display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 12581 | Perceptual concepts causally influence the content of our experiences [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Once a thinker has acquired a perceptually individuated concept, his possession of that concept can causally influence what contents his experiences possess. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Like having 35 different words for 'snow', I suppose. I'm never convinced by such claims. Having the concepts may well influence what you look at or listen to, but I don't see the deliverances of the senses being changed by the concepts. |
| 22593 | Our sensation of light may not be the same as what produces the sensation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There can be a difference between our sensation of light and what is in the objects that produce that sensation in us. | |
| From: René Descartes (The World [1631]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 1 | |
| A reaction: Note only that they 'may' differ, and that he does not assert that they are entirely different. Secondary qualities give information, and are not just mental events. |
| 12579 | Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Perceptual experience has a second layer of nonconceptual representational content, distinct from immediate 'scenarios' and from conceptual contents. These additional contents I call 'protopropositions', containing an individual and a property/relation. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: When philosophers start writing this sort of thing, I want to turn to neuroscience and psychology. I suppose the philosopher's justification for this sort of speculation is epistemological, but I see no good coming of it. |