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DOI 10.1007/s12136-011-0134-0
Abstract Francois Recanati has recently argued that each perceptual state has two
distinct kinds of content, complete and explicit content. According to Recanati, the
former is a function of the latter and the psychological mode of perception.
Furthermore, he has argued that explicit content is temporally neutral and that timeconsciousness is a feature of psychological mode. In this paper it is argued, pace
Recanati, that explicit content is not temporally neutral. Recanatis position is
initially presented. Three desiderata for a theory of time-consciousness are
subsequently introduced. It is then argued that a theory locating timeconsciousness as a feature of psychological mode will fail to satisfy these desiderata.
In the last section the intentionality of memories is discussed. Using the notion of
shiftable indexical, it is argued that memories have the same explicit content as
perceptions, but that they nevertheless can have different conditions of satisfaction
since they are entertained in different modes.
Keywords Time . Content . Perception . Memory . Psychological mode . Recanati
1 Introduction
Most philosophers would agree that perceptual states in some loose sense of the
word represent the environment as being at a specific (possibly extended) time. Two
broad reasons can be given for this claim. First, it seems to be a phenomenological
J. Almng
Department of Social and Behavioural Studies, University West, Trollhttan, Sweden
J. Almng
Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg,
Gothenburg, Sweden
J. Almng (*)
Liljebjrns v 10, SE-671 33 Arvika, Sweden
e-mail: jan.almang@filosofi.gu.se
J. Almng
feature of perceptions that they present states as obtaining and events as occurring in
a certain temporal order and with a certain duration. Secondly, temporal facts
apparently enter into the conditions of satisfaction of a perceptual state. If I see a red
ball right now my perception can only be veridical if there is a red ball in my
environment at the present time. If there was a red ball in my presence an hour ago
but which by now has been removed, the perception is not veridical.
While most philosophers would agree so far, there is widespread disagreement as
to how perceptual states can represent temporal facts. One point of contention
concerns whether or not time-consciousness is to be explicated at the level of
psychological mode or at the level of intentional content. Recently Franois Recanati
has defended the claim that it is to be explicated at the level of psychological mode.
In this paper, it is argued, pace Recanati, that the time-consciousness of perceptual
states is primarily a feature of intentional content rather than of psychological mode.
Section 2 in what follows spells out Recanatis theory. Section 3 argues that the
tensed features of an act of perception are to be found at the level of intentional
content. Section 4 presents an account of the intentionality of perceptions and
memories that locates a temporal indexical in intentional content.
of the perceptual mode of entertaining a specific content. The reason is that in order
for a mental state to be a perceptual state, it has to meet the self-referential condition:
For a representation that p to count as a perception that p, it must be the case that
the representation is caused by the fact that p; but what is represented is only the fact
that p (Recanati 2007: 132).
The complete content of an act of perception is consequently constituted by the
explicit content in conjunction with the contribution of the psychological mode. On
Recanatis account, the psychological mode makes the same contribution to the
complete content whenever the explicit content is entertained in that specific mode.
Indeed, the contribution to the complete content in an act of a specific kind is those
features of the complete content that the act shares with other acts of the same kind.
It is to be noted that this means that the phenomenology of an intentional state
supervenes on the complete content and not merely on the explicit content. (Recanati
2007: 141)
The mode-content distinction forms the basis of Recanatis reasoning when he
argues that the time-consciousness of perceptual states is a feature of mode rather
than of explicit content. Recanati notes that the critical distinction between
perceptions and episodic memories of perceptual states concerns the temporal
contents of the perceptual acts. When perceiving an event, the event is presented as
occurring now. When remembering an event however, the event is presented as past.
According to Recanati, we are inclined to think that when visually remembering a
past event, the intentional act has the same explicit content as when we originally
perceived the event: The scene or event the memory is about is clearly the same as
the scene or event the initiating perception is about (that is what makes memory)
(Recanati 2007: 137). In the following, we shall assume that this analysis is correct.
But even so acts of such different kinds as perceptions and memories can
obviously not have the same truth-conditional or complete content. Perceptual states
are veridical when the represented state of affairs is simultaneous with the act of
perception. Memories however can only be veridical when what is represented lies
in the past. Recanati believes that the solution to this apparent puzzle lies in
assigning time-consciousness to the psychological mode of perception. The explicit
content of perceptual states is temporally neutral. Yet perceptual acts are not
temporally neutral since they have to be evaluated at a specific time, to wit, the
present time. But this feature is something they have in virtue of being perceptual
states, not in virtue of their explicit content. Here is Recanati:
The complete content of a perceptual state is analysed into (i) the explicit
content of the state (the lekton) and (ii) a situation with respect to which that
content is supposed to be evaluated. The complete content is distributed, and
that means that what the situation component supplies need not be replicated in
the lekton. Now the content of a perceptual experience is relative to the
situation of perception. This relativity extends to time: the content of
perception is temporally neutral, but it is evaluated with respect to the time
of the perceptual experience. So the subject has, at t, a perceptual experience
the content of which is the temporal proposition that there is a flower there,
and that proposition is presented as true at t, the time of the present perceptual
experience. (Recanati 2007: 141)
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through a trajectory in space, you do not see the ball merely at successively different
points in space. You see it as moving in space from one position to another, and you
appear to be conscious of it as moving in a trajectory.
The notion specious present was originally introduced by William James and
others in order to explain our capacity to retain past perceptual content in
consciousness. One of the essential ideas behind this notion was clearly that what
you perceive is never given in a mere unextended point in time, but rather as
extended in time. Perceptual experiences essentially involve an experience of a
certain temporal duration. Yet this experience is at the same time to be clearly
distinguished from memory. It is not the case that you remember hearing do-re
when hearing mi. Memories are a different kind of mental states than
perceptions, and you need not be in any such state in order to experience
temporal duration.
The second desideratum that I would like to highlight is originally due to
Immanuel Kant. He noted that there is a difference between a succession of
conscious states and a consciousness of a succession. The former does not entail the
latter. Perceptual experiences are normally characterised not only by the specious
present, but also by the specious present being temporally ordered such that it
presents a succession of states to the perceiver. When you are hearing mi, you are
not merely hearing it together with do-re, you are hearing it as succeeding do-re
in time. In a similar vein, when seeing a ball move through a trajectory in space, you
do not merely perceive the ball as being in different positions. You perceive the ball
as occupying different positions in a temporal order.
Whereas the first feature of perceptual experiences highlights the fact that we
always perceive objects or states of affairs as extended in time, the second feature
highlights the fact that this duration is experienced as temporally ordered. So it is not
the case that you first perceive re and then mi and then somehow judges that
mi succeeds re. You literally perceive mi as succeeding re, and something
similar obviously goes for visual perception. In short, objects or states of affairs are
perceived as standing in temporal relations. We shall express this by saying that the
object of a perception, whether it is a normal physical object, an event, or a state of
affairs, is a temporal complex.
The third desideratum worth highlighting has been emphasised by Recanati
himself. A type of a visual experience may be veridical in one situation and
hallucinatory in another. Perceptual content must consequently contain an element
referring to the time of the perception, or else they could not be assessed as to their
veridicality. Any theory of time-consciousness must consequently explain how the
truth conditional content can have this temporal feature.
At this point it is important to make a tristinction originally due to Alexius
Meinong between time of act, content, and object (Meinong 1899: 245247).1 The
time of act is the time in which a person entertains a specific intentional content in
an intentional act. The time of object is the time in which the object actually endures.
The time of content is the time that the perceived object is presented as enduring in.
It can easily be seen that time of content need not necessarily coincide with the time
of the act. An intentional act can in principle be more or less momentary, yet present
1
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an object as enduring in time and undergoing certain changes. In this case the time of
act does not coincide with the time of content. Following James, we can use the term
specious present to refer to the temporal extension of the time of perceptual
content.
In order to see how the tristinction works, consider for example the
intentionality of beliefs. Trivially, a lot of our beliefs are about the past. I
believe for example that the Second World War endured between 1939 and
1945. The time of the act is in this case whenever I have a belief to that effect.
The time of the content, however, is the time between 1939 and 1945. Since
the Second World War actually did endure between 1939 and 1945, the time of
the object coincides with the time of the content. Whenever an intentional act is
true or veridical, the time of content will coincide with the time of the object,
though it need not coincide with the time of the act.
It is important to emphasise at this point that on Recanatis account, timeconsciousness is a function of the complete content, but not of the explicit content.
The explicit content does not refer to any moment in time, and it is not in virtue of
the explicit content that the act is evaluable at a specific point in time. This is clearly
stated in the long passage from Perspectival Thought quoted above (Recanati
2007:141), and it is difficult to see how it could be different if time-consciousness is
removed from explicit content. So according to Recanati, the explicit content is
temporally neutral, and the complete content is tensed in virtue of the latter referring
to the time of the act.
Now, if the above characterisations of perceptual experiences are correct, it is fair
to say that the time of the content will always be temporally extended. However, this
does not entail that the time of the act is temporally extended. Whether the time of
the act is extended and consequently coincides with the time of the content is a
major point of contention in the literature of the phenomenology of time, but we
need not take a stand in that discussion here.2 As we shall see, both positions are
difficult to combine with the doctrine that time-consciousness is located in
psychological mode. It does not really help whether one conceives of the tensed
indexical in the psychological mode as referring to an extended period of time or to a
single point in time.
Let us initially assume that the tensed indexical contributed to the complete
content by the psychological mode does not refer to an extended period of time but
to a single point in time. If this is the case, it seems that time-consciousness cannot
be a function merely of psychological mode. For, as we have seen, the perceptual
object is always presented as a temporal complex. The complete content of the act
presents a temporally enduring state of affairs. However, by assumption, the time
being referred to by the psychological mode is momentary and not extended.
If we construe the indexical as merely referring to a single point in time, we end
up with a theory that cannot satisfy a single one of our desiderata. Such a theory fails
to account for the fact that the time of content is always extended. It also fails to
account for the fact that we perceive events as preceding and succeeding each other.
When hearing mi, you are hearing it as succeeding do-re. While you might
For a discussion of this point, see Dainton 2000 and Miller 1984.
possibly hear mi as sounding in the present and thus as simultaneous with the act,
do-re is at the time of the act heard as sounding in the past and by implication as
preceding the time being referred to by the psychological mode.
The basic trouble for Recanati is that the time of content for perceptions will
always be extended. If the tensed indexical that is contributed by the psychological
mode to the complete content refers to a momentary point in time, viz. the time of
the act, then it cannot account for the fact that the complete content is extended and
presents a temporal complex. But since these features are essential to the conditions
of satisfaction of that very act, this theory cannot account for the veridicality
conditions of the perceptual act either. In the case at hand, that part of content
presenting re has its time of evaluation in the past. But if the content contributed
by psychological mode determines the time of evaluation on its own and refers to an
unextended now, then the complete content would have the wrong time of
evaluation.
Perhaps it can at this point be retorted that since all perceptual experiences are
experiences of something as temporally extended, the mode of perceiving would be
to perceive something as present, but not as momentarily present, but as covering a
short temporal interval that coincides with the specious present. This move can be
made in either of two ways, either by assuming that the time of the act is momentary
yet even so has a complete content reflexive to an extended now-point or by
assuming that the time of the act is simultaneous with the time of the content and
hence extended. In virtue of being extended, the time of the act would be reflexive to
an extended time.
Considering that we never have an experience of a momentary non-extended
perceptual state, I actually think that it is correct to argue that the tensed indexical in
the psychological mode refers to an extended period of time. If the psychological
mode explains our experience of being in a perceptual state, and if it is essential to
this experience that we experience a stream of successive perceptions, then the
tensed indexical in the psychological mode must refer to an extended now-point that
includes the entire time of content. And this must be so no matter whether the time
of the act is extended or not. But even if the tensed indexical in the psychological
mode refers to an extended now-point, we cannot dispense with tense in explicit
content.
A theory that posits an extended tensed indexical in the psychological mode
seems to meet our first desideratum. The complete content would specify a short but
extended period of time as the time of the act. Such a theory however fails to take
into account the second and third desiderata mentioned above, viz. that we perceive
temporal relations and that perceptual states should have the right conditions of
satisfaction. Let us first consider the second desideratum. It is to be noted that the
temporal relations perceived need not be identical from perception to perception.
Even within the specious present we can discern different kinds of temporal order
and different kinds of temporal distance between the relata that constitute the
temporal complexes. Sometimes the specious present presents us with three events,
sometimes with more than three events. The temporal distance between these events
could of course vary as well.
When hearing do-re-mi, mi is presented as succeeding do-re. But this can
certainly not be due to the psychological mode of perception. Even if the
J. Almng
As Smith has pointed out, perceptual content seems to be singular and demonstrative rather than
indefinite as in Searles account (Smith 1986: 201); thus the change from a red ball to the red ball.
J. Almng
J. Almng
the content also makes a reference to a perceptual experience of the ball as occurring
in the present tense. Something similar, I would suggest, is involved in a
remembrance of that perception.
When we do remember an event, we experience the act of remembrance as
occurring now. The key difference between seeing an event and remembering seeing
an event is not in the tensed indexical contributed by the psychological mode in
both cases there is a present tense. The difference is that in the first case we perceive
the event and in the second case we remember having perceived the event. But both
experiences are experienced as occurring now.
But on the account that I am defending, there is also a second temporal feature in
every act of remembrance. And this is the tense of the explicit content that is
replicated from the original perception. The explicit content does not merely contain
an indexical referring to the present tense. If we are to account for the second feature
of time-consciousness, degrees of the past tense seem to be involved as well.
Otherwise we could not remember seeing (or hearing) a succession of events. But
the present tense clearly features in the explicit content. Or at any rate this is how it
appears to the present author. It is however notoriously difficult to agree on
phenomenological intuitions. I shall thus leave that particular problem and proceed
to argue that this account does not fall prey to Recanatis first objection.
Based on these considerations, the following complete content of an act of
visually remembering the ball moving suggests itself:
(ii) The red ball is now moving through p3 after having just moved through p1
and p2 and I am now remembering my visual perception of this.
Once again, the contribution to the complete content by the psychological mode is
italicised. It is to be noted that the contribution to the complete content of the
psychological mode in (ii) would be rather complex. It would correctly explain why
a memory is experienced as a present experience and our sense when remembering
of having had a particular perceptual experience of an event as present. Yet this
account does not make the experience into an intended object (Recanati correctly
warns against such a move).
If we look a bit closer at the logical structure of (ii) with respect to tense we shall
see that the complete content would look like this:
(iii) Presently I remember visually perceiving x as present.4
This however leaves us with an apparent problem. For whereas (iii) might do the
phenomenology involved justice, it seems that we end up with conditions of
satisfaction, which specify the time of evaluation for remembered events in the
present. But that is clearly erroneous.
The solution to this problem lies in treating the tensed indexicals as shiftable
indexicals.5 The context of evaluation for the tensed indexical in explicit content is
4
For the sake of simplicity, this account leaves out the complication that the explicit content also contains
a reference to the past tense.
5
I am very grateful to an anonymous referee for suggesting that the problem could be treated this way. I
owe the entire idea that the tensed indexicals in perceptual content could be treated as shiftable indexicals
to him or her.
shifted from the time of the act to a time in the past, in virtue of the explicit content
being embedded in an act of memory. So whereas the explicit content still presents
the person entertaining the content with an event in the present tense, the time of
evaluation is nevertheless located in the past in virtue of the mode in which the
content is entertained.
Philippe Schlenker, one of the originators (cf. Schlenker 2003 and Schlenker
2004) behind the idea of a shiftable indexical, uses the notion to clarify (amongst
other things) what he calls The Historical Present. A narration occurring in the
historical present is characterised by the author using the present tense when
describing a sequence of historical events. Here is an example used by Schlenker
himself:
Fifty-eight years ago to this day, on January 22, 1944, just as the Americans are
about to invade Europe, the Germans attack Vercors. (Schlenker 2004:281)
In this case, the authors use of the present tense clearly denotes an event that is
past relative to the narration of the event. As Schlenker points out, the result is to
present the scene in a particularly vivid way, as if the narrator were observing it
directly (Schlenker 2004:297). The general idea is consequently that when one uses
the historical present, one locates the point of view of the narration in the past, thus
allowing the author to use the present tense in order to refer to past events.
In order to explicate how a present tense can refer to a past event, Schlenker
makes a distinction between the context of utterance and the context of thought. The
general idea is that in narrations using the historical present, the context of thought is
the context in which the narration occurs. The context of utterance however is set
somewhere in the past [], which yields the impression that the (actual) speaker is
present at the scene he is describing (Schlenker 2004: 281). In these cases the
present tense is supplied its semantic value from the context of utterance, and not
from the context of thought. The context is shifted from its normal context in virtue
of the discourse being a narration in the historical present.
There is a very large discussion in the philosophy of language concerning
shiftable indexicals and to what extent they do and can occur in natural languages.
Recanati himself, for example, suggests that tenses should not be construed as
proper indexicals but rather as perspectivals (Recanati 2010: 210). I cannot take a
stand on all the issues involved here, and it seems to me that not much for my
purposes hinges on whether to agree with Schlenker that they are genuine indexicals
or with Recanati that they are perspectivals. What I do believe, however, is that the
general idea behind shiftable indexicals can also be used to illuminate intentional
content.
Schlenker makes a distinction between context of thought and context of
utterance. It is possible to make a similar distinction between context of mode
and context of (explicit) content. The general idea behind this distinction is that
the context of mode is always the context in which a person has an intentional
act of some mode. But the context of content need not be identical with the
context of mode. In an act of memory, the context of content is shifted from
the present to a context located in the past. Similarly, when the psychological
mode is anticipation, the context of content is located in the future. In an act of
J. Almng
5 Conclusions
Recanati has in my opinion correctly argued that Searle is wrong to equate content
with complete content. If the intuitions underlying the discussion of time
consciousness are correct, however, Recanati is mistaken in arguing that explicit
content is temporally neutral. This does not entail that the psychological mode
makes no contribution to the complete content of the act with respect to tense. If
Recanati is correct, a memory of a perceptual experience can in principle have the
same content as the original perception. Recanati attempts to locate the difference
between the complete contents of the acts in the difference between the
psychological modes of memory and perception. This however does not entail that
the explicit content is temporally neutral. I have argued that a theory that posits a
present tense in explicit content even in memories squares better with the
phenomenology involved than Recanatis theory does. I have also tried to explain
how acts of memory can retain a present tense in explicit content and avoid the
objections raised against that idea by Recanati.
Acknowledgments Thanks are due to Alexander Almr, Kent Gustavsson, Ingvar Johansson, Christer
Svennerlind and an anonymous referee for valuable comments.
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