A representative theory of sensation

pp. 49-61

in: Charles Landesman, The eye and the mind, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

I have argued that once we bring the scientific story into the picture, it is implausible to continue to insist on the principle of direct acquaintance implicit in our common sense understanding of seeing. A representational account of perception seems more plausible once we adopt the view that the coming into being of visual perception is a highly mediated causal process, the end result of which is a visual sensation. but there are difficulties in the way of a representative account. One of them emerges as a result of the argument that there is no reason to suppose that sensations embody propositional content. If they do not possess this sort of intrinsic intentionality, how do they come to represent the external world? The second difficulty is founded upon the phenomenon of transparency that Moore emphasized. Visual perception, it appears, goes straight way to its object without any intervening sensation at all. If visual sensations are just a part of a myth of the given, if we have direct access to the external world, then the representative account has no point.