Cognitive Penetration and Nonconceptual Content 1
2015
This paper seeks to establish whether the cognitive penetration of
experience is compatible with experience having nonconceptual content.
Cognitive penetration occurs when one’s beliefs or desires affect one’s
perceptual experience in a particular way. I examine two different models of
cognitive penetration and four different accounts of the distinction between
conceptual and nonconceptual content. I argue that one model of cognitive
penetration—“classic” cognitive penetration—is compatible with only one of
the accounts of nonconceptual content that I identify. I then consider the other
model of cognitive penetration—cognitive penetration “lite”. I provide reasons
to think that this is compatible with three accounts of nonconceptual content.
Moreover, I argue that the account of nonconceptual content that it is not
compatible with is a spurious notion of nonconceptual content that ought to be
abandoned. Thus, I claim that cognitive penetration lite is compatible with all
reasonable specifications of nonconceptual content.
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