The perception/cognition distincton: Challenging the representational account

A central goal for cognitive science and philosophy of mind is to distinguish between perception and cognition. The representational approach has emerged as a prominent candidate to draw such a distinction. The idea is that perception and cognition differ in the content and the format in which the information is represented —just as perceptual representations are nonconceptual in content and iconic in format, cognitive representations are conceptual in content and discursive in format. This paper argues against this view. I argue that both perception and cognition can use conceptual and nonconceptual contents and be vehiculated in iconic and discursive formats. If correct, the representational strategy to distinguish perception from cognition fails.