Charlotte Dorneich (Queen's): 'Rationality in Perception'
Abstract: In the debate about whether perceptual content is conceptual or not, most parties agree both that mental transitions from perceptual content to empirical beliefs have to be rational and that perceptual content provides subjects with reasons for empirical belief.
In this talk, I identify a structural difference in how conceptualists such as John McDowell and nonconceptualists such as Christopher Peacocke have met these two requirements. I claim that the root of the difference lies in different definitions of what it is for a mental transition to be rational: Conceptualists tend to take a mental transition to be rational if it is a response to a reason as such; while for nonconceptualists it is rational if it aims at truth.
I give two reasons to prefer the reasons-based definition of rationality: It allows for a unified account of practical and theoretical rationality and its emphasis on the subjective perspective allows us to deny the rationality of algorithms, artificial intelligence and the like. This raises the question: Is maintaining the reasons-based definition of rationality only a problem for Peacocke’s account of perceptual content, or nonconceptualism more generally?
