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I’ve shared Copy of Ph122 essay 2 q. 4, draft 3 |
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Sorry, this is the latest edition
Hannah M. Mecaskey
Philosophy 122-Theory of Knowledge
Prof. Barry Stroud
Essay 2, Question 4: Conception the Key to Perceptual Experience of the External World
27 October 2011
Q.4. Could you see that it looks to you as if there is a tomato on a plate before you if you did not understand what a tomato, or a plate, is? If so, how? Could you understand what a tomato, or a plate, is if there were no possible circumstances in which you could correctly recognize in your perceptual experience that a tomato, or a plate, is actually present?
The traditional philosophical problem of the external world as construed by Descartes suggests that individuals have the capacity to dream up, or cognitively entertain, a mind-based reality which in no way corresponds to, or even depends on, an external world. Referring to a problem of an “external” world, we are discussing whether or not one can be sure of a reality, of a world, which has existence apart from one’s mind. In this case, “external world” refers to a mind-independent sphere of sustained, objectual existence. Such a theory proposes that one would be able to understand what a tomato and a plate were without having perceptual experience of such items. This Cartesian theory presents a picture of the world in which at the very least, the perceptual capacities of the mind undergo experiences that do not necessarily demonstrate the existence of the external world. In this dualistic frame of mind, Descartes would likely claim that one had no way of verifying what a plate or tomato is apart from the mental concept. However, he does not seem to question human capability of entertaining such concepts as “plate” and “tomato” without actual experience of such thing in the external world.
Thus, one might infer from one’s perceptual experience that there is a tomato on a plate before me, but this Cartesian kind of conceptualization assumes merely a mental existence of concepts without their application in the world. While Stroud has admitted that there are no verifiable proofs against the Cartesian skepticism of solipsism, Stroud suggests that a way of answering this philosophical doubt in a way more like how humans actually experience the world, through a composite unit of mind/ body rather than as subjective minds ruling bodies. Stroud’s overturning of Cartesian doubt rides upon his definition as a concept which is some idea applied through perceptual experience to an object in the world. While Cartesian skepticism concerning the reach of perceptual experience may allow one to have thoughts of concrete things without those ideas being rooted in a world beyond the self, Stroud contests that such a notion of “conceptualization” defies the way human beings normatively apply concepts. Instead, Stroud attempts to debunk this restriction of knowledge to an activity of the mind devoid of sensory input because of the way in which the human mind seems to derive concepts from perceptual experience.
In order to prove that an individual would not even be able to conceive the thought “it looks to me as if there is a tomato on a plate” without the perceptual experience of tomatoes and plates, Stroud appeals to the conceptual capacities of the human mind.[1] Stroud notes that human beings seem to accept that “we an find by perception reasons to believe things about what the world is like.”[2] This indicates that human beings seem to accept the notion of concepts as “predicates of possible judgements,”[3] wherein “to possess and understand a concept is to have a capacity to employ that concept in the making of judgments.”[4] So it would seem from Stroud’s perspective, to speak of perceptual knowledge concerning tomatoes and plates, one would have to be able to apply a concept to a judgement about a thing in the world, stepping beyond the constraints of the Cartesian use of the notion of a concept.
What does Stroud’s definition of a “concept” bring to bear on Cartesian restriction of perceptual experience, concerning the application of concepts in situations where one could not possibly recognize the presence of a plate or tomato within ones visual experience? Stroud himself raises the question, in response to Cartesian skepticism concerning perceptual knowledge, whether one could have purely sensory knowledge without knowing anything about the external world.[5] Arguing that the capacity to think is contingent upon the possibility of applying concepts through a process of discrimination to objects in the external world, Stroud argues, a different understanding of perceptual knowledge than contained within Cartesian skepticism.[6] While the skeptical view permits that thoughts involving concepts and judgments about truth or falsities in the external world could be wrong, Stroud argues that this is not at all possible. According to Stroud, if one cannot perceive objects in a mind independent world and make judgements about them, one has no conceptual content for judgement, or skepticism at all. In order for one to be able to say “it looks to me as if there is a tomato on a plate,” Stroud would claim that one must be able to know objects through perceptual experience, in order to rightly apply concepts to such items in one’s experience.
Therefore from Stroud’s perspective, it is not possible for one to say that “it looks to me as if there is a tomato on a plate”, if one is not capable of conceiving of a tomato or a plate as determinate objects in the world met via perceptual experience. Stroud says to perceive “that such-and-such is so” or at least that it seems to one to be so, requires “‘propositional’ perception.”[7] Such propositional perception allows one to distinguish one thing from another, which involves a knowledge of things external to our minds in a world we take to be true, concerning objects in that world we also take to be true. For Stroud, “if a person’s purely perceptual knowledge did not extend to anything that is, or would be so independently of it’s being perceived,” such a limited capacity of perception would prevent such a person from discriminating between objects of their perception, since these concepts are not within the capacity of this person’s determinate perception.[8] Such a restriction limits the reach of perceptual knowledge.
If a person is not capable of saying that it looks to them as if there is a tomato on a plate, Stroud would say that such a person is not capable of propositional perception, but merely objectual (at best). Saying “it looks to me as if such-and-such is on so-and-so” is a judgment of propositional perception, rather than one of objectual perception, which is merely taking that something is so in the world.[9] Since objectual seeing does not require a belief about what one sees, but is merely the acceptance of an object given to one through visual perception as existing, seeing that it looks to as if there is a tomato on a plate requires propositional perception of the subject perceiving. Yet this kind of propositional perception is fundamentally based on objectual perception, since the latter for Stroud is fundamental for thought.[10] A belief that perceptual knowledge gives one a kind of experiential access to the external world is necessary in order to establish objectual perception at all, because objects encountered in objectual perception are the foundations of concepts by which one expresses thoughts and forms judgments.
Stroud argues further, that “if the concepts expressed by those predicates [predicates linguistically founded upon objects experienced via objectual perception] were needed for seeing the objects in the first place, there would be no way to get started.”[11] By this, Stroud indicates that if there were no possible circumstances in which one could correctly recognize actual presence of objects in ones own perceptual experience, such as a tomato or a plate, one would not be capable of having concepts of plate or tomato. Establishing perceptual knowledge as the precondition for having thoughts, Stroud’s overcoming approach to the problem of the external world draws its force from his analysis of conceptualization. The argument Stroud makes to overthrow the restricted view of perceptual knowledge as internal to the mind, which is founded upon the idea that concepts are developed through first encounter with objects in world via objectual perception, and then the forming if beliefs or ideas about these objectual perceptions, which allows one to have a concept and apply it to things in the world.
Thus according to the Cartesian skepticism concerning perceptual experience of the external world, in the context of a mind-body dualism where the mind is the location of the subject, one is only capable of understanding such mental concepts as “plate” or “tomato” apart from the perceptual experience of these things. In this restricted view of perception, one must know these concepts apart from objects in an external world, because perceptual experience is not sufficient to verify the existence of an external world. Since perceptual experience gives merely sense-data which must be mediated to the mind by inference, the possibility of doubting one’s perceptual experience is great. Thus, one could say “it looks to me as if there is a tomato on a plate” only insofar as the ideas of tomato and plate were purely mental, only capable of being inferred onto experience obtained through perception.
Stroud’s objection to this idea is chiefly that human beings understand conceptualization to be the process of applying an idea in the mind to an object in an external world. According to Stroud then, one could only see that “it looks to me as if there is a tomato on a plate” only if one were able to know what such things were through propositional perception, involving the application of the concepts to objects in a mind-independent world. Stroud’s reexamination of the skeptical use of concepts attempts to describe a more plausible, more realistic process of human understanding as involving the senses, which is a direct connection between perceptual experience and human knowledge, such that seeing objectually that a tomato is on a plate could lead one to conclude that a tomato is on a plate.





