Peikoff - Sense Perception And Volition - Sensory Qualities As Real Flashcards
(30 cards)
Now let us consider a further issue relating to SENSORY FORM and to the VALIDITY of the senses:
THE METAPHYSICAL STATUS OF SENSORY QUALITIES.
Since the objects we perceive have a nature independent of us, it must be possible to distinguish between …?
FORM and OBJECT.
==> Between the aspects of the perceived world that derive from our FORM of perception (such as colors, sounds, smells) and the aspects that belong to metaphysical reality itself, APART from us.
What then is the status of the FORMAL aspects?
If they are not “in the object,” it is often asked, does it follow that they are merely “in the mind” and therefore subjective and unreal?
If so, many philosophers have concluded, the senses must be condemned as DECEIVERS.
==> Because the world of colored, sounding, odoriferous objects they reveal is UTTERLY UNLIKE ACTUAL REALITY.
This is the problem, a commonplace in introductory philosophy classes, of the so-called “two tables”:
The table of daily life, which is brown, rectangular, solid, and motionless.
The table of science, which, it is said, is largely empty space, inhabited by some colorless, racing particles and/or charges, rays, waves, or whatnot.
AR’s answer is:
We CAN distinguish FORM from OBJECT, but this does NOT imply the subjectivity of form or the invalidity of the senses.
The task of identifying the nature of physical objects AS THEY ARE APART FROM MAN’S FORM OF PERCEPTION does NOT belong to philosophy, but …?
TO PHYSICS.
==> There is no philosophic method of discovering the fundamental attributes of matter.
==> There is only the scientist’s method of specialized observation, experimentation, and inductive inference.
WHATEVER such attributes turn out to be, however, …?
They have NO PHILOSOPHIC SIGNIFICANCE, neither in regard to metaphysics nor to epistemology.
***Let us see why, by supposing for a moment that physics one day reaches its culmination and attains omniscience about matter.
At that point, scientists know the ultimate ingredients of the universe, the irreducible building blocks (let us call them “puffs of meta-energy” - a deliberately undefined term).
At this stage of cognition, the material world as men perceive it, the world of 3-dimensional objects possessing color, texture, size, and shape is not a primary, but MERELY AN EFFECT, an effect of various combinations of puffs acting on men’s means of perception.
What would this sort of discovery prove philosophically?
NOTHING.
If everything is made of meta-energy puffs, then so are human beings and their parts, INCLUDING THEIR SENSE ORGANS, NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND BRAIN.
==> The process of sense perception, by this account, would involve a certain relationship among the puffs.
==> It would consist of an interaction between those that comprise external entities and those that comprise the perceptual apparatus and brain of human beings.
==> The RESULT OF THIS INTERACTION would be the material world AS WE PERCEIVE IT, with all its objects and their qualities, from men to mosquitoes to stars to feathers.
Even under the present hypothesis, such objects and qualities would NOT be products of consciousness:
Their existence would be a METAPHYSICALLY GIVEN FACT.
==> It would be a consequence of certain puff-interactions that is OUTSIDE OF MAN’S POWER TO CREATE OR DESTROY.
==> The things we perceive, in this theory, would NOT BE PRIMARIES, but they would nevertheless be unimpeachably REAL.
A thing may NOT be condemned as UNREAL on the grounds that …?
It is “only and EFFECT”, which can be given a deeper explanation.
==> One does NOT subvert the reality of something by explaining it.
==> One does NOT make objects or qualities subjective by identifying the CAUSES THAT UNDERLIE THEM.
==> One does NOT detach the material world as we perceive it from reality when one shows that certain elements in reality produced it.
On the contrary:
If an existent is an effect of the puffs in certain combinations, by that very fact …?
It must be REAL ==> A real product of the ingredients that make up reality.
==> Consciousness did NOT CREATE the ingredients, in the present hypothesis, or the necessity of their interaction, or the result:
==> The solid, 3D objects we perceive.
If the elements of reality themselves combine INEVITABLY to produce such objects, then these objects …?
Have an IMPREGNABLE METAPHYSICAL FOUNDATION.
==> By the nature of their genesis, they are inherent in and expressive of the essence of existence.
Such objects, moreover, would have to be discovered by anyone who wished to know the full nature of the universe:
If somehow, like the fictitious atoms, a man were able to grasp the puffs DIRECTLY, he would still have to discover the fact that among their attributes is the potentiality, when appropriately combined, of generating a world of solid objects, with the qualities of color, texture, size, shape, and the rest.
==> He who knew the puffs but not this potentiality would not know an aspect of reality that we already do know.
The dominant tradition among philosophers has defined only 2 possibilities in regard to sensory qualities:
- “In the object” ==> INDEPENDENT OF MAN’S MEANS OF PERCEPTION.
- “In the mind” ==> SUBJECTIVE AND/OR UNREAL.
AR regards this alternative as defective.
A quality that derives from an INTERACTION between EXTERNAL OBJECTS and MAN’S PERCEPTUAL APPARATUS BELONGS TO NEITHER CATEGORY.
Such quality - eg, color - is not a dream or hallucination …
It is not “in the mind” APART from the object ==> IT IS MAN’S FORM OF GRASPING THE OBJECT.
It is not “in the object” APART from man ==> IT IS MAN’S FORM OF GRASPING THE OBJECT.
***By definition A FORM of perception cannot be forced into either category.
Since it is the product of an INTERACTION (in Plato’s terms, of a “marriage”) between 2 ENTITIES …
OBJECT and APPARATUS ==> It cannot be identified exclusively with either.
==> Such products introduce a 3rd alternative.
==> They are not object alone or perceiver alone ==> BUT OBJECT-AS-PERCEIVED.
In a deeper sense, however, such products …?
ARE “in the object”.
==> They are so, not as primaries independent of man’s sense organs, but as inexorable EFFECTS of primaries.
==> Consciousness is a faculty of awareness ==> It does NOT CREATE ITS CONTENT OR EVEN THE SENSORY FORMS IN WHICH IT IS AWARE OF THAT CONTENT.
==> Those forms in any instance are determined by the perceiver’s PHYSICAL ENDOWMENT interacting with external entities in accordance with causal law.
The SOURCE of sensory form is thus NOT consciousness, but …?
Existential fact INDEPENDENT of consciousness.
==> The source is the metaphysical nature of reality itself.
==> EVERYTHING WE PERCEIVE, INCLUDING THOSE QUALITIES THAT DEPEND ON MAN’S PHYSICAL ORGANS, IS “OUT THERE”.
Those who condemn the senses as deceptive on the grounds that sense qualities are MERELY EFFECTS on men …?
ARE GUILTY OF REWRITING REALITY.
Their viewpoint amounts to an ultimatum delivered to the universe:
“I demand that the senses give me NOT EFFECTS, but irreducible primaries. That is how I would have created reality.”
==> As in all cases of this fallacy, such as demand ignores the fact that what is metaphysically given is an absolute.
Perception is NECESSARILY A …?
PROCESS OF INTERACTION.
==> There is no way to perceive an object that does NOT SOMEHOW IMPINGE ON ONE’S BODY.
==> Sense qualities, therefore, MUST BE EFFECTS.
==> To reject the senses for this reason is to reject them for existing.
==> While yearning for a fantasy form of perception that IN LOGIC IS NOT EVEN THINKABLE.
Those who condemn the senses on the grounds that sense qualities “ARE DIFFERENT FROM” the primaries that cause them (the “two tables” notion) are guilty of the same fallacy:
They, too, demand that the primaries BE GIVEN TO MAN “PURE” ==> IN NO SENSORY FORM.
==> The view of perception that underlies this kind of demand is the “mirror theory”.
The mirror theory holds that …?
Consciousness acts, or should act, as a luminous mirror (or diaphanous substance), reproducing external entities faithfully in its own inner world, untainted by any contribution from its organs of perception.
==> This represents an attempt to rewrite the nature of consciousness.
