# A Holistic Theory of Perceptual Content **Abstract:** Representationalism is the view that perceptual states are representational—that a perception of red, for example, represents red. This view is very attractive, although naturally incomplete without an account of how perceptual states represent what they do. To date, most representationalists have endorsed atomistic theories of perceptual content. These views are atomistic insofar as they hold that a perceptual state’s content does not depend on its relations to other kinds of perceptual states, but only on its relations to the things it represents. Recently, such atomistic theories have been criticized; some have gone so far as to conclude therefore that perceptual representation is primitive or resistant to informative explanation. In this paper, I develop and defend a novel holistic theory of perceptual content, which holds that a perceptual state’s content depends on that state’s relation to other kinds of perceptual states. I argue that such a holistic account not only avoids the problems that plague atomistic theories, but also paves the way for a naturalistic account of perception. **Authors:** [[Jacob Berger]]