Massimo Grassia

Our perception of external features comprises, among others, functional and phenomenological levels. At the functional level, the perceiver’s mind processes external features according to its own causal- functional organization. At the phenomenological level, the perceiver has consciousness of external features. The question of this paper is: How do the functional and the phenomenological levels of perception relate to each other? The answer I propose is that functional states of specifically perceptual attention constitute the necessary basis for the arising of consciousness in a perceiver. Widely studied within cognitive psychology, perceptual attention is still awaiting a thoroughgoing philosophical treatment. The paper presents and draws upon Anne Treisman’s feature-integration theory of attention (cf. A. Treisman & G. Gelade, “A Feature-Integration Theory of Attention,” Cognitive Psychology, 12, 1980. Pp. 97-136). According to this theory, attentional mechanisms are responsible for the binding of perceptual features into coherent and stable objects of perception. By itself, I will claim, the theory of feature integration does not allow a straightforward reduction of consciousness to the functional processing underlying it. However, on the basis of Treisman’s theory we can produce a methodological argument for endorsing the non-reductivist thesis that attentional states constitute the necessary basis for the arising of consciousness in a perceiver. The paper closes by presenting this argument, according to which the thesis is implied by a unified account of the common representational natures of attentional and conscious states.

In §1 of this paper I will present the two criteria, which I will call respectively the coextensionality and the recognitional criteria of synonymy. An established tendency in the literature is to ascribe to Frege only the recognitional criterion, discounting the coextensionality criterion as inconsistent with some of his other views. My aim in the paper will be to contribute to the reversal of this tendency. First, I wish to show that the recognitional criterion is flawed in a way that makes it unacceptable as a criterion of synonymy and that Frege was aware of this. I will argue, second, that in Frege’s writings a modified version of the coextensionality criterion finds better support than the recognitional criterion. And I will suggest, third, that although there is an inconsistency between some of Frege’s views and the coextensionality criterion, this inconsistency can be explained as a prominent feature of his philosophy, a tension inherent in his goals and views. Finally, in a brief appendix, I will focus on the way in which Frege applied the two criteria in the practice of linguistic analysis, and I will argue that, contrary to the accepted wisdom, within this practice the two criteria are compatible with each other.