Bill Brewer Research Articles

Whither naïve realism? – I

AbstractDifferent authors offer subtly different characterizations of naïve realism. We disentangle the main ones and argue that illusions provide the best proving ground for naïve realism and its main rival, representationalism. According to naïve realism, illusions never involve perceptual error. We assess two leading attempts to explain apparent perceptual error away, from William Fish and Bill Brewer, and conclude that they fail. Another leading attempt is assessed in a companion paper, which also sketches an alternative representational account.

Perception and Its Objects, by Bill Brewer

<i>Perception and Its Objects</i>, by Bill Brewer

Naïve realism: a simple approach

Naive realism is often characterized, by its proponents and detractors alike, as the view that for a subject to undergo a perceptual experience is for her to stand in a simple two-place acquaintance relation toward an object. However, two of the leading defenders of naive realism, John Campbell and Bill Brewer, have thought it necessary to complicate this picture, claiming that a third relatum is needed to account for various possible differences between distinct visual experiences of the same object (for example, differences that result from changes in the object’s spatial orientation relative to the subject, or from changes in the intensity with which the subject focuses her attention on the object). This, I argue, is a mistake. Once it is acknowledged that a subject’s visual experience acquaints her with more than just a single object, all of the relevant facts can be explained from within the simpler naive realist framework.

Discussion of Bill Brewer's “Perceptual Experience and Empirical Reason”

Discussion of Bill Brewer's “Perceptual Experience and Empirical Reason”

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

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.

Demonstrative Content and the Experience of Properties

John McDowell (in Mind and World) and Bill Brewer (in Perception and Reason) argue that the content of our perceptual experience is conceptual in the following sense. It is of the type of content that could be the content of a judgement – that is, a content which results from the actualization of two (or more) conceptual abilities. Specifically, they suggest that the conceptual abilities actualized in experience are demonstrative abilities, and thus the resulting content is of the type we may express by means of sentences of the form ‘this is thus’. In this paper I argue that we cannot construe experiential contents in this way. I first outline a construal of the ability to think about a thing being thus which is based on Brewer's discussion of conceptual experiential contents, and which I take to be the best construal available to the conceptualist. I then show that on this construal the demonstrative abilities that account for our experience of properties require intentional focused attention to the relevant properties. The conceptualist is thus committed to holding that we experience only the properties we are intentionally attending to, and I argue that this is implausible. The interest in examining Brewer's conceptualist construal of experiential content and pointing out its shortcoming is not limited merely to an interest in whether there is a workable conceptualist account of experiential content. I suggest that certain aspects of Brewer's construal capture important (and often neglected) aspects of our perceptual experience, and that understanding why the account fails can contribute to our understanding of both experiential content and demonstrative thought.

Non‐conceptual Experiential Content and Reason‐giving

According to John McDowell and Bill Brewer, our experiences have the type of content which can be the content of judgements ‐ content which is the result of the actualization of specific conceptual abilities. They defend this view by arguing that our experiences must have such content in order for us to be able to think about our environment. In this paper I show that they do not provide a conclusive argument for this view. Focusing on Brewer’s version of the argument, I show that it rests on a questionable assumption ‐ namely, that if a subject can recognize the normative bearing of a mental content upon what she should think and do, then this content must be the result of the actualization of conceptual capacities (and in this sense conceptual). I argue that considerations regarding the roles played by experience and concepts in our mental lives may require us to reject this assumption.

EXPERIENCE AND CONTENT

The ‘content view’, in slogan form, is ‘Perceptual experiences have representational content’. I explain why the content view should be reformulated to remove any reference to ‘experiences’. I then argue, against Bill Brewer, Charles Travis and others, that the content view is true. One corollary of the discussion is that the content of perception is relatively thin (confined, in the visual case, to roughly the output of ‘mid‐level’ vision). Finally, I argue (briefly) that the opponents of the content view are partially vindicated, because perceptual error is due to false belief.

Conceptualism and the Problem of Illusory Experience

According to the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception, we possess concepts for all the objects, properties, and relations which feature in our experiences. Richard Heck has recently argued that the phenomenon of illusory experience provides us with conclusive reasons to reject this view. In this paper, I examine Heck’s argument, I explain why I think that Bill Brewer’s conceptualist response to it is ineffective, and I then outline an alternative conceptualist response which I myself endorse. My argument turns on the fact that both Heck, in constructing his objection to conceptualism, and Brewer, in responding to it, miss a crucial distinction between perceptual demonstrative concepts of objects, on the one hand, and perceptual demonstrative concepts of properties, on the other.

Indiscriminable shades and demonstrative concepts

Conceptualists have it that the representational content of perceptual experience is determined by the concepts a subject applies in having such an experience. Conceptualists like Bill Brewer [1999] and John McDowell [1994] have laid particular emphasis on demonstrative concepts in trying to account for the fact that subjects can perceive and discriminate very many specific shades of colour in experience. Against this, it has been objected that such demonstrative concepts have incoherent conditions of extension and/or of individuation, due to the fact that chromatic indiscriminability is non-transitive. In this paper, I consider three different versions of this objection and show why each fails.

The Mystery of Direct Perceptual Justification

In at least some cases of justified perceptual belief, our perceptual experience itself, as opposed to beliefs about it, evidences and thereby justifies our belief. While the phenomenon is common, it is also mysterious. There are good reasons to think that perceptions cannot justify beliefs directly, and there is a significant challenge in explaining how they do. After explaining just how direct perceptual justification is mysterious, I considerMichael Huemer’s (Skepticism and the Veil of Perception, 2001) and Bill Brewer’s (Perception and Reason, 1999) recent, but radically different, attempts to eliminate it. I argue that both are unsuccessful, though a consideration of their mistakes deepens our appreciation of the mystery.

Contemporary debates in epistemology

Notes on Contributors. Preface. Part I: Knowledge and Skepticism. Introduction, Matthias Steup (St. Cloud State University). 1. Is Knowledge Closed under Known Entailment?. The Case against Closure, Fred Dretske (Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin). The Case for Closure, John Hawthorne (Rutgers University). Reply to Hawthorne, Fred Dretske (Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin). 2. Is Knowledge Contextual?. Contextualism Contested, Earl Conee (University of Rochester). Contextualism Defended, Stewart Cohen (Arizona State University). Contextualism Contested Some More, Earl Conee (University of Rochester)Contextualism Defended Some More, Stewart Cohen (Arizona State University). 3. Can Skepticism Be Refuted?. The Refutation of Skepticism, Jonathan Vogel (Amherst College). The Challenge of Refuting Skepticism, Richard Fumerton (University of Iowa). 4. Is There A Priori Knowledge?. In Defense of the a Priori, Laurence BonJour (University of Washington). There Is no a Priori, Michael Devitt (City University of New York). Reply to Devitt, Laurence BonJour (University of Washington). Reply to BonJour, Michael Devitt (City University of New York). Last Rejoinder, Laurence BonJour (University of Washington). References. Part II: Foundational Knowledge. Introduction, Matthias Steup (St. Cloud State University). 5. Is Infinitism the Solution to the Regress Problem?. Infinitism Is the Solution to the Regress Problem, Peter Klein (Rutgers University)Infinitism Is not the Solution to the Regress Problem, Carl Ginet (Cornell University). Reply to Ginet, Peter Klein (Rutgers University). Reply to Klein, Carl Ginet (Cornell University). 6. Can Beliefs Be Justified through Coherence Alone?. Non--foundationalist Epistemology: Holism, Coherence, and Tenability, Catherine Z. Elgin (Harvard Graduate School of Education). Why Coherence Is not Enough: In Defense of Moderate Foundationalism, James van Cleve (Brown University). 7. Is There Immediate Justification?. There Is Immediate Justification, James Pryor (Princeton University). Doing Without Immediate Justification, Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins University). 8. Does Perceptual Experience Have Conceptual Content?. Perceptual Experience Has Conceptual Content, Bill Brewer (Oxford University)Perception and Conceptual Content, Alex Byrne (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Part III: Justification. Introduction, Matthias Steup (St. Cloud State University). 9. Is Justification Internal?. Justification Is not Internal, John Greco (Fordham University). Justification Is Internal, Richard Feldman (University of Rochester). 10. Is Truth the Primary Epistemic Goal?. Truth Is not the Primary Epistemic Goal, Jonathan Kvanvig (University of Missouri). Truth as the Primary Epistemic Goal: A Working Hypothesis, Marian David (University of Notre Dame). 11. Is Justified Belief Responsible Belief?. Justified Belief as Responsible Belief, Richard Foley (New York University). Obligation, Entitlement, and Rationality, Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University)Response to Wolterstorff, Richard Foley (New York University). Response to Foley, Nicholas Wolterstorff (Yale University). Index

Stroud's Quest for Reality

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 68, Issue 2 p. 408-414 Stroud's Quest for Reality BILL BREWER, BILL BREWER Saint Catherine's CollegeSearch for more papers by this author BILL BREWER, BILL BREWER Saint Catherine's CollegeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 May 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2004.tb00353.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume68, Issue2March 2004Pages 408-414 RelatedInformation

Critical Study: Bill Brewer’Perception and Reason

Critical Study: Bill Brewer’<i>Perception and Reason</i>

Replies

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 63, Issue 2 p. 449-464 Replies BILL BREWER, BILL BREWER St. Catherine's College, University of OxfordSearch for more papers by this author BILL BREWER, BILL BREWER St. Catherine's College, University of OxfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 May 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00118.xCitations: 5AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume63, Issue2September 2001Pages 449-464 RelatedInformation

Consciousness, Acquaintance and Demonstrative Thought

ISuppose you are a blindsighted subject and an experimenter sitting opposite you says of an object in your functionally blind field 'that peach looks delicious'. Unless you move your head to encompass the object within your normal field of vision you will not know which object she is talking about. Suppose now she reverts to the strategy used by neurophsychologists who work with blindsighted subjects and simply tells you that there is an object there and asks you either to reach for it or guess its shape, colour and so forth. If you are one of the well-trained blindsighted subjects who have been worked over for many years by psychologists you may well be able to do so, while denying you have any visual experience of the object and insisting you are only guessing. And, in concurrence with the existential formulation the experimenter now uses, instead of the demonstrative, it is natural to think that your singular reference, based on your perceptual input, is descriptive, as in 'the object she maintains is there' or 'the object I am guessing about' or 'the object in my blind field', etc. A compelling thought now is that there is some kind of explanatory link between the absence of consciousness in the blindsighted case, and our natural appeal to descriptions and quantifiers to explain the exchange between the experimenter and the subject. This is one way in which Bill Brewer, in Perception and Reason, highlights the epistemological role we think conscious experience has, here, in providing us with direct knowledge of the referents of the demonstratives we use in perception-based judgements. The compellingness of the intuition about the crucial epistemological role of consciousness here is further strengthened when we bring into account Strawson's massive duplication argument. The argument, as developed forcefully by Brewer, shows that the permanent possibility of massive duplication of one portion of the universe in another means that our reference to particular objects cannot be secured by general descriptions alone. Ultimately, our reference to particular objects can only be secured by ways of thinking the charac

Demonstrative Concepts and Experience

Some or all of the material in this paper was presented to audiences at Stanford, Berkeley, Birkbeck, Princeton, and the International Society for Phenomenological Study at Asilomar. I am grateful to all of these audiences for the opportunity to present the material and for helpful comments on it. I have also had fruitful discussions about this material with and/or comments on it from Bill Brewer, Liz Camp, Cheryl Chen, Paul Coppock, Hubert Dreyfus, Eddie Cushman, Mark Greenberg, Gil Harman, MarkJohnston, Alva N6e, Mark Okrent, Christopher Peacocke, Philip Pettit, John Searle, Roger Shepard, Scott Soames, Dmitri Tymoczko, and two anonymous reviewers for the Philosophical Review. I would like to thank Bill Brewer in particular for a series of very fruitful and informative e-mails on the topic. I hope and expect that my criticisms of his and McDowell's views will be taken in the constructive vein in which they are intended. Financial support for this research was provided in part by the James S. McDonnell Project in Philosophy and the Neurosciences and by Princeton University through a Supplemental Support Award for Honorific Fellowship Recipients. I would like to thank both of these institutions. Finally, as always, I'm especially grateful for help and support from Cheryl Chen. 'To say that the content of the experience is characterized in conceptual terms is to say that the content of the experience is constituted entirely by concepts possessed by the subject of the experience. These concepts precisely capture, therefore, both the substance of, and the level of detail in, the experience. The principle proponent of this view is John McDowell. He first articulates the position explicitly in McDowell 1994, especially Lecture III and Afterword, Part II. He defends the view further in McDowell 1998, where he takes on some criticisms leveled by Christopher Peacocke in Peacocke 1998. (I have criticized Peacocke's view, and offered a different analysis of the issues, in Kelly 2001; Peacocke has responded to this criticism in Peacocke 2001.) Bill Brewer argues for a position very similar to McDowell's in his recent book Brewer 1999, especially in chapter 5. And a related view is defended in Sedivy 1996. As we will see, a central issue in McDowell's presentation of the view has to do with the connection between perception and memory. Other relevant discussions of this relation occur in Martin 1992, Raffman 1995, and Jolley and Watkins 1998. The general issue also seems to be discussed in Heck 2000, which, unfortunately, appeared too late for me to be able to take it into account in this paper.

Perception and Reason. Bill Brewer

1 Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599‐3125, USA

Implicit Conceptions, Understanding and Rationality

*Earlier versions of this material were presented as an Invited Lecture at the 1996 Barcelona meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and as seminars at the Universities of Hamburg and St. Andrews, and at New York University. At a presentation at the Pittsburgh meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1997, my commentator was Tyler Burge; and at a presentation at the 1997 meeting of the Conference on Methods in New York, my commentators were Georges Rey and Gideon Rosen. I am very grateful for all their comments, from which I have learned much. It will soon be apparent to those who have followed my earlier efforts that the present paper involves a significant change of view. In grappling with these issues, I have been helped too by the comments and advice of Paul Boghossian, Ned Block, Bill Brewer, John Campbell, Martin Davies, Hartry Field, Wolfgang Kiinne, Barry Loewer, Stephen Schiffer, Stewart Shapiro, John Skorupski and Crispin Wright. I have also taken the opportunity to correct a mistake pointed out to me by Eric Margolis in private discussion at the SOFIA meeting. Once again, I acknowledge with gratitude the support of the Leverhulme Trust. Without one of their Research Professorships, none of this work would have been possible. ? Copyright C. Peacocke 1998.

Unilateral Neglect and the Objectivity of Spatial Representation

Mind & LanguageVolume 7, Issue 3 p. 222-239 Unilateral Neglect and the Objectivity of Spatial Representation BILL BREWER, Corresponding Author BILL BREWER St. Catherine's College Oxford OX1 3UJAddress for correspondence: St. Catherine's College, Oxford OX1 3UJ. Email: Brewer@vax.oxford.ac.ukSearch for more papers by this author BILL BREWER, Corresponding Author BILL BREWER St. Catherine's College Oxford OX1 3UJAddress for correspondence: St. Catherine's College, Oxford OX1 3UJ. Email: Brewer@vax.oxford.ac.ukSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.1992.tb00206.xCitations: 4 This paper is a development of material first presented at an International Workshop on Neglect in Parma, organized by Edoardo Bisiach and Giacomo Rizzolatti in June 1990. I am indebted to all the participants for their help. Many thanks to my colleagues on the King's College Research Centre Project on Spatial Representation, for their views and stimulation: John Campbell, Naomi Eilan, Roz McCarthy, Tony Marcel and Julian Pears. I am also grateful for Tim Crane's detailed comments on the penultimate draft, and those of an anonymous psychology reader for Mind and Language. The work was supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust to King's College Cambridge Research Centre. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume7, Issue3September 1992Pages 222-239 RelatedInformation