ABSTRACT

The difference between perception and cognition seems introspectively obvious in many cases. Perceiving and thinking have also been assigned quite different roles, in epistemology, in theories of reference and of mental content, in philosophy of psychology, and elsewhere. Yet what is the nature of the distinction? In what way, or ways, do perception and cognition differ? The paper reviews recent work on these questions. Four main respects in which perception and cognition have been held to differ are discussed. First, their phenomenal character, such as the often-remarked vivacity or immediacy of perception. Second, the way in which they represent the world, e.g. the non-propositional nature of the contents, or non-discursive character of the vehicles, that have been held to characterise perceptual representation. Third, their place in cognitive architecture, i.e., roughly, in the information-flow of the mind, such as their alleged (non-)modularity. Fourth, their mind-world relations, e.g. the way in which perceptions seem to be tightly causally linked with distal or proximal stimuli. Against this background, we distinguish some main options for an account of the perception/cognition distinction, in particular concerning whether there is one, several, or no interesting and principled distinction(s) to be drawn here.

摘要

在许多情况下，感知和认知之间的差异似乎是显而易见的。在认识论、指称理论和心理内容理论、心理学哲学和其他方面，感知和思考也被赋予了完全不同的角色。然而，这种区别的本质是什么？知觉和认知在哪些方面或哪些方面有所不同？本文回顾了最近关于这些问题的工作。讨论了感知和认知被认为不同的四个主要方面。首先，它们非凡的特性，例如人们常说的活泼或感知的即时性。第二，它们代表世界的方式，例如内容的非命题性质，或车辆的非话语特征，这些被认为是感知表征的特征。第三，它们在认知架构中的位置，即大致在思维信息流中的位置，例如它们所谓的（非）模块化。第四，他们的思维世界关系，例如感知似乎与远端或近端刺激紧密因果联系的方式。在此背景下，我们区分了一些主要选项来说明感知/认知的区别，特别是关于是否有一个、几个或没有有趣和原则性的区别要在这里画出来。