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SENSORY PHENOMENOLOGY AND PERCEPTUAL CONTENT
Article first published online: 6 APR 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.696.x
© 2011 The Author The Philosophical Quarterly© 2011 The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly
Additional Information
How to Cite
Millar, B. (2011), SENSORY PHENOMENOLOGY AND PERCEPTUAL CONTENT. The Philosophical Quarterly, 61: 558–576. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2011.696.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 21 JUN 2011
- Article first published online: 6 APR 2011
Abstract
The consensus in contemporary philosophy of mind is that how a perceptual experience represents the world to be is built into its sensory phenomenology. I defend an opposing view which I call ‘moderate separatism’, that an experience's sensory phenomenology does not determine how it represents the world to be. I argue for moderate separatism by pointing to two ordinary experiences which instantiate the same sensory phenomenology but differ with regard to their intentional content. Two experiences of an object reflected in a mirror can possess the same spatial phenomenology while representing that object to occupy different spatial locations. So, contrary to the current consensus, the representation of spatial location is not fixed by an experience's sensory phenomenology.