The Place of Concept in Human Cognitive Process of Perception: Why the Conceptualists Cannot Be Right?

Emmanuel Ola Akintona

doi:10.4236/ojpp.2015.51011

Abstract

There have been so many controversies in the meaning of concept and particularly its place in the cognitive process of perception. The conceptualists, particularly, John McDowell, D. W. Hamlyn, Bill Brewer and Sonia Sedivy, argue that the content of perceptual experience is always in a kind of relation with propositional attitude such that beliefs, judgments, hopes and aspirations are instantaneously captured in perception. If this is granted, then, it becomes difficult to admit the possibility of non-conceptuality in perception. But, on a critical look at the conceptualists’ arguments and deductions, we discover that the conceptualists conflate sensation with perception and concept formation. In view of this, this paper examines and does a critical analysis of the meaning of concept with the belief that if its place in the cognitive process of perception is determined and ascertained, the long standing problem about the nature and characterization of the content of human perceptual experience will automatically dissolve. Whilst distinguishing and separating sensation from perception, the paper establishes that concept-formation is not generic to perception and that there is a place for non-conceptuality in perception. This paper employs conceptual analytical tools to explain the place of concept, sensation and perceptual experience in the cognitive process of perception and thus establishes the truism of non-conceptuality in perception.

Highlights

Even though this argument seems naive in the modern period, our concern is to show that concepts and concept-formation are separable from experience and independent of it so that the notion of non-conceptual content in the cognitive process of perception is established
Stalnaker (2004: 3) defines concept in terms of: an abstract idea or a mental symbol which is typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, events, phenomena, or relationships between them
Concepts are mere extrapolations of the vast repertoire of the perceptual fields of the perceiver. The conglomeration of these fields is integrated into a unified mental unit which is later symbolized in words or statements in a language

Summary

Introduction

To experience the world is to sense the world and to perceive it is to conceptualize it To make clear this distinction some scholars employ “concept” in such a way as to warrant making a distinction between sensation and perception. Thomas Reid, for instance, says, “sensation has no object other than itself, while perception has physical things as its object and involves concept and beliefs about them” (Hamlyn, 1994: 147) He means that sensation produces no concept at all but perception necessarily does. One would have expected the conceptualists to adopt this distinction and accept non-conceptuality as something derivable from sensation at least They insist that perception must be related to the external world in some ways, must be conceptual. The point being made here is that if the place of concept and concept-formation is determined in the process of perception ascertaining the possibility of non-conceptual content in perception becomes unproblematic

The Classical Notion of Concept

The Contemporary Notion of Concept

The Conceptualist Account of Concept in Perception

Sensation and Perception

Conclusion