Perception: Essays After Frege

427 Pages·2013·1.75 MB·English

by  Charles Travis

Perception
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Perception
Essays After Frege
Charles Travis
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. TheSilencesoftheSenses 23
2. Frege,FatherofDisjunctivism 59
3. ViewingtheInner 90
4. Reason’sReach 118
5. TheInwardTurn 144
6. AffordingustheWorld 178
7. IsSeeingIntentional? 198
8. UnlockingtheOuterWorld 223
9. DesperatelySeeking(cid:2) 259
10. ThePreserveofThinkers 313
AppendixtoThePreserveofThinkers 352
11. ThatObjectofObscureDesire 364
12. WhileUndertheInfluence 391
Bibliography 413
Index 417
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Introduction
What appears here is not a monograph but a connected series of essays, each
succeedingonelargelyforeseeninwhatprecedesit,andcontinuingoneortwo
lines of thought already found there. The essays have two primary concerns.
Thefirstistoidentifythemostfundamentaldifferencesbetweenperceptualand
cognitive, or conceptual, awareness of the world we inhabit—a difference
between awareness of the world, being as it is (or the world’s being the way
it is) and awareness of the world being some of the particular ways it is; a
difference,too,atleastonthewhole,betweenawarenesswhichisencounter-
ing, or witnessing, or being presented with things being as they are, and
awareness which is bringing this under, or recognizing it as falling under, one
oranothergenerality.Thesecondistoworkouttheramifications,forpercep-
tual experience, of that essential publicity, or shareability, of thought, corres-
pondingly the publicity of its objects, on which Frege insisted. The first
concerncrystallizes, inone way,in issuesas towhether perceptualexperience
hasrepresentationalcontent.Thesecondcrystallizes,inoneway,inissuesover
a view (or family of views) known as disjunctivism. But to work my way into
theseconcerns,Ibeginwithastory.
In the spring of 1966 Herbert Feigl came to UCLA to give a talk. Rudolf
Carnap,thenprofessoremeritus,wasintheaudience.Feigl’stopicwas‘central
state materialism’. The gist of his talk was that, while he was sure central state
materialismwascorrect,therewasaresidualproblemhedidnotyetknowhow
to deal with. This was the problem of ‘raw feels’, as they were then called. In
thediscussionthatfollowedCarnapremarkedthathethoughthehadasolution
forFeigl’sproblemofrawfeels.Feigl’sinterestwasaroused.HeaskedCarnap,
withsomeexcitement,totellhimthissolution.Carnapreplied,‘Well,Herbert,
IthinkthesolutiontoyourproblemofrawfeelsistheÆ-factor’.Feiglappeared
still more excited. ‘Tell me, Carnap’, he asked, ‘What is the Æ-factor?’ ‘Well,
Herbert’, Carnap answered, ‘You tell me what a raw feel is, and I’ll tell you
whattheÆ-factoris’.
I was first provoked to write on perception, thirty-three years later, by the
casualandwidespreadassumptionthatperceptionhadrepresentationalcontent:
2 INTRODUCTION
that perceptual experience(s) represent(s) the world as being ‘a certain way’.
Philosophy seemed to have taken a step backwards—a retreat from Austin, as
I first thought of it, as I now see it also a retreat from, or simple rejection of,
Frege.Whenitcomestoperception,anditsrelationtothought,Fregewasfar
ahead of his time (a time, perhaps, yet to come). He has inspired much in the
linesofthoughtcontainedhere.Hencethedoubleentendreofatitlehere:essays
post-Frege,essaysfollowing(sofarasIcan)inhisfootsteps.
In the beginning I did not appreciate that for many who saw perceptual
experience as engaged in representing-as, the content thus assigned it was to
be Carnap’s Æ-factor. Representational content (harbouring somewhere in
perceptual processing or states) was to replace, or just be, Feigl’s raw feels—in
current parlance, ‘qualia’. Or anyway, a perceptual experience’s having the
‘phenomenal character’ it did—looking, sounding, and so on, as it did to the
experiencer—was to reduce to the (supposed) representational content of
something or other (presumably sub-personal). Phenomenal character would
atleastthenbenobarriertoFeigl’s‘centralstatematerialism’.
I had not foreseen that Feigl’s problem would fascinate so enduringly, or at
this late date motivate much of anything. Subsequent essays in this series,
notably 5 and10, are aimed, inter alia, at correcting this initial oversight. The
second, ‘The Preserve of Thinkers’, undertakes what most needs doing. If, in
the case of perceptual experiences, the Æ-factor turns out to be some state of
something sub-personal—perhaps a visual system or processing device—if it
consistsinthatdevice,oritsissue,representingthingsasbeingthusandso,there
is no obvious reason why this should be recognizable to the experiencer, so no
reason for a vehicle which makes this representing recognizable to him. One
might then think that if there is such representing-as, this is for science to
discover. If it is coherent to suppose what belongs to the sub-personal
(for example, a visual system or processor) to engage in representing-as, this
reflection might smooth the way to accepting that such actually occurs. The
bestprophylactictothislineofthoughtwouldbetoshowthattheantecedent
of this last conditional is false. The best way to do that would be to show,
with as much generality as possible, just what the limits are on engaging in
representing-as. Such is what Essay 11 undertakes. It aims to show that (and
why)representing-asisanaccomplishmentavailableonlytoathinker.Ifthatis
right,thentheÆ-factor,whateverelseitmightturnouttobe,couldnotbethe
bearingofrepresentationalcontentbyonethingoranother.
AfeltneedforCarnap’sÆ-factorisnottheonlymotiveforholdingpercep-
tual experience to indulge in representing things as some way (or to ‘contain’
suchrepresentations).Myinitialconcernwaswithanother,prominentinsome
of the most important recent writings on perception and its links to thought.
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INTRODUCTION
Essays 1,4, and 8 are aimed centrally at it. Before elaborating, though, I note
that not every representationalist as per above is motivated, or at least clearly
motivated, in either of the ways I mention, or certainly in the one way rather
than the other. Some are simply unclear as to what, or where, the relevant
representingistobe,or,notably,onwhetheritisrepresentingtotheperceiver,
orsimplywithinsomeinternalprocessingorstates.Somemaysimplybemoved,
wittinglyornot,bytheideathatallthatprocessingmustyieldsomethingother
than the perceiver’s surroundings for him to be aware of—a Lockean idea of
objects of perception as representing, hence as other than, things in those
surroundings. Such themes are also touched on in these essays. Still, I attach
specialimportancetothemotiveIamabouttomention.
The roleassignedrepresentation in thesecondmotivation Iwill mentionis
tooccupyacertainplaceinananswertoaquestionwhichIcallthefundamental
questionofperception.Thatquestionis:Howcanperceptualexperiencemakethe
worldbear(rationally)fortheperceiveronwhatheistothinkanddo?Theanswer
inbroadoutlineis,ofcourse,bymakingrecognizabletotheperceiverwhat,in
fact,bearsonquestionsofwhattothinkanddo.Inparticular,ifthequestionis
whether to do such-and-such (for instance, to turn left here), then to make
recognizable to the perceiver the obtaining of what are in fact determinate
reasonstoturn,ornottoturn—forexample,ofthepresenceorabsenceofhis
destinationtotheleft,orofaprideoflionsstraightahead.
What a perceiver gains, for example, by looking, one would hope, is thus
(inter alia) awareness of what stands in rational relations to the proposition that
turningleftisthethingforhimtodo—forexample,ofitsbeingsothatthereisa
pride of lions to his left. What burden does it put on perception to insist
that such gains are what it must provide for? Such depends on what you think
a rational relation is, or, again, on just what you think falls within reason’s
ambit.Here,Ithink,recentphilosophyhasencouragedsomemythologiesand
misperceptions. For which, once again, Frege is the most effective antidote.
Hence,again,thepresenttitle.
ThekeypointinFregeforpresentpurposeisadistinctionhedrawsbetween
what I have called the ‘conceptual’ and the ‘non-conceptual’, though I now
favourtheterms‘conceptual’and‘historical’.Wecanthinkofrepresenting-as
as a three-place relation: in the first place, a representer (some agent, or some
itembywhichherepresents,or,perhaps,someitemwhich,insomeotherway,
bearscontent);inthesecondplace,whatisrepresentedassomethingorother;
inthethirdplace,awayforwhatoccupiesthesecondplacetoberepresentedas
being. So thinking, the distinction I have in mind here is between what
occupiesthethirdplace(the‘conceptual’), andwhat occupiesthe second(the
‘historical’).