<p>This paper defends Relational Realism about perceptual experience, which is characterized by its rejection of the widespread idea that perceptual experience has truth or accuracy conditions. The idea that perception is aimed at revealing the world as it really is, is a hardwired assumption both in philosophy and science. Moreover, as I will show, it is shared by both representationalists and prominent naïve realists alike. It follows that, to the extent that perception is said to have representational content in virtue of its having veridicality or accuracy conditions Relational Realism denies that perceptual experience has content. Relational Realism, then, strongly opposes the so-called Content View of perception. The main argument I shall be putting forward can be summarized as follows: saying that perceptual experience has veridicality or accuracy conditions entails commitment to the idea that there is a way for the world to be for the experience to be veridical or accurate. By focusing on the case of color vision, I will show that trying to determine this ‘way for the world to be’ inevitably has to refer back to perceptual experience itself: perceptual experience will always turn out to be part of the truth or accuracy conditions, leading to an infinite regress. <i>Pace</i> other relationalists like Cohen, Relational Realism argues that the correct strategy here is to simply give up on the idea that perceptual experience has truth or accuracy conditions. The paper will end with some preliminary remarks on the normativity of perception from a Relational Realist perspective.</p>

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What’s truth got to do with it? In defense of relational realism about perception

  • Farid Zahnoun

摘要

This paper defends Relational Realism about perceptual experience, which is characterized by its rejection of the widespread idea that perceptual experience has truth or accuracy conditions. The idea that perception is aimed at revealing the world as it really is, is a hardwired assumption both in philosophy and science. Moreover, as I will show, it is shared by both representationalists and prominent naïve realists alike. It follows that, to the extent that perception is said to have representational content in virtue of its having veridicality or accuracy conditions Relational Realism denies that perceptual experience has content. Relational Realism, then, strongly opposes the so-called Content View of perception. The main argument I shall be putting forward can be summarized as follows: saying that perceptual experience has veridicality or accuracy conditions entails commitment to the idea that there is a way for the world to be for the experience to be veridical or accurate. By focusing on the case of color vision, I will show that trying to determine this ‘way for the world to be’ inevitably has to refer back to perceptual experience itself: perceptual experience will always turn out to be part of the truth or accuracy conditions, leading to an infinite regress. Pace other relationalists like Cohen, Relational Realism argues that the correct strategy here is to simply give up on the idea that perceptual experience has truth or accuracy conditions. The paper will end with some preliminary remarks on the normativity of perception from a Relational Realist perspective.