Apperception or Environment. J. McDowell and Ch.Travis on the nature of perceptual judgement

Abstract

Within current philosophy of perception John McDowell has for quite some time been defending a view inspired by Kant (McDowell 1994, McDowell 2009, McDowell 2013). Charles Travis opposes such view and counters it with his own, Frege-inspired, approach (Travis 2013, Travis 2014, Travis forthcoming). By analysing the clash between Travis’ idea of the silence of the senses and McDowell’s idea of intuitional content, the present article aims to characterize the core of their divergence regarding the nature of perceptual judgement. It also aims at presenting their engagement as a reformulated version of the debate around conceptual and nonconceptual content of perception, bringing forth some of its stakes. Such reformulated version of the debate makes it possible to bring out what a Kantian position on representation, consciousness and appearances ultimately amounts to, as well as to identify a particular angle of criticism to it.