Abstract

In this article an analysis of perception is given that accommodates both the fact that perception is a kind of interaction with the world, and the existence of illusions and hallucinations. This analysis, the Adverbial Approach, is contrasted with Representationalism and Enactivism. I will confront all three theories of perception with three test cases: a ginger cat, a ginger cat hidden behind a picket fence, and a ginger cat as in the Bonnet syndrome. I will argue that Representationalism can account for illusions and hallucinations by postulating the existence of internal representations as the direct object of perception, but by doing so fails to account for the interaction with the world. Moreover, I will show that by combining the Cartesian notion of mental representations with physicalism, it is incoherent. Enactivism, on the other hand, discards the need for internal representations and analyses perception as direct interaction with the world, but completely fails to account for hallucinations. The Adverbial Approach can do justice to both aspects of perception: it stresses the fact that perception is indeed interaction with the world and not with any internal representation of it, but leaves room for perceptual experience as distinct from that interaction. Finally I will diagnose the problems of both Representationalism and Enactivism as a faulty conception of the intentionality of perception.