ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses John McDowell's particular conception of perceptual experience, the content of which is portrayed as conceptual, followed by an analysis of the debate concerning conceptual and non-conceptual content. McDowell's claims concerning the conceptual content of perceptual experience are intimately linked to his interpretation of the Kantian dictum, 'Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind'. McDowell takes the fact that experience is already conceptual to be an upshot of Kantian thought and argues that the space of reasons extends all the way out to experience itself. McDowell has been taken to task for his rejection of the possibility of experience in non-human animals. McDowell's views on the difference between human beings and non-human animals where perceptual experience is concerned are intricately linked to his views on rationality, understanding and freedom. McDowell is on the right track when he claims that the conceptual is unbounded.
