Attention and demonstratives: a reply to Conceptualism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5216/phi.v24i1.52360Abstract
The aim of this article is to criticize the demonstrative strategy of the philosophers McDowell and Brewer, who hold the conceptualist view of perceptual content. This is a standard strategy used against the argument from fineness of grain of experience. The current analysis is based on studies about the role of selective attention and demonstrative concepts in visual perception. Levine (2010) and Pylyshyn (2003, 2007) both argue that an early visual system enables direct reference to objects for keeping track of them over time. It is important that such a mechanism is cognitively opaque, therefore, it must not appeal to any concepts. If this theory is sound, then the conceptualists fail to answer the fineness of grain’s argument.
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