Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Faraz Attar

PhD at Iranian Institute of Philosophy (IRIP).

Abstract

Introduction

Susanna Schellenberg, over a decade, developed the idea of capacitism in order to explain the perceptual experience. Capacitism declares that perception is constituted by employing perceptual capacities, i.e. capacities in order to discriminate and single out instances from the other. The theory argues that analyzing perceptual experience in the framework of capacities reveals that the dichotomy between relationalism and representationalism is indeed a false dichotomy. For short, relationalism maintains that the mind-independent, external object is a constituent of perceptual experience. On the other side, representationalism believes that the representational content is a constituent of perceptual experience. It is widely believed that once you support one side, you should drop the other side; since the supposed dichotomy between relationalism and representationalism is commonly accepted. Capacitism, on the contrary, argues that perceptual experience is essentially relational and representational. Both object and content are constituents of perceptual experience.

Literature Review

Capacitism claims that perceptual experience is essentially relational and representational. In order to justify the claim, the theory introduces Fregean particularism and distinguishes content type from token content.
Fregean particularism is a specific version of the particularity thesis. According to the particularity thesis, the mental state brought about by perceptual relation to a particular, is constituted by the particular. In the context of perceptual content, the particularity thesis implies that the mental state brought about by perceptual relation to a particular, has the feature that the mental state’s content is constituted by the particular. With the preliminaries, Fregean particularism espouses the idea that perceptual capacities constitute perceptual content and, since perceptual content is constituted by a particular, the content is singular. The singular content is the Fregean mode of presentation. 
Perceptual experience has a content type and a token content. The content type has the following structure:
 
 represents the Fregean mode of presentation.  indicates de re discrimination and singling out of object , and  indicates de re discrimination and singling out of token property . Veridical perception, illusion, and hallucination have a common content type.
But the veridical perception’s token content is:
 
The token content informs us that the perceptual experience actually discriminates and singles out the object  and token property .
In contrast, the token content of illusion, that is:
 
points out that the experience discriminates and singles out the object , but could not discriminate and single out any token property.
Finally, the token content of hallucination, that is:
 
points out that the experience could not discriminate and single out any object and any token property.
Thus there is a fundamental difference between the token contents of veridical perception, illusion and hallucination. The former has a full sensory awareness relation to the world, but the two others lack that.
Content type is constituted solely by employing perceptual capacity. In the case of veridical perception, illusion and hallucination perceptual capacity is employed, hence the content type of the experiences are the same. The content type is responsible for the experience’s phenomenology. The fact explains why the experiences look the same.
But token content is constituted by both employing perceptual capacity and particular in the environment. Therefore veridical perception’s token content could not be the same as illusion’s and hallucination’s token content.
Thus capacitism shows that perceptual experience could be essentially representational and relational. Perceptual content is a constituent of perceptual experience and token content, in turn, is partly constituted by particular in the environment. 

Methodology

Schellenberg claims that the traditional dichotomy between relationalism and representationalism could be best described as the dichotomy between austere relationalism and austere representationalism. But both the austere theories are erroneous.
I’ll show that why relationalism should be austere. There is no way for relationalism to block the argument from hallucination, except that it adopts the disjunctivist approach. i.e., to maintain that there is a fundamental difference between veridical perception and hallucination. But Schellenberg strictly declares capacitism as a non-disjunctivist approach. How capacitism could be non-disjunctivist and meanwhile refute the argument from hallucination?
Pursuing the answer, I’ll argue that Schellenberg’s insistence on the non-disjunctivist approach is not well-established. Furthermore, I’ll illustrate the new dichotomy beneath her capacitism.   

Conclusion

I address two problems of the approach. First, capacitism insists that the theory is a non-disjunctivist one. I argue that the insistence is unjustified and based on the blurred demarcation. There is no significant difference between capacitism and some versions of disjunctivism, notably content disjunctivism. However, capacitism doesn’t imply radical disjunctivism, namely metaphysical disjunctivism.
Second, the more fundamental analysis of the topic shows that the relationalism-representationalism dichotomy is still present at the core of the capacitism. Which analysis of perceptual experience is more fundamental: analysis of its content type or its token content? If the content type was more fundamental, then the representational aspect of capacitism would be bolded, and if the token content was more fundamental, the relational aspect would be highlighted.
Adopting a relationalist attitude, we could still believe that blocking the argument from hallucination is the main task. Hence veridical perception should be of a different fundamental kind. How does capacitism dwell on the issue? Capacitism utters that veridical perception and hallucination have the same content type, but different token contents. Accepting a relationalist attitude would lead to privileged token content over content type. Veridical perception and hallucination are of different fundamental kinds due to their different token contents. Thus analysis of perceptual experience via its token content is more fundamental than via its content type.
If we focus on the relational aspect of perceptual experience, token content becomes more fundamental. On the other side, if we give weight to the representational aspect, content type becomes more fundamental. We could discriminate relational capacitism from representational capacitism.
Capacitism just points out that some versions of relationalism and representationalism are not inconsistent. The theory doesn’t indicate that there essentially is not a confrontation. Capacitism, at its best, relocates the confrontation from the consistency-inconsistency category to a more essential-less essential category. But the relocation doesn’t imply that the dichotomy is false.

Keywords

• capacitism
• Susanna Schellenberg
• representationalism
• relationalism
• Fregean particularism
• representational content

Main Subjects

• philosophy