sellars, w. 1956, empiricism & the philosophy of mind
TRANSCRIPT
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P E.
MeehI and WiIfr id Sellars
being absorbed
into
the
physical system
But apparently they
want
their
laws
to be
both effectual and
a t
the same
time
no part
of
the physical
system pp.
2 4 W )
First
a
terminological point. Among the
various
meanings of the word
physical
let us
distinguish the
following for present
purposes:
Physical,: an event or entity is
physical,
if it belongs in the space-
Lime
network.
Physk12:an
event
or entity
s
php*ca12
f
it
is definable in
terms
of
theoretical primitives adequate
to describe
completeIyr the actual
states
though
not necessarily the potentiaIities
of
the universe
before
the appearance of
life.
Now, an cmergentist account (of
the kind
we
have
been construct
ing)
of raw
feds
denies that the latter are physicalx. But
this
in
no way
involve
the denial
that
they are
physicall.
And indeed this
emergentist
account
definitely gives
them
a physical, status. And
if
the
equations
a
=
g(qrr)
b
=
h s , t )
permit the elimination
of
a and
b from the
descriptive function relat-
ing the physicale vakbles q,r,s, and t this fact,
as
we have just seen,
by
no means
involves tbat the
emergent
entities with which the
vaiables and b
a re
associated
mast
also be physicalz.
Whether or not there are any
emergents in
the sense
we
have sought
t o clarify
is
an
empirical question. Our
only
aim
has
bcen
to
show
that Pepper's
formal
demonstration
of
the
impossibility
of
non-
epiphenomena1
emagents is
invalid.
REFERENCE
I Pepper, Stqlien C. Emergence, JournaI of Philamphy,
2 3 :241-45
I926).
wTL#FRID
SELLARS
Em irjCisnz and the
Philosophy
o Mind
I. An Ambiguity in Sense-DatumTheories
I
PRESUME that no philosopher who has attacked the philosophical
idea
of
givenness or
t o
use the HegeIian
term
mmediacy, has intended to
deny that
there
is a difference between inferring that
something
is
the
case and, for ample, seeing
it
to be the
mse I f
the m given
referred
merely
to what
is
observed
as
being observed,
ar
perhaps
to
a
proper
subset
of
the
things
we
are
said
to
determine by
observa-
tion,
the existence of data would
be
as
noncontroversial
as the
exisfence of
phiFowphica1 perplexities.
But,
of
course, this just isn't
so. The phrase the
given as
a piece
of
p0fessional~istemolo~ca1-
slgoptaTk carries
a subsbntiaf
theoretical
commitment,
and one can
deny
that there are
datayy hat
anything is,
in this sense,
given
without flying
in
the
face of reason.
Many
things have been mid to be ' venW:
sense
contents
material
objects, universals,
propositions, real
connections, first
principles, even
givenness itself. And
there is, indeed, a certain way
of
construing the
situations
which
philosophers
analyze
in
t h e
terms
which
can
be
s id ta be the
framework
of givenness. This framework
has been
a
common
fcature of
most of the major systems
of philosophy, includ-
ing,
t~ use a Kantian
turn
of
phrase,
both
'%gmatic rationalism
and
skeptical
empiricism.
It has,
indeed been so p m s i v e that
few
if
any,
philosopliers
have een ltogether free
of it;
certainly not: Kant,
and, I
would
argue, not even
Hegel, that great
foe
of immediacy.
Often what
is
attzcked nnder its
name
are only specific vaticties
of
given. Inkuitclcl First
principles and synthetic necessary co~mccions
WE
This r p c r
was i r i t
as
the
University
of
h n d n n
Spccinl
Ixlch~rc~:n
I'l~ilosophy or
1955-Th
on March 1, 8,
and
1 5 1'156, i~titlcr llc titlc
'I'ltc Myth of
tllc
Civcii: 'l'l~rccLcct~ircs on E~ip ir i r~s mnd ~ l i c 'liil{~st~pliy
t
Mind.
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KMPI RI CI SM
AND THE
PHILOSOPKIY OF
MIND
were
the first to come under atkack. And many who today attack the
whole idea of givennessV-and they are an increasing number-are
really only attacking sense data. For they transfer to other items, say
physical objects or relations of appearing, the characteristic fcatlrres of
the given. If, however, I begin my argument with a n attack on sense
datum theories, it is only as a first
step
in
a
general critique of the
entire framework
of
givenness.
2,
Sense-datum theories characteristically distingu ish bctween
an
act
of
awareness
and, for example, the color patch which is
its
ohject.
The act
is
usually called
sensing.
Classical
exponents
of the theory
have
often
characterized these acts as phenomenologicaIly simple
and not further analyzable. But other sense-datum theoris s-some
of
them
with
an equal
claim to
be
considere d classical expon ents7'-
h ve
held
that sensing is analyzable.
And
if
some
philosophers seem
to have thought that if sensing is analyaable, then i t can't be an
act.,
this has by
no
means been the general opinion. There
are, indeed,
deeper roots for the doubt that sensing (if there is
such
a
thing
is
an act, roots which
can
be traced to one of two lines of thought tangled
together in classical
sense-datum theory.
For the moment,
however,
I
shall simpIy assume that however complex (or simple) the fact that
x
is
sensed may be,
it
bas the form, whatever exactly it
may
be, by
virtue of
which for x
to be
senscd is for
it
to
be
the object of an
act.
Being
a
sense
datum,
or sensum,
is a
relational property of the
item that is
sensed.
To refer
to
a n item which is sensed in
a
way
which does not entail that it is sensed, it is ilecessary to use some
other locution. Sensibile
has
the disadvantage that it implies that
sensed
items
could
exist
without
being sensed,
and
this is
a
matter of
controversy
among sense-datum
theorists. Sense
content is,
perhaps,
as
neutral a term as
any.
There
appear to be varieties of sensing, referred to by some
as visual
sensing, tactual sensing,
etc.
ancl by others as dire tly seeing, directly
hearing, etc. But it is not clar whethcr these are species of
sensing
in any ftill-blooded sense, or whether
x
is visually senscd am oun ts
to
no
more than x is a color patch which is sensed,
x
is directly
hcard
than
x
is a sound whiclz is sensed and so on. In the
latter
case, being a
visual
sensing
or
a direct hcaririg would bc a rc la t ion~l
property
of
an
act
of
sensing, just
as
being a sense datum
is
n
rclational
prrrlwrty
of
a
scnqe
contcnt.
3
Now
i we l xa r
in mind
that
the point of thc epistemological
category of the given is, presumably, to explicate
thc
idea that empiri-
cal knowledge rests on a 'foundation' of non-inferential knowledge
of
matter
of
fact,
w
may well experience a fccling
of
surprise on noting
that according to sense-datum theorists, it is particulars that are sensed.
For
what
is
known,
even
in
non-infcrential knowledge,
is
facts rather
than particulars, items
of
the form something's being thus-and-so or
something's standing
in a certain relation
to something
clse.
It would
seem,
then, that the sensing of sense contents cannot collstitute knowl-
edge, inferential or non-inferential; and if so,
we
nlay well ask,
what
light
does the
concept
of
a sense datum throw
on
the 'foundations of
empirical knowledge?' The sense-datum theorist, it would
secm, must
choose between saying
a) It: is particulars
which are sensed. Sensing is
not knowing.
T h e
existence of sense-da does no t IogicaIIy imply the existence of
knowledge.
or
(b)
Sensing
is
a
form of knowing.
It is facts
rather than particulars
which are sensed.
On alternative (a) the
fact
that
a
sense content
was
sensed would be
a
non-cpistemic fact about the sense content.
Yet it
would
be
hasty
to conclude that this alternative precludes any logical connection be-
tween
th e sensing of sense contents a nd
the
possession of non-inferential
knowledge.
f i r
even if
thc
sensing of sense contents did not logically
imply the existence of non-infcren tial knowledge, the converse might
well be true. Thus, the non-inferential knowledge of particular matter
of fact might I6gicaIIy imply the existence of sense data (for example,
seeing
tha t
a certain
physical
object is red
might
logically imply
sens
in a
red sense
content) even though the sensing of a red sense con-
tent werc not itself a cognitive fact
a n d
did not imply the possession
of non-inferential knowledge.
On the second alternative, (b), the sensing of sense contents would
logically imply the
existence
of
non-infcrcntigl
knowledge for the
simple reason that it WOII~C~
c
th is ktiowlcdgc. Rut,
oncc s p i n ,
it
would
I)c facts rathcr Ihan 1~7rticul;lrswl~icli uc
acnsccl.
4. Now it migllt accni 1hi1I wllcrl c clrlflnor~lcd y Illis clioicc,
thc
scnsc-dati~m llcnrisl
hccks Io
liilvc 11;s r.ilke
~ ~ t l t l:bI it.
I 2 ~ 1 i ' II llnrac-
tcristic:tlly ir~sists
hot11 Illrrl
s c ~ ~ s i r ~ g
s s
k ~ r i l w i ~ ~ ~
r r r
t l ~ t
i is
p:~rt icr~-
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EMPIRICIShl AND TH PHILOSOPHY OF
MIMD
lars which
are
sensed.
Yct
his position
is
by no means
as
hopeless
as
this formulation suggests. For the 'having' and the 'eating'
can be
combined without logical nonsense provided that
he
uses the word
know
and, correspondingly, the word given
in two
senses. He
must
say something like the following:
The
non-inferential knowing on which our world picture rests
is
the
knowing that catair1 items,
e.g.
red
sense
contents,
arc
of
a
certain
character, e.g. red. m n
such
a
fact
is non-inferentially
known
about
a
sense content,
I
will
say
t ha t
the
sense conten t is sensed as being, e.g.
red . I
will then
say
that
a sense
content is
sensed (full
stop) if
it
is
sensed as eing
of
a certain character, e.g. red. Finally,
I
will say
of
a sense content
that
i t
is nown if
it is sensed (full s t op ) ,
to
empha-
size that sensing is a cognitive or episternic fact.
Notice that given these stipulations, it is logically necessary that:
if
a s ns content
be
sensed it
be
sensed as being
of
a certain character,
and
that
if
i t be
sensed
as being of
a
certain character the fact that
it is of this characte~
e
non-inferentially
known.
Notice also that the
being
sensed
of
a
sense content would
be
knowledge
only
in
a
stipu-
lated
sense of
know . To say of
a sense
c o n t e n t 4
color
p t c h , f o r
example-that it
was
'known' would
be
to
say
that some
fact
about it
was non-inferentially known, e.g. that it was red. Thi s stipulated
use
of
know
would, however, receive
aid and
comfort from the fact
that
there is, in ordinary usage, a sense of know in which it
is
followed
by
a noun or descriptive phrase which refers
to a
particular, thus
Do you know John?
Do
you know
the
President?
Because
these questions
are equivalent
to Arc
you acquainted
with
John?
and
Are
you acquainted
with
the
President?
the pfirase
knowledge by acqua intance reconlm ends itself as a useful inetaphor
for this stipulated sense of know and like other useful metaphors, has
congealed into a technical term.
5
We have seen t ha t
the
fact that a sense content
is a datum
if,
indeed, there are such
facts)
will logically imply th at some one lws non-
inferential knowledge only if to
say
that
a sense
content
is
given is
contextually defined in terms
of
non-inferential knowledge of
a
fact
about this sense content. If this is not clearly realized or
held
in mind,
sct~sc-datum
heorists
may
come
to
think of the givenncss
of
scnse
cot cnts IS t 1 ~ asic or prin~itiveconccpt of the scnsc-
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EMPIRICISM
ND TH PHILOSOPHY OF
MIND
irreducible and knowings, they have without exception taken them
to
be fundamental
in
another sense.
6. For
they have taken
givenness to be
a
fact
which presupposes
no
learning, no
forming
of associations, no sett ing up
of
stimulus-response
connections.
In
short,
i ey
have tended to
equate
sensing
sense
contents
with eing conscioris,
as a person
who has been h i t on the head
is
not
coi~sciouswhereas a new
born
babe, alive a n d kicking, is conscious.
They would admit,
of
course, t h a t t h e
ability
to know that a person
namely oneself,
is now, at a
certain time, feding
a
pain,
is
acquired
and does presuppose a (complicated) process of concept formation.
But, they would insist,
to
suppose that the siinple ability to feel a pain
or see a color, in short, to sense sense contents, is acquired and involves
a process of coilcept formation, would be very
odd
indeed.
But
if
a
sense-&turn philosopher
takes
the ability to sense sense
contents to be unacquired,
he
is clearly precluded from offering an
analysis of x senses sense
content
which prcsuppuses acquired abilities.
I t follows that
he
could analyze
x
senses
red
sense
content
s
s
x
non
inferentially knows th t s is red
only
if
he is
prepared to admit
that
th e ability to havc
such
non-inferential knowledge
as
that, for example,
a red
sense
content is red, is itself unacquircd. And this brings
us
face
to face with the
fact
that most empirically minded philosophers are
strongly inclined to think that all chssificatory consciousness, all knowl-
edge
tha t
something
is thus-and-so
or, in logicians' jargon,
a11
s u b s u m p
tion
of
particulars under universals, involves learning, concept forina-
tion, even the use of symbols. I t is clcar from the above analysis, there-
fore, that classical sense-d atum theories-I emphasize tlle adjective, for
there
are other, 'heterodox,'
s ens e -datk
theories
to
he
t ken
into
ac-
count-are confronted
by an
inconsistent triad inade up of
the
follow-
ing three propositions:
A . X senses red sense conten t s entails
x
non-inferentially
kllows that
is
red.
13.
T h e
ability
to sense
sense contents is unacquired.
C. The ability to know
facts
of
the form x
is is acquired.
A
and
B
together cntail not-C;
B
and
C entail
not-A;
A
and
C
entail
not-B.
Once
the classical sense-datum theorist faces up to the
fact
that
A,
R,
ancl C
do
form
an inconsistent triad, which of thein will he
c1ux)sc
to
abandon?
1 He
can
abandon
A,
in which case the sensing of sense contents
becomes a noncognitive
fact-a
noncognitive fact, to be sure which
may be a necessary condition, even a
logicaIIy
necessary condition, of
non-inferential knowledge, but a fact, nevertlieless, which
cannot
constitute this knowledge.
2 He can abandon B,
in
which
case
he must pay the price O
cutting
off
the concept of
a sense d a tu m from its
connection with
our ordinary talk about sensations, feelings, afterimages, tickles and
itches, etc., wIlicI~
are
usually thought by sensedatum theorists to
be i ts common sense counterprts.
3
But
to
abandon
C is
to do violence to the predominantly
nomii~alistic roclivities of the empiricist tradition.
7.
It
certainly begins to look as though the classical concept of a sense
datum
were
a
mongreI
resulting from a
crossbreeding
of
two ideas:
(1) The idea that there
are
certain inner episodes-e.g, sensations
of
red or
of C which can
occur
to human beings (and brutes} with-
out
any
prior process of learning
or
concept formation; and without
which it would in some
sense
be impossible to
see,
for example, that
the
facing
surface
of a p11ysicaI object is red and triangular, or hcar
th a t a certain physical sound is C .
2) T h e
idea
that
there are
certain
inner
episodes
which
are
the
non-inferentiaI knowings that certain items arc,
for
example, red
or C ; and that these episodes are
the
necessary conditions of em-
pirical knowledge as providing the evidence for all other empirical
propositions.
And
I
think that once
we arc
on the Iookout
for them,
it is
quite
casy
to
see
how
these
two ideas
camc
to
be
Mended together in
traditional cpistcmology.
T h e first
i d a clearly arises
in the
at tempt
to explain the
facts
of
sense perception
in
scientific style. How does
it happen tlmt people can
have
t h e experience which they
describe
by saying
It is as thougl~
were
seeing a red and triangular physical
object when either therc is no physicaI object ther e at all, or, if iller e
is,
i t is ~leithcred nor triangular?
Thc
explanation, roughly, posits tha t
in
evcry
case
in which a
pcrsou
has
a n
cxpcrieucc
of this kind, w h d h c r
vcricli~alor
not,
lic Ilas w h a l
is
cnllctl sousakio~~ r iinl)rr.ssionl 'of
a rccl hinnglc.' l l ic corc ida i
is
Ili:it tlrc ~)roxiru:itco~usu f l;11c1i
sensatiotl
is
o i ~ l y lr
l f ~ e
rrosl
1,;1sl 11ro~1fl111~l o l~ l
y
t l w
I>i cscrlcc
in
t l ic ~lcigl~l,nrl~ootlf l ~ c >crrcivcl. t 11 rctl n ~ i t l I r111~uiir ~ lrysic;~l
-
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Wilfrid Sellars
object;
and that
while baby
say
can have the sensation
of a
r e
triangle' without either s ing or sccming
to
see th t th facing side
of a physical
object
is
red and
triangular, there usually looks to
adults,
to e
a pllysical object
with a
red
and
triangular
facing
surface,
when
they
are
caused
t o
have a 'sensation
of
a red triangle'; while without
such
sensation, no such experienoe can be
bad.
I
shall
have
a
gre t
deal
more
to
say
about
this
kind
o
'explanation'
of perceptual situations
in
the
course
of my
argument.What 1
want ta
empl~asize or
the
moment, however, is
that,
as
far
as
the above formu-
lation
goes,
there is no
reason to
suppose
t l u t having
the sensation of
r e d
triangle is
a cognitive
or epistemic
fact.
There is, of
course,
a
temptation to assimiIate having a sensation of a red triangle to
thinking
of
a celestial city
and
to attribute to the former
the
epistemic character, the
'intcntionality'
of
the
latter. B u t this tempta-
tion could be resisted, and it could be held that
having a
sensation
of
a
red
triangle is
a
hct
S U ~
ene ,
neither epistemic
nor
physical,
having its
own logical
grammar.
Unfortunately, the
idea
that
there
are such things as sensations of
red triangles-in
itself, s wc: hall
see
cjuite legitimate, thougll
not
without its
p ~ z z l e ~ se e m s
o fit
the
requirements af
another
and less
fortunate,
line of thought so well
that
it has almost invariably
been
distorted
to
give the latter a rein-
forcement witl~out
which it
would
Iong ago have colIapsed. This
an-
fortunate, but
familiar,
line of thought Tuns as foIlows:
The
seeing that the facing surface of a
physiml
object
is
red
and
triangular is
a
veridical
member
of
a
class
of
experiences-let us call
them
'ostensiMe
secingsr-some of the rnen~bersof which are non-
veridical; and there is no inswible Izallrnark which guarantees that
any such
experience
is veridical. To suppose that the non-inferen tial
knowledge on which
our
world picture rests
consists
of sucll
osten&ble
seeings,
hearings, etc, as f iappc~~o be veridical i s to place empirical
knowledge on too precarious a
footing-indeed,
to opcn the door to
skepticism by making a niockery of t he word knowledge
in
the phrase
empirical know2edge.
Now
it
is,
of
course,
possible to delimit subdasses of ostensible see-
ings, hearings
etc.,
which
are
progressively less precarious, i.e. more
reliable,
by specifying the
circumslances
in
which they
occur,
and the
vigilance
of
the perceiver.
Bn
the
possibility
that any given
ostcnsi1)lc
seeing,
hearing,
etc.
is nm-veridical
can never be en
irely d i m
ns crl.
1J~crcforc
iven that
the
foundation of empirical knowlccFgc cnnuok
mrlsist
of the verictical members of
a
class not all
t11e
m a r n l ~ ~f
2T f l
EMFIRICXSM AND
THE EELOSOPEW OF
MLND
which re veridical and from which the non-veridical rnanbers
cannot
be
weed
out by inspection, this foundation cannot consist of such
items
as
seeing
that the facing
surface of
physical object is
red and
triangular.
Thus baIdly
puf
scarcely anyone would accept this conclusion. Rather
they
would take the
contrapositive of the
argument, and reason that
since
the
foundation of empirial knowledge is the non-inferential
knowledge
of
such
facts,
it does consist of members of a
class which
contains
non-veridicaI members But
before
it: is
thus
baldly
put, it
gets
tangled
up with the first line
of
thought. The idea springs t
mind that sensations of
red
triangles
have
exactly the
virtues
which
ostemi bIe
seeings
of r e triangularphysical
surfaces
lack. To begin with,
the
grammatical
similarity of kensation
of
a
red
triangle' to 'thought
of a celestial city is interpreted to mean or better
gives
rise to the
presupposition, that sensations belong in the same generat pigeonhole
as
thoughts-in
short, are
cognitive facts.
Then t is noticed
that
sensations
are
ex
hypothesi
far
more intimately related
to
mental
proc-
esses
than external physical objects. I t would
seem easier
to get at
a red
triangle of
which
we are having
a
sensation, than to get
at
a
red
and triangular physical surface. But,
above
all,
i t is the
fact
that
it doesn't make
sense
to speak of unveridical sensations which strikes
these philosophers, though for it to strike them
as
it does they must
overlook the fact that if it m a b
sense
to
speak
of
an
experience
as
W
it must correspondingly make sense to speak
of
it as unveridi-
d
et.
me emphasize
that
not
a T
sensedatum theorists-even of
the
classical type-have
been
gudty of all these confusions; nor are these an
the confusions
of which sense-datum
theorists have been guilty.
I
shall
have more
f a
say an this topic later. B u t the confusions
I
have men-
tioned are central to the tradition, and will serve
my present
purpose.
For the upshot of blending all these ingredients
together
is
the
idea
that a sensation
of
a red triangle is the very
paradigm of empirical
knowledge. And I think that it can readily be
seen
tha t this idea
lmds
straight
to the
ortl~odox ype
of sense-datum
theory
and
accounts
for
the
perplexities
wliich arise when one hies to think i t
through.
11.
Ailetl~erLanguage?
8. I shall now cxa~llinc ricfly a heterodox s u g p t io n 1)y, for cxnmplc,
Aycr I 2) to tllc cfl~'ct
hat
rliscotrrse ab o ~ ~ lense r l : ~: ~ s so 1 0 sl*c;lk,
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8/11/2019 Sellars, W. 1956, Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind
6/39
another language, a language contrived by the epistemologist, for situa-
tions which the
plain man
describes
by means
of such l o ~ ~ t i o n s
s Now
the book
looks
green to
me'
and There seems
to
be a r e d and
triangular object otm
there.
The
core
of this suggestion is the idea
th t
the
vocabulary of sense data embodies no increase
in
the content
of
descriptive discourse,
as over
and
against
the
plain
man's language
of physical obi& in
Space
and Time, and
the
properties they
have
and
appear
to have. For it holds that sentences of the
form
X
presents
S with
a +
scnse
datum
are
simply
stipulated
to
have
the
same force as sentences of the form
X ooks
+
to s.
Thus
The
t om to presents S with bulgy xe
sense-daturn
would be
the contrived counterpart of The tomato looks rod
and
bulgy to S
and
would
mean exactly
what
the latter
means for
thc
simple reason
that
it was stipulatd to do
so.
As
an
aid
to
explicating
this
suggestion, I
am going
to
make
use
of
a certain picture.
I
am going to start with the idea of code,
and
I
am
going
to enrich this notion until the d e s I am talking about are
no ongermere codes. W~cther ne
wants
to a I L these enriched codes
codes at
all
is a matter which
I
shall
not
attempt
to
d d e .
Now a code,
in the scnse in which sllall use the term,
is a
system
of
symbols each of which represents
a
complete
sentence.
Thus, as
wc
initially view
the
situation, there are two
characteristic features
of
a code: (1) Each
d e ymbol
s a unit; th parts of a code
symbol
are
not
themselves
code
qmbols.
(2 )
Such
logical
relations
as
obtain
among code symbols are completely parasitid; they derive entirely
rom logical reIations
among
the sentences they repraent.
Indeed, to
speak about logical relations among codc sjlmbols is
a
way of
ta+ing
which
is introduced in
terms
of the logical relations among
the sen-
tences
they represent.
Thus,
f
0 &nds for Everybody
on
board
i~ ick and A?' or Somebody on hoard is sick, then
A
would
follow from 0 n the sense that
the
sentence qresenkscl by A
fdlows rom the sentence represented Iby 0 .
Let
me bwn to modify this austere
conception of
a code.
There
s
no reason
why
a
code symbol might not
have
parts which, withoat
bccoming full-fledged symbols on their own,
do
play
a
rolc i t1 fllc
systmn.
T'hns they
might
play
the role
of
mnemonic
rFcviccs serving to
I M I ~ in
mind of fmtnrcs
of
the
scntcnw~ cpresmtctl
by
he sy~nlmls
of which they are parts. For examplc, the
code
symbol for Sommne
on
b a r d is sick might conbin
the
letter S
a
m i n d ns
of
the
word
sick, and, perhaps,
the
reversed letter E to remind those of
us
w11o
haw a
background in
logic of the word
someone. Thus, the
flag for
Someone an
board
is sick might
be
'3 5.'
Now
thc suggestion at
wliich
I
am
obviously driving is
that
someone
might
introduce
so-called
sendatum sentences as d e ymbols or 'flags, and introduce the
vocables and @tables
they
cotltain
to
stme
the
role
of reminding
us
of certain features of the
scnterlces
in
ordinary
perceptual discourse
which
the
flags as
whole7
represent. In particular, the role
of
the
voable or
printable
sensc datum wonId
be
that of jndimti~lg hat
the
s p h l i x c d
sentence contains
the context . looks , he
vocable
or
printable
red
that
the correlated
sentence contains the
contcxt . ooks red
. .
and
so
on.
9.
Now to take this conaption of sense
datum
'sentenoes' seriously
is of
course,
to
take
scriausly
thc
idea
that
t h m
are no independent
logical relations betwain sensedatum 'sentences.' I t
looks s
though
there were such
independent
logical relations,
for
these
sentences' look
like
sentences, nd thcy
have
as
prop
parts
vocahles or pintables
which
function in
ordinary usage as
l o g i d words. Certainly if sensedatum
talk is
a code,
it is a code which is
easily
mistaken
for a
language proper.
]Let m e llustrate. A t
fitst
sight it m h i n l y seems that
A. T h e omato pram& S with
a
red sense datum
entails
both
B.
%here
are
red
sense
d t
and
C.
h e
omato
prwents
S
wid1
a
sense datum which has some specific
shadc of
red.
This, however, on the kind
of v m
I am considering, would
be
a
mistake.
(B) would follow-wen
in
the invwted commas
sense
of
'follows'
appropriate
to code
s~rmbls-from (A)
only h n s c
(B) is
the
flag
for P ) ,
Something looks
r d o somebody,
which docs
follow
from a), Tlic tomato looks rctl
to
Joncs 'k l l ich is
rcprcsci~t.cd n
the code by
( A ) .
And C)
ni~lrl follow'
fro111
( A ) , ill sljiic
of nlq,c;lr-
anccs,
only if
C )
crc tllc
f l :~g
or
:I
SUH l c ~ ~ c
llirll
Irllluws
froill
1).
I s11all Imvc
tawrc
i o
s:~y
iltot~i llis cx;krt~pIc ll 8 ~ I I O I I I V I I 1 1 1 ~ p i 1 1
to x strcwctl 11ow is t l r :~ t to wr r y old Ihis
vivw
nritairlr~~llyrrrr
raast
d a y
l o s1ic11von11)lt:s
wl pril~elllw os cllr~t li l
,'
ir, ' rrtl, rrjlor,
-
8/11/2019 Sellars, W. 1956, Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind
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EMPIRICISMAND THE PHILOSOPHY OF
MIND
miimson,
d&erminabIe,
detaminatq all, 'some, exists, etc
etc., s they
=cur
in
se~lsedatum alk, the full-blooded s t a tus
of
their
counterparts in ordinary
usage.
They are rather
clues which
serve to
remind
us which
sense-datum 'flag'
it would
be proper to fly
along
with which other scnsedatum 'flags.' Thus, the vocables which make
up tbe
hvo
'flags'
(D)
All
sensedata
are red
and
E) ome sense
data
are not red
remind
us of the
genuine logica1 incompatibility
ktween, for example,
{I;)
All elephants
are
gr y
and
G)Some
elephants
are
not
grey
and
serve,
thedore as
clue
to the impropriety
of
flying these two
flags together.
For the sentences
they symbolize are, presumably,
8) Everything looks
red
to everybody
and
c) There
is s color other than red
which
something looks to
s ome
body to
have,
and
these
are
inmpatib1e.
But one would
have
to be cautious in
using
these clues.
Thus,
from
the fact that:
it is
proper
t o infer
H)
ome
elephants
have
a
determinate
shade of
pink
from
{I)
Some
elephants are pink
it would clearly
be
a
mistake
to
infer
that
the right
to
fly
K) Some
sense
data are pink
carries with it the right t fly
(L) Some sense data have
determinate shade
af pink.
9.
Rut
if sense-datum
sentences
are rally
sense-datum 'sentences'-i.e.
code
flags-it follows, of course, that sensdakurn talk neitlaer
clarifies
nor explains facts of
the
form x looks g
to S
or x is
4.
That it would
appear to
do
so
would
be bemuse
it
would
take
an
almost
superhuman
effort
to
keep from taking the vocables
and
printabla which occur in
the code (and let
me
now add to our earlier Fst the m b l e directly
known ) to be words
which
if homonyms of words in
ordinary
usage,
hnvc tlteir ordinary sense, and which, if invented,have
a
meaning
spcci-
ficcl
ly
tllcit
rcllation to the ot1ms. One
would
be constantly tanptcrl,
that is to treat sensedatum
flags
as
though
they were sentences in a
theory and
senssdatum taIk as
a language which
g e t s its
use by
coordi-
nating
sense-datum
sentences with
sentences
in ordinary perception talk,
as rnoIecuIe talk gets its
use by
coordinating sentences about popula-
tions o f
moIecuIes with
talk about the pressure of gases
on th
walls
of their containers. After
all,
x
looks
red
to
S
=
there
is class
of
red
sense
data
which
belong to x, and
are
sensed by
S
has t
least
supdcial raemblmce
to
g exerts pressure on w there is a class
of
molecules
which
make
up
g,
and
which
are
bouncing
off
w,
resemblance which becomes
wen
mme striking once it
is
granted
that the furrner is not an analysis
of
x looks red to S
n t m s
of sense
data
Therc is,
therefore,
.reason to believe that it
is
the fact that both
codes and theories are
contrived
systems which
are
under
the
control
of the Ianguage with
which
they are
coordinated, which
has given aid
and comfort
to the
idea that
sense-datum talk
is another language
for
ordinary discourse about
perception.
Yet
although
the logical re-
lations between sentences in a theoretical Tanguage are, in
an
imporhnt
sense, under the
control of logical rcla.tions
between sentcnca
in the
o h t i m anguage, neverBeless
within
the
framework of this con-
trol, the theohcat language
has an
autonomy which contradicts
the
very idea of
a
code. If this essential difference
b e h ve n
theories and
codes
is overlooked,
one
may
be
tempted
to
try
to
e t
his
mke
and
have it. By
thinking
of scnsedatum talk as merely another Janguagc,
one
draws on
the
fact that codes have no surplus value. By thinking of
sense-datum talk
as
illuminating the languageof
appearing,
one
draws
on the
fact that
theoretical languages, though
contrived,
and
depend-
ing for
their
meaningfulness on a coordination with the language of
observation,
have
an expl n tory flmction. Unfortunately, these
two
characteristics are
incompatible; for
it is
just because
theorics
hnvc
surplus
valac
that thcy can provide
explanations.
No
one,
of coursc,
wlia thinks-as,
for example, docs Aycr-of the
cxistcncc of
anst: dnhl aa CIItailing the existmcc
of
'dirwt k~lowlculgc,
would
wish to
;by
Illat sc~lscdata arc
thcorctic;ll
cutitiCs.I t collld
scarcely hc a tF~llnrctilaFI:td t l ~ : ~ tnnl dircctly
kllowing
tIut r ccrhrin
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EMPIRICISM
ND
THE PHILOSOPHY
O
MWl3
sense content is red. On the other hand the idea that sense ontents
are
theoretical mtities
is
not
obviously absurd--
absurd as
to preclude
the ahovc interpretation of
the
plamibility
of
the another-language
approach.
For v n
those who introduce thc
expression
sense con-
tent by means of the context
'
is directly know11
to
be . may
fail
to
keep this
fact in mind when
putting
this expression to use-for
cxamyle,
by developing
the
idea
that physical
objects
and
prsons
alike
are patterns of
sense
contents. In such a
spccific context, it
is possible
t o
forget
that sense
contents,
thus introduced,
are essentially
sense data
and not merely items which exemplify
sense
qualities. Indeed,
one
may
men Iapse into
thinking
of
the
s nsing of sensc
contents,
the
givenness
of sense datar as
non-epistemicfacts.
I think it
fair
to say that
thos
who
offer the another-language in-
terpretation of smx data find the illumination it provides to consist
primarily in the fact
that in the
language of sense
data, physical objects
are patterns
of
sense conbts,
so
that, viewed in this framework, there
is no iron
curtain
between
the
knowing mind and the physical
world.
Jt is
to
elaborating
plausible
i f schematic) translations of physical-
object statements
into statements
about: sense contents,
rather
than
ta
spelling
out the force
of
such sentences
as
Scnse content s is directly
known
to he red, tlmt the greater part of their
phi1osophical
ingenuity
has
becn
directed.
Howcvcr
this may
be,
one thing can be said with confidence. If the
language of sense data
w r
rnerely a code, a notational device, then
thc cash value of any plidosophical darification it might provide
must
lie
in
its
ability
to
illuminate
logical
relations
within
ordinary
discourse
about physical objects and our perception of them. Thus, the fact if
it were a fact)
that
a d e
xn
be constructed for ordinary
pmqption
talk which Speaks' of
a
relation of identity
between
the compnmts
I('scnse
data )
of minds and
of
things, wo~ildpresumably have as
its cash valuc the insight that ordir~ary iscourse about
physical
objects
and
perceivers
could
( in
principle)
bc constructed fro111
sentences
of
the
form There looks
to
be
a
physical objcct with a red and triangular
facing surface
over
there (the
counterpart
in ordinary language of the
basic
expressioi~s
of
the code).
T
more traditional
terms, the
clarifica-
tion
wolrfd consist
in making
manifcst the
fact that persons and tl~ilrgs
arc
alikc logical consh~ct ions
ut of looking or appc;lrings (not
a p p r -
: ~ ~ ~ c c s l ) .nt any claim l o this
cffect
soor1 mns into instzpcr~ldc iifi-
culties
which
become
apparent
once
the
role of
'leaks or
appears
is
understood. And
it is to an emmination of this
role that I now turn.
111.
h e
Logic
of 'Looks'
10. Before
turning aside to examine
the suggestion
that the
language
of sense
data
is another language for the situations described by the
so-called
l a n p g e
of
appearing,
I
had
conduded
that
classical
sense-
datum
theories when pressed
reveal tl~emselvesto
bc
thc result: of
a
mimating
of two ideas: 1)
The
idca
that
thcrc arc
ccrtain
inner
episodes, e.g. the
sensation
of
a
red
triangle or of a
C $
sound,
which
occur to human beings and brutes
without
any prior process of Team-
ing or concept formation, and without which it would-in sonte sense-
be impossible
to see far example, that tlie
facing
surface of a
yllysical
object is
red
and triangular, or hcar t h t
a
n physiml sound is C ;
(2) The
idca that
therc
are certain
inner
episodes
which are
the
non-inferential knowfngs that, for
example, a
certain item
is
red and
triangular, or, in the case of sounds Cg which
inncr
episodes are the
necessary
conditions of empirical knowledge as providing the evidence
for
all other empiriml
propositions. If
this diagnosis
is
correct a
reason-
able
next step would
be
to examine
these
twa ide s and
determine how
that
which survives
criticism
in each is properly
to
be cornbilled with
the other. Clearly we would have t o come to grips with the idea of
inner episodes, for this s common
to
lmth.
Many who attack the
idea
of the given
seem to
have thwght that
the centraI mistake en~beddedn this idea s
exactly
the
idca that
there
are
inner
episodes,
whether
thoughts
or
so-called
immediate
e x p i -
ences, to
whicll e ch of us has privileged
access.
I shall
argue that this
is just
not so, and that the Myth
of
th
Given
c ar 1 be
displled with-
out
resortingto the crude
vcrificationimsor
aperationalisms characteris-
tic
of the
more dogmatic
forms of recent empiricism. Then there are
those who hile
they
do
not
reject the idea of inner
cpisodes find
the
Myth of the Given to consist in the idea
that
knowledge of that cpi-
sodes
furnishes prerniscs on which cmpiriral knowledge rcab
as on
a
foundatian. nut
whilc this idea
has indeed, been the most
widcsl,rcad
form
of
t l ~c
Myfi .
it
is
far
from
constituting its
esscncc.
1l:vcrylliing
llingcs on why tllcsc plrilosolhlcrs rcjcct it. If,
for
cmmplc, i l is on tltc
gnmntl
that
tl~cc ;a~~iag
f :Baagungc
s
a public p r p r o s s wliir.11~m)cccds
in
a domain
of
ptlhlk
c.)lrjtx-ts11t 1 is
govcrnccl
by ptrhlic s:utc.tions,
so
tlatt
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8/11/2019 Sellars, W. 1956, Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind
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private episodes-with the amption of
a
mysterious
nod
in their direc-
tion-must needs
escap the net of rational
dismrse ,
then, while these
philosophers are
immune to the
farm of
the myth which has flowered
in
sensedatum
theories, they
have
no defense
against
th myth in
the
form of the givenness of such facts as
that physical
object x
looks
red
to
person S a t
time t,
or that
thac looks to person
a t time
to e
a
red
physical object
over
these.
It
will
be
useful
to
pursue
the
Myth
in
this direction for a while before more general issues
are
raised.
11. Philosophers have found it easy to suppose that
such
a sentence
4s The tomato
looks
red to
Jones says that a
certain triadic relation,
looking or appearing, obtains among a physical object, a person, and a
quality.
A
ooks to
S
is
assimilated to x gives
y
to 2 -or,
better,
since
giving
is strictly speaking, an action
rather
than a relation-to x
is between y
and
z,
and
taken to
be
a case of the
general form
R(qy,z). Ehving
supposed this, they
turn
without further
ado
to
the
question,
1s
this relation
analyzab1e? Sensedatum
theorists
h v e ,
on the
wllole, answered
Yes; ' and
chimed tlut facts of
the
form
x
looks
red t o
X
are to be analyzed in terms of sense
data.
Some of
them, without necessarily rejecting this claim,
have
argued that facts
of
this
kind
are, at the very least, to be explained in terms of sense
data. Thus, when Broad (4)
writes
If, in fact, nothing elliptical is
before
my mind, it
is very
hard to
understand
why the penny should
seem
elliptic l
rather
tlun
of
any
other shape
(p. 240),
he
is
appeal-
ing to
sense-data
as a means of explaining facts
of
this form. The dif-
ference, of
course s
that
whereas if x looks
to
S is correct1y
analyzed
in
terms
of sense
dab,
then
no one
could believe th t x looks to
S
without believing that
S
has sense dab, the same
need not
be
true if
x I
to is
explaind
in
terms of sense data, for, in the
case
of
some
types of exphtion, at least, one can believe a fact without be-
lieving its explanation.
On the
other hand,
those philosophers
who
reject
sense-datum theo-
ries
in favor
of
so-calIed theories of appearing have characteristically held
that facts of the form x looks
4
to S are ultimate and irreducible, and
that
sense data are
needed neither
for their
analysis
nor fdr
their
explanation.
If
asked,
Doesn't
the
statement: looks
red
to
S'
have
as
part of
its
meaning
the idea that s
stands
in
some
relation to
something
that is
r d 7
their answer
is in
the negative, and, I believe, rightly so.
A trscful discussion
of views of
t h i s typc is to
bc
fo i~nd
n 9 )
nnd
(
3
) .
68
EMPIRICISM AND
T H E
PHILOSOPHY
O
M I N D
12.
I
shall
begin
my emmination of
X looks
red
to S at t
with
the
simple but fundamental p i n t that
the
sense
of
red in which
things look
red
is
on the
face of ic the same as
that
in
which
things
are
red.
When one gIimpses an object and decides
that i t
1mks
red
(to
me, now, from here) and wonders wl~et l~ett really is xed one is surely
wondering whether
the
color-d-which it looks to have is the one
it
r a l l y
d m
have.
This
point
can
be obscured
by
such
verbal
rnanipu-
lations as hyphenating the words looks and red and claiming that
it is the insoluble nnity looks-red
and
not just
1ooks
which is the
relation.
Insofar as
this
dodge is h s e d
on
insight
it
is
insight
into the
fact
that
looks is not a relation between person,
a
thing, and a
quality. Unfortunately,
as we
shall see, the reason for this fact is one
which gives no comfort a t all
to
the idea that
it
is looks-red
rather
than
looks which is the relation.
I
havq in ect, bmn claiming that
being
red is logically prior,
is
a
logimlly
simpler
notion,
than
looking
red;
the
frtnction
x
is
d
o
'x
looks
r e d
to
y.
In short
that it just won't
do
to say
that: x
is red
is analyzable in Z m s of
x
looks
red 2 y. But
what,
then,
are we to
make
of the
necesmry truth-and it is
of
course,
a
n-ry truth-that
x
is red = x wquld
look
o standard
observers
in standard
conditions?
There
is
&inly some
ense
to
the idea that
this is at
least
the
schema
for a de6nition of physical redness in terms of
Imking
red.
One
begins
to see the plausibility of
the
gambit that looking-red is an
insoluble
unity, for the minute one
gives
red'yon the right-hand side) an inde-
pendent status, it
becomes what
it obviously
is,
namely 'red as
a
predicate of physial objects, and the supposed definition beco ma an
obvious
circle.
13.
The
way out
of this troubling situation
has
two parts. T h e
second
is to show how
k
is
red can
be
necessarily
eguivalent
t o
x
would
look
ml to standard obsmrers in standard situations
without
this b h g a definition
of
X is fed ' n terms of x
ooks
red. But the
first, and IogicaIly prior,
step is to show
that 'k I d s red to S does
not assert either an
unanalyzable
triadic
relation
to
obtain
between
x,
r d , and
S, or
an
nrnanalyable
dyadic relation
to obtain
betwcen
x
and 5.Not,
howcvcr,
h a u s e
i t
asserts
an
analyzablc
relation to
obtain,
but because
looks is
not a relation at all. Or, to put
the
matter in
a
familiar way,
onc
can say that: looks is a
relation
if hc
likcs,
for the
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8/11/2019 Sellars, W. 1956, Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind
10/39
sentenccs in which this word a p p r s show some
grammatical analogies
to scntcnca
built
around
wards w l ~ i c l ~e should
not
haitate
to
classify
as
relation
wards; but once
one
has
I m m e aware
of &in
other
features which
make them
vcry
anlike
ordinary relation
sentences, he
will
I>c
lcss
inclined to
vicw
his
task as
that
of
finding
the answer
to
the
question Is looks a relation?
14.
'1'0
bring
out
the essential
features
of
the
use
of
Iooks, I
shall
migage
in a little historical fiction. A young man, whom I shan a l l
John, works in a necktie shop.
e
has learned the use of color words
in the
usual way?
with
t i s
exception.
I
shall
suppose that
he has never
lookcd
at
an
object in
other than
standard conditions.
As he examines
his stock
every evening
before
closing
up shop, he says This is red,
' at
is grcen,
This
is
purple, etc,, and such of his linguistic peers
as
happen to
be present nod their heads approvingly.
Let us suppose, now,
that
at
this p i n t in the story,
e I d c ighting
is invmted. His friends
and
neighbors rapidly adopt this
new ineans
of illumination, and wrestle with
the
problems it presents. John
how-
ever, s the last to
succumb.
Justafter it has been installed in
his
shop,
one
of his
neighbors,
Jim, comes
in
to buy
a
nccktic.
Here is a handsome green on%
s p
John.
But
it isn't grcen,' says Jim, and takes John outside.
Well, xlgs John, it was mm in
there, but now
it is
Hue.*'
'No, says Jim, yu h o w that neckties
don't
change their color
merely as
a
result of being taken rom place
to
placc.
Rut
perhaps
electricity
cllanges
their color
and they
change back
again in daylight?
Tl~atwould
be
a
queer
kind of change,
wouldn't
it?
says Jim.
I
suppose
so,
says
bewildered John. But
we
saw that i t was green
in
there.
No,
we
didn't sce that
it
was
green
in
there, because it wasn't
green,
and you
can't see
what isn't
so "
Well,
this
is a pretty
pi~klq
ays John. ''I just don't know what
t o say.
T h e
slext time
John picks
up
this tie
in his shop and
son1eone
asks
what color
it
is,
his
first
impulse is
ta
say
It
is
green.
We
S U ~ ~ T B S C S
t h i s imprtl~c
nd, rcmembcring what h a p p e d
Idore,
comes
orrt
with
l r
is
Mac. Je doesn't see
th t it
is bluc, nor
wou11d
he say
that
hc
s w s
i t
to
bc
blue.
What docs 11cscc? Lck
us ask him.
EMPIRICISM AND TEIL PHILOSOPHY
OF
MKND
I don't know what. to say. If I didn't know
that the
tie is blue-
and the alternative to
grarititlg
this is odd indeed-I would
swear that
I was
seeing
a
green
tic and seeing that it is grcen. I t is as though. I
were secing the
necktie to be gecn,
If we bear in rniild that such sentences as
This
is green
have
both
a fact-stating and
a reporting
use
we can
put the point I have just
been
making
by
saying that
once
John
learns
to
stifle thc
report
l'his
necktie
is green w h
ooking
at
i t
in the shop, there
is no other report
about color and the necktie which he knows haw to make. To
be
sure,
he now
says
This necktie is blue. But he
is
not making
a reporting
use of this
sentence. He uses
it as
the conclusion
of
an
inference.
25
We
return to the shop after
an
interval,
nd
we
find that when
John
is
asked
What s the
color
of
this necktie?'
he makes suclr s ta t e
rnents as
It looks
green, but
take it
outside
and see.
lt
occurs to
us
that
perhaps
in
learning to
say
This tie looks green when in the shop,
he
has learncd
to
make
a
new
kind
of report.
Thus, it. migI1t
seem as
ttlough
his linguistic peers have helped
him
to
notice
a new kind of
objective fact, one which, though a relational
fact
involving a per-
ccivcr, is as logically indcpmdent of the belitfs, the conceptual
frame
work
of thc perceiver, as the fact that the ridtie
is
blue; but a
minimal
fact
one
which
it
is safer to report beattse
me
is
less
l&cly to e
nlistcaken. Such a
minimal fact
~vould e the fact that the necktie looks
green
to John on
a
certain
occasion,
and
it
~vouldbe
properly reported
by using
the
sentence
'%is necktie
looks green.
I t
is
this
type of
account
of
course, which
have
already rejected
Btrt
what
is
the
aIternative? If ,
that
is, we are
not
going
to
adopt
the
sense-datum
analysis.
Let me bcgin by noting
that
there certainly seems
to be soinetbing to the
idea
that
the
sentence This looks
grccn
to me
now has a reporting role.
Indeed,
it would seem to be esseiltially a
report.
But
if
so, what does it
report,
if
not
a minimal objective fact,
and
if
what i t
reports is not to be
analyzed
in tenns
of
sense
data?
16. k t me next call attention
to the
fact
that
the experience
of
l~aving
omething look
grml t o one at
a
certain
time
is, insofar as it
is an cxperiencc, 01wi011sly m y
nlucll
like that of seeing
wmcdr i l l g
to
lx
grcen,
illsofar as
the
lattm
is
3x1
expericncc.
Rut
the
latter,
of
course,
is
no t
just
s n cxpuricncc. 11ild this
i s the hmrt of
hhc n1:lthcr. I ior to
my that a c~rt:lia xlxricrlcc is a s~ c i r g
k;~Z
mnctl~itag s t l lc alsc, is
to
[lo
ntorc tlrnlr tlcqcrillc t l ~ cxpcricrrcu. t is to
cl~:~r;rulcri;r.c
t :IS, so
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8/11/2019 Sellars, W. 1956, Empiricism & the Philosophy of Mind
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WiIfrid
SeIlars
to
speak,
making an assertion
or
claim,
and-which is
t he
point I wish
to
sh.ess-to
endone
that
claim. As a
matter 5
fact as we shall
see,
it
is
much more
easy
to see
that
the
statement
Jones sees
that
the
tree
is
green ascribes a
propositional
claim to Jones' xperience and en-
dorses
it, than to specify how he statement de9crt.i
Tones'
experience
1
realizc
that
by
spaking of
experiences as conbining
propositional
claims,
1
may
seem
to
be
knocking
at
closed
doors.
ask
the
rcadcx
to b a r
with
me, bowever,
as the
justification of
this
way of
talking
is
one of my major aims, If am
permitted
to issue this verbal currency
now, I
h o p to
put it
on
the gold
standard
before concluding the
argument.
16.
I t
is clear that
the
experience of seeing that something is green
is
not merely the occurrence of the propositional claim this is
green -
not wen if xve add, as must, that this claim
is
so to speak, evoked
or wrung from
the
perceiver
by
the object perceived.
Here Nature-
to
turn Kant's
simile
(which
he
uses
in
another
context) on
its
head-puts
us
to the
question.
The something more is
c l d y
what
philosophers have in mind
when
they
speak
of visual impressions or
immediate visual
experiences.
W h a t exactly is
the
logical status of
these impressions 'or 4ajmraediatexperiences
is
a problem which will
be with
m fox
the
remainder of this arprment. For the moment it is
the
propositjonal
claim which concerns us.
I
pointed
out
above
that
when we
use
the
word
see
as in S S ~ C S
that the
tr
is green
we
are
not only
ascribing
a claim to the
e x p i -
ence,
but
endorsing
it. t
is
this
endorsement w hich
Ryle
has
in
mind
when he ~eferso seeing that
something is
thus
and so as
an achieve-
ment, and to sees
as
an aclzievernent word. prefer to call i t a so
it is or
just
so word, for the root
idea
is that of
truth
o ham-
terize S's experience as
a
seeing is
in
a
suitably broad
sense-which
I
shall
be
concerned
to explicate-to apply the
sernantical
concept of
truth to that
experience.
Now the suggestion I
wish
to make is, in its simplest
terms,
that
the statement X looks green to
Jones differs
from Jones
sees that
x
is green in that whereas the latter bath ascn'bes a ~ropo sitional laim
to Jon&
experience
and
cndofses
it, the former ascribes
the
claim but
does
not endorse
it.
This is
the
essential difference between
the twor
far it is c l a r
that
two
experiences
may
be
identiml as cxpcricnca, and
yct
OIIC bc properly
referrerl to
as
a sccing
that
something is green,
and
EMPIRICISM
KD THE
PEOSDPHY
OF Id-
the other merely as a case of something's looking green. f course, i
I say X merely
looks gr n to
S I am ot only failing
t o
endorse
the
claim, I am rejecting
it,
Thus, when I
say X
looks grecn
to me
now am
reporting
the fact
that my experience is,
so
ta speak, intrinsically, as
an
experience,
in-
distinguishable
from a veridical one of seeing tha t x is green. Involved
in
the
report
is
the
ascription to
my
experience
of
the
claim
'x
is
green';
and
the
fact
that I make this report rather than the simple
report
X s
green indicates t h t certain
considerations
have
operated
to
raise, so
to speak in
a
higher
court, the
puntion
to endorse
or not
to endorse.'
I
may have
reason to think that x may not after all bep
If I
make
at
one
time the
report
X ooks to be gram -which is
not w l y
a
report, hut the
withholding
of an endorsement-I may later,
when the original
reasons
for
withholding endorsement
havc
been
rebutted,
endorse the
original claim by
saying I saw that it
was
green,
though
a t
the
time
I
was
only
sure
that i t looked green. Notice
that
I
will
only say I see that x is green (as opposed to
X
is
green )
when the question
to endorse or not to
endorse
has
come
up. I see
that x is green belongs, so to speak, on
the same
level as X
looks
p e e n and X merely looks green.
17.
There
are
many
interesting and
subtle
questions about the dialec-
tics of
looks t lr into which I
do
not
lmve
the space
to
enter.
Fortunately,
the abwe distinctions suffice for wr
present
purposes. Let
us suppose,
then,
that to
say khat X
looks green
to S
at f'
is,
in
&t,
to s y that S
has
that kind
of
experience
which, if m e
were
prepared
to
endorse the px~positional aim it involves,
one
would char-
acterize as seeing x
fo
be
green
at t Thus when
our
friend John
learns
to use the sentence This
necktie
looks green to
me he learns a
way
of reporting an experience of
the
kind
tvhich,
as
far as
any
categories
I have yet permitted him to have are
concerned, he
can only charac-
terize
by saying
that
as an experience
it
does not differ from secing
something to b e green,
and
that
evidence
for the proposition
'Tbis
necktie is
green'
is
ipso facto
evidmcc
for the
proposition
that the
cxpiencc in ql~cstion s sccing
khat
the necktic is grccn.
Naw
onc
of
the
cllicf
111crits
of
this
amant
s
that
it
pcrn~its
1~1callcl
trenhnmt
of
'qanlit;\tivc' and 'cxistcnthl' sccalirg rrr lonki~~g.
III~Is,
whcn 1
my Thc
~ C L T
I H ~ S
IPL II~
atn c ~ ~ d o r s i ~ l ~ll:lt p r t of 1E1eclaim
ittvt>lvcd n m y
xpcricr~cu
lriuh colrcurlrs t l ~ u
x ix tc~ tc .~
f
tlrc
IF
bat
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EMPIRICISM A N D
TH PHILOSOPHY O MIND
withholding endorsement from
the
rest.
On
the other hand,
when
I
say There looks to be a bent tree over there I am
refusing
to endorse
any hut the
most
general aspect of the claim, namely, that there is an
'over there' as opposcd to a here. Another merit of the account is
that
it explains how a necktie, for example, can look
red
to at t, without
looking scarlet or crimson or
any
other determinate shade of
red.
In
short
it
explains
how
things can
Imve a merely
generic look,
a
fact which
would be puzzliilg indeed
i
Iooking red were a
natural
as opposed to
epistemic fact about objects. The core
of the
explanation, of
course,
is
that the propositional claim involved in such
a n
experience may be,
for example, either the more determinable claim 'This
is
red'
or
the
more determinate claim 'This is crimson.'
The
complete story is more
complicated, and requires
somc
accolrnt of the role in these experiences
of the 'impressions' or 'immediate experiences
the
logical status of
which remains to be detcrmined. But even in the abscnce of these addi-
tional details, we can note the resemblance between the fact that x c n
look
red
to
S,
without it
being
true of some specific shade
of
red that
x looks to S to be of that shade, and the fact
that
S can believe that
Cleopatra's Needle is tall, without its being t ru e
of
some determinate
number of feet tlmt S believes it to hc that
number
of fcet
tall.
18. The point 1 wish
to
stress
a t
this time, however,
is
that the con.
cept
of
looking
green, the ability to recognize that something
looks
green,
presupposes
the concept of
eing
green, and that the latter con-
cept involves the ability to tell what colors objects have
by
looking at
them-which, in turn, involves knowing in what circumstances
to
place
an object if one wishes to ascertain its color by looking at it. Let me
develop this latter point.
As
our friend John becomes more and more
sophisticated about his own and other
p p l e s
visual experiences, he
lmrns under what conditions it is as though one were seeing a necktie
to
be
of one color whcn in
fact
it
is
of another. Suppose someone asks
him Why does
this
tie look green to me? John
may
very well reply
Because it is blue,
and blue
objects look green in this kind of light.
And if someone asks this question when looking at
the
necktie in plain
daylight, John
may
very well reply Because
the
tie is greenp-to
which
he may add We
are in
plain daylight, and
in
daylight
things
look wlrat
they
are.
We
thus
sce
that
x is red =. looks red to standard observers in slanclnrrl
con
ditions
is
a
necessary
truth not
because the
right-hand side is
the
definition
of ' is
red,
but because standard conditions means conditions in
which things look what they are. And, of course, which coilditions are
standard
for a given
mode
of perception is, a t the common-sense le~ ~e l,
specified by a list of conditions which exhibit the vagueness and open
texture characteristic of ordinary discourse.
19.
I
have
arrived at
a
stage
in my argument which
is,
a t
least
prima
facie,
out of
step
with the basic presuppositions of logicaI atomism.
Thus, as long as looking
green
is t ken
to be the
notion to which
being green is reducible, it could
be
claimed with considerable plausi-
bility that fundamenfa1 concepts pertaining to observable
fact
have
that logical independence of one another which is characteristic of the
empiricist tradition. Indeed, at first sight the situation is quite disquiet-
ing, for if
the
ability to recognize that x looks green presupposes
the
concept of heing green, and if this
in
turn involves knowing in what
circumstances to view an object to ascertain
its
color, then, since onc
can
scarcely determine
what
the
circumstances
are
without noticing that
certain objects have certain perceptibIe
characteristics-incl~~ding
col-
ors-it would seem that
one
couldn't form the concept of
beirrg
green
and,
by
parity
of
reasoning, af
the
other colors, unless
he
aIrady had
them
Now, it just won't do to reply that to have the concept of green, t o
know wlmt it
is
for something to
be
p e n it. is sufficient
to
respond,
when
one is in point of fact in standard conditions, to green objects
with the vocable This is green. Not only
must
the conditions be of
a sort that is appropriate for determining
the
color of an object by
looking, the subject
must
know that: conditions of this
sort
are
appro-
priate. And
while
this does not imply that one must have concepts
before one has them, it
does
imply that one can have the concept of
grecn only by
having
a whole battery of concepts of which it is one
clcment. I t implics that while the process
of
acquiring the concept of
green may-indeed does-involve a Iong history of acquiring piecemeal
habits of responsc to various
abjects
in various circumstances, there is
an important scnsc in wliich one has no concept pertaining to the
o1)scrvable propcrtics of pllysical objects in Space and Timc unIess
one
has
thcm all-and, inclcctl, as
we
sl~all
ee
a great dcal more besides.
20. Now, 1 thi11k i t is rlcar what a logical atomist, supposiilg that
lic found i111y
nrcrit
[I i l l
illc
: ihr~vc rgumcnt, would say.
I-Ic
woulcl
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EMPIRICISM AND
THE PHILOSOPHY
O MIND
s y that I am
avcrlooking
the fact that the logical space of physical
objects in
Space and Time rests
on
the logical
space
of
sense contents,
and he would argue
that
it is concepts pert ining
to
sense contents
which
hare the logical indepmdence of one another which s character-
istic
of
traditional empiricism. After all,
he
would point out
con-
cepts
pertaining
to
theoretical
entitieE-rnolecules
for example-have
the mutuaI
dependence you
have,
perhaps rightly, ascribed
to
concepts
prtaining
t physical
fact. But, he
would
continue,
thearctical
con-
epts
have
empirical content because they rest on are
coordinated
with-a more fundamental logical
s p c e .
UntiI
you
have disposed, there-
fore of the
idea that there
is
a
mare fundamental
logiml
space
than
that of physical
objects
in
Space
and Time,
or
shown that
it too
is
fraught
with coherence, your
incipient Meditations I IegeliPnnes are
premature.
And we can imagine sense-datum theorist to interject the follow
ing complaint: You have begun
to
write as though
you had
shown
not
only
that
physical
redness
is
not
to
be
anal@
in
t m s
of
lookiug
red-which
I will grant-but abo that phpical red~ress s not to be
analyzed a t all, and, in particular, not to
be
analyzed in terms of the
redness of
red sense
contents.
A e n you have
begun to write
as
though
you had shown not only that observing tha t x looks
red
is not
more basic than
observing
that x is red, but also
that
there
is no form
of visual noticing more basic
than
seeing that x s red, such as
the
sensing of a red sense content.
I grant,
he continues, that the tend-
ency of sensedatum
theorists
has
been
to daim that the redness of
physical
objects
is
to
be
analyzed
n
terms
of
looking
red,
and
then
to
claim
that
looking red
is
itself
to
be analyzed
in terms
of ~ e d
ense
contents and that you m a y have undercut this
line of
arm1ysis. But
what
is
to
prevent the sense-datum
theorist
from taking
the
line tlut
the properties
of
physical
objects
are
directly
analyzable
into
the quali-
ties and phenomenal relations o
s ns
contents?
Very well.
But
once
again
we inust ask How
does
the sense-datum
theorist ome
by the
framework
of sense
contents?
and H o w
is he
going
to
convince us that
there
are such things? m even if looking
red doesn't enter into
the
analysis of physical redness, it:
is by
asking
us to
reflect on
the experience
of having
something look red
t.0
us that
he
hopes
to
make this framework
convincing.
And t therefore bccomcs
rclcvnnk
to note that my analysis of x looks red
t
S at. t has not, at
least
as
far as
I
have pushed it to date, revealed any such items as sense-
contents. And it
may
be relevant to suggest that
once
we see clearly
that physical redness is not to be given a dispositional analysis
in
terms
of
looking
red, the idea that it is to be given any kind of dispositional
analysis loses
a
large measure of its phusibility. In
any
cvent, the next
move must be
to press
furthcr the above account of qualitative and
existential looking.
IV.
Explaining Looks
21. i have already noted that sense-datum theorists are inlpressed
by
the question How can a physical object look red to S, unless some-
thing in that situation is red and
S
is taking account of it?
If
S isn't
experiencing something red, how does it
happen
that the physical
object Iooks red, rather than green or streaky? There
is, I
propose to
show, something to this line of thought, though the story turns out to
be
a
complicated one.
And
if,
in
the course of
telling
the story,
I
shall
be
led
to
make
statements
which
resemble
some
of the things sense-
datum theorists
have
said, this
story will
amount to a sense-datum
theory only in a
sense
which robs this phrase of an
entire
dimension
of its traditional epistemologial force, a dimension which is character-
istic of even such heterodox
orms
of sense-datum
theory
as the an-
other
language
approach.
Let
me begin
by formulating the question: Is the
fact
that an
object looks to S to be red and triangular, or that there looks to S to
be
a
red a n d triangular object over there, to bc explained
in
terms of
the idea
that Jones has
a
sensation-or impression, or immediate experi-
ence-of a red triangle?
O n e
point
can
be
made
right
away,
namely
t ha t
i thcse expressions are so undcrstood
that,
say, the immediate
experience of a
red
triangle implies the existence of something-not a
physical object-which is red
and
triangular,
and
if the redness which
this
item has
is the
same as the
redness
which the
physical object looks
to
have,
then
the suggestion runs up
against
the objection that the red-
ness physical objects
look
to
have
is the
same
as the redness physical