Biosemiotics (2013) 6:323–336 DOI 10.1007/s12304-013-9170-z ORIGINAL PAPER

Perception and Conception: Shaping Human

Otávio Bueno

Received: 21 September 2012 /Accepted: 15 November 2012 /Published online: 26 February 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Perceptual experiences provide an important source of information about the world. It is clear that having the capacity of undergoing such experiences yields an evolutionary advantage. But why should humans have developed not only the ability of simply seeing, but also of seeing that something is thus and so? In this paper, I explore the significance of distinguishing from conception for the development of the kind of minds that creatures such as humans typically have. As will become clear, it is crucial to pay careful attention to the different kinds of information that are involved in perceiving and conceiving (including the way such information is gathered and transmitted). By identifying such kinds of information and the role they play, we can then understand an important feature of why creatures like us have the kind of and mental processes we do.

Keywords Perception . Conception . . Conceptualism . Nonconceptualism

Introduction

Perceptual experiences provide an important source of information about the world. It is clear that having the capacity of undergoing such experiences yields an evolution- ary advantage. But why should humans have developed not only the ability of simply seeing, but also of seeing that something is thus and so? The former is a basic (non- epistemic) form of seeing, whereas the latter is conceptual in nature. I can see an okapi without realizing that it is an okapi that I see. This would be the case if, for

Special Issue “Origins of ” edited by Liz Stillwaggon Swan and Andrew M. Winters My thanks go to Rami El Ali and Colin McGinn for many discussions about the issues examined in this paper. Liz Swan and Andrew Winters gave me very helpful comments on earlier versions of the work. I am very grateful to them. O. Bueno (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA e-mail: [email protected] 324 O. Bueno example, I do not have the of okapi, but there is an okapi in front of me and I look at it.1 In this paper, I explore the significance of distinguishing these two kinds of perception—or, rather, distinguishing perception from conception—for the develop- ment of the kind of minds that creatures such as humans typically have. As will become clear, it is crucial to pay careful attention to the different kinds of information that are involved in perceiving and conceiving (including the way such information is gathered and transmitted). By identifying such kinds of information and the role they play, we can then understand an important feature of why creatures like us have the kind of consciousness and mental processes we do.

Perception and Conception

There is a substantial literature on the distinction between conception and perception (see, e.g., Smith 2002 and Dretske 2000, and the references therein). My goal, in this work, is simply to explore the significance of this divide to the issue of the kind of minds that creatures like us have. The central is that it is because we are able to have certain perceptual experiences, in response to external features of the environ- ment, that we developed conceptual capacities (including the capacities to reflect and conceptualize relevant features of such perceptual experiences). The relevant con- ceptual capacities, in turn, allow us to assess the nature of these experiences (includ- ing their scope and reliability). The result is an intricate, entangled relation between perceiving something and conceiving it. Underlying the account favored here there is an empiricism that gives priority to the perceptual over the conceptual. Perception provides information about the envi- ronment around us, and such information emerges from the counterfactual depen- dence between the environment and the corresponding perceptual experiences. In particular, we have:

(C1) Had the environment been different (within the sensitivity range of our perceptual apparatus), the resulting perceptual experiences would have been correspondingly different. (C2) Had the environment been the same (within the sensitivity range of our perceptual apparatus), the resulting perceptual experiences would have been correspondingly the same.2 These conditions provide a way of tracking the environment, by determining how changes in it correspond to changes in the perceptual experiences. Moreover, perceptual experiences have content, in the sense that (a) they represent the environment as being a certain way, and (b) that representation has a particular form. For example, a subway map has content, since it represents the environment by

1 This distinction has been forcefully presented and defended by Fred Dretske (see, e.g., Dretske 2000). 2 For a discussion of the role played by counterfactual conditions of this sort in visual experiences, see Lewis (1980). Lewis focuses on (C1), formulated in terms of the counterfactual dependence between the scene before us and the corresponding visual experiences. But (C2) is also needed, since it does not follow from (C1), and information about stable features of the environment is required in order for us to be able to track the objects around us properly. Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 325 depicting the spatial relations among the various stations of the subway, and that representation is formulated via a suitable diagram, which conveys the relevant features of the subway. Similarly, a photograph of a subway station also has content, since it represents the way the subway looks (from the angle in which the photograph was taken), and that representation is also formulated via similarity relations (visually salient traits) between the subway station and image that characterizes the surface of the photograph. Perceptual experiences have content in exactly the same way. The environment is represented as being a certain way (for instance, the visual experience of a snowy mountain represents the environment as including such a mountain), and that representation has a certain form (it is formulated by preserving the visually salient features of the environment). But the priority of the perceptual over the conceptual should be understood carefully. We are perfectly aware of how limited perception is. There are contexts in which it may fail (for instance, when one is sleep deprived or has taken certain drugs); there are conditions under which the information perception provides can be misleading (e.g. when the environment is not properly illuminated), and in many situations it is unclear how to interpret the contents of the perceptual experiences (for example, in the case of visual illusions). Information generated from perceptual experiences can be, and often is, revised: perception is, of course, a fallible sense modality. And its fallibility emerges, in part and in certain contexts, from the conceptual component. If while strolling on the beach I mistake a rock for a crab, it is my interpretation of the sensory information I received—in other words, my conception—that was ultimately responsible for the mistake. That I received some sensory information through my eyes is undeniable. In that case, the problem was the way I conceptualized the relevant information. However, this does not entail that my sensory information cannot be mistaken. When a cloud is blocking the sunlight, the color of the sand may appear to be a different shade than it actually is. And such an appearance holds independently of the way I conceptualize the shade. But it may be argued that the shade of the sand’s color was precisely the way it appeared to be, given the conditions of the sky at that moment. After all, depending on the conditions of the environment, the sand’s color will appear differently. In the end, the shade appeared just the way it was under the conditions the sand was exposed to. In response, this suggestion introduces a substantial level of infallibility. It as- sumes that the content of a visual experience cannot be mistaken. Any mistakes can only be introduced when conceptualizations are advanced, since it is in virtue of these conceptualizations that the adequacy (or lack thereof) between the information conveyed in the perceptual experience and what is going on in the scene before one’s eyes can be adjudicated. However, there are ways in which the content alone of visual experiences can be mistaken. Perceptual illusions provide clear illustrations of this possibility. The straw inside a glass with water seems to be bent when in fact it remains straight. It is an artifact of the way light behaves that the straw will appear the way it does, even though it is not bent at all. There is here a clear mismatch between what appears to the subject (a bent straw inside a glass with water) and what is actually going on (a perfectly straight straw inside the glass). It may be objected that in this case there is a conceptual issue involved: the perception of the straw as bent. Such a perception can only occur after the acquisition 326 O. Bueno and mastery of the concept bent, since it is only by invoking this concept that the corresponding experience is possible. That is, in order to perceive the straw as bent (rather than, say, as straight), the content of the experience needs to be such that the sensory features are interpreted as involving a bent straw. So, once again, the problem has to do with the conceptual components rather than with the sensory traits. I am not unsympathetic with this response. And it is plausible to consider that conceptual traits play a role in this instance. Clearly to perceive the straw as bent, one needs the relevant . Such concepts, however, are not required to perceive a bent straw inside a glass with water. One can perceive such an object without having the concepts of bent, glass, water, or even straw. All that is needed is the presence of the object in one’s visual field. In this case, since the straw is not bent, there is a mismatch between the content of the visual experience and the scene before one’s eyes, even though the viewer may not be aware of the mismatch. To be aware of the straw’s curved form when it is placed inside the glass with water, the concept of bent is required. But the mismatch remains between the content of the visual experience (which presents a bent straw) and the actual properties of the straw (which is, in fact, straight even when placed inside the glass with water).

Empiricism and ; Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism

Debates about the source of our concepts have a long and complex history, which, of course, I cannot do justice to here. In its most striking form, empiricists and rationalists (or intellectualists) defend opposing views on this issue. Empiricists, in the most radical version of their views, have argued that concepts have their origin in experience, including apparently nonempirical concepts, such as mathematical ones. In contrast, rationalists, in the most radical form of their views, defend the claim that concepts are formulated independently of experience, including apparently empirical concepts, such as concepts of material objects. For empiricists of this more radical form, every mental content depends on experience. Concepts are acquired as the result of the interaction with the environ- ment. The repetition of certain stimuli and the resulting perceptual experiences form a network of interconnections that eventually produces particular concepts. It may be objected that this process presupposes some concepts already. For instance, the very concept of regularity invokes the notion of constancy, which in turn presupposes the concept of . It is thus unclear how concepts can get off the ground in empiricist terms. Similar difficulties apply to the concept of similarity. The recogni- tion that something is similar to something else clearly requires the concept of similarity. But how can that concept be formed empirically if in order to form the concept one needs to have the capacity of recognizing something as similar to something else? However, to have that capacity is precisely to have the concept of similarity in the first place (see McGinn 2012). In response, I grant that identity is a fundamental concept, and it cannot be defined in more basic terms. Any putative definition of identity presupposes the identity of the expressions used in order to define the concept (see McGinn 2000). For instance, Leibniz’s law, 8x 8z 8PxðÞ¼ y $ ðÞPx $ Py , presupposes that the variables in the right-hand side of the biconditional are the same as (that is, are identical with) the Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 327 variables in the left-hand side of it. This point can be generalized to any putative definition of identity, since all of them invoke some form of variable that needs to be bound in order to offer a proper characterization of identity. But this does not mean that the origin of the concept of identity, or of similarity— which can be thought of as identity in certain respects—cannot be empirical. These concepts emerge as abstractions from the experiences of particular objects. To experience some objects as being the same (or as being similar) to one another clearly presupposes the concept of identity. But to experience identical objects (or similar objects) does not presuppose their identity or similarity. These are just properties that these objects have, and that can be perceived as part of experiencing them. By reflecting on these experiences and by ignoring particular, specific features of the objects involved, the concept of identity (and of similarity) can be formed. Identity requires sharing all properties, whereas similarity requires only sharing properties of a certain kind (similarity is a context-dependent notion, relativized to particular properties, which are made relevant by the context). The same points can also be made about the empirical origin of related concepts. In contrast, rationalists offer a very different approach. On their view, at its most radical, concepts cannot be acquired empirically, since they are required to attend to the relevant features of our own experience. One cannot experience an object as a triangle without having the concept of a triangle, which allows one to structure the relevant content of one’s experience in accordance with such a concept. Clearly this presupposes the acquisition and mastery of the relevant concept. But how can such a concept be obtained empirically if one needs to have the concept in question to have the appropriate experience in the first place? The alleged impossibility of acquiring the relevant experience without the appropriate concepts motivates the rationalist view, which emphasizes the central role played by concepts in shaping and structur- ing experience. The rationalist’s is a foundationalist view. It takes concepts as basic, as innate abilities to characterize experiences in certain ways: such concepts are required for the experiences to occur. One cannot experience a brown hot chocolate, the rationalist insists, without the relevant sensory concepts. But these concepts, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, are not formed in experience. Experiences are not possible without them. In this respect, experience is fundamentally conceptual in nature: concepts are required to ensure the very possibility of experience. To be counted as experience, concepts are needed: they provide structure for what is experienced; they categorize and organize the data received in experience. Conceptualism and go hand in hand on the rationalist picture. Concepts structure experience, which in turn, properly conceptualized, forms the basis for information processing and acquisition; in other words, such conceptu- alized experience provides a foundation for knowledge. Needless to say, the foundation need not be infallible, and according to several foundationalists, it is not. It is simply a basis to confer justification, without itself requiring additional justification.3

3 A searching critique of foundationalism in is provided, e.g., in Sosa (1980). Note also that perceptual experiences are not foundational in an additional sense: they are typically dependent on a number of other such experiences, thus yielding a network of mutually dependent beliefs. The resulting picture is closer to a form of rather than foundationalism. 328 O. Bueno

Conceptualism about the nature of experience (particularly perceptual experience) faces significant difficulties (see, for instance, Smith 2002). If concepts are needed in order for experiences to be possible, it is difficult to see how creatures that lack the relevant concepts could possibly have the experiences in question. Clearly, however, very young children, cognitively impaired humans, and nonhuman animals have all sorts of perceptual experiences, even though they lack or have no access to the appropriate concepts. All of these creatures, assuming that their eyes are working properly, can perceive a watermelon in a basket, even though they may lack the relevant concepts. The capacity of perceiving objects seems prior to the acquisition of the concepts that conceptualists take to be required for their perception. Conceptualists will, no doubt, complain that this argument begs the question against them. It is assumed, they will point out, that are possible without the corresponding concepts, but this is precisely the point in question: are perceptual experiences—such as illusions, hallucinations and, in particular, perceptions—possi- ble without concepts? In response, nonconceptualists (in particular, those of an empiricist sort) will insist on the empirical origin of concepts. Without the presence of this empirical input, they argue, key information for concept formation is unavailable. Sensory concepts depend, for their content, on suitable empirical information that can only be obtained empirically. Absent such information it is unclear how the relevant experiences could be obtained. One needs the concept of red to recognize something as red, but one also needs to experience red things to learn what red is like. How could one learn what red is like but by experiencing red things? Moreover, it is the interaction with red objects that provides one with the concept of red, which clearly is not the sort of concept that is a good candidate for being taken as innate. After all, if even sensory concepts such as red are innate, then it seems that every concept will end up being innate! The rationalist will complain that one needs mastery of the relevant concept in order to be able to identify which feature of red objects one needs to attend to in order to recognize red things as red. Thus, in order to experience something as red, one already needs to have the concept red to begin with. Thus, even sensory concepts do not have their origin in experience: to have the relevant experience demands the mastery of the appropriate concepts. When faced with a red object, in order to follow the instruction: “Look at the red thing”, one needs to know which feature of the object to attend to (its color rather than its position or its shape). This means that prior to having the appropriate experience and learning what a red object looks like, one needs to have mastery of the relevant concept of red. As a result, concepts, even sensory ones, cannot be obtained from experience. In response, empiricists (in particular, nonconceptualists about experience) argue that one can have the experience without the relevant concept. In fact, that is precisely what happens with babies who clearly see red things (they grab them, put them in their mouths), despite lacking the relevant concept. The concept is learned via the appropriate experiences of seeing red things and slowly distinguishing colors from shapes and locations. The first word my eldest daughter, Julia, spoke was ‘water’ (in fact, the Portuguese equivalent, ‘água’). And whenever she would say ‘water’,my wife and I would give her, as one would expect, water. Until one day she got clearly angry after receiving water when she said ‘water’. We were puzzled, and offered her some juice, and she was pleased. At that point, we told her that to get juice, she would Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 329 need to say ‘juice’ (or the Portuguese equivalent, ‘suco’) rather than ‘water’. From that point on, she learned to distinguish, at least when asking for something to drink, between water and juice. It is hard to know what concept exactly my daughter had when she said ‘water’ for the first time or when she said that and meant ‘juice’. Perhaps ‘water’ for her at that time was anything that she wanted to drink. In any case, clearly she learned to differentiate and master the concepts water and juice empirically. And her case seems to be perfectly typical. It generalizes, without difficulty, to other cases of learning concepts. Needless to say, it is an empirical issue, studied by cognitive psychologists, to determine the way in which concepts are actually learned. The point I am making here is a philosophical one: the conditions of possibility of concept acquisition do not require concepts to be learned independently of experience. Since it is philosophically unnecessary to adopt such apriorism about concepts, empiricists typically do not. Note also that the conceptualist proposal, which seems to assume a form of nativism about concepts, runs into difficulty when attempting to provide a compre- hensive account of the origin of concepts. Simply to state that concepts are innate does not illuminate their origin: it locates this origin within the mind. But ultimately this is not a very enlightening explanation. What is needed is an account of how the concepts in question can be formed in the first place. To take these concepts as innate is simply to assume that concepts are already formed within the mind. What is not explained, however, is how these concepts are formed to begin with. Stating that they are innate does not help with this task. The considerations presented so far suggest that empiricism tends to go hand in hand with nonconceptualism and rationalism tends to go with conceptualism. Although it is perfectly possible to combine empiricism with conceptualism and rationalism with nonconceptualism, these combinations tend to be somewhat unstable and need to be handled with care. After all, conceptualism assigns priority to concepts, which questions, in part, the central role played by empirical information within empiricism, since any such information would need first to be conceptualized. Nonconceptualism, in turn, gives priority to empirical data, which need not be structured conceptually, but this makes it difficult to reconcile this view with the intellectualism typically articulated in rationalism. The debate between empiricists/nonconceptualists and rationalists/conceptualists is significant for our present purposes because depending on the view one adopts about the nature of experience, one ends up developing different views about the nature of the mind. Empiricists/nonconceptualists tend to develop theories of the mind that assign a more prominent role to sensory data since such data play a central function in furnishing the mind, not only in terms of mental contents but also regarding the structure of the concepts that are formed. Mental states and mental contents are shaped, in part, by the data the mind receives. For empiricists/nonconceptualists, as noted, perception is more basic than concep- tion, given that perceptual states are a significant source of information about the world, and conceptions ultimately depend on the information provided by experience in order to get off the ground, but not vice versa. Perceptions do not depend on conceptions in order to operate; otherwise, as also noted, children who have not acquired the concept of whale cannot see a whale when they visit an aquarium. In this sense, perception is more basic: it has informational priority over conceptions. 330 O. Bueno

(Needless to say, this does not mean that conceptions play no role in knowledge acquisition, or that there are no connections between these mental operations. For instance, abstractions are often performed, but these are mental operations applied to contents given via perception, at least on a first stage.) As will become clear, there is no doubt that the complexity of the environment and of the emerging mental states that result from the interactions between such environ- ment and the relevant subjects play a central role in this account.4 The role played by external factors in the individuation of mental states, both perceptual and conceptual in nature, is similarly crucial. In contrast, rationalists/conceptualists tend to assign a more prominent role to the conceptual components that shape experience. The mind becomes, on these views, a particular group of dispositions that shape experience rather than the other way around. Mental content and mental states emerge from the dispositions the mind has to respond to whatever it is exposed to. As indicated above, however, given the nativism that is often associated with this view, it fails to provide a satisfactory account of the origin of concepts. In the end, the empiricist/nonconceptualist alternative seems to provide a more promising alternative. What the discussion above does not show, of course, is that the rationalist/conceptualist proposal is unworkable. But it suggests that a more promis- ing route is found in the empiricist camp. Thus, in what follows I will explore this alternative, examining the way perceptual experiences are crucial to shaping the minds of creatures like us. Given the importance of perception in this enterprise, ‘perceptualism’ seems to be an apt way of referring to the resulting view.

Thinking About the Mind: From a Perceptualist Point of View

Our mind is shaped, in part, by the visual experiences we have. These experiences provide visual information about the environment, and data that can be structured to form conceptions. This is not a naïve form of empiricism that insists that all the content of the mind has to be perceptually based. Some contents obviously are; but not all of them have to be.5 Certain mathematical concepts clearly far outstrip anything that can be perceptually obtained. Consider, for instance, the higher reaches of set theory included in the iterative conception of set (see Boolos 1971; Forster 2008). On this conception, sets are generated in stages according to a prescribed procedure. These sets cannot be simply obtained perceptually: the huge cardinality and the abstract nature of the sets involved prevents anyone from experiencing them perceptually. This is a construction guided and struc- tured by suitable mathematical principles, which are formulated as principles of set theory. Thus, the construction is implemented and achieved conceptually.6

4 Peter Godfrey-Smith presents an insightful account of the role played by the environment’s complexity in shaping the minds of creatures like us (Godfrey-Smith 1998). I am largely sympathetic with much of what he has to say. 5 Jesse Prinz offers an empiricist theory of concepts (Prinz 2002). I am sympathetic with several empiricist features of the view, although the particular version Prinz advances faces significant difficulties (see, for instance, De Rosa 2005). 6 Needless to say, any diagrams that may be used to describe this process are just mechanisms of description. It would be a confusion to identify the sets with the diagrams used to refer to them. Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 331

It may be argued that it is possible to perceive some sets. Perhaps, the argument goes, we can perceive singleton sets (such as, the set {a} whose only member is a)as long as (i) these sets are impure (that is, they ultimately contain non-sets as members), and (ii) the members of these sets can be perceived (they are the kind of objects that, under suitable conditions, someone can have a perceptual experience of them). These singleton sets would be located wherever their members are located, and if these members can be perceived, so can the corresponding sets.7 This argument, however, is problematic. Even if the singleton sets could be perceptually experienced, it does not follow that all sets are so experienced. Pure sets (that is, sets which ultimately contain only sets as members) cannot be perceived in this way. Since neither these sets nor their members have spatiotemporal location (since pure sets have no such locations), it is not possible to perceive them. To perceive an object it is required that the object be located in space-time, so that the relevant information can be transmitted from the object to our perceptual apparatus. Since pure sets do not satisfy this condition, they cannot be perceived. This dramat- ically restricts the range of sets that could be formed if we were to restrict sets to just impure sets. Perception is, in many ways, very restricted in what it can do. It provides content to the mind only of what is actual. The necessary (to the extent that there is something in that category) and the merely possible are not perceptually given.8 In order to perceive an object, say a dragonfly, that object needs to be present. Otherwise, one would not perceive the dragonfly, but only think that the dragonfly was perceived, or perhaps imagine the dragonfly. This is because perception is factive: (i) If I perceive that P, then ‘P’ is true. (ii) If I perceive o, then o is present. In other words, the facticity of perception encompasses both perception of facts9 (e.g. perceiving that a dragonfly is resting on a leaf; see (i)) or perception of objects (e.g. perceiving a dragonfly; see (ii)). And it is precisely because perception is factive and restricted to the actual that it is a significant source of structural information for the mind. In turn, perception shapes the mind by specifying the contents of what the mind apprehends, and also the mode of presentation of these contents, which are visually

7 For a discussion of this view, see Maddy (1990). Critical reactions to it can be found in Maddy (1997) and Balaguer (1998). 8 Of course, everything that is actual is also possible. In this sense, some possibilities are given in perception. But the possible-because-actual is the only kind of possibility that can be perceptually experienced. 9 Clearly, I do not take facts to be abstract objects. I am adopting here a very minimal characterization of facts as whatever is the case. In particular, for a fact to obtain all that is needed is for the relevant objects to be related in the appropriate way. For instance, that the dragonfly is resting on a leaf holds as long as the dragonfly is indeed resting on the leaf. To perceive such a fact nothing more is required than someone seeing a leaf and a dragonfly on it. In particular, on this view, one cannot perceive abstract objects, since such objects do not satisfy the required causal condition for perception. The scene before my eyes would be the same whether numbers (or any other abstract objects) existed or not. Hence, I cannot perceive such numbers (or such objects). There is an obvious difference between seeing one dragonfly on the leaf and seeing two dragonflies. But that is a difference that emerges from the dragonflies I see; it is not a difference of perceiving a number. The platonist will, no doubt, complain that in one case the number of dragonflies is 1 and in the other that number is 2. So numbers are being perceived. In response, it is correct that there is a difference in the number of dragonflies. However, it does not follow that in one case I perceive the number 1 and in the other the number 2. In none of these cases do I perceive any number. I just perceive different dragonflies. 332 O. Bueno salient, involves interconnections between different sensory modalities, and repre- sents the environment as being a certain way. Concepts are formed in part as a response to the external environment, since external features shape and constrain the sorts of experiences one can have. But concepts are also formed via internal structures that also shape the experience. When I open my eyes, it is not up to me what I will see (it depends on the scene before me). But I can interact with what I see in various ways in order to answer many questions that may emerge about the content of what I see. I can get closer for a better look. In many cases, I can move around the object I am staring at. In some cases, I can pick up the object. I can also track it in space and time.10 In each of these operations a different perspective from which I see the object emerges. It is in virtue of this interaction with the environment that the contents of my perceptual experiences are what they are. But despite the role played by these external factors, internal components also play an important role in the characterization of the content of perceptual experiences. In order to see an armadillo as an armadillo—in order to recognize an armadillo—I need, of course, to have the concept of armadillo. I need to be able to categorize my visual experience of seeing an armadillo as one in which an armadillo, rather than, say, a raccoon, is perceived. Internal factors account for the categorization of expe- rience. They play a role in conceptualizing the experience. Do internal factors also play a role in shaping the experience? A multitude of data are received by my eyes and processed in my brain in order for me to have the experience of seeing an armadillo (when an armadillo is in front of me and I look at it). Does this internal process of image generation undermine the role of external factors? I do not think it does. Internal factors are significant in the constitution of the experience, of course. But without an armadillo present in the scene before me, I could not possibly perceive one. The content of the resulting experience is deter- mined, in part, by the fact that it is an armadillo, rather than a raccoon, that I see. And the interpretation of the experience as the experience of seeing an armadillo, although an internal process, is ultimately dependent on the fact that an armadillo, at some point, was present in my visual field. Note that these considerations do not undermine the transparency of experience. When I perceive an armadillo, it is an armadillo that I perceive. I do not perceive the experience of seeing an armadillo.11 Roughly speaking, experience (in particular, perceptual experience) is directed to the objects of experience rather than to experi- ence itself. I am aware of objects, not of my awareness of these objects. I may, of course, reflect on my experience. For example, while experiencing certain objects, I may think that I am experiencing them, but that is different from being aware of my experience. For when I think of the experience I am having, I end up reflecting on the objects of that experience: their colors, shapes, and sizes, their texture, location, and composition. When my contact lenses get out of focus, and I am suddenly unable to see the objects in my surroundings very sharply, that does not mean that I am

10 An insightful discussion of the role played by conditions of this sort in order to forge epistemic access to objects is developed in Azzouni (2004). The function of environmental constraints in perception is central, of course, for the account of visual perception advanced by Gibson (1979). 11 I agree with Dretske on this point (see, e.g., Dretske 2003). Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 333 suddenly made aware of my experience. It just means that I am suddenly aware of my contact lenses, and that they are no longer properly placed on my eyes. In other words, there does not seem to be, in additional to the objects and their properties that I am experiencing, an extra item: the experience of these objects and properties. This is precisely transparency at work. How are external and internal factors combined in the constitution of experience? Of course, most of the process goes through unconsciously. From reflected and refracted light from the surfaces of objects to its absorption by our eyes to the processing of the information by our brains.12 The result is our basic seeing of the scene before us. That result need not be conceptualized yet. In fact, the richness of the input received makes it implausible that we are able to conceptualize every feature of that experience. Conceptualization enters crucially after the structuring of the data, which are absorbed by the senses and processed by the brain. Concepts are central in catego- rizing a significant range of phenomena. They provide categories to represent objects, to group them together, and to distinguish certain objects from others. Concepts are, thus, central to the identification of objects, expression of content, and for represen- tation. They are public and compositional (compound concepts are a function of their constitutive parts13).14 Of course, to identify and re-identify objects, it is crucial to have a conception of what these objects are, which properties and distinguishing features they have. This includes the capacity of deciding, at least in the typical cases, which traits are significant to the preservation of the identity conditions of the objects (persistence conditions), and which traits can be used to distinguish the relevant objects from other objects of the same kind as well as from objects that belong to different categories (distinguishing conditions). None of these conditions can be formulated in the absence of the relevant concepts. Concepts are also fundamental to providing mental representations of the objects they are about. This is achieved due to their basic intentional nature. There is something concepts are about, even if the objects in question turn out not to exist. The concept average mom, for instance, used in sentences such as “The average mom has 2.4 children” (Melia 1995) denotes an object that clearly does not exist: it is an idealization produced by suitable mathematical relations between mothers and chil- dren in a given population. Obviously, there is no corresponding flesh and blood “average mom” in the world that is the referent of that concept. Despite that, the concept average mom is very useful in the description of certain populations, since it captures a generic trait among the objects under study. It has representational content. Concepts are also crucial, of course, in the process of classifying objects: speci- fying the categories they belong to. In order to see Rembrandt’s 1659 Self-Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar and recognize in the painting a tired, worried man, one needs to have the concepts of being tired and being worried. These concepts are needed so that one can see in the painting these features: the sad, tired, worried eyes that Rembrandt so vividly depicted and so masterfully and honestly conveyed in the painting.

12 For an examination of the complex details involved in this process, see Palmer (2002). 13 This explains how our conceptual capacities are significantly unbounded. 14 For requirements on a theory of concepts along these lines, see Prinz (2002), pp. 3–22. 334 O. Bueno

Since concepts depend, for their content, on features of the environment, and given that perceptual experiences provide one of the most significant forms of access to the external world, perception is thereby crucial to the shaping of the mind. It plays a role both in the acquisition of the relevant concepts and in the specification of their content. In this way, perceptual experiences, and perception in particular, are central in shaping the human mind. The information provided in this way contributes to the distinctive conceptual mechanisms developed by creatures like us.15 External considerations are significant not only in the determination of the content of mental states, but also in the specification of what these states are about. When I perceive a red apple, the corresponding has its content in part determined by the red apple in front of me. The red apple causes the perceptual experience in me, and the experience, in turn, is about that apple. Of course none of this requires the conceptualization of the apple as red (or as an apple, for that matter). Perceptual experiences provide an important source of content for a number of cognitive states, such as believing, remembering, and knowing. Such states, as any mental state, are about something, and very often they are about contents obtained via suitable perceptual experiences. But all the factive mental states not only have their content specified via suitable experiences; what these states are like is also determined, in part, by these contents. For instance, to know that there is a red apple on the table involves being in a mental state that is generated by the red apple being on the table and the corresponding mental state of perceiving the apple on the table, or the corresponding mental state of remembering seeing the apple on the table, or the corresponding mental state of being told by someone who saw the apple that it is on the table, or by suitable combinations or iterations of these situations and mental states (which basically corre- spond to knowledge via perception, memory, and testimony). There are additional features of the mind that seem to emerge from the ability to conceptualize, and even in this context external considerations play a significant role. I mention three of them: (i) focus, (ii) attention, and (iii) cognitive responsiveness. (i) The conceptualization of experience yields mental states that are focused on selected traits of the environment. The traits in question depend on the concepts that are invoked. For instance, by distinguishing different mental states (such as being sad or being worried) one can focus explicitly on what one is feeling in a given context. Often external features are crucial to shape these feelings and to recognize them. We often learn about our own mental states by the bodily reactions we have.16 (ii) Attention is also an outcome of conceptualization. Whereas plays a key role in attention-related tasks (the mind needs to attend to traits of the environment), concepts highlight the traits that the intentional mind will focus on. That focus often emerges from environmental, external traits.

15 Nonhuman animals seem to have at least some concepts, given the way they respond to the environment. It is far less obvious, however, how one can determine their nature: what exactly these concepts are from the point of view of the animals. It is similarly unclear that nonhuman animals have abstract concepts (those whose content is not directly generated by perceptual experiences). And if they do have such concepts, it is much harder to determine what their content is exactly. Since settling these issues is not required for the argument of this paper, I will not pursue the topic further here. 16 made this point a long time ago (see Ryle 1949). Perception and Conception: Shaping Human Minds 335

(iii) Cognitive responsiveness involves the way the mind responds to the environ- ment. plays a significant role in this context, since mental content emerges in direct response to components of the environment, in particular the external objects and properties that characterize it.

To sum up, how does the distinction between perception and conception contribute to the shaping of human minds? It does so in three basic ways. (a) By conceptualizing the data, particularly perceptual data, human minds structure and organize the environment in well-structured ways. (b) The conceptualization of perpetual experi- ences also can lead, at least in some instances, to a reinterpretation of these experi- ences. As a result, the experiences acquire new meanings and a relevance that is adjudicated based on the concepts used to interpret them. (c) In turn, the reinterpre- tation of experience leads to novel ways of making sense of the world around us. The result is a variety of distinctive interactions with the world. Throughout this process, external features constitute the structure of the relevant mental contents. The various sources of knowledge just mentioned illustrate the distinctive role of external traits in knowledge acquisition. This is as it should be on a proposal that emphasizes the empiricist, nonconceptualist, and externalist features of the nature of the mind.

Conclusion

In this paper, I explored the different contributions made by perceptual experiences in shaping and furnishing the minds of creatures like us. An argument was offered for an empiricist approach to the mind that combines nonconceptualism with externalism as a way of making sense of the plethora of experiences we have. It was also argued that there is a role for internal and conceptual components in this process. But these components just do not have the priority that rationalists/intellectualists assign to them. The result, although only sketched here, is hopefully a viable form of empir- icism in the .

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