Abstract

The paper analyses the discussion in the last decades on whether perceptions can, as such, justify empirical beliefs, and develops it along two fundamental lines: the nature of perceptual content and the nature of the justifications in play. Starting with Sellars' attack on the «Myth of the given», it examines Davidson's, McDowell's, Peacocke's and Burge's positions. On the one hand, it contends that also creatures that aren't endowed with the relevant concepts can have genuine perceptions; on the other, that only when the latter are conceptualized, they can, as such, justify the corresponding empirical beliefs.