat experience as representational. The revival of naive realism and Martin's (2004) disjunctivism reopened debate about whether perception is fundamentally relational, while Siegel (2010) advanced the question of how rich perceptual content is.

Debates

Common factor versus disjunctivism

Whether veridical perception and hallucination share a common mental nature or differ fundamentally in kind.

Richness of perceptual content

Whether perception represents only low-level properties or also high-level properties such as kinds and causation.

Key figures

• Tim Crane
• M. G. F. Martin
• Susanna Siegel
• Michael Tye

Seminal works

• tye1995
• martin2004
• siegel2010

Frequently asked questions

What is the argument from illusion?

It reasons that since things can look other than they are, what we are immediately aware of is not the external object itself but something else, such as a sense-datum or a representation.