The non-conceptual content of perceptual experience: Situation dependence and fineness of grain

I begin by examining a recent debate between John McDowell and Christopher Peacocke over whether the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptua l. Although I ma sympathetic to Peacocke's claim that perceptual content is non-conceptual, I suggest a number of ways in which his arguments fail to make that case. This failure stems from an over-emphasis on the 'fine-grain edness' of perceptual content--a feature that is relatively unimportant to its non-conceptual structure. I go on to describe two other features of per ceptual experience that are more likely to be relevant to the claim that pe rceptual content is non-conceptual. These features are 1) the dependence of a perceived object on the perceptual context in which it is perceived and 2) the dependence of a perceived property on the object it is perceived to be a property of.