Abstract
Forthcoming (2011) in K. Hawley and F. Macpherson (eds.) The Admissible Contents of Experience, Wiley‐Blackwell.
The Admissible Contents of Experience
Fiona Macpherson
This essay provides an overview of the debate concerning the admissible
contents of experience, together with an introduction to the papers in this
volume. The debate is one that takes place among advocates of a certain way of
thinking of perceptual experiences: that they are states that represent the world.
For to say that a state has content is to say that it represents; and its content is
usually taken to be that which is represented. One should not be tempted to
think that the debate is therefore marginal or esoteric, for this view of perceptual
experience has been by far the dominant view of perceptual experience in recent
years in philosophy (and in psychology and neuroscience). The debate is about
what answer to give to a fundamental question about the nature of perceptual
experience, namely: what objects and properties can it represent?