A Relational-Representational Theory of Perceptual Intentionality: Immanent Content, Emergent Representation

Abstract

Representationalism about perception is the representational theory of perceptual intentionality. It interprets perceptual states as perceptual representations and accounts for their intentionality or external directedness in terms of content, which is the essential representational property. There are two broad types of representationalist theories – reductive-naturalistic representationalism and nonreductive representationalism. Whereas most reductive-naturalistic theories are pitched to solve the content determinacy problem, most nonreductive views are posited to solve the problem of non-veridical perception. In the first part of my thesis, I argue that the central problem of perception is a specific type of content determinacy problem called the ‘distality problem’: how is content as of distal entities rather than proximal intermediaries of the causal chain from the entities to subjects?

In the second part of my thesis, I critically evaluate reductive-naturalistic and nonreductive representationalist theories. Regarding the former, I argue that a crucial ingredient of their reductive project – psychological mechanisms – is not necessary for representation. Thus, their reductive enterprise fails, and they cannot account for any content determinacy problem, including the distality problem. Regarding nonreductive representationalism, I argue that, while their performance on solving the problem of non-veridical perception is mixed, they cannot account for the external directedness and distality of content.

In the third and final part, I develop a novel version of representationalism, which I call Pluri-relational Immanent Emergent Representationalism (PRIMER). In developing this view, I draw upon the views of Aristotle and the Indian classical philosophy of Nyāya regarding universals and perception. A major feature of PRIMER is its claim that content is partly constituted by the co-instantiation in the subject of the same concrete universals that are also instantiated in the target; but the manner of instantiation is different. Content is, therefore, an immanent property of the subject. Further, I argue that content is a strongly emergent property because it possesses novel action-oriented causal powers. Finally, I argue that immanent and emergent content can account for, among other things, the intentional directedness of perceptual representations, the distality of content and the problem of non-veridical perception.