Perceptual Representation (Philosophy)

Representations

There are various kinds of representation. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa represents a woman: It is a pictorial representation. If you are thinking about Paris, your thought represents Paris: It is a mental representation. Representations refer to things that may be far away (like Paris) or that may not even exist (or, does not exist any more, like the sitter of Mona Lisa). They refer to something, they are about something, and what they are about is the object of the representation. The same object could be represented in different ways. The represented [Page 791]object as represented in a representation is called the content of the representation.

There are also objects that could be said to represent something without being representations per se. The number of tree rings may be said to represent the age of the tree, for example. The number of tree rings is indeed a reliable indicator of the age of the tree, but it does not literally represent anything. It is a necessary feature of representations that they can misrepresent. Leonardo could have misrepresented Mona Lisa. Your thought about Paris may misrepresent Paris (if you have not been there and you confuse it with Rome). The number of tree rings, in contrast, cannot misrepresent the age of the tree. If there are 20 rings and the tree is only 10 years old, then the number of tree rings does not represent the age of the tree, nor is it a reliable indicator thereof. It does not misrepresent the tree's age. It just fails to represent it.

Some of our mental states are representational. Most of our emotions are about something: We are afraid of a lion, for example. The same goes for beliefs, desires, and imaginings. It seems natural, then, to suppose that perceptual states are also representations: When you see a cat, your perceptual state is about this cat; it refers to this cat. The content of your perceptual representation is the cat.

Talking about perceptual representations has some important explanatory advantages. Two of the most important philosophical questions about perception are: (1) What is the difference between perception and sensation? (2) What is the difference between perception and belief? According to the standard picture of perceptual processing, mere sensation, that is, the stimulation of our sensory organs, at some point in the processing gives rise to perception, and perception then (sometimes) gives rise to beliefs. In order to know what perception is, we need to have a good way of delineating it from sensation on one hand and beliefs on the other.

If we think of perceptual states as representations, then there is a (relatively) simple way of drawing these lines. Perception is representational, but sensation is not. The stimulation of our sensory organs (of the retina, for example) does not have content: It does not represent anything (it may be a reliable indicator though, like the tree rings). But our perceptual states represent the perceived object as having certain properties. So a clear division line could be drawn between sensation on one hand, which does not have content, and perception and belief on the other, which do. And as perception and belief supposedly represent the world differently, this representational difference between the two kinds of mental state may be used to draw the line between perception and belief.

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