Workshop on Imperative Aspects of Perceptual Experience

Time and place:

Aug 28, 2013 09:00 AM - Aug 29, 2013 05:00 PM, 

University of Oslo

Are there imperatival aspects to perceptual experience? Do any experiences have intrinsic motivational powers? If so, is this at odds with their being correct or incorrect? If not, what are they correct or incorrect about? One way to approach them is by comparing perceptual experiences to speech acts. If perceptual experiences were modeled by speech acts, would the best models be assertions, imperatives, or neither? If in some ways, or on some occasions, experiences are more like imperatives than assertions are these imperatival aspects of experience reflected in any way in their accuracy conditions? Are they at odds with their having accuracy conditions at all? Are they at odds with representationalism? In this workshop we explore these and related questions.

Schedule

Wednesday August 28

9:30 Welcome and Introduction (Sebastian Watzl and Susanna Siegel)

10:00-11:30 John Bengson (University of Wisconsin-Madison): “Practical Perception”
Commentator: Avery Archer (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

11:45-13:15 Susanna Siegel (Harvard University, CSMN): “Affordances and the Contents of Perception”
​Commentator: Anna Bergqvist (Manchester Metropolitan University)

14:15-15:45 Sebastian Watzl (University of Oslo, CSMN): “Perceptual Guidance”
Commentator: Dagfinn Føllesdal (Stanford University, University of Oslo)

16:00-17:30 Gabriel Greenberg (UCLA): “The Representation of Space in Visual Sequences”
Commentator: Farid Masrour (Harvard University)

Thursday August 29

9:30-11:00 Hilla Jacobson (Ben-Gurion University): “Not only a Messenger: From a Purely Representational to a Hybrid Account of the Phenomenal Character of Pain”
Commentator: Maja Spener (University of Birmingham)

11:15-12:30 Ole Koksvik (University of Bergen): “Pushiness”

13:30-15:00 Manolo Martínez (University of Barcelona): “Imperativism about Perceptual Experience – The Case of Disgust”
Commentator: Michael Brady (University of Glasgow)

15:15-16:45 Tim Bayne (University of Manchester): “Phenomenal Attitudes”
Commentator: Anders Nes (University of Oslo, CSMN)

McDowell’s Direct Realist Reply to Scepticism

McDowell’s claim that in veridical cases of perception objects are “immediately present to the mind” has earned him the title of direct realist. Direct realism is the thesis that what we perceive are not merely appearances (insert: sense data, veil or ideas or whatever else suits your fancy) but rather objects themselves.

Direct realism can be used against arguments for external world scepticism (EWS) of of the following form:

P1: Our EW beliefs are based on sense data beliefs
P2: Sense data beliefs cannot justify EW beliefs
EWS: Our EW beliefs are not justified

The direct realist resists EWS by rejecting P1. There are two senses in which the direct realist can maintain that our EW beliefs are not based on sense data beliefs. First, they can deny that there are such things as sense data beliefs. This is certainly true in McDowell’s case since his rejection of the highest common factor view, a fortiori, includes the eschewal of any such mediating beliefs. Second, if we interpret the locution ‘based on’ in a strong inferential sense, then a direct realist may insist that our EW beliefs are not inferred from any other beliefs at all but are rather immediately grasped by the perceiving subject.

However, the locution ‘based on’ need not be taken in this strong inferential sense. A sceptic may insist that there can be a weak sense of ‘based on’ that is non-inferential. For example, we may interpret the phrase ‘based on’ in causal terms. Putatively, it seems undeniable that our EW beliefs are causally based on appearances or sense impressions. According to an empirical-psychological account of vision, the act of seeing an object involves several complex physiological processes. Moreover, we never see objects themselves, but merely the light bundles reflected off an object. Thus, there are several causal intermediaries between our EW beliefs and the objects in the eternal world. Thus, our sceptical argument may be reformulated as follows:

P1*: Our EW beliefs are (causally) based on sensory appearances
P2*: Sensory appearances cannot justify EW beliefs
EWS: Our EW beliefs are not justified

Significantly, P1* does not assert that sensory appearances are the intentional object of our perceptual experience. For instance, by P1*’s lights we are free to view sensory appearances as the means rather than object of our perceptions. In other words, P1* merely asserts that sensory appearances form part of the causal chain linking our beliefs to the EW that gives rise to our beliefs. Thus, P1* can be construed along purely direct realist lines—to wit, we may hold P1* while simultaneously maintaining that objects themselves (and not some mental intermediary) are the intentional objects of our perceptions. Thus, even if we grant direct realism’s denial of an inferential intermediary, P1* still stands.

Unfortunately for the sceptic, this reply fails in the case of McDowellian direct realism. McDowell may gladly concede that the causal descriptions (with all its various intermediary steps) of empirical psychology are true. However, McDowell maintains that the empirical-psychological account is not only one available. In fact, McDowell draws on the Sellarsian idea of there being a sui generis “space of reasons” for precisely this reason. When McDowell describes perception as being direct, he is speaking in terms of the logical space of reasons, not in terms of the logical space in which the subject matter of empirical science falls. Things like photons or electrical impulses are  not of the right sort to act as a reason for one's beliefs. Trading on this ambiguity in the locution ‘based on’, McDowell may accept P1*, but point out that P1* cannot plausibly be combined with P2* in order to generate EWS.  P1* (explicitly) exploits the epistemically insignificant notion of being ‘causally’ based on, while P2* (implicitly) exploits the  epistemically significant notion of being ‘justificationally’ based on.  This equivocation in the explicit notion of "based on" in P1* and the implicit notion of "based on" in P2* prevents the inference from going through.

In sum, McDowellian direct realism is effective against sceptical arguments of a certain form. Specifically, sceptical arguments that ride on there being an inferential or causal intermediary between our EW beliefs and the objects we perceive are easily defeated by direct realist considerations. Of course,  arguments for EWS may take other forms as well.

The Wright Objection

Following J. M. Hinton [1973], Paul Snowdon [1990] has argued that indistinguishable veridical and hallucinatory perceptual experiences belong to fundamentally different genera. Thus, veridical perceptual experiences (henceforth e1) are of one sort while hallucinatory perceptual experiences (henceforth e2) are of another fundamentally different sort, the only thing common to both being that they are introspectively indistinguishable from each other. The difference between e1 and e2 is, for Snowdon, is rooted in the fact that perceptual experiences are essentially relational.

John McDowell takes up Snowdon’s disjunctive conception and applies its insights to epistemological questions relating to our perceptual beliefs.¹ According to McDowell, the epistemological upshot of the disjunction between e1 and e2 is that e1 places us in a better epistemic position than e2 does. On its own, this claim hardly seems controversial. For example, a reliabilist would agree that e1 places us in a better epistemic position than e2 since veridical perceptual experiences are a reliable source of true beliefs while hallucinations are not. However, what is most striking about McDowell’s claim that e1 puts us in a better epistemic position to e2 is that he rejects (extreme) forms of epistemic externalism:

[O]ne’s epistemic standing on some question cannot intelligibly be constituted, even in part, by matters blankly external to how it is with one subjectively. For how could such matters be other than beyond one’s ken? And how could matters beyond one’s ken make any difference to one’s epistemic standing? [McDowell 1998, p. 390]

I interpret ‘how it is with one subjectively’ to mean from the subject’s point of view. However, many critics have insisted that if e1 and e2 are subjectively indistinguishable, then from the subject’s point of view e1 could not possibly put one in a better epistemic position than e2. In this post I will sketch the version of this criticism put forward by Crispin Wright [2002].

Wright presents the following challenge to McDowell’s disjunctive analysis. Suppose S came to hold the demonstrative belief that that is an F. Does S’s justification for believing that that is an F transmit to the claim that S is not merely having a hallucination of an F? According to Wright, there is a ‘strong intuition’ that it does not since we have done nothing to rule out the unpropitious possibility [2002, p. 342]. Moreover, since ex hypothesi the hallucination in question is subjectively indistinguishable from a veridical perceptual experience, there is no way for the subject, based on that experience, to know that she is not suffering from a hallucination rather than having a veridical perceptual experience.

Wright applies the above argument to disjunctivism by appealing to the following four presuppositions, which he describes as the disjunctive template [Ibid, p. 343]:

(i) that A entails B;

(ii) that my justification2 for A consists in my being in a state which is subjectively indistinguishable from a state in which the relevant C would be true;

(iii) that C depicts a situation of a general kind incompatible with the reliable operation of the cognitive capacities involved in generating the putative warrant for A; and

(iv) that C would be true if B were false.

We may fill in the details of the disjunctive template thus: Let A be the proposition that that is an F. Let B be the entailed proposition that that is not a hallucination of an F; and let C take the form of a generalisation of the negation of B: It is not the case that I am having a perfect hallucination of an F. Given the above disjunctive template the question, according to Wright, is

What…can justify me in taking it that I have a warrant for A? Why not just reserve judgement and stay with the more tentative disjunction, Either (I have a warrant for) A, or C? [Ibid].

Wright maintains that to get beyond the disjunction [A V C], we must somehow discount C. That is, we can only maintain that ‘that is an F’ if we can discount the possibility that ‘that is not an F but merely an indistinguishable hallucination of an F’. However, to be entitled to discount C I must also be entitled to discount ~B since, ex hypothesi, C is merely the generalisation of B’s negation. However, to discount ~B I must have some prior entitlement to B independent of its entailment by A. Consequently, on pain of circularity, my justification for A fails to transmit to B.

The upshot of the above analysis is that, given the possibility of there being hallucinations that are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptual experiences, we cannot take ourselves to be justified (as far as our perceptual beliefs are concerned) in believing anything beyond the disjunction [A V C].

We may further unpack the Wright objection as follows: Let us presuppose an internalist conception of epistemic justification such that for S to be justified in believing that P means that S has subjective access to that which constitutes her justification for believing that P. Let [E1 … En] stand for the maximal set of subjective properties of some experience e1. If there is some experience, e2, which is subjectively indistinguishable from e1, then e2 must also possess [E1 … En], or at least so the thought goes. (I am here assuming that the circle encompassing what is introspectively accessible is coextensive with the maximal set of subjective properties of a given experience.) Given the internalist requirement that S’s justification for believing that P must be introspectively accessible, S’s justification for believing that P must be derived from [E1 … En] or some subset thereof. Since e1 and e2 share [E1 … En] in common, and given the internalist requirement that S’s justification for believing that P be derived from [E1 … En], any evidence derived from e1 in support of S’s believing that P can also be derived from e2 in support of S’s believing that P. Thus, insofar as e1 and e2 are subjectively indistinguishable, there can be no difference between what being in e1 makes S justified in believing and what being in e2 makes S justified in believing. Ergo, e1 does not put S in a better epistemic position, from an internalist perspective, than e2.

Endnotes:

1 It should be borne in mind that there are a number of significant differences between Snowdon’s and McDowell’s formulation of disjunctivism. For example, Snowdon focuses on locutions of object-perception, ‘S sees o’, while McDowell is interested in locutions of fact-perception, ‘S sees that p.’ Following McDowell, I will be using a version of fact-perception statements, ‘S sees that that is an F’.

2 Wright uses the word ‘warrant’.

References:
Hinton, J.M. [1973]. Experiences. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

McDowell, J. [1998], ‘Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge’, Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality, 369-94, London: Harvard University Press.

Snowdon, P. F. [1990], “The Objects of Perceptual Experience” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 64: 121–150.

Wright, C. [2002].‘(Anti-)Sceptics Simple and Subtle: G.E. Moore and John McDowell’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65: 330 – 48.

On Alan Millar’s "The Idea of Experience"

Alan Millar’s central contention in "The Idea of Experience" is that “the experientialist picture is not committed to thinking of experiences as involving, or themselves being, appearances which interpose themselves between subjects and their world and so is not undermined by objections which assume that it is so committed.” [Millar 1996 p.89] The target of Millar’s criticism is the disjunctive conception advocated by Snowdon and McDowell, which Millar depicts as claiming just the opposite. While there is evidence to suggest that disjunctivists often equate the experientialist picture with the presupposition that there are sensory intermediaries [See: Snowdon 1990] I do not believe that this equation is the main motivation behind their rejection of the experientialist picture. Rather, disjunctivists impugn the experientialist picture because it conceives of perceptual experience as "inner" and independent of the external world—what McDowell refers to as the "interiorization of the space of reasons". [McDowell 1986, p. 146]

While I agree with Millar that the experientialist need not posit a sensory intermediary, like sense data, the fact remains that for the experientialist we are having the same type of experience in both the veridical and hallucination case [Cf. Millar 1996, p.75]. Let e be the visual experience of there being (or seeming to be) an apple before me. According to experientialist, I am having the same sort of experience e when I see an apple before me and when I am having a hallucination that there is an apple before me. The upshot of this is that having the experience e is compatible with there being no apple before me. Now, the disjunctivist points out that e is taken by the experientialist to be the basis for my belief that there is an apple before me. However, if e is compatible with the possibility that there is no apple before me then e in no way guarantees that I am actually seeing an apple. Consequently, the disjuntivist insists that e fails to constitute a warrant for my belief that there is an apple before me. This failure of e to warrant my belief that there is an apple before me is rooted in experientialist conception of experience as independent of the external world, and therefore in no way beholden to it.

By contrast, the disjunctivist insist that in the veridical case our perceptual experience does not fall short of the facts themselves. For the time being I wish to bracket the question of how disjunctivists characterise our directly taking in facts in the world. It is sufficient for our present purposes to note that for the disjunctivist, veridical experiences are of one sort, e1, while hallucinatory experiences are of a different sort, e2. The disjunctivist may therefore grant that the experientialist picture does not entail the existence of a sensory intermediary. However, so long as the experientialist assumes that our visual experiences are neutral to whether or not there is an external object present, such experiences fail to warrant our belief that there is an external object present.

In sum, I believe Millar is successful in establishing the lemma that the experientialist picture does not necessarily presuppose the existence of a sensory intermediary. I also agree that disjunctivists often speak (erroneously) as if the experientialist is committed to the notion of a sensory intermediary. However, I do not believe that this fact is sufficient to establish his larger goal of discrediting the disjunctivit’s rejection of the experientialist picture. To do this, he would have to show either that the experientialist does not entail the interiorized conception or that the interiorized conception does not have the unfavourable consequences that the disjunctivist claims it does. Another issue raised in "The Idea of Experience" is the notion that there are different types of awareness and how this idea relates to experience. But since Millar gives this idea more in-depth treatment elsewhere I postpone discussion of it for another time.

References:

McDowell, J. (1986), "Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space", Subject, Thought, and Context. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Millar, A, (1996) "The idea of experience", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, 75-90.

Snowdon, P, (1990) "The Objects of Perceptual Experience", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Vol.