Perceptual Experience

RESUMO O objetivo do artigo é apresentar uma concepção de crença teísta que permita a articulação de dois aspectos: reflexividade e aderência. O primeiro aspecto consiste na ideia de que a crença teísta aparece como resultado de uma reflexão acerca de um determinado tipo de experiência. O segundo aspecto consiste no caráter evocativo e transformador da crença teísta. De acordo com algumas abordagens, entretanto, se a crença teísta tivesse um caráter reflexivo, ela não teria o tipo de aderência que lhe é própria. Esse argumento pressiona a concepção da crença teísta como crença básica, a saber, como uma atitude proposicional que constitui a experiência. No entanto, há ao menos uma circunstância relevante de formação de crença teísta, a experiência de vastidão, em que a experiência deve ser concebida como independente de crenças. Para essa circunstância, a crença teísta deve ser concebida como reflexiva. Nesse caso, cabe mostrar de que modo ela pode ser aderente. Tendo em vista o marco teórico integrativo da cognição ancorada, mostraremos que o caráter reflexivo da crença teísta não anula o seu caráter aderente.
Palavras-chave: Crença teísta. Experiência perceptiva. Cognição ancorada.

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to state a conception of theistic belief that takes into account two important aspects: reflectiveness and adherence. The first aspect involves the idea that theistic belief stems from reflection about a specific kind of experience. The second aspect consists in the evocative and transformative character of theistic belief. However, according to some lines of thought, if theistic belief had a reflective character, it would not have the kind of adherence that is its own. This argument leads to conceiving of theistic belief as a basic belief, i.e., as a propositional attitude that constitutes experience. In spite of this, we argue that there is at least one circumstance of theistic belief formation in which the relevant experience has to be conceived as belief-independent. This circumstance is the perceptual experience of vastness. With respect to this kind of experience, the theistic belief must be conceived as reflective belief. It remains for us to show how theistic beliefs can be adherent. Assuming the approach of grounded cognition, we argue that the reflective aspect of theistic belief does not cancel its adherent character.
Keywords: Theistic belief. Perceptual experience. Grounded cognition

A commonly-discussed feature of perceptual experience is that it has ‘assertoric’ or ‘phenomenal’ force. We will start by discussing various descriptions of the assertoricity of perceptual experience. We will then adopt a minimal characterization of assertoricity: a perceptual experience has assertoric force just in case it inclines the perceiver to believe its content. Adducing cases that show that visual experience is not always assertoric, we will argue that what renders these visual experiences non-assertoric is that they are penetrated by belief-like imaginings. Lastly, we will explain why it is that when belief-like imaginings—as opposed to beliefs (and other cognitive states)—penetrate visual experience, they render visual experiences non-assertoric.

resumo: Este trabalho sugere uma comparação preliminar entre dois autores de tradições muito distintas - o cineasta experimental Stan Brakhage e o filósofo da cognição Immanuel Kant - em torno do tema da percepção não conceitual. Nosso objetivo é o de ampliar as perspectivas de compreensão desses autores pelo confronto de suas abordagens de um tema caro a ambos: a natureza da sensibilidade e da faculdade sensível imaginativa. O artigo está dividido em cinco seções. Na primeira, apresentamos a poética cinematográfica de Brakhage, no Prelúdio do filme Dog Star Man (1961) e na primeira parte de seu manifesto Metáforas da Visão (1963), tomando como guia sua metáfora do olho não tutelado por conceitos. Na segunda, situamos a perspectiva de Brakhage à luz do debate contemporâneo sobre o não-conceitualismo kantiano. Na terceira, apresentamos brevemente aspectos da teoria kantiana da percepção que nos permitem confrontá-la com a proposta de Brakhage. Na quarta, buscamos ampliar a análise da experiência perceptual na perspectiva da imaginação em ambos os autores. E na seção final, para concluir, procuramos extrair algumas consequências desse confronto.

palavras-chave: Stan Brakhage. Immanuel Kant. Experiência perceptual. Imaginação.

abstract: This work suggests a preliminary comparison between two authors from very different traditions - the experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage and the philosopher of cognition Immanuel Kant - around the theme of non-conceptual perception. By confronting their approaches regarding the nature of sensibility and sensitive imaginative faculty, our aim is to broaden understanding of both perspectives. The article is divided into five sections. In the first, we present Brakhage’s cinematographic poetics, in the Prelude to the film Dog Star Man (1961) and in the first part of his manifesto Metaphors of Vision (1963), taking as a guide his metaphor of the eye untutored by concepts. In the second, we situate Brakhage’s perspective in light of the contemporary debate on Kantian non-conceptualism. In the third, we briefly present aspects of the Kantian theory of perception that allow us to confront it with Brakhage’s proposal. In the fourth, we seek to broaden the analysis of perceptual experience from the perspective of imagination in both authors. And to conclude, in the final section, we try to draw some consequences of this confrontation.

keywords: Stan Brakhage. Immanuel Kant. Perceptual experience. Imagination.

Our main interest in nonconceptual mental content is to state a substantive version (non trivial) of this kind of content in perceptual experience. The debate about nonconceptual content has focused mostly around its very existence, and the argu-ments for endorse a non-substantive version according to which nonconceptual content is the one which does not satisfy some conceptual requirements. Thus, for building a substantive version of nonconceptual mental content we have appealed to the version of perceptual experience of spatial properties offered by Evans (1982 ch. 6). Taking this as a starting point we develop a new argument for nonconcep -tual content in perceptual experience that links it whit the characteristic activity of perceptual experience. Finally, we expose one of the attacks to the notion of noncon-ceptual mental content (McDowell 1996) and we present our replies to this attack, showing it is insufficient. In showing that McDowell’s criticism is not successful, we believe we could have a version of the nonconceptual mental content of perceptual experience which is immune to his line of argumentation.