Attention and Sensorimotor Intentionality

Abstract

In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau–Ponty holds that sensory consciousness of place exhibits an indeterminacy that shows it is, in a sense, non-representational. But he thinks this does not preclude its having a kind of intentionality. This chapter offers an interpretation and defense of this view. Directing visual attention involves changes to the phenomenal character of experience that cannot be specified by attributing verbal or imagistic content to it. In that sense the character of experience is non-representational. And partly because our anticipation of future experience is not to be construed in terms of beliefs incorporating sensorimotor conditionals, these attentional changes in experience are not conceivable independently of the exercise of sensorimotor skills. However, experience is assessable as correct or illusory in virtue of having such character. Thus, visual experience has, in virtue of its phenomenal character, a distinctively sensorimotor kind of intentionality.

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