Pitt :735–741, 2017) has argued that reductive representationalism entails an absurdity akin to the “paramechanical hypothesis” Ryle attributed to Descartes. This paper focuses on one version of reductive representationalism: the property-complex theory. We contend that at least insofar as the property-complex theory goes, Pitt is wrong. The result is not just a response to Pitt, but also a clarification of the aims and structure of the property-complex theory.

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03218-0.

Almost every case of visual experience is as of a unified state of affairs and as of one or more specific particulars. I argue that a view on which the content of visual experience is a singular proposition does a better job at explaining these two features of visual experience than three popular theories: the Complex Property Theory, Generalism, and Fregean Particularism. The defended view, however, entails that there are no visual hallucinations traditionally understood. I make the case for the (...) plausibility of this consequence. (shrink)