Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception

Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception

Richard A. Fumerton

University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London

Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear on page xi. Copyright 1985 by the University of Nebraska Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Publication of this book was aided by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Fumerton, Richard A., 1949Metaphysical and epistemological problems of perception. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Perception (Philosophy) I. Title. B828.45.F851985 121'.3 84-11920 ISBN 0-8032-1966-0 (alk. paper)

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Contents

Preface

IX

Acknowledgments

XI

Introduction

2

Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

37

3

Naive Realism

73

4

Causal Theories

107

5

Phenomenalism and Perceptual Relativity

131

6

Some Solutions and Some Decisions

151

7

Epistemological Questions

175

Notes

195

Bibliography

203

Index

209

Preface

It may wcll bc that in thc past thrcc hundrcd ycars or so analytical philosophers havc writtcn morc about the problem of pcrccption than about any othcr philosophical question. Aftcr so many books and articles, one should fccl at least somcwhat uncasy about trying to add somcthing uscful to thc litcraturc, and I do. My rcason, howcvcr, for swelling thc alrcady voluminous mass of writing on pcrccption is thc philosophcr's usual rcason-I do not think anyonc has quitc got the answcrs right. I hastcn to add that much of what I shall say is not original. Many philosophcrs havc put parts of thc puzzle in thcir propcr places. Indccd, as onc should expcct, thcrc is somcthing attractivc about most of thc main positions philosophcrs havc takcn on thc epistcmological and mctaphysical problems associatcd with pcrccption. Philosophcrs arc, by and largc, not tcrribly stupid, and if thcy hold a vicw it is usually bccausc some part of that vicw is (at least in isolation) plausiblc. In this book I shall try to save what is plausible in conflicting philosophical vicws, in thc coursc of proposing a compromisc bctwccn certain classically antagonistic positions. Monstcrs can bc crcatcd by indiscriminate attcmpts to put parts of differcnt entitics togcther, but I shall argue that views that on the surface appcar dramatically opposed may bcgin to merge when modificd to cope with critical objections. There is anothcr rcspcct in which I hope this book will advance discussion of thc epistemological and mctaphysical problems of perccption. Philosophers vcry often do philosophy without ad-

x

Preface

dressing the meta philosophical question of just what it is thcy arc doing, and without explicitly sctting forth or cvaluating the mcthodological assumptions thcy rely on in dcciding bctwccn conflicting positions. In this book I try to bc as self-conscious as I can about both thc conception of philosophical analysis I rely on and thc methodological prcsuppositions of my approach to thc traditional problems of pcrccption. It is particularly important to addrcss thcsc mctaphilosophical issucs today, for thcrc arc significant rcvolutions in contcmporary philosophy oflanguagc that bring with them ncw conccptions of philosophy. As I shall arguc, thc position onc takcs on thc new philosophy oflanguagc should dramatically affcct one's analysis of the cxtcrnal world.

Acknowledgments

My views have developed in part through many discussions with my colleagues at the University of Iowa, and I also found helpful my discussions with the late Grover Maxwell when I was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota (1978-79). I would like to thank Richard Foley, Laird Addis, and Robert Audi for helpful comments on a rough draft of the manuscript. I particularly thank George Pappas. I revised the original manuscript extensively as a result of his many detailed criticisms and suggestions. Much of this book was written while I was on a developmental leave granted by the University ofIowa (1981-82). For part of that leave my parents, Robert Carl and Madeleine Fumerton, were kind enough to let me stay at their summer cottage, and the setting and their hospitality provided an ideal atmosphere for writing. I also thank my wife Patti for the help and encouragement she provided throughout the writing of this book. Part of chapter 1 appeared as "The Paradox of Analysis," Philosophy and Phcllolllcl1oio,Ricai Research 43 (1983):477-97. Parts of chapters 4 and 5 appeared as "Old Analyses of the Physical World and New Philosophies of Language," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 8 (1983) :507-23. And a brief section of chapter 7 appeared as part of "Induction and Reasoning to the Best Explanation," Philosophy of S(iCI1((' 47 (1980):589-600. I thank the publishers for their permission to use this material.

Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception

Chapter 1 Introduction

The Problems of Perception Philosophers often refer to the problem of perception. But from both historical and analytical viewpoints, there are many philosophical problems connected with our perception of the physical world. These problems are essentially of two kinds: epistemological and metaphysical. One of our first tasks is to determine as clearly as we can what the relevant epistemological and metaphysical questions are and decide to what extent answers to the two kinds of questions can be independent of one another.

E:.pistemoloj?ical Problems oj Perception The problems of perception that have dominated so much of analytical philosophy probably have their historical origin with Descartes's Meditations. I am not suggesting that Descartes was the first to see a philosophical problem associated with perception, nor am I suggesting that he realized all the ramifications of the problems he did see. I am making a causal claim. I believe that the questions Descartes raised in the Meditations set in motion the evolution of the philosophical questions and answers that have dominated Western philosophical thought on perception of the physical world. The problems of perception Descartes presented there were essentiallyepistemological. Indeed, the Meditations as a whole ostensibly

2

Introduction

was primarily an epistemological work whose purpose was to build an ideal system of knowledge based on secure foundations. To find these secure foundations, Descartes decided to sift through all his beliefs and retain only those that were immune from a certain sort of doubt. The epistemological problems of perception were born when Descartes considered and rejected our ordinary belie(~ about the physical world (beliefs about tables, trees, desks, dogs, grandfather clocks, and cherry pies) as candidates for beliefs that are immune from doubt. After observing that the support for all our beliefs about the physical world can be traced back at least as far as some belief based on immediate perception, 1 Descartes reasoned that ifhe could cast doubt on those beliefs about the physical world based on immediate perception, he would have cast doubt on all beliefs about the physical world. This he proceeded to do, employing his famous dream and evil demon arguments. The dream argument we might reconstruct this way: 1. The qualitatively same sensations that come to us when awake could come to us in a dream. 2. If the qualitatively same sensations that come to us when awake could come to us in a dream, then we cannot be certain of any given set of sensations that they have not come to us in a dream. 3. If we cannot be certain of any given set of sensations that they have not come to us in a dream, then we cannot be certain that beliefs about the physical world based on those sensations arc true. Therefore 4. We cannot be certain that beliefs about the physical world based on sensations arc true. Though my interpretation is controversial, I believe the evil demon argument has exactly the same structure: 1. The qualitatively same sensations we take to be caused by physical objects could instead be produced in us by some malevolent being. 2. If the qualitatively same sensations we take to be caused by

Introduction

3

physical objects could instead be produced in us by some malevolent being, then we cannot be certain that any given set of sensations has not been produced in us by some malevolent being. 3. If we cannot be certain that any given set of sensations has not been produced in us by some malevolent being, then we cannot be certain that beliefs about the physical world based on those sensations are true. Therefore 4. We cannot be certain that beliefs about the physical world based on sensations are trne. Note that, as I have presented both arguments, the crucial first premises assert only a possibility. 2 The actual occurrence of dreams no doubt did wonders for the plausibility of the argument (the most convincing proof of a possibility is always an actuality), but the soundness of the argument in no way hinges upon the occurrence or actual character of dreams, just as the force of the demon argument clearly in no way is supposed to depend on the existence of demons. Both arguments are, I believe, sound, but I shall postpone any kind of detailed discussion of this until chapter 2. The historical importance of the arguments is not really their rather surprising conclusions. Ordinary people without a philosophical background are usually somewhat shocked when someone suggests that they do not know with absolute certainty any ordinary truths about the physical world, but if one stresses the "with absolute certainty" enough and makes it clear that one has something very strong in mind, most people can get used to the idea that all their beliefs about the physical world are fallible. The initial unease with which students react to Descartes's preliminary conclusions more often than not gives way to a shrug of the shoulders. Skepticism comes in all sizes and shapes, and the extent to which the skeptic's position is counterintuitive is directly dependent on the concept of knowledge he employs. If knowing with absolute certainty involves something like possessing evidence or justification so strong as to preclude even the conceivability of error, who would have thought one could know with absolute certainty much of anything at all?

4

Introduction

One of the great ironies of the Meditations, of course, is that Descartes himself raised his initial doubts only to resolve them in the sixth meditation with the ultimate deus ex machina. Not only did he not convince very many others of his solution to the doubts he raised, but philosophers who came after began to wonder whether the problem was far greater than talk about knowledge with absolute certainty suggested. In arguing that we cannot know the physical world with absolute certainty, Descartes seemed to drive a logical wedge between the content of our beliefs about the physical world and what we base such beliefs upon. Epistemological gaps once opened are notoriously difficult to close. After we conclude that the gap between statements describing sensation and statements describing the physical world cannot be bridged through deduction, we are still faced with the problem of saying how, if at all, it can be bridged. From Descartes wondering whether we can know with certainty that there is a table before us, it was only a short step, historically and logically, to Hume wondering what evidence of any kind we could have for thinking that our sensations are produced by physical objects: The only existences of which we are certain, are perceptions, which being immediately present to us by consciousness, command our strongest assent, and are the first foundation of all our conclusions. The only conclusion we can draw from the existence of one thing to that of another, is by means of the relation of cause and effect, which shews, that there is a connexion betwixt them, and that the existence of one is dependent on that of the other. The idea of this relation is deriv'd from past experience, by which we find, that two beings are constantly conjoin'd together, and are always present at once to the mind. But as no beings are ever present to the mind but perceptions; it follows that we may observe a conjunction or a relation of cause and effect between different perceptions, but can never observe it between perceptions and objects. 'Tis impossible, therefore, that from the existence of any of the qualities of the former, we can ever form any conclusions concerning the existence of the latter, or ever satisfy our reason in this particular. 3 Indeed, Descartes himself may have realized that the skepticism he faced was far more serious than the relatively innocuous sort in-

Introduction

5

volved in denying knowledge with absolute certainty, for he was certainly committed to the view that, unless his nondeceiving God could do the trick, we could have no grounds at all for believing in the existence of a world populated by the ordinary objects we certainly seem to take for granted. The main epistemological problems of perception growing directly or indirectly out of Descartes are these: 1. Are perceptual beliefs about the physical world based on sensation or experience in a way that precludes the possibility of knowing with absolute certainty propositions about physical objects? 2. Are propositions about the physical world nondeductively justified by what we know about a different sort of thing? And if they are, what is the nature of such justification? 3. Do we at least know that from which we infer what we believe about the physical world? And if we do, what is the nature of that knowledge? I somewhat arbitrarily describe these as the main epistemological questions involving perception, for each involves other questions involving the nature of the epistemological concepts that these questions presuppose we understand. What conditions must be met before one can know with absolute certainty? What is the nature of justification? What is the nature of inferential justification, and is there a distinction between inferential justification and some other kind of justification?

Metaphysical Problems

~f Perception

Descartes's epistemological concerns were not expressed in a metaphysical vacuum. Indeed, one of the reasons it was so easy for him to be moved by his dream and demon arguments is that he held a certain view about the distinction between veridical and nonveridical perception. Descartes accepted a version of the so-called causal theory of perception called representative realism 4 (a view I shall be discussing in some detail in chapter 5). According to the classical representative realist, veridical perception was understood as occurring when sensations in the mind were produced by objects appropriately represented by those sensations. The representing for

6

Introduction

some of the more important properties (the primary qualities) consisted in the mental entity's exemplifying the same property as the object producing it. The most striking analogy for us today is the way film represents what is filmed. Now if one is in the grip of such a theory, one had better take seriously the possibility that sensations could have an origin or cause other than the one necessary for veridical perception. The actual occurrence of dreams convinces us that they sometimes do, but even if we never dreamed, we must as philosophers countenance the possibility that the causes of our sensations are not always, usually, or ever what we take them to be, and we must give reasons for thinking that our unreflective prejudices on this matter are correct. When a metaphysical view gives rise to such enormous epistemological problems, you can be sure that philosophers are going to reexamine it. Philosophical questions call be difficult to answer because there is something wrong with the way they are asked, and philosophers should always consider the possibility that the epistemological questions that so perplex a given philosopher are infected by that philosopher's metaphysics. (The classic example of a philosopher who explicitly took this position was Berkeley, who was convinced that through acceptance of a mistaken metaphysics philosophers were led to try to solve a problem that never really existed.) Philosophers concerned with the epistemological questions of perception were inevitably forced to consider the following metaphysical questions: 1. What are physical objects? 2. What is involved in veridical perception of a physical object, and what is the distinction between veridical and nonveridical perception? 3. Is there a component of perception we can separate as sensation? And if so, what is its relation to the whole of which it is a part?

While it may not be as obvious, I think it is true that, just as the epistemological questions I referred to above presupposed an understanding of certain epistemological concepts, so the metaphysical questions above presuppose an understanding of metaphysical concepts. Most basically, the questions above presuppose an understanding of what would constitute an appropriate answer to them.

Introduction

7

The most obvious answer to the question, What is involved in perception of the physical world? is probably one that identifies the intricate causal chain that proceeds from the stimulation of various sense organs and culminates in either neural or mental activity (depending on whether the dualist or the identity theorist is right). In some contexts the most natural answer to the question, What are physical objects? is one that would take you from molecular and atomic structure to the nether regions of the microworld and the more exotic universe of electrons, protons, quarks, and the like. These are obviously perfectly appropriate answers to questions (1) and (2) above, yet they are answers that even in these days of "naturalistic" philosophy are likely to disappoint most philosophers who take seriously the classical problems of perception. But if this is so, it is incumbent upon such philosophers to say what kind of response would constitute an appropriate philosophical answer. Since I am one of those who thinks science has no light to shed on either the epistemological or the metaphysical problems of perception, let me try to do just that.

Philosophical Analysis One of the traditional ways to distinguish metaphysical from scientific questions is to construe metaphysical questions as those concerned with the meanings of certain statements. The philosopher who takes this approach would immediately suggest a more perspICUOUS reformulation of our metaphysical questions (1) through (3): 1. What is the meaning of statements asserting the existence of physical objects? 2. What is the meaning of a statement asserting that a given person actually (veridically) perceives a physical object? 3. Is there a statement describing the occurrence of certain sensations that captures part of the meaning of a statement describing perception? And if there is, what is the logical relation of the former to the latter? Although I did not always think so, I now believe (with some important qualifications I shall mention) that this approach is essentially correct, that philosophical analysis is usually meaning analy-

8

Introduction

sis. It is not a conclusion one should accept lightly, however, for on one traditional and highly plausible view philosophical discoveries are said to be a priori, and it is difficult to see how discoveries about the meanings of words or statements can be so. Let me explain and defend my view of philosophical analysis first by saying why I think the most obvious alternatives are implausible. Philosophers who want to divorce philosophical analysis from an examination of language and its meaning will invariably try to find some nonlinguistic entity to serve as the object of their philosophical analysis, and they will construe analysis as an attempt to dissect, or break down, this complex object into its categorical constituents. By nonlinguistic entity I mean an entity whose existence is not logically dependent on language. The three main candidates for the nonlinguistic objects of analysis are facts, propositions, and states of affairs. I shall try to avoid discussing arguments for or against the existence of entities in these problematic categories except insofar as they directly concern an argument I make. Whenever possible I shall assume as traditional and neutral a characterization of the respective candidates as I can and shall ask hypothetically whether, if they do exist, they could plausibly be construed as the objects of philosophical analysis. I think we can begin by eliminating facts as the objects of most philosophical analyses. As I use the expression, a fact is a nonlinguistic complex that makes a true sentence or proposition true. By referring to an entity as nonlinguistic, I mean that the existence oflanguage is not a logically necessary conditionS for its existence. "The fact that snow is white" refers to a complex that makes it true that snow is white. "The fact that snow is black" does not refer. If a given sentence or proposition is not true, then there is no fact that corresponds to it, there is nothing in the world that makes it true (since it is false). Now it seems obvious to me that for many paradigms of philosophical analysis facts cannot be the objects of the analyses. If philosophers were always trying to analyze facts, then if there were no knowledge (no true statements of the form S knows that P) it would be impossible to provide a correct analysis of knowledge, for there would be no facts of the form S knows that P to analyze. But since a philosopher's providing a correct analysis of knowledge not only is consistent with his embracing skepticism but is an essential part of an ideal defense of skepticism, it cannot be jClCIS of the

Introduction

9

form 5 knows that P upon which a philosopher is directing his attention in analyzing knowledge. Again, in these days of quantum theory and the consequent popularity (probably just a fad) of indeterminism, the contemporary philosopher of science might begin to wonder whether there are universal laws of nature. But surely it seems absurd to suggest that, were there no universal laws, his carefully defended analysis of the distinction between laws and accidential generalizations must ipso facto be abandoned as an illusion. To convince yourself that it is not a fact whose nature you are analyzing when you try to provide a correct analysis of causation, knowledge, laws of nature, other minds, the physical world, God, and so on, a thought experiment might be in order. Ask yourself whether it is possible, relative to your evidence, that there is no fact of the form 5 knows that P, it is a law of nature that L, someone else thinks, there are physical objects, or there is a God. The answer, in the examples I have chosen, should I think always be yes. Now ask yourself whether if unknown to you the world should lack these facts (while you retain your evidence) it would or even could logically affect your ability to arrive at correct analyses by employing the methods that characterize your search for adequate philosophical analyses in these respective areas. It seems to me undeniable that it could not and thus that the existence of these respective facts is no part of, is not a necessary condition for, the success of the respective philosophical analyses. In rejecting facts as the objects of philosophical analysis, it may seem to some that I am belaboring an obvious point. But the view has had some distinguished supporters, and what is more, despite all I have said above, I think there is a kind of philosophical analysis that does have as its end the dissection of a fact into its ultimate categorical constituents. If there is a kind of fact that is directly or immediately present to consciousness (and, as I shall argue, I think there are such facts), then there seems no reason we cannot "examine" (phenomenologically) that fact in order to assay it for its constituents. Indeed, the kind of philosophical work epitomized by the philosopher who takes himself to be an ontologist very often focuses on facts of just this sort. The thought experiment I described earlier might well be inappropriate for the ontologist contemplating his red, round sense datum in an effort to find its constituents, for he may (ifhe is a conservative epistemologist) reject as

10

Introduction

unintelligible the supposition that there might not exist (relative to his evidence) the fact he is interested in analyzing. I confine the remarks above, therefore, to philosophical analysis in areas where our epistemic access to the kind of fact that is a candidate for analysis is necessarily indirect, in a way that makes its nonexistence compatible with our evidence. If there is a distinction between this kind of analysis and analysis of facts that are somehow directly and immediately presented to consciousness, I shall refer to the two, respectively, as meaning analysis and ontological analysis. Myearlier argument against the possibility of construing facts as the objects of analysis was directed, then, at meaning analysis. But as I emphasized in presenting that argument, it seems that most of the paradigms of contemporary philosophical analysis (analyses of knowledge, causation, other minds, theoretical entities in physics, and the physical world, for example) must be construed as meaning analysis. Our access to the respective facts (if they exist) is always at best indirect. In what follows I shall be concerned only with meaning analysis. In referring to these paradigms of philosophical analysis as meaning analyses, I have, one might suppose, prejudiced an important question by supposing that the object of a philosophical analysis is something it makes sense to describe as having meaning. This is not really so, for the expression "meaning analysis" would be appropriate if the object we are analyzing did not haFe meaning but was a meaning. So that I may reach a conclusion on whether what we are trying to analyze is something that has meaning as opposed to something that is a meaning, I shall consider the other two candidates for the nonlinguistic objects of philosophical analysis: propositions and states of affairs. Most of what I shall say applies to both, so I shall consider them together. As I use the expressions, propositions and states of affairs are, like facts, nonlinguistic complexes (in the sense of nonlinguistic defined earlier). Both propositions and states of affairs are embraced by many philosophers, in large part to fill the void left by the absence of facts corresponding to falsehoods. We can, for example, believe falsely, and if we think ofbclief as directed upon some ol~ject we need an object to replace the fact that is not there. In the true sentence "John believes that there are unicorns" it is certainly tempting, perhaps even initially plausible, to suppose that the noun clause "that there are unicorns" names something. Of those philoso-

Introduction

11

phers who were convinced (for a variety of reasons) that the something could not be a sentence, some came up with propositions, others with states of affairs. Given the wide range of views on what propositions and states of affairs are, even among those who think of them as nonlinguistic complexes, it will be difficult to formulate a "traditional" or "neutral" characterization of each. Indeed, one prominent contemporary philosopher identifies propositions as a species of states of affairs. 6 Some philosophers construe propositions as mental entities (perhaps nonrelational properties of a mind or self). Others are committed to propositions as abstract Platonic entities that serve as intentional objects. Still others want intentional objects to be another sort of abstract entity, a state of affairs, the concept of which differs from most traditional conceptions of abstract propositions primarily in terms of the picture of truth associated with it (see below). Fortunately, for the following discussion we need not worry about the many distinctions between different conceptions of nonlinguistic propositions and states of affairs, for such distinctions will not affect my objection to taking them as the objects of philosophical analysis. If one has an ontological commitment to either nonlinguistic propositions or nonlinguistic states of affairs, one has a prime candidate not only for the objects of intentional states, but also for the meanings of sentences. If one is committed to propositions, a meaningful declarative sentence (be it true or false) will express a proposition, and the proposition will be the meaning of the sentence. On at least one traditional view, the true proposition will stand in yet another relation of mapping or correspondence to the previously discussed category of fact. If one opts for states of affairs over propositions, then meaningful declarative sentences will name or express states of affairs. True sentences will name or express states of affairs that obtain or occur. False sentences will name states of affairs that fail to obtain or occur. Both these views have a kind of obvious appeal owing to their elegance and simplicity. To understand a sentence is to grasp either the proposition or the state of affairs it expresses, a process that normally involves entertaining or being conscious of both the linguistic item and the nonlinguistic complex, and also the relevant relation of symbolizing, or meaning, or naming in which the former stands to the latter. We would on either view also have obvious candidates for the objects of nonlinguistic ontological analysis.

12

Introduction

The words or sentences are unimportant and are no part of the focus of our attempt to provide a philosophical analysis. If we are interested in analyzing, say, knowledge, we simply focus on (think about, entertain) the relevant proposition or state of affairs and perform our philosophical dissection of it. The importance of somehow divorcing the objects of philosophical analysis from language for the traditional conception of philosophical analysis as an a priori enterprise is obvious. Facts about how people use words or sentences seem to be paradigms of empirical facts discoverable only a posteriori, only through methods that, as far as I have been able to tell, philosophers do not follow and are not particularly competent to follow. While the elegance and simplicity of both the view that the object of a philosophical analysis is a proposition and the view that it is a state of affairs accounts for their appeal, it is also, ironically, the major obstacle to their ultimate plausibility. If either view were correct, everything would be too simple. It would be difficult to understand why providing a philosophical analysis is so often difficult and results in so much controversy. On both views, when I am about to perform a philosophical analysis, sayan analysis of causation, there is there before my consciousness this nonlinguistic complex something at which I am directing my attention in order to discover its constituents. But ask yourself-and here I must again rely on an honest report of a phenomenological experimentwhether this is so. I am not asking here whether you have before your mind some particular example of something that falls under the concept we are trying to analyze. In trying to analyze causation we might well hold before our minds, as Hume did, one billiard ball striking another, and we might examine this state of affairs, convinced that somewhere in its complexity there is to be found the relation of causation. But that is, of course, not to hold the rclation of causation itself before the mind. The state of affairs that is X causing Y does not contain as its constituents the myriad other relational and nonrelational properties of X and Y. If in beginning an analysis philosophers held before their minds some specific complex object whose constituents they were about to describe, why would there be so much disagreement-radical disagreement-on the correct analysis of, say, causation? To be sure, proponents of these respective views are going to try to give

Introduction

13

some account of error in philosophical analysis. They are going to give some account of how it is possible to overlook a constituent of the complex before one's mind or to "hallucinate," so to speak, an element that is not there, but it will take some fancy philosophical footwork to account for the radical nature of the disagreements (and hence presumably errors) that have existed. Remember that on these views, when you and I both seek to analyze, for example, causation or knowledge or good, there is (on the assumption that we use language the same way) some definite, spec(fic complex entity before our minds whose nature we are trying to make clear. When Moore and Hume, for example, set out to define good, each had the same specific nonlinguistic entity before his mind and was simply trying to set out its character as clearly as possible. But again, how could at least one of them get so confused, make such a radical mistake, fail so miserably in characterizing that object? The phenomenological experiments that seem to refute the view that in providing a philosophical analysis we have before our minds some specific complex nonlinguistic entity, a proposition or a state of affairs, also refute the rather natural theory of meaning that goes along with that view. If one held that something like propositions or states of affairs constituted the meanings of declarative sentences, then it might seem natural to suppose that to understand a sentence is to grasp, become conscious of, entertain the relevant proposition or state of affairs it expresses. But if it is implausible to hold that G. E. Moore and David Hume, for example, both held the same proposition or state of affairs before their minds in beginning their philosophical analysis of "good," and equally implausible to hold that at least one of them did not understand the English expression "good," it seems we must reject this conception of what it is to understand language. In rejecting facts, propositions, and states of affairs as the objects of philosophical analysis, I have not argued that there are no such things as facts, propositions, or states of affairs. Specifically, I have not denied that there is such a thing as thinking of such and such being the case where this state (be it a nonrelational aspect of the self or mind or a peculiar intentional relation directed upon a state of affairs or proposition) is nonlinguistic, that is, is a state that could (logically) exist in the absence of language. Indeed, as I shall try to make clear, I think there must be such a state if we are to make sense

14

Introduction

of meaning, ordinary understanding of language, and the kind of philosophical understanding that is reached through philosophical analysis. If we dismiss facts, propositions, and states of affairs as the objects of philosophical analysis, we seem left with only one alternative, and that is to take a "linguistic turn," at least on this one issue. As I implied before, this seems a step that a philosopher should take only with considerable reluctance. As I have already noted, if it is something about language use that we come to discover when we discover a correct philosophical analysis, it appears that our discovery is bound to be of an empirical truth known only a posteriori. Philosophers who engage in meaning analysis, and I am no exception, almost all have desperately tried to distinguish their activites from the intellectually less lofty activities of the lexicographer. And with good reason, for if the philosopher is performing a lexicographer's task, he is doing it without the appropriate credentials-without the background and training necessary for doing it properly. How are we to avoid this dilemma? There are, I think, two parts to the answer. One involves recognizing philosophical activity as essentially "egocentric." The other involves recognizing that the linguistic turn we take in understanding philosophical analysis must bring with it an ontology that is anathema to most so-called linguistic philosophers. Let us examine each of these in turn. In some important meta philosophical preliminaries to his metaethical investigations, G. E. Moore distinguishes the question of how most people use the word "good" from the questions of how he uses it and indicates emphatically that it is only the latter question that interests him as a philosopher: What, then is good? How is good to be defined? Now it may be thought that this is a verbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one word's meaning in other words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can never be of ultimate importance in any study except lexicography. If I wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first place how people generally use the word "good"; but my business is not with its proper usage, as established by custom. I should, indeed, be foolish, if I tried to

Introduction

15

use it for something which it did not usually denote; if, for instance, I were to announce that, whenever I used the word "good," I must be understood to be thinking of that object which is usually denoted by the word "table." I shall, therefore, use the word in the same sense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discuss whether I am right in thinking that it is so used. 7 Though probably not very popular today, Moore's suggestion is, I think, essentially correct. We can at least convince ourselves that concern with other people's linguistic habits is not an essential part of the method of philosophical analysis by performing a thought experiment similar to the one we employed in rejecting facts as the objects of philosophical meaning analysis. Imagine that tomorrow you suddenly came to the conclusion that the existence of other people, complete with their linguistic habits, was all a massive illusion. You had been reading Descartes in a particularly susceptible frame of mind, let us suppose, and were so impressed by the early results of applying the method of doubt that you became a confirmed solipsist. Now ask yourself whether if this were to happen it would affect in the least either the correctness of your earlier attempts at philosophical analysis or your ability to engage in new efforts to discover philosophical truths of the sort we call analyses. I think you will agree that it would not. And the most obvious explanation of this is Moore's-that, even if we as philosophers are concerned with the use of words, it is always essentially the question of how we ourselves use words that is the primary object of our meaning analysis. To be sure, most of us are not solipsists, and we take the trouble to publish the results of our philosophical analyses so that others may benefit from them. We operate on the assumption that the way we use words is not idiosyncratic. But I am arguing that this presupposition of my communication with others is in no way a presupposition of the correctness of my philosophical analyses. By recognizing the task of discovering a correct meaning analysis as "egocentric" we shall have distinguished the philosopher's task from the lexicographer's and hence shall have cleared the philosopher of performing his task without the appropriate qualifications. But the difference is not much of a difference. So far I seem to

16

Introduction

be suggesting only that the philosopher is a lexicographer with rather parochial interests. This, however, is not the right conception of meaning analysis, and I must explain why. The task of the lexicographer is to discover that one word or expression has the same meaning as other words or expressions. The task of the philosopher in performing meaning analysis (and here we take a crucial ontological turn) is to relate the language he uses to something nonlinguistic. I emphasized earlier that I was not trying to argue that there is no such thing as nonlinguistic thinking. In fact, I think there is such a state. (I shall offer an analysis of it in chapter 2.) My suggestion, put simply and without the important qualifications I shall add shortly, is that the philosopher's primary objective in providing a philosophical analysis is to relate his use of language to certain nonlinguistic states. Let me elaborate. One can discover that two expressions have the same meaning without knowing what either means. The Frenchman can easily enough discover that "bachelor" means "unmarried man" without knowing what either "bachelor" or "unmarried man" means. I am convinced that in an analogous (though only analogous) sense a speaker of English can know that two familiar English expressions have the same meaning without in some sense knowing what either or both mean. To be a competent speaker of English (or any other language), to know or understand the meanings of the words one uses, is to follow certain complex rules governing the use of these words. To follow these rules is to have certain complex dispositions of a sort I shall discuss shortly. But to follow a semantic rule in this sense is not the same thing as to know what the rule is, at least in the sense that to know the rule is to be explicitly conscious of it. There is a useful analogy here between the way we follow semantic rules and the way we follow syntactic rules. It seems obvious that one can be perfectly grammatical, can follow without exception the rather complex rules of English grammar, without being in a position to state them-that is, without knowing in another sense what the rules of English grammar are. Indeed, as people in the field of linguistics will tell you, it is often very difficult to determine precisely what rules we follow in putting words together to form sentences, even for the people we may presume follow the very rules they are trying to discover. Philosophers sometimes refer to the "paradox of analysis." The "paradox" of philosophical analysis is very much like the "paradox" of linguistic analysis, in that in both cases one

Introduction

17

might wonder how one can follow certain rules without knowing what they are. The answer is simply that to follow either semantic or syntactic rules is at one level merely to have certain complex linguistic dispositions. To have a disposition to behave in a certain way is one thing: to know what that disposition is is quite another. Because one can follow a semantic rule without knowing what it is, it is possible for someone to use two expressions, "alpha" and "beta," in accordance with the same rule without knowing he is doing so. While it may not be as obvious, it is also possible for someone to use these two expressions in accordance with the same rule and know that he is doing so without knowing (in the sense of being explicitly conscious of) what the rule is. In knowing that he uses "alpha" the same way he uses "beta" he is, of course, aware that he follows what I shall call a same-level meaning rule: Regard "alpha" and "beta" as interchangeable salva veritate in certain contexts. But if my earlier remarks are correct, the philosopher is not just concerned with rules that relate language to language but is, rather, primarily concerned with the rules he follows that relate language to something nonlinguistic. That there are-indeed must be-such rules has been argued by a great many philosophers and seems to me obvious. The most concise argument for the view is simply that it is possible (logically) for someone to know all the same-level rules of a language (rules relating words to words) without understanding the language, that is, without being able to follow the appropriate rules relating language to the nonlinguistic. 8 This distinction between same-level and different-level meaning rules helps us make clear the distinction philosophers draw between providing a philosophical analysis and merely discovering synonymous expressions. When Hume told us not to analyze causation using such terms as "efficacy," "agency," "power," "force," "energy," and "productive power,"9 he did so because he was at least implicitly aware that we could know that two terms, for example, "causes" and "produces," are synonymous, are used in accordance with the same rule, without knowing what we want to knowwithout knowing what the rule is. What, then, would these different-level meaning rules look like? Essentially, they would be rules of the form: Regard "alpha" as a correct description of all and only those possible situations in which alpha is the case.

18

Introduction

While the rule itself, being a rule, lacks a truth value, philosophical analysis involves the discovery of truths, for what we discover in analysis is that we do follow certain different-level meaning rules. And what is involved in becoming conscious of, in coming to know explicitly the different-level meaning rule one is following for a given expression? Essentially, 1 suggest, to discover the differentlevel meaning rule one is following is to discover that one has a certain disposition, a disposition to regard a certain expression as a correct way to describe all possible situations that are construed in a certain way. The thought experiments through which one discovers that one has the relevant disposition that constitutes, for example, following the rule: Regard "alpha" as a correct description of all and only those possible situations in which alpha is the case will involve entertaining before the mind both "alpha" and alpha. Note that 1 did not state the different-level meaning rule: Use "alpha" if and only if alpha. This would imply that the dispositions one has that constitute understanding the expression are dispositions to actually say certain things under certain conditions. Such a behavioristic analysis of understanding would encounter all the usual objections to behaviorism. What 1 would or would not say in any given situation is a function of all kinds of things (e. g., my honesty, my interest in communicating with others, my love of irony). To avoid these sorts of problems, 1 replace the more familiar talk of "dispositions to use ... " with the more awkward, but 1 believe more accurate, talk of "dispositions to regard as correct .... " But how is this different from the theory of meaning and view of philosophical analysis advanced by the philosopher who takes propositions or states of affairs to be the object of philosophical analysis? Well, first of all, 1 am not arguing for the view (I have already rejected it on phenomenological grounds) that to understand a sentence is to entertain a nonlinguistic proposition or state of affairs. Understanding a sentence involves following a rule, and the statement of the rule will involve reference to something nonlinguistic; but since 1 can follow a rule without knowing what it is, 1 can understand a sentence without entertaining a proposition or a state of affairs. Philosophical understanding of the sentence 1 use will involve entertaining a nonlinguistic proposition or state of affairs (however that is understood), because philosophical understanding is realized only when we come to know what rule it is that we are following when we use the sentence, a process that involves

Introduction

19

bringing before one's mind the rule relating language to the world. This in turn involves bringing before one's mind the respective relata. The picture of philosophical analysis I have been presenting may still be misleading in some ways, and I wish to try to eliminate possible misinterpretations of my view. I suggested that discovering a correct analysis is essentially becoming explicitly conscious of a different-level meaning rule having the form: Regard "alpha" as a correct description of all and only those possible situations in which alpha. Some discovery! If in the course of this book I announce that I have finally concluded that I regard "table" as the correct way to pick out tables, the philosophical community will be justifiably unimpressed. What is the solution to this puzzle? Well, you will recall that, as I characterized philosophical analysis, the aim is to become explicitly conscious of a different-level meaning rule. In the example used earlier, this involves becoming conscious of the word "causation" and of that to which the word applies. To know that the statement" 'Causation' picks out cases of causation" is true does not require even reflecting upon any nonlinguistic states. The sentence "'Alpha' means alpha" is true, and I know it is true no matter what "alpha" refers to: consequently I can readily assent to this claim without moving beyond the level oflanguage. To become explicitly conscious of the meaning rule that" 'Alpha' means alpha" expresses involves, again, holding before one's mind "alpha" and alpha, something that is by no means easy to do. So discovering the correct philosophical analysis of the meaning of "causation" is more than knowing that the statement" 'Causation' means causation" is true. It involves becoming explicitly conscious of the rule, a process that involves holding before one's mind the relata of the asserted meaning relation. It might seem I am suggesting that to discover what we mean by, for example, "causation" we should, so to speak, simply run through our minds all the candidates for the causal rclation we can think of (where this thinking is nonlinguistic) until suddenly a light goes on when we hit on the right rclation. But, as I am sure you will agree, when we reflect upon what we actually do in trying to discover a philosophical analysis, it is in most cases not nearly as straightforward as this. Nothing I have said, however, suggests that it should be. Quite the opposite. To discover a philosophical meaning analysis is to discover what different-level meaning rule one is

20

Introduction

following in using a word or sentence. This in turn is to discover that one has a disposition to regard certain words as correct descriptions of certain situations construed in certain ways. To hold before one's mind the linguistic item "X causes Y" and some relation R holding between X and Y is not by itself to discover that "X causes Y" either does or does not refer to X standing in R to Y. The meaning relation is not like the relation of being on top of. It is not the kind of relation one automatically discovers in perceiving or reflecting upon the relata. To discover that "X causes Y" means X stands in R to Y, one must discover that one would regard "X causes Y" as a correct description of all and only those possible situations that one construes as situations in which X stands in R to Y. One might argue that this suggestion fails to take account of an important distinction between synthetic necessary connections and analytic necessary connections. I may have the disposition to regard "equiangular triangle" as a correct way to describe all and only those triangles that are equilateral, but one must surely hesitate before one analyzes the meaning of "equiangular triangle" in terms of the property of being an equilateral triangle. But remember that, on my account, to follow the meaning rule: Regard "equiangular triangle" as a correct description of all and only those objects that are equilateral triangles, I must have the disposition to regard "equiangular triangle" as a correct description of an object in all and only those possible situations in which I construe an object as an equilateral triangle. Thus there must be no possible situation in which I would regard "equiangular triangle" as a correct description of an object I do not construe as an equilateral triangle. In fact, I think this is false of me. It seems to me that I can conceive of a situation in which I am presented with the equiangular character of a triangle and yet do not construe it (occurrently or dispositionally) as equilateral. I am willing to predict that in such a situation I would nevertheless regard "equiangular" as a correct description of the triangle, and that is why I do not think the property of being equilateral should be referred to in the statement of the meaning rule I follow for "equiangular triangle." To be sure, it may be difficult to make such determinations through thought experiments. It is not easy to determine what one's dispositions would be in hypothetical situations that involve not possessing certain concepts or recognitional capacities. But then this might explain rather nicely why phi-

Introduction

21

losophers often have such a terrible time deciding whether a necessary truth is analytic or synthetic-indeed, why so many philosophers are persuaded that there are no synthetic necessary truths. On a quite different point, it should also be admitted, I think, that, even though our ultimate aim in providing a philosophical meaning analysis is to leave the level of language by discovering different-level meaning rules, for a time we may profitably carryon our investigation at the level of language. If we were trying to analyze the concept of knowledge, we might proceed by trying to think of other words that seem interchangeable with "know." This method might lead to the discovery of the relevant different-level meaning rule, particularly if the synonymous expressions we come up with are complex, having as constituents other expressions for which we may have less trouble finding the relevant different-level meaning rules. It is not easy to break away from language, and often much preliminary work needs to be done before the move is feasible. Last, I want to acknowledge one important respect in which this account of analysis may be incomplete or oversimplified. Any plausible view of meaning has to take into account and explain the fact that language seems vague and open textured. Although I have been talking as though there are determinate different-level meaning rules for meaningful expressions governing their use in all possible or conceivable situations, I suspect that this is simply not so for much of language. Although I will not argue the case here, I think the view I have sketched can accommodate rather nicely the opentextured character of much of language. Roughly, my suggestion would be that for some expressions the only different-level meaning rules may be of the form: Regard "alpha" as a correct description of all and only those possible situations in which alpha, provided that beta is the case. The rules, if you like, may leave completely open the question of how to describe situations in which alpha is present and beta is not. At the same time the expression governed by such "open-textured" rules may be perfectly useful, particularly ifbeta is the kind of condition that is usually satisfied and is such that in most contexts of communication everyone is aware that it is satisfied. This might be the case, for example, if "provided that beta" is some kind of "normal conditions" clause. In fact, as I shall argue later, I

22

Introduction

think that many of the different-level meaning rules for ordinary expressions are protected by "normal conditions" clauses in just this way. This account of philosophical analysis does not fit well with the traditional conception of philosophical analyses as both significant and a priori. The significance of philosophical analyses is accommodated-I have indicated why discovering different-level meaning rules is a complex and difficult task. But significance is accommodated at a cost. I have given up the view that knowledge that a given philosophical meaning analysis is correct is a priori. The discovery that one follows a different-level meaning rule in using an expression is an a posteriori discovery (albeit of a rather special kind). That one would or would not apply an expression in a certain situation is a straightforward contingent fact. To be sure, even philosophers sometimes loosely and misleadingly characterize a priori knowledge as simply knowledge that is independent of sense experience, and in this sense knowledge of the correct philosophical analysis of a term might be construed as a priori. The thought experiments that are the source of our discoveries are not visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, or gustatory sensations. The philosopher who wishes to avoid soiling his hands in the search for empirical data can by the above account of philosophical analysis console himself with the knowledge that he still need not leave his armchair (and that, I suspect, is all he is really worried about). The data he relies upon are there "at his fingertips," even though they are empirical data in the strict sense of the term used by philosophers when they are being careful. The distinction between philosophy and science, between the kind of discoveries one can make through thought experiments and the kind one must make through experiments that rely ultimately on sense experience, is still dramatic according to my account of philosophical meaning analysis, even if it is not the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. While the data required for evaluating philosophical analyses are, on my view, no further away than the nearest thought experiment, I should emphasize again that discovering a correct analysis is no easy task. Finite minds can perform only a finite number of thought experiments, and the philosopher should always be open to the possibility that a hitherto plausible analysis might be revealed as defective by consideration of a new hypothetical situation. That, pre-

Introduction

23

sumably, is precisely what happened to philosophers who were convinced by Gettier-style counterexamples that knowledge is not just justified true belief. In imagining a certain situation, they realized they did not have the relevant linguistic dispositions they thought they had and hence realized they did not follow the different-level meaning rules they thought they followed. It is perhaps an understatement to suggest that the conception of philosophical analysis presented above is not all that popular today. Indeed, the reason I have gone to such lengths in presenting my view of philosophical analysis is that later in the book I must consider and reject an alternative conception of analysis, an alternative that carries with it important implications for the analysis of the physical world. When I reject that view I want it to be clear that I do not do so without having a positive alternative. If we construe philosophical analysis of propositions asserting veridical perception and propositions asserting the existence of physical objects as meaning analysis, then we can understand why the scientist's attempts to characterize the neurophysiological workings of perception and the ultimate constituents of the physical world fail to answer the metaphysical questions of perception. Light may impinge on the retina and by a complex process result in an alpha wave in the brain, but this is no part of what we assert, no part of what we mean when we say we see a table. If it were, it would be an analytic truth that when we see a table light impinges on the retina, ultimately resulting in an alpha wave, and this analytic truth would be discoverable solely by reflecting on the meanings of the terms involved. Unfortunately for the psychophysiologist, this is simply not so. The psychophysical story of perception can be discovered only by employing the empirical methods of science.

Methodological Presuppositions Assuming I have succeeded in making clear the epistemological and metaphysical questions that are to be answered in the remainder of this book, we should decide some preliminary matters concerning the connection between the two kinds of questions and the methodological presuppositions we should follow in trying to answer these questions. Roughly speaking, we must decide to what extent our epistemology is to be determined by our metaphysics

24

Introduction

and to what extent our metaphysics is going to be decided by our epistemology. I shall begin by considering the view I call epistemological commonsensism.

EpistemoloJ?ical Commonsensism Epistemological commonsensism is a view implicitly or explicitly embraced by many contemporary philosophers in dealing with epistemological problems like those associated with perception. It seems to have two versions, linguistic and nonlinguistic. The linguistic version, implicitly accepted by many Wittgensteineans (though perhaps not by Wittgenstein himself), holds that at least most of what we say in paradigmatically normal situations is true or at least reasonable. (I use the deliberately vague expression "paradigmatically normal" to allow the Wittgensteinean as much room as possible to qualify the view in the light of obvious objections.) Thus if people all go around saying that they see tables, remember what they had for breakfast, know their last names, have good reason for thinking the sun will rise tomorrow, and so on, and such people do not feel that their grounds for saying such things are in any way defective, then in doing philosophy we ought to assume that they do sec tables, remember what they had for breakfast, know their last names, and have good reason for thinking the sun will rise tomorrow, or at least we ought to assume that these assertions are perfectly reasonable. In doing his philosophy the philosopher ought to make adjustments to his epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy oflanguage until he preserves as true (or at least as reasonable) as much as possible of paradigmatic assertions. The nonlinguistic version of epistemological commonsensism wants what people take for granted, take to be obvious, believe unhesitatingly, are quite convinced of to be the philosopher's guide in constructing his epistemology and metaphysics. Thus if it seems obvious to people, if they believe unhesitatingly or take for granted that they remember what they had for breakfast, see a table, have good reason for thinking the sun will rise tomorrow, then the philosopher ought to assume that they are right or at least reasonable and make adjustments to his philosophy until he can consistently hold this. Since we may assume that for the most part what a person unhesitatingly says expresses an unhesitating belief, it may be that

Introduction

25

there is no great difference between the linguistic and nonlinguistic versions of commonsensism. Roderick Chisholm has been more self-conscious than most about the sort of methodological presuppositions we are discussing here, and in a chapter of his Theory if Knowledge called "The Problem of the Criterion" he discusses not only his general acceptance of commonsensism but also the kinds of epistemological and metaphysical tinkering that a philosopher can do to preserve commonsensism against its epistemological enemy radical skepticism. (As I use the expression, a person is a radical skeptic with respect to a given kind of proposition if almost everyone else claims to know or at least have good reason for believing some proposition of that kind and the skeptic in question claims that neither he nor anyone else has evidence that makes any proposition of that sort more likely to be true than false.) I think it is fair to suggest that, historically, the philosopher has most often attempted to rebuff the skeptic's challenges through metaphysical manipulation. Thus Berkeley, one of the most ardent of commonsense philosophers (albeit with one of the most bizarre philosophies) attempted to resolve Descartes's skeptical worries through a metaphysical reduction of the physical world to the world of ideas (sensations). The details, of course, got rather complicated as he tried to find a reasonable compromise between a commonsense epistemology and a commonsense metaphysics. The positivists of the early twentieth century almost all waged battle with the radical skeptics employing the weapons of metaphysical analysis. to Those who took knowledge of the physical world to be relatively unproblematic reduced the mental to the physical; those who took knowledge of the mental to be relatively unproblematic reduced the physical to the mental; and a few hardy souls, never flinching in the face of paradox, tried to do both. 11 Talk about the unobservable theoretical entities of physics was reduced to talk of the familiar macroworld and the dispositions of macrobodies to behave therein, and the most daring of all toyed with the idea of reducing talk about the past to talk of the present and future. 12 Although I think it has not been emphasized nearly enough, the guiding force moving the positivist was his commitment to commonsensism, a commitment that required him to do battle with the forces of radical skepticism. Typically adhering to a rather austere

26

Introduction

epistemology that sanctioned only deductive and, possibly, inductive inference, the positivist found his defenses limited. They consisted almost exclusively of various attempts to reduce the meaning of conclusions under skeptical attack to premises the skeptic would accept or, more accurately, to analyze the sense of the conclusions under skeptical attack in such a way that the conclusions could be reached by employing deductive and inductive inference from the unchallenged premises. One would get, of course, all kinds of variations on reductionism, depending on what the philosopher in question took to be the unchallengeable premises. The irony of the positivist's metaphysical machinations in defense of epistemological commonsensism is that one usually got a metaphysics that everyone except the positivists viewed as completely bizarre. Only someone in the grip of a theory, for example, would even consider trying to reduce propositions about the past to propositions about the present and future or, for that matter, propositions about mental life to propositions about physical behavior and dispositions to behave. The trend today seems to be away from metaphysical tinkering in defense of commonsensism and toward epistemological tinkering in defense of commonsensism. If deductive and inductive principles of reasoning will not get us the conclusions of commonsense, given our metaphysics, then why not simply expand on our set of acceptable principles of reasoning? This, in effect, is the course proposed by Chisholm in Theory of Knowledge. Roughly, the idea seems to be that if you cannot get from your available data E to a given conclusion C via the epistemic principles you have committed yourself to so far, and C is a conclusion of "commonsense," then expand on your epistemic principles until you come up with something that will sanction the inference from E to C. The unofficial method of choosing the relevant principle seems to be just that. Come up with something that gets you where you want to go from what you take to be the appropriate starting point, and at the same time make sure the principle is not so broad as to sanction inferences to conclusions that commonsense does not endorse. I say "unofficial" because in at least some cases the philosopher who endorses this method of dealing with radical skepticism is committed to a version of foundationalism according to which he ou<~ht to claim that knowledge of epistemic principles is a priori (I shall say more about this in the next chapter and in my concluding chapter).

Introduction

27

I cannot help but worry that this trend in epistemology will lead to chaos. I worry that anyone with an outlandish view can come up with an epistemic principle to sanction his idiosyncratic inferences and, when challenged, simply point to the precedent established by philosophers trying to refute the radical skeptic. Indeed, one of the most clever of contemporary philosophers has already begun to exploit contemporary epistemological trends in a new defense of theism. 13 I shall comment on this general approach to skepticism more carefully later in the book, but in the meantime I do wish to address some general questions concerning commonsensism and these two methods of defending commonsensism against skepticism. Should we accept epistemological commonsensism? If we do, should we decide metaphysical issues first and adjust our epistemology (our views about what constitutes available evidence and acceptable principles of reasoning) until we get "commonsense"? Or should we decide on an epistemology first and try to adjust our analyses of the relevant propositions until our epistemology sanctions beliefs endorsed by commonsense? On one way oflooking at epistemological commonsensism, it is closely related to the thesis sometimes referred to as epistemic conservatism. The epistemic conservative maintains that the mere fact that someone believes a proposition gives that person some epistemic reason for believing it. R. M. Chisholm suggests in "A Version of Foundationalism" that the mere fact that 5 accepts P gives P some presumption in its favor for 5, provided that P is not contradicted by something else 5 accepts. In a paper 14 critical of epistemic conservatism, Richard Foley suggests that epistemic conservatism either is or needs to be presupposed by many contemporary philosophers. Foley criticizes epistemic conservatism in a number of ways, but I think his most effective objection rests on a certain thought experiment. Imagine a person 5 considering a certain proposition H that, by hypothesis, is such that 5's evidence E is almost neutral between Hand not-H but just barely makes not-H more likely to be true than H. Suppose, further, that 5 ignores or misconstrues his evidence and believes H instead. 5's belief, here, seems to be paradigmatically irrational, but if the epistemic conservative were correct, as soon as 5 formed this irrational belief it would presumably become rational! In addition to his earlier evidence E, he now has the additional fact of his commitment to H

28

Introduction

supporting his belief that H. Such a result seems unacceptable to say the least. Now on one interpretation, epistemological commonsensism looks very much like a species of epistemic conservatism. Mere belief is simply replaced by some other stronger intentional state as our criterion of prima facie rational belief. Taking P for granted, being certain that P, unhesitatingly accepting P, and so on, are the indicators the "commonsense" philosopher relies on in deciding what is rational. But it is not clear that any shift in the strength of the intentional attitude will affect the general argument Foley raised against the more comprehensive version of epistemic conservatism. Again, suppose that a person considering a hypothesis H has evidence E that just barely makes not-H more likely than H, and suppose that this time (for whatever reason-perhaps some dark Freudian cause) he finds himself spontaneously accepting H. Indeed he finds himself quite convinced, quite certain that H is true. Is it any more plausible to argue that what appears to be an irrational choice becomes rational by virtue of the fact that it was made enthusiastically? But perhaps I am missing the point. Perhaps I am reading far more into commonsensism than I am supposed to. Perhaps commonsensism involves nothing more complicated than the simple presupposition that, despite straying now and then, man is basically rational. Indeed, unless we were extraordinarily lucky we would never have survived as a species unless most of our beliefs were justified, unless most of our beliefs were arrived at rationally. Now at first glance the comments above certainly seem to run a serious risk of circularity. Science might tell us that, by and large, it is evolutionarily advantageous to have rational beliefs, but scientific reasoning in all its many facets involves the very reasoning that the commonsense philosopher wishes to defend against skepticism. One can hardly argue that commonsense beliefs are likely to be true because one can infer from certain commonsense beliefs that they are likely to be true. I realize that this is the sort of argument a foundationalist would put forth, and foundationalists are on the verge of extinction in contemporary epistemology. Quine has convinced many that in studying epistemology you should feel perfectly free to employ the full stock of scientific knowledge at every stage in the philosophical debate. Furthermore, if a coherence theory of truth or justification were plausible, commonsensism, perhaps

Introduction

29

even epistemic conservatism, would, I concede, be far more plausible. Foundationalism is nevertheless the correct view in epistemology, though I shall wait until chapter 2 to discuss the issue more fully. Before that, however, I want to make a suggestion that might easily be misunderstood. Suppose for a moment we assume that what science (construed very broadly) tells us is for the most part true and justified. Does science tell us that people are more likely to have justified than unjustified beliefs? Does science tell us that rational beliefs are evolutionarily advantageous? Many of the empirical conclusions of science seem to suggest that much of what we expect or take for granted is "programmed" into us through evolution. And if the theory of evolution is correct, I suppose this is just what you would expect. If a child had to reason deductively and nondeductively to the various conclusions he in fact takes for granted, his chances of survival would be rather slim. There is no reason to believe that we are not "programmed" to simply respond to certain stimuli with certain intentional states, just as lower life forms appear to be programmed to respond to certain stimuli with appropriate behavior. As I shall argue in the next chapter, that we are so programmed would not mean that the spontaneous, unreflective belief is irrational. There is a grain of truth to causal theories of justification, but, as I shall argue later, the grain of truth would not entail or even make it likely that beliefs that, as a result of evolution, are spontaneous effects of certain stimuli are rational. In effect, I shall argue that a belief caused by a stimulus S is in a derivative sense rational if the proposition that S occurred confirms or makes probable P. But there is no reason to suppose-science may even suggest it is false-that this would hold true of our intuitive beliefs. Again, one might argue, a person's "programmed" belief might be rational even though it was not arrived at through reasoning if there is available to that person evidence that would support it. But while this might be so, there is no reason to suppose there is available evidence that would support our programmed beliefs. Making free use of scientific patterns of reasoning, I suppose one might even hold that it is unlikely to be true. After all, the causal explanation of the fact that we have the programmed belief is, presumably, that it would be dangerous to have to wait to acquire evidence from which that belief could be rationally inferred. To be sure, if we acquire knowledge that rational beliefs are evolutionarily advantageous, or even

30

Introduction

that true beliefs are evolutionarily advantageous, we could argue that we have grounds for trusting intuitive or "programmed" beliefs. But we must remember that the proponent of commonsensism is committed to the rationality of these beliefs prior to such sophisticated evidence. The champion of commonsensism would surely not maintain that the rationality of everyday beliefs awaited the advent of Darwin. Now I warned that the remarks above might be misconstrued. I am not a naturalistic epistemologist. I am a foundationalist. I do not believe that in addressing epistemological problems concerning the reliability of memory, induction, or perception one can, without begging the question, appeal to the results of science, for science presupposes the general reliability of memory, perception, and induction. What I am suggesting is that the commonsense philosopher faces something of a paradox. Commonsensism might suggest that commonsensism is false. The commonsense conclusions of science may suggest that it is irrational to expect most beliefs to be rational. The inferences we intuitively make, the conclusions we unreflectively accept, may upon examination support the radical skeptic's claims. In the course of putting forth some of the most extreme skeptical arguments concerning our knowledge of the physical world, Hume made the following much-discussed remark: Thus the skeptic still continues to reason and believe, even though he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, alld has doubtless esteemJd it an affair of too ,Rreat importailCe to be trusted to our uncertain reasonin,Rs and speculations. 15 (Emphasis mine) Some have interpreted this as an indication that Hume was not serious in his skepticism. I suggest, however, that the comment may indicate that Hume was implicitly aware that the truth of the skeptic's position might be just what you would expect if you assumed the truth of what you unreflectively believe. Again, I am not arguing for skepticism by appealing to the conclusions of science. This would be as silly as trying to argue against skepticism by appealing to the conclusions of science. I am merely trying to blunt initial opposition to skepticism by pointing out that

Introduction

31

the skeptic's views may not be so very incongruent with our commonsense beliefs. But if we do ignore the commonsense philosopher's advice and leave open the possibility that radical skepticism with respect to propositions about the physical world is correct, are there no restraints to be placed on our metaphysical and epistemological views? Should we leave open the possibility that the correct metaphysical analysis of perception, together with the correct epistemology, may lead us to the conclusion that most or all of our everyday beliefs about the world are unjustified? Although I used to believe that if an epistemology and metaphysics leads to radical skepticism that is a reductio of that epistemology and metaphysics, I no longer think so. Many of my earlier metaphysical views were held explicitly because I felt it was only given my metaphysics that one could justify the beliefs we prephilosophically take to be justified, and I was prepared to reject a metaphysics that, given the correct epistemology, could not avoid skepticism. I now think this requirement of a metaphysics is far too strong. I now think we should be guided by a far weaker methodological principle in providing metaphysical analyses, a principle that nevertheless bears at least a resemblance to epistemological commonsensism. One ought to accept the responsibility of analyzing propositions about the physical world in such a way that one accounts for the fact that we believe them and believe we are justified in so doing, given the inferences 16 people actually make and take to be justified (whether they are or not). This is, of course, different from the methodological presuppositions of commonsensism, for I want to leave open the possibility that inferences people habitually make may nevertheless be unjustified. Let me try to make this methodological principle plausible by asking you to consider a hypothetical situation. Suppose we run across a new race of people who habitually make and take to be perfectly justified a certain inference alpha. Suppose further that we become convinced that this inference is fallacious. When we try to provide a plausible analysis of the meaning of something these people believe, would we feel the least bit constrained to understand the object of their belief in a way that would be compatible with the belief's being justified? More specifically, would we worry about this if it became evident that they inferred what they believe using the inference alpha we take to be fallacious? I think it is obvious we

32

Introduction

would not. On the other hand, if someone proposed an analysis of the object of their belief that made quite inexplicable the fact that people had that belief given the kind of inferences they actually make, we would, I think, be far more suspicious of that analysis. In the course of this book I shall be proposing metaphysical analyses that I am not sure will dissolve all problems of skepticism. I will not take these analyses to be defective for that reason, however, because I might be able to argue that, given such analyses and the commonsense inferences people actually make, I can explain why people have the commonsense beliefs they do.

Verificationism There is another historically important criterion for evaluating proposed philosophical analyses that bears at least a superficial resemblance to commonsensism and that ought to be considered here. I am referring to the verificationist's principle of meaning, which so dominated the positivist movement of the early twentieth century and had its roots in the older views of the radical British empiricists. Very roughly, the verificationists insisted that the analyst either dismiss a statement as meaningless or analyze it in terms that would allow for the possibility of verifying it. So stated, the doctrine is weaker than commonsensism, for it does not, strictly speaking, require an analysis of any of the statements we ordinarily accept to show that such acceptance is just~fied. It merely requires that the analyst either show how the objects of everyday belief could be verified or dismiss the objects of everyday belief as meaningless (in which case he may have a hard time even construing them as genuine objects of belief). This rough statement of verificationism obviously needs more precision, and one gets different versions of verificationism depending on how one attempts to make the principle more precise. The requirement that meaningful statements be capable of conclusive confirmation quickly fell by the wayside, for most philosophers viewed general statements (e.g., All ravens are black) as meaningful but could not see how it would be possible, even in principle, for any amount of evidence to rule out the possibility of a nonblack raven. The possibility of conclusive falsification as a criterion for meaningfulness fell for a closely related reason. Most philosophers wanted existential statements (e.g., There are unicorns) to be meaningful but could not see how one could

Introduction

33

conclusively falsify such statements. 17 Before too long, most of the positivists had accepted a much watered down version of the principle that required only that a meaningful statement be such that one could, in principle, acquire evidence or justification that would tend either to confirm or to disconfirm it. When the principle becomes this weak, it is difficult to evaluate. One is not exactly sure what can be said for or against it. It might be useful, however, to look at the views of the radical empiricists from which verificationism sprung. The radical empiricists did not explicitly state their views about what was or was not meaningful or intelligible in terms of such epistemological notions as the possibility of confirmation. Rather, they put forth a certain view about the origin of ideas or concepts whose existence gives language life. Against the rationalists, the empiricists held that every genuine idea or concept has its origin in sense experience. The origin in question is presumably a causal origin. For some of the empiricists, the view seemed no more sophisticated than the doctrine that concepts, ideas, or thoughts are always pale copies of antecedent sense impressions. The capacity of the imagination to produce new ideas was allowed, of course, but these were taken to be complex, having as constituents ideas that were copies of antecedent impressions of sense. The connection between this view and verificationism is obvious. If all genuine ideas were copies of actual or possible sense impressions, then it would presumably always be possible for one to have the sense experiences that would indicate that something falls under the concept. Despite its enormous influence, it is difficult to think of much to say in defense of the empiricist's view about the origin of thought. Careful evaluation of the view would involve a detailed analysis of thought, and this I am not prepared to undertake here. I can, however, make a few general comments. First, it is not clear what business a philosopher has even putting forth a view about the causal origins of ideas or thoughts. To be fair, philosophers like Hume (the empiricist's empiricist) wrote before the age of specialization and may have consciously tried to throw in a bit of popular psychology. In any event, Hume, of all people, would have to admit that even if all ideas have their causal origin in sense experience, this is a continj?ent truth (as all causal truths are, for Hume), discoverable only through experience. Moreover, to be consistent, Hume would have to admit that it is perfectly conceivable that an idea had some cause other than a prior sensation. There are, for Hume, no a priori

34

Introduction

restraints on what can cause what. Again, this is not to imply that Hume was actually inconsistent, for he may have intended all his claims about the origins of ideas to be contingent claims of psychology. 18 If we accept the empiricist tenets about causation, it looks as if contemporary philosophers are going to have a hard time employing anything like the radical empiricist's views about the origins of genuine concepts in evaluating philosophical analyses, for contemporary philosophers, for the most part, do not even pretend to know much of anything about psychology. Indeed, I doubt that the contemporary psychologist would be willing to address the radical empiricist's claims about the origins of ideas. Despite these reservations, however, I am not sure there is not a grain of truth in the radical empiricist's claims, a grain of truth that might provide some guidance in constructing philosophical analyses. Earlier I characterized the discovery of a philosophical analysis as an egocentric activity. I simply make the following autobiographical report. While I think I must acknowledge that there is no a priori absurdity in the suggestion that a person has concepts that cannot be related to any of his experiences, I find that in my own case I seem to be unable to find such concepts. If someone tries to explain to me the meaning of some term he has introduced, I typically find it impossible to understand the term until I have related its meaning in some way to what is phenomenologically given in experience. I have not yet discussed the concept of the given, and the idea of "relating in some way to experience" is deliberately vague, but I shall develop this notion more fully in subsequent discussion of the plausibility of various analyses of propositions about the external world.

Summary In this chapter I have identified the main metaphysical and epistemological questions with which I shall be concerned in the remainder of the book. I have further identified the attempt to answer some of these metaphysical questions with a search for meaning analyses and have tried to provide a detailed interpretation of meaning analysis that I shall later contrast with recent views in contemporary philosophy oflanguage. I have argued that there is a sense in which we ought to view our metaphysical and epistemological con-

Introduction

35

clusions as independent. Specifically, in rejecting epistemological commonsensism, we should not commit ourselves to a rejection of skeptical conclusions and then tailor our metaphysical analyses or principles of reasoning to securing this end. The only epistemological commonsense constraint a metaphysical analysis should be required to meet is that it allow us to plausibly explain why we believe what we do given the inferences (explicit or implicit) we do in fact make. I have also defended a very weak version of classical empiricism, suggesting that all concepts may involve as constituents concepts of items that are phenomenologically given. If this last view is true, then there is at least one respect in which my metaphysical positions on physical objects will involve certain epistemological conclusions. Specifically, I must argue that there is a given, determine what it is, and explain how the concept of what is given relates to the concept of a physical object. I have suggested that some philosophers have been too concerned with the epistemological implications of their metaphysical positions. In addressing certain epistemological questions, however, one must consider matters metaphysical. It seems trivially true, for example, that the plausibility of any view about our justification for beliefs about the physical world will rest in part on our analysis of physical objects, on our interpretation of propositions describing the physical world. In what follows, I shall begin by focusing on epistemological questions. For the reason just given, we shall find that these will soon force us to consider certain metaphysical issues, after which we shall return once again to matters epistemological.

Chapter 2 Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

Before I address specific epistemological questions that arise concerning perception, I must raise some more fundamental questions concerning the nature of knowledge, justification, and truth.

Knowledge A detailed discussion of the concept of knowledge will be conspicuous by its absence. I am inclined to the view that the philosophically interesting concept of propositional knowledge is the concept of knowledge as justified true belief, with no defective essential links in the chain of justification. I As we shall see shortly, there is more than one sense of justification, which would give us different, though related, concepts of knowledge. I say "philosophically interesting" concept of knowledge because, as a number of post-Wittgenstein philosophers have correctly pointed out, the term "know" is used in a host of different ways, any of which is quite appropriate in certain circumstances. Such philosophers have usually criticized the "traditional" epistemologist for identifying the concept of knowledge as justified true belief, and in this they have been technically correct. The traditional epistemologist should at most have claimed to analyze a concept of knowledge, albeit one that is of particular interest to the philosopher engaged in the search for truth and justified belief. As I have indicated, I do not plan to engage in any prolonged discussion or defense of these comments,

38

Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

for the epistemological problems of perception that interest me most are, with one exception, problems that can be stated without employing the term "knowledge" at all. The exception is the first of our epistemological questions, which asks whether one can know with absolute certainty propositions asserting the existence of physical objects. The concept of knowledge with absolute certainty with which I shall be concerned is a highly specialized one, and though I think it finds expression in ordinary discourse, I am prepared to stipulate a definition rather than argue the point. I shall say that someone knows P with absolute certainty if his acceptance of Pis based on justification so strong as to preclude any possibility of error (where "possibility" is used in such a way that conceivability is the relevant test of possibility).

Justification and Evidence If we wish to discover the nature of our justification for believing statements about the physical world based on direct experience, we should first try to discover something about the nature of justification in general.

Injerential Just~fication What is involved in a belief's being justified? We might try to find an answer to this question by looking at how someone might appropriately respond to a question of the form What justifies you in believing P?2 If we look at how we would naturally answer questions of this form, we shall find that most often we reply by identifying some different proposition, E, which we offer as our reason or evidence for believing P. Unless we are extraordinarily pedantic, we will not put forth everythinJ? we take to be relevant to our having a justified belief, for in normal contexts of communication argument or reason giving is almost always enthymematic. We assume that our listener takes for granted a host of information that, when coupled with the item we do mention, he will regard as justification. It will simplify our present discussion, however, if take our hypothetical request for justification to be a request for nonenthymematic justification, and we imagine our respondent to be offering E as just such a reason. Let us say that when a person S offers as his reason or evidence or

Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

39

justification for accepting P some different proposition E, he is claiming to be inferentially3 justified in believing P on the basis of E. Again, I think the most natural response to most requests for justification is to offer inferential justification. If I am asked about my reasons for believing that deficit spending leads to inflation, that the theory of evolution is true, that there is (or is not) a God, that water is H 2 0, or that I will not live forever, I would immediately cast about for some different truth through which I could justify my beliefs in these respective propositions. What can we say about the conditions required for havin,\? an inferentially justified belief in one proposition P on the basis of another E?4 Again, we might begin trying to answer the question by looking at the ways we might challenge someone's claim 'to bejustified in believing P on the basis of E. Suppose, for example, someone told you he had good reasons for believing that all life on earth would end in the year 2000 (P) and, when challenged, offered as his reason or evidence that Plutonians were planning to launch a lethal nuclear strike against the earth in that year (E). Most of us would respond to this rather startling justificatory claim by shifting our attention to the proposition offered as evidence. We would wonder what justification the person had for believing what he did about the existence and intentions of Plutonians. Suppose that in response to our questions concerning his reasons or evidence for believing this proposition, he simply shrugged his shoulders and admitted that this was merely a whimsical supposition unsupported by any evidence. We would, of course, immediately dismiss his claim to be justified in believing P on the basis of E. Generalizing, it certainly seems plausible to suggest that we may always challenge a person's justification for believing one proposition P on the basis of another E by challenging his justification for believing E. But this is not the only way one can challenge a person's claim to be justified in believing one proposition P on the basis of another E. Suppose one ran into an astrologer who claimed to be justified in thinking that there will be many wars in the year 2000 and who offered as his evidence that Jupiter will be aligned with Saturn that year. We might challenge his justification for believing that Jupiter will be aligned with Saturn in the year 2000, but we would be much more likely to focus on the connection between the position of planets relative to one another and the behavior of people here on earth. In short, we would challenge his claim to have a justified

40

Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

belief in the one proposition (P) on the basis of the other (E) by questioning his justification for believing that E makes probable, confirms, makes likely to be true P. The claim that these two conditions are necessary for inferential justification I call the principle of inferential justification: (P1) To be justified in believing one proposition P on the basis of another E one must be 1. justified in believing E, and 2. justified in believing that E makes probable P. It should be emphasized that the principle does not require that E be true, nor docs it require that E makes probable P. I take it that if one can be justified in believing falsehoods then one can be justified in believing a proposition on the basis of a falsehood. If a highly reliable informant tells me that Jones is out of town and I infer from this that his house is empty, my belief that his house is empty might be justifiably inferred from his being out of town even if my informant were lying. While it may not be as obvious, I think we must also admit that one can justifiably believe that E confirms P when it does not, and that in such a situation one could nevertheless be justified in inferring P from E. One might object to (P1) on the grounds that (2) requires one to have the highly abstract, philosophically problematic concept of one proposition's making probable another in order to have an inferentially justified belief. One must remember, however, that having a concept and having beliefs that involve the concept do not presuppose knowing the philosophical analysis of that concept. I am sensitive, however, to the fact that we do sometimes seem to describe people as having inferentially justified beliefs when it is not clear that they have even dispositional beliefs with respect to some set of propositions confirming the objects of their beliefs, and this is a point to which I shall return shortly. Acceptance of the principle of inferential justification is implicitly assumed by many classical arguments for skepticism. The epistemological problems of justifying beliefs about the past on the basis of memory, about the future on the basis of observed correlations in the past, about the physical world on the basis of sensations, about other minds on the basis of observed physical be-

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41

havior, and about theoretical entities in science on the basis of observations of the macroworld are usually developed first by invoking the second condition of the principle of inferential justification and then, if need be, the first. Appeal to the first becomes necessary when a philosopher attempts to bridge the relevant epistemic gap by introducing a principle (e. g., a principle of induction, memory, or analogy) the justifiable acceptance of which is challenged by the skeptic. Nonil~ferential Justification

and roundationalism

Ironically, the principle of inferential justification coupled with an antiskeptical (epistemological commonsense) presupposition has a critical role in the most familiar, and for many the most persuasive, argument for foundationalism. Briefly the argument goes as follows: 1. If all justification were inferential then, by (Pl), to be justified in believing a given proposition P one would have to be justified in believing an i~finite number of other propositions. 2. No finite being can have an infinite number of justified beliefs.

Hence

3. If all justification were inferential no finite being would be justified in believing anything at all. But 4. It is absurd to suppose that no one is justified in believing anything (one cannot even consistently claim to be justified in holding the view), and so 5. There must be some beliefs that are justified but that are not inferentially justified, and any belief that is justified can avoid the infinite regress only be reference to such beliefs. Let us refer to a belief that is justified but is not inferentially justified as a noninferentially justified belief. And let us define the thesis of foundationalism as the view that:

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Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalisl11, and Truth

There are noninferentially justified beliefs, and all inferentially justified beliefs are ultimately based on noninferentially justified beliefs. One can embrace a weaker form of foundationalism, of course, by asserting only the second conjunct above (i.e., leaving open the possibility that there are no noninferentially justified beliefs and hence no justified beliefs). As I have stated the argument for foundationalism, it presupposes both the principle of inferential justification and a kind of minimal commonsensism: that is, it assumes that the most radical of all skeptical positions is false. Let us, for the moment, not worry about the legitimacy of this assumption, and let us, further, temporarily assume the legitimacy of(Pl). Does (Pl) force us to choose between acceptance of noninferentially justified beliefs as the basis of all justified beliefs and the most radical of all skepticisms? Let us examine the crucial steps in the argument. First, does it follow from (Pl) that if all justification is inferential any justified belief involves an infinite number of other justified beliefs? And if it does, is there any reason to suppose this involves a vicious regress? The reasoning goes as follows. If (Pl) and all justification is inferential, then for me to be justified in believing P I must find some other proposition E upon which I base my belief that P, and I must be justified in believing both E and that E confirms P. But if all justification is inferential, I must then find some other proposition F upon which I base my belief that E, and some other proposition G upon which I base my belief that E confirms P. Moreover, (PI) tells us I must be justified in believing F, G, that F confirms E, and that G confirms that E confirms P. We seem to be otT and running on not one but an infinite number of infinite vicious regresses. There are at least two ways of trying to block the choice between foundations and radical skepticism while at the same time accepting (P1). The first involves a move toward a coherence theory ofjustification (probably coupled with a coherence theory of truth). The second denies that the regress referred to in the argument is vicious. At one time, I daresay, most philosophers would not have even considered trying to avoid the regress of justification by moving in a circle instead of a straight line, for circular reasoning was always assumed to be blatantly fallacious. Times change, and many philosophers seem not to be quite so squeamish about moving in circles,

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43

particularly if the circles are "big" enough. Still, the idea is difficult to swallow. If someone responds to our request for his justification supporting P by appeal to E, then supports E by appeal to F and F by appeal to P, we feel that he has somehow missed the point of our request for his justification. We feel no more satisfied with his answer than had he greeted our original request with silence and a knowing wink. Now, to be fair, the idea behind moving away from foundations to coherence is a little more sophisticated than a straightforward endorsement of circular reasoning. When we attempt to justify a belief by showing its coherence with other beliefs, we never appeal directly to P as the sole support of itself (as in the example above). We try to justify P by appealing to the way it coheres with Q, R, S, and T. We then justify Q by appealing to its coherence with P, R, S, and T and justify S by appealing to its coherence with P, Q, R, and 1; and so on. We try not so much to lift ourselves by bootstraps as to give ourselves a helpful tug. Still the whole idea seems to me bizarre, so bizarre that it is difficult to argue against. I am inclined to think that the mere statement of the view ought to be considered a reductio, and if it is not, we are faced with the rather formidable task of finding a non-question-begging reductio of the theory. The first step in such an attempt would be to force the coherentist to make clear his criteria for coherence and his concept of truth and to explain how the two fit together. As I suggested before, the most natural theory of truth to go with a coherence theory ofjustification is a coherence theory of truth, but one cannot simply assume that the two go together in arguing against a coherence theory of justification. There are a number of problems the two views share, however. The most obvious objection to a coherence theory of truth is that no concept of coherence developed so far has ruled out the possibility of two internally consistent, coherent systems of beliefs that are nevertheless incompatible. By and large, coherentists are as fond of the law of noncontradiction as proponents of a correspondence theory of truth and thus must take this as a serious problem. If we go only with a coherence theory ofjustification, we do not run into problems with denials of logical principles, but it does open the door to a kind of radical subjectivism when it comes to justification. If two sets of beliefs can be internally consistent and coherent but incompatible with one another, it seems that we can be justified

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Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

in believing any member of either just by choosing the rest in the appropriate way. This "choice" between the two systems of belief seems perfectly arbitrary. Proponents of the coherence theory of justification may well not take this to be an objection tq their view, for since the popularity of Quine's "web of belief" metaphor this element of subjectivism or arbitrariness has been happily endorsed by many. The remarks above presuppose that there could be mutually exclusive but internally consistent coherent sets of beliefs. The coherentist may wish to deny this, and ifhe docs it is incumbent upon him to develop a concept of coherence that will support this denial. Some proponents of a coherence theory of justification turn to explanatory coherence as a means of eliminating some of the appearance of radical subjectivity.5 Thus, for example, a belief might be said to be justified if it fits into a set of beliefs in which each belief is explained or explains "better" than it would in some alternative system of beliefs. The interpretation of such a view rests heavily on the criteria offered for determining good explanation, criteria that in this context will exclude reference to the truth of the explanans. One might, for example, endorse Hempel's famous D-N model as capturing the formal structure of an explanation and construe the best explanatory system of beliefs as the system in which the most is explained with the fewest D-N explanations. Another question that must be answered involves the relevant comparison class of systems of beliefs referred to. Must my beliefs fare better than all possible systems of beliefs, or merely all systems of beliefs that I have the conceptual capacity to entertain?6 Explanatory coherence may initially seem like a relevant criterion of justification, especially if one is inclined to think there is such a thing as reasoning to the best explanation construed as an alternative to enumerative induction. It is important to realize, however, that with an explanatory coherence theory of justification one cannot simply give oneself unproblematically justified beliefs from which to infer plausible explanations. These beliefs must in turn be justified, presumably by virtue of the fact that they explain still other beliefs. Thought of in this way, the view seems to me highly implausible. Does the justification for all your beliefs-your belief that you are in pain, for example-consist solely in the fact that it explains or is explained by other things you believe? How does the theory accommodate justified beliefs in analytic truths, synthetic

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45

necessary truths (if there are any), and principles of reasoning? Do such beliefs even admit of explanatory coherence? Moreover, does an explanatory coherence theory really eliminate the subjectivity involved in the more straightforward coherence theories that rely only on logical coherence? Certainly, if anything like a D-N model of explanation were correct, one would have no difficulty coming up with systems of beliefs that meet the formal requirements (excluding truth, of course) of adequate explanation, no matter what the content of those beliefs happened to be. Am I forgetting the additional criteria of comprehensiveness and simplicity? These, I suspect, can be attacked directly by employing counterexamplesif you want an example of an intuitively implausible system of beliefs with maximum explanatory power and simplicity, look at Berkeley's theory of perception. Fortunately, I need not belabor these points, for there is a much simpler objection effective against all coherence theories. Whatever else coherence involves (for example, explanatory coherence), virtually all proponents of both coherence theories of truth and justification have always assumed that coherence minimally involves logical consistency. Explanatory coherence theories entail (though are not entailed by) the view that a belief is justified only if it is logically consistent with other things one believes. One of the more interesting and perhaps more persuasive attacks on coherentism involves the claim that logical consistency of a belief with one's other beliefs not only is not a sufficient condition for the belief's being justified (something most coherentists would surely admit), it is not even a necessary condition for justification. In "Justified Inconsistent Beliefs" Richard Foley argues (quite correctly) by appealing to lottery like examples that one can justifiably believe a number of propositions, P, Q, R, and 5, such that the conjunction (P·Q·R·5) constitutes a contradiction. If A through] have an equal chance of winning a lottery, I can justifiably believe that A will lose, B will lose, C will lose, ... , and] will lose and also justifiably believe that either A or B or C ... , or] will win. The propositions believed are inconsistent but are nevertheless each justifiably believed. The argument is simple, but it strikes at the very heart of the coherentist's intuitions. As one would expect of an argument so potentially decisive, its premises are not uncontroversial. There are a surprising number of philosophers who think that there is a lottery paradox, that there is something wrong with allowing that one

46

Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

could be justified in believing of each participant in the lottery that he will lose and that one of them will win. I have never quite understood what the paradox is supposed to be, however. What reason is there for denying that one can have justified inconsistent beliefs regarding the outcome of the lottery? In "A Solution to the Problem of Induction" John Pollock attempts to resolve the lottery "paradox" by explaining why we are not really justified in believing of any particular person that he will lose the lottery. His strategy is to grant that one has a prima facie reason for thinking that A will lose the lottery while pointing out that one has equally strong prima facie reasons for believing that B will lose, that C will lose, ... ,and that] will lose. Furthermore, we also know that if Band C and, ... ,] lose, A will win. We are, then, in a position to present the following valid argument for the claim that A will win the lottery: B will lose C will lose

] will lose. If B will lose, and C will lose, and ... ,] will lose, then A will win. Therefore A will win. The availability of this argument is supposed to balance our initial reason for thinking that A will lose, thus leaving us with no more reason to believe that A will lose than that he will win! It is hard for me to see how one could accept this paradoxical a solution to a paradox. Pollock is assuming a principle that seems to me highly problematic, to say the least. To justifiably infer the conclusion of the argument from its premises, one needs to be justified in believing the conjunction that B will lose, and C will lose, ... , and] will lose. And that one can justifiably believe of each of B through] that they will lose does not imply that one can justifiably believe that they all will. More generally, from the fact that I justifiably believe P and justifiably believe Q, it seems obviously fallacious to infer that I can justifiably believe (P and Q).

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47

In Knowled~e, Lehrer offers a highly sophisticated coherence theory of what he calls complete justification and discusses the lottery "paradox" within the framework of that theory. His main concern is to show how his theory can accommodate the natural intuition that we cannot be completely justified in believing of any particular participant that he will lose the lottery, but in the course of making this claim he argues that an ideally rational person interested in maximizing true belief and minimizing false belief will not allow inconsistent beliefs in his system of beliefs. I suspect he would argue for this claim by observing that, if we have beliefs whose objects, in conjunction, are inconsistent, we are assured of at least one false belief, thus guaranteeing that we frustrate at least one of the ends of an ideal truth seeker. But as Lehrer himself notes, the goal of a rational person is not just to avoid falsehood. The rational person is also interested in arriving at true beliefs, and by purging ourselves of beliefs about the outcome of the lottery we guarantee that we will forgo a great number of true beliefs. If Sand R have the same set of beliefs, excluding those concerning the outcome of the lottery, and S believes of each participant that he will lose while R withholds belief in these propositions, it is not hard to calculate that S is going to end up with a better "winning" percentage of true beliefs over false beliefs. There is in fact no reason to assume we cannot have justified inconsistent beliefs, and, since we can, the most minimal sort of coherence is not even a necessary condition for justification. This presents an enormous difficulty for all versions of a coherence theory of justification. Can one accept (Pi) and avoid both foundations and radical skepticism by embracing infinite regresses and denying that they arc vicious? This suggestion is not as implausible as it might initially sound. If one admits (as one should) that beliefs can be dispositional as well as occurrent, there seems nothing absurd in the suggestion that I have an infinite number of beliefs, all of which are justified. Indeed, I think it is true. For a long time now I have believed (usually dispositionally) that two is greater than one, that three is greater than one, that four is greater than one, and so on ad infinitum. There is no natural number greater than one such that I do not believe (disposition ally) that that number is greater than one, and there are an infinite number of natural numbers. If we allow that I can be inferentially justified in believing P on the basis of E by

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Knowledge, Justification, Foundationalism, and Truth

virtue of the fact that I have a justified dispositional belief in E and that E confirms P, why should we have any qualms about allowing that for any belief to be justified we would need an infinite number of such beliefs? Theoretically, this move seems to be on fairly secure footing, but one wonders how it would work in practice. Consideration of examples like the one I gave above does, I think, force one to the conclusion that it is possible to have an infinite number of justified beliefs. But the example above and others like it are special in certain ways. The infinite number of propositions about the natural numbers that I justifiably believe can all be deduced from a finite number of propositions 1justifiably believe. To avoid the argument for foundations, one would have to claim that one has an infinite number of justified beliefs that do not owe their justification to any finite set of beliefs, and it is by no means obvious to me that this is possible (nor is it obvious to me that it is not). The question whether accepting (Pl) would force us to choose between skepticism and the existence of noninferentially justified beliefs could be discussed in greater detail. I shall leave the issue here, however, for in fact 1 do not base my acceptance of noninferentially justified beliefs on the argument discussed earlier. At the very most, I think of the argument as a useful dialectical device for pushing those with a phobia against skepticism to a view 1 find independently plausible. My own reason for accepting the view that there are noninferentially justified beliefs is one that is not likely to convince nonfoundationalists, and I do not represent it as an argument. It is, in short, the fact that 1 find myself directly acquainted with the fact that 1 am directly acquainted with facts. (I shall have more to say about direct acquaintance shortly.) Once one becomes convinced that there are noninferentially justified beliefs, I think one automatically finds attractive the historically more natural foundationalist conception of justification. So far we have left unchallenged (Pl). As you will recall, we arrived at (Pl) by looking at some examples of the ways we could challenge someone's claim to have an inferentially justified belief and generalizing from them. We must, however, use caution if we are to avoid the charge of hasty generalization. Can't we think of at least some cases in which we might allow that a person's belief was inferentially justified even though the conditions set out in (Pl) were not satisfied? Suppose, for example, that someone was ex-

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49

posed to a constant or near constant correlation between two phenomena, say a certain kind of cloud formation and rain. Further suppose that as a result of this exposure he was caused to expect rain on a day when the clouds were of this sort. By hypothesis, however, he had never drawn any connection between this sort of cloud formation and rain, he had completely forgotten those occasions in the past when he was exposed to the correlation, and yet, despite being unable to provide his reasons or evidence, he remained convinced that it was going to rain and convinced that this belief was justified. The hypothesis is not really that farfetched. If you think about the inductive "inferences" we are said to make and actually try to formulate the relevant premises of an inductive argument describing the many specific occasions on which you observed a correlation between two properties, I think you will often find yourself hard pressed. Assuming for the sake of this discussion that past correlations are a reliable indicator of future ones, what should we say about the epistemic status of the person's belief in the hypothetical situation described above? The answer is, I think, not obvious, even though the conditions set forth in (PI) seem not to be satisfied. To the extent that we are inclined to think of the person's belief as justified in the situation described above, we might, I suppose, think of it as a noninferentially justified belief. And there is a sense in which this term might seem appropriate, for by hypothesis the belief did not involve any explicit inference from premises to a conclusion. Still, if we allow that the belief was justified, I think we will want to say that it is justified on the basis of something else, namely the person's past exposure to the correlation between certain cloud formations and rain. In any event I wish to reserve the term "noninferentially justified belief' to denote a quite different sort of justified belief. Though it is difficult to know quite what to say about the situation described above, I think there is a derivative, relatively weak sense of inferential justification in which we might describe the person's belief as justified. I think this is particularly plausible if we take the context to be non philosophical and imagine ourselves to be describing someone other than ourselves. What might this derivative sense of justification be? Well, I have already alluded to the obvious role of the person's past experience in our willingness to allow that his belief is justified. Moreover, I think it is fairly obvious

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that we take those past experiences to be relevant to his belief's being justified, because we take the propositions describing them to be good evidence for the proposition that the person believes as a (causal) result of having them. This suggests the following analysis of a derivative concept of inferential justification. S's belief that P is inferentially justified by experience E = Of S's belief was caused by E and the proposition that E occurred either by itself or with background evidence S has confirms or makes probable P.7

One might worry about reference to the proposition describing E. If E is that which stands in a causal relation, for example, an event, it can presumably be described in an indefinite number of ways. There is no one proposition describing E, and there is always at least one proposition describing any experience that causes the belief that P from which P can be inferred, namely the proposition describing E as an experience that occurred before P was the case. A complete defense of the solution to this problem is impossible given the focus of this book, but let me indicate the approach I take. The relata of causal connections are, on my view, facts. The criteria for identification of facts (as opposed to events) are relatively straightforward. Two gerundives or noun clauses pick out the same facts (provided they refer) if they are analytically equivalent. They pick out different facts if they are not. When I referred earlier to the proposition asserting that E occurred, I was referring to the proposition which the fact that E makes true. In allowing this kind ofjustification I may seem to be embracing at least part of a so-called causal theory of justification. It is not, however, anything like a pure causal theory. By a pure causal theory I mean a theory according to which one can reduce all epistemic concepts to causal concepts. 8 What I have called a derivative concept of justification is explicated in part by the notion of one proposition's confirming another, a concept that is not explicated in causal terms. But why refer to the concept of inferential justification sketched above as derivative, as if to imply that there is something defective about this sort of justification? The answer is simply that from the philosophical perspective there is something defective about this sort of justification. Imagine yourself with your philosophical con-

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cerns to be that person with the firm conviction that it would rain. Suppose further that a third party, an authority you trusted, assured you that you were inferentially justified in believing it would rain in the sense sketched above. Would your intellectual curiosity be satisfied? Would your epistemological questions be answered? They would not, and the reason is that you still have no answer to the question of what justified your belief, nor do you have any idea how what justified your belief did provide justification. Of course the assurance of the authority may provide you with new evidence in support of your belief, but we are concerned here with the nature of the original justification. The philosopher is going to consider his epistemological questions answered when he gets himself in the position of having an inferentially justified belief that minimally satisfies the conditions set forth in (PI). It is the concept of inferential justification governed by (PI) that is of philosophical interest, that an intellectually curious person wants his beliefs to satisfy if they arc to be ideally justified. Henceforth, unless I indicate otherwise, when I refer to inferential justification, I am referring to the concept of inferential justification governed by (PI). Let us leave inferential justification for the moment and return to the concept of a noninferentially justified belief. Before we do, however, let me emphasize what I have not done. (PI) states only necessary conditions for inferential justification. It was not offered as a definition of inferential justification. Why not? Well, at most it could be an analysis of the concept ofjustification's being inferential, for it presupposes an understanding of justification. But I do not think it even docs that, for it also presupposes an understanding of the relation of confirming, an epistemic concept many would take to be as problematic as the concept of inferential justification. What is more, I suspect that conditions (1) and (2) of (PI) may not be sufficient for a belief that P to be inferentially justified on the basis of E. It is at least plausible to argue that for my belief that P to be justified on the basis of E I must somehow base my belief that P on E. In evaluating this suggestion, one must first stress the importance of distinguishing the question of what is necessary for there to be available to me justification E, which would support my belief that P, from the question of what is necessary for my actual belief that P to be justified by E. It is only the latter, the answer to which seems to involve the concept of my belief that P being based on E. But how are we to understand this critical notion of basing?

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The most straightforward view, and the view to which I am inclined, is that this basing rclation is to be explicated in causal terms-my belief that P is based on E in the relevant sense if I believe P because I believe E and believe that E confirms P. If one wants to allow that E can justify me in believing P even when my belief that P was originally caused by some other belief, one can modify the analysis above, requiring only that, for my belief that P to be justified by E, I must believe E and believe that E confirms P where these two beliefs are nomologically sufficient (or are relevant parts of a nomologically sufficient condition) for my belief that P. (X can be a state of affairs whose occurrence is nomologically sufficient for Yeven if Y is actually caused by some other state of affairs z.) Earlier I introduced the weak, derivative concept of a belief that P being justified by an experience E, and I defined this notion in part by reference to causal connections obtaining between the occurrence of the experience and the belief that P. I am now suggesting that, just as experience can justify a belief in the derivative sense only if there exists the relevant causal connection between the experience and the belief, so inferential justification of the sort governed by (P1) requires a causal connection between beliefs. A causal analysis of the basing relation relevant to analyzing inferential justification is, of course, by no means unproblematic. Causal analyses of any relation (perception, knowing, justification, reference) have a notoriously difficult time coping with certain sorts of "deviant" causal chains, and I have no doubt one could come up with hypothetical situations in· wl1ich a belief that E causes in a roundabout way the belief that P without the belief that P's being based on the belief that E in a sense relevant to the evaluation of inferential justification. Much of what I say later in connection with the causal theory of perception can be applied to the problem of providing a plausible causal analysis of the basing relation. While the issue whether the inferential justification of my belief that P by E requires a causal connection between my believing E and that E confirms P, and my believing P is interesting and controversial, it is one I shall not dwell on here, for conditions (1) and (2) of the principle of inferential justification are the necessary conditions for inferential justification, whose satisfaction is at issue in the traditional epistemological debates over skepticism. <)

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The Analysis of Non inferential Justification Not only are noninferentiaIIy justified beliefs the beliefs all other justified beliefs are based on (in the philosophically interesting sense ofjustification), but the concept of a noninferentially justified belief is that upon which all other concepts of justification are parasitic. In the discussion of foundationalism much confusion has arisen over the failure to distinguish the thesis that there are noninferentially justified beliefs from the thesis that there are infallible beliefs and the thesis that there are incorrigible beliefs. Let us define the notion of an incorrigible belief this way: (D1) S's belief that P is incorrigible at t =1)f S is justified in believing P, and his justification is such that no other evidence could defeat his justification for believing P. A body of evidence E would defeat the justification S has for believing P if, were E added to the justification S has, the conjunction would no longer justify him in believing P. This definition of incorrigibility is imprecise in that it does not make clear the implicit temporal references, and failure to make relevant distinctions is a potential source of confusion. (Dl) can be interpreted in at least two ways, giving us two concepts of incorrigibility: (Dla) S's belief that P is incorrigible at t =Df 1. S is justified in believing Pat t and 2. S's justification at t is such that no other evidence could at t defeat the evidence S has for believing P. (Dl b) S's belief that P is incorrigible at t = Df 1. S is justified in believing P at t and 2. S's justification at t is such that at no time could S acquire evidence such that he would no longer be justified in believing P. It should be immediately obvious that no empirical beliefs are ever incorrigible in the sense defined by (Dlb). We may define an infallible belief as follows:

(D2) S's belief that P is infallible = Df S's justification for believing P precludes 10 the possibility of P's being false.

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It was infallible beliefs of the sort defined above that were the objects of Descartes's search for the secure foundations of an ideal system of knowledge. In asserting the existence of noninferentially justified beliefs, I assert neither the existence of incorrigible beliefs (of either sort distinguished) nor the existence of infallible beliefs. To show why the thesis that there are noninferentially justified beliefs can be divorced from the thesis that there arc incorrigible beliefs and the thesis that there are infallible beliefs, and to explain why, historically, the concepts have so often been run together, I must offer an account of noninferentialjustification. The view I take to be correct is not new, and what I have to say may be disappointing to many. This is unfortunate but, I fear, unavoidable. What could justify a belief in a given proposition if it is not evidence in the form of some other proposition or propositions we justifiably believe? It does not help to simply offer a paraphrase. Thus, when Chisholm defines E's being self-presenting for S in terms of E's occurring and of its being necessarily the case that if E occurs it is evident to S that it does, 11 one is still left wondering what it is about a given justificatory situation that would make it true that E's truth necessarily implies its being evident for S. The most straightforward and, I believe, the correct answer to the question of what makes a belief noninferentially justified employs Russell's concept of direct acquaintance: 12 S's belief that Pis noninferentially justified when S is directly acquainted with the fact that makes P true. S does not have to infer the truth of the proposition P from some other proposition, for he has something better. He has directly and immediately before his consciousness that aspect of the world that makes P true. I realize that the idea of direct acquaintance is even more repugnant to most contemporary philosophers than the thesis of foundationalism. Many objections to the concept, however, arc born out of confusion, albeit confusion that was often well earned by careless explications of the concept. Before I can discuss these issues further, however, I must briefly develop the theory of truth that I employ with the concept of acquaintance to make sense of noninferential justification. I must warn those who arc already distressed at reference to acquaintance with facts that the theory of truth I offer is in many respects just as archaic.

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Truth In what follows I can only sketch the theory of truth I take to be correct, for, as will become evident, the theory is such that a full statement and defense of it would require a full statement and defense of many issues in philosophy of mind, a subject for a separate book. I take the primary bearers of truth value to be thoughts (which I shall also refer to as propositions). The secondary bearers of truth value are the linguistic items that express them. Thoughts I take to be nonrelational properties of a mind or self, properties whose presence is logically distinct from, though no doubt causally dependent on and paralleled by physical processes. I understand a fact the same way I did in the discussion of philosophical analysis (chapter 1). A fact is a nonlinguistic complex that makes a true thought or proposition true. True thoughts correspond to or picture!3 facts. False thoughts fail to correspond. In one perfectly clear sense, there were no truths or falsehoods before there were conscious beings, for there did not exist the bearers of truth value. There were, nevertheless, facts that would have made true the relevant thoughts had they existed, and by employing counterfactuals we can make good sense of such commonplace assertions as that it was true hundreds of millions of years ago that there were no conscious beings. One way to make clear this conception of truth is to contrast it with another analysis of truth that has influenced me greatly but with which I ultimately disagree. In a number of places Gustav Bergmann has put forth the following schema in analyzing intentionality and truth. 14 According to Bergmann, every mental act contains two nonrelational properties, a species and a thought. The species of the act is what makes the act the kind of intentional act it is-for example, a believing, a doubting, or a fearing. The thought determines what is believed, doubted, feared, and so on. That which has these respective properties is a bare particular, a momentary existent that is a constituent of the logical construct that is a person. The thought of a mental act means a state of affairs either actual or nonactual (merely possible), and if the thought of the mental act is true, the state of affairs it means is actual. Thus S's believing truly that P would be represented this way: Bs and 'P's and 'P'M P and P,

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where B = the property of believing, IP' = the content or thought of the mental act, s = the particular exemplifying these properties, IP' M P = the thought meaning the state of affairs P, and the last occurrence of "P" asserts the actuality of P. Falsely believing that P would be represented: Bs and Ip'S and 'P' M P and not-P I cannot, of course, even begin to do justice to the intricacies and subtleties of Bergmann's analysis, particularly his discussion of the all-important M rclation, 15 in the space available here-I must simply refer the reader to Bergmann's detailed discussion of these issues. As I have said, my view was influenced by Bergmann's but ultimately is drastically different, so different that I daresay Bergmann might not appreciate having his name mentioned in such proximity to a statement of it. I remain neutral on the idea of the self as analyzable into momentary bare particulars, indeed on the issue whether the concept of a bare particular is intelligible. I retain the view that intentional states always involve a thought or content, and I agree that the content should be understood as a nonrelational property of the self, however that self is analyzed. I am less inclined to reduce the kind of intentional state to another nonrelational property, more inclined to construe it as a relation that exists between the self and the nonrelational property that constitutes the content of the intentional act. This is, however, a most difficult question, and I am really not sure what position one ought to take. The major difference (and it is enormous) between Bergmann's view and my own is that I wish to avoid any commitment to an ontology of possibilia. I do not believe there are nonexistent objects, nor do I believe there are nonactual or nonoccurrent states of affairs. Consequently, I must reject Bergmann's M connection, a connection that sometimes takes as one of its relata a nonactual (nonoccurrent) state of affairs. In trying to represent true belief, I do have a critical relation of correspondence, but it always takes as its relata the content of the act and a fact. In representing false belief, I simply deny the existence of such a relation. Thus paralleling Bergmann's representation of true and false belief I have, S believes truly that P: Ip'S and s B IP' and Ip' C P, where s = the person in the intentional state, B = the relation of believing, 'P' = the thought or content of the belief, P = the fact

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that makes 'P' true, and C = the relation of correspondence in which the former stands to the latter. S believes falsely that P: 'P's and s B 'P', and it is not the case that there exists a fact x such that 'P' C x. Unlike Bergmann, I do not take acquaintance to be another intentional state represented in this way. I take acquaintance to be a sui generis relation holding between a self and either a fact or its constituents. One gets noninferential justification when one is directly acquainted with a certain thought, the fact that makes it true, and the fact that is the thought corresponding to the fact. Through direct acquaintance, justification begins. Through direct acquaintance one gets away from the bearers of truth value to encompass immediate awareness of that which makes the bearers of truth true. It is in this way, and in this way alone, I think, that one can avoid the chaos of a coherence theory of justification. As I warned, this is only a sketch of a theory of truth. I do not pretend to have offered a defense of the view or an analysis of some of the central concepts employed. At the same time, I must admit that were I to have all the space in the world there would not be a great deal to say by way of analyzing some of these fundamental concepts, for they are sui generis, and a philosopher can only get in trouble when he tries to analyze what is, on his own view, a rockbottom notion. There is, for example, nothing else like the relation of correspondence. Nor is there any other relation like the relation of acquaintance. I have used the familar metaphors of being immediate or direct in characterizing acquaintance, but these are metaphors, nothing else. Indeed, as metaphors they are more likely to be misleading than helpful, for they might imply that one is to understand acquaintance on the model of perception, when nothing could be further from the truth. The only point of emphasizing the metaphor of directness is to indicate that our access to the relevant fact is not by way of inference. A defense of the view will be similarly disappointing to those who disagree with it. If I am asked what justification I have for positing the existence of thoughts, I reply that I am directly acquainted with them. If I am asked what justification I have for positing the existence of direct acquaintance, I reply that I am directly acquainted with my being directly acquainted with facts. Critics may sense a vicious regress here, but there is nothing vicious

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about it. If I am noninferentially justified in believing P, then it is my direct acquaintance with the fact that P that justifies my belief that P.16 My being directly acquainted with the fact that I am directly acquainted with P is no part of what justifies me in believing P, but should the question arise, should I entertain the second-order proposition, it is direct acquaintance with the second-order fact that would justify me in holding the second-order proposition. Philosophers who have held views similar to mine have often been embarrassed to make such moves, but one must learn not to apologize for replying to questions in the way that would be most natural given the truth of one's view. Critics of the view that there is such a thing as direct acquaintance are obviously not going to be impressed with the claim that we are directly acquainted with direct acquaintance, but one cannot conform one's views to what will make one's critics happy. But even if direct acquaintance is a sui generis relation, is there nothing further one can say by way of explicating the notion? Is it, or is it not, for example, an epistemic rclation? Is acquaintance with a fact a kind of knowing? The answer depends on what one means by an epistemic relation. There is good reason to reserve the term "epistemic relation" for a relation that a subject bears to that which has a truth value, and in this sense direct acquaintance is not an epistemic relation. Facts are neither true nor false. They are complexes that make propositions or thoughts true. Although acquaintance is not itself an epistemic relation in this sense, my position is that my acquaintance with a fact when I am acquainted with the thought it makes true and the fact that the thought corresponds to it justifies my belief that the thought in question is true. To suppose that one cannot consistently maintain that these nonepistemic relations together constitute an epistemic relation is to commit the fallacy of division. In terminology that seems to be gaining popularity, my thesis amounts to the claim that noninferential justification is supervcHiOlt upon the conjunction of the three nonepistemic properties referred to above, although the view I am defending here involves a species of supervenience no more problematic than the supervenience of a complex property on the conjunction of its constituent properties. 17 I am arguing that these nonepistemic properties to,~ether form a complex that is the epistemic property of having noninferential justification. As an aside, it is interesting that this general strategy

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of finding nonepistemic properties upon which epistemic properties supervene can be followed by philosophers with radically different conceptions of justification. Some versions of a reliabilist theory of justification, for example, maintain that justification supervenes on certain complex causal properties of a belief, and 1 would no more criticize the reliabilist a priori for trying to reduce epistemic properties to nonepistemic properties than 1 would accept such a criticism of my own view (although, as 1 shall argue later, there are other good reasons for rejecting reliabilism). Those who object to foundationalism and traditional concepts of noninferentialjustification have been dissatisfied with the view for a number of reasons. Many simply equate the claim that there are noninferentially justified beliefs with either the claim that there are infallible beliefs or the claim that there are incorrigible beliefs and then proceed to attack these latter views. I can, however, consistently deny the existence of infallible beliefs while at the same time endorsing the concept of direct acquaintance as that which grounds justification. Let me explain. On the view 1 am defending, we can stand in the relation of acquaintance to both facts and properties (I leave open the question whether facts have as constituents anything other than properties). Both facts and properties can be complex, and to be acquainted with a complex is not ipso facto to be acquainted with all its constituents. On some traditional views of acquaintance, it has been held that if we are directly acquainted with X then in some sense X is wholly presented to us. If this is taken to imply that acquaintance with a complex entails acquaintance with all its constituents, this is a view I reject. It must not be supposed that there is any inconsistency here, for it is again the fallacy of division to suppose that acquaintance with X necessarily involves acquaintance with all its constituents. Because I may be directly acquainted with a fact and yet fail to notice some element in the fact, acquaintance does not preclude the possibility of error. Suppose, for example, the sense-datum theory is correct (a subject to be discussed in some detail in chapter 3) and that I sense a round sense datum that is for the most part red but is covered with a large number of triangular yellow patches. Suppose further that I am considering the proposition that I sense a round sense datum containing fewer than twenty-five such patches. On my view my justification for believing such a proposition (if I have

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any) derives from direct inspection of the fact, which is my sensing this particular sense datum. I see no a priori absurdity in the suggestion that "inspection" of the complex fact directly before my consciousness could overlook a constituent or constituents, thus leading me into error. If we do allow for the possibility that a person can overlook a constituent of a fact with which he is directly acquainted and nevertheless be justified in believing a false proposition P as a result of such direct acquaintance, we must, of course, be careful in characterizing the nature of his justification. In such a situation it will be false that what justifies the person in believing P is his direct acquaintance with the fact that P. By hypothesis, there is no such fact. We shall have to say that what justifies him in believing P is his direct acquaintance with some other fact X, a fact that could be justifiably confused with the fact that P. In the sort of case discussed above, I suggested that error might result because acquaintance with a complex does not entail simultaneous acquaintance with all its constituents. In "Pain and Other Secondary Mental Entities" Laird Addis makes the interesting suggestion that there may be a he(rthtened form of awareness involved in attending to something (he suggests calling it a 5upermode of awareness). If awareness does admit of degrees, or if (to employ a metaphor) awareness or acquaintance can be "focused," one might argue that there are degrees of noninferential justification that can vary in proportion to degrees or levels of acquaintance. And one might further argue that less heightened forms of awareness can easily lead to noninferentially justified false beliefs. If noninferentialjustification through direct acquaintance is compatible with a noninferentially justified beliefs being false, then there is no a priori reason for denying the corrigibility of such beliefs in the interesting sense of corrigible defined by (D1 b). Referring again to the example given above of the complex sense datum, I suppose one might well concede that neurophysiological data could at least defeat my non inferential justification for believing that there are fewer than twenty-five triangular sense data superimposed on the larger round sense datum. You may have noticed that I have been somewhat unenthusiastic in allowing the possibility of a noninfercntially justified beliefs being fallible and corrigible. If one allows that some noninferentially justified beliefs could be false, it is hard to see how we can avoid having to admit that all noninferentially justified beliefs, at

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least noninferentially justified empirical beliefs, are fallible. Yet, to be perfectly frank, the direct acquaintance I have justifying my belief in some empirical propositions really does seem to me to be such as to preclude any possibility of error-Descartes's cog ito comes to mind as perhaps the best example. I do not know quite how to argue that some direct acquaintance results in justification so strong as to preclude the possibility of error, but then I am not sure it would be reasonable to expect me to produce such an argument even if the thesis were true. In any event, since nothing much hangs on whether there are noninferentially justified infallible empirical beliefs, and since I have already admitted that a beliefs being noninferentially justified is compatible with its being fallible and corrigible, I suppose the safest course of action is for me to remain neutral on the issue. There is one important consequence of remaining neutral for the criteria we employ in deciding whether a belief is or is not noninferentially justified, a consequence I shall discuss in evaluating the argument from the possibility of hallucination (chapter 3). Before we leave the question whether there exist infallible empirical beliefs, I do wish to point out that most of the arguments for the view that there are no infallible beliefs are bad. And since two of these arguments would also challenge the claim that there are noninferentially justified beliefs, they are worth considering. Two quite different but related arguments against the existence of infallible or, for that matter, noninferentially justified beliefs rest on the claim that judgment of any kind always presupposes judgments that no one thinks of as infallible or noninferentially justified. In the linguistic version of the argument, its proponent asserts that what one believes is always a linguistic item, and to be justified in believing any statement to be true one must be justified in believing that the words one is using to make the assertion are being used correctly. But our justification for believing that we use a given piece of language correctly is never noninfercntial and never precludes the possibility of error. It should be obvious, given the conception of truth and intentionality I sketched above, that I am going to reject the claim that any justified belief presupposes a justified belief about proper linguistic usage. If nonlinguistic thoughts are the primary bearers of truth value and the primary objects of intentional states, then our justification for a belief need not invoke reference to the proper way to express the relevant thought in some

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language. This response has, of course, been made by a great many philosophers, and I concede that its plausibility rests entirely on the plausihility of the theory of truth and intentionality that underlies it. There is a related nonlinguistic version of the argument that again claims that the very nature of judgment precludes both the impossibility of error and the judgment's being noninferentially justified. This time, however, the claim is that a judgment about something always involves relating the thing in question to other things. We get different versions of the argument depending on what kind of "relating to other objects" is involved in deciding the application of a concept. A simple version of the view would be one according to which applying a concept to an object involves asserting a relation of similarity to a paradigm we were acquainted with in the past. If such a view about the nature of judgment were correct, it would seem to preclude infallible beliefs, for surely all would concede that our justification for believing that a present object resembles a past one never precludes the possibility of error. Moreover, since even most foundationalists concede that knowledge of the past is always inferential, it would be difficult to reconcile such a conception of judgment with the view that some judgments are noninferentially justified. Once again, of course, I reject the presupposition of the argument. Phenomenologically, it seems false to me that in thinking of an object as red, for example, I am implicitly relating that object to some other object, but there arc also dialectical reasons for rejecting the view. If the judgment that a is F always involves the judgment that a bears some R to some b, then the judgment that a bears R to some b seems to involve the judgment that a bearing R to b bears R to some other state of affairs, for example, c bearing R to d, and so on ad infinitum. lH We seemed to be involved in a regress, and though I warned earlier against assuming that all regresses are vicious, it docs seem bizarre to suppose that my judgment that this is red involves an infinite number of more and more complex judgments.

Necessary Truth So far I have been focusing on the role of direct acquaintance in justifying noninferentially justified empirical beliefs. There is, of

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course, another kind of truth that has been considered an excellent candidate for a truth that could be noninfercntially known-the necessary truth. On my view, we can be noninferentially justified in believing necessary truths, and, moreover, the source of such justification is precisely the same as for noninferentially justified empirical beliefs-direct acquaintance. To develop this view I must say something about necessary truths. What makes a necessary truth true and necessary is an internal relation between thoughts. By "internal rclation" I mean a relation such that the nonrelational properties of its relata guarantee that it obtains. The relation can be described only in terms of metaphors, for again we are dealing with foundational concepts-the concepts with which we explicate other concepts but which themselves can be analyzed no further. The metaphor of one concept's "containing" another that Kant employed in trying to characterize analytic truth is one of the more familiar, and perhaps one of the more effective, metaphors to be employed in characterizing one kind of necessary truth. My thought that Jones is a bachelor "contains" the thought that Jones is unmarried, and that is what makes it a necessary truth that if Jones is a bachelor then Jones is unmarried. If we define an analytic truth as one whose statement can be reduced to a formal tautology through substitution of synonymous expressions, then we must admit the existence of synthetic necessary truths. All but the most stubborn have given up trying to reduce "All red things are colored," "All red things are not blue," and "All equiangular triangles are equilateral," for example, to tautologies by substituting synonymous expressions. It would be a mistake to infer from this that there is a great difference between what grounds the two sorts of necessary truths. If we were to give an informal characterization of the containment relation offered in characterizing what makes it necessary that bachelors are unmarried, we might say something like: The very thought that someone is a bachelor forces us to think that that person is unmarried. What makes it necessary that red things are colored and that red things are not blue is that someone's thought that something is red involves his thinking of that thing as colored and as not blue if that person has these other COil cepts . It is the necessity of adding the qualifying clause that primarily distinguishes synthetic necessary truths from contingent truths. One can possess the concept of a thing's being red without

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even possessing the concept of a thing's being blue or the concept of a thing's being not blue. Thus one can think that a thing is red without thinking of it as not blue. I have said that direct acquaintance can ground our noninferential justification for believing both contingent and necessary truths. I think you can see how this would follow as a natural consequence of the preceding account of necessary truth given what I said earlier about acquaintance. One can be directly acquainted with thoughts and with the relations that obtain between them, and it is such direct acquaintance with the relations that make necessary truths true that allows us to be noninferentially justified in believing necessary truths. In suggesting that internal relations between thoughts can be the objects of direct acquaintance, I am not suggesting that they always are or even that it is causally possible for beings with our present constitution to be acquainted with all such relations. As I indicated in my discussion of philosophical analysis, nonlinguistic thoughts are not that easy to come by. It may be difficult to bring certain thoughts in all their complexity before our consciousness. Indeed, if a statement is complex enough, it may be causally impossible to bring before the mind an occurrent thought it expresses. If this is so, then it follows that it may be difficult or even causally impossible to bring before the mind the even more complex fact that is that thought standing in a certain rclation to another thought. The discussion above has the virtue of offering a unified account of non inferential justification. As one should expect of such a unified account, however, it does in a sense collapse the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge conceived as knowledge with two different sources. There is a sense in which, on my view, the source of a priori knowledge and the source of some a posteriori knowledge are precisely the same-direct acquaintance. One can still, of course, make a distinction between the two sorts of knowledge even when each rests on direct acquaintance, for one can distinguish between the nature of the o~jects of direct acquaintance. It is acquaintance with internal relations between thoughts that grounds our noninferential justification for believing some necessary truths. The question whether and how we can be noninferentially justified in believing necessary truths may turn out to be of tremendous importance for the philosopher who wished to avoid a vicious re-

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gress of justification and the skepticism that seemed to entail. You will recall that the principle of inferential justification seemed to force us to block regresses in not one but two directions. If we are to satisfy the conditions set out in the principle without getting involved in a vicious regress (or circle), then to be justified in nondeductively inferring one proposition from another we must be noninferentially justified in believing propositions of the form E makes probable P. It is difficult to maintain both that such propositions are noninferentially known and that they are contingent truths. But before we can discuss this furthLrll) we must at last examine the concept of one proposition's confirming or making probable another.

Confirmation The concept of one proposition's confirming or making probable another is, I think, the most fundamental concept involved in trying to understand nondeductive inferential justification. In Theory of KrJowll.'~~c Chisholm takes as primitive the relational concept of its being more reasonable to believe one proposition than another, but it seems to me more plausible to explicate the relation of being more reasonable in terms of the notion of making probable and its comparative, making more probable. It is more reasonable for S to believe P than Q if S's total body of evidence E is such that it makes P more probable than Q. But how are we to understand the notion of one proposition or set of propositions' making probable another? One of the most commonly accepted and more plausible theories of probability if the so-called relative frequency theory. There are many variations on the view, but all variations hold that when a meaningful probability assertion is made there is always implicit reference to a reference class. Thus, for example, if I assert that it is likely Jones will live to be sixty, and my assertion is to have a truth value, I must view that assertion as (a) assigning Jones to a certain class of people, and (b) making a certain statistical claim about the percentage of people in that class who live to be sixty. Sometimes the context will make fairly clear what reference class is presupposed by the assertion of probability, but often there is no way to determine the content of a probability assertion other than to ask the person making the claim to make explicit the assumed reference

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class. In short, as the name of the theory implies, probability is always construed as a relative notion. A thing's having one property is probable only relative to its having some other properties. And to say that it is likely that the thing has the former property relative to its having the latter properties is to say, roughly, that most things that have the latter have the former. There are all kinds of problems facing a proponent of a relative frequency theory of probability, the most obvious being the problem of distinguishing between accidental or coincidental statistical correlations and the kind of statistical correlation that would support a statement of relative probability. The problem is directly analogous to the problem of distinguishing accidental generalizations from laws of nature, and there is an almost irresistible urge to turn to subjunctive conditionals to solve both these problems. Thus we might say that a's being F is probable relative to its being C not simply if most actual C's are F's but if, were we to produce an indefinite number of C's most of them would be F's. Subjunctive conditionals are hardly so pellucid as to make this move inviting, but in any event let us assume that a proponent of the relative frequency theory can develop a plausible concept of probability. Could it be employed in trying to understand the concept of one proposition's being probable relative to another? It is not easy to see how this would work. In saying that P is probable relative to Q, we certainly are relativizing the probability, but we do not seem to be assigning the proposition P to a reference class. If we say that the proposition that this is black (P) is likely to be true relative to the proposition that most ravens observed have been black and this is a raven (Q), in what sense has the proposition P been assigned to a reference class? The only class of propositions that Q might seem to implicitly refer to is the class of propositions having the form - - is a raven and - - is black, which have been observed to be true, and P is not even a member of this class. The idea of employing the notion of relative frequency in trying to understand the concept of one proposition E's making probable another P is not, however, completely hopeless. One can borrow at least the spirit of the relative frequency analysis of probability in developing the following view. We could suggest that in claiming that P is probable relative to E we are simply asserting that E and P constitute a pair of propositions, which pair is a member of a certain class of proposition pairs such that, when the first member of

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the pair is true, usually the other is. Thus, in saying that a's being F is probable relative to its being G and most observed G's being F, I could be construed as claiming that this pair of propositions is of the sort: Most X's observed are Y and this is XIThis is Y, and most often it is the case that when the first member of such a pair is true, the second is. Similarly, if I claim that my seeming to remember eating this morning (b) makes it likely that I did eat this morning (P), I could be construed as asserting that the pair of propositions, EI P, is of the form S seems to remember XI X, such that most often when the first member of the pair is true, the second is. This view is in some ways attractive, for at least it offers a relatively clear analysis of the concept of one proposition's making probable another. It presents, however, enormous epistemological problems for those who wish to escape the regress of justification through foundations and who are committed to the principle of inferential justification, for it is difficult to see how on this interpretation of "makes probable" we could be noninferentially justified in believing any proposition of the form E makes probable P. In the example given above, it seems to be a straightforward contingent fact that usually when the first member of such a pair is true, the second is. Moreover, the contingent fact seems to be of a sort that would preclude direct acquaintance with it. To be directly acquainted with such a fact, one would presumably need to be directly acquainted with indefinite numbers of facts in the past, present, and future. Yet without noninferential justification for believing at least some propositions of the form E makes probable P, we cannot block a regress arising through the attempt to satisfy condition (2) of the principle of inferential justification. At this point a proponent of commonsensism is probably going to consider abandoning foundationalism, the principle of inferential justification, the idea of direct acquaintance as the ground of noninferential justification, or the frequency conception sketched above of one proposition's making probable another. I have already rejected the methodological presuppositions of epistemological commonsensism, so I do not feel quite so sure that such a move is forced, but one must hesitate before embracing a rather extreme (though not the most extreme) sort of skepticism, a skepticism with respect to all propositions believed as a result of nondeductive inference. The question whether the epistemological problems arising from this view of confirmation are so serious as to require us to

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abandon it may be academic, however, for it is not at all clear that the view is conceptually plausible. It is not clear that there is any inconsistency in the hypothesis that one proposition E makes probable another P, even though the pair they form is of a sort such that the second member is almost never true when the first is. Suppose, for example, that we were all created a minute ago complete with nonveridical memory experiences of a long and complicated past. Suppose, further, that we arc destroyed a minute later and that in our brief lifetime most of what we seemed to remember was false. In such a hypothetical situation, it would be false that when a proposition of the form S seems to remember X is true, it is most often also true that X. But it is not obvious that in such a situation our beliefs about the past based on memory would be unjustified. It is not obvious that propositions describing our memory experience would not make likely for us the truth of propositions about the past. This same problem faces an increasingly popular conception of justification sometimes referred to as the reliabilist theory ofjustification, according to which a belief is justified if it is the result of a "process" that under certain conditions (to be nontrivially stated by the reliabilist) usually results in true belief. In "Justification and Knowledge" Alvin Goldman presents a detailed version of such a view. Goldman initially suggests the following recursive analysis of justified belief: A belief is justified if it results either from (1) a belief-independent process that is unconditionally reliable, or (2) a belief-dependent process that is conditionally reliable, where the "input" beliefs arc themselves justified. Belief-independent processes do not have beliefs as their "input," and what makes them unconditionally reliable is that the "output" beliefs arc usually true. Belief-dependent processes have as their "input" at least some beliefs, and what makes them conditionally reliable is that the "output" beliefs arc usually true whet! the "input" beliefs arc true. Despite its rejection of traditional epistemology, the view can, ironically, accommodate a version of foundationalism, for the distinction between reliable processes that have beliefs as their input and reliable processes that do not parallels the more traditional distinction between inferentially and noninferentially justified beliefs. Now if "usually" is understood statistically, the objection raised above to a frequency conception of confirmation seems to apply equally well to reliabilism. If we can imagine a world in which

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memory experiences usually result in justified false beliefs about the past, we have, it seems, an insurmountable difficulty for the claim that reliability, in Goldman's sense, is a necessary condition for justification. To be sure, the reliabilist could grit his teeth and simply insist that in the world of misleading memory experience described above people would have, contrary to their intuitions, unjustified beliefs about the past, but such an admission shows only a willingness to follow through with the consequences of one's position, come what may. To say that a person's belief is justified is to bestow epistemic praise. But now imagine two possible worlds, WI and W2, in which the respective populations have phenomenologically identical memory experiences even though W2 is the hypothetical world of nonveridical memory described above. Surely whatever people in WI ou}Zht (in its epistemic sense) to believe about the past (if anything), people ou,~ht to believe about the past in W2. From their perspective, W2 is no different from WI, and to bestow epistemic blame on the people in W2 for reaching the same conclusions as the people in WI seems preposterous. Reliability is not a necessary condition for justification, and it is no more plausible to claim that reliability is a s/~i1;{ifllt condition for justification. Suppose that a Freudian explanation of belief in an afterlife is true and that it is usually the case that belief in an afterlife is caused by fear of death. I kllow this alld that beliefs in an afterlife caused by fear of death arc always false. Suppose also that the following arc true: that unbeknown to me, and un believed by me, there is a God who once every thousand years whispers in the car of one sleeping man that he will have an afterlife and arranges for this to be true; that God chose me and I was caused to believe in an afterlife by what is, by hypothesis, this unconditionally reliable process. Despite my firm conviction that my belief in an afterlife is caused by fear of dying, I cannot seem to rid myself of what 1 realize is an irrational belief. Surely we would all say of me (I would say of me) that my belief in an afterlife is irrational, despite the fact that it was caused by a reliable process. Now Goldman is sensitive to this sort of problem, and ncar the end of his article he suggests that we might revise the first part of his recursive definition to require that S's justified belief must not only result from a reliable process, but result from such a process when there is no other reliable or conditionally reliable process available to him that, had it been used by S in addition to the process actually used, would have resulted in that

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person's not having the relevant belief. This might seem to help with the objection considered above, for there was (one might argue) available to me a reliable process that could have worked on the input beliefs relevant to establishing the Freudian explanation that, had I used it, would have prevented me from believing in an afterlife. But the revision is beside the point, for I need only suppose that I am so constituted that no processes of that sort would have resulted in my believing there is no afterlife. That same God who whispered in my ear might have created me and everyone else with epistemically "defective" wiring when it comes to belief in an afterlife. But even so, Goldman might argue, we should be wired in such a way that consideration of the relevant psychological evidence would result in the belief that there is no afterlife. This is perhaps true, but to use "should" in what is clearly an epistemic sense is to violate the whole spirit of the reliabilist enterprise (it is certainly to violate the restrictions Goldman himself imposes on an acceptable analysis of epistemic terms). People should be so constituted as to believe P when they justifiably believe E and that E confirms P! These objections to reliabilism seem to me decisive, but even if! were to recognize a concept ofjustification defined in terms of reliability, I would view it as philosophically uninteresting for reasons I discussed earlier. The philosopher might suspect that his beliefs result from a statistically reliable mechanism, but he would not be satisfied until he knew what the relevant mechanism was and how it worked. The philosopher would not feel that he had a solutiorl to, say, the traditional epistemological problem of justifying belief about the past until he had good reasons for thinking that his beliefs about the past resulted from a reliable mechanism, which reasons would be, ipso facto, good reasons for believing what he does about the past. The reliabilists (and, more generally, the naturalists in epistemology) do not so much address traditional epistemological problems as simply change the subject. If we do reject a frequency conception of one proposition's making probable another, we might of course take "makes probable" as a relation between propositions to be a sui generis internal relation, analogous to logical relations and discoverable through direct acquaintance. Dialectically, the move is attractive, and the reader must realize by now that I have no compunction about viewing a fundamental concept as primitive. Still, to be honest, it is difficult for me

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to convince myself that I am phenomenologically acquainted with any such relation, and it is critical for someone who is prepared to take a concept as primitive to exercise considerable intellectual conscience in doing so. A great many philosophical problems have been swept under the rug in the name of primitive concepts by philosophers who have tired in the search for a plausible analysis. Another, rather radical, approach would be to offer a subjectivist analysis of making probable analogous to Hume's famous subjective definition of cause. One could argue that the idea of E's making probable P is just a (perhaps confused) recognition that the mind is conditioned to believe one sort of proposition when it accepts another. There is no more cognitive content to the idea of one proposition's making probable another than this habit of mind. This view seems mistaken for a reason similar to the problem we had with the frequency theory. The supposition that we might all be irrational (conditioned, perhaps, by some Cartesian evil demon to make unreasonable inferences to false propositions) strikes us as wildly implausible but not contradictory. Yet it is only if such a hypothesis is contradictory that we can maintain that probability relations are just habits of inference. A view closely related to the view above and even more extreme places the emphasis on confosed in characterizing the concept of makes probable as the recognition of the mind's habit of inference and goes on to simply deny that there is any genuine concept of one proposition's making probable another. In the final analysis, I suspect that this view and the view that the concept is primitive are the two most likely alternatives, neither of them very appetizing. Such a conclusion is no doubt anticlimactic given the importance I have attached to understanding the concept of confirmation, but we shall see that a resolution of the metaphysical problems of perception need not await a final resolution of this problem. In this chapter I have tried to at least sketch the framework within which I shall be addressing some of the epistemological and metaphysical questions concerning perception. Let us now turn to those questions.

Chapter 3 Naive Realism

Almost every book on perception written in the twentieth century has a chapter on naive or direct realism. It is the most obvious place to begin, for it is by abandoning certain versions of naive realism that we force upon 011rselves the myriad epistemological and metaphysical questions that have so beset philosophers. When rejecting a view gives rise to so much trouble, one should do so only after the most careful consideration. Much discussion about naive realism has been vitiated by a failure to distinguish a number of quite different views, all of which are sometimes called naive or direct realism. I shall begin our discussion, therefore, by distinguishing as many versions of the view as I can.

Epistemological Naive Realism There are a number of theses that are consistent with some of the loose statements of naive realism as an epistemological view. The first I shall discuss, and the one with which we shall be primarily concerned in this chapter, I shall call simply epistemological naive realism (ENR): (ENR) On at least some occasions we are noninferentially justified in believing a proposition asserting the existence of a physical object.

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Given the view of noninferential justification set forth in chapter 2, it follows that I take the proponent of ENR to be committed to the view that on at least some occasions we are directly acquainted with such facts as that a given physical object exists, and indeed many proponents of ENR use such expressions as "direct" and "immediate" in trying to characterize our perceptual relation to physical objects. Much of the following discussion is, however, neutral concerning the correct way of characterizing noninferential justification. ENR must be carefully distinguished from a number of other views, the statements of which are often superficially similar to ENR, but that neither imply nor are implied by it. Most kinds of naive realism have two versions, depending on whether the thesis offered is meant to characterize all perception or merely veridical perception. Let me simply list some of the kinds of naive realism that must be distinguished from ENR: (Ri a) In all sense experience we are directly or immediately acquainted with parts or constituents of physical objects. (Rib) In veridical sense experience we are directly or immediately acquainted with parts or constituents of physical objects. (R2a) In all visual and tactile sense experience we are directly or immediately acquainted with parts of the surfaces of physical objects. (R2b) In all veridical visual and tactile sense experience we are directly or immediately acquainted with parts of the surfaces of physical objects. (R3) On at least some occasions our sense experience causes us to accept (perhaps even better, take for granted) the existence of physical objects, and we do so without inferring their presence from our awareness of something other than a physical object (e.g., a sense datum or a way of being appeared to). None of (Ria) through (R3) entails ENR. (Ria) asserts that in all, and (Rib) asserts that in some, sense experience we are directly or immediately acquainted with constituents of physical objects. We can be directly acquainted with the existence of a part or a constituent of a physical object without being acquainted with the fact that

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the entity in question is a part or a constituent of a physical object, and thus without being acquainted with the fact that a given physical object exists. Put another way, our acquaintance with the fact that a certain entity exists may yield a noninferentially justified belief that the entity in question exists, but such acquaintance does not thereby yield knowledge that the entity is a constituent of a physical object, even if it is. The idealism of Berkeley, the early phenomenalism ofJohn Stuart Mill and A. J. Ayer, and the views of the later Russell (Our KnowledRe oj the External World) and Gustav Bergmann are all consistent with the naive realism defined by (RIb) and incompatible with the naive realism defined by ENR. (R2a) and (R2b) are compatible with a denial of ENR for the same kind of reason. To be acquainted with something that is a surface of an object is not to be acquainted with the fact that a certain physical object exists. In characterizing (RIa and b), and (R2a and b), I again employed the technical relation of acquaintance introduced earlier. In doing so, I am fully aware that many self-proclaimed direct realists would not accept the framework within which I am trying to define their views. Still, ifI am right about acquaintance, it seems to me that mine is the most perspicuous way to characterize their position. By defining direct realism in terms of acquaintance, I am relating the view rather closely to an epistemological position. Earlier I argued that, while direct acquaintance is not itself an epistemic relation, it could under certain conditions constitute a source of justification. Because (RIa) through (R2b) are defined in terms of acquaintance and acquaintance has an intimate role to play in analyzing one kind ofjustification, one can understand why (RIa) through (R2b) would be of concern to the epistemologist investigating the nature of our justification (if any) for believing what we do about the physical world. I take this to be a virtue of my account of these different versions of direct realism, for it seems obvious that, historically, philosophers did take the truth or falsity of direct realism to bear on epistemological matters. It is, however, possible to define direct realism so as to divorce the view entirely from epistemological considerations. Thus a direct realist may wish simply to deny that one perceives (sees, feels, hears, tastes, smells) a physical object by perceiving (seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling) some other kind of entity (e. g., a sense datum). 1 One might, for example, reject a sense-datum theory in favor of an appearing theory and argue that one "directly" perceives a physical

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object when that object causes in the relevant wayan appropriate appearance. This is direct perception because the perception of the object was not mediated by perception of some other object. Note, however, that, given such a characterization of direct realism, even a sense-datum theorist with a causal theory of perception could be a direct realist! Careful sense-datum theorists can easily agree that we should reserve ordinary perceptual verbs for describing our relation to physical objects. If I were a sense-datum theorist, I would no doubt insist that one not speak of perceivinJ< sense data. Certainly, on the view I shall be defending, it would be a mistake to speak of perceiving anything but a physical object and its properties, and therefore, in the sense of direct realism we are now considering, I suppose I would be a direct realist. The term "direct realism" is a technical philosophical term, and the only criteria one can employ in choosing between alternative characterizations of direct realism are how well the characterization relates to the historical discussion of the issue and how well the distinction between direct and indirect realism illuminates fundamental metaphysical and epistemological issues. It seems to me that, however ill defined philosophers have left their use of such expressions as "direet" in characterizing our relation to the world, they have implicitly taken the thesis to have its epistemological implications. Consequently, I feel that it is a desideratum of philosophically illuminating characterizations of versions of direct realism that the views do have their epistemological implications. To define direct realism in such a way that the view I shall be defending turns out to be a version of direct realism seems to me to pervert the historical understanding of direct realism. None of this, of course, will comfort those who reject the intelligibility of my concept of acquaintance. They will, understandably, need to find alternative ways of defining direct realism. Some of those who reject the concept of direct acquaintance in terms of which I have defined (RIa) through (R2b) would feel more comfortable with (R3) as a statement of their position. When Austin in Sense and Sensibilia (p. 115) and Quinton in "The Problem of Perception" (p. 519) object to the idea that certain perceptual beliefs are based on evidence, it is not so much because they have some carefully stated alternative answer to the question of how perception gives us knowledge of the physical world. It is more a matter of their rejecting the question as somehow improper. It is quite

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clear, for example, that Austin objects to most traditional rejections of naive realism on linguistic grounds-on the linguistic impropriety of using the term "evidence" or "infer" to describe certain situations. In any event, (R3) seems to me quite compatible with a rejection of ENR, and it is only by confusing certain questions that a philosopher rejecting ENR will end up saddled with the more formidable task of having to reject (R3). In characterizing inferential justification earlier, I noted that by referring to justification as inferential I did not mean to imply that the person who is inferentially justified in believing a proposition must therefore have actually made some inference from some set of propositions that constitute his evidence. I allowed at least a derivative sense of inferential justification that involves no conscious inference. When Quinton pointed out that the expression "his reason for believing" is ambiguous between "the cause of his believing" and "the evidence he has for believing"2 he was quite right. Most people are not philosophers. They neither have nor seek inferential justification of the sort I called philosophically relevant-the sort of justification governed by the principle of inferential justification. Quinton says the following: The relation between experiences and objects, then, neither is nor should be logical. On the contrary it is causal, a matter of psychological fact. Our beliefs about objects are based on experience in a way that requires not justification but explanation. Experiences are not my reasons for my beliefs about objects-to have an experience is not to know or believe anything which could be a reason in this sense-though they may be the reasons for my believing what I do from the point of view of the psychologist. They may, that is, be the causes of my beliefs and explain them. But they could only be my reasons for my beliefs about objects if I already knew something independently about the relations between experiences and objects. 3 Quinton is probably right in characterizing the way people's beliefs about the world occur. His mistake is in thinking that, if he is correct in concluding that sensations cause us to hold beliefs about the world without serving as facts described in premises that are employed in a conscious process of inference, he has bypassed the traditional epistemological problems of perception. After concluding

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that sensations cause us to have beliefs about the external world, we must as epistemologists still determine whether what causes us to have such beliefs has any connection with the truth of what we believe; that is, we must determine whether and how propositions describing the occurrence of certain sensations can confirm or make probable propositions asserting the existence of a certain physical object. Recognizing that there is no conscious process of inference from propositions describing experience to propositions about the external world, recognizing that our beliefs about the world are simply caused by the occurrence of certain sensations, in no way eliminates this problem. If beliefs about the physical world are not noninferentially justified, we want to know and be able to explicate how we can have inferentially justified beliefs about the world in either the derivative or the philosophically relevant sense of inferential justification. To do so we must understand the epistemological relation of experience to the world. In what follows I shall be primarily concerned with what I called epistemological naive realism. I shall, however, comment when appropriate on the implications of arguments against ENR for the other versions of naive realism, (Rla-R2b). I shall not consider (R3), for its truth or falsity is irrelevant to the philosophically interesting questions of epistemology concerning perception.

The Argument from the Possibility of Hallucination Illusions, dreams, and hallucinations-or, more precisely, the possibility of these-arc the major obstacles standing in the way of ENR. I shall, however, focus on the possibility of hallucination, for arguments from illusion often introduce unnecessary complications. In illusion we take it for granted that we arc aware of a physical object, but an object that appears to us in a way misleading as to its real character. This opens the door to what we might call the relational appearing theory, according to which in experience, illusory and veridical, we always stand in a direct or immediate relation of being appeared to by a physical object. 4 I do not think such an account can handle the concept of illusion, but it is a mistake to argue the point when the concept of hallucination provides a much less problematic source of argument against certain forms of naive realism.

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In chapter 1 I made brief reference to the dream and demon arguments Descartes advanced in the Meditations and stressed that, on my interpretation of these arguments, the crucial first premise asserts only the conceptual possibility of vivid dreams and demon-produced hallucinations. Similarly, I stress at the outset that the arguments I offer against naive realism do not rest on the existence of hallucinatory experience or on the phenomenological character of any existing hallucinatory experience. The latter question is no doubt fascinating. I am told that hallucinations can acquire extraordinary vivacity and complexity, but I certainly do not know whether hallucinatory experiences ever become as qualitatively rich as the day-to-day experiences we take to be veridical. Certainly, in retrospect it seems to me that my dream experiences were never as rich as the experiences I take to be veridical, but that could be as much a function of my being an unimaginative dreamer as anything else. In any event, even if it were true that no one has had vivid hallucinatory experiences, it would not affect the force of the argument from the possibility of hallucination, for that argument rests only on the possibility, the conceivability, of vivid, complex hallucinatory experience. It is for this reason that the truth or falsity of naive realism is not a contingent question. If naive realism is an incorrect account of our relation to physical objects through sensation, it is a necessarily incorrect account. If false, naive realism is necessarily false. Defenders of naive realism have been known to throw up their hands in frustration and wonder what kind of world would satisfy the naive realist's critic as a world in which we are directly acquainted with physical objects. The naive realist's critic must not be taken aback by this question, for, if I am right, the answer is simply that no world would. If naive realism is false, it will be inconceivable that there could be a world in which we are directly or immediately acquainted with the existence of physical objects through sense experience. Let me present an argument from the possibility of hallucination against epistemological naive realism:

1. Any sensation or sequence of sensations S I have is such that it is possible that I have hallucinatory experience so rich as to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from S. 2. My justification (if any) for believing some proposition P about the physical world as a result of my having S is the same

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as the justification I would have had were S a hallucinatory experIence. 3. If S were a hallucinatory experience, my justification for believing P would not consist in my being directly acquainted with the fact that P (since by hypothesis the fact that P would not exist). It follows that: 4. My justification for believing P whether S is hallucinatory or not is not my being directly acquainted with the fact that P. Let us examine the argument in some detail. First is it true that, for any experience whatever, one could have a hallucinatory experience phenomenologically indistinguishable from it. The question is not, of course, whether there could be a hallucinatory experience that shares all the properties of a veridical experience. That question answers itself-a veridical experience (if there are any) has the property of being veridical (however we ultimately understand that), and a hallucinatory experience has the property of being nonveridical. The relevant question is whether for any experience S we can imagine having a hallucinatory experience such that introspection would reveal no difference in the qualitative character of the hallucinatory experience and S (whether S is veridical or not). Put another way, is it true that for any experience S there could be a hallucinatory experience H such that H shares all the nonrelational properties of S? It is difficult to deny this possibility. Ironically, it is particularly difficult for the naturalistic epistemologist allowing himself free access to the the full stock of scientific theories to deny the possibility, for almost everyone believes that visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory sensations are the immediate effects of the stimulation of certain parts of the brain. If we find evil demons outmoded and like a touch of modern science thrown into the description of a hypothetical situation, we can always imagine the cause of a vivid hallucinatory experience to be the usual mad scientist who, while we were sleeping, hooked electrodes to various parts of our brains and, for his own twisted pleasure, proceeded to induce in us the full range of sensations involved in a trip to Yellowstone National Park. I have no idea whether such manipulation of the brain is in fact causally possible. I do know it is conceptually possible. Hilary Putnam, in a recent book,5 has argued against the conceptual possibility that we are all "brains in a vat," stimulated by

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electrodes so as to receive the very sensory input we have been inundated with throughout our conscious life. As I understand it, his argument is that the hypothesis is necessarily false, for all attempted reference to the physical world would fail were our brains not stimulated in the way we take them to be, and that includes, of course, reference to brains and vats. The argument rests on a theory of reference that I would reject, but, as you will see, my own account of the meaning of physical object propositions makes suspect the possibility of constant, consistent, universal hallucination. Whether or not Putnam's conclusion is correct, however, it is important to realize that its truth would provide no ammunition for those wishing to attack the argument from the possibility of hallucination sketched above. This argument claims only that any JZivc/l sensation or sequence of sensations could have a cause other than the physical object we take to be there. On his own views about reference, Putnam would (certainly should) allow that he might at this moment be a brain in a vat (someone might have effected the switch in the middle of the night), even ifhe is not sure that he could always have been a brain in a vat. A fellow foundationalist might feel uneasy about appealing to our beliefs about the physical workings of the brain in attacking naive realism. In his classic work on perception, Price warns against making such amove, (, for he was concerned (as all good epistemologists are) about appealing to knowledge that goes beyond the point at which an epistemological inquiry currently stands. Price was, however, too cautious in what he allowed himself to do. One should feel perfectly free in appealing to the possibility of the brain's being such that it is the immediate cause of the phenomenological character of sense experience, and we can certainly enjoy having the advantage of arguing with people who not only allow for the possibility but believe it is so. The first premise of the argument from the possibility of hallucination seems to me unassaila ble. But what about the second premise? If we were to have a hallucinatory experience of a table, say, that is phenomenologically indistinguishable from what we take to be a paradigm of veridical experience, does it follow that our justification for believing in the existence of the table would be the same as it would were the experience veridical? The answer to this question is not nearly as obvious. In fact, I think we must immediately modify premise (2)

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slightly. In the sixth meditation, when Descartes got around to resolving the problems he had raised earlier, he claimed to have discovered that, even though dreams might be qualitatively identical with veridical experience, one could still find in dream experience a difference, namely that dreams failed to "cohere" with earlier experience. We should concede, I think, that our justification for believing any physical object proposition may always go beyond what we find in the phenomenological character of present experience. More specifically, we should concede that it may always involve what we seem to remember about certain past experiences and perhaps even the relation of present experience to those past experiences. The mere fact that a hallucinatory experience is phenomenologically indistinguishable from a veridical experience does not entail that our justification for believing propositions about the physical world when hallucinating would be the same as in veridical experience, for we might argue that in veridical experience we must always find a certain coherence with earlier experience that is lacking in hallucinatory experience. We might argue this, but it would be a mistake. There is no more difficulty in imagining a vivid hallucinatory experience that fits nicely with the rest of experience than there is in imagining a vivid hallucinatory experience. Our mad scientist bent on inducing that hallucinatory trip to Yellowstone Park could have begun by inducing a hallucination of our getting out of bed, yawning, and brushing our teeth. Indeed, Descartes himself knew that coherence by itself was not going to provide an answer to the skeptical problems he raised and was explicit in arguing that one needed, in addition, knowledge of a non deceiving God. Only if you know there is a God who will not maliciously confuse you can you rely on coherence as an indication of the veridical character of experience. It is obviously difficult to reconcile Descartes's view with how easily we can be fooled by dreams and illusions, but in any event we do not have knowledge of a nondeceiving God, so the question is academic. To take into account that coherence of sensations might be relevant to the justification of beliefs in propositions about the physical world, I shall let the possibility of hallucination that the argument relies on be the possibility of a vivid complex hallucination that coheres (in whatever sense of "coheres" is developed) with earlier experience. Would such a hallucinatory experience give us the same justification as a corresponding veridical experience for accepting

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the proposition that asserts the existence of that object whose presence we would naturally take for granted? The answer is, unfortunately, still not as clear as I might like, in part because I have already allowed (albeit with some reluctance) the fallibility of acquaintance as a source of justification. One could argue that, while a hallucinatory experience may be phenomenologically indistinguishable from a veridical experience, it would nevertheless always be different. More specifically, one might argue that, while it may be possible to produce a hallucinatory experience that for all we can tell through introspection is acquaintance with a physical object, it is not, and veridical experience is. This attempt to deflect the force of the argument from the possibility of hallucination is, I think, implausible even if it involves no formal inconsistency. That phenomenologically two experiences strike us as identical in qualitative character may not entail that they are identical, but it is surely about the best reason we could have for thinking they are. Moreover, the naive realist who suggests such a reply is going to run up against a conflict with the "discoveries" of science to which he gives unswerving allegiance. Again, I shall heed Price's warning and not argue from scientific knowledge to a view about the nature of hallucinatory experience, but naive realists usually pride themselves on their neat, sensible view of our perceptual relation to the world, and it is worthwhile to point out that they may be forced to abandon all sorts of empirical beliefs to which I am sure they would rather cling. What is the source of this potential conflict? Well, again, most philosophers are going to want to end up claiming that the immediate cause of both veridical and hallucinatory experiences is precisely the same sort of event (some event occurring in the brain); and relying on the principle (which Hume takes to be analytic) of same cause, same effect, one is going to want to analyze the resulting experience (be it veridical or not) in the same way. Moreover, if the proximate cause of a veridical experience is a brain event and veridical experience is analyzed in terms of a person's being related to the fact that a given physical object exists, we seem to have the rather surprising conclusion that certain brain states are nomologically sufficient for the existence of such things as tables and chairs. If X is nomologically sufficient for Yand Yentails Z, then X is nomologically sufficient for Z. My being directly acquainted with the table entails the existence of the table, so if there is a brain state causally responsible for my being directly

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acquainted with the table, there is a brain state causally responsible for the existence of a table. Naive realism, of all things, seems to be pushing us toward a neurological analogue of Berkeley's views on the mind-dependent character of the physical world! Last, it should be noted that this attempt to save naive realism would serve no purpose as far as avoiding the traditional epistemological problems the epistemological naive realist is so anxious to avoid. The old problem of bridging a gap between knowledge of sensation and knowledge of the world would simply be replaced by a new problem of bridging a gap between the phenomenologically given character of experience and its real character. The third and fourth steps in the argument seem to be unobjectionable, but I should add a note of clarification with respect to the third. One might argue that even in hallucinatory experience we are acquainted with physical objects of some sort. Russell, for example, at one point claimed that in all experience, veridical and nonveridical, we are immediately acquainted with a certain part of the brain. Obviously, in advancing his naive realism, it was not acquaintance with just any physical object that the naive realist urged as an analysis of veridical perception-it was acquaintance with the existence of the object whose presence we take for granted as a result of the experience. And it is acquaintance with the object we take to be there that seems to be precluded by the fact that an experience is hallucinatory. Indeed, this seems to be an analytic truth. So far I have been focusing on the implications of the argument from the possibility of hallucination for the view I called epistemological naive realism. Variations on the argument, however, seem to be equally effective against some of the other kinds of direct realism as well. If we alter the third premise of the argument to read: 3' In hallucinatory experience we are not directly acquainted with the surface of the physical object we would normally take to be there, then we can conditionally reject (R 1a). If people have had hallucinatory sense experience, then (R 1a) is false. If we alter (3) to read: 3/1 In hallucinatory experience we arc not directly acquainted with parts or constituents of the physical objects we would normally take to be there,

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then we can conditionally reject (R2a). If peopk have had hallucinatory sense experience, then (R2a) is false; (3') and (3") seem to me as unproblematic as (3). If the physical objects we take to be there in hallucinatory sense experience do not exist, then neither do "their" surfaces nor any of "their" constituents. (R1b) and (R2b) remain as yet unscathed. One could consistently hold, for example, that in both hallucinatory and veridical experience one is immediately aware of the same sort of thing and go on to hold either that that kind of thing is sometimes a constituent of a physical object or that it is sometimes a part of the surface of a physical object. Hallucinatory and veridical experience could be phenomenologically indistinguishable, for the properties whose presence makes the entities we are directly acquainted with parts or parts of the surfaces of physical objects may be relational properties of a sort that precludes our being directly acquainted with them. I shall discuss such views in more detail shortly. Our conclusions have so far been negative in character. We have relied on the possibility of hallucinatory experience to argue that we are never directly acquainted with the fact that a physical object exists and that in sensation we are not always directly acquainted with parts of physical objects or their surfaces. But what can we say of a positive nature? First, I think we may conclude from the fact that a veridical experience and a vivid hallucinatory experience would be phenomenologically indistinguishable that there is something common to both veridical and vivid hallucinatory experience. For simplicity, let us hypothesize the existence of a veridical experience of seeing a table and its phenomenologically indistinguishable hallucinatory counterpart. I am tentatively suggesting that it is reasonable to conclude that my veridically seeing the table and my hallucinating the table have something in common that accounts for their having the same phenomenological character. How shall we describe this common element? Following a suggestion of A. J. Ayer's in The Problem ~f KnowlcdRC (chapter 3), we might begin in as neutral a way as possible by employing the terminology "seems to see" or "appears." We might say that in both the veridical experience of seeing a table and the hallucinatory experience of a table we SCCIIl to sec a table, or it appears to us as ~f there is a table. If I make this move I must of course explain what is meant by saying of a person that he seems to see a table or that it appears to someone as if there is a

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table, in the sense above. I shall begin, however, by making clear how I do not want you to understand these locutions. Critics of this move 7 have often pointed out that perhaps the most common use of "it seems to me that ... " or "it appears to me as if ... " is as a report of tentative belief. They are probably right. IfI say "It seems to me that there is a storm coming" I am no doubt simply expressing my belief that there is a storm coming and adding the warning, so to speak, that I am really not too sure about the matter. "Seems" and "appears" in such contexts are used in what Chisholm (1957, 44) called an epistemic sense. I am not using the "seems/appears" terminology this way in trying to characterize the common element of hallucinatory and veridical experience. For one thing, as I am using these locutions, I shall say of myself that I seem to see a table even if I am absolutely convinced that I am hallucinating and that I do not really (veridically) see a table. The epistemic use of "seems/ appears" is not its only use in ordinary discourse. There is what Chisholm (1957, 45) called the "comparative" use of "appears." Chisholm used the following example. When you tell the optometrist who has put too weak a lens in your glasses that the letters on the eye chart appear to be running together, you are hardly expressing a tentative belief that they arc running together. What are you claiming? Well, you may be comparing the experience you are having with certain other experiences. If I say of an object I know is white that it looks or appears red under neon lights, I may be saying simply that it looks the way red things look under normal conditions. The comparative use of "appears/seems" does, I think, exist. I am not, however, using these locutions comparatively in characterizing the common element of hallucinatory and veridical experience ill which I am interested. The comparative use of "appears/seems" no doubt does pick out a fact common to both hallucinatory and veridical experience, but it seems to be a fact that is, so to speak, far too complex to be that which is phenomenologically given as common to hallucinatory and veridical experience. I can hardly be directly acquainted with the fact that a given experience is similar to the kind of experiences produced by a certain sort of physical object under normal conditions. This claim, though initially plausible, is not on further reflection all that obvious, however. If we assume that it is a contingent truth that red things look red under normal conditions, then it would

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follow that we cannot be acquainted with the fact that it appears as if there is a red thing in the comparative sense of "appears." It may, however, be an analytic truth with no existential import that red things appear red under normal conditions, and if it is and my earlierpresented view of analytic truths as knowable through direct acquaintance is correct, I may after all be directly acquainted with the fact that I am being appeared to the way red things appear under normal conditions. Even if this were so, however, I cannot employ the "appears/seems" terminology comparatively in characterizing the element common to veridical and hallucinatory experience that I am concerned with, for, as will become clear in the course of this book, I want to understand talk about the physical world in part by reference to talk about appearances. I want understanding propositions about the physical world to be parasitic on understanding propositions about appearances, not vice versa. Those who urge the comparative use of "appears/seems" as the only alternative to its epistemic use will not be impressed with the above reason for not understanding these expressions comparatively, for their views about the meanings of such terms are usually part of a general attack on reductionist metaphysics. H I agree with the view that a nonepistemic, noncomparative use of "appears/seems" is necessary if one is to understand talk about the physical world in part by reference to talk about appearances, but I reject the claim that it is impossible to develop such a concept. But what then is the analysis of this nonepistemic, noncomparative use of "I seem to see a table" as a description of that which is common to both veridical and hallucinatory experience? There are two main answers to this question-the sense-datum theory and the adverbial or appearing theory.

The Sense-Datum Theory The sense-datum theorist holds that in both veridical and hallucinatory experience one is directly aware of a certain object, and that object he calls a sense datum. Sense data exemplify certain nonrelational properties whose presence (on most views) is discoverable through direct acquaintance. In visual experience (veridical or hallucinatory) one is acquainted with the fact that sense data exemplify such properties as shape and color. In tactile experience one is ac-

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quainted with sense data exemplifying such properties as roughness or smoothness, and so on. In saying that the visual sense data one is acquainted with are red, the sense-datum theorist may (certainly should) caution that the meaning of "red" as a description of a sense datum is quite different from the meaning of "red" as a description of a physical object. (Red physical objects can look blue, for example-red sense data cannot.) One who holds such a view would probably do better to invent expressions like "phenomenologically red" and "phenomenologically round" to avoid misunderstanding. Similarly, a sense-datum theorist is courting disaster if he speaks (as many have) of seeing, feeling, hearing, touching, or in general perceiving sense data, for he is almost certain to want to distinguish the sense of "see" relevant to seeing a sense datum from the more usual use of "see" as a description of a relation holding between a perceiver and a physical object. The sense-datum theorist has all kinds of decisions to make concerning the ontological status of these common denominators of veridical and hallucinatory experience. He must decide whether to place them in physical space or to find for them their own phenomenal space. He must decide whether they are two- or threedimensional. He must decide whether they are mind dependent or mind independent, public or private, momentary or enduring. He must decide whether the same sense datum can exemplify different properties at different times, and he must decide whether sense data can seem to have properties they do not have or have nonrelational properties whose presence we are not acquainted with. Of these questions, perhaps the most important for us is the question whether sense data should be thought of as mind dependent, for the answer to this question determines the answers to others and severely restricts the range of ontological options one has in trying to characterize the relation of sense data to physical objects. From Descartes on, the vast majority of sense-datum theorists have held that sense data are in some sense mind dependent, are in some sense "in" the mind. To say of a sense datum that it is mind dependent in the sense relevant to this discussion is to say that the mind's being acquainted with it is a necessary condition for its existence. To borrow Berkeley's famous dictum, if a sense datum is mind dependent, then its being is its being related to a mind. It is interesting and important, I think, that even those philosophers who could not see how to argue for the view that sense data are

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mental entities (in the sense above) had a terrible time taking the alternative seriously. Nevertheless, if one is a sense-datum theorist one must expect, and have an answer to, the question why we should assume that sense data cease to exist the moment we are no longer aware of them. The question, it must be emphasized, is relevant to both the sense data we are aware of in veridical experience and the sense data we are aware of in dreams and hallucinatory experience. If in dreams we stand in a relation of acquaintance to a certain object, why should we assume that when we wake up that object ceases to exist? We survive the destruction of the relation. Why should we think that the other relatum does not? The naive realist has a vested interest in securing the existence of mind-independent sense data. If some or all sense data are mind independent, the naive realisms asserted by (RIb) and (R2b) have a much better chance of being true. The reason is simply that we do not want mind-dependent entities to constitute a part or constituent of a physical object. The very concept of a physical object requires that the existence of physical objects (in whole and in part) be logically independent of the existence of conscious beings. This very table I see now (assuming my experience to be veridical) could have existed in a world in which there were no conscious beings and in which there were, consequently, no mind-dependent sense data. What is more, if sense data can exist unperceived, then there is an obvious direction in which the naive realist can move in trying to analyze the distinction between veridical and non veridical experience. An experience is veridical when the sense datum one is aware of bears appropriate relations to other existing sense data. An experience is nonveridical when it does not. Given that there are so many potential advantages in allowing the existence of unexperienced sense data, why have philosophers, historically, been so reluctant to make the move? I have in fact already alluded to part of the reason. The sense-datum theorist's whole view is initially based on the argument that there is something common to both veridical and non veridical experience, namely, awareness of sense data. Once one is committed to these common constituents it is difficult to treat them differently. There may be potential gains in allowing the sense data of veridical experience to exist after we are no longer aware of them, but it is positively embarrassing to treat the sense data of dreams and hallucinations the same way. One must feel at least a twinge of un-

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easiness at allowing even the possibility that the drunk's hallucinatory "pink rat" is "scurrying around" even after the drunk sobers up. One could perhaps reply that I am simply confusing conceptual impossibility with what is overwhelmingly unlikely. One could argue that in hallucinatory experience (unlike veridical experience) we simply have extremely good empirical evidence that the sense data we are acquainted with cease to exist when we are no longer acquainted with them. I cannot see what that empirical evidence would be, however (keeping in mind that as foundationalists we are committed to answering the question without reference to what we believe about the physical world in general and the physiological conditions of perception in particular), and in any event it just does not seem to be an empirical question. The embarrassment of having to allow for the possibility of the unexperienced existence of constituents of hallucinatory experience is matched by a similar problem with respect to certain other sorts of sensations. Ifhe wants a unified account of experience, the sensedatum theorist will want to construe my feeling pain, for example, as my standing in a relation of acquaintance to an object that has the property of being a pain. And again, if we offer an actlobject analysis of feeling pain, we must address the question whether pains can exist unexperienced. If one has already allowed the existence of other unexperienced sense data, one is going to be hard pressed to deny the possibility of unexperienced pain. While the possibility that I may be in pain and yet fail to be aware of this fact is not by itself absurd, 9 the possibility that we could wipe out all conscious beings in a nuclear holocaust and yet fail to eliminate all the pain has got to leave all but the most courageous a little squeamish. Considerations of this sort explain in a sense what makes so many philosophers uneasy about unexperienced sense data, but they do not really justify such uneasiness. Why shouldn't we allow for the possibility of mind-independent sense data in both veridical experience and nonveridical experience? Indeed, why shouldn't we allow that there may be all kinds of unfelt pains floating around waiting sadistically for someone to inadvertently make their acquaintance? There are some arguments that may convince those who accept commonsensism and who try to combine a commitment to unexperienced sense data with a naive realism of the sort expressed by either (Ria) or (Ri b). The proponents of commonsensism are com-

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mitted to finding justification for the beliefs they intuitively take to be justified. They are committed to ending up with all or at least most of their commonsense beliefs, and if they become persuaded that a philosophical view is incompatible with such commonsense beliefs they will abandon the philosophical view. Against such philosophers we can wield some of the arguments that Berkeley used so successfully in getting Hylas to admit that the objects we arc directly acquainted with are "in" the mind-arguments that assume knowledge of the physiological conditions of perception. Earlier, I pointed out that philosophers who take brain states to be the immediate causes of sensation are going to have trouble reconciling an epistemological naive realist's analysis of experience in terms of direct acquaintance with physical objects and the commonsense view that no brain state is nomologically sufficient for the existence of a physical object. A similar problem exists for the philosopher who would combine a commitment to unexperienced sense data with naive realism of the sort expressed by (R 1b) or (R2b). As I have already noted, the proponent of (Rl b) or (R2b) certainly seems to be better off with mind-independent sense data, for he does not want the existence of minds to be logically necessary for the existence of physical objects or any of their constituents. But if one does not want minds to be necessary for the existence of physical objects or their parts, neither does one want brain states to be nomologically sufficient for the existence of physical objects. If se~se data in some sense constitute physical objects, and if brain states are nomologically sufficient for the existence of sense data, then it seems that through judicious manipulation of the brain one could create a physical object. This is obviously not going to make a proponent of commonsensism happy. To have an argument against a philosopher who holds a number of other views together with the view that there exist unexperienced sense data is not, of course, to have an argument against the latter view per se. And in any event I am committed to the foundationalist approach of not bringing in beliefs further up the epistemological hierarchy to decide issues at these lower levels. The argument above can at best be offered as a dialectical reductio of a complex philosophical position. It cannot be offered as a positive argument against a sub thesis contained within that position. Similar arguments exist against other views combined with a commitment to unexperienced sense data. Once one commits

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oneself to the existence of unexperienced sense data, one must find a home for them, a "place" for them to exist. And if one is trying to combine the view that sense data exist unperceived with (RIb) or (R2b), the most obvious place to put such sense data is physical space. Physical space, however, seems to get rather crowded-so crowded that the very same space will be occupied by indefinitely many sense data. Let us suppose that the sense datum "before me" now is red and continues to exist and be red after I cease to experience it. Further suppose that as a result of lighting changes I begin to experience an orange sense datum in what appears to be the same place. Must we not assume that that orange sense datum continues to exist and to occupy the same space as the red sense datum? After all, it would surely be completely arbitrary to select one of the indefinitely many sense data we can experience (depending on the internal and external conditions of perception) and assign only it unexperienced existence. Moreover, if (R2b) is correct and in veridical experience you and I are acquainted with the same surface or part of the surface of a physical object, what are we to say about the situation in which you and I veridic ally see the same object but under ever so slightly different lighting conditions so that the sense datum you are acquainted with is white while the one I am acquainted with is ever so slightly off-white (and hence not white). We cannot be acquainted with the same sense datum, for the same thing cannot be both white and not white. But is only one of them identical with the surface of the object? Are there many different surfaces of the object all occupying the same place at the same time? If we choose the first alternative, we are going to be asked which of the many subtly different sensations is the one that gets us into contact with the actual surface of the object, and though we might be able to make a choice and keep a straight face, we surely cannot feel comfortable doing so. If we choose the latter alternative, surfaces become more complicated than most naive realists would like, and once again space gets rather crowded. None of these considerations constitutes a knockdown reductio of the view that sense data exist unperceived and in physical space. Even those who posit their existence acknowledge that sense data are rather peculiar sorts of entities. While most of us would not want two physical objects occupying the same space at the same time, I suppose that when faced with two sense data occupying the same

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place at the same time, we could simply shrug our shoulders and, in a resigned tone of voice, say "That's a sense datum for you!" If one allows for unexperienced sense data, puts them in physical space, and allows for two of them to occupy the same space at the same time, I suppose one might as well make them public and allow for the possibility that two different people might be acquainted with the same sense datum. The criterion for identifying such sense data would, needless to say, get rather messy. Suppose, for example, that in veridical experience I am directly acquainted with a ratshaped sense datum that is "before me and to the right." Suppose, further, that beside me a drunk with his eyes closed just happens to hallucinate a rat "in the same place." Are the sense data we are acquainted with both in physical space? Are they the same sense datum, or are they two different sense data with the same properties temporarily occupying the same space? I am not suggesting that a proponent of the view that unexperienced sense data exist cannot answer these questions, but it does seem to me that his answers are bound to strike us as somewhat whimsical in nature. I could go on trying to embarrass the sense-datum theorist by forcing him to come up with more and more arbitrary answers to these sorts of questions. In the final analysis, however, I doubt one will ever trap the clever sense-datum theorist into any formal inconsistency. The answer to the question why it strikes so many as odd to allow the existence of mind-independent, public sense data occupying physical space may lie not so much in any formal defects of the view as in the fact that there is an alternative view whose truth these philosophers implicitly accept without realizing it. That alternative is the so-called adverbial or appearing theory of sensation.

The Adverbial or Appearing Theory The adverbial theory or appearing theory may have been held by some of the British empiricists, but given that there was at that time no articulate statement of the distinction between adverbial theories and sense-datum theories, I think it is exceedingly difficult to argue the exegetical question. The most prominent proponent today of an adverbial theory of the sort I am interested in is R. M. Chisholm. 10 The adverbial or appearing theorist holds that what is common to both veridical and hallucinatory experience is a nonrelational

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property of the self or mind. To refer to these properties, proponents of the view usually end up inventing tortuous adverbs (e.g., Jones is being appeared to redly and roundly), and that is the origin of the label "adverbial theory." It seems to me perverse to describe an ontological view in terms of the language one happens to use to express it, and henceforth I shall 5imply refer to the view as the appearing theory. By analyzing sensations as nonrelational properties of the mind, the appearing theorist immediately circumvents many of the problems associated with the sense-datum theory. Specifically, since he does not hold that sensations (understood as what is common to both veridical and hallucinatory experience) involve a relation with some object, he does not have to make any decisions concerning the status of this object. Sensations or ways of being appeared to are obviously mind dependent in the same sense in which a physical object's being red is object dependent. If there were no minds there would be no minds exemplifying the property of being appeared to, just as were there no physical objects there would be no physical objects exemplifying color properties. No questions arise, either, concerning the existence of unexperienced ways of being appeared to if that question is construed as asking whether a way of being appeared to could be exemplified by a mind after it is no longer exemplified by that mind. 11 The public/private controversy, similarly, takes care of itself. My mind's exemplifying the property of being appeared to redly is a state of affairs distinct from the state of affairs that is your mind's exemplifying the property of being appeared to redly. You and I can in a sense be said to have the very same experience, for we can exemplify the very same property (however exemplifying the same property is understood). Just as two tables can have the very same color (as we normally speak), so two people can have the very same sensation. I do want to exmphasize that the appearing theory I am interested in defending is not a theory of all conscious states. In my earlier discussion of acquaintance I made it clear that I take acquaintance to be a relation. If the appearing theory is correct, I shall understand introspective knowledge of mental states in terms of the mind's being directly acquainted with the fact that it exemplifies certain nonrelational properties. The only alternative to such a

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mixed view of consciousness generates an unacceptable regress. If my knowledge of being appeared to redly is via a way of being appeared to, then to know that I am appeared to redly I would have to infer that from being appeared to redlyly. And that I would in turn have to infer from my being appeared to redlylyly, and so forth. Such regress is incompatible with the phenomenological immediacy of my knowledge of my mental states. The critic may find it aesthetically distasteful that on my account some mental states are construed as relational, some as nonrelational, but the philosopher (qua philosopher) is concerned with what i~ true, not with what is pretty. Moreover, a sense-datum theorist is going to have a difficult time providing an act/ object analysis of all mental states. It is difficult to see how something can stand in a relation if it has 110 nonrelational properties at all. But if all mental states are construed as the mind's standing in a relation to an object, what nonrelational properties are left for the mind to exemplify? Because acquaintance is a relation, we can ask some questions of the appearing theory that are at least superficially similar to those we asked in connection with sense data. We can, for example, still wonder whether we could be in pain and yet fail to be aware of that fact, for this could be understood as the question whether the mind could exemplify a certain nonrelational property and yet fail to be acquainted with that property's being exemplified. I have already answered that question, however, in allowing the fallibility of acquaintance as a source of justified belief. While we may have to allow the conceivability of being in pain without being aware of it, we do not have the sense-datum theorist's problem of worrying about the possibility of a world in which there are pains but no conscious beings to have them. One of the problems sense-datum theorists face is that of providing criteria for identifying sense data. Almost all sense-datum theorists have held that a sense datum cannot survive change, but this view seems no more than an act of legislation. If the appearing theory were correct and sense-datum theorists were at least dimly aware of its correctness, we could understand their reluctance to allow a change in a sense datum. If sensations are to be identified with the mind's exemplifying a certain property and the property is no longer exemplified, then, trivially, that sensation has ceased to exist.

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Objections to the Appearin,\l Theory So far I have been extolling the virtues of the appearing theory. It is, however, hardly without its critics, and we must now turn to some of these criticisms. Some of the most common objections to appearing theories are phenomenological in character. As such they are somewhat difficult to articulate, for phenomenological appeals lose much of their force when not accompanied by the appropriate gestures of frustration and looks of bewilderment directed at those who cannot "see" what IS gIven. One of these phenomenological appeals typically asks the appearing theorist to examine carefully, say, a red, round afterimage. Surely what you are aware of is red and is round, the critic will say, amazed at the realization that anyone might even think to deny it. And indeed, if we arc asked to describe the colors and shapes of afterimages, dream objects, and hallucinatory objects, we seem to have no trouble replying employing just the adjectives the sensedatum theorist prefers. The sense-datum theorist cannot press this point too strongly, however. It is also true that if we are asked the profession of the man we met in a dream, or whether he was bald or had a thick head of hair, or whether he had a wife and children, we similarly often feel no difficulty in replying using these sorts of descriptions. The sense-datum theorist has no inclination, however, to take this as prima facie evidence that in dreams we are aware of sense data that arc doctors, bald, and married with children. The fact is that in certain contexts, when we talk about our dreams and hallucinations, we talk about them as thou!,zh they were veridical experiences, and we pretend, so to speak, that the objects we normally take to be signified by these experiences really were there. The phenomenological appeal to the "obvious" presence of colors and shapes in nonveridical experience loses much of its force when we remember a point made earlier. As so many philosophers antithetical to sense-datum theories (and, for that matter, appearing theories) are wont to point out, the usual application of such expressions as "red" and "round" is to physical objects. Even if there were sense data, to say of a sense datum that it is red or round is to use the expressions "red" and "round" in a way quite different from the usual. Again, we can correctly assert of a physical object that it is red when it looks black, yet we cannot correctly say of a sense

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datum that it is red if we are presented with its being some other color. Similarly, we can correctly say of a physical object that looks elliptical that it is round, but we cannot say anything similar about sense data. When the adjectives used to describe physical objects are used to describe sense data, they become technical expressions and, as I suggested earlier, should probably be modified in some way to avoid confusion. It may be that after the sense-datum theorist has distinguished phenomenal red from red it will still simply be "obvious" that something is phenomenally red and that being phenomenally red is to be distinguished from being appeared to in a certain way; but this is something that cannot be established even in part by the no doubt correct observation that we are inclined to describe the constituents of afterimages, dreams, and hallucinations using a language that in its primary use belongs to the physical world. A similar reply can be made to those who claim it is obvious that in visual experience (veridical and non veridical) we are sometimes directly acquainted with the three-dimensional character of certain objects. 12 First, it cannot be all that obvious, because a great many sense-datum theorists, historically, have taken sense data to be two dimensional. Moreover, if we take the drunk hallucinating his rat to be directly aware of something three-dimensional, we have some awkward questions to answer about the side of the rat that does not "face" the drunk. Still there is, I think, a phenomenologically given distinction between the character of three-dimensional experience and of two-dimensional experience. And, what is more, in characterizing dreams and hallucinations, we certainly do often use the language of three-dimensional objects. We say such things as that the shark chasing us was far off in the distance, that it was roughly six feet long and three feet around, and so on. But as even the sensedatum theorist would admit, that we naturally say such things should not lead us to the conclusion that we were directly acquainted with something that was far off in the distance or six feet long and three feet around. Any difference in the phenomenologically given character of experience, including the difference between "three-dimensional" and "two-dimensional" sensation, can be accommodated by the appearing theorist. He will simply construe such differences as differences in the nonrelational properties of the self. In "Adverbial Theories of Consciousness" Panayot Butchvarov

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presents a powerful attack on the very intelligibility of the adverbial theory. Butchvarov professes to be at a loss how to understand the language the adverbial theorist employs to describe ways of being appeared to. Again, I believe the appeal is ultimately phenomenological. Butchvarov simply does not find himself acquainted with properties of the sort needed to make the appearing theory work. The appearing theorist, however, does take himself to be acquainted with ways of being appeared to, and while I acknowledge that phenomenological appeals are indispensable in philosophy, we seem to be in the awkward position of having to decide who can manage to sound the most sincere in his pronouncements concerning the objects of acquaintance. I say 13utchvarov's appeal is ultimately phenomenological, but he begins with a request for an analysis of the vocabulary the appearing theorist introduces. In ordinary discourse we do not use such expressions as "being appeared to redly," and if philosophers start talking that way it is incumbent upon them to explain the meaning of these artificial expressions. I have already considered and rejected two ways of trying to define the appearing language in discussing the epistemic and comparative use of "appears." Is there any other alternative? 13utchvarov is convinced that there is not and that being appeared to redly can be understood only in terms of being presented with something red. He seems to offer an argument that rests on an observation about language. He claims that corresponding to statements of the form 5 Xed Yly there will be a meaningful statement of the form 5's X was Y. Thus, corresponding to "5 walked quickly" there is "5's walking was quick," and corresponding to "5 behaved badly" there is "5's behavior was bad" Similarly, corresponding to "5 is appeared to redly" we will have" 5's being appeared to is red." But this latter statement is meaningless or, if it is not, suggests just what the appearing theorist denies-that in a hallucination of a red object there is something that is red. Now I do not think this argument is decisive. I am not sure the empirical claim about adverbs and adjectives is correct. (If 5 eats hungrily, is his eating hungry?) But even if it happened to be true for existing expressions, there is no a priori reason to expect it to hold true of an adverb that is explicitly introduced as a technical expresslOn. But how are we to define the technical expression "is appeared to

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redly"? The answer is, of course, that we are not going to define it. Simple ways of being appeared to can no more be analyzed or defined than can phenomenal redness on the sense-datum theory. 13 To say we cannot define "is appeared to redly" is not, of course, to say we cannot understand the locution. Language is full of expressions that cannot be defined but that can be understood. Nor does the indefinability of an expression preclude the possibility of teaching its meaning to others. Physical ostension is out of the question given that we cannot physically point at ways of being appeared to, but we can do something analogous. We can employ a definite description that del10tes (not defines) being appeared to redly, and we can instruct the person to whom we are talking to reflect on the phenomenological character of the experience denoted and to use the expression "is appeared to redly" to describe that phenomenological character. Indeed, if the appearing theory is correct, there are an indefinite number of definite descriptions, all of which denote the nonrclational property of being appeared to redly- "the nonrclational property whose presence is caused by opening your eyes in the presence of an apple," the nonrclational property the sense-datum theorist confuses with a red sense datum, and so forth. I know Butchvarov would not object in principle to introducing a technical expression this way. When I try to, however, we will arrive at the rock-bottom phenomenological disputes referred to earlier. Butchvarov will claim he is unable to find a nonrclational property denoted by these definite descriptions. The adverbial theorist will claim the opposite. The argument ends in a stalemate. Not all arguments against the appearing theory rest on phenomenological considerations. Peter van Inwagen has suggested 14 that certain obviously valid arguments cannot be paraphrased by the adverbial theorist in such a way as to preserve their validity. He suggests, for example, that the following argument certainly seems to be formally valid: 1. Some of the afterimages Jones sees are the same color as some of the others he sees. 2. Some of the afterimages Jones sees are different colors from some of the others he sees. Therefore 3. Jones sees at least three afterimages.

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Can the adverbial theorist paraphrase this argument so as to preserve formal validity? Consider the following: 1. Jones exemplifies at least one way of being appeared to coloredly-and-shapedly containing a way of being appeared to colo redly that is the same as some other way of being appeared to that is part of another complex way of being appeared to coloredly-and-shapedly. 2. Jones exemplifies at least one way of being appeared to coloredly-and-shapedly containing a way of being appeared to colo redly different from another way of being appeared to coloredly that is part of a way of being appeared to coloredlyand-shapedly that Jones exemplifies. Therefore 3. Jones is being appeared to in at least three different coloredlyand-shapedly ways. Now I think one must admit that the adverbial theorist's paraphrase of the argument is not formally valid. One must assume that the same way of being appeared to coloredly-and-shapedly cannot contain two different ways of being appeared to coloredly, and this does not seem to be a truth oflogic. The original argument, however, is not formally valid either in that one must assume the nontautological truth that the same afterimage cannot be two different colors (all over at the same time). Both arguments are en thy memes in that they assume the truth of certain synthetic necessary truths. These conclusions are useful in that they do force the adverbial theorist to recognize that ways of being appeared to are often complex, and complex in such a way as to contain other ways of being appeared to. Moreover, it seems one must acknowledge that there are synthetic necessary connections governing the ways certain ways of being appeared to can combine with other ways of being appeared to to form more complex ways of being appeared to. None of these admissions should bother the adverbial theorist, however, for it seems clear to me that the sense-datum theorist will have to countenance similar synthetic necessary connections. The observations above are obviously relevant to the resolution of an analogous problem for adverbial theorists presented by Frank Jackson. 15 The crux of the problem is the difficulty an adverbial

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theorist would have paraphrasing the otherwise unproblematic assertion that person S is experiencing both a red, round afterimage and a blue, square afterimage. The adverbial theorist cannot simply translate this as S's being appeared to redly, roundly, bluely, and squarely, for this proposition is compatible with S's experiencing a blue, round afterimage with a red, square afterimage. The obvious solution 1(, is to invent adverbs designed to characterize the fact that the "red" and "round" appearances are constituents of a complex appearance in a way that the "red" and "square" appearances are not. Thus one can say that S is appeared to (red-and-round)ly and (blue-and-square)ly. How, Jackson wants to know, can the adverbial theorist capture the obviously valid inference from S is experiencing a red, round afterimage to S is experiencing a red afterimage given the adverbial para phrase of these statements? Well, again, one can simply insist that the complex property of being appeared to (red-and-round)ly contains as a constituent the property of being appeared to redly. An analogy might be helpful. I might be a sensedatum theorist who rejects universals and wants to construe sense data as bundles of particular properties (this redness, this roundness, etc.). With such a view, I would hold that in experiencing a red, round afterimage and a blue, square afterimage I am presented with a certain redness, roundness, blueness, and squareness. This, however, would not analyze the fact that I am experiencing both a red, round afterimage and a blue, square afterimage, for the same four properties would be present were I experiencing a red, square afterimage and a blue, round afterimage. The proponent of such a view must insist, of course, that the redness and the roundness "go together" to form a complex in a way the redness and squareness do not. The adverbial theorist is simply making the same moves within the framework of his theory. The debate between sense-datum theorists and appearing theorists is unlikely to be settled through the introduction of some devastating argument for or against either of the two views. I am inclined to accept the appearing theory and shall presuppose its truth in what follows. At the same time, most of the other views I defend could be statedjust as easily within the framework of a sense-datum theory that disallows the possibility of unexperienced sense data. For reasons I have talked about, direct realism of the sort defined by (R 1b) and (R2b) can survive only if there are mind-independent

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sense data. In rejecting mind-independent sense data, therefore, I am rejecting the last two kinds of direct realism-excluding, again, the philosophically irrelevant thesis expressed by (R3). Before I leave the sense-datum/appearing theory debate, I do want to add one further comment. I have been supposing throughout this discussion that there is a clear conceptual difference between a sense-datum theory that takes sense data to be mind dependent and an appearing theory. And, formally, we had little difficulty expressing the difference between the two views. The sense-datum theorist takes sensation, understood as that which is common to veridical and hallucinatory experience, to involve a relation between a subject and an object. The adverbial theorist understands sensation to be a subject exemplifying a certain nonrclational property. This way of representing the distinction, howcvcr, scems to prcsuppose a certain vicw about mind. Spccifically, it scems to prcsuppose that thc mind is a particular or substancc that cxcmplifics propcrtics and stallds in relations. I have not, and shall not, bccomc cmbroiled in the thorny issues of philosophy of mind, but I do wish to point out that if something like a Humcan bundle thcory of the mind is correct, if the mind is a construct out of scnsations, the distinction between a sense-datum theory and an appearing theory may collapse. The only relation a mind could have to its constituents would be a whole/part relation. If one were a consistent Humean, an individual sensation would presumably consist of a bundle of properties. We could say that the mind exemplified thcsc propcrties, but this would bc at bcst highly misleading. I make this observation only to leave it hanging. I do not think a Humcan bundle theory of the self is corrcct, but ncithcr am I confident of somc othcr analysis of the self. The only moral I wish to draw is that a final resolution of the appearing/sense-datum theory debatc may have to await both a satisfactory ontology of the self, and, indeed, a satisfactory ontology of properties, objects, and exemplification.

Some Terminological Decisions I have in this chapter made a number of distinctions, and to facilitate discussion in the rest of the book I want to announce some terminological decisions. Some have a basis in ordinary discourse. Some do not. I have talked about veridical and nonveridical experience of ordi-

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nary physical objects. Philosophers have argued over the most appropriate way to describe such experiences. One such argument centers on the appropriate usc of the transitive perceptual verbs (e.g., "sec," "hear," "smell," "feel," "taste"). Should we say of Macbeth that he saw a dagger suspended in midair? Should we say of the drunk suffering DTs that he sees pink rats? Should we say of Joan of Arc that she heard voices coming from the sky? Ordinary discourse is, I believe, indecisive. We certainly do use such transitive verbs in describing our dreams, for example. But we have already noted that we borrow freely from our ordinary talk about the physical world in trying to characterize nonveridical experience. It is also true that we might very well assure the drunk climbing a wall to get away from those pink rats that he does not really see any pink ratshe just thinks he docs. Largely because I think it facilitates discussion, I shall stipulate the following: S perceives (sees, feels, hears, tastes, smells) X (where "X" is a name, a definite or an indefinite description such that if it denotes it denotes a physical object) only if X exists.

This states a necessary condition for seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, and smelling. What must be added to get a sufficient condition is part of what must concern us in the rest of the book. Transitive perceptual verbs take as grammatical objects not only nouns but also noun clauses. Thus we say that S sees a table and that he sees that there is a table; he hears a car and hears that there is a car; and so on for the other peceptual verbs. Ordinary discourse is more decisive on the interpretation of such locutions, but rather than argue the point I am prepared to stipulate that as I use this language: S perceives (sees, feels, etc.) that there is an X only if (1) There is an X, and (2) S knows on the basis of the appropriate experience (visual for seeing that, tactile for feeling that, etc.) that there is an X.

As I usc these locutions, seeing an X does not entail seeing that there is an X. Jones may see a coatrack in the corner and take it to be an intruder. In such a situation I shall say (and I believe this is in accord with ordinary discourse) that, though Jones sees a coatrack,

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he does not see that there is a coatrack. Similarly I may hear an explosion, take it to be thunder, and consequently not hear that there is an explosion. The terminological decisions made above still allow us no means of describing hallucinations. We do have the epistemic and comparative uses of "seems" and "appears" discussed earlier, which certainly do describe aspects of most non veridical experience. And if the appearing theory is correct, we can introduce a noncomparative use of "appears" to describe the phenomenological character of what is given in dreams and hallucinations. Again, we cannot define the noncomparative use of appears. The best we can do is offer definite descriptions that denote ways of being appeared to. This should be good enough, however, to enable one to grasp the meaning of the noncomparative use of appears, for in determining the denotation of such definite descriptions one can become acquainted with the phenomenological characteristics the noncomparative use of "appears" describes. I suspect that the noncomparative use of "appears" or "seems" may never be used in ordinary discourse. If I describe someone hallucinating a table as seeming to see a table, the most natural interpretation of "seems to see" is probably the epistemic or comparative interpretation. For this reason it would probably be less misleading if! followed the lead of some other proponents of adverbial theories of consciousness and invented adverbs to refer to the ways of being appeared to that I am interested in characterizing. Thus I could say of the man hallucinating a table that he is visually appeared to table-shapedly. Of the man who has two red, round afterimages, I could say he is appeared to (two-red-round-objects)ly. The introduction of such tortuous adverbs would have the merit of emphasizing what I have already admitted-that "appears / seems" as I am using these expressions are technical philosophical expressions-but they do have the disadvantage of being tortuous. My view is no doubt easy enough to parody without my expressing it in language that can only encourage such parody, so I shall follow the practice of C. I. Lewis and use the more grammatical, albeit more miseading, "I seem to see," "It appears to me as if' to describe ways of being appeared to. Unless I indicate otherwise I shall be using these expressions in their nonepistemic, noncomparative senses. Let me add one more terminological point. Just as I can see a

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table without taking it to be a table, so in hallucination I can seem to see a table without taking it to be a table. In saying of the victim of hallucination that he seems to see a table, I am saying that he is appeared to in a certain way (one of the many ways of being appeared to that will usually lead a person to take for granted the existence of a table), but I am not asserting anything about his intentional state in characterizing his experience using the noncomparative, nonepistemic use of "appears/ seems."

Some Epistemological Conclusions Of the epistemological questions set out in chapter 1, we have now answered the first, a variation of the third, and part of a variation on the second. Perceptual beliefs about the physical world are based on sensation or experience in a way that precludes the possibility of knowing with absolute certainty propositions about physical objects. To know P with absolute certainty is to have justification that precludes the possibility of error. The argument from the possibility of hallucination should convince us that no sensation or sequence of sensations can preclude the possibility that those sensations are hallucinatory. The second premise of that argument, you will recall, asserted that the justification I would have for believing what I do about the physical world in the context of a vivid hallucinatory experience is the same as the justification I would have were the experience veridical. Since the former obviously does not guarantee the truth of my belief, neither does the latter. In our discussion of a derivative sense of inferential justification, we have seen that it is at best misleading to suggest that people infer propositions about the physical world from what they know about something else. We have, however, concluded that if people are justified in believing physical object propositions, their justification must be inferential. If we are justified in believing propositions about the physical world, it is in part because we are justified in believing that we have or have had certain sensations (understood either as ways of being appeared to or as acquaintance with sense data). In chapter 2 we determined the nature of our knowledge of that which leads us to take for granted what we do about the world around us-knowledge through direct acquaintance. A large part of the epistemological task is still before us, however. Our beliefs in propositions about the physical world are not

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noninferentially justified, but we have yet to decide how, or if, they are justified. We have yet to decide if what we can know about our sensations could provide us with justification for believing what we do about objects in the physical world. To answer these questions, however, we must shift the emphasis from epistemology to metaphysics. Before we can determine whether propositions about sensations can make probable propositions about the physical world, we must determine the content of propositions about the physical world-we must engage in philosophical analysis of propositions asserting the existence of physical objects. It is a shifting of emphasis, not a change of subject, for, as we shall see, arguments over the correct analysis of propositions about the physical world have their epistemological overtones. Our rejection of epistemological direct realism already has its metaphysical implications. If physical objects are not simply given to us, then we cannot claim that the concept of a physical object is simply the concept of a kind of thing phenomenologically given. And if concepts in general, and the concept of a physical object in particular, always involve as constituents concepts that have their source in what is phenomenologically given, we must find some way of relating the former to the latter.

Chapter 4 Causal Theories

Two historically prominent attempts to analyze propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are the causal theory of physical objects and phenomenalism. There are all kinds of variations on each approach, but the two views have traditionally been thought of as diametrically opposed. Of the two views phenomenalism is now almost universally held in disrepute. In this chapter and the next, however, I shall try to show that the causal theory and phenomenalism are vulnerable to many of the same objections and that, to meet these objections, the two views must move inextricably closer together. The causal theory has been, and probably still is, the most commonly accepted view about the nature of the physical world among those who take seriously the traditional epistemological problems of perception. Indeed, as I pointed out earlier, many feel that the epistemological problems of perception are really pseudo problems that are a direct outgrowth of the mistaken metaphysics embodied in the causal theory. In this day of causal theories of knowledge, justification, and reference, I expect that causal theories of the external world will again come to the forefront of philosophical thought on perception. The new causal theorist, however, will come armed with a new philosophy of language, a philosophy of language we must shortly evaluate. Despite the £act that causal theories of perception and physical objects have been explicitly or implicitly presupposed by so many

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philosophers, there have been relatively few perspicuous statements of the view. Our first task, then, will be to formulate as carefully as we can a causal theory of the physical world. The causal theorist sometimes roughly characterizes his view as simply that in veridical perception physical objects are the causes of our sensations. One historically prominent variant of the view was representative realism. The representative realist held that in veridical perception our sensations in some sense represent the physical objects that are their cause. Most representative realists have been sense-datum theorists and have held that the representation consists in some kind of correspondence between the properties exemplified by sense data and properties exemplified by the physical objects that are their cause. They have held, for example, that in veridical perception of a red, round ball there would be a sense datum that was round, and the roundness of the sense datum would in some sense represent the roundness of that ball whose presence caused the red, round sense datum. This sort of representation would presumably consist in the sense datum and the physical object's sharing the same or similar properties. Most of the early representative realists accepted a primary / secondary quality distinction, and the redness of the sense datum would not represent the redness of the object in the same way that the shape of the sense datum would represent the shape of the ball. According to these philosophers, colors are not exemplified by physical objects in the same way they are exemplified by sense data. Representative realists differed in their characterization of the way the secondary qualities of sense data represent properties of physical objects. Some spoke as though the redness of the sense datum represented a mere power of the physical object to produce red sense data under certain conditions. Others suggested the closely related view that the redness of a sense datum represented a complex property of the object whose presence produces red sense data under certain conditions. Many seemed to hold both positions simultaneously. I shall discuss representative realism in more detail shortly. I mention it here primarily to emphasize that it is just one version of a causal theory of physical objects. As we shall see, there are others. In chapter 1 I discussed at some length the nature of philosophical analysis. Specifically, I was concerned to distinguish philosophical and scientific questions concerning the nature of physical objects. In suggesting that physical objects are the causes of our

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sensations or that in veridical perception the object we take to be there is an important link in a causal chain that results in a sensation, the causal theorist is, on one interpretation, making a claim almost no philosopher would disagree with. Anyone who is not a radical skeptic with respect to the existence of physical objects believes that when you seem to see a table that sensation is usually caused, at least in part, by the presence of a table. The phenomenalist who explicitly rejects the causal theory is going to end up agreeing that tables are sometimes the partial cause of sensations of tables. If the metaphilosophical position I expressed earlier is correct, then to be a philosophical thesis the causal theory must be construed as offering a view about the meaning of statements asserting the existence of physical objects. If the causal theorist is construed as offering a meaning analysis, then a more accurate, though still very rough, characterization of his position would be that statements asserting the existence of physical objects are analytically equivalent to statements asserting the existence of certain causes of sensations. The proposition that there is a table before me now, for example, is to be understood as equivalent in meaning to a proposition asserting the existence of an object causally responsible for the occurrence of certain sensations. Similarly, the representative realist must also be construed as making a claim about the meaning of statements asserting the existence of physical objects. The representative realist understands a statement asserting the existence of the table in terms of a statement asserting the existence of an object causing and represented by certain sensations. Failure to distinguish causal theories as meaning claims from causal theories as empirical claims can, of course, be a major source of confusion. I predicted earlier the emergence of a new age of causal theorists armed with a new philosophy oflanguage, and these philosophers will no doubt challenge my characterization of the philosophically relevant causal theory. In short, such philosophers will claim that one understands physical object talk not as equivalent in meaning to assertions about the causes of sensation, but rather through reference-fixing definite descriptions that denote the causes of sensation. I mention this now to allay concerns that I am simply unaware of recent unheavals in philosophy of language that have "demonstrated" the inadequacy of certain traditional philosophical frameworks. The "reference fixers" will be taken care of shortly.

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Another potential source of confusion is failure to distinguish two importantly different causal theories that are both related to traditional problems associated with our perception of the physical world. You may have already noted that I have used the relatively unfamiliar locution "causal theory of objects" in place of the betterknown "causal theory of perception." The two philosophical views are quite independent, though they can easily be confused, and often have been. As I use the expression, a causal theory of perception is a view about the correct analysis of veridical perception. If philosophical analysis is meaning analysis, it is a view about the meaning of statements having the form S perceives X (where "X" is a name, an indefinite or a definite description such that, if it denotes, it denotes a physical object). Roughly stated, a causal theory of perception holds that S perceives X if S has a sensation that is caused (in part) by the presence of X. To try to rule out certain sorts of deviant causal chains, the analysis invariably becomes more complex. Note that the causal theory of perception leaves completely open the correct analysis of propositions asserting the existence of physical objects. Again, a phenomenalist, although he is often represented as diametrically opposed to the causal theory of perception, can quite consistently embrace the causal theory of perception as an analysis of propositions asserting the occurrence of veridical perception and at the same time embrace a phenomenalistic analysis of propositions asserting the existence of physical objects. If philosophical analysis is meaning analysis, then a causal theory of physical objects, in contrast to a causal theory of perception, is a view about the meaning of statements asserting the existence of physical objects. Roughly stated, a causal theory of physical objects holds that statements asserting the existence of physical objects are analytically equivalent to statements asserting the existence of certain causes of sensations. Thus a crude causal theory of physical objects might hold that the statement that there is a table before me now is equivalent to the statement that there exists before me now that which under certain conditions produces the sensations of seeming to see, feel, and so on, a table. Filling out the "certain conditions" clause gives us different versions of a causal theory of physical objects. A causal theory of physical objects is compatible with a causal theory of perception. One can both hold that talk about seeing a

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table is to be understood in terms of talk about there being a cause of a certain sensation and also hold that talk about the existence of a table is to be understood in terms of talk about the existence of that which would under certain conditions produce certain sensations. Though consistent, however, the two views are quite independent. One can hold either without the other, and failure to explicitly recognize this will vitiate discussion of the metaphysical problems of perception.

The Causal Theory of Perception The causal theory of perception is, I think, enormously attractive. Certainly it is highly plausible to argue that the existence of a table causing my visual sensation of a table is a logically necessary condition for me seeing (veridically seeing) a table. If two people were to have qualitatively identical visual sensations of a table but the first person's sensation was caused by the presence of a table and the second person's by a neurophysiologist's whimsical tinkering with a certain part of the brain, we would not hesitate to reject the latter as actually seeing a table. Indeed, even if there happened to be a table in front of the second person, exemplifying just the properties whose presence he would take for granted as a result of his sensation, we would not, I think, hesitate to view his experience as nonveridical if we were assured that the presence of that table exemplifying those properties was causally irrelevant to the occurrence of the person's sensation. It is more difficult to argue that the presence of a table causally responsible for my sensation of a table is a logically sufficient condition for my (veridically) seeing a table. The main source of difficulty, however, is not so much the causal theory of perception as the vagueness of the expression "cause." As we use the expression in ordinary discourse, to say that X caused Y is not to assert that X is nomologically sufficient for Y. As I use the expression, to say that X is nomologically sufficient for Y is to say that there is a law of nature L such that X together with L entails Y (where X alone does not entail Y). When I claim that getting a flat tire caused Jones to crash his car, being out in the cold last night caused Jones to catch pneumonia, heavy rains caused a flood, and watching the horror movie caused Jones to have nightmares, I am hardly claiming that the flat

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tire, being out in the cold, its raining heavily, and watching a horror movie are nomologically sufficient for, respectively, crashes, pneumonia, floods, and nightmares. It may be true that the concept of cause is such that, for X to be a cause of Y, X must be a nonredundant part of a nomologically sufficient condition. I have defined the concept of a nonredundant part of a nomologically sufficient condition (NRPSq elsewhere! as follows: X is a non-redundant part of a sufficient condition (a NRPSq for Y if 1) There is some state of affairs Z such that (X and Z) is nomologically sufficient for Y; 2) Neither X nor Z is alone nomologically sufficient for Y; and 3) There are no parts of Z which either alone or conjoined are nomologically sufficient for y. "Part" in the relevant sense I defined this way: Y is a part of X if X contains Y, or X contains some state of affairs which contain Y, or X contains some state of affairs which contains some state of affairs which contains Y, or ... (where X is said to contain Y if X is idClltical with the state of affairs which is Y being related to one or more states of affairs via truth-functional connectives ).

Many philosophers would argue that a cause need not even be a nonredundant part of a nomologically sufficient condition,:2 but even if we grant this as a necessary condition for causation, it is hardly true that as we normally talk we will allow just any NRPSC for Y to be a cause or the cause of Y. The presence of oxygen was an NRPSC for the fire that destroyed the Hindenburg, but the historian who identifies the presence of oxygen as the cause of that catastrophe would be justifiably accused of misunderstanding the ordinary use of "cause." Moreover, nomologically sufficient conditions for Y, and parts of such conditions, can take place after the occurrence of Y, and the ordinary use of "cause" seems incompatible with the possibility of a cause's postdating its effect. Let us say that an NRPSC for Y that takes place before Y is a causally relevant condition for the occurrence of Y. Which of the indefinitely many causally relevant factors for the occurrence of Y

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we pick out as a cause or the cause of Y seems to depend on a host of conditions that vary from context to context. Consequently, I believe it is impossible to provide any precise criteria for picking out which of the causally relevant conditions for the occurrence of Yare causes of Y. The ordinary use of "cause" is inherently vague. Our decision to describe a causally relevant condition as the cause of Y no doubt has something to do with a very rough distinction between standing conditions and conditions involving change. The reason the presence of oxygen is not identified as one of the causes of the Hindenburg explosion is that the presence of oxygen is a standing condition-it always, or nearly always, obtains. Note that we can think of hypothetical situations in which we would describe the presence of oxygen as the cause of an explosion. Suppose, for example, that as a conversation piece I own a vacuum-sealed box containing no oxygen, a stick of dynamite, and two flints that are constantly being struck near the fuse. If as a prank my neighbor injects some oxygen into the box, exploding the dynamite and destroying part of my house, I might well identify the immediate cause of the explosion as the injection of oxygen into the system (though in court I would be more eager to identify my neighbor's action as the cause). A distinction between standing conditions and conditions involving change is not by itself going to enable us to analyze the ordinary use of "cause," however, for there are often indefinitely many causally relevant changes that take place prior to the occurrence of an event Y, only one (or several) of which we will identify as the (a) cause of Y. Other factors that determine our selection of a causally relevant condition for Y as a cause or the cause of Y include the extent to which a causally relevant condition is susceptible to human manipulation:> and the kinds of interests and purposes we have in a given context of communication. If I am Jones's defense lawyer, I am more likely to identify the cause of his stealing as an impoverished upbringing. If I am the prosecuting attorney, I will probably select as the cause of his behavior his desire to avoid honest but unpleasant work. Both may be NRPSCs for Jones's stealing. Which one I emphasize as the cause of his stealing depends on which one I feel could be most effectively employed as a premise of what Stevenson called a rational psychological moral argument. 4 I have emphasized the vagueness of the ordinary use of "cause"

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to explain why it may be possible to present apparent counterexamples to a causal theory of perception. Consider the following situations: 1. There is a table in front of me, my eyes are open, and light reflected from the surface of the table strikes the retina of my eye and eventually results in a sensation of seeming to see a table. 2. The same as (1), but I wear very heavy glasses. There are consequently more links in the causal chain. 3. A table is filmed by a camera, the signal is sent through the air and received by my television. Looking at my television screen, I have just the visual sensation one would expect. 4. The sonar on my ship picks up the long-lost golden table of the Incas sunk years ago in a Spanish treasure ship. The visual sensation I have is produced by the blip on the sonar screen I am watching. 5. I have been blind since birth, but through the miracle of modern science an instrument has been attached to my head and connected to electrodes implanted in that part of the brain that is the immediate cause of visual sensations in sighted people. This instrument picks up the light waves reflected by physical objects in the immediate environment-say, a table-and stimulates the appropriate region of my brain so as to produce the kind of sensation a sighted person would have were he looking at the appropriate object. 6. Like (5), but instead of an instrument, I have hired a neurophysiologist to give me a sample of visual experience. I have him pick out an object in my immediate environment-say, a table-and stimulate the appropriate part of my brain so as to produce the appropriate sensation. In (1) through (6) there is a table whose presence is a causally relevant factor in the occurrence of a visual sensation. In (1), (2), (5), and (6) let us suppose that the visual sensations are qualitatively indistinguishable. In (3) there is that familiar visual sensation that is in some respects like but nevertheless quite different from the visual sensation produced in (1). The visual sensation produced in (4) is not much like the others at all, but is nevertheless indirectly caused by the presence of a table.

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As we ordinarily use the word "see," I suspect that in situations (1) through (5) we would describe me as seeing a table (provided we took the situations to be as I have described them). Note, however, that we get progressively more uneasy the more unusual the circumstances, or the further removed the table is in the relevant causal chain. By the time we get to (6), I suspect that many of us would simply throw up our hands and declare ourselves quite uncertain what to say on the question whether I perceive the relevant object. Our hesitancy to describe me as seeing a table is directly proportional to our hesitancy in describing the table as the or even a cause of the relevant sensation. I am quite sure the ingenious philosopher can come up with all kinds of examples in which a table is a causally relevant factor in the production of a visual sensation even though we would not describe the person having the sensation as seeing the table. This leaves the causal theory of perception unscathed, however, as long as our reluctance to view the subject as seeing the table mirrors our hesitancy to apply the vague term "cause" in describing the presence of the table vis-a-vis the sensation. If the ordinary use of "cause" is vague and opentextured (in the sense discussed in chapter 1) and the causal theory of perception is correct, then the ordinary use of perceptual verbs is vague and open textured. There is, however, a more serious difficulty with the causal theory of perception that is not obviously parasitic on the vagueness of causal terms. If we allow that a sufficient condition for 5's seeing X is X's causing 5's visual sensation, and we place no restriction on the qualitative character of the visual sensation (allowing, as it seems we should, that creatures with radically different sensory apparatus could all "sec" X), how are we going to avoid having to say that when I sec a table I also see the changes in my brain that are the immediate causes of my visual sensation? After all, the occurrence of the relevant brain state is just as crucial a link (arguably, more crucial) in the causal chain leading to my sensation as the table, which is (causally) further removed. Appeal to a distinction between standing conditions and change will obviously fail, for though the existence of my brain is a standing condition, the specific change resulting in my visual sensation is not. The solution to this problem (first suggested to me by my colleague Evan Fales) involves requiring that the object of perception be the kind of thing that not only is the cause of my present sensation but is (nomologically) capable of constituting a critical link in a number

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of different causal chains leading to the occurrence of different sensations. On this analysis I see the table, not my present brain state, because the presence of the table (and not the occurrence of the brain state) would, in the relevant circumstances, form part of a causal chain resulting, for example, in certain tactile sensations. The possibility referred to above is nomological. As we shall see, an analogous problem, requiring an analogous solution, arises in connection with a causal theory of physical objects, and the approach I am suggesting will become clearer at that time. Having warned that causal concepts are vague and opentextured, and having noted that such vagueness must accompany the causal theorist's account of perception, I tentatively accept the causal theory of perception. I have not accepted (nor have I rejected) a causal theory of physical objects. At the risk of being repetitious I shall again stress that the two theories are quite independent even though some philosophers have failed to clearly distinguish them.

Causal Theories of Physical Objects For rhetorical reasons that should become evident before long, I shall postpone trying to improve on the rough statement of a causal theory of physical objects expressed earlier until after my discussion of phenomenalism. I do, however, wish to make some general comments about one kind of argument the early positivists leveled against causal theories of objects, and I also want to reject two versions of a causal theory of physical objects. The positivists' objection to which I refer relies on acceptance of commonsensism, a version of the verifiability criterion of meaningfulness, or the older empiricists' claim that genuine concepts must have their source in what is phenomenologically given. I believe that from Berkeley on, many of those philosophers who rejected a causal theory of objects did so because they thought the causal theory led directly to radical skepticism with respect to propositions about the physical world. If one thought this and accepted epistemological commonsensism, one would immediately dismiss the theory. If one thought this and accepted a version of the empiricists' verifiability theory of meaning, one might be tempted to hold that the causal theorist renders statements about the physical

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world meaningless. Like adherents to the verifiability criterion of meaningfulness, some of the radical British empiricists were inclined to think that the causal theorist relegated talk of the physical world to nonsense. Berkeley and Hume, for example, alternated between claiming that the causal theory leads to skepticism and claiming that it was simply unintelligible. I have already expressed, in chapter 1, reservations about accepting the verifiability criterion of meaning, and any discussion of whether a causal theory of perception leads inevitably to skepticism must await an attempt to refine the statement of such a view. At the end of chapter 1 I did suggest that I am tempted to accept a very weak version of the old empiricists' view that what can be understood must be related to what is given in experience. At that time I left open the interpretation of "relating a term to what is given in experience," but now I want to suggest that the causal theorist may well satisfy this condition. On our rough characterization of the causal theory there is a sense in which physical objects are defined in part by reference to the kind of thing that could be given in experience. The causal theorist is defining physical objects in terms of the causal role they play in producing sense experience, and it should be noted that empiricists like Berkeley and Hume would have a very difficult time rejecting as meaningless statements asserting the existence of a cause of sensation. Both Berkeley and Hume seemed to allow that we have a concept of causation; they were, of course, comfortable with the view that we have ideas of sensation, and nowhere did either express any explicit or implicit reservations about our ability to understand the existential quantifier "there exists." It may well be, however, that at least some causal theories require no more than an understanding of these three sorts of concepts to make good their claim to have at least provided a meaningful interpretation of statements about the physical world. I said I would not attempt a more sophisticated characterization of a causal theory of physical objects until after our discussion of phenomenalism. But to pave the way for such an attempt, I do wish to reject two kinds of causal theories. One is very old-the other is, I fear, the wave of the future. The very old causal theory is the representative realism alluded to earlier. The new theory rejects the attempt to d~fille physical objects in terms of the causes of sensations, for reference fixing.

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Reprcsclltatil'c RealislII There arc three main objections that might be raised against representative realism. One is epistemological in character. The other two question the very intelligibility of the theory. I have postponed discussion of the positivist's claim that a causal theory of physical objects leads to skepticism until after we have a fully developed causal theory to discuss. It is obvious, hO\vever, that whatever problems there arc in finding justification for beliefs about the physical world on a causal theory of objects, these problems would be exacerbated by that version of a causal theory that is representative realism. To oversimplify somewhat, the more properties one requires that the cause of certain sensations have in order to be a physical object veridically perceived, the harder it is to justify one's belief that there are physical objects. To justify his belief in the existence of a table the representative realist not only must establish that there exists that which has the power to produce certain sensations, he must also establish that the cause of these sensations is represented by them. But how would one even go about justifying one's belief that the cause of a certain sensation exemplifies the same properties as the sensation (or some element in the sensation) when all one is ever directly acquainted with arc the contents of one's sensations? As Hume argued so eloquently, we arc certainly not going to establish the claim through enumerative induction,5 and since the British empiricists and the radical positivists who came after them seemed to at least implicitly accept the view that the only legitimate kind of non deductive reasoning is inductive reasoning, many reached the conclusion that representative realism leads inevitably to skepticism. Since I have already rejected the presuppositions of what I have called epistemological commonsensism, I am obviously not going to be terribly impressed with an argument rejecting representative realism on the grounds that its acceptance will lead to skepticism. Moreover, it is probably foolish to reject an analysis of the physical world on the grounds that induction is the only legitimate nondeductive reasoning and that induction will not get you knowledge of the representative realist's physical objects. ~r induction is the only source of nondeductive inference, I doubt ,ve arc going to have justification for believing anything bevond the content of our present sensation, whatever analysis of physical objects we accept. Spe-

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cifically, it seems obvious that induction will never get us knowledge of the past. This would be a particularly unpleasant development for the philosopher who sanctions only inductive and deductive inference, for knowledge of the past is presumably necessary to get the premises from which one can inductively infer conclusions. In short, if induction is the only legitimate sort of nondeductive reasoning, we shall never be able to use it. The epistemological problem of justifying belief in the physical world is not the most fundamental problem involving the justification of empirical belie(~. The logical order of traditional epistemological problems is this: the problem ofjustifying beliefs about the past, the future, the physical world, other minds, and theoretical entities of science. If we assume that one cannot be directly acquainted with the past and accept my earlier account of noninferential justification, then beliefs about the past, if justified, must be inferentially justified on the basis of something present-say, a present memory experience. But how can we establish memory experience as evidence for the occurrence of a past event? Hume, like so many other skeptics, seemed unconcerned about our knowledge of the past, but he could have argued against the possibility of establishing memory experience as evidence of the past by simply paraphrasing his remarks on the possibility of justifying belief about the physical world given a causal theory of physical objects. If all we ever have to go on ultimately is something present, then how can we observe a correlation between something present and something past? Yet without observations of such connections we can never arrive at any conclusions concerning the causes of our present memory experiences. Now I am not prepared to argue here that representative realism either does or does not lead to skepticism with respect to the physical world. That must be decided after we determine whether there are legitimate nondeductive principles of reasoning. Nor am I even prepared at this point to assess the question whether representative realism satisfies the weaker requirement I sketched in chapter 1that is, accounts for the fact that people do believe, and take themselves to be justified in believing, propositions about the physical world. (I shall return to this question in the final chapter.) In any event, I think it is a mistake to press epistemological objections against representative realism, for I think the arguments that question the intelligibility of the view have more force.

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The first argument against the intelligibility of representative realism rests on my earlier rejection of the sense-datum theory. As I have indicated, the representative realist defines physical objects in terms of those causes of sensation that exemplify at least some of the same properties as the objects (sense data) with which we are directly acquainted. If we reject the sense-datum theory, however, we will not have the mental analogues of physical objects to share properties with physical objects. To embrace representative realism with an adverbial or appearing theory of sensation, either one would have to hold that minds exemplify the defining properties of physical objects (such properties as color and extension), or one would have to weaken the concept of representation. The first alternative seems to me unintelligible, and the second is only slightly more plausible. Representation, for example, could be defined in terms of a one-to-one correspondence or isomorphism between the features of ways of being appeared to and their causes, but if this is to result in a view significantly different from classical representative realism the concept of isomorphism must become so weak that it is hard to see how it places much, if any, restriction on what cause of a sensation can count as a physical object. This objection to representative realism is, of course, no stronger than my earlier arguments against the sense-datum theory, but even if we accept the existence of mind-dependent sense data, it is not clear that we can make sense of classical representative realism, for there is a much older objection questioning the intelligibility of the VIew. The representative realist claims that physical objects are the causes of sense data and exemplify at least some of the same properties as sense data. But which properties? Is the shape of the physical object represented by the shape of a visual sense datum or the "shape" of a tactile sense datum? And, indeed, as Berkeley argued, even if we restrict our attention to one mode of sensing, which of the many shapes of the indefinitely many sense data produced by a physical object is the shape the physical object must have?6 The representative realists were sensitive to such problems, and that is why so many rejected the idea that the secondary qualities (colors, smells, tastes, etc.) of objects are represented in the same way the primary qualities are. But again, as Berkeley argued so convincingly, the so-called primary qualities exemplified by sense data are no less subject to perceptual relativity than are the secondary qualities.

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Our reasons for rejecting straightforward representation between the former and the properties of physical objects are reasons for rejecting straightforward representation between the latter and the properties of physical objects. The representative realist, the critic maintains, was in the grip of a powerful but ultimately misleading metaphor. The mind was a tabula rasa upon which the objects of the physical world left their imprint. The metaphor was, however, just that, a metaphor. There are simply too many qualitatively different "prints" left on the tabula rasa to allow for a nonarbitrary definition of a physical object as that which is represented by anyone of the prints. And if representation consists in exemplifying the same properties, it is contradictory to suppose that the many different "prints" all represent the same property of a physical object. I think this objection to representative realism is telling, and in what follows I shall be focusing on those versions of a causal theory of physical objects that attempt to define physical objects as the causes of certain sensations without making reference to the nonrelational properties of such causes. One of the earliest statements of such a view was put forth by Hylas in the course of his steady retreat from representative realism. 7

Reference

Fixin<~

The other version of a causal theory of objects with which I shall not be concerned in the remainder of this book is that offered by those philosophers of language who would, in effect, reject the metaphilosophical claim that philosophical analysis of physical objects involves discovering the meanin,R of statements asserting the existence of physical objects. Since Kripke's "Naming and Necessity," many philosophers appear to have forsaken meaning for reference. Crudely, the idea is that for many terms there is no more to the meaning of an expression than its referent. We can end up referring in one of three ways. In a few very rare cases, when our access to the thing in question is immediate, we can, so to speak, fix the label directly on the thing. This use of a name seems to correspond closely to Russell's conception of a logically proper name. Such privileged access to a thing is the exception, and it is important to realize that it is there only as long as the object is. As soon as we become separated from our referent in space or time, our access will presumably be-

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come indirect. How is "indirect" reference achieved? Well we can "fix the reference" of ordinary proper names and names of socalled natural kinds using definite descriptions, where the referents of the respective terms are the individuals and "kinds" denoted by the definite descriptions. Or our use of proper names or common nouns can have a certain causal origin, where the referents of the respective terms are the individuals or "kinds" that figure in some important way in these causal origins. On either of these last two ways of coming to refer we could clearly be using the respective terms to refer without knowing to what we are referring. We can use the definite description "the cause of sensation S" to fix the reference of "heat,"8 for example, without having the slightest idea what is the cause of sensation S. Similarly, our use of the expression "electron" can have a certain causal origin that determines its referent, a natural kind, without our having the slightest idea what that causal origin is. This view rather naturally suggests an alternative to the conception of philosophical analysis as meaning analysis. Specifically, it suggests the view that in at least some cases the only kind of philosophical "analysis" we can perform is the attempt (a) to discover the referents of certain fundamental expressions and (b) to describe as clearly as possible the nature of these referents. <) A proponent of this theory of language who also took seriously the view that our access to the physical world is irldirect would obviously be tempted to claim that the expressions we use to talk about the physical world get their life through reference-fixing definite descriptions involving causal claims and the relevant causal chains initiated through the use of such reference-fixing definite descriptions. More specifically, just as Kripke suggested that we could understand "heat" as an expression introduced through the reference-fixing description "the cause of sensation S," so he could hold that "table" was introduced into the language in terms of some set of reference-fixing definite descriptions, for example, "the kind of thing that causes my seeming to see and feel a table." There is a sense in which such a view could be called a causal theory of physical objects, but the proponent of the view will stress that he is not claiming talk about tables is equivalent in rnearlirlg to talk about the causes of certain sensations. Definite descriptions purporting to denote the causes of certain sensations give life to our talk about the physical world. It is through a connection to such definite descriptions that we can understand talk about the physical world, but we

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do not view these definite descriptions as synonymous with the expressions whose "life" in a language is parasitic upon them. It would be "nice" if this new philosophy oflanguage were plausible, for it would make the task of the philosopher grappling with the traditional metaphysical problems of perception so much easier. The advantages of having the concept of "reference fixing" are in many ways like the advantages of having the older Wittgensteinean concept of a nondefining criterion. In both cases one can make claims about conventional "connections" between expressions and avoid having to worry about counterexamples that rest on claims about what can or cannot be conceived. A proponent of a causal theory of objects would no longer be committed to finding necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of statements about the physical world. The most he would have to do is come up with some definite descriptions that could plausibly be construed as explicitly or implicitly fixing the reference of physical object terms, and perhaps sketch some causal chains that account for the meaningful use of such expressions by people who do not have at their disposal relevant reference-fixing descriptions. Given the concept of fixing reference these philosophers have, one would not even need to suppose that different people who "speak the same language" use the same definite descriptions in "fixing the reference" of terms referring to physical objects. According to these philosophers, I might fix the reference of "table" using the definite description "the kind of thing that is causing the visual sensation I am having now" and you might fix the reference of "table" using the definite description "the kind of thing that is causing the tactile sensation I had yesterday morning at ten o'clock," and henceforth, by virtue of the common denotation of our reference-fixing definite descriptions, we can "mean" the same thing by table. It should be emphasized, of course, that the reference fixers still face difficulties. The problems of perception are such that it is not all that easy to come up with a definite description that denotes the kind of thing one intuitively wants denoted by "table." When Kripke suggested, for example, that "heat" could be introduced using the definite description "the cause of sensation S" he was, minimally, glossing over some problems that I shall be discussing in more detail shortly, but that I have already hinted at. Kripke wants "heat" to end up referring to molecular motion, but I believe Qustifiably or not) that molecular motion is but one link in an enor-

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mously complicated chain of causes and effects whose ultimate end may be sensation S. As I indicated in discussing causal theories of perception, "the cause of sensation S" no more unproblematically denotes molecular motion than it does the brain event that is the immediate cause of sensation S. (As we shall see, this problem is not peculiar to the reference fixers-the causal theorist committed to reductive analysis must come to grips with it as well.) Moreover, it is not obvious that reference fixers will have an easier time with the epistemological problems of perception. To know that a physical object proposition is true, the reference fixer will have to justify his belief that the relevant reference-fixing definite descriptions do denote, a project that will face all the traditional problems pointed out by Berkeley and Hume. The new philosophers of language, then, present us with an alternative to the meta philosophical conception of philosophical analysis as meaning analysis. It would, I think, be foolish to ask which conception of philosophical analysis the historically prominent causal theorists endorsed. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers obviously had no explicit views on twentieth-century controversies. The most we can reasonably do is determine which conception of what they were doing the classical causal theorists ought to have endorsed. Even though the concept of fixing reference could work many wonders in dissolving traditional philosophical problems of perception, there is, I am convinced, one rather important difficulty facing the new philosophers of language. Put simply, the difficulty is that the critical concept of fixing reference is unintelligible. There is no difference between giving an expression the meaning of a definite description and using a definite description to fix the reference of an expression. To support this claim, I appeal to a thought experiment. For simplicity, I shall focus on the idea of fixing the reference of a name referring to an individual, but my remarks will apply mutatis mutandis to the idea of fixing the reference of terms referring to kinds of things. (It is the latter that would be required to carry out the task of understanding physical object terms as terms whose reference is fixed by definite descriptions purporting to denote the causes of certain sensations.) Imagine the following situation. Two philosophers, Rand K, come up to you, and each tells you he is about to introduce a new term into the language. R tells you he is going to use the term

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"Alpha" and give it the meaning of "the tallest man in America at t" (where t is the name of some particular time) and K tells you he is going to use the term "Alpha*" and is going to fix its reference using that same definite description. K warns R that, in general, it is a mistake to think of a name as having the same meaning as a definite description, but R assures K that, be that as it may, he wants "Alpha" to have the same meaning as the definite description "the tallest man in America at t." Without in a sense knowing about whom they are talking, K and R proceed to make statements using the expressions they have introduced. Now if there is a distinction between giving "Alpha*" the meaning of "the tallest man in America at t" and fixing its reference using that description, I presume it is a difference that ought to make a difference. There ought to be some statement that K can make using "Alpha*" that will have different truth conditions (or that will at least strike us as asserting something different, or conveying different information) than the corresponding statement that R makes substituting "Alpha" for "Alpha*." But what could such a statement be? R says to me "Alpha is taller than you are," and K says "Alpha* is taller than you are," and I suppose I understand both of them, but only because I understand both of them as asserting precisely the same thing, namely that the tallest man in America at t is taller than I am. I shall view their statements as conveying the same information about the world and as having precisely the same truth conditions. Note that here I am not concerned with the causal theory of reference per se, only that aspect of it connected with introducing a term by reference fixing. Consequently, in performing this thought experiment I want you to consider those who can use the term only because they have fixed its reference using a definite description (i. e., ignoring those who may succeed in referring because their use of the term is causally connected to the use of the term by others who have fixed its reference). It seems clear to me that as long as we confine our attention to purely extensional contexts it will be hopeless to try to illustrate the difference between giving a name the meaning of a definite description and fixing its reference using a definite description. And the same applies to intentional contexts. K believes that Alpha* is taller than I am, and R believes that Alpha is taller than I am. Surely what they believe is precisely the same thing-there is but

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one intentional object of their respective beliefs. In what sense could K believe that Alpha* is taller than I am but not believe that the tallest man in America at t is taller than I am (or vice versa)? If we were present at the reference-fixing ceremony for "Alpha*" and heard the man who fixed the reference of "Alpha*" using the definite description "the tallest man in America at tl! announce that he believed that Alpha* probably worked in a circus but did not believe that the tallest man in America at t worked in a circus, we would be confused in precisely the same way that we would be confused if a man told us that by "pI! he just meant "QI! and went on to affirm P while he denied Q. But perhaps we should not have expected either extensional or intentional contexts to reveal the distinction, for it is primarily in modal contexts that the new philosophers of language try to illustrate the difference. In considering the use of "Alpha" and "Alpha*" in modal contexts, it is crucial that we distinguish between de dicta and de re modality. That there is a distinction I take to be uncontroversial, though it is an open question whether either sort of modality can be analyzed in terms of the other. Consider the following two statements: (la) The bachelor next door might have been married by now (had he, for example, been more pleasant to his girlfriend). (lb) It might be that the bachelor next door is married. Now, though there are serious difficulties involved in providing a philosophical analysis of (la), there are contexts in which it would strike most of us as a relatively unproblematic and obviously true assertion. Roughly, it asserts of an individual who is identified by means of a certain property that he need not have, might not have had that property. (la) is a statement of de re possibility. (1b) would strike us as contradictory. We would assume that the person making the statement either misunderstood the meaning of "bachelor" or was trying, in an inappropriate way, to say what (1 a) says. (1 b) is a statement of de dicta possibility. It asserts (falsely) that a given proposition might be true. I do not, of course, intend to analyze either de dicta or de re necessity here. It is enough for my present purposes that we acknowledge that there are statements of necessity and possibility de re and that (la) would in most contexts strike us as a

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relatively unproblematic example of a true statement of de re possibility. Let us now examine the respective uses of "Alpha" and "Alpha*" in statements of de re possibility, for I think that those who embrace the concept of fixing reference mistakenly think it is in such contexts that they can make clear the distinction between giving a name the meaning of a definite description and fixing its reference using a definite description. Consider the following statements: R says: (2a) Alpha might not have been the tallest man in America at t if his older and bigger brother hadn't died at the age of three. K says: (2b) Alpha* might not have been the tallest man in America at t if his older and bigger brother hadn't died at the age of three. Now (2a) might strike one as involving a contradiction if "Alpha" just means the same as "the tallest man in America at t," but it clearly involves a contradiction only if one perversely understands it as asserting a de dicto rather than a de re possibility. There is nothing odd or unusual (let alone contradictory) about the statement you get by substituting for "Alpha" in (2a) "the tallest man in America at t": (2a*) The tallest man in America at t might not have been the tallest man in America at t if his older and bigger brother hadn't died at the age of three. The new philosopher of language often suggests that it is a sign of a name that it is used as a ri>:id desi>:nator, by which he means that a name can be used to talk 2bout an individual in all possible worlds (in less flamboyant terminology, in any counterfactual situation). But if this view is meant to imply that a definite description (or expression equivalent in meaning to a definite description) cannot be used as a rigid designator, that is, cannot be used to refer to an individual in all counter factual situations, the view is false. One can use a definite description "the F" to pick out an individual and to

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assert counterfactually of him that had certain conditions obtained he would not have been F. That is just what the definite descriptions in (la) and (2a*) do. 10 One cannot therefore explain the difference between giving a name the meaning of a definite description and fixing the reference of a name using a definite description by pointing out that (2a) and (2b) have different truth conditions. Where (2a) is a statement of de re possibility, it can be viewed as unproblematically true. What about statements of de dicto necessity? Consider the following: (3a) Necessarily, Alpha (ifhe exists) is the tallest man in America at t. (3b) Necessarily, Alpha* (ifhe exists) is the tallest man in America at t. I suppose that one who thinks that the notion of fixing reference is intelligible may argue that (3a) is true while (3b) is false. But I cannot think what would justify such an assertion. As I have already suggested in connection with intentional contexts, if someone introduces the expression "Alpha*" and tells me he is using it to pick out the tallest man in America (whoever that may be), then tells me it might not be the case that Alpha* is the tallest man in America, I would be completely at a loss how to understand his use of the expression "Alpha*." In trying to give sense to the concept of fixing reference, one might appeal to modal contexts in yet another way. The proposition that Alpha* is F, one might argue, would be about the same individual in all possible worlds, whereas the proposition that Alpha is F would be about different individuals in different possible worlds. This suggestion seems no less question begging than that above, however. Everything rests on our criteria for identifying propositions through possible worlds. If K introduces "Alpha*" in this world in the way I described, when Jones is the tallest man "Alpha*" will pick outJones. Ifin P2 Kintroduces "Alpha*" in the same way when Smith is the tallest man, "Alpha*" will pick out Smith. Kripke and company will deny that the statement "Alpha* if F" in this world expresses the same proposition as the statement "Alpha* is F" in P2, but one would find this denial plausible only if one were antecedently convinced that there exists a referential mag-

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ic wand capable of transforming an unknown individual into a constituent of the thought expressed by a given statement. The expression "fixing reference" is a technical philosophical expression that must be given meaning. Finding out what it is not supposed to mean is not finding out what it does mean. I very much fear that a rather large number of philosophers are allowing into their philosophical vocabulary an expression that has no sense. If you think there is a difference between fixing the reference of an expression using a definite description and giving a name the meaning of a definite description, then you should be prepared to give an example of a statement in which substituting "Alpha" for "Alpha*" would alter the truth value, or at least the sense of the statement. There are no such examples. The new emphasis on reference in philosophy of language is misguided for a reason similar to one raised in chapter 1 as an objection to construing facts as the objects of philosophical analysis. Just as the search for the meaning of a statement is not impeded by the supposition that there is no fact that makes it true, so the meaning of names and common nouns is quite independent of their having a referent or extension. If one wants to understand what gives language meaning, what gives it life, how it enables us to express thoughts and understand others, one must look for something other than the referents of names and the extensions of common nouns and predicate expressions. I conclude that a proponent of a causal theory of physical objects has no alternative to the admittedly painful task of trying to find analytical equivalence between statements asserting the existence of physical objects and statements asserting the existence of the causes of certain sorts of sensations. We would be doing the classical causal theorists a disservice if we reconstructed their views as presupposing the incoherent notion of fixing reference. There is one extremely important consequence of rejecting refence-fixing definite descriptions as what enables us to talk meaningfully about the physical world. If we are committed to a program of defining physical objects as the causes of sensations, we obviously cannot include in the definition reference to anyone's actual sensations. Such a view would be as absurd as the crudest form of idealism. No part of what we mean by asserting the existence of a physical object can be captured by a statement asserting the exis-

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tence of a cause of someone's actual sensations, for that would make the occurrence of those sensations a logically necessary condition for the existence of the physical object. The very concept of a physical object is that of an object whose existence is logically independent of the existence of conscious beings and their sensations. (The reference fixers, of course, could use definite descriptions that refer to actual sensations in order to fix the reference of physical object terms, for they are not committed to finding synonymy.) If the causal theorist cannot define phyysical objects as the causes of certain actual sensations, in which direction should he move? Subjunctive conditionals beckon, and despite all the dangers I believe the causal theorist has no alternative but to move that way. If one is to reduce talk about the physical world to talk about the existence of things causally connected to sensations or patterns of sensations, it must be in terms of statements asserting the existence of that which would under certain conditions produce certain sensations or patterns of sensations. That the causal theorist must turn to subjunctive conditionals in providing his analysis of physical object statements is interesting, for there is of course another historically important analysis of physical object propositions famous for its reliance on subjunctive conditionals. I refer, of course, to classical phenomenalism. The wary philosopher should already be alert to the possibility that objections raised against phenomenalism (often by causal theorists) might eventually come back to haunt the causal theorist. In fact, I think this is just what happens. Before I argue the point, I want to sketch the kind of phenomenalism I am interested in discussing and the argument against phenomenalism that so many have taken to be decisive. I shall then show that the objection is equally effective against the causal theory.

Chapter 5 Phenomenalism and Perceptual Relativity

Most contemporary philosophers consider phenomenalism a dead theory-an interesting, if somewhat bizarre, example of the excesses to which philosophers were drawn in the name of positivism. But while phenomenalism is almost universally rejected, I do not think some philosophers are clear about the implications of the arguments they employ in attacking phenomenalism. A great many philosophers have a vested interest in finding a reply to the kind of argument most often raised against phenomenalism. The term "phenomenalism" has been used in a number of ways. I shall begin by considering what I call classical phenomenalism and the objections that have been raised against it. As I go along I shall be suggesting modifications of classical phenomenalism, and as I do it may be unclear whether we should continue to refer to the modified view as phenomenalism. As long as we are clear what the view is, however, the label we choose for it is unimportant.

Classical Phenomenalism By classical phenomenalism I mean the view that propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are analytically equivalent to propositions asserting that a subject would have certain sequences of sensations were he to have certain others. As I use the expression "classical phenomenalism," the view is compatible with

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a number of different analyses of the self or subject of sensation. The phenomenalist, for example, might understand that which has a sensation as a mind of the sort Berkeley was committed to, or as a construct out of actual or possible experience. The historical origins of classical phenomenalism are difficult to trace, in part because, as one would expect, early statements of the view were not usually careful statements of the view. In his Dialogues, Berkeley hinted at classical phenomenalism when he had Philonous explain how he could reconcile his ontology with the story of a creation that took place before the existence of man: Why I imagine that ifI had been present at the creation, I should have seen things produced into being; that is, become perceptible, in the order described by the sacred historian. 1 More often, however, Berkeley seems to have ideas in the mind of God securing the existence of a physical world that is independent of the existence of any finite being. Like Berkeley, Hume was responsible for many of the arguments that phenomenalists have adopted, but also like Berkeley he was not himself a phenomenalist. Though (on my interpretation) Hume believed, or at least was officially committed to, the view that there exists nothing but experience, I do not think he believed that view was compatible with our beliefs about the physical world. Rather than analyze propositions about the physical world into propositions about sensation, I think Hume decided to live with philosophical skepticism with respect to the physical world. In An Examination oj Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy John Stuart Mill may have been the first philosopher to put forth a phenomenalistic analysis. In that work he says: "Matter, then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of Sensation."2 In explaining his view, Mill seems to suggest that a belief in the permanent possibility of sensations of a given kind just is the belief in certain subjunctive propositions about what sorts of sensations would occur given certain antecedent conditions. Foreshadowing the problem that was to plague all phenomenalists, Mill invariably "cheated" on the classical phenomenalist's commitments. The antecedents of his conditionals referred not to sensation but to physical location:

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I believe that Calcutta exists, though I do not perceive it and that it would still exist if every percipient inhabitant were suddenly to leave the place or be struck dead. But when I analyze the belief, all I find in it is, that were these events to take place the Permanent Possibility of Sensation which I call Calcutta would still remain; that if I were suddenly transported to the banks of the Hoogly, I should still have the sensations which, if now present, would lead me to affirm that Calcutta exists here and now. 3 It would be foolish to infer from this that Mill was not a classical phenomenalist as I have defined the term, for it may well be that, like so many other phenomenalists, he had a tendency to forget the position to which he was committed. While I am inclined to think that Mill was a classical phenomenalist in my sense, he could also plausibly be construed as holding a version of the causal theory I shall be discussing shortly. That it might be hard to tell which view he held is not surprising, for if I am right, the two views are not nearly as far apart as many philosophers suppose. In more recent times, the most famous version of classical phenomenalism was probably that so enthusiastically endorsed by A. J. Ayer in LanRuaRe, Truth and LORic, but in my opinion the clearest, most carefully developed version of the view was presented by C. I. Lewis in An Analysis of KnowledRe and Valuation. With the benefit of hindsight I think we can see that classical phenomenalism was an inevitable outgrowth of the evolution in philosophical thought initiated by the epistemological concerns Descartes expressed in the Meditations. As I indicated earlier, the radical empiricists and early positivists faced a dilemma. Convinced (usually by some version of the argument from illusion or hallucination) that the only way to justify a belief in the existence of physical objects (thought of as enduring, mind-independent entities) was to infer their existence from the occurrence of fleeting and subjective experience, and further convinced that only deduction and induction were available as a means of bridging the gap between knowledge of sensation and knowledge of the physical world, the empiricists and positivists had a problem. Propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are obviously not equivalent in meaning to propositions asserting that some individual (indi-

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viduals) is (are) actually sensing in some way, for the concept of an external world is such as to make perfectly possible the existence of physical things without sentient beings. This rules out the possibility of our deducinR the existence of physical objects from what we know about our sensations. But induction seems to fare no better. If physical objects are thought of as entities of a radically different ontological kind from sensation, somehow standing in a causal connection to sensation, then the only way to inductively establish sensation as evidence for the existence of physical objects would be to correlate the two in experience. As Hume so persuasively argued in a passage to which I have already alluded, since ultimately all we ever have to rely on as evidence is knowledge of our sensations, we can never observe a correlation or a connection between sensation and something other than sensation. Skepticism of course was one alternative, but justifiably or not, the epistemological commonsensism I discussed in chapter 1 seems to have been implicitly accepted by the vast majority of empiricists and positivists. Beginning to despair of finding a solution to the skeptical problem, some empiricists thought they saw a way out. They suggested that previous inability to resolve the skeptical problem was due to a faulty understanding of what it is that is asserted by a physical object proposition. It occurred to them that our talk about the physical world could be construed as a kind of very complicated talk about sensation. To say that a given object exists is not to say that some entity exists of an ontologically different sort from that we are acquainted with in perception; nor, of course, is it to say that someone is actually having some sensation. Rather, they decided, we should view such propositions as equivalent in meaning to assertions about what sensations or sequences of sensations a subject would have were he to have certain others. The truth or falsity of such propositions is mind independent in the way the truth or falsity of propositions about the physical world is mind independent, and what is more, to the empiricist's great relief, it looks as if such propositions could be established inductively. Subjunctives that assert connections holding between sensations can presumably be justified without having to correlate anything but sensations. Since the subjunctive conditional plays such a critical role for the phenomenalist, and since, if my conclusions in the previous chapter were correct, the causal theorist will be unable to escape the necessity of employing such conditionals, it might be appropriate to dis-

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cuss some of the problems associated with the analysis of these conditionals. Such a discussion should also facilitate an understanding of the major problem facing any phenomenalistic analysis.

Subjunctive Conditionals The problem of analyzing subjunctive conditionals is critical for both the phenomenalist and the causal theorist, but it is a problem almost any philosopher will eventually face. I believe it is impossible to analyze dispositional properties without employing subjunctive conditionals, and, on almost any view, predicate expressions that refer to dispositions pervade the language. Of course, if either phenomenalism or certain versions of the causal theory of objects are correct, literally all talk about physical objects and their properties involves reference to dispositions that can be explicated only through subjunctive conditionals. Though I refer to the problem as the problem of analyzing subjunctive conditionals, it should be obvious that the use of the subjunctive mood in asserting a conditional is not by itself what requires explication. Many-indeed, the vast majority of-indicative conditionals assert the same sorts of problematic relations asserted by subjunctive conditionals. The grammatical correctness of using the subjunctive mood seems to be primarily a function of the extent to which the speaker wishes to leave open the question whether the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent has occurred. We might use the expression "counterfactual conditional" to refer to those subjunctive conditionals that presuppose that the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent is contrary to fact. Obviously, not all subjunctive conditionals are counterfactual conditionals. The one point on which most everyone agrees is that subjunctive conditionals arc not simply conditionals of material implication. Indeed, it is widely recognized to be at best highly misleading to even translate the truth functional "P materially implies Q" into English as "if P then Q." Subjunctive conditionals are simply not truthfunctionally complex, as the following two statements illustrate: 1. If this piece of wax had been heated, then it would have melted. 2. If this piece of wax had been heated, then it would have sprouted wings.

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The antecedents and consequents of (1) and (2) (translated into the indicative mood) are false, yet (1) would be regarded as true (in most contexts) while (2) would be regarded as false. The truth of the complex statement is not a mere function of the truth or falsity of the constituent statements. Subjunctive conditionals (and most indicative conditionals) are not truth functional, because they assert a connection between the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent and the state of affairs referred to in the consequent. The problem of analyzing subjunctive conditionals is the problem of determining what the connection asserted by a subjunctive conditional is. As it turns out, a number of different relations between the state of affairs referred to in its antecedent and the state of affairs referred to in its consequent are sufficient for the truth of a subjunctive conditional, and if it is possible to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the truth of subjunctive conditionals, I think it will involve disjoining a number of sufficient conditions such that the disjunction will be a necessary condition. Perhaps the most straightforward sufficient condition for the truth of the subjunctive conditional, if P were the case Q would be the case, is P's formally, analytically, or synthetically entailing Q. Thus the following are all unproblematically true: 3. IfJones were a man, then he would be either a man or a horse. 4. IfJones were a bachelor, then he would be unmarried. 5. If this were red all over, it would not be blue all over. What make (3) through (5) true are, respectively, that Jones's being a man formally entails Jones's being a man or a horse; that Jones's being a bachelor analytically entails Jones's being unmarried; and that this being red all over synthetically entails this being not blue all over. Subjunctive conditionals made true in one of these three ways are necessarily true. Unfortunately, the subjunctive conditionals employed by the phenomenalist and the causal theorist in analyzing propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are continJ?ent subjunctive conditionals. This should go without saying, of course, for the physical object propositions they analyze are contingent propositions. What then makes a contingent subjunctive conditional true? The most obvious suggestion is a nomological connection be-

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tween the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent and the state of affairs referred to in the consequent. 4 The fact that P entails Q will make true the necessary truth if P were the case Q would be the case, and that Pis nomologically sufficient for Q will make true the contingent truth if P were the case Q would be the case. Thus we regard the following conditionals as true: 6. If a piece of wax were heated to sixty degrees centigrade under standard conditions it would melt. 7. If a body were in motion and no forces were acting upon it it would continue in motion. And we do so because we regard heating wax to sixty degrees as nomologically sufficient for wax's melting and a body's being in motion with no forces acting upon it as nomologically sufficient for its continuing in motion. In my earlier discussion of causation, I noted that when we describe X as the cause of Y we seldom intend to assert that X is a nomologically sufficient condition for Y. Similarly, if we reflect upon the contingent subjunctive conditionals that we assert and take to be unproblematically true in ordinary discourse, we should reach the conclusion that we do not regard a relation of nomological sufficiency between antecedent and consequent as a necessary condition for the truth of a subjunctive conditional. The following conditionals would be regarded as true in some contexts: 8. If two more people were to enter the room there would be four people in the room. 9. IfI were to strike this match it would light. 10. If I were to flip the light switch up in this room the light would go on. Yet none of these conditionals have antecedents that are nomologically sufficient for their consequents. What makes such conditionals true? Well, we might again rely for an answer on our earlier discussion of causation. A contingent subjunctive conditional can be made true by virtue of the fact that its antecedent is an appropriate nonredundant part of a nomologically sufficient condition for its consequent. It can also be made true by virtue of the fact that its antecedent is an appropriate nonredundant part of a logically suffi-

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cient condition for its consequent. More precisely, one might suggest the following: If P were the case Q would be the case if either (a) there exists some X that obtains such that (P and X) is nomologically sufficient for Q when P is a nonredundant part of the sufficient condition (P and X), or (b) there exists some X that obtains such that (P and X) is consistent and entails (formally, analytically, or synthetically) Q when P is a nonredundant part of the logically sufficient condition (P and X). (8) above would seem to satisfy the second disjunct if it were asserted by me in a room in which you and I were the only two people. (9) and (10) would presumably satisfy the first disjunct if (9) were asserted when the match was dry, oxygen was present, and so on, and (10) were asserted when the switch was properly hooked up to some complex machinery, the light bulb was good, and so on. Though promising, this suggestion is not without its difficulties. Put crudely, in evaluating a subjunctive conditional one must hypothesize the occurrence of the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent and determine whether, conditions being what they are, the addition of that state of affairs would lead nomologically or logically to the occurrence of the state of affairs referred to in the consequent. But it is often difficult to determine what additional changes in the standing conditions one is supposed to hypothesize along with the occurrence of the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent. In "Law Statements and Counterfactual Inference" Chisholm (1975, 153) considers a man who accepts the following statements as true (and who accepts the universal statements as expressions oflaw): 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

All gold is malleable No cast-iron is malleable Nothing is both gold and cast-iron Nothing is both malleable and not malleable That is cast-iron That is not gold That is not malleable.

He then considers contexts in which the person who accepts (11) through (17) might assert the following conditionals: 18. If that were gold it would be malleable.

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19. If that were gold then some gold things would not be malleable. 20. If that were gold then some things would be both malleable and not malleable. What is interesting is that we can construe all three conditionals as true. We can imagine a perfectly rational person asserting anyone of the three. Which conditional he asserts seems to depend on an arbitrary choice with respect to which of (11) through (17) he will continue to presuppose in considering the hypothetical situation in which this is gold. If he were to assert (18), Chisholm suggests, he would be supposing the denial of (16), excluding (15), (16), and (17), and emphasizing (11). If he were to assert (19), he would be supposing the denial of (16), excluding (11) and (16), and emphasizing either (15) or (12). And if he were to assert (20), he would be again supposing the denial of (16), be excluding (13), and be emphasizing (11), (12), or (15). The moral Chisholm infers, and I think it is correct, is that in evaluating a subjunctive conditional there are no rules that dictate the changes one is supposed to imagine in supposing the occurrence of the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent. It is really up to the person asserting the conditional to decide on the presuppositions of the assertion. Sometimes the context will make these presuppositions clear. Sometimes it will not, and the only way to evaluate the conditional will be to insist that the person who asserts it make clear what he wants us to suppose in evaluating it. As Chisholm points out, the problem of analyzing subjunctive conditionals is like the problem of analyzing ordinary probability statements that involve implicit reference to a reference class. There is no analysis we can give of the meaning of "Jones will probably live to be eighty." The most we can do is provide instructions for asking the sort of question that will enable us to determine what the statement asserts. Specifically, we must insist that the person making the statement indicate the reference class his probability statement presupposes. In the same way, some subjunctive conditionals defy analysis not because there is anything intrinsically mysterious about the relation asserted by the subjunctive conditional, but because the same subjunctive conditional can make different assertions depending on the presuppositions of the person making the statement. As with ordinary probability claims, the most one can do as a philoso-

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pher is to indicate the kinds of questions one must ask the speaker in order to determine which of a number of propositions he is using that conditional to assert. We have obviously not solved all the problems associated with subjunctive conditionals, but I think we have at least managed to distinguish three importantly different kinds of subjunctive conditionals: (1) those that assert entailment between antecedent and consequent, (2) those that assert nomological sufficiency between antecedent and consequent, and (3) those that assert that the antecedent together with some set of conditions that obtain is nomologically or logically sufficient for the consequent. Now, assuming the phenomenalist hopes that some propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are true, which of the three kinds of conditionals referred to above can he plausibly take to be the kind of conditional that analyzes physical object propositions? Well, he obviously does not want the relevant subjunctives to be true in the first way, for, since propositions asserting the existence of physical objects are contingent, the conditionals that analyze them must also be contingent. That leaves the second and third kinds. Note that subjunctive conditionals of the third sort are context dependent. If! assert that if P were the case Q would be the case, when I know that P is by itself neither logically nor nomologically sufficient for Q, I am asserting that there is some set of conditions that obtains such that P together with those conditions stands in the appropriate relation to Q. Of course I need not have much, if any, idea what those conditions are. When I assert that if I were to flip the light switch in this room up the light would go on, I am assuming that there is some set of conditions that obtains such that the switch's being flipped under those conditions would lead (nomologically) to the light's going on, but I really have very few beliefs about what those conditions are. I suppose I know they have something to do with wires, electricity, generating plants, and the like, but I could not even begin to provide an exhaustive description of the causally relevant conditions. I am also aware that the conditions (whatever they are) I assume to exist may not exist, and that if they do not the subjunctive conditional I assert will be false. That is what I mean by saying that conditionals of this sort are context dependent. The very same conditional can be true when asserted in one context and false in another. This by itself does not preclude the phenomenalist from construing the subjunctive conditionals with which he analyzes

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physical object propositions as being of the third sort. But it does suggest that if he does he must be quite sure that the context upon which the truth or falsity of the subjunctive conditional depends cannot vary independently of the conditions that make true or false the physical object proposition he purports to analyze employing these subjunctive conditionals. The phenomenalist would not have to worry about the contextdependent character of his conditionals if they were construed as asserting that the state of affairs referred to in the antecedent is a nomologically sufficient condition for the state of affairs referred to in the consequent. Such conditionals, if true, are true in all contexts in which they are asserted. But it is extraordinarily difficult, indeed it seems impossible, to come up with a subjunctive conditional whose antecedent and consequent refer only to sensations or sequences of sensations such that the antecedent is nomologically sufficient for the consequent. As we shall see, this problem lies at the very heart of the most devastating objection to classical phenomenalism, the argument from perceptual relativity.

The Argument from Perceptual Relativity The idea behind phenomenalism was, in the abstract, enormously attractive for many philosophers, but difficulties arose in the attempt to make it more concrete. Philosophers, understandably, grew impatient with vague sketches of the general form a phenomenalistic analysis should take and wanted specific examples of conditionals that could adequately capture the meaning of some ordinary assertion about the physical world. As soon as the phenomenalist tried to give even one example of a conditional that constitutes a partial analysis of the meaning of a proposition about the physical world, the door was open to the argument from perceptual relativity. The argument was so devastating that singlehandedly it almost cleared the philosophical community of phenomenalists. Many philosophers have endorsed the argument from perceptual relativity, but the first, clearest, and most concise version of it was presented by Chisholm in "The Problem of Empiricism." Chisholm offers, in effect, a strategy for attacking any phenomenalistic analysis. The first move in the strategy is to force the phenomenalist into giving at least one example of an alleged analytic consequence (expressed in phenomenal language) of a proposi-

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tion asserting the existence of some physical object. When one gets the example, one simply describes a hypothetical situation in which, though the physical object proposition is true, its alleged analytic consequence would obviously be false. If the physical object proposition really did entail the experiential proposition, then there could be no hypothetical situation in which the one is true and the other false, and so we would have constructed a reductio of the proposed analysis. Lewis, for example, claimed 5 that the proposition that there is a doorknob in front of me and to the left (P) entails the proposition that ifI should seem to see such a doorknob in front of me and to the left and should seem to be initiating a certain grasping motion, then in all probability the feeling of contacting a doorknob would follow (R). Chisholm argues that P does not entail R, for there is another proposition Q (the proposition that I am unable to move my limbs and my hands but am subject to delusions such that I think I am moving them; I often seem to myself to be initiating a certain grasping motion, but when I do I never have the feeling of contacting anything), which is obviously consistent with P and which when conjoined with P entails not-R. In my discussion of subjunctive conditionals I suggested that the phenomenalist must be on guard against employing context-dependent subjunctive conditionals that are such that the context determining their truth or falsehood is independent of the truth conditions of the physical object proposition the phenomenalist is trying to analyze. If Chisholm's objection is correct, this is precisely what has gone wrong. It would no doubt be true to assert ill some contexts that if I were to seem to see a doorknob and seem to reach out and touch it then I would seem to feel it-indeed, such a conditional is presumably usually true when I am standing before a doorknob under relatively normal conditions. The antecedent of this conditional, however, is obviously not nomologically sufficient for its consequent. If the conditional is true, it is true because there exists some set of conditions X such that the antecedent together with the statement of these conditions is nomologically sufficient for the consequent. We all take at least some of these conditions, however, to be independent of the existence of the doorknob. Thus we assume X to involve reference to the internal and external conditions of perception, conditions that are neither logically nor causally connected to the existence of the doorknob. It is for this reason that one can imagine contexts in which the conditional would be false even

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though the proposition asserting the existence of the table would be true. Since the truth of phenomenal statements will always depend on contexts logically independent of the physical object proposition the phenomenalist is trying to analyze, his project is doomed to failure. (, What moves might the phenomenalist make in trying to escape the objection? Well he might try to "protect" the conditionals he employs in his analysis with a "normal conditions" clause added to the antecedents. When I believe that there is a doorknob in front of me now, part of what I believe is that if I were to seem to reach out and touch it and the causally relevant conditions ojperception were normal then I would seem to feel it. One might argue that this analysis would survive Chisholm's counterexample, for the hypothetical situation he describes is not one in which the causally relevant conditions are normal. At this point, however, the non phenomenalist is obviously going to complain that the phenomenalist has violated his own criterion for an adequate phenomenalistic theory by referring to something beyond the experientially given. He will claim that the normal conditions referred to in the antecedent of the subjunctive conditional can only be facts about the physical world (the internal and external conditions surrounding perception). The phenomenalist, the critic continues, must be prepared to substitute for "normal conditions of perception" an adequate phenomenalistic analysis (presumably, more conditionals describing the sensations a subject would have were he to have others) of the conditions that are in fact normal. This he will never be able to do, for each conditional or conjunction of conditionals that is designed to eliminate some distorting condition of perception will fail to do so precisely because it itself is susceptible to additional distorting conditions. Gritting his teeth, the phenomenalist might press on and flirt with an infinite regress by adding more and more "protecting" conditionals to the antecedent of each conditional he employs in his analysis. Each of these conditionals, in turn, will have antecedents "protected" by additional conditionals, whose antecedents will be protected by still more conditionals and so on ad infinitum. The complexity of this analysis would differ somewhat from the usual sort of complexity involved in phenomenalistic analyses. Since the beginning, phenomenalists have acknowledged the necessity of having a physical object proposition entail an in.finite number of

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conditionals, but the phenomenalist we are considering here is trying to build a kind of infinite complexity into the antecedent of each conditional he employs in his analysis of a physical object proposition. If we let "5 > E" stand for "If 5 were the case E would be the case," the conditionals he employs in his analysis have the following form: ((((51 and (((52 and ((53 and (. En . .. )) > E3))) > E2)))) > El.

and 5n . ..

. .. »

It is perhaps an understatement to suggest that such a move appears to be born of desperation. The regress does appear to be vicious, for if the assertion that there is a table before me now really involved this kind of complexity, how could a finite mind understand the proposition in the first place? To this the phenomenalist might reply that he presupposes no greater conceptual ability than does the nonphenomcnalist in presenting his objection. After all, if the nonphenomenalist can know that for every experiential test ad infinitum there is a possible distorting condition that if present would invalidate that test as an indication of the way the physical world is, then he must be able to think of an infinite number of possible distorting conditions. And if the nonphenomenalist can think of an infinite number of possible distorting conditions, why cannot the phenomenalist think of an infinite number of relevant experiential tests, all of which he takes into account in his analysis of physical object propositions in the way sketched above? This maneuver, is, I think, ultimately unsuccessful. The problem is that there is a distinction to be drawn between thinking of there being an infinite number of possible distorting conditions or thinking of there being an infinite number of relevant experiential tests, on the one hand, and thinking oj an infinite number of possible distorting conditions or thinking ~f an infinite number of experiential tests, on the other. The phenomenalist, it seems, must do the latter if he is to support the claim that we understand an ordinary physical object proposition as asserting conditionals having the kind of internal complexity sketched above. The argument from perceptual relativity certainly seems to reveal a serious problem facing the classical phenomenalist. It is important to realize, however, that it is a problem that also faces the

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causal theorist who tries to define physical objects solely in terms of their nomological relations to sensation.

The Causal Theory and Perceptual Relativity At the end of the previous chapter I argued that the causal theorist cannot d~fine a physical object as the cause of any actual sensation, for that is incompatible with our concept of a physical object as logically independent of the existence of conscious beings. The only alternative I could suggest was to turn to subjunctive conditionals. To say that there is a red, round physical object in front of me now might be to say that there exists that which would under certain conditions produce certain sensations, for example, the visual sensation of seeming to see something red and round. But let us examine this suggestion more carefully. Two questions immediately arise, one more obvious than the other. The obvious question concerns the interpretation of the "under certain conditions" clause. The less obvious question involves difficulties already discussed in connection with the causal theory of perception, difficulties relating to the fact that the concept of cause fails to uniquely denote some one of many different causally relevant conditions. Let me consider the latter problem first. We in fact believe that sensations are the end product of a very long and enormously complex causal chain. Most often we assume that a table is one critical link in the causal chain that results in my seeming to see a table, but it is no more critical than the changes that take place in the retina and in certain regions of the brain. Indeed, if our commonsense beliefs are correct, the table is in one sense less critical than the occurrence of a certain brain state in producing the sensation of seeming to see a table, for one can produce the sensation without a table but not without the relevant brain state. If the causal theorist defines the red, round object simply as that which under certain conditions would produce a sensation of seeming to see something red and round, it seems that, in the hypothetical situation that reflects our actual beliefs, the image on the retina and the brain state each have as good a claim to being the table as anything further removed in the causal chain leading to the sensation.

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As I suggested in discussing the analogous problem for a causal theory of perception, it seems to me that the obvious way out of this difficulty is to define the red, round object in such a way as to "triangulate" in on that which would be the common link in a number of different causal chains leading to different sensations. Thus, while we cannot define the red, round object as the thing that under certain conditions would cause my seeming to see something red and round, we might be able to define the red, round object as the thing that would under certain conditions cause a sensation of seeming to see something red and round and would under certain other conditions produce a sensation of seeming to feci something round. The concept of a physical object is the concept of that which would be the common link in a number of different causal chains leading to a number of different sensations. So far, so good. But we must now address the first of the questions referred to above, the question concerning the interpretation of the all-important "under certain conditions" clause. The causal theorist we are considering here is committed to a program of defining propositions that assert the existence of physical objects in terms of propositions that assert the existence of "possible" causes of sensation. The causal theorist, consequently, can no more replace the "under certain conditions" clause with a description of internal and external physical conditions of perception than can the phenomenalist. Yet without the protecting clause the causal theorist is even more vulnerable to the argument from perceptual relativity than is the phenomenalist. The round object cannot be defined simply as that which would result in certain visual sensations, for we can trivially conceive of its being the case, we all believe that it often is the case, that there is a round object there even though it would not produce a sensation of seeming to see a round object-there might be no one there to see it, it might be too dark, the person who is there might be blind, and so on. To make it less obvious that he is vulnerable to this objection, the causal theorist might borrow a leaf from the phenomenalist's book. We cannot, of course, define a round object simply as that which would produce a sensation of seeming to see a round object; we must instead understand the physical object as that which would produce certain sensations provided there was a subject having certain other sensations. The round object can be understood, for example, as that which would produce a tactile sensation of feeling something round if

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there were a subject who had the visual sensation of seeming to see something round and had the visual and kinesthetic sensations of seeming to initiate a certain grasping motion. Such a move might raise the plausibility of the causal theory to the level of classical phenomenalism, but it would of course fare no better than classical phenomenalism against the argument from perceptual relativity. The concept of a round physical object is at best the concept of that which would produce a certain tactile experience following the appropriate visual and kinesthetic sensations under certain conditions. And the causal theorist, like the phenomenalist, is prohibited from describing these conditions using physical object language on pain of circularity. It is important to realize, I think, that even if considerations of circularity did not prohibit replacing the "under certain conditions" clause required by both the phenomenalist and the causal theorist with an exhaustive description of the causally relevant internal and external conditions of perception, it would obviously be a mistake to do so. The ordinary concept of a physical object clearly should not be defined even in part by reference to physiological conditions of perception, many of which are just now being discovered and most of which have never even been thought of by ordinary people. The vast majority of us know next to nothing about the operation of light waves, sense organs, and neural processes. In asserting the existence of a table we are surely not asserting anything about what would occur if light waves were being reflected from the surface of an object, striking optic nerves and producing alpha waves in the brain. Most of the people of this world have never even heard of light waves or alpha waves but have the same concept of a table that we have. A causal theorist who accepted my view that the concept of reference fixing is unintelligible would certainly be tempted at this point to reconsider his position. Things would be ever so much easier if the new philosophy of language were correct. That, no dQubt, accounts for its current popularity and will, no doubt, make it difficult to encourage defections from the ranks of those who support the view. If he had the concept of reference fixing, the causal theorist could hold that people typically (implicitly) fix the reference of "round object" as that kind of thing which is the common link in the causal chain resulting in the visual and tactile sensations they actually have at some time. That is not what "round

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object" means, of course, but having fixed its reference to a kind of thing, we can thereafter use the expression secure in the knowledge that we are talking about something (assuming, of course, that there is a common link in the causal chains leading to the relevant visual and tactile sensations). The epistemological problem of knowing that there exists a round object would reduce to the problem of knowing that the relevant reference-fixing definite description denotes. Life is not always easy, however, and I remain convinced that the concept of reference fixing is an illusion. If I am right, phenomenalism and the causal theory are equally vulnerable to problems generated by perceptual relativity. And this should not really be that surprising, for from the very start the two views have had more in common than many philosophers seem to realize. Both views, after all, are committed to understanding talk about the physical world by relating it to what can be given in experience. On both views, it is predicate expressions referring to the qualitative character of sensations that carry the burden of the cognitive content of a physical object proposition, that distinguish the analysis of one physical object proposition from another. And, indeed, on both views the concept of nomological connection plays a critical role. The causal theorist, of course, makes overt reference to causation, and the phenomenalist's contingent subjunctive conditionals make implicit reference to nomological connections. Before we consider more carefully the ways the phenomenalist and the causal theorist might try to cope with perceptual relativity, I think it is worth noting that strikingly similar problems arise in the attempt to use subjunctive conditionals in analyzing properties that most everyone would take to be dispositional. Consider, for a moment, such paradigms of dispositional properties as being inflammable, being fragile, and being soluble. These are concepts that most of us have, and if we were pressed to say what it means to say of something that it is inflammable, fragile, or soluble, we would no doubt turn to subjunctive conditionals. If we were not too worried about being careful, we might begin this way: To say of something that it has the property of being inflammable is just to say that it either would or would probably burn if held to a flame. To say of something that it is fragile is to say that it would break if struck with a certain amount of force. And to say of something that it is soluble is just to say that it would dissolve in a liquid. But, of course, these initial analyses would have to be modified in the face

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of an argument analogous to the argument from perceptual relativity. X is inflammable does not mean X would burn if held to a flame, for there are propositions we could conjoin with X is inflammable such that the conjunction would not entail that if X were held to a flame it would burn-X might be wet; there might be a man nearby ready to douse X with water the instant the flame approaches; there might be insufficient oxygen present, and so on. The same problem faces the analyses of fragility and solubility. Fragile things do not have to break when struck. Under certain conceivable conditions they would not. Descartes's great deceiver might be alive and well and so bent on deceiving me with respect to the fragility of some object that every time the object is struck in my presence he arranges for the atoms of the object struck to "mesh" exactly with the atoms of the object with which it is struck, causing the one to move harmlessly through the other. And soluble things do not have to dissolve in a liquid. What the soluble thing does depends on a host of conditions involving the characteristics of the thing, the liquid, the atmospheric conditions, and so on. But surely, you will object, there is a marked difference between the problems facing the proponent of the analyses above and the problems facing the phenomenalist and the causal theorist, for there are no restrictions against employing descriptions of the physical world in adding to the antecedents of the conditionals employed in analyzing inflammability, fragility, and solubility. This is a difference and, in a sense, an important difference. But while one is free to add a description of causally relevant conditions to the antecedents of the conditionals that analyze these dispositional properties, one would be ill advised to do so. Earlier I argued that, even if the phenomenalist and the causal theorist were free to protect the antecedents of their conditionals with an exhaustive description of those physical conditions nomologically relevant to the occurrence of certain sensations, it would still be a mistake to do so. The reason was simply that we all have the concepts of tables, chairs, trees, and such stuff, but many of us-most of us, probably all of us-have no conception of at least some of the links in the causal chains that culminate in sensations. Our assertion that there exists a table, then, can hardly be construed as the assertion of a conditional whose antecedent involves a description of conditions, some of which we have never even thought of. Similar considerations, however, should preclude

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an attempt to add to the antecedents of the conditionals analyzing inflammability, fragility, and solubility an exhaustive description of the conditions that (causally) must be present in order for inflammable things to burn when lit, fragile things to break when struck, and soluble things to dissolve when put in a liquid. Most of us possess the concepts of inflammability, fragility, and solubility but would be quite unable to add to the antecedents of the subjunctive conditionals enough description of relevant conditions so that the antecedents become nomologically sufficient for the consequents. The dilemma appears to be this. The antecedents of the conditionals analyzing most dispositional properties need to be "protected" by some qualifying "normal" or "standard" conditions qualification. But any attempt to flesh out the qualifying clause in terms of a description of relevant conditions seems in danger of presupposing too much in the way of conceptual and cognitive sophistication on the part of the people who, we all agree, have the concepts we are trying to analyze. Is there a solution to this dilemma? Let us return to the phenomenalist struggling to modify his analysis in order to cope with perceptual relativity.

Chapter 6 Some Solutions and Some Decisions

Our phenomenalist's first move in revising his analysis to escape the argument from perceptual relativity was to protect the antecedent of the conditional he offered as a partial analysis of a physical object proposition with an "under normal conditions of perception" qualification. The nonphenomenalist then insisted he replace the expression "under normal conditions of perception" with some phenomenalistic analysis of the conditions that arc in fact normal-a project doomed to failure since, for the very reason that the original conditional failed as an analytic consequence of a physical object proposition, the proposed phenomenalistic analysis of normal conditions will fail as an analysis of the various propositions describing normal conditions. To retain the point and the plausibility of his analysis, I suggest, the phenomenalist must refuse to replace his "under normal conditions of perception" with an attempted phenomenalistic analysis of those conditions that are in fact denoted by the expression "normal conditions of perception." The popularity of referential theories of meaning notwithstanding, the meaninR of a denoting expression is quite distinct from its denotation. I understand perfectly well, for example, the definite description "the tallest man in Argentina" and I believe that in all likelihood it succeeds in denoting someone. But I do not have the slightest idea whom the definite description denotes. Similarly, there is no reason to suppose that understanding the expression "under normal conditions of perception" involves knowing what

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the conditions in question are. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose a priori that because I do not know the denotation of the "normal conditions" clause I cannot be justified in believing statements containing the expression. Although I have no idea who the tallest man in Argentina is, I believe that the tallest man in Argentina is taller than Mickey Rooney, and this belief would certainly strike most of us as justified. As I suggested in the previous chapter, there are many examples of conditionals having the form if P and causally relevant conditions are normal then Q that we understand and justifiably believe without having the slightest idea which conditions are normal. I believe, and presume I am justified in believing, the proposition that if I were to flip the light switch in this room and the causally relevant conditions were normal then the light would go otT. I know perfectly well that flipping the switch is not nomologically sufficient for the light's going otT, that flipping the switch is at best an essential part of some more complex set of conditions that is sufficient for the light's going otT. And, like most of us, I have only the vaguest idea of what these other conditions are. They have something to do with, among other things, wires' being connected in various ways so as to eventually link up with some very complex machinery whose workings are largely a mystery to me. Again, it is important to realize that my lack of knowledge of what these conditions are docs not atTect my belief, and may not even atTect my justification for believing, that if I were to flip the switch and the causally relevant conditions were normal the light would go otT. I can even use my knowledge of this conditional to predict that the light will go otT when I flip the switch. To justifiably use such a conditional to make a prediction I would, of course, have to be justified in believing that the causally relevant conditions are normal, and one might wonder how I could be justified in believing that the causally relevant conditions are normal when for the most part I do not even know what they are. But whatever the answer to this question is, I do in fact seem to presuppose normal conditions even though I do not know what they are. Let me illustrate the point I am trying to make with another example more closely related to traditional phenomenalistic attempts to analyze physical object propositions. Among those who reject a phenomenalistic analysis of propositions about the external world, some support a Lockean distinction between primary and

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secondary qualities. They would analyze a proposition ascribing a color property to a thing in terms of the way most people would be appeared to were they in the presence of that thing under normal or standard conditions. Now, regardless of what one thinks about the plausibility of such an analysis, it would surely be a mistake to argue against it on the grounds that most people are quite unable to state those conditions that are, in fact, denoted by the locution "normal conditions" as used in this context. Most of us realize that the conditions in question have something to do with, among other things, lighting conditions, the state of the optic nerves, and neurophysiological states of the brain, but few if any would be able to give anything like a detailed description of these processes. This does not affect our ability to use and understand the locution "normal conditions" in our attempt to analyze the proposition expressed by "X is red," for we can use and understand that locution without knowing what it denotes. What is more, on at least some occasions we take ourselves to be justified in believing that if we were before X and conditions were normal it would appear red, without knowing what all, or even most, of the causally relevant conditions are. Just as the philosopher we have been considering need not and should not replace the "under normal conditions" qualification he adds to the antecedent of the subjunctive conditionals he employs in analyzing the proposition that something is red with a detailed description of the conditions that are normal, so the phenomenalist trying to escape Chisholm's argument from perceptual relativity need not and should not replace the "under normal conditions" qualification he adds to the antecedents of the conditionals he employs in his analysis with a description of those conditions that are normal. But suppose we grant that understanding the meaning of "under normal conditions," and perhaps evenjustifiably believing that conditions are normal, is quite independent of knowing what the normal conditions are. How exactly are we to analyze the meaning of the "normal conditions" qualification needed by the phenomenalist? The most promising suggestion, I think, is to understand the locution statistically. When I assert that if I were to have sensation S and the causally relevant conditions were normal then I would have sensation E, I am understanding the normal conditions as those conditions, whatever they are, that are nomologically relevant to the occurrence of such sensations as Sand E and that usu-

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ally obtain. This suggestion is, of course, extremely vague. Part of the vagueness arises from a failure to indicate the relevant temporal framework. Are the normal conditions surrounding a sequence of sensations those that usually obtain past, present, and future? This seems to raise all sorts of complications given that we not only can conceive of its being the case, but actually believe it is the case that conditions that (causally) determine the character of our sensations evolve through time. I suspect it is more plausible to construe the normal conditions for Sand E as those conditions causally relevant to the occurrence of Sand E such that they usually obtain now, where now refers to an indefinite period of time that minimally covers the period in which we acquired our concepts of physical objects and that is, to a certain extent, openended in the direction of both past and future. I realize that this hardly eliminates the vagueness of the concept of causally relevant normal conditions, but I think it would be a serious mistake to try to eliminate vagueness for the sake of artificial precision. In discussing philosophical analysis in chapter 1, I conceded the open-textured character of many, perhaps most, ordinary concepts. An analysis of physical object propositions that eliminates the vagueness inherent in our everyday concepts would ipso facto become implausible. In analyzing that which is inherently vague it is critical that the analysis capture that vagueness. If the phenomenalist does decide to go with a normal conditions clause of the sort sketched above, he must choose carefully the conditionals he employs in his analysis. Consider again Lewis's suggestion that the proposition that there is a doorknob before me and to the left entails the proposition that if I were to seem to see a doorknob and to seem to be initiating a certain grasping motion, then in all probability the feeling of contacting a doorknob would occur. I have suggested adding a normal conditions qualification to the antecedent. But if we add such a clause, the truth of the conditional seems to have no connection to the truth of the proposition that there is a doorknob before me. As I sit here at my desk with nothing but a wall in front of me, it is true that if I were to seem to see a doorknob and were to initate a certain grasping motion and the causally relevant conditions were normal, then I would seem to feel a doorknob. The truth of the conditional seems to have nothing to do with the existence of a doorknob. All this indicates is that the

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phenomenalist must be more careful in formulating the antecedent of the conditionals he employs in his analysis. The antecedent of the conditional must, so to speak, set a phenomenal stage. The consequent must describe phenomenal activity such that if it were performed on that stage under normal conditions we would take the physical object proposition to be confirmed. For the most part, the most effective way to do this is to formulate conditionals whose antecedents rely heavily on a description of kinesthetic sensation together with a very general description of the occurrence of other sorts of sensation. Thus, if a phenomenalist were to analyze the proposition that there is a table before me now, he might employ the following conditionals: If I were to have the kinesthetic sensations of opening my eyes and looking directly in front of me and had a subsequent clearly defined visual experience, and if the causally relevant conditions of perception surrounding these sensations were normal, then I would have the visual sensation of seeming to see a table, and If I were to seem to initiate a certain grasping motion and consequently seem to feel something and if the causally relevant conditions of perception surrounding these experiences were normal, then I would seem to feel a doorknob. I must concede at this point that I am not extremely sanguine about the attempt to understand causally relevant conditions as those causally relevant conditions that usually surround certain sorts of visual, tactile, and kinesthetic experiences. (In a moment I shall consider and try to respond to what I take to be the most obvious objection to the view.) It is, however, terribly difficult to come up with anything more promising. Once again, if only we allowed ourselves reference-fixing definite descriptions, everything would be so much easier. We could claim that the reference of "causally relevant normal conditions" is fixed by definite descriptions referring to the causally relevant conditions that surround some paradigmatic sensation or sequence of sensations and let it go at that. As long as the reference fixer is not unlucky enough to have

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chosen a non veridical experience as his paradigm, everything would go all right. But it is no use bemoaning the fact that we have no referential magic wand with which to dissolve our problem. And in any event, if we allow ourselves the concept of reference fixing, we should almost certainly abandon the complexities of a phenomenalistic analysis for the more straightforward referential causal theory discussed and rejected in chapter 5. It might seem, however, that this time we could at least profitably borrow from the reference fixers. We could, perhaps, take the normal conditions clause to mean the causally relevant conditions that surround some paradigmatic sensation or sequence of sensations. Earlier I warned the causal theorist against analyzing a propositIon asserting the existence of a physical object in terms of a proposition asserting the existence of a cause of certain actual sensations. Such an analysis appears to make the existence of an object logically dependent on the occurrence of those sensations. It might seem that the suggestion above for understanding the normal conditions clause commits the same error. But this time the issue is complicated by the fact that the definite description referring to actual sensations is embedded in the antecedent of a subjunctive conditional. One might argue that, since the subjunctive conditional has no existential import, one avoids the pitfalls of idealism. There are, I think, two closely related difficulties with this approach. Neither is decisive, but they are enough to make one prefer the early approach, everything else being more or less equal. The first difficulty is simply this. If we construe "under normal conditions of perception" as meaning "under those conditions that surrounded S (where S refers to some paradigmatic sensation or sequence of sensations that someone has actually had), then we must admit, I think, that strictly speaking no two people will assert the same proposition by "There is a table here now." When I make the assertion, the conditional I am asserting will have an antecedent protected by a definite description referring to the conditions surrounding some actual sensation that I have more or less arbitrarily selected. When you make the assertion, the conditional you are asserting will have an antecedent protected by a definite description referring to the conditions surrounding some other actual sensation you have more or less arbitrarily selected. The truth conditions of the two conditionals will be distinct.

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Now it is not really that clear that this is a serious problem. The claim that assertions about the physical world vary in meaning from context to context has already been suggested by Roderick Firth in "Radical Empiricism and Perceptual Relativity" as a way of escaping the argument from perceptual relativity. 1 And in any event I suspect that to reach an adequate philosophical understanding of vagueness one must allow that language varies in meaning, at least subtly, from context to context, person to person, utterance to utterance. What is more, we must recognize, I think, that in many, perhaps most, contexts we arc not all that concerned with meaning in attributing assertions to people. If I say "George is a liar" and you say "Tom's brother is a liar" in a context in which the people we are talking to know that George is Tom's brother, we will almost certainly be described as having made the same assertion. Donnellan aside,2 however, I do not think our statements have the same meaning, nor do I think they express the same proposition. Ordinary people, however, do not usually worry about such subtleties, nor is there any reason they should. A more serious problem, I think, is that the decision to employ one definite description rather than another in capturing the reference to normal conditions seems so very arbitrary. It is difficult to maintain that in asserting the existence of a table here now I have in mind, occurrently or dispositionally, some actual sequence of past sensations. One could, no doubt, find some such sequence of sensations, but it would surely strike us as being more in the nature of a spur-of-the-moment decision, as opposed to the discovery of a different-level meaning rule. 3 If we do try to understand the causally relevant normal conditions in terms of conditions that usually obtain, then there will be a very close connection between this kind of phenomenalism and the analysis that Lewis proposed in An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. Lewis, you will recall, inserted a probability operator in the consequent of the conditionals he employed in his analysis. A physical object proposition P docs not assert simpliciter the subjunctive if S were the case then E would follow (where Sand E are sensations), according to Lewis. Rather, P asserts that if S then in all probability E would occur. Lewis originally included the probability operator because he did not want the fact that a person had sensation S that was not followed by E to conclusively falsify the physical

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object proposition P. Just as it is impossible in principle to conclusively verify a physical object proposition, so Lewis thought it was impossible in principle to conclusively falsify a physical object proposition. In his original reply to Chisholm's argument from perceptual relativity, 4 Lewis apparently thought that his probability operator allowed him to escape the objection; but his reply was terribly unclear, and in any event Lewis seems not to have had enough confidence in it to pursue it. Moreover, Chisholm was confident that the probability operator did not really help. Remember, he asked Lewis to imagine that his hand was always anesthetized-it was usual that his sensations of seeming to see a doorknob and seeming to initiate a certain grasping motion were not followed by the relevant tactile sensations. In such a situation, Chisholm argued, despite the presence of a doorknob, it would not be true that if Lewis were to seem to see a doorknob and seem to be initiating a certain grasping motion the feeling of contacting a doorknob would probably follow. Now the most obvious reply for Lewis to make (a reply I do not think he did make) would be to broaden the reference class implicitly presupposed by the probability assertion. For there to be a doorknob there, it is not that my sensation or Lewis's sensation or your sensation of seeming to see a doorknob and seeming to initate a certain grasping motion needs to be usually followed by the sensation of contacting a doorknob. Rather, the probability of getting the relevant tactile sensation must be high relative to the class of all people having the appropriate visual and kinesthetic sensations in such a context. Similarly, the phenomenalist adding his normal conditions qualification to the antecedent of his conditional must make clear that the conditions in question are those that usually surround any sensation or sequence of sensations of a given kind. But is such a move sufficient to meet all variations on the argument from perceptual relativity? If my hand or Lewis's hand or your hand can be usually anesthetized, why cannot everyone's hands be usually anesthetized? IfI can be constantly subject to illusion, delusion, and hallucination, why cannot everyone be constantly subject to illusion, delusion, and hallucination? Indeed, could we not again invoke Descartes and argue that there might be an all-powerful deceiver who consistently deceives all of us with respect to all possible experience? If there were such a being, then surely there could be a table before me now even though under nor-

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mal conditions (the deceiver is always practicing his deceit) neither I nor anyone else would have the sorts of experiences that would lead us to believe that there was a table before us. Since the hypothesis that there is such a deceiver is consistent with the proposition that there is a table before me, shouldn't we conclude that the latter does not entail any proposition about what experiences a subject would have were he to have others under normal conditions of perception? I think one must admit that the argument initially has considerable force. Further reflection, however, muddies the water. If the phenomenalist can force a proponent of the argument from perceptual relativity to rely on arguments like the one above, I think he might well argue that he has successfully defended his phenomenalism against the objection. The claim that it is logically possible for there to be a being who consistently deceives all of us with respect to all possible experience surely comes too close to being a simple denial of the phenomenalist's thesis to be a convincing arRument against it. From the phenomenalist's viewpoint, after all, it is not clear that a deceiver could make true an indefinite number of conditionals describing the. sensations we would have were we to have others under normal conditions in order to deceive us as to the real nature of the world. A phenomenalist would presumably view such a "deceiver" as the creator of our physical world, and as such no different from Descartes's God, who was supposed to be causally responsible for the initial and continued existence of substance. Illusion and hallucination clearly are possible. The phenomenalist will typically rely as I did in chapter 3, on the possibility of illusion and hallucination in rejecting epistemological naive realism. Though it is less clear, I think one should probably admit that it is possible for any given individual to be such that he consistently and constantly hallucinates. That this is a possibility is less evident because one might argue that the concept of a physical world allows us to "splinter" reality-allows us, that is, to posit a world that one person has access to but no one else can observe. It would not seem completely ludicrous to construe a constant, consistent "hallucinator" as someone who is observing such a private world. Still, in the final analysis I think we should admit that the concept of a physical world is intimately connected with the concept of a public world in such a way as to allow at least the possibility of constant, consistent hallucination on the part of individuals. 5 But even if we

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grant that it is true of each of us that we could be constantly and consistently hallucinating, it would be illegitimate to infer that it is true that all of us could be constantly, consistently hallucinating. Possibly P and possibly Q clearly does not entail possibly (P and Q), and it is certainly open to the philosopher who employs the argument from the possibility of hallucination discussed in chapter 3 to deny the possibility of constant, consistent mass hallucination through time. Still, there is something compelling about the kind of argument that rests on the possibility of a deceiver, a conscious being deliber- . ately manipulating through time the sensations of other conscious beings so as to distort the sensations they would otherwise have had. As I argued, the phenomenalist might very well claim to have difficulty distinguishing such a "deceiver" from a creator, but if the phenomenalist shrinks at making this move, he is of course free to add certain restrictions to his phenomenalistic analysis. Specifically, he can insist that for a physical object proposition to be true it must not be the case both that the connections between sensations asserted by his conditionals hold as a result of the decisions or actions of a conscious being and that such connections would be different in the absence of such a being. (Reference to the "actions" of a conscious being could be construed broadly enough to include both direct manipulation of connections between sensations and interference through distorting artifacts created and placed by a "deceiver.") Such an addition might strike one as an ad hoc attempt to escape this Cartesian variant on the argument from perceptual relativity, but the charge of being ad hoc amounts to nothing in this context. The phenomenalist is surely free to qualify his analysis as he pleases if he becomes convinced that mere connections between sensations are not enough to ensure the truth of a physical object proposition, if he becomes convinced that the relevant connections must not have certain sorts of underlying grounds. Furthermore, I think it is, in fact, much more difficult to argue that one can simply replace the deceiver hypothesis with the hypothesis that there is some natural object that just happens to have constantly and consistently distorted people's sensations of the way the world really is. Here it really does seem to me clear that the phenomenalist can very plausibly argue that the idea of a natural object's constantly and consistently deceiving conscious beings with respect to the real nature of the physical world is unintelligible.

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I want to leave for the moment this kind of objection to the modification to traditional phenomenalism I have suggested and consider a different sort of objection. Even if we find a plausible analysis of a normal conditions clause that we can successfully add to the antecedents of the phenomenalist's subjunctive conditionals in order to escape the argument from perceptual relativity, one might wonder what kind of view we end up with. Surely, the critic might ask, the phenomenalist is at least implicitly committed to viewing the normal conditions locution as denoting a kind of thing other than minds, their sensations, and facts about what sensations would be followed by others, and doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of a phenomenalistic analysis, which is to avoid such ontological commitment? Well, what kinds of things can our phenomenalist think of the "normal conditions" clause as denoting? Among the causally relevant conditions we might think of as normal will be additional facts about what sensations a subject would have were he to have others when causally relevant conditions of perception are normal. Indeed, the phenomenalist might argue, it is because we believe that certain facts of this sort are causally relevant and that on some occasions they do not obtain that we often discount the testimony of our senses. But what does the "normal conditions" qualification in these conditionals denote? Among other things, still more conditionals asserting that certain sensations would be followed by others when the causally relevant conditions of perception are normal. Isn't this going to involve the phenomenalist again in a vicious conceptual regress? No. We are sketching the kind of fact denoted by "causally relevant normal conditions of perception." As I argued earlier, it is not necessary and would be a serious mistake, to include a description of this (possibly infinite) set of conditionals denoted by the phrase "normal conditions of perception" in our analysis of the meaning of an ordinary physical object proposition. Consequently, understanding the conditionals we employ in our analysis of a physical object proposition will not involve thinking oj an infinite number of other conditionals. Isn't there at least a vicious epistemic regress? Perhaps, but it is not obvious. No matter how many conditions are in fact denoted by "the causally relevant normal conditions of perception," whether I know what they are or not, it may be that in the absence of any other evidence I am justified in believing that they obtain. If normal

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conditions are by definition those that usually obtain, then at any given time, in the absence of disconfirming evidence, I might be justified in believing that the conditions that usually obtain probably do obtain (I shall return to these epistemological issues in chapter 7). I said the phenomenalist could hold that amon,\? the facts denoted by "the causally relevant normal conditions of perception" will be indefinitely many conditionals whose antecedents are themselves protected by "normal conditions" qualifications. At this point, I suggest the phenomenalist abandon traditional phenomenalism. I suggest that the phenomenalist should allow that there may be other facts denoted. Because I think Hume was essentially correct in arguing that sensations will never give us knowledge of anything but the connections that hold among sensations, I think the nature of these facts, other than that they are causally relevant, is and must remain unknown. They could be facts about Hylas's unknown and unknowable matter or Kant's things in themselves. And if the phenomenalist decides against adding the restrictions discussed earlier, they could even be facts about the intentions of Berkeley's God or Descartes's great deceiver. 6 Ifwe have any justification for supposing that there are causally relevant facts that in a sense lie beyond experience, it is simply that we are justified in believing the world is deterministic and that we know that no sensation or sequence of sensations is, by itself, nomologically sufficient for any other sensation or sequence of sensations. Insofar as we are committed to a deductive-nomological model of explanation, we might feel obliged to posit something as an explanation for the fact that sensations come and go the way they do. A phenomenalistic analysis of propositions about the physical world of the sort we are now considering may contain expressions that denote something other than minds, their sensations, and facts about what sensations would follow others, but the analysis is still compatible with the spirit of traditional phenomenalism, for neither understandin,l? the expressions that may denote these other kinds of things nor, possibly, even justifiably believing that the sentences that contain such terms express truths involves knowing what the things denoted are. By relaxing his prohibition against the use in his analysis of terms that could denote something other than minds, sensations, and facts about what sensations would follow others, the phe-

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nomenalist would have something to offer those philosophers who feci that the most implausible feature of the phenomenalist's ontology is that, though it includes facts about what sensations a subject would have were he to have others, it includes nothing that could ground or explain such facts. 7 Again, insofar as such philosophers can find a way of justifying their belief that there is a ground or an explanation for the order they encounter in experience, they may according to the account above suppose that there is a ground or explanation though they will never know what it is. This entails no skepticism with respect to the possibility of justifying belief in propositions about the external world, for on the view we have been considering such propositions neither assert the existence of, nor describe the nature of, such entities.

The Causal Theory Revised So far we have been exploring the ways a phenomenalist might modify his analysis to escape the argument from perceptual relativity. As I pointed out in the previous chapter, the causal theorist, committed to analyzing propositions about the physical world in terms of propositions asserting the existence of a cause of certain sensations, seems just as vulnerable to an argument from perceptual relativity as was the phenomenalist. I went on to suggest that this should not really be unexpected given the many similarities between the two views. It should now also be obvious that the ways a phenomenalist might escape the argument from perceptual relativity can easily be adapted by the causal theorist. Specifically, the causal theorist can make use of a normal conditions clause of precisely the sort available to a phenomenalist. Let me be more explicit. Like the phenomenalist, the causal theorist we were discussing was forced to turn to subjunctive conditionals. He could not view the proposition that there is a table in the room as equivalent to a proposition asserting the existence of a cause of certain actual sensations, for that would have the absurd consequence of making the occurrence of those specified sensations a logically necessary condition for the existence of the table. Rather, I suggested, the causal theorist must try to understand the existence of the table as equivalent to the existence of that which would cause certain sensations. An obvious objection immediately arose, however. That there is a

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table in the room clearly does not entail that there exists something that would cause certain sensations, simpliciter. Indeed, such an analysis would strike us as being incomplete to the point of being unintelligible. The most the causal theorist could want to say is that the existence of a table entails that there exists that which would cause certain sensations under certain conditions. The causal theorist cannot without circularity substitute for "under certain conditions" a description of the physical world, for he is engaged in the task of reducing talk about the physical world to talk about the causes of sensation. Just as I suggested in my discussion of phenomenalism, it seems clear that the causal theorist must make use of expressions in his analysis, understanding of which is not parasitic upon understanding propositions about the physical world and does not involve knowing their denotation. Now the causal theorist cannot simply add a normal conditions qualification. It is hardly true that there being a table there entails that there exists that which would cause, for example, the sensations of seeming to see and feel a table under normal conditions. It is not even clear what that would mean. If normal conditions are to be understood in terms of what is usual, the proposed analysis is absurd. Since the vast majority of physical objects usually exist unperceived, it is hardly true that the existence of the table entails the existence of that which under normal (usual) conditions would produce certain sensations. In chapter 5 I tentatively suggested that to solve this problem the causal theorist might try to borrow a leaf from the phenomenalist's book. Rather than claim that the table's being there entails that there exists that which would cause certain sensations (for example, seeming to see and feel a table) under normal conditions, the causal theorist could try to set the relevant stage by adding to the antecedents of the conditionals employed. The table's existence entails the existence of that which (a) would cause certain tactile sensations if a subject were having the appropriate visual and kinesthetic sensations and if conditions were normal and (b) would cause certain visual experiences if a subject were having the appropriate tactile and kinesthetic sensations and if conditions were normal, and .... Everything hinges here on the force of "appropriate." I think it is fairly clear that the causal theorist needs the "appropriate" visual sensations to be sensations caused by the existence of the

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table, but he cannot say that without circularity. He could, however, suggest that to assert the existence of the table is to assert the existence of that (whatever it is) which would cause certain tactile sensations provided it was already causing certain visual sensations and the subject were having certain kinesthetic ensations and the causally relevant conditions were normal. A difficulty with this approach is simply that it is not clear how to evaluate the truth of a subjunctive conditional when the antecedent refers to that which is causally impossible. I am in a room right now in which there is no table but in which there exist many causes of sensations. Is it true that there exists that which would cause the tactile sensation of seeming to feel a table if (per impossihilia) it were to cause the visual sensation of seeming to see a table and if I were initiating the relevant grasping motion when the causally relevant conditions of perception were normal? I am not even sure how to go about answering. It is a little like trying to answer the question, "Would this piece of plastic be metal if it were attracted by a magnet" There is an inclination to say yes, but perhaps as strong an inclination to simply shrug our shoulders and say that if plastic were attracted by a magnet the world would simply be so different that we would not know what would follow. There is, I think, a plausible, though somewhat complicated, solution to this difficulty the causal theorist faces. He ought to specifically include in his analysis of the proposition asserting the existence of a table the assertion that there exists that which could (nomologically) cause certain sensations under some set of conditions. He could then incorporate in his analysis conditionals of the sort sketched above. Thus we would end up with the following sort of analysis: There exists a table = Df There exists that which could (nomologically) cause in a subject the visual sensation of seeming to sec a table and is such that if it were causing such a sensation and if the subject were to have the kinesthetic sensation of initiating a certain grasping motion and if conditions of perception were normal, then it would cause the tactile sensation of seeming to feel a table;

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and the thing that could cause the aforementioned visual sensation could cause a tactile sensation of seeming to feel a table, and if it were to cause such a sensation and the subject were to have the kinesthetic sensations of directing his eyes in the appropriate direction and if the causally relevant conditions of perception were normal, then it would cause the subject to have the visual sensation of seeming to see a table;

and . .. The normal conditions clause employed in the analysis above can be understood precisely as the phenomenalist we were discussing earlier suggested, and it is of course there for the same reason-to avoid arguments from perceptual relativity. I pointed out earlier that a phenomenalist who was worried about an argument from perceptual relativity that relied on the possibility of a being's constantly and consistently distorting everyone's sensations could place restrictions on the kinds of grounds that may underlie the connections between sensations asserted by his subjunctive conditionals. Specifically, I suggested that the phenomenalist could simply add to the subjunctive conditionals that analyze a physical object proposition the condition that the connections asserted by the subjunctive conditionals not be the result of the machinations of a conscious being if they would be quite different in the absence of such manipulation. Again, it is obvious that such a move is also available to the causal theorist who takes seriously this variant on the argument from perceptual relativity. The causal theorist can, if he thinks it desirable, simply conjoin to his analysis the condition that the thing in question (whatever it is) not be a conscious being manipulating sensations that would otherwise be quite different. Personally, I am not convinced that such a modification of either phenomenalism or the causal theory is desirable, for I am at least sympathetic with the claim that it is difficult to distinguish such a "deceiver" from a creator. But it is a difficult question, and it is important to point out that, however one decides the question whether such a deceiver is possible, both the phenomenalist and the causal theorist would have no difficulty amending their analyses to accommodate the decision.

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The causal theorist (and for that matter the phenomenalist) can add other similar restrictions ifhe feels it is necessary. In chapter 4 I briefly touched on the possibility of a causal theory that requires some kind of isomorphism between the characteristics of sensations and the characteristics of their causes in order for the relevant physical object proposition analyzed in terms of a proposition asserting the existence of a cause of certain sensations to be true. As I indicated, I fear that the idea of such an isomorphism, if it is to avoid the pitfalls of representative realism, is so extraordinarily vague as to make it very difficult for any cause of sensation not to satisfy the requirement, but if one can develop a significant concept of such isomorphism it will be very easy to incorporate it directly into the causal theorist's analysis. Thus we could add to the causal theory suggested above in the following way: There exists a table

=

Df

1) There exists that which could (nomologically) cause in a subject the visual sensation of seeming to see a table and is such that if it were causing such a sensation and the subject were to have the kinesthetic sensation of initiating a certain grasping motion and if conditions of perception were normal then it would cause the tactile sensation of seeming to feel a table;

and (optional restrictions) 2. That thing is not a conscious being manipulating sensations and the connections between them that would otherwise be quite different;

and 3. There is an isomorphism between the characteristics of that thing and the visual and tactile sensations it produces. The important thing to remember about restrictions one places on the causes referred to (indirectly referred to by the existential quantifier) in the causal theorist's analysis of physical object propositions is that the more restrictions one imposes, the more severe the epistemological problems are going to be. If for the table to be

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there the cause in question must not be a conscious being, then to know that there is a table there we must know not just that there exists that which could cause certain sensations and is responsible for certain connections between sensations, we must further know that it is not a conscious being. And if for the table to be there the cause in question must be isomorphic with certain sensations, then to know that the table is there we must know that the cause of certain sensations has this complex relational property. I am not arguing here that these additional epistemological problems would be insuperable. Nor, given my rejection of epistemological commonsensism, would I necessarily reject the analysis should they prove insuperable. Still, it is worth remembering that the metaphysical tinkering considered above carries with it important epistemological complications, and we can all agree, I think, that one should force epistemological problems upon oneself only if one is quite sure it is unavoidable. I hope it is unnecessary, but I do wish to eliminate a possible critical misunderstanding of causal theories of the sort sketched above. It is at the very best highly misleading to describe the causal theorist we have been discussing as holding that a physical object is identical with that which would cause certain sensations and would cause certain others under the appropriate conditions. If we say this and then (correctly) conclude that we can never know anything about the nonrelational qualities of that which satisfies the description, it will be all too tempting to reach the startling conclusion that we can never know what a table really is. In discussing philosophical analysis in chapter 1, I pointed out that the first step in providing a philosophical analysis is to make clear that what one is analyzing is that which has meaning. The first step in providing a philosophical analysis of physical objects is to make clear that what one is searching for is the .meaning of statements having the form such and such a physical object exists. The causal theorist discussed above holds that a proposition asserting the existence of a table is analytically equivalent to a proposition asserting the existence of that which could cause certain sensations and would cause certain others if. ... It is, I suppose, harmless enough to abbreviate this as the claim that the table is t~e potential cause of certain sensations. But if one does, one must remember that skepticism with respect to what the cause is has no implications vis-a-vis skeptism with respect to what the table is. On the analysis we have

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been considering, we can know all the things we ordinarily think we know about such things as tables and chairs without having the slightest idea what the nonrelational properties of the causes indirectly referred to in the analysis are. Again, there is a remarkable parallel to the phenomenalism we discussed earlier. Just as I argued that skepticism with respect to the intrinsic nature of that which is denoted by the phenomenalist's normal conditions clause entails no skepticism with respect to knowledge of propositions describing the physical world, so skepticism with respect to the intrinsic (nonrelational) character of the causes indirectly referred to by the causal theorist entails no skepticism with respect to knowledge of propositions describing the physical world.

Decisions If I am right, both the phenomenalist and the causal theorist can escape the argument from perceptual relativity. Moreover, both theories satisfy the weaker analogue of the radical empiricist's criterion of meaningfulness for which I expressed support in chapter 1. Both theories understand terms referring to the physical world by relating such terms to the phenomenologically given and to connections that are found to exist between givens. I believe both theories can satisfy the weak epistemological criterion I suggested for evaluating proposed analyses. Both theories can plausibly account for the fact that we believe Uustifiably or not) what we do about the physical world (I shall return to this in the next chapter). In fact, I am convinced that one of these two approaches to analyzing the physical world is correct. But which is it? The answer is not going to be easy, for, as I have argued repeatedly, when modified to accommodate perceptual relativity the two views are remarkably similar. Both rely on reference to the qualitative character of sensations and connections between sensations (expressed by conditionals) to carry the bulk of the cognitive content of physical object propositions. Both allow ontological commitment to something beyond sensations, causally underlying their occurrence and the connections that exist between them-the causal theorist explicitly, the phenomenalist implicitly through the use of a normal conditions clause. When I briefly sketched the historical origins of classical phenomenalism, I suggested that Mill may have been the first classical phenomenalist, but I warned at the time that our subsequent

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discussion of the causal theory might considerably complicate the exegetical question. By now the reader should see the difficulty. Was Mill a phenomenalist or a causal theorist of the sort we are discussing? That Mill used subjunctive conditionals in his analysis is inconclusive, for if I am right the causal theorist will find them as indispensable as does the phenomenalist. Indeed, Mill's "permanent possibility of sensations" fits rather nicely the way I suggested the causal theorist open his analysis of physical object propositions. However much alike phenomenalism and the causal theory are, however, they certainly do seem to be different, and it seems that we must choose between them. Having emphasized their similarities, we must begin to explore their differences. The most obvious difference between the two views is that the phenomenalist appears to be committed to viewing assertions about the physical world as fundamentally hypothetical in nature; the causal theorist seems committed to viewing propositions asserting the existence of physical objects as ultimately categorical in form. It may be a mistake, however, to stress this apparent difference too much. The causal theorist's analysis of physical object propositions does take the form of a categorical assertion, but, as I stressed, the categorical statements employed in his analysis must contain subjunctive conditionals. Moreover, while the phenomenalist's analysis of physical object propositions contains only conditionals, it may be that such conditionals imply categorical statements. As I pointed out in my discussion of subjunctive conditionals, the vast majority of subjunctive conditionals implicitly assert the existence of some set of conditions such that the antecedent under those conditions leads logically or nomologically to the consequent. Even a phenomenalist who includes a normal conditions clause of the sort we discussed could take the conditionals he employs in his analysis as implicitly asserting the existence of some set of standing conditions that ground the connection asserted by the subjunctive conditional. In fact, I think the conditionals available to the phenomenalist do carry with them such a presupposition, and after many years of loyalty to a theory that has been much maligned, I am finally inclined to think that we must either choose the causal theory straight out or make one further modification of phenomenalism that really does seem to me to collapse the distinction between phenomenalism and the causal theory. It is no accident that when phenomenalists like Lewis seek to

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illustrate the character of their analyses they choose as an example of a physical object proposition analyzandum a proposition that itself relates the object in question to a conscious being. Thus Lewis gives examples of phenomenalistic conditionals that are implied by the proposition that there is a doorknob in front of me and to the left. And the conditionals describe the experiences I would have were I to have certain others. Now Lewis is clear that on his view a physical object proposition also entails conditionals about the sensations others would likely have were they to have certain sensations, but he does not give examples of these. Nor would it be easy for him to do so. It is at least plausible to claim that if there is a doorknob before me now, that might imply that if I were now to have the experience of reaching out I would have the feeling of contacting a doorknob. But what conditionals describing the sensations you would have were you to have certain others would even seem to follow? It is fairly clear, I think, that Lewis is going to have to capture the sense in which the doorknob's being before me entails facts about sensations you would have by making reference to the conditions surrounding me-the settinR, as it were, in which I am placed. Thus the doorknob being before me might entail that if you were in my place or if you were in this situation and were to have the appropriate kinesthetic sensations, then in all likehood you would have the relevant doorknob sensations. The reason explicit reference to a setting does not seem to be required by the firstperson conditionals is that the physical object proposition being analyzed has already placed me in the appropriate situation, so to speak. But while no explicit reference to a setting is required, one can argue that the assertion of the conditional in this context carries with it the implicit assertion of a causally relevant context securing the required connection between antecedent and consequent of the experiential conditional. I have illustrated the point by reference to Lewis's analysis, but it should be obvious that the same difficulty arises for the phenomenalist who protects the antecedents of his conditionals with a normal conditions clause to handle perceptual relativity. I think I can emphasize the point I want to make if we force the phenomenalist to focus on physical object propositions that carry with them no explicit reference to a subject of experience. How would the phenomenalist analyze the proposition that there exists a table-not a table before me or you or someone else-but simply

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the proposition that there exists a table? Without even worrying about perceptual relativity, what conditionals describing sensations might even seem to follow from the mere fact that there exists a table somewhere, someplace? The conditional that if someone were to have the kinesthetic sensations of looking around right now and conditions were normal he would have a visual sensation of seeming to see a table? Hardly. The table's existence does not entail that there is anyone so situated with respect to it that this conditional would be true. The causal theorist has no difficulty analyzing this kind of physical object proposition. Indeed, I illustrated the nature of his analysis with just such an example. He has an easier time than the phenomenalist owing to the aforementioned fact that the causal theorist takes statements asserting the existence of physical objects to be fundamentally categorical in form. The existence of the table is identified with the existence of that which could cause certain sensations and is further such that if it were to produce those sensations and the subject in question were to have certain others it would under normal conditions produce still more sensations of a specified kind. Again, the categorical form of the analyzans must not obscure the necessity of employing a subjunctive conditional, but in analyzing a proposition that merely asserts the existence of a physical object somewhere, the causal theorist enjoys the advantage of being able to "set the stage" presupposed by the required subjunctive conditionals with the categorical part of the analyzans. Now the phenomenalist need not simply throw in the towel when it comes to analyzing physical object propositions that do not relate the physical objects in question to a potential perceiver. There are at least two gambits he might try. The first is, I think, implausible, if not obviously mistaken. The second really does seem to me to finally collapse the distinction between phenomenalism and the causal theory. The move I think is implausible consists in trying to capture the mere existence someplace of a table by reference to a subjunctive fact referred to by a conditional whose antecedent describes the phenomenal counterpart of looking everywhere. Thus the phenomenalist could claim that when one asserts the existence of a table one asserts that if a subject were to have the visual and kinesthetic sensations of seeming to look everywhere under normal conditions, he would eventually have the sensation of seeming to see a

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table, and if he were to have such a visual experience and were to seem to reach out under normal conditions he would seem to feel a table, and so on. The most obvious difficulty with such an analysis concerns the interpretation of the antecedent. Making good the claim that "seem to see a table" can be used to describe the qualitative character of a visual sensation is hard enough, but what exactly is the cognitive content of seeming to look everywhere? Given that the concept of space is the concept of infinite space, the sequence of sensations purportedly described by the antecedent of the conditional is, one assumes, an infinitely long sequence. This presents no real difficulty, however, for there is no reason to suppose that the concept of there being such a sequence involves a vicious conceptual regress. But a more serious problem concerns the cognitive content of "seeming to looking everywhere." The locution obviously needs to pick out visual and kinesthetic sensations. But as anyone who has been hopelessly lost in downtown Mexico City will tell you, it is not clear that there is a phenomenological distinction between the experiences that would correspond to systematically covering every square inch of the universe and the visual and kinesthetic sensations that would result from getting turned around somewhere so as to miss a few square yards. Yet unless one is sure there really is such a difference, one obviously cannot rely on the antecedent of the conditional in trying to understand the existence of a table somewhere. It is so tempting for the phenomenalist at this point to solve the problem by adding the relatively innocuous "There are conditions somewhere such that ... ," but as I indicated earlier, it seems to me that, as soon as he does, there is really no distinction between his view and the causal theorist's. The phenomenalist is simply trying to disguise the reference to conditions causally underlying connections between sensations by employing as ambivalent a quantifier as he can. But we all know what the categorical clause is there to do, and when we realize what its function is, there seems to me no point in trying to pretend that such a modified phenomenalism is a genuine alternative to the causal theory.

Chapter 7 Epistemological Questions

At the end of chapter 3 I broke off the attempt to discover what, if anything, justifies our beliefs in propositions about the physical world in order to address the logically more fundamental metaphysical questions concerning the content of our beliefs about the physical world. We must now return to matters epistemological. I should remind you that I shall not let a drive to refute skepticism shape my metaphysics. In chapter 1 I argued that the most one should require of an analysis of physical object propositions is that it account for the fact that we believe, and take ourselves to be justified in believing, propositions about the physical world. An analysis could accomplish this without allowing those beliefs to be justified. In what follows, I shall try to separate the question whether the analysis presented in the previous chapter is consistent with our beliefs about the physical world's being justified from the question whether such an analysis can account for the fact that we believe, and take ourselves to be justified in believing, propositions about the physical world. In addressing these questions I think we should begin by trying to isolate the epistemic gaps that must be bridged given my analysis of the physical world.

The Problematic Epistemic Gaps On the analysis of physical object propositions I suggested, in believing that there is a table here now I am committed to the exis-

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tence of something that could cause certain sensations (e. g., the sensation of seeming to see a table) and is such that if it were to cause those sensations in a subject it would, were the subject to have other sensations (e.g., the sensation of seeming to reach out and touch a table), cause the subject to have still other sensations (e. g., the tactile sensation of seeming to feel a table). Well, suppose we seem to see a table. How do we get to the table? The first step in bridging the relevant epistemic gaps seems to involve referring that sensation to an external cause. But if my earlier arguments were correct, belief in the table's existence involves far more than belief in the existence of a cause of that sensation. Rather, it involves belief in the existence of something occupying a place in a complex nomological network, something that underlies and explains not a sensation in isolation but complex connections between possible sensations. So when we (unreflectively, spontaneously) take for granted the existence of a table upon seeming to see a table, that conclusion represents our referring the sensation to a cause that would, were we to to have other sensations (under normal conditions), result in further modifications of our sensory mental states. No doubt when we bridge this epistemic gap we implicitly rely on evidence that goes far beyond the particular sensation that is the proximate cause of our conviction that there is a table there. We no doubt rely on past correlations of sequences of sensation that led us to posit a common cause for the sensations of seeming to see an object and the tactile sensations that followed certain kinesthetic sensations. If the assertion above is correct, then the moves we implicitly make when, upon seeming to see a table, we take for granted the existence of a table are these: 1. A move from present visual sensation to a cause of that sensation. 2. A move to past connections between visual sensations of seeming to see tables and other objects that when followed by certain kinesthetic sensations were followed in turn by certain changes in visual and tactile sensations. 3. A move to a common cause for those past visual sensations and the modifications of sense experience that followed. 4. A move from those conclusions about the past to the prediction that this present sensation of seeming to see a table occurs under conditions similar to those standard conditions that

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have obtained in the past, conditions that will nomologically ensure that the appropriate modifications of sense experience would again occur given the relevant sensory cues. Earlier, after considering Cartesian evil demon variations on the argument from perceptual relativity, I raised the possibility of incorporating into one's causal theory further restrictions on the characteristics a cause of a given sensation must Hot have if one is to veridically perceive a physical object. Specifically, I suggested that one could analyze physical object propositions in such a way that, for there to be a table there, there must be a potential cause of certain sensations that is llOt a mind manipulating (directly or through artifacts) sensations that would otherwise be quite different. If one were to adopt this suggestion, then obviously there would arise an additional epistemic gap to be bridged. One must move from sensory data to the existence of a potential cause that is not of the specified kind. Similarly, I also suggested that those who wanted to retain vestiges of the old representative realism might try to define certain relations of isomorphism and incorporate reference to them in their causal analysis of physical object propositions. Specifically, I suggested that one might try to define the existence of physical objects in terms of the existence of a potential cause of certain sensations, which cause is isomorphic with the sensations it would produce under certain conditions. Again, such metaphysical tinkering will bring with it additional epistemological problems. If such an analysis were correct, then in taking for granted the existence of a physical object that one seems to see, one must implicitly move from sensory data to a cause isomorphic with certain elements of that sensory data.

The Problematic Inferences So far I have tried only to characterize the nature of the gaps that must be bridged given a causal theory of physical objects. And I have done this only in a very sketchy way. I have said, for example, little by way of characterizing the data from which one must move in bridging the relevant gaps. Nor have I said, or even implied, much by way of characterizing the implicit inferences involved in bridging these gaps.

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Part of the difficulty in describing the "premises" we move from in forming beliefs about the physical world, or the "inferences" we implicitly accept in moving from these premises, is that any attempt at such a description inevitably suggests a highly implausible picture of the way we form beliefs about the world around us. As I admitted in chapter 2, when we judge or, better, take for granted that we (veridically) see a table, it is hardly true that we formulate to ourselves some set of premises from which we infer, in accordance with rules of inference we accept, the appropriate conclusions. That so many critics of epistemological naive realism have seemed to embrace this picture no doubt contributed greatly to the backlash against radical empiricism and against foundationalism in general. An attempt to "rationalize" our epistemic relation to the physical world will obviously fail to capture the undeniable spontaneity and unreflective character of our beliefs about the world-a spontaneity that is, naturally enough, sometimes described in terms of immediacy. Our beliefs about the physical world are not mediated by consideration of propositions about sensations that are formulated as premises, then employed in deductive and non deductive argument. While these observations are quite correct, they are nevertheless irrelevant to the philosopher concerned with .fllldillX justification, in the philosophically relevant sense of justification discussed in chapter 2, for his beliefs about the physical world. I emphasize the word "finding" for a reason. There is a sense in which the philosopher is looking for a kind of justification most people do not have, which he himself would not have in the absence of an adequate metaphysics and epistemology. While he may admit that he is an animal among animals-a creature conditioned to respond to certain stimuli, the philosopher concerned with traditional epistemological questions wants something better. He wants to find for the beliefs he unreflectively accepts some set of premises knowledge of which depends on knowledge of no other truths, which premises allow him to justifiably infer that which he unreflectively accepts. There are, I conceded, other derivative concepts of justification that would allow for the possibility of my beliefs' being justified without satisfying the conditions of what I have called ideal philosophical justification. While I shall, of course, be concerned primarily with the concept of justification that meets the philosophical ideal, I shall comment in subsequent discussion on these derivative concepts of justification.

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Since I admit that in cases of "immediate" perception we do not consciously infer "conclusions" about the physical world from "premises" about sensations, what sense can I attach to the question of what infi'renccs Uustifiable or not) we do in fact make when taking for granted what we do about the world around us? Well, I have already relied heavily on subjunctives in this book, so it seems foolish not to let them do some more work. We can describe the stimuli that lead us to believe what we do about the world and ask whether we would take the propositions that describe the occurrence of these stimuli as making likely the truth of that which the stimuli lead us to believe, if we were to reflectively consider the question. And we can ask if these particular inferences can be subsumed under more general rules of inference that we dispositionally accept. Our acceptance of these rules may, of course, consist in no more than our disposition to believe one proposition when we take for granted the truth of another. As I have suggested, it is highly plausible for the causal theorist (of the sort I have defended) to argue that it is never awareness of a given sensation, simpliciter, that gives rise to belief in the existence of a physical object. The causal theorist will surely want to claim that it is awareness of a given sensation against a background of past sensations that gives rise to the complex expectations that constitute belief in the existence of a physical object. Assuming that knowledge of the content of present consciousness is unproblematic, how do we "get" from knowledge of what is present to complex connections between past sensations? The obvious answer, of course, is that we rely on memory. We seem to remember certain kinds of sensations as inextricably connected in the past, and consequently we take it for granted that they were. The epistemological problems connected with knowledge of the past have kept a rather low profile in the history of philosophy. And in a way this is surprising given the logical priority of the problem. The problem of knowing the past has received far less attention than the problem of induction, for example, despite the fact that knowledge of the past is presumably necessary in order to employ inductive reasoning. This suggests, of course, that we should not think of our "inferences" about the past as reasoning in accord with the rules of enumerative induction. It is hardly true that we accept memory as a reliable indicator of the past because we believe that in the past memory has been by and large reliable. Our belief that in

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the past memory has been generally reliable obviously rests ultimately on a prior acceptance of the reliability of memory. A full discussion of the nature of our move from present to past would obviously involve a detailed discussion of the nature of memory-something I am not prepared to do in this context. I suggest, however, that the relative scarcity ofliterature on the problem of memory has something to do with the fact that so few moves seem even remotely plausible. Indeed, one is sorely tempted to suggest that the "inference" involved in taking for granted that what we seem to remember having happened, happened is sui generis. It is an inference we make (if only in the sense that when we do seem to remember X we do take for granted X), but it is difficult to see how the "rule" "Infer X from your seeming to remember X (ceteris paribus)" can be subsumed under some more general rule or pattern of inference. Assuming that we get access to past sensation, the next problematic move for the causal theorist involves positing a common cause for sequences of sensation that seem noncoincidentally related. Before we try to subsume this "inference" under some rule, it might be helpful to try to formulate more clearly the nature of the inference I am suggesting we do in fact make. Let us suppose we remember seeming to see a table, seeming to move our heads from side to side, and the familiar sequence of subtle sensory changes that follows. We also remember seeming to reach out and touch the object and the subsequent tactile sensations that occurred. Moreover, these sensations and the connections between them are directly analogous to all kinds of other similar sequences of sensations we remember having. While the correlations are impressive, however, we do not take them to be universal. We believe, so to speak, that things can change so as to interrupt the usual sequence of sensations. While the correlations between seeming to see and to reach out and touch a table and the subsequent familiar tactile sensations are impressive enough to lead us to rule out the possibility that the correlation is coincidental, at the same time the correlations are not universal enough to allow us to think of the preceding sensations as nomologically sufficient for the subsequent sensations. What do we do? I am suggesting that we posit an underlying mechanism or structure that when present accounts for the correlation but that could be absent and is such that its ab-

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sence would interfere with the usual correlations. I am at the moment saying nothing whatever about our justification for reaching such a conclusion. I am merely suggesting that it is a kind of inference we do implicitly make. Let me try to illuminate this claim by asking you to consider some analogies involving less abstract matters. Consider, for example, our epistemic relations to the many familiar, easily manipulated appliances and machines whose internal workings are largely a mystery to most of us. I turn the knob on my television set and the set almost always goes on. I am, of course, quite convinced that the correlation between the knob's being turned and the set's going on is not accidental. Nor, however, am I in the least inclined to think of the knob's being turned as nomologically sufficient for the set's going on. Indeed, to my financial distress, I have on some occasions experienced the one without the other. How do I reconcile my belief that the past correlation of my turning the knob and the set's going on is not coincidental with my realization that something can happen that interferes with the correlation? Well, obviously I suppose the existence of an underlying mechanism such that, if it is present and working normally, then when the knob is turned the set will go on. But surely, one will argue, an analogy between this case and the epistemic problems we face when we encounter non coincidental but nonuniversal connections between sensations is strained. After all, we have independent evidence for supposing that a television set is a complex piece of apparatus whose mechanism involves far more than the knob and the appearance of a picture on the screen. Indeed, we at least have the possibility of independent access to the other elements in the apparatus. To reply to this concern, let us consider a somewhat more fanciful hypothetical situation. Suppose that on a distant planet a space traveler finds a black box with a button on its side. Every time he pushes the button the box lights up. He performs this test, one, two, three hundred times, and the box invariably lights. But on the four hundredth try and the next fifty tries, the box does nothing when the button is depressed. After the fifty failures, his depressing the button is again followed by the box's lighting up. What would we conclude? Well, again the most natural conclusion I think (and I again emphasize that I am not saying it is justified) would be that the box contains further ele-

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ments that can change such that it is only when these elements are arranged in a certain way that depressing the button results in the box's lighting. Still, the critic will argue, the hypothetical situation is hardly analogous to the epistemic relation we have to the physical world given my analysis of the physical world. Again, even if we have no access to the hidden elements in the box, even if it is causally impossible to gain such access, we can at least understand what gaining such access would involve. But if my conclusions in chapters 2 through 6 were correct, we could in principle know nothing about the nonrelational character of that which underlies and explains sensation. Frankly, however, I fail to see the significance of this observation. Unless one accepts a most extreme and hence implausible version of verificationism, one will not insist that meaningful assertions be capable of direct confirmation. I see nothing implausible in the suggestion that we try to account for nonaccidental, nonuniversal correlations between sensations by positing hidden causally relevant variables whose nonrelational character we could never have any direct access to. If it is plausible to claim that we often try to account for nonaccidental, nonuniversal correlations between events by positing the existence of unobserved but nomologically relevant conditions, I think we can make plausible the claim that we do implicitly make the inferences a causal theory requires of us if we are to believe physical object propositions. Having posited the relevant causes vis-ii-vis past sensations, the only move required in order to get from a present sensation of seeming to see the table to the existence of a table is an inductive conclusion from past observations. Just as past seemings to see tables were caused by that which typically would produce certain other sensations given the appropriate sensory cues, so this present seeming to see a table can be expected to have a cause that would operate in a similar fashion. This last inference seems no more unusual that my expectation that the next time I turn the knob on my television set it will, if conditions are normal, result in the set's going on. Since I think we do implicitly accept inferences of the kind discussed above, I think a causal theory of the sort proposed in chapter 6 satisfies the only epistemological criteria it is reasonable to expect a metaphysical analysis of the physical world to satisfy. Such a causal theory is compatible with

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the fact that we believe and take ourselves to be justified in believing propositions about the physical world. In the preceding discussion I have tried to avoid any questions concerning our justification for believing physical object propositions given a causal theory of the physical world. I have claimed that we do find "natural" certain inferences, but I have not claimed these inferences are justified. And since I do not accept epistemological commonsensism, I do not take the fact that we unhesitatingly make such inferences to be a reliable indication that the inferences are justified. How shall we decide which of our beliefs admit of philosophical justification? To answer this question, we might remind ourselves of some of the conclusions reached in chapter 2. I defended there a radical foundationalism. All justified beliefs owe their justification ultimately to noninferentially justified beliefs grounded in direct acquaintance with facts. Since I hold that we are directly acquainted with the contents of present consciousness, I take as unproblematic the justification for at least some propositions describing the content of those experiences. The philosopher with the correct analysis of truth and noninferential justification can satisfy himself that he knows the content of his present sensation. The philosophically more problematic beliefs are those that move beyond present consciousness via nondeductive inference. In chapter 2 I presented and defended the principle of inferential justification in setting forth the conditions an inferentially justified belief must meet in order to be justified. The principle stated that in order for someone to be justified in believing one proposition P on the basis of another E that person must be (1) justified in believing E and (2) justified in believing that E makes probable P. In rehearsing a traditional argument for foundationalism that implicitly relies on the principle of inferential justification, I noted that if the principle were correct we would seem to need noninferential justification to block not one but an infinite number of infinite regresses. If, from the philosophical perspective of foundationalism, we are trying to justify our belief in one proposition P on the basis of another E, we must ground our justification for believing E and that E confirms or makes probable P. Let us focus on this latter proposition. If we are not noninferentially justified in believing that E confirms P, we must find some proposition F from which to infer that E confirms P. And for us to

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be justified in believing that E confirms P on the basis of F, we must be justified in believing F and that F confirms that E confirms P. Again let us focus on this second proposition. Our justification for believing it either will be noninferential or will rest on our justifiably believing some other proposition G and that G confirms that F confirms that E confirms P. If we are to end the regress, if we are to ground our justification for believing that one proposition E confirms another P, it seems there must be some proposition of the form X confirms Y in which we have noninferentially justified belief. Put another way, every justified inference seems to presuppose a principle of inference that we are noninferentially justified in believing. For a foundationalist, the task of deciding which inferences described above are justified seems to reduce to the problem of deciding whether these inferences can be either (a) subsumed under principles of reasoning in which we have a noninferentially justified belief or (b) inferred from some other set of truths via noninferentially justified beliefs in some other principle of reasoning. And unless nondeductive reasoning can be ultimately reduced to deductive reasoning, it also seems that if a foundationalist is to allow justified nondeductive inference he must find at least some nondeductive principles of reasoning that he can claim to be noninferentially justified in believing. The view that a foundationalist must embrace noninferentially justified beliefs in nondeductive principles of evidence if he is to sanction nondeductive reasoning is not new, of course. While Russell is justifiably recognized for one of the clearest restatements of Hume's problem of induction, philosophers sometimes overlook the fact that Russell also offered a solution to the problem. The solution Russell offered was the statement of an inductive principle that he claimed was self-evident. Indeed, he was quite explicit in claiming that either one takes an inductive principle to be foundationally justified or one gives up on the possibility of allowing for inductively justified beliefs. More recently, the foundationalist epistemology of R. M. Chisholm reflects the awareness that, as a foundationalist seeking to avoid skepticism with respect to a conclusion reached nondeductively, he must come up with principles of evidence belief in which owes its justification to awareness of no other truths. And to answer the skeptic, Chisholm does just what one would expect from a defender of epistemological commonsensism. To bridge various epistemic gaps, he comes up with a series of

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appropriate epistemic principles. While Chisholm is not as explicit as Russell, I think it is clear that he is committed to the view that our justification for accepting these principles does not rest onjustifiably accepting any other truths. I am convinced that the following conditional is true: If we are to find philosophically satisfying justification for our commonplace beliefs about the past, the future, and the physical world, if we are to find justification that satisfies the conditions set forth in the principle of inferential justification, we must be noninferentially justified in believing at least some nondeductive principles of evidence. Are we justified in believing any nondeductive principles of evidence? Unfortunately, to answer this we need a prior answer to the question raised in chapter 2 concerning the analysis of epistemic probability. You will recall that the search for an adequate analysis of epistemic probability ended on a rather unsatisfactory note. While the concept of relative frequency might provide an adequate basis for a concept of probability, it did not seem possible to capture the concept of epistemic probability relevant to the justification of belief in terms of frequency. While I found dialectically attractive the view that epistemic probability is directly analogous to logical entailment and should be thought of as a sui generis internal relation between propositions, I had to admit that I am not comfortable with the claim that I am directly acquainted with any such relation. I was unable, however, to come up with any more plausible analysis of epistemic probability that would make the concept cognitively significant. With so little confidence that I have an adequate analysis of epistemic probability, then, I can hardly be too confident in claiming that I am noninferentially justified in believing principles that invoke the concept. Let us consider again the problem of memory, for it is here the problem seems so stark, the available solutions so limited. Noninferential knowledge of what epistemic principle will allow us to justifiably infer propositions about the past from what we know about present consciousness? In characterizing the move we seem to make, I suggested that when we seem to remember doing X we usually take it for granted that we did X. I did not try to analyze seeming to remember, but as one would expect I am inclined to analyze such states on the same model as the appearing analysis of sensation. The fact that we do move from what we seem to re-

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member to what has happened and the fact that it seems difficult to subsume this inference under some more general principle of inference (e.g., inductive reasoning) suggest that we implicitly accept some such sui generis epistemic principle as that the fact that I seem to remember X makes probable (other things being equal) X. And I am strongly inclined to the view that unless we are noninferentially justified in believing such a principle we have no (philosophically relevant) justification for believing propositions about the past. I am further convinced that, unless we are justified in believing propositions about the past, we have no justification for believing propositions about the future or propositions expressed by contingent subjunctive conditionals. And since I believe that propositions expressed by contingent subjunctive conditionals must be employed in the analysis of physical object propositions, I am strongly inclined to the view that, unless we are noninferentially justified in believing a sui generis epistemic principle of memory, we have no (philosophically relevant) justification for believing ordinary propositions about the physical world. But it is not at all clear to me that I am noninferentially justified in believing that my seeming to remember doing X makes probable my having done X. I have the uneasy suspicion I talked about in chapter 1 that we are simply programmed to believe certain things about the past given the relevant memory "cues." This suspicion, I again emphasize, is not one I claim to be justified (in the philosphically relevant sense) in holding-it is simply a suspicion I report having. And if it should turn out to be true, it may be that it is impossible to discover any philosophically relevant justification for believing propositions about the past and, hence, the physical world. Even if we have no philosophical justification for inferring propositions about the past from what we know about present memory experience, such inferences could be justified in one of the derivative senses of "justification" discussed earlier. It could be the case, for example, that beliefs about the past are produced by a "reliable mechanism," at least if "reliable" is to be defined statistically. Indeed, we all believe that the vast majority of beliefs about the past that result from the "mechanism" of memory arc true. None of this, however, has the slightest relevance for the philosopher interested in refuting philosophical skepticism. 1 I have focused on memory in part because the problem seems so

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clear-cut and in part because it is a problem that is logically prior to the others involved in finding justification for ordinary beliefs about the physical world. But similar dilemmas face us when we seek to formulate epistemic principles to rationally bridge the other gaps we cross in taking for granted what we do about the world around us. The inference to an underlying nomologically relevant condition to account for non accidental, nonuniversal connections between sensation and, indeed, the prior inference involved in rejecting long strings of connections between kinds of sensation as accidental, may rest on something like a principle of determinism modified to read as an epistemic principle: When A and B have been found associated in uninterrupted sequences, but when failures of association are also known, it is probable that there is some underlying structure, X, that together with A leads to B. The inductive inference necessary to get from these conclusions about the past and our awareness of present sensory information to the relevant subjunctive "predictions" may represent implicit acceptance of a principle such as the one Russell offered in The Problems of Philosophy: When a thing of a certain sort A has been found to be associated with a thing of a certain other sort B, and has never been found dissociated from a thing of the sort B, the greater the number of cases in which A and B have been associated, the greater is the probability that they will be associated in a fresh case in which one of them is known to be present; ... The greater the number of cases in which a thing of the sort A has been found associated with a thing of the sort B, the more probable it is (if no cases of failure of association are known) that A is always associated with B.2 About these principles I would say the same thing I said about an epistemic principle of memory. However much our behavior indicates implicit acceptance of some such principles, it is difficult to claim that we are noninferentially justified in accepting them. Again there is the possibility that our implicit acceptance of these principles simply reflects the fact that we have been evolutionarily "programmed" to react to certain stimuli with certain expectations (where, again, the program could be "reliable" in the philosophically irrelevant sense of usually producing true beliefs).

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You no doubt wonder why I would not let these suspicions lead me to abandon the foundationalist framework within which I raise epistemological questions. Since Quine's "Naturalistic Epistemology," it has been commonplace for a philosopher to reject a philosophical perspective if that perspective docs not enable him to answer the questions that interest him. But it is just this manifestation of the epistemological commonsensism against which I argued in chapter 2 that seems to me such a non sequitur. I cannot make the epistemological questions that interest me go away by refusing to raise them, by changing the subject. If the search for a philosophically relevant justification within a foundationalist epistemology inevitably leads to philosophical skepticism, then so be it. Some philosophers might argue that all the inferences discussed above can be subsumed under, and justified in terms of, reasoning to the best explanation. We take memory to be veridical, by and large, because that supposition best explains the fact that we have memory experiences in the first place. We posit an underlying structure causally responsible for the ncar universal connections we find between certain sensations because that is the easiest way to explain such connections. Even inductive inference might be viewed as a species of reasoning to the best explanation. J We assume that most A's are B's when most of the A's we have observed are B's because this is the most natural explanation of the fact that we have run across so few A's that are not-B's. I have argued elsewhere, however, that reasoning to the best explanation is not even taken by us to constitute a genuine alternative to inductive reasoning.4 Let me briefly summarize that argument. When one presents an argument to the best explanation in ordinary discourse, it often has the following form: 5 1. Q is the case. 2. If P were the case Q would be the case. Therefore (in all probability)

3. P is the case. To consider a very simple example, we might, upon coming across some footprints on a beach, employ the following argument in reasoning to the conclusion that a man walked on the beach recently.

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1. There are footprints on the beach. 2. If a man walked on the beach recently there would be such footprints. Therefore (in all probability) 3. A man walked on the beach recently. Now it goes without saying, I suppose, that if the inference from premises to conclusion in arguments having the form above is legitimate, the conditional employed in the premises must be other than material implication. The principle that if Q and (P materially implies Q) then in all probability P is as fallacious a nondeductive principle as its deductive counterpart. But even if the conditional is subjunctive, the inference above is hardly unproblematic. Consider the following argument: 1. There are footprints on the beach. 2. If a cow wearing shoes had walked on the beach recently, there would be such footprints. Therefore (in all probability) 3. A cow wearing shoes walked on the beach recently. This argument would certainly not strike us as a paradigm of legit imate reasoning, even though it has preceisely the same form as the first argument and true premises. Why is it that we have such different intuitions about these two arguments, even though they have the same form and true premises? The answer, I suggest, is that we accept the first argument because it is an enthymeme. We accept a crucial but unstated premise from which we can legitimately infer the conclusion. That premise is the obvious one: (2a) In the vast majority of known cases footprints are produced by men (not cows wearing shoes). But if (2a) is an essential part of the evidence from which we are willing to infer that a man walked on the beach recently, it seems clear that the so-called argument to the best explanation is really

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just an inductive argument whose form would be more perspicuously represented this way:

1. In all (or most) cases in which we have observed footprints on the beach there were men present just before the existence of such footprints. 2. Here is another case of footprints on the beach. Therefore (in all probability) 3. A man was present just before the existence of these footprints. There are, no doubt, circumstances in which I might reason to the presence of a cow wearing shoes walking on the beach. IfI lived in a bizarre community in which the people liked to put shoes on their cows and restricted access to the beaches to such animals, and I knew all this, I might well conclude from my observation of the footprints that those cows must have been walking the beach again. Here, of course, I am inferring the relevant inductive conclusion from my knowledge of the statistical frequency with which footprints were produced by cows in this area. Consideration of examples like these inclines me to the general conclusion that when we accept an "argument to the best explanation" we do so only because we implicitly accept premises that when made explicit reveal the reasoning to be inductive. Consequently, it seems to me more plausible to argue that reasoning to the best explanation can be understood in terms of inductive reasoning than vice versa. One might well argue at this point that the conception of reasoning to the best explanation I have been considering is too simplistic. Part of what reasoning to the best explanation involves is careful employment of criteria for choosing between the (always indefinitely large number of) alternative possible explanations. One might argue that the following more adequately represents the nature of reasoning to the best explanation:

1.Q 2. Of the set of available competing and incompatible hypotheses P1, P2, ... , Pn capable of explaining Q, P1 is the best explanation of Q.

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Therefore (in all probability)

3. Pl. To evaluate this suggestion we need to know, of course, what the criteria are for choosing the "best" explanation. (, Two of the most natural criteria to suggest are simplicity and comprehensiveness. Other things being equal, one ought to choose the simpler of two competing explanations. And other things being equal, one ought to choose the explanation that would explail: either more particular facts or more kinds of facts. It is important to emphasize that in the present context our concern is not whether it is true that for the most part simpler, more comprehensive explanations are correct. The crucial question for us is whether one can be noninferentially justified in believing (a) that the relevant phenomena have an explanation and (b) that the correct explanation is likely to be the simplest, most comprehensive one. If inductive reasoning were legitimate, one might have good inductive grounds for reaching the conclusion that, by and large, simpler, more comprehensive theories are more likely to be true. But the suggestion that concerns us at present is that reasoning to the best explanation constitutes an independent kind of reasoning, a kind that will bridge the problematic epistemic gaps involved in justifying beliefs about the physical world. It is very difficult to deny that even if it is true that the simplest, most comprehensive of competing explanations is usually the correct one, it is a contingent fact that this is so, a contingent fact that could be established only through experience (and thus by employing other nondeductive principles of reasoning). 7 And if this is true, it is hardly plausible to claim that all other nondeductive principles of reasoning are parasitic upon reasoning to the best explanation. Because so many philosophers have endorsed the legitimacy of appeals to simplicity, I should add to these remarks the observation that there is a sense in which I think it is plausible to employ a criterion of simplicity in choosing between alternative hypotheses. Suppose I am considering two incompatible theories Tl and T2 that, relative to my evidence, are equally likely to be true. Suppose, further, that after acquiring some additional evidence (let us call my new total body of evidence E) I find it necessary to add a hypothesis Hl to T2. Provided the epistemic probability of Tl and T2 relative

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to E remains the samc, and assuming that thc probability of H1 relativc to E is lcss than 1, it docs seem rcasonable to infcr that, relativc to E, T1 is morc likely to be true than the morc complex thcory (T2 and H1). Intuitively, T2 by itse[f ran thc samc risk of error as Tl, so with thc addition of another hypothcsis that might be false it runs a greater risk of crror than Tl. This usc of simplicity in making cpistemic dccisions is obviously not going to do thc morc comprehensivc work requircd by a principle of reasoning to thc best explanation of thc sort sketchcd abovc. Anothcr analogous approach to bridging the problematic cpistcmic gaps involvcd in knowledgc of thc physical world involvcs subsuming thc relcvant infcrcnccs undcr thc following nondcductive principle: If P makes probable Q, and not-Q, thcn probably not-Po The principle is simply thc nondcductivc countcrpart of modus tollens. Thus one might try to arguc that I can rely on thc veridicality of memory becausc I know that if what I sccmed to remcmber had not happencd, I probably would not scem to rcmcmber it. Sincc I do sccm to remcmber it, it probably happcncd. Again, I might arguc that thc ncar univcrsal correlation betwecn scnsations A and B probably had somc underlying causc, for if there wcrc no undcrlying causc, there probably would not havc been this correlation. And finally, induction itself could bc subsumcd under this more gcncral sort of rcasoning. If it wcrc not thc casc that most A's are B's, thcn in all probability I would havc run across a few A's that wcre not B's. I havc not, so it is reasonable to conclude that most A's arc B's. Now cvcn if this nondcductivc analoguc of modus tollens wcrc a principle wc could be noninfercntially justified in accepting, to employ it in bridging thc epistcmic gaps wc have discusscd, wc would have to bc cithcr infcrcntially or noninfcrcntially justified in bclieving the problematic conditionals: if what I sccm to rcmcmber having occurrcd did not occur, I probably would not havc seemcd to rcmcmber it; if thcre werc no undcrlying causc of thcse near univcrsal correlations between sensations, thcrc probably would not havc been such correlations; if it wcrc not truc that most A's arc B's I probably would have observed more A's that were not B's. If our justification for accepting thc conditionals is infcrential, thcn wc must find that justification in order to answer our cpistemic questions. And it seems no less difficult to make plausible the claim that we are noninJerentially justified in belicving thesc conditionals than it

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was to argue that we are noninferentially justified in believing the more straightforward epistemic principles of memory, determinism, and induction discussed earlier. Moreover, while it seems initially reasonable, I am not sure the nondeductive analogue of modus tollens represents a principle we would even accept (let alone take ourselves to be noninferentially justified in accepting). Consider just one example. Jones enters a lottery with a great many other people and is lucky enough to win. I reason as follows: if the lottery really was fair Jones would probably have lost. Since he did not lose, the lottery probably was not fair. The reasoning seems to employ the principle discussed above but does not strike us as remotely plausible, and I have not been able to formulate any revision of the relevant epistemic principle that would disallow this obviously illegitimate inference. I conclude then that there may be no plausible alternative to the view that to be justified in believing what we do about the physical world we must be noninferentially justified in believing epistemic principles of memory, determinism, and induction of the sort discussed earlier. And I observe again that it is very difficult to accept the conclusion that we have noninferentialjustification for believing such principles.

Conclusion Although I have ended with a discussion of epistemological matters, I wish to stress that I do not view the metaphysical analysis presented earlier as in any way secondary to these epistemological conclusions. I think it is a mistake to view the significance of metaphysical conclusions in terms of the role they can playas premises in arguments for or against skepticism. As I pointed out in chapter 1, the plausibility ofa metaphysical analysis does not depend on the ease with which its proponent can use it to withstand the skeptic's attack. I have argued that the analysis of physical objects I offered is plausible whalellcr one decides with respect to the epistemological questions discussed in this chapter, for I have argued that it can account perfectly well for the fact that we believe what we do given the inferences we explicitly or implicitly endorse. Note also that in the premises of my arguments for and against various analyses of the physical world and our relation to it I have nowhere presupposed that skepticism with respect to the physical world was false

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(or true). I did not presuppose knowledge of the physiological causes of sensation, for example, in arguing against versions of direct realism. My arguments rested, as philosophical arguments of this sort should, on claims about conceptual possibilities. On epistemological matters I have urged philosophers not .to let their views on the conditions required for philosophically relevant justification be molded by a desire to refute skepticism. I said earlier that while the traditional epistemologist may recognize that he is a creature among creatures, conditioned to respond in certain ways to certain stimuli, he wants something better. For those beliefs and expectations that unreflectively result from various stimuli he wants to find a justification, a justification that either is noninferential or will satisfy the conditions set forth by the principle of inferential justification. Wanting this escape, however, may not make it possible. The philosopher who takes traditional epistemological questions seriously may find that he is, after all, a prisoner of a world that finds no special need for its inhabitants to have rational beliefs and expectations.

Notes

CHAPTER 1 1. Descartes Illay not speak explicitly of beliefs' being hased on perception or sensation. III describing his view this way I alll not asserting (nor alll I denying) that he viewed beliefs about physical objects as conclusions involving conscious il~fi.'rCII(f from knowledge of something nonphysical. I am merely pointing out that ill sOllie SfllSf Descartes viewed beliefs about the physical world as prompted by sense perception, where perceptions arc the sorts of things that can occur in both veridical and non veridical experience. I shall say Illore about different sense of "basing" later in the book. 2. It is clear that Descartes intends to rest the demon argument on a mere possibility, less clear that he views the dream argument the same way. Still, he docs employ the crucial modal operator when he presents the dream argument in the Discollrse 011 A1cthod. Sec Descartes (1960, 24). 3. Hume (1888,212). 4. This interpretation of Descartes is not noncontroversial. I base it primarily on remarks he makes in the sixth meditation by way of distinguishing primary and secondary qualities. Sec Descartes (1960, 133-37). If Descartes did subscribe to representative realism, his concept of the relevant rclation of representation and his views about what docs the representing would require considerable exegesis. For discussion of the relation between Descartes's ideas (whether of sense or imagination) and what they are ideas of, see Lennon (1974), Yolton (1984), and a recent unpublished paper of Monte Cook's, "Descartes' Alleged Representationalism." 5. I usc "logically necessary condition" in the broadest sense. I include tautologically, analytically, and, if there arc any, synthetically necessary

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Notes to Pages 11-37

conditions. I do not, of course, include causally or nomologically necessary conditions. 6. See Chisholm (1976, chap. 4). 7. Moore (1959,6). 8. C. I. Lewis presents a clear, concise version of this argument in All Analysis of Kllowledge and VcJ/uatioll (1946, 140-43). 9. Hume (1888, 147). 10. This assertion may require explanation, since the positivists were famous for their rejection of metaphysics. I use the term "metaphysical analysis" to refer to meaning analyses of the sort discussed earlier, and in this sense the positivists obviously did otfer metaphysical analyses. Of course I do not claim that all (or even any) of the positivists would endorse my specific conception of meaning analysis. Some positivists seemed to think of analysis as consisting in the attempt to reduce one level of linguistic expression to a more fundamental or perspicuous level of linguistic expression, where this is not to be understood in terms of the discovery of different-level meaning rules in my sense. One might also object to the claim th:'t the positivists were fighting skepticism, but it is certainly tempting to construe verificationism as a commitment to understanding statements in a way that allows at least the possihility of answering the skeptic. To be more cautious, however, one should probably acknowledge that positivism was a diverse movement represented by philosophers with many different motives and concerns. In "Schlick and Skepticism" Richard Popkin discusses in some detail the connection between positivism and skepticism. 11. This seems to be A. J. Ayer's approach in Lall,l!lIage, Tntth alld Logic (1952, chaps. 7 and 8). 12. Again, Ayer seemed to make this suggestion in Lallgllage, Truth alld Logic (though he retracted it in the introduction to the second edition). 13. See Plantinga (1981). 14. Foley (1983). 15. Hume (1888, 187). 16. As will become evident later, I usc the term "inference" in a very broad sense. 17. These points were made by Carl Hempel in "The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning." 18. All kinds of passages suggest otherwise, but the exegetical question is severely complicated by Hume's love of hyperbole. CHAPTER 2

1. See Sosa (1974) and Chisholm (1977, chap. 6) for two plausible attempts to provide such an analysis.

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2. This question must be distinguished from the question, Can youjustify this belief (to me, in this context)? At this point I shall leave open the possibility that one might not be able to justify a belief to someone even though one is justified in holding the belief. Recognizing the distinction between being justified and justifying should not prevent us from looking at how people argue over justification for clues to what they take being justified to involve. 3. As I shall make clear, I do not mean to imply by using the expression "inferential justification" that having inferential justification entails the occurrence of some actual process of inference. 4. In answering this question I found helpful a discussion I had with Gilbert HarmJn in an American Philosophical Association symposium, 30 December 1976. Harman commented on my paper "Inferential Justification and Empiricism." An abstract of Harman's reply appears in the same issue as my paper, but for a detailed exposition and defense of his positive views on inferential justification one should turn to Harman (1973). 5. Sec, for example, Harman (1970) and Lehrer (1970). Lehrer has since repudiated the view he defended here. 6. Lehrer raises this question in his discussion of explanatory coherence theories in Kllowledge (1974, 1(1). 7. Note that P may be justified for S on the basis of E even if 5 is not justified in believing P because he possesses other relevant evidence. 8. A very crude theory of this sort might try to understand justified beliefs as those that are caused in part by the truth of that which is believed or by something that would usually result in belie[~ of the relevant sort's being true. The latter theory is a version of reliabilism, which I shall say more about later. 9. For an attack on the view that inferential justification requires a basing relation of the sort defended above, sec George Pappas's "Basing Relations." Pappas argues that for E to justify S in believing P it is enough that (1) E confirms P, (2) 5 believes E, (3) 5 is justified in believing E, (4) 5 takes himself to believe P as a result of believing E, (5) 5 is justified in taking himself to believe P as a result of believing E, and (6) 5 would not be justified in believing P if he were not justified in believing E. For a detailed defense of a causal "sustaining" requirement of what he calls personal (inferential) justification, see Audi (1983). 10. To say that 5's justification precludes the possibility of P's being false is not simply to say that it entails the truth of P. If it were, my belief in a necessary truth would be infallible no matter what the nature of my evidence was, even if, for example, such evidence consisted of the testimony of some authority. Intuitively, a belief justified in this way would not be infallible, and the reason is that it is not my justificatioll that guarantees for me the truth of the proposition. It may be that to adequately define the

198

Notes to Pages 54-77

relevant notion of justification's precluding error we need to develop a relevance logic. 11. Chisholm (1977, 22). 12. As discussed in Russell (1959, chap. 5). 13. This is intended to be a metaphor. 14. The most detailed defense of his philosophy of mind is by Bergmann (1964, 1967). 15. It is highly misleading to refer to this simply as a relation. For Bergmann's views on the meaning "relation" or nexus I must refer readers to the works cited above. 16. I said earlier, and will emphasize again below, that it is not merely acquaintance with the fact that P that justifies my belief that P. I must also be acquainted with my thought that P and the fact that the thought corresponds to the fact. Because it is so cumbersome to refer to all three acts of acquaintance in characterizing noninferential justification, I will sometimes allow myself the liberty of speaking as if it were a single act of acquaintance that yields noninferential justification. 17. Ja'~gwon Kim discusses the general notion of superveniCllce in "Supervenience and Nomological Incommensurables" and "Causality, Identity, and Supervenience in the Mind-Body Problem." The possible application of this concept to a defense of versions of foundationalism is discussed by Ernest Sosa in "The Foundations ofFoundationalism" and by James Van Cleve in "Epistemic SupervClliCllce and the Circle of Belief." 18. Russell (1956) raised a similar argument against attempts to substitute resemblance for universals. 19. I shall return to this question in chapter 7. CHAPTER 3 1. In Perception, Commol! Swse, and SciCllce James Cornman presents a similar, though more sophisticated, nonepistemic definition of direct realism. Given Cornman's analysis, the direct realist holds that "It is false that S would perceive p at t only if at t he were to experience something x which is different from p, which neither is a constituent of p nor has p as a constituent, and which S experiences at t because of the stimulation of a sense organ of S by p" (where p is a physical object) (1975, 10). As will become clear, given Cornman's analysis of direct realism I would be a direct realist. As Cornman also makes clear in the conclusion of his book, being a direct realist in this sense is perfectly compatible with the epistemological conclusions I shall be defending. 2. "Reasons for believing" can also refer to practical reasons-for example, prudential reasons-for believing, where believing is treated as an action like any other.

Notes to Pages 77-118

199

3. Quinton (1965, 525). 4. In Perceptual Knowledge Georges Dicker (1980, 163) seems to suggest that in veridical experience appearing is a relation between an object and a perceiver, whereas in non veridical experience it presumably is not. Such a view is, I think, incompatible with all the arguments I shall be presenting in support of the conclusion that there is a common element to veridical and nonveridical experience. I think this confusion affects Dicker's account of our perceptual relation to physical objects, an account with which I am in many ways sympathetic. 5. Putnam (1981, chap. 1). 6. Price (1950, 36-37). 7. Sec, for example, Austin (1968, chap. 4) and Quinton (1965, 501). 8. See, for example, Sellars, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind." 9. To make this possibility look plausible, one can appeal to situations in which one momentarily "forgets" about one's pain when concentrating on something else. 10. Chisholm (1957, 50-53) first introduces the use of "appears" upon which I shall be relying. He calls it the noncomparative use of "appears." 11. The question could be construed as asking whether we could be appeared to in a certain way without being acquainted with the fact that we arc being appeared to in that way. This question is much more difficult to answer, and I shall return to it in a moment. 12. Sec Jackson (1977, 102-3). 13. If ways of being appeared to can be complex, then there is no reason to deny that a complex way of being appeared to can be broken down into "constituent" ways of being appeared to. 14. In correspondence. 15. Jackson (1975). 16. The solution offered in broad outline by Tye (1975) and developed in some detail by Sellars (1975). For a criticism of Sellars's position that emphasizes its connection with Sellars's other metaphysical views, see Vinci (1981). CHAPTER 4 1. Fumerton (1976b). 2. Anscombe, for example, argues this in "Causality and Determination." 3. The relevance of this is stressed (overstressed) by proponents of socalled activity theories of causation. See, for example, von Wright (1975). 4. Stevenson (1944, 111-15). 5. Hume (1888, 212).

200

Notes to Pages 120-57

6. See Berkeley (1954, 60). 7. Berkeley (1954, 60). This is also the general approach endorsed by Bertrand Russell in Human Kllowle~'<.e: Its 5wpe alld Limits. See especially part 3, chap. 7. 8. Kripke gives this example in "Naming and Necessity." 9. Some would take (b) to be the task of discovering the essential properties of these referents. 10. In "Kripke on Proper Names" B. A. Brody makes the same point in rejecting an argument Kripke appears to give against Russell's theory of ordinary names.

CHAPTER 5 1. Berkeley (1954, 100). 2. Mill (1889, 233). 3. Mill (1889, 235). 4. I realize I appear to be referring to nonexistent states of affairs here after promising in chapter 1 that I would have no truck with such exotic entities. It is, however, merely appearance, a convenientja(Cl/l de parler. Talk of one nonoccurrent state of affairs' being nomologically sufficient for another can be reduced to talk of one proposition or thought's being nomologically sufficient for another where, again, to say that the proposition Pis nomologically sufficient for Q is to say that there is a law L such that (P and L) entails Q (when P alone does not). In subsequent discussion I shall also find it convenient to refer to linguistic items (such as the antecedent of a subjunctive conditional) as being nomologically sufficient or necessary for other linguistic items. To say of one linguistic item "P" that it is nomologically sufficient for another "Q" is to say that the proposition the former expresses is nomologically sufficient for the proposition the latter expresses. 5. Lewis (1946, 240). 6. This is, I believe, Sellar's diagnosis of the failure of phenomenalism in "Phenomenalism." See, for example, p. 81.

CHAPTER 6 1. In Perceptual Know/edRe, Dicker suggests a similar way of escaping the argument from perceptual relativity by arguing that physical object statements entail experiential statements only when conjoined with other physical object statements. Neither Firth's nor Dicker's view is plausible, I think, for it seems to me false that a physical object proposition never has meaning in isolation. In any event, both Firth's and Dicker's views are

Notes to Pages 157-86

201

vulnerable to the arguments I shall raise later against analytical phenomenalism. 2. Donnellan would argue that on one interpretation of "Tom's brother" the two utterances would make precisely the same assertion. See Donnellan (1966). 3. Wettstein presents a similar argument in attacking Russell's conception of the meaning of ordinary demonstratives in "Demonstrative Reference and Definite Descriptions." 4. Lewis (1948). 5. In Perceptual Kllou'le~f!e, Dicker argues that it is not implausible to claim that a sufficient number of sensory experiences would entail the truth of a physical object proposition. I hold that the possibility of constant, consistent hallucination on the part of an individual contradicts this claim. It should also be noted, however, that, even if the concept of a physical world were not "public" in the sense discussed here, it is hard to see how any finite number of sensations an individual could have would guarantee the truth of a physical object proposition. In my view, no finite number of observed correlations ever entails a lawful connection between phenomena, and consequently it never entails the subjunctive conditionals implied by such a lawful connection. Subjunctive conditionals asserting connections between my sensations are never entailed by the proposition that in the past certain sensations have :;lways been correlated. 6. John Foster has actually defended a deistic view of "underlying reality" in The Case j(Jr Idealism (1982, chap. 17). 7. See Mackie (1969). CHAPTER 7 1. In "Givcnness and Explanatory Coherence," Wilfred Sellars discusses the epistemic status of, among other things, a principle of memory similar to the one with which we are at present concerned. As a coherentist, Sellars is not quite so reluctant to suggest that the principle gets support from the fact that it sanctions our beliefs about the past, while at the same time our beliefs about the past get support from the principle. Still, as I understand him he is sensitive to the charge of circularity (perhaps the circle is too small) and seeks to find justification for accepting an epistemic memory principle (together with other epistemic principles) in the alleged fact that acceptance of such principles is a necessary condition for our being able to conceive of ourselves as "effective agents" with the capacity to control our environment. In "Epistemic Indolence" Richard Foley and I argue that one must keep quite distinct the concepts of epistemic and practical rationality (Fumerton and Foley 1982). It seems to me that Sellars is, in effect, offering practical reasons for accepting epistemic principles, and as such I am not

202

Notes to Pages 187-91

particularly concerned to dispute them. I would insist, however, that such practical considerations are as irrelevant as reliable mechanisms to the epistemic rationality of belief in epistemic principles. 2. Russell (1959, 66-67). 3. See Harman (1965). 4. Fumerton (1980). 5. This is the argument form that Peirce called hypothesis or abduction. See Peirce (1938, 2:623 and 2:625). 6. For a discussion of this issue see Thagard (1978). 7. Grover Maxwell emphasizes this point in discussing simplicity as a criterion of truth. See Maxwell (1975, 159-60).

Bibliography

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Index

Acquaintance, 54, 57-60, 74-75, 198 n. 16 Addis, Laird, 60 Adverbial theory. Scc Appearing theory Analysis, 7-23; a priori or a posteriori, 8, 12, 14, 22-23; different-level meaning rules, 16-23; as distinct from lexicography, 14-18; as egocentric, 14-15; ontological analysis, 9-10; the paradox of, 16-17; vagueness and open texture, 21-22 Analytic vs. synthetic necessary connection, 20-21, 62-64 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 199 n. 2 Appearing theory, 93-102; comparative use of "appears," 8687; epistemic use of "appears," 86; noncomparative use of "appears," 93-102; relational appearing theory, 78 Audi, Robert, 197 n. 9 Austin, ). L., 76, 199 n. 7 Ayer, A.)., 75,133, 196nn. 11, 12

Basing, 51-52 Bergmann, Gustav, 55-57, 75, 198 nn. 14, 15 Berkeley, George, 6, 25, 75, 91, 117, 120-21, 132; mentioned, 88, 116, 124, 200 nn. 6, 7, 1 Brody, B. A., 200 n. 10 Butchvarov, Panayot, 97-99 Causal theories of justification, 50, 197 n. 8. See also Reliabilism Causal theory of perception, 5, 76, 107-16 Causal theory of physical objects, 107-11, 116-30, 145-50, 16373 Causation, the analysis of, 111-13 Chisholm, Roderick M., 25, 26, 27,54,65,86,138-39, 141-43, 153, 158, 184-85, 196 nn. 6, 1, 198 n. 11, 199 n. 10 Coherence theory of justification, 42-47; explanatory coherence, 44-45 Coherence theory of truth, 43

210

Index

Commonsensism, 24-32 Confirmation, 65-71, 183-93 Cook, Monte, 195 n. 4 Cornman, James, 198 n. 1 Counterfactual conditionals. See Subjunctive conditionals De re modality, 126-27 Descartes, Rene, 1-5, 79, 82, 133, 159, 195 n. 4; mentioned, 25, 88 Dicker, Georges, 199 n. 4, 200 n. 1, 201 n. 5 Direct realism. See Naive realism Dispositional properties, 148-50 Donnellan, Keith, 201 n. 2 Epistemic conservatism, 27-28 Epistemological commonsensism. See Commonsensism Evidence. See Justification Evolution and justification, 29-30 Facts, 8-9, 48, 55, 57-60 Fales, Evan, 115 Firth, Roderick, 157, 200 n. Foley, Richard, 27-28, 45, 196 n. 14, 201 n. 1 Foster, John, 201 n. 6 Foundationalism: definition of, 4142 Gettier, Edmund, 23 Given, the. See Acquaintance Goldman, Alvin, 68-70 Hallucination, argument from its possibility, 78-87, 159-60 Harman, Gilbert, 197 nn. 4, 5, 202 n. 3

Hempel, Carl, 44, 196 n. 17 Hume, David, 4, 17, 30, 33-34, 118, 119, 132, 134, 195 n. 3, 196 nn. 9, 15, 18, 199 n. 5;

mentioned, 12, 13, 83, 102, 117,124,184 Idealism, 129-30 Incorrigible belief." 53 Inductive reasoning, 49, 118-19, 134, 182, 184, 187, 188, 191-92 Infallible beliefs, 53-54, 59-62, 197-98 n. 10 Internal relations, 63-64 Jackson, Frank, 100-101, 199 n. 12 Justification, 38-71, 175-93; a priori / a posteriori, 62-64; for belief in the physical world, 17593; coherence theory, 42-47; explanatory coherence theory, 44-45; inferential justification, 38-41, 65-71; noninferential justification, 41-65; principle of inferential justification, 40-41, 183-84 Kim, Jaegwon, 198 n. 17 Knowledge, 37-38 Kripke, Saul, 121, 122, 123, 200 n. 8 Lehrer, Keith, 46-47, 197 1111. 5, 6 Lennon, Thomas, 195 n. 4 Lewis, C. I., 104, 133, 142, 154, 157-58, 170-71, 196 n. 8, 200 n. 5 Locke, John, 152 Lottery paradox, 45-47 Mackie, J. L., 201 n. 7 Maxwell, Grover, 202 n. 7 Memory, 119, 179-80, 185-87, 188 Mill, John Stuart, 75, 132-33, 16970, 200 nil. 2, 3 Moore, G. E., 13, 14-15, 196 n. 7

Index Naive realism, 73-106; definitions of, 73-78, 198 n. 1 Necessary truth, 62-65 Nomological sufficiency, 52, 83, 91,111-12, 136-37,200 n. 4 Normal conditions, 21-22, 14344, 150-66 Pappas, George, 197 n. 9 Peirce, C. S., 202 n. 5 Perception: terminological stipulations, 102-3. Sec also Causal theory of perception Perceptual relativity and the analysis of physical objects, 141-50. See also Normal conditions Phenomenalism, 131-44, 151-63, 169-73 Plantinga, Alvin, 196 n. 13 Pollock, John, 46-47 Popkin, Richard, 196 n. 10 Positivism, 25-26, 32, 116-17, 196 n. 10 Price, H. H., 81, S3, 199 n. 6 Probability. Sec Confirmation Propositions: as candidates for the objects of analysis, 10-14. See also Thoughts Putnam, Hilary, 80-81, 199 n. 5 Quine, Willard, 28, 44, 188 Quinton, Anthony, 77-78, 199 n. 3 Radical empiricism, 32-34, 11618 Reasoning to the best explanation, 188-93 Reference fixing, 109, 121-29, 155-56

211

Rcliabilism, 68-70 Representative realism, 5-6, 1089, 118-21, 167, 177 Russell, Bertrand, 54, 75, 84, 121, 184,187,198 nn. 12, 18,200 n. 7, 201 n. 3, 202 n. 2 Self, 56, 102 Sellars, Wilfred, 199 nn. 8, 16, 200 n. 6, 201 n. 1 Sense data, 75-76, 87-93, 96-97 Sosa, Ernest, 196 n. 1, 198 n. 17 States of affairs, 10-14, 55-56, 200 n.4 Stevenson, C. L., 199 n. 4 Subjunctive conditionals, 130, 135-41 Supervenience, 58-59 Synthetic necessary connections, 20-21, 63 Thagard, Paul, 202 n. 6 Thoughts, 55-57 Truth, 55-65; correspondence, 5557; necessary truth, 62-65 Tye, Michael, 199 n. 16 Van Cleve, James, 198 n. 17 Van Inwagen, Peter, 99 Verificationism, 32-34, 116-17, 182, 196 n. 10 Vinci, Thomas, 199 n. 16 Von Wright, G. H., 199 n. 3 Wettstein, Howard, 201 n. 3 Wittgenstein, 24, 123 Yolton, 195 n. 4