Naive Realism for Unconscious Perceptions

Abstract

Unconscious perceptions (i.e., person-level perceptions that lack phenomenal character) have recently become a focal point in the debate for and against naive realism. In this paper I defend the naive realist side. More speci cally, I use an idea of Martin's to develop a new version of naive realism-neuro-computational naive realism. I argue that neuro-computational naive realism o ers a uniform treatment of both conscious and unconscious perceptions. I also argue that it accommodates the possibility of phenomenally di erent conscious perceptions of the same items, and that it can answer a further challenge to naive realism raised by Berger and Nanay. exact same items. Neuro-computational naive realism can also answer a challenge to naive realism raised by Berger and Nanay. 2 My plan for the paper is the following: After introducing naive realism, I focus on a particular version of naive realism called "selectionism". I explain why it may seem that selectionism is in tension with the existence of unconscious perceptions. I then evaluate this tension, and explain why naive realists might wish to accept a non-selectionist version of naive realism. I then develop such a version, i.e., neuro-computational naive realism. After explaining neuro-computational naive realism's advantages, I close by answering two objections. 1 Naive realism, selectionism, and the tension with unconscious perceptions I take naive realism to minimally involves three theses. The rst is: (NR1) Perceptions are fundamentally experiences in which a subject perceives existing mind-independent items. 3 (NR1), along with the assumption hallucinations are not fundamentally experiences in which a subject perceives existing mind-independent items, entails "minimal disjunctivism"-the view that perceptions and hallucinations are experiences of distinct fundamental kinds. The second thesis of naive realism is: (NR2) The S perceives x relation is neither identical to, nor grounded in, representation relations. 4 Note that (NR2) falls short of the much stronger thesis that perceptions lack all representational properties. (NR2) falls short of the stronger thesis by allowing the events which are perceptions to involve representational properties in addition to being obtainings of the non-representational S perceives x relation. I am not aware of any naive realists who accept the stronger thesis, and French (2014, p. 395) explicitly denies it. 5 Furthermore, it is quite clear that Brewer, Campbell, French and Martin commit themselves only to (NR2), and not to the stronger thesis. 6 For naive realists, an advantage of accepting both (NR1) and (NR2) is that together they make it possible to provide certain attractive accounts of how perceptions enable us both to think about mind-independent items (see

Selectionism and Diaphaneity

“…While the move from that evidence to UP has been questioned (Phillips 2018; 2016a), the opposition to UP itself rests on some controversial assumptions (Berger and Mylopoulos 2019, Zięba 2019), which means that the hypothesis should be taken seriously. Beck (2020) argues that UP constitutes a reason to reject selectionism and diaphaneity. Compare seeing a red dot consciously and unconsciously.…”