Two Kinds of Explanation and Their Significance

There is a distinction between two kinds of explanation by content-involving states, a distinction that emerges most clearly when we consider explanations that involve representation by magnitudes. I illustrate the distinction, which is applicable to a wide variety of kinds of psychological states and processes, and applies also beyond the cases of representation by magnitudes. The distinction allows a new defence of the special kind of explanation by imagistic representation, and gives new reasons for rejecting Zenon Pylyshyn’s rejection thereof. Once the distinction is appreciated, we can articulate a new position on the decades-old dispute about whether perception has a nonconceptual content. A new Eirenic position emerges under which perceptions and judgements have the same kind of content. The genuine insights that motivated the postulation of nonconceptual content in perception are instead captured by noting the features of one of the two kinds of explanation. The Eirenic position is compared and contrasted with the various positions of Tyler Burge, John McDowell, and an earlier stance of Christopher Peacocke.