Bradley's regress and visual content

Błażej Skrzypulec

pp. 155-172

in: Axiomathes 29 (2), 2019.

Abstract

According to the well-known Bradley’s Regress argument, one cannot explain the unity of states of affairs by referring to relations combining objects with properties. This argument has been widely discussed within analytic metaphysics, but has not been recognized as relevant for the philosophy of perception. I argue that the mainstream characterization of visual content is threatened by the Bradley’s Regress, and the most influential metaphysical solutions to the regress argument cannot be applied in the context of visual content. However, I show that a proper solution to Bradley’s Regress can be formulated by taking into consideration features of visual content suggested by empirical research in vision science.