本文所關心的問題是：經驗性思想如何可能？根據麥克道爾 (John McDowell, 1996)，經驗以「事物是如此這般的」這種形式表徵了世界，因而經驗具有概念性的命題內容。通過採納其經驗內容，主體便可以獲得有關世界的思想。麥克道爾認為，這種經驗觀才真正地賦予經驗以證成效力，可以解消經驗性思想如何可能之問題。

然而，特拉維斯 (Charles Travis, 2013) 反對麥克道爾的經驗觀，他論證「知覺（經驗）並不具有任何內容可言」。根據特拉維斯，知覺就是把周遭環境 (surroundings) 帶入到視野之中，並以此種方式使主體產生一些關於外在世界的意識，僅此而已。至於經驗性思想如何可能之問題，特拉維斯訴諸主體的專業技術 (expertise) 來說明：主體通過專業技術可以獲得經驗性判斷，在這個意義上，知覺將世界理性地關聯到主體的思想與行動。

本文以麥克道爾與特拉維斯的知覺經驗觀為考察對象，嘗試釐清經驗性思想如何可能之問題以及二位哲學家之間的辯論。然後，本文將試圖論證：基於麥克道爾的經驗觀沒有給予「環境」這個概念足夠的關注，從而使得他的理論遭遇某些難以解釋的案例，因而並不令人滿意；相較之下，特拉維斯的知覺理論要優於麥克道爾的經驗觀。

This thesis engages in the debate regarding the possibilities of perception. McDowell (1996) argues that perceptual experience, which full-fledged rational animals enjoy, is with the passive involvement of capacities that belong to human rationality. According to McDowell, because experiences represent the world to each individual as being a certain way, if we conceive experience as actualizations of conceptual capacities, we would need to credit experiences with propositional content. For example, in perceptual experience, one sees that things are thus and so. It becomes the content of a judgment if he takes the experience at face value. Later McDowell (2008) modifies his early idea and assumes that experiences have intuitional content. Intuitional content is unarticulated but still conceptual. By discursive capacity, one carves visual intuition into a perceptual judgment.

Travis (2013) argues that perceptual experiences are silence and he also argued that conceptual capacities can only be exercised when one is responding to their perceptual experience. According to Travis, visual experience merely brings our surroundings into view and affords us sorts of awareness of them. Perception makes surroundings rationally bear on what the perceiver is to think. More specifically, one with expertise is able to respond to given perceptual experience and tell that things are thus and so.

This thesis examines the McDowell-Travis debate on the possibility of empirical thought by borrowing Conant’s distinction between the Cartesian problematic and Kantian problematic, concluding that the two philosophers, in fact, deal with the Kantian problematic. After presenting and comparing the theories of McDowell and Travis on the nature of perceptual judgment, I will argue that Travis’ theory is superior to McDowell’s for the following reasons. McDowell does not pay sufficient attention to the concept of surroundings (environment) or to the idea of the non-conceptual. I will also argue perception’s task is to connect the non-conceptual and the conceptual.

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McDowell, John (1996). Mind and World: With a New Introduction, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

McDowell, John (1998). Two Sorts of Naturalism. Mind, Value, and Reality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 167-197.

McDowell, John (2008). Avoiding the Myth of the Given. John McDowell: Experience, Norm, and Nature, Jakob Lindgaard (Eds.), Blackwell Publishing: 1-14.

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Nanay, Bence (2017). Philosophy of Perception: A Road Map with lots of Bypass Roads. Current Controversies in Philosophy of Perception, Bence Nanay (Eds.), Routledge: 1-19.

Travis, Charles (2006). Harmony. Thought’s Footing: A Theme in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Clarendon Press, Oxford: 173-211.

Travis, Charles (2013). Perception: Essays after Frege. Oxford University Press.

Travis, Charles (forthcoming). The Move: The Divide, The Myth and Its Dogma, In the Light of Experience: Essays on Reasons and Perception, Johan Gersel, Rasmus Thybo Jensen, Morten S. Thaning and Soren Overgaard, (eds), Oxford University Press.
http://www.academia.edu/7906711/The_Move_The_Divide_The_Myth_And_Its_Dogma