'The fundamental problem of perception': McDowell and Travis on the philosophical nature of perceptual experience.

• Grant number: 22/14083-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: May 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter
• Grantee: Daniel Mendes Campos Xavier Debarry
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/01536-6 - Conceptual capacities and the function of judgments: McDowell's new reading on Kant and the implications for his current view on the philosophical nature of perceptual experience, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

We aim to offer a relevant contribution to the philosophical approach to what Charles Travis labels "The fundamental problem of perception": according to him, the matter of "how perception can make the world bear for us on the thing to think". We propose a detailed examination of the ongoing "Travis-McDowell Debate" on the philosophical nature of perceptual experience. Since the publication of Mind and World in 1994, John McDowell's thinking has been a central theme for those engaged in contemporary debates on perceptual experience. In addressing something along the lines of "the fundamental problem of perception," McDowell stresses that perception must have a conceptual nature; "A judgment of experience does not introduce a new kind of content, but simply endorses the conceptual content (...) that is already possessed by the experience on which it is grounded". However, an author such as Travis contends that experiences do not have representational content: "In perception, things are not presented or represented, to us as being thus and so. They are just presented to us, full stop". In a broad sense, the exchange between McDowell and Travis offers opposing answers to the following question: could conceptual capacities be actualized in perceptual experience itself, not only in the judgments in which a subject responds to her perceptual experience? Hence, we intend to address this issue and offer a middle-ground to the debate. To do so, we propose to develop a Kantian-inspired thesis within a contemporary framework. More specifically, we suggest that the actualization of conceptual capacities in experience reflects not empirical but categorial concepts instead. In the end, we hope to accommodate some of Travis's objections whithout giving up McDowell's insight that perception may involve conceptual capacities.