Perception: A Blind Spot in Brandom’s Normative Pragmatics

  • Daniel E. Kalpokas IdH-CONICET/UNC, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina
Keywords: Wittgenstein, Seeing Aspects, Reliabilism, Perceptual Experience, Observation Reports

Abstract

Brandom explains perceptual knowledge as the product of two distinguishable sorts of capacities: (i) the capacity to reliably discriminate behaviorally between different sorts of stimuli; and (ii) the capacity to take up a position in the game of giving and asking for reasons. However, in focusing exclusively on the entitlement of observation reports, rather than on perception itself, Brandom passes over a conception of perceptual experience as a sort of contentful mental state. In this article, I argue that this is a blind spot, which makes Brandom’s account of perceptual knowledge unable to properly accommodate the phenomenon of seeing aspects and to explain how we can justify the attributions of reliability to observers that make observation reports.

Author Biography

Daniel E. Kalpokas, IdH-CONICET/UNC, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina

Daniel Kalpokas is PhD in Philosophy by the University of Buenos Aires (2004). Currently, he is Independent Research of CONICET and Regular Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, National University of Córdoba. He is the author of Richard Rorty y la superación pragmatista de la epistemología (2005) and of several articles published in journals such as Diánoia, Análisis Filosófico, Contemporary Pragmatism, Nordic Wittgenstein Review, Erkenntnis, Teorema, and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. Areas of interest: epistemology, philosophy of perception, philosophy of language, contemporary philosophy (mainly classic and contemporary pragmatism) and ethics.

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Published
2019-06-30
How to Cite
[1]
Kalpokas, D.E. 2019. Perception: A Blind Spot in Brandom’s Normative Pragmatics. Disputatio. 8, 9 (Jun. 2019), 237-258. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236910.