Brandom on Perceptual Knowledge

Abstract According to Brandom, perceptual knowledge is the product of two distinguishable capacities: (i) the capacity to reliably discriminate behaviorally between different sorts of stimuli, and (ii) the capacity to take up a position in the game of giving and asking for reasons. However, in focusing exclusively on the entitlements and commitments of observation reports, rather than on perception itself, Brandom passes over a conception of perceptual experience as a sort of contentful mental state. In this article, I argue that this is a blind spot, which makes Brandom’s account of perceptual knowledge unable to properly accommodate the phenomenon of seeing aspects.