What Do We See? Christopher Peacocke’s Eirenic Position

Christopher Peacocke proposes a conciliatory or Eirenic position to “the vexed question of the existence – and if it exists, the nature – of the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction, and on the nature and scope of predicational content in perception.” [p. 168] Reconciliation is achieved through a common element. Our perceptions and judgments, and the perceptions of all animals share something in common: modes of presentation individuated by Fundamental Reference Rules. I argue that this view is too restrictive: it restricts what we and other animals perceive to what Fundamental Reference Rules pick-out. But what we perceive includes things whose identity conditions involve functions or historically situated conditions. To focus the issues in a short space, I focus on human perception and artworks.