More on cross-modal binding and singular propositions
phil 93507
Jeff Speaks
September 21, 2009
Last time we were talking about the pressure put on intramodal intentionalism by cases
of cross-modal binding. These are cases in which, intuitively, we perceptually represent,
with distinct senses, an object as being Fand as being G,and in which it perceptually
seems to us that a single object is both Fad G. Then it seems that there is a proposition,
namely the proposition that
∃x x is both Fand G
which is the content of my overall perceptual experience, but is not the content of my
visual experience, or my auditory experience, or . . ..
One can of course deny that there are such cases of ‘experienced togetherness’, as Tye
puts it. But as usual we can take our intuitions about what would count as an illusory
experience – a case of perceptual misrepresentation – as a rough guide to the contents of
our experience. And there do seem to be cases in which we would be inclined to take our
experience to be illusory if something turned out to be F, and something else turned out
to be G.
This indicates that one of the following two things is true: (i) in addition to visually
representing, etc., we also, in addition to these ‘modal’ representational states, simply
perceptually represent some things which are not represented in any sense modality; or
(ii) talk about visual representation etc. is just talk about an aspect of what we percep-
tually represent. The worry was that (ii) seems difficult for the intramodal intentionalist
to accept, since it seems to involve giving up what Tye calls ‘separatism’ about sense
experiences, and that (i) seems weird.
Last time we considered the possibility that the intramodal intentionalist could respond by
taking the contents of the relevant experiences to be not existentially quantified contents
(as above), but rather singular propositions which predicate the relevant properties of
particular objects. So in the sort of case above the perceiver might have a visual experience
with the singular content
ois F.
and an auditory experience with the singular content
