Representation and Awareness in Perception by Peter Antich

Representation and Awareness in Perception by Peter Antich

Representationalism dominates contemporary philosophy of perception, yet it faces a fundamental challenge: it cannot coherently account for perceptual awareness. This book develops that problem and offers a distinctly phenomenological alternative.

The book’s central argument reveals a structural incompatibility between representation and awareness. Representation requires a vehicle—a bearer of content—while awareness does not. This seemingly simple difference blocks all viable strategies for combining these notions into a unified theory of perception. Through rigorous phenomenological analysis, the author demonstrates that standard accounts of phenomenal character fail to explain how we are directly aware of worldly objects. His constructive proposal develops perception as an intentional relation that is neither representational nor a real relation. This approach dissolves the apparent forced choice between Representationalism and Naïve Realism, opening philosophical space for a view that honors phenomenological insights while avoiding the pitfalls of both dominant frameworks.

Bridging analytic philosophy of mind and phenomenology, Representation and Awareness makes an original contribution to debates about perceptual experience, consciousness, and intentionality. It will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in philosophy of perception, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology.

Peter Antich is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Dominican University New York, USA. He is the author of Motivation and the Primacy of Perception (2021) and Merleau-Ponty and Contemporary Philosophy of Perception (Routledge, 2023).