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Perception, Qualities, and Concepts

delete2025-10-01
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PRE
AI
J
Jacob Berger *
D
David Rosenthal *
DOI:10.1007/s11406-025-00902-0delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
It's widely held that we perceive not only low-level properties, such as colors and shapes, but also high-level properties, such as the property of being a dog or of being a moving train. Debate about which types of property we perceive has recently eclipsed the question of how perceiving itself operates. We focus here on that latter question, proposing an account on which perception of low-level properties occurs by way of mental qualities alone, whereas perception of high-level properties occurs by way of mental qualities together with conceptual content of the type that figures in thinking. It is central to our account that mental qualities have a type of representational character unique to them, so that mental qualities can interact representationally with conceptual content in perceiving. We present a number of advantages of this account, including how it fits with a range of experimental findings, and address several objections to it.
Keywords:
Perception
Thought
Perceptual content
Qualitative character
Conceptual content
Mental representation

Journal

P
Philosophia
IF:
0.5
Papers:
97
Citations:
735

Organization

C
city university of new york (cuny) system
Scholars:
1.6W
Papers: 1.5W
Citations: 26