Summary |
There are three questions structuring the debate on
perceptual relations. One question concerns the connection between perceptual
relations to the environment and the representational content of experiences.
Are perceptual relations or perceptual representations more fundamental in an
account of the nature of perceptual experience? Austere relationalists have it
that perceptual relations to the environment are more fundamental than any
representations. Austere representationalists have it that representations are
more fundamental than any perceptual relations to the environment. Hybrid views
have it that perceptual experience is fundamentally both relational and
representational. A second question is whether we are perceptually related to
particulars or universals. Direct realists have it that we are perceptually
related to particulars such as objects, events, and property-instances in our
environment. Likewise, sense-data theorists have it that we are related to
particulars, but understand the particulars in play to be strange particulars,
namely sense-data. While it is compatible with a representationalist view to
hold that we are perceptually related to particulars in our environment, at least
some representationalists have it that we are perceptually related to
properties and so to universals rather than particulars. A third question
concerns the nature of the relation. Is the perceptual relation a causal
relation, is it a sensory relation such as an awareness relation, or is it an
epistemic relation such as an acquaintance relation? |