@book{schellenberg2018,
author = {Schellenberg, Susanna},
title = {The unity of perception: Content, consciousness, evidence},
shorttitle = {The unity of perception: Content, consciousness, evidence},
volume = {},
pages = {},
editor = {},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
address = {New York},
year = {2018},
file = {~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~sonnysoftware~bot/Documents/be-library/schellenberg2018_The_Unity_of_Perception-_Content,_Consciousness,_Evidence.pdf},
doi = {},
url = {},
langid = {},
abstract = {Perception is our key to the world. It plays at least three different roles in our lives. It justifies beliefs and provides us with knowledge of our environment. It brings about conscious mental states. It converts informational input, such as light and sound waves, into representations of …},
keywords = {perception; representation; capacities; consciousness; epistemology},
}
Schellenberg fights a three front war. First, against generalists about the content of perceptual experience. Second, against naive realists concerning the point that perceptual experience is metaphysically grounded by representational content. Third, against russelians, that the content of perceptual experience consists of fregean modes of presentation rather than russellian ordered object/property pairs.
She pursues these fronts by means of five arguments. The Particularity Argument (pp. 24-5), the Singular Content Argument (p. 66), the Perceptual Content Argument (p. 115), the Relational Content Argument (pp. 117-18), and the Argument from Mental Activism (p. 150).
One question about Schellenberg’s overall argument is whether she sufficiently clarifies a crucial premise in her overall view – i.e. a claim found in all of her arguments. This concerns the nature of the claim that the perceptual relation of a perceptual state to a particular objection O is one of “constitution”. Schellenberg never clarifies the conception of constitution at issue. And she cannot mean merely causation, since this will not get her the characteristic position that she needs (see [@block2005] for discussion of the constitution/causation confusion issue.