Abstract

If the basic package requires not only the capacity to acquire and use information, but to do so in a sense which involves the ability to represent the world and to have concepts, then it may seem hard to understand how anything but language-users could have the basic package. In that case, either perceptual consciousness does not require the basic package, or else only creatures with language can be perceptually conscious. It is argued that both alternatives should be rejected. There are no good reasons to adopt sufficiently strong assumptions about the relations between information, belief, concepts, and language. Discussions of the contrary views of Evans, Davidson, and others reinforce these points. The relevance of the notion of ‘non-conceptual content’ is also considered.