ABSTRACT
The discussion of the Critical Realist analysis of experience has so far concentrated upon a defence of the claim that there is a distinctive phenomenal (or sensory) nonconceptual component in experience. In seeing an object such as a tree, I am conscious of phenomenal qualities such as greenness in my experience. These qualities belong to my visual sensations (although I may not appreciate this fact). However, the mere existence of phenomenal states on their own is not sufficient for perceptual experience.1 As Kant observed, unless the understanding is involved in the overall experience, the subject is effectively blind.2
