Perception Without Representation (original) (raw)

Introduction to a forthcoming special issue of Topoi focusing upon the debate between relational and representational views of perception, and in particular upon emerging non-representational views of experience. Being historically more recent and less widely held, relational views have all too often been poorly understood by their detractors, many of whom have taken such views to be implausible, incompatible with perceptual science, or simply inscrutable. Indeed, for those steeped in the representationalist tradition, it can be difficult to understand why one might want to deny what may seem an obvious truth about perceptual experiences: that they represent how things in the world are. Against this tendency, we aim to shed further light upon the nature, motivations for, and theoretical commitments of non-representational views of perception in a way that facilitates a more nuanced debate (Brewer, Travis, Martin, this volume). Other contributions explore the phenomenal character of experience and its explanatory role (Brogaard, Dokic & Martin, Eilan), and reappraise existing arguments both for (Brogaard) and against (O’Sullivan, Judge, Ivanov) relational views. We hope that this goes some way towards demonstrating that, far from being an implausible fringe view, relational theories constitute a significant and genuine attempt to overcome some central problems in the philosophy of perception and, as such, are worthy of further consideration—not least by their opponents. This article available via Open Access under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 licence.