The Perceptual Present

Abstract

I. INTRODUCTION

We perceive the present, recall the past, and anticipate the future. This may seem like a truism, but the fact that it takes some time for light to travel from the perceived event to our visual apparatus means that, strictly speaking, what we see has already happened some time before our perceptual experience of it. But whilst we may sometimes (or always) perceive events that occur in the near or distant past, they do not seem to so occur. They seem to occur in the present. Differently put, one's perceptual experience and that which it is an experience of do not seem to occupy distinct times. This, we contend, is a phenomenological datum. In this respect, perception differs from both recollection and anticipation. When one recollects, what one recollects seems to have already happened; when one anticipates, what one anticipates seems yet to happen. We can say, then, that phenomenologically speaking, we perceive the present, recall the past, and anticipate the future.

A great deal of work on time-perception, since at least the early 20th century, concerns the question of how to coherently integrate the fact that perceived events seem to be happening in the present with the fact that events are perceived to happen over an extended temporal interval.¹ We aim to contribute to this effort by way of presenting a plausible and detailed account of the first phenomenon: the perceptual present. We therefore see the present investigation as a preliminary to a complete, integrated picture of our experience of temporality.

In Section II, we outline a familiar way of elaborating the claims that when one recollects e, e is presented as occurring at a past time; when one perceives e, e is presented as occurring in the present; and when one anticipates e, e is presented as occurring at a future time. What these elaborations amount to is, however, dependent on the correct account of the tensed terms involved. In Section III, we describe and reject one such account. This is the Token-Reflexive Account, according to which a perceived event is presented as simultaneous with one's perceptual experience of it. In Section IV, we present and defend our preferred view. This is the Minimal Account, according to which the temporal content of the perceptual present is exhausted by its direct reference to the interval of time over which it occurs.²

II. THE PERCEPTUAL PRESENT

One's perceptual experience and that of which it is an experience do not seem to occupy distinct times.³ It is natural to suppose that this is accounted for by the fact that perceptual experience has a distinctive temporal content. As Peacocke puts it,

perceptual experience itself has a present-tense content. It represents to the perceiver the event as occurring then – at the time of the experience. (1999: 280)

This picture attributes indexical content to perception, episodic recollection, and anticipation. In so doing, it accounts for the fact that one's perceptual experience and that of which it is an experience do not seem to occupy distinct times, the fact that what one recollects seems to have happened at a time before one's recollection of it, and the fact that what one anticipates seems yet to happen, at a time after one's anticipation of it. This is for the reason that the time at which these experiences (P, R, and A) occur is in each case the present.

Indexicals such as ‘now’ do not have constant referents but refer to different times on different occasions of use. A token of ‘now’ refers to the time at which it is tokened: a token of ‘now’ produced at t₁ will denote t₁, whereas a token of ‘now’ produced at t₂ will denote t₂. As such, 2P does not provide us with a condition under which P is veridical, for it is silent on the time denoted by ‘now’. And, of course, the same is true of 2R and 2A. We need, then, a further analysis. In the following sections, we distinguish two, the Token Reflexive Account and the Minimal Account, and argue in favour of the latter. Whilst our focus is on the perceptual present, we comment at various points on the content of both the recalled past and the anticipated future.

III. THE TOKEN-REFLEXIVE ACCOUNT

It is, we suggest, a phenomenological datum that there does not seem to be a difference between the time occupied by an event that one perceives and one's perception of it. This negative claim, a claim about how things do not seem, is related to a positive claim about how things do seem in reflection on one's experience. Phillips, for example, writes,

It seems to us that our experience itself unfolds alongside, and in step with, the temporal phenomena which we find ourselves attending to in reflecting on our experience. (2014: 132)

This idea, which we might call ‘reflective simultaneity’, is that when one reflects on one's perceptual experience it seems to one that that experience occupies the same interval of time as do the events of which one is perceptually aware.

A possible explanation of both the phenomenological datum and reflective simultaneity is that such apparent simultaneity is given in the content of the perceptual experience itself. This thought is endorsed by Kriegel and put to work in an account of the temporal structure of perception, episodic recall, and anticipation,

A perceptual experience P of an object O represents O as simultaneous with P; a mnemonic experience M of an object O represents O as earlier than M; and an anticipatory experience A of O represents O as later than A. In all these experiences, the experience itself shows up in the full specification of its content, and is thus a constituent of its own veridicality conditions. (2009: 588)

This view would explain the phenomenological datum in a pleasingly direct way. Of course, if perceptual experience represents itself as simultaneous with the perceived event, there will not seem to be a difference between the intervals occupied by each. The view also provides a way of analysing 2P, 2R, and 2A in such a way as to provide full veridicality conditions for perception, episodic recall, and anticipation, respectively. This is for the reason that the view can be seen as an application of the token-reflexive view of indexicality to the indexical terms in 2P, 2R, and 2A.

In 3P the occurrence of ‘now’ has been given a token-reflexive analysis: the temporal location of the event of d’s movement (e) is given in terms of the temporal location of the perceptual experience of it (P).⁷ This application of the token-reflexive analysis of temporal indexicals requires that a perceptual experience is itself always a constituent of its own content. That is, it requires that perceptual experience is self-reflexive.⁸

This set of analyses, which we will collectively refer to as the Token-Reflexive Account (TRA), has, then, some significant virtues.⁹ It explains the fact that what one perceives does not seem to happen at a time other than the perception of it; the fact that what one recollects seems to have already happened; and the fact that what one anticipates seems yet to happen. It does this in a way that provides perceptual experience, recall, and anticipation with full veridicality conditions. We believe, nevertheless, that TRA should be rejected.

III.1. Transparency

TRA conflicts with a plausible version of the claim that perceptual experience is diaphanous, or transparent. Moore introduced this notion by pointing out that,

The moment we try to fix our attention upon consciousness and to see what, distinctly, it is, it seems to vanish: it seems as if we had before us a mere emptiness. When we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue: the other element is as if it were diaphanous. (1903: 450)¹⁰

This is a claim about introspection or, as we will say, reflection. The claim is that in reflection on one's own experience we are presented with that which one experiences but not the experience itself. This claim of reflective transparency, when applied to the case at hand, gives us the following:

Reflective Temporal Transparency: when we reflect on the temporal features of perceptual experience, we are presented with the temporal features of that which is experienced but not temporal features of the experience itself.

The reflective simultaneity endorsed by Phillips (2014: 132) would appear to contradict this claim. For if reflection reveals that temporal experience unfolds ‘in step with’ the events experienced, then it must surely be the case that in reflection we are presented with the temporal features of both the experience and its object. We take no stand on Reflective Temporal Transparency. We do, however, accept Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency:

Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency: in perceptual experience, we are presented with the temporal features of that which is experienced but not temporal features of the experience itself.

Pre-reflective experience is experience that is not reflected on. Thus, the experience undergone when seeing a dot move is pre-reflective if it is not the case that the subject is at the same time attending to their experience of its moving. Such experience, we claim, is temporally transparent. Whilst we perceive the temporal features of the event perceived (the dot's moving), we do not perceive the temporal features of the perceiving of the event.¹¹

One way of putting this is to say that perceptual experience does not present us with a temporal perspective from which the temporal features of events are presented. In this respect, the experience of temporal features arguably contrasts with the experience of spatial features. In visual experience, we can mark out the spatial location from which objects are experienced as distinct from the spatial location of those objects. This enables us to consider how it would be to perceive those objects from a different location. However, with the temporal aspect of perceptual experience this is not the case. We are not perceptually aware of the temporal perspective from which we perceive; thus, we are not able to distinguish between the temporal location from which objects are experienced and the temporal location of the objects perceived. As Hoerl puts the point,

There is just no scope within a description of our experience of temporal properties for a distinction between the experienced properties themselves and a point in time from which they are experienced. (2018: 143)

TRA is inconsistent with this claim. TRA explains the fact that there does not seem to be a difference between the time occupied by an event that one perceives and one's perception of it by claiming that perceptual experience presents perceived events as simultaneous with the experience of them. According to this view, then, perceptual experience presents us with the temporal features of both the objects of experience and the experience of them; the experience itself is an element of its own content. Given the phenomenological plausibility of Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency, we consider this fact to count against TRA. Further, we maintain the phenomenological datum that there is no difference between the time occupied by an event that one perceives and one's perception of it is accounted for, and more economically, by Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency itself: there seems to be no such difference, because pre-reflective experience does not present us with the temporal features of experience at all.

III.2. Mind independence

In developing the token-reflexive analysis of indexicals, Reichenbach claims that ‘I’ means the same as ‘the person who utters this token’, ‘now’ means the same as ‘the time at which this token is uttered’, and so on (1947: 284). In such a view, the truth of what is said by an utterance containing ‘I’, ‘now’, and so on, depends on the existence of utterance itself. However, adapting Kaplan (1989: 519–520) slightly, if ‘I’ means the same as ‘the person who utters this token’, then i would be true,

i: If no one were to utter this token, there would be no such thing as me

This is for the reason that i would be equivalent to i*,

i*: If no one were to utter this token, there would be no such thing as the person who utters this token

But i is surely false. In the same vein, we note that if ‘now’ means the same as ‘the time at which this token is token is uttered’ then ii (and the equivalent ii*) would be true,

ii: If no one were to utter this token, there would be no such thing as now

ii*: If no one were to utter this token, there would be no such thing as time at which this token is uttered

Since ii is surely false we have some reason to doubt the token-reflexive analysis of indexicals. Is TRA open to the same objection? It may be suggested that it is not. For whilst TRA is like Reichenbach's analysis of indexicals in that it relies on token reflexivity, it is unlike Reichenbach's analysis in that it does not make a claim about the meaning of ‘now’. Rather, TRA is a claim about the temporal content of perceptual experience. Rather than being a semantic claim, TRA is an analysis of what it is for a perceived event to seem to be happening in the present. Thus, the moves made above against the token-reflexive analysis of indexicals cannot be made against TRA.

There is, however, a related argument that can be made against TRA. For, just as the token-reflexive analysis of indexicals entails that the truth of what is said by an utterance containing ‘I’, ‘now’, and so on, requires the existence of the utterance itself, so TRA entails that the holding of what is perceived by a perceptual experience (or episodic recollection, or anticipation) requires the existence of the experience itself. Thus, what it is that one perceptually experiences can only be the case if one is experiencing it; what it is that one recalls can only the be the case if one is recalling it; what it is that one anticipates can only be the case if one is anticipating it. In short, since the content of the experience in question incorporates the experience itself, that content can only be the case if one experiences it to be so.

This conflicts with the deep-seated idea that perception, recollection, and anticipation are, typically at least, experiences of what Williams (1978: 65) calls ‘the reality that is there anyway’, whether or not one, or anybody else, is experiencing it.¹² That a dot is moving now can be the case even if I do not experience its movement. That a dot is moving simultaneously with my perceiving it to move cannot. As with the issue concerning transparency, we consider this fact to count against TRA. It may be that neither of these two problems are insurmountable. They do, however, motivate the search for an account that is not subject to them.

IV. THE MINIMAL ACCOUNT

An influential alternative to the token-reflexive analysis of indexicals is the Kaplanian view. On Kaplan's (1989) account, ‘now’, like other indexicals, is a directly referential term. That is, the time relevant to determining the truth of a sentence such as ‘Dot d is moving now’ is given by the context of utterance, not the circumstance of evaluation. Thus, we can ask whether what one has said with one's true utterance, at time t in location l, of ‘Dot d is moving now’, would have been true in a counterfactual circumstance C in which (i) d is not moving at t, (ii) d is moving at t+1, and (iii) one utters ‘Dot d is moving now’ at t+1. The answer is negative for the reason that the time to which we should look to evaluate for truth in C is not the time of utterance in C, but the actual time of utterance. Intuitively, we get a different result for ‘Dot d is moving as I speak’. This would be true in both the actual and counterfactual circumstances.

The above concerns the contribution that an indexical makes to the content of an utterance. But Kaplan's account also introduces the notion of an indexical's character. While the content of an utterance at t of ‘now’ is simply t, that does not fully characterize the meaning of ‘now’. For, if it did, that word would have as many meanings (or there would be as many homophonic words) as there were times of utterance. The meaning of an indexical is partly constituted by its character, and this is something that every token of ‘now’ shares. The character of a term is that which fixes its referent. In the case of ‘now’, the referent is fixed by the simple rule: ‘now’ refers to the time of utterance. According to Kaplan, this rule, plus the fact that it is directly referential, gives the meaning of the word ‘now’. The rule is not, however, synonymous with ‘now’, as it is in Reichenbach's view, since the rule is not itself directly referential (it is a definite description). The character of ‘now’, as given by the simple rule, marks it out as what Kaplan calls a ‘pure’ indexical. That is, ‘now’ is an indexical requiring no accompanying demonstration or referential intention to fix its referent.¹³ In this respect, it differs from demonstrative indexicals such as ‘this’, ‘that’, or ‘she’, the character of which demands a demonstration or referential intention.

As with the Kaplanian analysis of indexicals, the character, whilst determining which time is referred to, does not itself make it into the content. Also, note that in this formulation ‘t’ is not a variable but a constant. It is clear that this view, in contrast to TRA, gives perceptual experience a much pared down, indeed minimal, temporal content. The temporal content of the perceptual present is exhausted by the untensed t, which is the minimum required to ensure that the experience has a complete veridicality condition.¹⁴ This view is also consistent with both Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency and the mind independence of the temporal content of perception, for the reason that on this view the content of perception makes no reference to the experience of which it is the content.

An initial worry about 4P, however, is that it does not allow us to distinguish between the content of perception, episodic recall, and anticipation. For, just as the contribution of ‘now’ to the content of perception is simply the time t, so would be the contribution of the indexicals ‘past’ and ‘future’, tokened at the relevant times, to the content of recall and anticipation, respectively. That is, such a view would seem to give 4P as the content of both the recall, at t+1, of the dot's moving, and the anticipation, at t-1, of the dot's moving. The worry here is that 4P is not really an account of perceptual presence at all, for there is nothing in 4P that requires t to be in the present rather than the past or future.

In these analyses, t* is introduced as the time picked out by the character of ‘now’. But, as with 4P, that character does not itself enter into the content. As a consequence, whilst both 4R and 4A are contents that introduce a temporal perspective on the events experienced, they do not do so in a way that threatens the mind-independence of the temporal content of either episodic recollection or anticipation. Indeed, the extent to which 4R and 4A show recollection and anticipation to be non-transparent is itself minimal. For, whilst the time, t, of the recollective or anticipatory experience is introduced into the content, it is not explicitly introduced as those experiences’ temporal location. Thus, the view is quite different from that proposed by Kriegel (2009). It seems, then, that the Minimal Account can account for the fact that, phenomenologically speaking, we perceive the present, recall the past, and anticipate the future. And it can do so in a way that avoids the problems previously identified for TRA.¹⁵

Kriegel (2009) has presented an objection to a view much like the Minimal Account, which we will briefly consider.¹⁶ Just as two utterances of ‘it is sunny now’ made at different times will have different contents, so will phenomenally identical but numerically distinct perceptual experiences had at different times. But this is inconsistent with the independently plausible claim that content is determined by phenomenology. As Kriegel puts it,

since the content we are interested in is one that is determined by phenomenology, and since Kaplanian semantics assigns different contents to non-simultaneous experiences across the board, it would follow that no non-simultaneous perceptual experiences can have the same phenomenology. (2009: 610)

Two qualitatively identical phenomenal characters cannot determine different contents so, argues Kriegel, we should think of the two phenomenally identical perceptual experiences as possessing the same content. This, he thinks, is something that TRA, but not the Minimal Account, can secure.

Secondly, the defender of the Minimal Account can claim that while it is not possible for two qualitatively identical phenomenal characters to determine different contents, it does not follow that it is not possible for two subjectively indiscriminable phenomenal characters to do so. This is for the reason that, as the phenomenal Sorites teaches us, two phenomenally distinct experiences can be indiscriminable to their subject: colour patches A, B, and C are all red; A is indiscriminable from B, B is indiscriminable from C, yet A is discriminable from C; since _has the same phenomenal character as_ is surely a transitive relation, and A and C, being discriminable, do not have the same phenomenal character, it follows that A and B have distinct phenomenal characters despite being indiscriminable.¹⁷ The defender of the Minimal Account might, then, put pressure on Kriegel's assumption that experiences had at different times can be phenomenally identical rather than merely phenomenally indiscriminable. To be clear, we do not mean to suggest that considerations relating to the Sorites show that the experiences in question have distinct yet indiscriminable phenomenal characters, only that this is a possibility that the proponent of Kriegel's argument would need to rule out.

Third, the defender of the Minimal Account can point out that the issue that Kriegel raises is not special to the temporal content of perceptual experience but rather represents a clash between the claim that phenomenology determines content, on the one hand, and any aspect of content that is taken to be ‘externally individuated’, ‘singular’, ‘wide’, or ‘object-involving’, on the other. For example, analogous reasoning can be employed to argue that two phenomenally identical perceptual experiences, one of Greta and another of Greta* her identical twin, must have the same content; or that two phenomenally identical experiences, one of location l and another of the qualitatively identical location l*, must have different contents; and so on. To point this out is not to show that Kriegel's objection fails, rather it is to show that the issue is of much more general significance than just the debate about temporal content. That phenomenology determines content is not an assumption that we can take on lightly if its consequence is that no phenomenal state can possess wide content. The defender of the Minimal Account, then, is within their rights to set aside Kriegel's objection for another occasion, and this is the option we take here.¹⁸

IV.1. Progressive aspect

As an account of the temporal content of perceptual experience, 4P is incomplete. For a feature of the content of perceptual experience that it fails to make explicit is that it has progressive aspect.¹⁹ In English, we would describe the content of experience as ‘dot is moving’ rather than ‘dot moves’. Similarly, in episodic recall or anticipation one recalls or anticipates the dot's moving. In perception we are aware of things happening, in recall we are aware of things that were happening, in anticipation we are aware of things that will be happening. An account of the content of these experiences should capture these facts.

This ensures that the movement that one perceives is in progress during the interval occupied by one's experience of it, thereby distinguishing the content of perception from the non-progressive ‘dot moves’. Corresponding analyses of episodic recall and anticipation would be easy to formulate.

It will be immediately pointed out, however, that just like 3P, this is inconsistent with Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency. For this analysis reintroduces the experience itself into its own content, presenting us with a temporal perspective on the event experienced. More than this, 5P actually conflicts with the phenomenological datum, the negative claim that there is no difference between the time seemingly occupied by one's experience and that occupied by what it is an experience of. For the former is experienced as a proper part of the latter. So not only does the analysis conflict with a plausible transparency, the perspective it introduces is too far removed from that which it is a perspective on.

Further, such an interval inclusion model does not serve well as a general account of the progressive aspect since it gives rise to the so-called imperfective paradox (Dowty 1979, ch.3). According to the account, it can only be true that a is Fing if, at some later time, it is true that a Fed. Stated in terms of the content of perception, one can only experience a Fing if the interval occupied by one's experience is a proper part of an interval in which a Fs. With activities, such as moving, this entailment is fine: if one sees the dot moving, then it is surely the case that the dot moved. For accomplishments, such as drawing a circle or building a house, however, it is not.²⁰ It can be true, at t, that a is drawing a circle and that one sees this event in progress, without it ever being true that a drew a circle. Perhaps a got bored half-way.

These are our final formulations.²³ Here we see, once again, that the content of perception respects both mind-independence and Pre-Reflective Temporal Transparency. The content of recollection and anticipation, on the other hand, introduces a temporal perspective. But this perspective is limited to the direct reference to the time at which the experience occurs (t*) and does not pick that time out as the time at which an experience occurs. As such, whilst neither recollection nor anticipation is strictly temporally transparent, they do not impugn mind-independence.²⁴

IV.2. Cognitive significance

It is widely claimed that ‘now’ is, like ‘I’ and ‘here’, an essential indexical (Perry 1979; though for skepticism see Cappelen & Dever 2013). It is a matter of controversy what this amounts to but common and central claims are that (i) ‘now’ is irreducible to non-indexical terms, and (ii) beliefs with a token of the concept expressed by the word ‘now’ in the content (now-beliefs) have a special role to play in the explanation of action. The first claim can be motivated by pointing out that ‘Frege Puzzles’ are always possible between now-beliefs and beliefs containing non-indexical co-referring terms. It is always possible rationally to believe, at t, that a is F at t (or at the G time) whilst failing to believe that a is F now. The second claim, closely related to the first, is typically motivated by example: if one desires to φ at t, and believes that t is now, then one will, other things being equal, be motivated to φ. Things are different, however, if one merely believes that t is t’ for, in such a case, one must additionally believe that t’ is now. More concretely: if one wants to rise at 6 am, and one believes that it is 6 am now, one will, other things being equal, be motivated to rise. If, however, one believes that it is 6 am when the cock crows one will only be motivated to rise if one also believes that the cock crows now. These points might be reasonably placed under the heading of the cognitive significance of now-beliefs.

One concern about the Kaplanian analysis of indexicals is whether it can adequately account for cognitive significance.²⁵ On the assumption that names are, like indexicals, devices of direct reference, the content expressed by a’s utterance ‘I am F’ is the same as that expressed by her utterance ‘a is F’. But it seems to follow from the above considerations that the beliefs to which these utterances give voice have an entirely different cognitive significance. Thus, on this view, content cannot account for cognitive significance. The same point can be made for ‘now’: an utterance of ‘It is sunny now’ made at midday on Wednesday 16 May 2018 will have the same content as an utterance of ‘It is sunny at midday on Wednesday 16 May 2018’.²⁶ Yet, in the absence of any further ‘now’-beliefs, only the former will encourage one to apply sun-block.

If this is a problem for the Kaplanian analysis of indexicals, perhaps it is also a problem for the, Kaplan-inspired, Minimal Account of the perceptual present. For, it might be argued, just as an utterance of ‘It is sunny here now’ made at midday on Wednesday 16 May 2018 will have the same content as an utterance of ‘It is sunny here at midday on Wednesday 16 May 2018’, so a perceptual experience, at t, of the dot moving now will have the same content as a perceptual experience of the dot moving at t. But, the argument might continue, the latter would lack the immediate connections with action possessed by the former. For example, only the former would, other things being equal, be sufficient, when combined with the desire to press the button when the dot moves, to motivate pressing the button. The latter would require the additional connecting belief that t is now. That is, the Minimal Account fails to account for the cognitive significance of perceptual presence.

One way of responding to this argument would be to join Cappelen and Dever (2013) in their rejection of the claim that ‘now’ is an essential indexical with a constitutive connection to action. However, we think that, even if one does accept essential indexicality, this line of argument is mistaken, and for two reasons. First, we deny that there is any such thing as the perceptual experience of the dot moving at t where this is taken to fall short of the perceptual experience of the dot moving now. For the Minimal Account states that (i) the temporal content of perceptual experience is determined by the rule that gives the time at which the token experience occurs, and that (ii) for something to be perceptually experienced, at t, to be happening at t just is for it to be perceptually experienced as happening now. The above argument rests on the assumption that a perceptual experience, at t, could present an event as occurring at t without it thereby being experienced as happening now. This assumption, then, begs the question against the Minimal Account. Put another way, if an experience represents an event as occurring at, say, midday on Wednesday 16 May 2018, but does not present it as occurring now, then it is not a perceptual experience.

Secondly, the argument wrongly asserts that the perceptual experience of the dot moving now is sufficient, other things being equal and in the presence of an appropriate desire, to motivate one to act. We consider this assumption to be highly doubtful. What is also required is that the subject accept or believe the content of their perceptual experience. The dot's moving now must be not only perceptually experienced but noted and thereby taken up into one's cognitive system. Practical reasoning does not take perceptual experiences as inputs, it takes beliefs.

Given this, the argument as stated fails. It might, however, be revised as follows: if the content of perceptual experience is as stated in 7P, then accepting it as veridical will mean coming to believe that the dot is moving at t. But coming to believe that the dot is moving at t is insufficient for coming to believe that the dot is moving now, a fact that can be seen by their differing cognitive significance.

Whilst this argument represents an improvement on the previous attempt, it nevertheless fails. Crucially, we deny that accepting the content of 7P means coming to believe that the dot is moving at t where this falls short of coming to believe that the dot is moving now (recall that, on the Kaplanian analysis of indexicals, the temporal content of the belief that the dot is moving now is that it is moving at t). To see why this claim should be rejected, we need to take a step back and say something about how one might respond to the above worry about the Kaplanian analysis of indexicals itself.

In discussing Frege's well-known claim that, ‘everyone is presented to himself in a particular and primitive way, in which he is presented to no-one else’ (1918: 298), Kaplan claims that when one holds an I-belief, one is presented to oneself, ‘under the character of ‘I’’ (1989: 233). Character, on this view, does double duty. Not only does it determine the content of an utterance or belief in a context, it also accounts for the cognitive significance of such a belief. A similar idea is articulated in more detail by Perry (1977, 1979), who claims that the cognitive significance of essential indexicals cannot be captured by the content believed but only by the sense that one entertains in so believing, where the notion of sense is identified with the role of the indexical (role is, in effect, Kaplanian character).²⁷ In the case of ‘now’, the idea is that what one believes when one believes, at time t, that it is sunny now is the same as what one believes when one believes that it is sunny at t. In the indexical case, however, one believes that content in a particular way: one believes it by entertaining the sense partly constituted by the role/character of ‘now’.

In his critical discussion of Perry's account and defence of a Neo-Fregean view, Evans (1981) points out that, as it stands, this is an overly thin account of what is distinctive of the indexical way of grasping the relevant content (§6).²⁸ What is required, Evans claims, is an account of how one's now-thoughts are controlled by the various connections one must possess to the object of one's thought if one is to be credited with the relevant indexical belief (and which are not required by the relevant non-indexical beliefs). Such an account will, amongst other things, concern how one's beliefs about what is happening now are informed by one's perceptual experiences. Articulating such an account is perhaps the central project of Evans (1982, part 2). The important point for our purposes is that a perceptual experience will feed information into one's now-beliefs because of its position in the system and not because it has explicitly indexical content. In Perry's own later account, which shares much with that provided by Evans, this would be explained in terms of the fact that one's perceptual experiences are (normally) informative about what is happening now. Here is what he says in the structurally similar case of ‘here’,

The informational role of an R-notion is to serve as the normal repository for information gained in normally R-informative ways and as the normal motivator for normally R-effecting and R-dependent actions. The information I pick up by looking around me will, normally, become associated with my here-notions. The beliefs involving these notions will motivate actions such as taking an umbrella, whose success depends on the weather around me. (Perry 2002: 201)

We suggest that the Minimal Account of the temporal content of perceptual experience can avail itself of such a strategy. That is, we deny that if the content of perceptual experience is as stated in 7P, then accepting it will mean coming to believe that the dot is moving at t where that falls short of coming to believe that the dot is moving now. For perceptual experience is a way of gaining information that is (normally) now-informative; it provides us with information about what is happening now. To form a belief, on the basis of perceptual experience, as to what is happening now, it is not required that that perceptual experience has explicitly indexical content. Since perceptual experience is of the present, it will automatically inform one's now-beliefs (in Perry's terminology, one's ‘now-notion’). Consequently, the argument from the cognitive significance of now-beliefs to the falsity of the Minimal Account fails.

Analogous points apply to the cognitive significance of both episodic recall and anticipation, a phenomenon made vivid by Prior's (1959) well-known ‘thank goodness that's over’ example. Episodic recall is a way of gaining information that is (normally) past-informative; it provides us with information about what has already happened. As such, to form a belief, on the basis of recall, as to what happened then, it is not required that that recollective experience has explicitly indexical content. Since recall is of the past it will automatically inform one's then-beliefs. Thus, on recalling having one's tooth pulled, one will naturally believe that event to have already happened. One can thereby think ‘thank goodness that's over’, without having to know anything about the date, t, on which it occurred beyond the fact that it is past. Similarly, anticipation is a mode of representing the future. As such, to form a belief on the basis of anticipation, as to what is likely to happen, it is not necessary that that anticipatory experience has explicitly indexical content. Since anticipation is of the future it will automatically inform one's future-beliefs.²⁹

V. CONCLUSION

We distinguished two accounts of the perceptual present (and, derivatively, the recalled past and the anticipated future): The TRA and the Minimal Account. TRA suffers from the drawbacks that it is inconsistent with a plausible account of the transparency of perception and inconsistent with a common-sense conception of the mind-independence of that which is perceived. The Minimal Account is immune to these concerns. Further, we have defended the view from the concern that it is unable to distinguish between the temporal content of perception, anticipation, and memory; and from the concern that it cannot account for the cognitive significance commonly associated with essential indexicals. In short, we have argued that the Minimal Account is well placed to explain the phenomenological datum that we perceive the present, recall the past, and anticipate the future.³⁰

Footnotes

REFERENCES