What are the Contents of Experiences?

Intentionalism, defeasibility, and justification

“…For a mental state, "being a propositional attitude" simply designates the relation of having propositional content. 3 2 This view has been argued for by quite a number of people in a variety of ways recently, for instance Byrne 2009, Pautz 2009, Siegel 2010, Siegel 2011, Schellenberg 2011, and Glüer 2014. It has been argued against, too, for instance by Martin 2002, Travis 2004, Brewer 2006 It is, of course, a substantive and extremely interesting question what it precisely takes for a mental state to be a state having propositional content.…”

Why do we need perceptual content?

“…Travis (2004: 69) 11 Siewert (1999), Siegel (2010), Chalmers (2004). Also see Pautz (2009) Here is Travis' argument from indeterminacy of phenomenology:…”

“…Any case of hallucination is thus a case of 'direct' visual awareness of less than one would be 'directly' aware of in the cases of seeing." 27 No matter how the naïve realist tries to give a positive account of non-veridical perception, they all face what is known as the screening-off problem. 28 The problem basically is this: suppose in the bad cases of perceptual experience what one seems to perceive is what we might call a mere profile.…”

“…Let's suppose 26 See: Orlandi (2014). 27 Johnston (2004: 135-137). Note that Mark Johnston does not defend naïve realism.…”

Is the Sense‐Data Theory a Representationalist Theory?

“…For example, his notion of representation has been challenged by Pautz (2009) on the grounds that it trivialises the debate concerning whether experiences represent and have contents. On Byrne's notion of representation, perceptual experiences could not fail to have contents, says Pautz, and so the question of whether (even minimal) representationalism is true or not becomes entirely trivial and not one that is open to debate.…”