The problem of invisible content

Abstract

This paper identifies, and attempts to resolve, a serious inconsistency in Alva Noë’s theory of perception. I argue that a key feature of Noë’s enactivist theory of perception, his claim that perceptual content is ‘virtual all the way in’, is incompatible with his ‘p-properties’ account of perspectival content. I will argue that the virtual content thesis implies that p-properties, as characterised by Noë, must be invisible. P-properties play an important role in Noë’s theory of perception, and they could not play this role if they were invisible. This problem, the ‘problem of invisible contents’, must be solved by amending either the virtual content thesis, or Noë’s account of perspectival content. At the end of the paper I will argue that the virtual content claim should not be rejected out of hand, and then try to solve the problem of invisible contents by amending Noë’s theory of perspectival content.