A Neglected Account of Perception

• Published in: Dialectica Vol. 62; no. 3; pp. 307 - 322
• Main Author: Stoneham, Tom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-09-2008; Blackwell-Wiley Publishing; Blackwell
• Subjects: Auditory perception; Mental objects; Mind; Mind and body. Personal identity; Perception; Perception theory; Perceptual experiences; Philosophical object; Philosophy; Sensory perception; Sound; Visual perception; Perception; Relation
• ISSN: 0012-2017; 1746-8361
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-8361.2008.01152.x

I aim to draw the reader's attention to an easily overlooked account of perception, namely that there are no perceptual experiences, that to perceive something is to stand in an external, purely non-Leibnizian relation to it. I introduce the Purely Relational account of perception by discussing a case of it being overlooked in the writings of G.E. Moore, though we also find the same move in J. Cook Wilson, so it has nothing to do with an affection for sense-data. I then discuss the relation between the PR account and recent disjunctive accounts of perceptual experience, and note that the PR account has some claim to be the only one that truly respects the directness of perception. The paper does not aspire to persuade the reader of the correctness of the neglected PR account, merely that it should be treated as a serious candidate in philosophical debates about perception.