Incompetent perceivers, distinguishable hallucinations, and perceptual phenomenology. Some problems for activity views of perception

ABSTRACT There is a recent surge in interest in agential accounts of perception, i.e. accounts where activity plays a central role in accounting for the nature of perceptions. Within this camp, Lisa Miracchi has argued that her Competence View (CoV) of perception has the resources to strike a double feat: to provide an alternative to current representationalist hegemony while avoiding endorsing relationalism about perception. If successful, CoV could be seen as inaugurating a third way, beyond relationalism and representationalism. Unfortunately, CoV faces serious problems which render it untenable in its present form. First, CoV cannot accommodate straightforward perceptual and hallucinatory phenomena – specifically, distinguishable hallucination, first perceptions, and hallucinations of implausible objects. Second, close inspection of the main locus of disagreement between relationalism and experience-first approaches shows that CoV has more in common with experience-first approaches than Miracchi acknowledges. Thus, contrary to Miracchi’s advertising, CoV is not a perception-first alternative to representationalism. Within the agential camp, in contrast to CoV, Susanna Schellenberg’s view (the Capacity View) can avoid many of the challenges faced by CoV. However, it is unable to make sense of distinguishable hallucination. This means that both agential accounts of perception face serious problems.