Is

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Is Non-Conceptual Content Content?

• Louise M. Antony
• The Ohio State University

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Sellarss Problem

• Inspired by Sellarss attack on the given
• Where do (mere) causes stop, and reasons start?
• In McDowells terms, question about possibility
  of empirical knowledge

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Empirical Knowledge

• A. McDowell - minimal empiricism the idea that
  experience must be a tribunal, mediating the way
  our thinking is answerable to the way things
  are.

• B. Experience must exist within the space of
  reasons there must exist a justificatory
  relationship between experience and empirical
  beliefs based upon it.

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• (A) requires there to be s.t. wrt which we are
  passive, to which we make no contribution, s.t.
  the character of which is due entirely to the way
  the world is hence, the given
• -- since conceptualization is spontaneity, (A)
  entails that the given must be unconceptualized

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• (B) requires that experience be brought within
  the space of reasons anything else would be
  mere exculpation.
• -- entails that experience be conceptualized.
• It appears that (A) and (B) cannot both be
  satisfied.

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A Naturalistic, Computationalist Translation

• Naturalistic assumption
• Anything relevant to mental processes must be
  psychologically tractable
• Computationalist assumption
• Psychological tractability computational
  tractability

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More computationalist assumptions

• Methodological solipsism
• Computations are sensitive to form and
  insensitive to content (except insofar as content
  is encoded in form)
• Classicism
• Mental processes exploiting rational relations
  among thought contents are realized by compl
  processes exploiting syntactic relations among
  thought vehicles. (Note May be other kinds of
  mental processes as well.)

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Normal Perceptual Belief Fixation

• flower ? retina
• retina ? optical nerve (retinal signal)
• formation of perceptual belief

something happens
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The Problem, Briefly

• Perceptual belief (4) has intentional content
  represents the world as being a certain way. Has
  correctness conditions
• Retinal signal (RS) simply transduces information
  contained in light reflected from flower -- has
  no correctness conditions
• When does the intentional content appear?

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For perceptual belief to count as knowledge

• There must be a rational relation between RS and
  belief
• Rational relations hold only among items that
  have intentional content
• Therefore, IS must have intentional content

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For RS to carry information about the world

• Character of RS should strictly depend upon state
  of the world
• But if character of RS depends strictly upon
  state of the world, RS cannot misrepresent the
  world.
• Therefore cannot stand in normative relationship
  to world.
• Therefore, RS cannot have intentional content

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Sellarss Problem Again

• Requirement that RS carry information about the
  world (i.e., that RS the given) ? RS cannot be
  genuinely representational
• Requirement that RS stand in proper epistemic
  relationship to perceptual belief ? RS must be
  genuinely representational

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A way out?

• Evans, Peacocke, Brewer, Heck, Fodor posit
  non-conceptual content
• States w/ NCC can
• Serve as reasons for fully conceptualized states
  (e.g., perceptual beliefs)
• Be faithful registers of information about the
  world information isnt packaged into
  concepts

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Additional motivations for positing NCC

• Phenomenology of perceptual experience
  (richness ineffability arguments)
• Animal and infant thought
• Empirical considerations psychl processes
  sensitive to information not conceptually
  represented.

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What is the distinction?

• Rough idea NCC is picture-like and CC is
  language-like
• First suggestion (Dretske?)
• Conceptual digital
• Non-conceptual analog
• No Pictures, graphs can be digital in format,
  but still represent pictorially

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The Generality Constraint

• If a subject can be credited with the thought
  that a is F, then he must have the conceptual
  resources for entertaining the thought that a is
  G, for every property of being G of which he has
  a conception.
• Gareth Evans, The
  Varieties of
  Reference, p. 104

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Fodor

• Discursive (conceptual) representation ?
  canonical decomposition
• Only canonical parts are semantically evaluable
• Iconic (non-conceptual) representation ?
• no canonical decomposition
• Every part is semantically evaluable if R
  iconically represents S, then every part of R
  represents part of S

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Examples

• The woman on the glacier is playing the flute.
• The woman on the glacier is a constituent is
  semantically evaluable
• on the glacier is is not a constituent not
  semantically evaluable

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Will the NCC proposal work? No

• Empirical side of Sellarss Problem shows that
  NCC shouldnt be genuinely intentional
• Communication-theoretic considerations
  philosophical considerations about nature of
  representation show that NCC isnt genuinely
  intentional
• Genuine intentionality linked to discursiveness

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Solution The Plan

• Communication theory, the nature of
  representation, and discursiveness
• Unpack knowledge side of Sellarss Problem

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Grice

• Distinction between natural meaning (meaningN)
  and non-natural meaning (meaningNN)
• (A) Those spots meantN measles vs.
• (B) The doctors saying measles meantNN measles
• (A) entails that if there are spots, then there
  is measles not so with (B).

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Garfield on MeaningN
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Dretske

• A signal r carries the information that s is F
  The conditional probability of ss being F, given
  r, is 1.
• Call a state a Dretskean vehicle if its
  occurrence entails the obtaining of an instance
  of that type of situation which constitutes the
  vehicles informational content

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Gricean vehicles

• For a state to meanNN that s is F, it must be
  possible for that state to occur even if it is
  not the case that s is F
• Call this condition detachability (Antony
  Levine, 1991)
• To be a Gricean vehicle, a state must be
  detachable

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Detachability and the Disjunction Problem

• Detachability is required to distinguish
  meaningNN (genuine representation) from meaningN
• Disjunction Problem get horse to have the
  content horse, even though horse tokens are
  sometimes caused by non-horses
• Detachability ? solving the disjunction problem

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• Some non-horse-caused tokenings of horse are
  mistakes
• Possibility of mistake correctness conditions
• Having correctness conditions ? detachability

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Dretskean vehicles and the Disjunction Problem

• Information requires no equivocation, but
• whether or not a signal is equivocal depends on
  how we carve up possibilities at the source
• The informational content of a Dretskean vehicle
  is the disjunction of its possible causes --
  Dretskean vehicles cannot (must not) solve the
  disjunction problem

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• Dretskean vehicles cannot have correctness
  conditions
• Only Gricean vehicles can have correctness
  conditions

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• Detachability, in paradigm cases, comes from
  conventionality. Cant be the case with thought
  contents.
• How to get Gricean vehicles from Dretskean?
• Add information imposition of conceptual
  structure makes possible assertion, makes
  possible detachability and correctness conditions

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Back to Knowledge Requirement

• Need to rule out cases of mere exculpation
• Bump on head causes belief that Helena is the
  capital of Montana (Mere causal process) vs.
• Hearing my trusted teacher say Helena is the
  capital of Montana causes belief that Helena is
  the capital of Montana (rational causal process)

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• Content requirement sufficient to rule out (A) as
  epistemically improper but not sufficient to
  distinguish (B) from
• (C) Bump on the head causes me to believe that I
  have a bump on the head

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• (C) Is a case of mere exculpation if the belief
  is not based on (Byrne) the experience of
  feeling the bump on the head.
• Proposal Being based on is a matter of
  psychological tractability, hence computational
  tractability ? formatting requirement

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• Mere causal processes can be distinguished from
  rational causal processes by failure of first to
  satisfy formatting requirement dont need
  satisfaction of content requirement as well

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• Dretskean vehicles can encode as well as simply
  carry information. Encoding a matter of match
  between informational format and demands of
  computational process

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Intelligible Causal Processes

• Information encoded in a Dretskean vehicle is
  s.t., if information were specified discursively,
  would provide good evidential basis for
  subsequent empirical belief