The Puzzle of Experience

The Puzzle of

Experience J. J.

VALBERG

CLARENDON PRESS· OXFORD

Oxford University Press, Walton Screet, Oxford OX2 Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

6DP

Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press, New York ©J.J. Valberg 1992 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress C ataloging in Publication Data Valberg,J.J. The puzzle of experience / J.J. Valberg. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index 1. Experienee. I. Title. BJ05.E9V351992 128'.4-<1c20 92-13570 ISBN 0-19-824291-3 Typeset by Cambridge Composing (UK) Lld Printed in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford & King's Lynn

Preface and Acknowledgements This book is all about a single puzzle. The puzzle first occurred to me about eighteen years ago. At the time, I discussed it in some lectures on perception, and tried more than once to write a paper about it, but the results were unsatisfactory. The problem was not so much the failure to solve the puzzle as the inability to command a clear view of its elements. Over the years, however, the puzzle remained alive in my reflections and, in addition to gathering in its wake a lot of argumentation, it came to assume for me a place in a wider philosophical picture relating to the topic of 'the self'. Thus, although I did not arrive at a solution to the puzzle, I began to feel more confident of gaining some insight into its source and nature. This encouraged me once more to attempt some lectures on the subject, which I did in the winter term of 1988 at the University of London. The present book is an outgrowth of those lectures. In the book, attention is focused mainly on the puzzle and the issues immediately surrounding it. The 'wider philosophical picture' to which I just alluded (and which I hope to spell out in another book) surfaces now and again, but only in the form of hints. I hope I have managed to give credit in the text and footnotes to the philosophers who have influenced my thinking on the topics discussed. In terms of direct personal input, I would like to thank Malcolm Budd and Simon Evnine for their criticisms of the first draft of the manuscript, to 10 Wolff for comments on a late draft of Chapters 1 and 2, and to the students at my lectures who openly resisted what was being presented to them. I would also like to thank Ted Honderich for some timely encouragement, and Melanie Brewer for help in proof-reading. J.V. London, 1991

Contents Part One: The Puzzle

1. Reasoning about our Experience

2. Being Open to our Experience 3. The Explanation of the Puzzle

3 21 41

Part Two: Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

The Object of Experience Experience and Continuity Two Conceptions of Experience Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning: Strawson on Hume and Wittgenstein

69 103 120 153 168

9. Conclusion: The Puzzle of Experience and Everyday Puzzlement

197

Bibliography of Works Cited

219

Index

223

Part One

The Puzzle

1

Reasoning about our Experience 1.1. The puzzle we shall be discussing in this book is a puzzle about the object of experience-or, perhaps we should say, about the object of visual experience, since that is what we shall exclusively consider. The puzzle takes the form of a conflict, or antinomy. Roughly, there are two ways we can reflect on our experience. We can reason about our experience, or we can be (as I shall say) open to it-that is, to how things are within our experience. If we follow a certain line of reasoning about our experience, we are led to the conclusion that the object of experience is not part of the world, an external object. However, if we are open to our experience, all we find is the world. So, if we reflect in the right ways, we get pulled first in one direction and then another. This, very simply, is the puzzle. And, indeed, it is a simple puzzle. We shall call the reasoning which enters into the puzzle, the reasoning whose conclusion is one half of the antinomy, 'the problematic reasoning'. In the present chapter we shall set out the problematic reasoning. In the next chapter we shall complete the puzzle by presenting the other half of the antinomy. In Chapter 3, we shall attempt to explain the puzzle, that is, to make clear what it is about our situation that gives rise to the antinomy. The rest of the book, except for the concluding chapter, will consider different ways in which we might try to escape from the antinomy; different ways, that is, of solving the puzzle. It always helps to think in terms of a specific case. Consider the book lying on the table in front of me. The problematic reasoning purports to show that the book is not, nor could be, the object of my experience. More generally, it purports to show that no external

4

The Puzzle

object, no part of the world, could ever be an object of experience. Rather, the object of experience is always an internal object. What do we mean by the 'object of my experience'? And what is an 'external object (part of the world)' versus an 'internal object'? Let us attempt to give a preliminary account of these ideas-so that we can use them in the reasoning. We shall begin with the idea of an 'object of experience' . 1.2. One way to explain an idea in philosophy is by reference to examples. It would, therefore, be helpful if we could give a clearcut example of an object of experience. It would be particularly helpful if we could say what the object of my experience is right now. The trouble, of course, is that in the present context, where we are about to consider and evaluate an argument to the effect that the object of experience is never an external object, what counts as the object of my experience is up for grabs. Thus we cannot say, by way of explaining the idea, that the object of my experience right now is the book in front of me, or the table on which the book is sitting, since, if the problematic reasoning is correct, such things are not the object of my experience. What we need, obviously, is an explanation of 'object of experience' in general terms, terms which leave open whether the book and the table are, or could be, objects of my experience. By an 'object of experience' we shall mean something present in experience. Thus one might express the conclusion of the problematic reasoning by saying that what is present in experience (present to us, present) is always an internal object; that external objects are never actually present to us. For example, according to the reasoning, the book and the table are not present in my experience. But we may now be asked to explain what we mean by 'present in experience', 'present to us', and so on. Presence (in experience) connotes a kind of direct or immediate availability. An object which is present is right there, available to us. This makes it tempting to view presence as the reciprocal of Russell's idea of acquaintance. That is, an object with which we are (in Russell's sense) acquainted is present in experience; and an object which is present in experience is one with which we are acquainted.

Reasoning about our Experience

5

But in fact this is only partly correct, since, whereas both ideas imply immediate availability, Russell's idea is meant to be more general. Objects of acquaintance, for Russell, may be either 'particulars' or 'universals'. However, as we shall understand this, experiential presence is limited to the category of particulars. What is present, directly available, is always a particular. In the tradition, particulars are temporal (but not necessarily spatial) objects. That is, they are objects of which it makes sense to ask how long they have existed or lasted, when they began to exist, and so on. (Such questions cannot be asked of universals.) Hence, the second point to make about presence in experience is that an object present in experience is always a temporal object. This leads directly to a third point, namely, the intimate connection between experiential and temporal presence. We have a strong inclination to view objects that are present in experience as being, at that very time, existent: if something is now present, it now exists. This inclination to encompass the object within the temporal present does not extend to reference, or thought in general. There is no problem about referring to, or thinking of, objects which no longer exist. But our inclination is to say that such things cannot be present in experience, that they cannot now be objects of experience. l Note, the direct availability which objects have in virtue of being present in experience implies neither omniscience nor infallibility with respect to the intrinsic properties of the objects which are thus available. It does not, in other words, exclude the possibility of not knowing that an object has this or that intrinsic property, or of taking it to have a property which it does not have. Thus, the direct availability of what is present does not of itself exclude the possibility that the objects present to us are external objects, part of the world. Nothing that we have said excludes that possibility. 1.3. But what is the 'direct availability' that objects have in virtue of being present? I do not know how to define it. Perhaps we can catch hold of the idea indirectly, by relating the idea of presence to ideas wherein we can discern a requirement for the kind of availability that we are trying to grasp. (What this involves will become clear as we proceed.) We shall mention two such ideas: that

6

The Puzzle

of 'focusing on', or 'fixing on', or 'picking out' an object; and that of 'demonstrative reference' to an object. Consider, first, the idea of focusing on (fixing on, picking out) an object. It should be clear that focusing on an object is not the same thing as the object's being present to us. For, unlike the latter, it is something we can be said to 'do'. Thus it may take effort, and we may tire of it. And we may choose, or decide, to focus on a particular object, or intend to focus on it. And in certain circumstances (see sect. 4.5) we may be said to try and fail. In short, focusing, in contrast to presence, is subject to the will. We can do things (turn our heads, remove obstacles, etc.) which bring it about that a certain object is present to us. But, in itself, the presence of an object is just a fact, not something we 'do'. Moreover, given the presence of an object, it mayor may not be the case that we focus on it. This is a basic experiential possibility: objects can be present to us without our actually focusing on them. 2 But (here is the important point) we cannot focus on something unless it is present in our experience: the fact of an object's presence is what makes the object available for us to focus on. Thus an object which is present in experience is, in virtue of that fact, available (then and there) for us to focus on or pick out. Suppose, for example, we allow that the book on the table is something that might be present in my experience. If it is present, it mayor may not be the case that I am focusing on the book. If, however, I am focusing on the book, it must be present to me. Its presence in my experience is what makes the book available for me to focus on (pick out). The other idea we mentioned above was that of demonstrative reference. Perhaps in this case we can proceed by means of examples. Think of the distinctive kind of singular reference that we would make by the expression 'this', were we to use that expression in an assertive utterance of a sentence like 'This feels hot,' or 'This looks blue.' Here we have, I assume, uncontroversial examples of demonstrative reference. Taking our cue from such examples, it should be evident that demonstrative reference is closely connected with focusing on, or picking out, an object. But it also seems evident that, despite both being things we can be said to 'do', making a demonstrative reference and focusing on something

Reasoning about our Experience

7

are not one and the same. Like all reference, and in contrast to focusing, demonstrative reference involves the use of symbols. Hence, to focus on an object is not thereby to make a demonstrative reference to it. The connection is the other way around: when we make a demonstrative reference to something, we thereby focus on (pick out) the object to which we refer. So (this is the point that interests us), just as we can think of the fact of an object's presence as what makes the object available for us to focus on, or pick out, we can think of this latter fact as what makes the object available for demonstrative reference (what makes the object demonstratively available). A fact of presence, we might say, is what creates the possibility of focusing, and what creates the possibility of focusing creates the possibility of demonstrative reference. 1.4. To sum things up, by an 'object of experience' we shall mean something present in experience: something which is right there, available for us to pick out or focus on, and refer to demonstratively. Further, we shall understand that the 'something' which is thus available falls in the philosophical category of 'particulars', and is hence a temporal object; and that we are inclined to suppose that it exists at the time when it is available (present). It is not part of our understanding, however, that we cannot be mistaken about the properties of an object thus available, or that we must know all of its properties. This is what we shall mean by 'object of experience' in stating the problematic reasoning, the reasoning which purports to show that the object of experience is always an internal object. The explanation leaves open (I hope) whether the object of experience is external or internal. I realize, of course, that it relies on ideas-presence, demonstrative reference, focusing (picking out), and so on-which raise difficulties of their own, ideas which philosophers have spent a great deal of time worrying about and trying to clarify. But I think that when we actually state the problematic reasoning (sects. l.5-8), and actually use these ideas, the attendant difficulties will just not matter. That is, they will not prevent us from following the reasoning and getting involved in the puzzle. We also mentioned, as requiring preliminary explanation, the

8

The Puzzle

idea of an 'external object (part of the world)" and the contrasting idea of an 'internal object'. The first point to make is that 'object' in 'external (internal) object' does not mean what it means in 'object of experience'. Thus for 'object' in 'external object' we may substitute 'thing'. The same substitution in 'object of experience' not only fails to preserve meaning; it fails to make sense. As far as I can see, there is in this case no expression which can be substituted for 'object' so as to preserve the meaning of the whole expression. To provide an expression with (roughly) the same meaning as 'object of experience' we must replace the complex phrase 'object of' (for example, by 'something present in'). An 'external object (thing)' or 'part of the world' is an object which has an existence that is independent of presence in experience. Let us assume that the book is now present in my experience. Clearly, the existence of the book is independent of this fact. The fact of its existence and the fact of its presence are distinct facts. Thus, although the book is present to me, it need not have been. (It might have been in the drawer right now.) The book, then, is (as we say) part of the world. An 'internal object' is an object whose existence is not independent of its presence in experience. In this case, existence and presence collapse into one. The fact of existence and 'the fact of presence are the same fact. Examples of internal objects are after-images and hallucinatory objects (such as Macbeth's dagger). Thus we do not regard such objects as part of the world. The book on my table is an example of what philosophers call a 'material (physical) object'. It fills out space. Material objects are external, part of the world. What about immaterial objects (if there are any)? These too will be part of the world. The world will contain, as Descartes thought, two radically different categories of objects and phenomena. Some will consist of matter, others of spirit. Whether Descartes was right in this view is not relevant here. What is relevant is simply that internal objects are not immaterial objects. (An after-image is not like a ghost.) Internal objects are neither material nor immaterial. They do not consist of anything. They are not part of the world. It will be useful to introduce the convention of emphasizing the

Reasoning about our Experience

9

demonstrative 'this' to show that what we thereby refer to is something present in experience (demonstratively available). If I assert, 'This is a book,' the use of the emphatic 'this' shows that it is of something present in my experience that I assert that it is a book. Suppose that I am hallucinating. Then, since what is present in my experience is not a book but an internal object, my assertion is false (or at least not true). Or suppose I am uncertain whether I am hallucinating or not. Then (in the manner of Macbeth) I might ask, 'Is this a book?' Here the use of the emphatic demonstrative shows that my uncertainty concerns the status of what is present in my experience. I am uncertain whether what is present in my experience is or is not a book, an external thing. I am uncertain, that is, whether the object present to me is part of the world or an internal object. We said that, in the case of internal objects, there is no distinction between existence and presence. There are places in Berkeley's philosophy where he seems to say that this is true with respect to everything (apart from God and individual minds). To exist is to be present (or, as Berkeley puts it, 'to be is to be perceived'). I mention Berkeley's view, not because we are going to take it seriously, but simply to place the contrast we are trying to explain in a familiar historical perspective. In Berkeley's kind of Idealism, we might say, there are no external objects; all objects are internal. Perhaps we should point out, finally, that the conclusion of the problematic reasoning is not Berkeley's Idealism. It is not that whatever exists exists only in so far as it is present, but that whatever is present exists only in so far as it is present. 1.5. We shall turn now to the problematic reasoning. Most moderately well-educated people in our culture are acquainted, in an outline way, with the basic facts about the transmission and reflection of light, the nature of the eye, and the process in the nervous system and brain which results or culminates in visual experience. We know (roughly) that light is reflected from physical objects and travels in straight lines; that it impinges on the eye and produces an image on the retina; that this excites the optic nerve; that a 'message' travels from the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain; and that, finally, as the upshot of this chain of events,

10

The Puzzle

visual experience occurs. Such facts are part of everyday knowledge. Some people may not have heard about the visual cortex, but everyone (unless there is something wrong with him) knows he has eyes and a brain, and that light is reflected from objects and then travels to his eyes, and that, because of what happens after thatthat is, because of what happens in the nervous system and brainhe then has the kind of experience he has, that his experience is the way it is. I shall call this 'the causal picture of experience'. The causal picture of experience is not what philosophers sometimes call 'the causal theory of perception'. The latter attempts to state the conditions that are logically (conceptually) necessary and sufficient for its being true, of an external thing X, that X is, for a subject S, an object of experience. With this aim, the causal theory asserts about the broad fact that there is a causal connection between X and S's experience, that that fact is a logically necessary condition of X being an object of experience for S. The causal picture, on the other hand, does not make any assertion about the broad fact of the causal connection. It simply asserts the fact, or rather, a set of more or less detailed facts (drawn from physics, physiology, and so on) which make up the broad fact. The causal picture of experience is not, in any sense, a 'philosophical' view or theory. Someone might be very interested in the causal picture of experience, perhaps spend his whole working life doing research and experiments on this or that aspect of it, and never raise a philosophical question about it. Yet the causal picture of experience is the starting-point of the problematic reasoning, and the problematic reasoning is most certainly philosophical. Simply contemplating (or learning about, or adding to) the causal picture of experience is not philosophical. Things get philosophical when we begin to reflect on certain possibilities implicit in the picture. The present activity in my brain, I remind myself, is the causal outcome of a chain of events involving light rays being reflected from a certain object-the book on the table, say. In turn, the activity in my brain is causally responsible for my experience being as it now is. But, I reflect, in that case (here is where philosophy begins to creep in), if the activity in my brain could somehow be held constant, the earlier parts of the causal chain

Reasoning about our Experience

11

might be eliminated without this having any effect on my experience. If the activity in my brain were to continue as it is, my experience would continue as it is. It would continue as it is, even if, say, something interfered with the light rays being reflected to my eyes; or even if the object reflecting the light rays were miraculously annihilated. God (it is handy to bring God in here) might arrange such a situation. God might eliminate the object while maintaining the activity in my visual cortex. Is that not a coherent state of affairs, something God might bring about? And, if the activity in my brain were to continue on as it is, my experience would also continue on as it is. It would continue to run along perfectly smoothly, despite the fact that the external object would no longer be there. This possibility, which is implicit in our everyday knowledge about the causal dependence of experience on objects and processes in the world (implicit, that is, in the causal picture of experience), might be summed up by saying that the external thing, the object in the world, is 'potentially irrelevant' to experience. Now once we grasp this possibility, this idea about the potential irrelevance of the external object, we are squarely in the realm of philosophy. We did not begin there (we began outside philosophy, in the realm of everyday knowledge), but that is where we are now. Thus we might think of the problematic reasoning, so far, as divided into two stages: an extra-philosophical stage, where we simply contemplate the causal picture of experience (the facts of physics and physiology, plus the fact that the process culminates in experience); and a transitional stage (transitional into philosophy), where we bring to light a possibility implicit in this picture. Of course, we have not yet reached the conclusion of the reasoning. To say that God might maintain the activity in my brain as it is while eliminating the book, and thus that my experience might continue as it is in the absence of the book, is not yet to say that, as things are, the book is not the object of my experience. (To say that, potentially, the book is irrelevant to my experience is not to say that, actually, it is not present in my experience.) This requires a further argument, a third stage in our reasoning. But before getting into that, I think we should pause to reflect on the second stage.

The Puzzle

12

1.6. Suppose I now assert:

(G) Were God to eliminate the book but ensure that the activity in (the visual part of) my brain remains the same, my experience would remain the same. There are two points I wish to make in regard to (G). First, what I assert in asserting (G) is true. Or rather, it is in some sense true. For (and this is the second point) it is not entirely clear what I am asserting. In particular, it is not clear what exactly it is that I assert would remain the same were the activity in my brain to remain the same; that is, what I mean when I assert that my experience would remain the same. The activity in my brain is something which is going on now, up here in my head. Is that the sort of thing I mean in (G) by 'my experience' -something which is going on in my head (or, if not in my head, somewhere else)? Let us put this question aside for the time being. (We shall return to it in Chapter 6.) Instead, let us approach our question by remarking that, if 'my experience' remains the same, I would not be able to tell that the book has been eliminated. But this needs to be qualified, since, as we have described it, the situation does not preclude my reaching out and discovering that the book is not there. Perhaps we should say that I would not be able to tell the book is not there by using my eyes. Imagine my eyes are wired up in such a manner that, if I keep them open and look at the book, when the book is removed I get a distinctive sensation in my fingertips (like an alarm going off when jewellery is removed from a case). But in that event I would not be using my eyes 'in the normal way'. What is the 'normal way'? I have my eyes open and look in the appropriate direction. But so I do when my eyes are wired up and I get the sensation in my fingers. We could play around with this for a while yet, but sooner or later it must be clear that the qualification we are looking for involves a restriction not on my means of telling, but on my basis for telling whether the book is there or not. And the necessary restriction would seem to be this: that, in so far as I rely on how things are in my (visual) experience, I cannot tell whether the book is there or not. Thus, were God to intervene in the manner described, then, in so far as my basis for telling is restricted to how things are

Reasoning about our Experience

13

in my experience, I would not be able to tell that the book is no longer there. This suggests the following as the first step towards understanding what it is, in (G), that I assert would remain the same. We must recognize that 'my experience' in (G) is elliptical for something like 'how things are in (within) my experience'. Experience is a subjectmatter about which we can say how things are within it, a subjectmatter which can be described 'internally'. It is, in this respect, something like a story. We can say what happens in a story. (A story can be described 'internally'.) If someone did not appreciate this, he would not know what we mean by a 'story'. Similarly, if someone did not appreciate that experience can be described internally, he would not know what we mean in this context by 'experience'. By the same token, it must be evident that, in the sense in which this is true of my experience, or a story, the activity in my brain cannot be described internally. Yet, it seems, the activity in my brain stands back-to-back in a causal chain with my experience. That is to say, the activity in my brain is causally responsible for how things are within my experience. (The activity in my brain has effects which reach, so to speak, right inside my experience.) To make our meaning explicit, then, let us replace (G) by (G*) Were God to eliminate the book but ensure that the activity in (the visual part of) my brain remains the same, how things are in my experience would remain the same. But, of course, this is still unclear, or vague. What is it that is supposed to remain the same when I say, for example, that 'how things are in my experience remains the same'? What do we include here under this vague expression 'how things are'? For what, exactly, is the activity in my brain supposed to be causally responsible? This brings us to a delicate point in our reflections. When we say of something that it is present in my experience, that it is the object of my experience, surely this is relevant to how things are within my experience. Are we then to include such facts among the 'things' that, were God to intervene in the manner described, would remain the same in my experience? Are we (in other words) to say that, if God intervened in this way, the object of my experience would

14

The Puzzle

remain the same? It may seem that, under the guise of clarification, we are being asked to settle the outcome of the problematic reasoning. For, if the answer to the question is 'Yes', if we say that the object of my experience would remain the same, then, since by hypothesis God eliminates the book, it follows immediately that the book is not the object of my experience. And this would be held to beg the issue which the reasoning is supposed to decide. I think the best way to proceed is to do so without giving any further clarifications just yet. Let us simply acknowledge the vagueness in (G*) and carry on with the third stage of the reasoning. Thus, all we are now committed to is that, were God to intervene, it would in some sense be true that 'how things are in my experience would remain the same'. In what sense? This will emerge in the course of the reasoning-by things that we assert, or imply, along the way. Of course, such a procedure carries no guarantee against mistakes: an unwarranted assumption may slip in, there may be an equivocation, and so on. But we can worry about that later on, once we have before us the completed reasoning and the consequent puzzle. It should be emphasized that we are not claiming to have identified an innocent or neutral sense in which it is true that, were God to ensure that the activity in my brain remains the same, 'things would remain the same in my experience'. On the contrary, we are explicitly leaving open the sense in which this is true. But it is in some sense true; this much we are not leaving open. 1. 7. The third stage of the problematic reasoning is, like Descartes's First Meditation, essentially first person singular. I will reason for my own case, and the reader is invited to do the same, substituting his'!' for mine. The first step is simply to pick out or focus on something present in my experience. So I will do that. I will focus on this. This what? At any other time I would have said 'this book', but I am not allowed to say that now. I can say that my eyes are directed towards the book, or that I am looking at the book; but I cannot say (or imply) that the book is present in my experience. Let us say simply that I am focused on whatever it is that is present now in my

Reasoning about our Experience

15

experience while I am looking at the book. Certainly there is, right now, something present in my experience. It seems equally certain that, whatever this 'something' is, I can remain focused on it for a little while. That is the next step. Having focused on something, I remain focused on it for a little while (about five seconds should be enough). I do this very closely, never letting my attention waver, always staying right with the object on which I am focused. All this goes smoothly. There are no breaks, no gaps. I focus on something, on this object (whatever it is that is present when I look at the book), and stay with it, with this object, for a brief period of time. Now, in so far as focusing is something I 'do', it would seem that I have just given a description of what I have done in the last five seconds of my history. I focused on whatever object it was that was present in my experience when I looked at the book, and I remained carefully focused on that object for five seconds. Let us now reflect on this bit of my history in the light of the potential irrelevance of the book. Consider the hypothesis that halfway through the last five seconds God intervened in the manner we have described: God eliminated the book but maintained the activity in my brain just as it was when the book was there. When the book was there, it reflected light to my eyes; this process eventuated in the activity in my visual cortex. The hypothesis is that, half-way through the last five seconds, God (as it were) took over from the book, having eliminated it, and directly maintained the activity in my brain. The point about the hypothesis is that it seems to be compatible with how things have been in my experience during the last five seconds. Well, how have 'things' been within my experience? Think back to the beginning of the five-second interval. I contemplate the spread of objects within my experience. I focus on one-this one, the one which, if I were not playing this little game, I would say is the book. I stay carefully focused on the object. (Five seconds pass.) So (looking back now) here is how 'things' have been within my experience for the last five seconds: this object has been present. Thus, the hypothesis of God's intervention is compatible with the fact that this object, the object on which I am now focused, has been present in my experience for the last five seconds. Had God

16

The Puzzle

intervened, the book would have ceased to exist two-and-a-half seconds ago (this is part of the hypothesis). Had God intervened, the activity in my brain for the whole of the last five seconds would have continued just as it has (this is also part of the hypothesis.) Had the activity in my brain continued as it has, within my experience things would have been as they have been (this follows from the causal picture of experience). How have 'things' been? Once again, this object has remained present to me. So, this object is such that, had God eliminated the book, it would have remained (just as it has remained) present to me. I am pedantically labouring things here because it will make it easier to spot a mistake (if there is one) when we come to examine the reasoning. At this stage, I will simply enter the following observation. The crux of the matter is the assertion that, had God intervened, this object would have remained (just as it has remained) present within my experience. What is my basis for such an assertion? The thing to bear in mind is that my basis is not anything I discern in or about the object that I mentally latch on to. I cannot, by inspecting the object, discern that it has the property of being able to survive the elimination of the book. My basis for the assertion has nothing at all to do, really, with what I can discern in my experience. It lies entirely in what I know about the relation between what I can discern and the activity of my brain. My basis, you might say, is entirely indirect: it lies not in what is available 'out front' but in what I know about the relation between what is thus available and the things that are happening 'back here'. To repeat, had God intervened, this object would have remained (just as it has remained) present in my experience. There would have been a rupture in the world; a certain external object, a book, would have suddenly ceased to exist. This would have been evident to an onlooker, but for me, within my experience, things would have flowed smoothly on, without a ripple or a flicker-just as they have done. That is to say, this object would have been (just as it has been) present to me for the whole of the last five seconds. What follows? It follows (plainly) that this object, the object on which I have actually been focused for the last five seconds, is not the book. For my having been focused on this object is compatible with the supposition of God's intervention, and it is part of the

Reasoning about our Experience

17

supposltlOn that, half-way through the last five seconds, God eliminated the book. So the object on which I have actually been focused, this object, is such that it might have survived the elimination of the book. So it cannot be the book. Once we have settled on the appropriate internal description of my experience, the logic of the argument is simple (whether it is legitimate to apply such an argument in the present context remains to be seen). Suppose I pick up a book and hold it in my hand for five seconds. I now consider a certain Book X of which it is true that, had God eliminated Book X in the last five seconds I would still be holding on to the book I actually have in my hand. Would it not follow that the book in my hand is not Book X? Of course, the two cases are in some respects very different. Thus, whereas arguing in this way for the non-identity of Book X and the book now in my hand seems like a pointless rigmarole, precisely some such roundabout argument seems necessary if we are to accept the non-identity of the book on the table and the object now present in my experience. Formally, though, the reasoning is in both cases the same. Now, clearly (thinking again just about the experiential case), the reasoning is not restricted to the object on which I am now focused and the book in front of me on the table. It works for any object in the world and any object on which I might focus. Any object in the world, any external thing (apart from my brain), is such that God could eliminate it compatibly with keeping the activity in my brain the same. Hence, for any object on which I choose to focus and any external object (apart from my brain), I can, it seems, show by such reasoning that the object on which I am focused cannot be identified with the external object, since I can show by the reasoning that the object on which I am focused could survive the elimination of the external object. We might put this in the form of a reductio-a reductio of the assumption that the object present in my experience is an object in the world. I focus on something (anything) now present in my experience, and assume that it is an external object, part of the world. On this assumption, I can (by our reasoning) prove that the following two propositions might both be true of the object on which I am focused: (1) that for the whole of a certain interval of

18

The Puzzle

time t I remain focused on this object; (2) that part of the way through l the object in question ceases to exist. Since anything present in my experience is available for me to focus on, such a reductio can be constructed for anything present in my experience. With respect to anything present in my experience, then, I can reduce to absurdity the assumption that it is part of the world. 1.8. If the object present in my experience is never part of the world, never an object whose existence is independent of the fact of its presence, what is it? What else could it be but an object whose existence is not independent of its presence in my experience, an internal object? For example, this object, the object present in my experience right now when I look at the book, is not an external object (part of the world). It is not a book, but an internal object. Generally, what is present in my experience, what is available for me to focus on and refer to demonstratively, is never part of the world but always an internal object; it is always (in the traditional jargon) a sense-datum. 3 The world itself, then, although I can talk and think about it, is never demonstratively available to me. 4 Something (an internal object, a sense-datum) always 'gets in the way'. We have now reached the conclusion of the problematic reasoning. There are (as the reader will no doubt have judged for himself) aspects of the reasoning which might be questioned, and which in any case need to be examined very carefully. (The most obvious questions relate to the third stage of the reasoning: to my use of the emphatic demonstrative, with the implied assumption that, at the end of the five seconds, after God has intervened, I would still be focused on something, and hence that something would still be present to me (see Chapter 4); or, granting that, that it would be the same object that I was focused on at the outset of the five seconds (see Chapter 5).) I believe that, the more carefully we examine the reasoning, the more powerful it will seem. However that may be, for the remainder of Part One of the book we shall assume that the reasoning is correct, and hence that its conclusion has been established. Our objective will be to develop and explain the puzzle.

Reasoning about our Experience

19

NOTES

1. The reason for saying (guardedly) that we are 'inclined' to view experiential and temporal presence as connected in this way, rather than flatly asserting that they are thus connected, is that the connection is sometimes ~sed by philosophers to argue for the same conclusion that we shall get with the problematic reasoning, namely, that the object of experience is always internal. I have in mind the famous 'time-lag' argument. Some philosophers, when they see this coming, claim that the connection between experiential and temporal presence is only apparent. The case of stellar explosions, they will say, shows that things (events) can be present in experience, after they cease to exist. There is no point getting into this issue, since, for the purpose of providing a distinguishing mark of experiential presence (for the purpose of distinguishing objects of experience from, say, objects of reference), the appearance of a connection suffices. In fact, the time-lag argument has much in common with the problematic reasoning. They both depend on what we shall call 'the causal picture of experience' (see sect. 1.5). It is worth noting, however, that, even if the time-lag argument were correct, the problematic reasoning is more fundamental. It depends on less; it does not depend on the fact of a time-lag. The problematic reasoning would work equally well if light travelled instantaneously. We shall ignore the time-lag argument in what follows. 2. In fact, some philosophers (e.g. Husserl) have held the following to be an experiential necessity: that whenever we focus on an object, there is a background of objects present to us on which we are not focused. 3. Some comments are in order here. On Russell's use of the term 'sensedata', which has become pretty much standard, sense-data are by definition internal objects. Russell's procedure is first to argue that the objects of experience are internal, and then (in effect) to dub these internal objects 'sense-data' (see The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), Ch. 1). But Russell's usage is not universal. Moore, unlike Russell, seems to define the term 'sense-data' ('sensibles') in such a way as to leave it open whether sense-data are external or internal. In effect, 'sense-datum' for Moore means: that which is present in experience (object of experience). The question for Moore, about which he can never quite make up his mind, is whether sense-data (thus defined) are or are not external things (or parts of external things) (see, e.g., Some Main Problems of Philosophy (New York:

20

The Puzzle

Collier, 1962), Ch. 2, and 'The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception', 'The Status of Sense-Data', and 'Some Judgements of Perception', in Philosophical Srudies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948) ). Thus, if we express the conclusion of the problematic reasoning by saying that the object of experience is always a 'sense-datum', this would accord better with Russell's use of the term than with Moore's. 4. When in this regard we speak of 'the world itself', or 'the book itself', and so on, the expression 'itself' is redundant; e.g. to say that 'the book itself' is (or is not) present to me is just to say that the book is (or is not) present to me. We might mention here the well-known argument that, since at most only part of the book (or part of the surface of the book) would be present to me (the back and inside would not be actually presented), we cannot say that the book itself (= the book) is present to me. I think most philosophers would now agree that the argument depends on a false contrast. From the fact that only part of my hand is actually in contact with the table, it does not follow that my hand itself (= my hand) is not actually in contact with the table; all that follows is that the whole of my hand is not in contact, etc. Similarly, all that follows from the fact that only part of the book is visually present to me is that the whole of the book is not present to me. We may still say that the book (= the book itself) is present to me. (For a detailed discussion of the point, see Thompson Clarke, 'Seeing Surfaces and Physical Objects', in M. Black (ed.), Philosophy in America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965).) At least, this is what we may say if we leave aside the problematic reasoning. In any event, the argument in question is usually given as the first stage of a line of reflection wherein the object of experience gets whittled down, step by step, to an internal object. But, with the problematic reasoning, we reach this conclusion all at once; so we may ignore the argument and the false contrast on which it depends.

2

Being Open to our Experience 2.1. The puzzle, as we said, is an antinomy. Half the antinomy is a piece of reasoning (the problematic reasoning). Let me try now to complete the antimony, to evoke a sense of the conflict. r will present the conflict in the same way as it presents itself to me. r start by going through the problematic reasoning. I conclude that this object, the object present to me when I look at the book, cannot be the book. It cannot be the book because, by the reasoning, it could survive the elimination of the book. So it, this object, is an internal object, something which exists only in so far as it is present in my experience. But wait, this object is a book. The object present to me when I look at the book on the table is the book on the table. There is nothing else there. Now I realize that, as a contribution to philosophy, thoughts of this sort may appear a trifle quick and simple-minded; yet it is precisely such thoughts that come over me when I reach the conclusion of the problematic reasoning. And when they come over me, they totally overcome the conclusion. The reasoning establishes that this is an internal object. But it is not. It, this object, is a book. What gives me the right to say this? Where is the argument? There is no argument. The arguments are all on the other side. I do not conclude that the object present to me is a book, but that is all I find-the book. That is to say, the book is all I find when I am open to how things are in my experience. If I reflect on the fact that how things are now in my experience is the causal product of what is happening now in my brain, I seem driven to the conclusion that the object present in my experience when I look at the book, this object, is not a book. Yet if I am then open to (how things are in) my experience, all I find is the book. I Thus the antinomy is a function of the fact that my experience is

22

The Puzzle

a subject-matter on which I can reflect in two very different ways. There is the indirect way: reasoning, in terms of the causal picture of experience, to a conclusion about how things are in my experience. And the direct way: simply being open to how things are in my experience. 2.2. In the light of the antinomy, many problems which we might otherwise raise about the conclusion of the problematic reasoning become irrelevant. These problems have been well aired in the literature on sense-data. We shall mention them briefly, only to put them to one side. First of all, philosophers raise various problems or questions which show that sense-data (internal objects of the sort to which we are led by the reasoning), if there were such objects, would be very queer objects, and thus that we should think twice before concluding that they are what is present in experience. 2 For example, it is unclear how internal objects (sense-data) are to be counted, and therefore how we are to settle questions of identity concerning such objects. It is also unclear whether internal objects obey the law of excluded middle, and whether they can be conceived to undergo change. Then there is a question about whether internal objects can have properties other than the properties they seem to have. And is it in the first place clear what properties internal objects can have? In the visual case, shape and colour seem essential. But what about size, position, visual texture, thickness, etc.? And even in the case of shape and colour, is it obvious that internal objects have these properties in the sense that we take external objects to be 'shaped' and 'coloured'? The problem which emerges when we are open to our experience makes all these problems and uncertainties irrelevant. The problem, now, is not that the objects which the reasoning establishes as always present to us are queer objects. It is that, despite the reasoning, such objects (queer or otherwise) are not what is present to us. All we find is the world. Note that, however queer internal objects may be, this does nothing to refute the problematic reasoning. It should encourage us to look for a refutation, but it does not itself constitute a refutation. Of course, the same is true with respect to what we find when we

Being Open to our Experience

23

are open to our experience. This does not refute the problematic reasoning; it simply clashes with its conclusion. It does not refute the reasoning but, in conjunction with the reasoning, generates an antinomy. Suppose we accept !hat the object of experience is always internal. Still, right now, the object of my experience (the object present to me when I look at the book) is not a hallucinatory object. I am not now hallucinating. Let us be clear: the problematic reasoning does not reach the conclusion that the object present to me is internal by showing that I am, or might be, hallucinating. On the contrary, it reaches the conclusion that the object is internal despite taking it for granted that I am not hallucinating. This is crucial for the reasoning. It is why the reasoning has such far-reaching consequences: why it forces us to accept that, not just in the special case of hallucination but in perfectly ordinary cases-like my case right now-the object of experience is internal. But, if the object present to me is internal, and if (as we assume in the problematic reasoning) I am not hallucinating, a question arises concerning the difference between my present situation and that of someone who is hallucinating. Any philosopher who simply accepts the conclusion of the problematic reasoning must answer this question. If in all cases what is present is an internal object, he must tell us what the difference is between the ordinary and the special case. 3 Our problem, however, arises not because in the ordinary as well as the special case the object present to us is an internal object, but because, contrary to the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, when in the ordinary case we open up to our experience, what we find is precisely not an internal object. In the light of this problem, our puzzle, the question of how to distinguish the two cases (of how, that is, to distinguish my present situation from that of a hallucinating subject) becomes irrelevant. The same goes, finally, for the bogey of scepticism (concerning the existence of external objects). The conclusion of the problematic reasoning is just the sort of thing the sceptic would seize upon. If what is present in experience is never part of the world, never an external object, what justifies us in believing that there are such objects? The sceptic maintains that we have no justification. We shall at a certain point in the book have occasion to discuss scepticism and its relation to our puzzle (see Chapter 8). Right now

24

The Puzzle

we need only observe that the problem posed by scepticism is not the problem posed by the puzzle. The puzzle has a life of its own. Thus we can get quite involved in the puzzle, in trying to solve it, without worrying at all about the sceptical challenge. Indeed, the puzzle arises through a kind of anti-scepticism. It arises because, when we are open to our experience, all we find is the very sort of object in whose existence the sceptic says we have no right to believe. 2.3. But what is it to be 'open' to our experience? We remarked in 1.5 that the problematic reasoning becomes philosophical at the point where we begin to discern, and reflect on, a certain possibility implicit in the causal picture of experience. Being open to our experience is totally unlike this kind of reflection; but in its own way it is philosophical. At least this is true: we do not go around in life being open to our experience (in fact, we could go through life without ever being open to our experience). Imagine I am in a cigar store. I pick up from the counter what looks like a box of cigars. To my surprise, it is not a box of cigars. I think, 'This is a book.' We can agree, I take it, that this thought would not be philosophical. In particular, it would not involve this special philosophical attitude of being open 10 my experience. But the content of the thought seems to be the same as that of the thought which I have when, in our example, I do have the special attitude, that is, when I am open to my experience. What then is the difference? What is the difference between my cigarstore thought and that with which I overthrow my belief in the conclusion of the problematic reasoning? The cigar-store thought, it may be said, involves a different implicit contrast. Thus, while both thoughts have the same manifest content, they have different implicit contents. In the philosophical case, my thought is 'This is a book (not an internal object).' In the cigar-store case, my thought is 'This is a book (not a cigar box).' The implicit contrast in the philosophical case is that between external and internal (I implicitly use the concept internal object); in the everyday case the implicit contrast is between two everyday kinds of external object. But surely in everyday life we sometimes bring to bear the external-internal contrast. This happens (implicitly) when, for

Being Open to our Experience

25

i.nstance, we discover that we have experienced an illusion, or have been hallucinating. Suppose someone has set up for my benefit an elaborate trick. He first gives me a substance which causes me to have incredibly vivid hallucinations of isolated objects. For example, under the influence of the substance there is in my experience something which, if I did not know better, I would say is a book in front of me on the table. Knowing what I know, I judge the object of my experience to be internal. The substance wears off, and I am given what I assume to be more of the substance but is in fact a placebo. Once again, within my experience there is something which in normal circumstances I would automatically have taken to be a book, but which in present circumstances I take to be an internal object. I am confounded. 'This is a book (not an internal object).' Here again, in thinking this thought I am not being philosophical. More specifically, I am not being open to my experience. Yet the thought has the same implicit content as the thought that I have when, in the philosophical case, I am open to my experience. The difference would seem to lie, not in the content of the thoughts, but in the basis or grounds of the thought, or belief, which they overthrow ('This is an internal object'). In the everyday case, the overthrown thought is based on certain beliefs I have about my condition or situation on a particular occasion. In the philosophical case, the overthrown thought is based on a piece of philosophical reasoning which applies no matter what my condition or situation is. We might say that, although the content is the same, the antecedents of the thoughts are different in the two cases. We can be open to our experience only in the face of philosophical reasoning (such as the problematic reasoning). It turns out, then, that being 'philosophical' in one sense (that of being open to our experience) presupposes being 'philosophical' in the other (that of discerning and reflecting on possibilities implicit in everyday facts). There is a further point. When the thought, 'This is a book (not an internal object)' is philosophical, it is not just the antecedents that are different; the consequents are different as well. Thus, when (in the everyday case) I have been convinced that I am hallucinating, I am genuinely surprised to discover that the object present to me is a book (not an internal object). Am I surprised in the philosophical case-that is, when I am open to my experience? Having reasoned

26

The Puzzle

to the conclusion that this is an internal object, am I (when I open up to my experience) surprised that this is a book? No, nothing like surprise comes into it. It does not matter how convinced I am by the reasoning; I am still not surprised. I am not surprised because, in becoming open to how things are in my experience, I learn nothing new-I gain no new information. But this seems to entail that, when I become open, etc., I already know that the object present to me is a book (I already know that all I shall 'find' is the book). It may not be clear how we are to make sense of this. If I already know the object present to me is a book, what is it that gets overthrown when I open up to my experience? To put it another way, if I already know that what is present to me is the book, how can it be true that I am convinced by the reasoning? If I already know the object present to me is a book, I believe the object present to me is a book. But to be convinced by the reasoning is to believe that the object present to me is not a book, that it is an internal object. 2.4. Perhaps it will be said, in order to account for the fact that in becoming open to (how things are in) my experience I learn nothing new, we do not have to suppose that I already know that the object present in my experience is a book. We may simply note that, when I become open, etc., within my experience things look exactly as they looked before, when I was convinced by the reasoning. Now it is true (or so we may assume) that, when I become open to my experience, nothing looks any different. But there is something else we must take into account, namely, that, when I become open to my experience, what I find is the book. If what I find is the book, and if in finding the book I learn nothing new, it follows (does it not?) that I already know it is the book that is present in my experience. In that case, once again, how can it be true that I am convinced by the problematic reasoning? It occurs to me that there is a way in which both of these propositions can be true: that I am convinced by the reasoning, and thus believe that the object present to me is not the book but an internal object; and that (at the same time) I know that the object present in my experience is the book, part of the world. When I am convinced by the reasoning, I believe the conclusion despite the fact

Being Open to our Experience

27

that it conflicts with what I know. I know that the conclusion cannot be accepted, but the reasoning sets up a barrier, that is, I am not open to what I know. When I become open to (how things are in) my experience, I become open to what I already know. In fact, it is a condition of 'becoming open' in this way that we already have knowledge of that to which we become open. The basic possibility here is familiar to everyone. It is something we experience, first hand, in bad faith or self-deception. Thus we live with it all the time. In bad faith we are not open to (we are closed off from) something we know: we are 'not open' in the way of being not open which requires our knowing that to which we are not open. In so far as we are not open to what we know, we can believe something that is inconsistent with what we know. Bad faith is a possibility for everyday consciousness. My idea (for what it is worth) is that there is a corresponding possibility for philosophical consciousness. 4 We can-this is a possibility-reason ourselves into a state of being cl()sed off from what we know. A belief held in bad faith is overthrown by our becoming open to what we know. Something like this happens (I think) when, having reached the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, I open up to my experience. I become open to what I know (that the object present to me is a book), and thus my belief in the conclusion of the reasoning is overthrown. The idea, it must be stressed, is not that the philosophical case is a case of bad faith. (Bad faith may indeed enter into philosophizing, just as philosophy may be seized upon for purposes of bad faith; but these are further complications.) The idea is that both cases contain the same core phenomenon of being closed off from what we know; hence both contain the same possibility of becoming open to what we know. But surrounding this common core there are differences. First, there is a difference in why we become closed off from what we know. In bad faith it is because what we know bothers or disturbs us; it is something we want not to be true. In the philosophical case, what gets in the way is not wanting but reasoning, thinking. (It is not that I want the object present in my experience not to be a book, but that I have an argument which forces me to the conclusion that it is not a book.) In both cases, notice, it is essential to the possibility of becoming

28

The Puzzle

open that there is something to overcome (the difference lies in what it is that must be overcome). Thus, as we remarked in sect. 2.3, we can be open to our experience only in the face of philosophical reasoning. Similarly, we can be honest with ourselves only in the face of there being something which we want not to be true. (This is why it is not 'easy' to be honest with ourselves.) The point is not, of course, that, if we know something to be true but do not want it not to be true, we are therefore dishonest with ourselves (in bad faith); rather, we are neither honest nor dishonest with ourselves. The same sort of point holds in the philosophical case. Where there is nothing (no reasoning, no arguments) to overcome, we can be neither open to, nor closed off from, how things are in our experience. We simply move through life, dealing with the world. In a real sense, only a philosopher can be 'open' to his experience (only someone who has a motive for being dishonest with himself can be honest with himself). The second difference is this. If what we must overcome in the case of bad faith is wanting something not to be true, it follows directly (and trivially) that bad faith reflects back on the subject in a way that potentially distinguishes him from other subjects: there is something that he (but not necessarily others) wants not to be true. The philosophical case does not, in any comparable way, reflect back on the subject. We have, to be sure, often conducted our discussion in terms of how things are in my experience. But the 'my' here is impersonal. Thus it is of no interest or importance that what I find when I am open to my experience is a particular book, or a book at all, or that it is on a table in front of me, J. V. I take the things present to me to be representative objects of experience. And when I speak of how things are in 'my' experience, I put myself forward as a representative subject of experience. I view myself, you might say, as speaking on behalf of all such subjects. The last two differences we shall mention are the most important. When I am honest with myself, when I become open to what I know, the belief which thereby gets overthrown is seen for what it is-a false belief. This characterization does not seem quite strong enough for the way I view the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, when I become open to how things are in my experience. That this is not a book (but an internal object) strikes me as not just

Being Open to our Experience

29

false but absurd. On the other hand, it has a kind of support which a belief overthrown by self-honesty does not have. In bad faith I close myself off from what I know because I want what I know to be true not to be true. In the philosophical case, however, I close myself off because of an argument, the problematic reasoning. What happens to this reasoning when I become open to my experience? Nothing. The reasoning stands. I need only work through it once again to become, once again, convinced of the conclusion. (Remember, being open to my experience does nothing to refute the reasoning.) Of course, in the case of bad faith, I may still want the relevant truth not to be a truth, and this may tempt me back into bad faith; but there are no arguments here (except those which themselves rest on bad faith). Thus, while I may slide back into bad faith, there is no antinomy. 2.5. When, having reached the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, I become open to my experience, everything looks as before. And, in a real sense, everything is as before. I already knew the object present to me was a book. Nothing has changed, yet things are different: I am open to what I already knew. The conclusion of the reasoning is overthrown. It might be of interest to compare this transition with what Hume says concerning the results of his philosophical reasoning about experience. Hume too (we shall return to Hume in Chapter 8) speaks of a transition in which the conclusion of his reasoning gets overthrown, but it is a different kind of transition. He says the reasoning loses its hold on him when he stops philosophizing and re-enters the stream of everyday life. He does not see how to refute the reasoning, but' ... nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon ... '5 Thus it seems that, even while he has the reasoning clearly in view, Hume knows that it will not be long before nature and everyday life reassert their influence over him, and the deliverances of his philosophical reflections fall by the wayside. This is certainly the fate of a lot of philosophizing. We return to

30

The Puzzle

everyday life and our best philosophical conclusions drop out of sight. But this is not the kind of transition that occurs when, having reached the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, I am open to my experience. Here the transition is not something which occurs when I cease philosophizing; it is part of the philosophical exercise. It occurs not when I have forgotten about the problematic reasoning but (as we said) in the face of the reasoning. What happens? My attitude towards the conclusion of the reasoning undergoes a radical reversal. Before, the conclusion seemed true; now it seems absurd. It is like a change of aspect, except for one thing-there is no surpnse. We may draw some further comparisons. Consider plain, oldfashioned Naive Realism. When I become open to my experience I think, 'This is a book (not an internal object).' But that is just what the Naive Realist thinks. Where is the difference? The Naive Realist thinks just what I think; but the Naive Realist (we are, admittedly, in the land of philosophical mythology now) does not see the force of, and hence is not convinced by, the problematic reasoning (or any other philosophical argument with the same conclusion). In his case, therefore, there is lacking something essential for the possibility of being open to his experience. There is nothing for him to overcome. Thus he cannot be open to (how things are in) his experience. The point is not that he is closed off from his experience. He is, and can be, neither one nor the other: neither open to, nor closed off from, his experience. (Recall the case of self-honesty. It is only with respect to something we know to be true but want not to be true that we can be honest or dishonest with ourselves.) But (on second thoughts) this is not quite right. It gives us no way of distinguishing the Naive Realist from the Man in the Street (we ourselves when we are not being philosophical, when we are just moving through life). Perhaps we might think of the Naive Realist as someone who pits the view, or the attitude, of the Man in the Street against the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, but without seeing the force of the reasoning. In so far as he concerns himself with the reasoning, he distinguishes himself from the Man in the Street. He is a philosopher. In so far as he fails to see the force of the reasoning (which is not the same as seeing a mistake in

Being Open to our Experience

31

the reasoning), he is not in a position to be open to his experience, in which respect he resembles the Man in the Street. There is something of each in the NaIve Realist, of the philosopher and the Man in the Street. To round things out, let us bring on stage a philosopher who claims to accept unequivocally the conclusion of the problematic reasoning (an Indirect Realist, or a Representationalist). This person does not question the existence of external objects, but (since he accepts the conclusion of the reasoning) maintains that such objects are never present to us. And that is that. In contrast to the NaIve Realist (and the Man in the Street), a philosopher who holds such a view has the possibility of being open to his experience. But he simply is not. Like the man who remains in bad faith, he could be open to what he knows-but he is not. 2.6. In one of Heidegger's lectures, published under the title What is called Thinking?, there is a place where he seems to point to the same funny kind of transition that we have been trying to convey, the transition that occurs when in the face of philosophical argument we become open to how things are in our experience. Here and in the following two sections, I shall quote and comment on certain bits of the lecture in question. This will provide us with the occasion to restate, and solidify our grasp of, the antinomy. The passage which chiefly concerns us occurs in the fourth lecture of Part I. 6 For our purposes, the lecture starts to get interesting when Heidegger takes up the question of 'what it is to form an idea'.7 Philosophers, he says, disagree about how to answer the question. So he turns to science: in the first instance, to psychology. From the standpoint of science, 'ideas' are the product of what goes on in the organisms that we are (in our nervous systems and brains). The trouble, according to Heidegger, is that science never makes clear 'what it is to which ideas are attributed and referred' (p. 41): what or who the 'subject' is supposed to be. Is it the living organism, the soul, consciousness? Science does not tell us, Heidegger says, even though in themselves 'the scientific findings are correct' (ibid.). So he tries a different standpoint, a different kind of reflection: We stand outside of science. Instead we stand before a tree in bloom, for example-and the tree stands before us. The tree faces us. The tree and we

32

The Puzzle

meet one another, as the tree stands there and we stand face to face with it ... This face-to-face meeting is not, then, one of these 'ideas' buzzing about in our heads. Let us stop here for a moment, as we would to catch our breath before and after a leap. For that is what we are now, men who have leapt, out of the familiar realm of science and even, as we shall see, out of the realm of philosophy. And where have we leapt? Perhaps into an abyss? No! Rather, onto some firm soil. Some? No! But on that soil upon which we live and die, if we are honest with ourselves. A curious, indeed unearthly thing that we must first leap onto the soil on which we really stand. (ibid.)

Now we do not have to take all of this on board, but it should not be hard to see a similarity between our transition and the 'leap' which Heidegger describes. Let us first observe the direction of the leap, namely, away from science, and from the kind of philosophical reflection that is based on 'scientific findings'. It is, Heidegger thinks, on the basis of such findings that we are led, in philosophy, to conclude that what is presented within experience are 'ideas buzzing about in our heads'. The problematic reasoning would seem to be a prime example of this kind of philosophical reflection (an example of what Heidegger at one point refers to as 'scientific philosophy' H) , although the conclusion of the reasoning is not that the objects of experience are 'in our heads' but that they exist only within experience, that they are internal objects. Perhaps we may regard the talk of 'ideas buzzing about in our heads' as a metaphor or image for internal objects. Thus you could say that this is where we end up when we reason about experience on the basis of science: we end up 'inside our heads', cut off from the world. How (if I may continue in this vein) are we to get 'outside our heads' again, back in touch with the world? This is where the business of the leap comes in-because it is not going to be further scientific findings, or further reasoning on the basis of such findings, that enable us to break through the veil of 'ideas'. We have to leap, Heidegger says, 'out of the familiar realm of science and even. . . philosophy'. We make the leap and then we are 'face to face' with the tree, with a part of the world. Notice how Heidegger characterizes the leap. It is not on to new ground, but 'onto the soil on which we really stand'. In other words,

Being Open to our Experience

33

we leap, and arrive where we already are. He is right. The transition from scientifically based reflection on our experience (like the problematic reasoning) to the attitude in which we simply open up to our experience, this is like a leap, a leap that brings us back out in the world; back to where we are and were, and knew we were, all along. It is, as he observes, a 'curious' thing. We have to leap to get to where we are. 2.7. With all this leaping around, however, we are in danger of forgetting something: the problematic reasoning. It has not gone away. When I open up to my experience I 'stand outside science', hence 'outside' the purview of the problematic reasoning. I make the leap and meet the world face to face. Very well. But what about the reasoning? We have said nothing which undermines or threatens it in any way. If I now return to the reasoning, each of the steps seems to be in order. The conclusion seems inevitable, and for a moment I am actually convinced. When I make the leap, I leave the reasoning behind. But I leave it untouched, intact-even though I now dismiss the conclusion. By itself, the leap cannot solve our puzzle. Just the opposite. The more impressed we are by the simple yet radical way in which it turns things around, the more puzzling the puzzle will seem. It is as if Heidegger exaggerated the similarity between being open to our experience and self-honesty (being open to ourselves). When I become honest with myself, the lie crumbles. It is exposed, and nothing is left standing. (It rests on nothing but my wanting it to be true.) But when I become open to my experience, the problematic reasoning remains. Bear in mind, Heidegger does not wish to question 'the scientific findings'. And who would (except, of course, within science)? Yet it is implicit in 'the scientific findings' that how things are within my experience is the upshot of a chain of events in the world, ultimately events in my brain. Imagine I have just made the leap: this is the book (not an internal object). What should stop me from having the thought that the book, this object, is now reflecting light to my eyes, that the light is stimulating the optic nerve, that signals are being sent from my optic nerve to the visual part of my brain? All this (I remind myself) is happening right now, as I look at the book.

34

The Puzzle

Moreover, what is happening right now in my brain is responsible for how things are in my experience . . . You see, of course, what is going on. When in the face of the reasoning I open up to my experience (when I make the leap), what confronts me is the book: this object is the book. But I can now use the same object, the book, to illustrate the reasoning, and thus reach the conclusion that this object is not the book. It is as if I had entered an impossible space. I move in a perfect circle, but somehow end up at a point other than where I began. I ought to end up where I started, out in the world; but I end up stopping short of the world, with an internal object. And, obviously, the process can continue. Thus, if I once again open up to my experience, the same sort of radical displacement occurs. Once again, I am faced by the book. But, once again, I am free to use the book to illustrate the reasoning. 9 For what are we supposed to do-place a ban on the reasoning? 2.8. Actually, this seems to be Heidegger's position. At a later point in the lecture quoted above, he says: When we think through what this is, that a tree in bloom presents itself to us so that we can come and stand face-to-face with it, the thing that matters first and foremost, and finally, is not to drop the tree in bloom, but for once let it stand where it stands. Why do we say 'finally'? Because to this day, thought has never let the tree stand where it stands. (p. 44)

So this is what I should do with the book: I should let it 'stand where it stands'. Heidegger's point would be that, after I make the leap and am face to face with the book, that is where I should stop. My mistake is in not stopping, in letting myself get seduced back into the reasoning. The question is why we should consider this a mistake. The reasoning begins outside philosophy, with the causal picture of experience-the scientific findings. Is this a mistake? (Is there something wrong with the thought that the book, this object, is currently reflecting light to my eyes? Or that my optic nerve is being stimulated, and so on?) But implicit in the causal picture of experience is the possibility that enables us to prove the world is not what is present in experience.

Being Open to our Experience

35

Perhaps we are passing over the mistake without realizing it. Perhaps the mistake lies, after all, in the causal picture of experience. This (I suspect-what follows is to a large extent guesswork) is Heidegger's view. Of course, he would not say that all of the picture is mistaken (the pure physics and physiology are safe); just the last part, where we represent the activity in the brain as causally responsible for how things are in our experience. Let us reflect on this suggestion. The mistake, we might say, occurs not in science itself but where we attempt to draw within science the subject-matter each of us calls 'my experience'. If someone put forward the hypothesis that it is not the activity of the brain but the oesophagus that determines how things are in experience, we would say he is mistaken. This is not the kind of mistake that interests Heidegger. What Heidegger would say is mistaken is the idea that experience-that is, how things are in experience-can in the first place be viewed as caused or causally determined. The point, really, is about the concept of causation. Heidegger (I am guessing) sees a certain limit to the legitimate use of this concept. Roughly, we may apply it to how things are in the world but not to how things are in our experience. This needs to be understood in the right way. Suppose acid is spilled on the book in front of me, causing it to change colour. If the book is present in my experience, to cause such a change might be described as 'causing a change in (how things are in) my experience'. In this case, we might say that the change in (how things are in) my experience is essentially a change in the book, and only incidentally a change in my experience. That is, it is only because the object in which the change occurs, the book, happens to be present in my experience that we are entitled to describe the change as a 'change in my experience'. Accordingly, if we say in this case that 'a change is caused to occur in my experience', we apply the concept of causation to experience incidentally, not essentially. Presumably, however, when we speak of a 'change in (how things are in) my experience' being caused by the activity in my brain, here we do not take the change to be only incidentally a change in my experience. Here we apply the concept of causation to experience in an essential way. It is pretty clear that this is the sort of thing Heidegger would object to: making an essential application of the

36

The Puzzle

concept of causation to (how things are in) experience. So, when we consider the idea that it is illegitimate to apply the concept of causation to (how things are in) experience, this is what we shall understand, that the application in question is essential, not incidental. At the end of sect. 2.1, we remarked that the antinomy is a function of the fact that experience is a subject-matter on which we can reflect in two very different ways. We can reason about it in terms of the causal picture of experience; and we can be open to it. But what if the causal picture of experience involves an illegitimate use of the concept of causation? What if we therefore reject the idea of a causal picture of experience? Then the problematic reasoning will barely get off the ground. It will get cut off before it reaches the second stage, that is, before it has a chance to become philosophical (see sect. 1.5). Thus we will not be able to 'reason' ourselves into a state of being closed off from what we know; we will not get drawn into the impossible circle. 2.9. To give it a name (without too much regard for historical accuracy), I shall call this 'Heidegger's solution' of the puzzle. Let me try to characterize the general conception of things that underlies the solution. The starting-point is that we find the world present in experience (we find ourselves face to face with the world). There are many ways we deal with, and think about, the world. One of these is the scientific way. When we think about the world scientifically, the aim is to understand why things happen as they do. The use of the concept of causation is essential to this aim. To think scientifically is to think in causal terms, and we can think scientifically about anything in the world. Now we ourselves, we human beings, are included in the world. Thus we can think scientifically about ourselves, and about how we are related to other things in the world. This scientific study of ourselves in the world will include the study of our sense organs, nervous systems, and brains; it will include the ways these things are affected by things outside our bodies, and the ways they affect each other. But there is one thing our scientific study of ourselves cannot (legitimately) include, namely, our experience-that from 'within' which we are faced by the world, the

Being Open to our Experience

37

object of our scientific studies. Here we have a subject-matter that stands outside science, outside the scope of the concept of causation. If we do not heed this limit, if (in particular) we try to think of how things are in our experience as the causal product of what is happening in our brains, we shall be driven to a conclusion that conflicts with our starting-point: the fact that we find ourselves faced by the world. With one exception, I adhere to all of this. The exception is, I cannot persuade myself that it is illegitimate to extend the concept of causation to how things are in my experience. So I see no way of avoiding the conflict. What reason (apart from the conflict, the puzzle) is there for setting this limit on our use of the concept? True, we cannot raise causal questions everywhere. In mathematics and logic, for instance, such questions are generally conceded to be out of place. The traditional explanation (this will be good enough) is that in these cases our subject-matter is abstract, hence atemporal. Hence the concept of causation cannot get a foothold. But it seems obvious that, whatever exactly we are talking about when we talk about 'how things are in our experience', we are not talking about something atemporal. On the contrary, it seems obvious that we are talking about something which can change (which is in fact changing all the time) and is thus temporal. If there is a reason for placing experience outside the scope of causation, it does not lie with considerations of temporality. What may incline us to embrace Heidegger's solution is the very real sense of difficulty and obscurity that we may feel (or ought to feel) with the thought that the activity of the brain is causally responsible for 'how things are in experience'. (If I succeed in nothing but getting across just how great the difficulty is here, the book will not be a complete failure.) This thought touches a sensitive area at the heart of the puzzle. It would be a kind of relief to discover a limit which the thought transgresses, and on this basis to dismiss the thought as illegitimate. But, to repeat, I cannot persuade myself that there is such a limit. What is happening right now in my brain (I tell myself) is causally responsible for things being as they are right now in my experience. Is this not a meaningful proposition? Do we not all, each for himself, believe such propositions to be (in some sense) true? Do we not all

38

The Puzzle

know them to be true? Do I (we) not know that, if I were to take certain drugs, or if someone were to tinker in the right way with my brain, things would be different in my experience? More radically, do I (we) not know that, if the activity of my brain were to cease, there would be nothing in my experience (there would be NOTHING, no such thing as 'my experience')? These seem to be legitimate causal propositions-causal propositions about experience. They must be legitimate, because they are true. Everyone (including Heidegger) believes, everyone knows, they are true. Here, as I see it, is where all the argument comes to rest. However difficult and philosophically troublesome these causal propositions about experience may be, the (hard, undeniable) fact is that such propositions are true. It is true, for example, that how things are now in my experience is the result of what is happening now in my brain. If this proposition is true, it is legitimate; and if it is legitimate, we cannot solve the antinomy by excluding it as illegitimate.

NOTES

1. I will quote (without comment) O. K. Bouwsma, when he is struggling

to follow Moore's instructions (from Moore's 'Defense of Common Sense') for picking out a sense-datum: Can I prick a sense-datum with a pin? This is the puzzle which I noticed previously when I discussed Professor Moore's use of the phrase 'surface of my hand', and it arises from conceiving of the sense-datum as like a mirror-reflection, and at the same time as something which one can pick out. If when, on this basis, I look at my hand, and try to pick out a sense-datum, I must be surprised to discover something which, though it may be in certain respects like the image in the mirror, is also remarkably unlike it. For, in spite of what all these facts already noticed lead me to expect, I discover nothing but my hand. (,Moore's Theory of Sense-Data', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of G. E. Moore (New York: Tudor, 1952),218). 2. Discussions of the problems mentioned in this paragraph (and other problems as well) can be found in the following articles and books: G. A. Paul, 'Is there a Problem about Sense-Data?', Proceedings of the

Being Open to our Experience

3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

39

Aristotelian Society, 15 (1936); W. H. F. Barnes, 'The Myth of SenseData', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 45 (1944-5); R. Chisohn, 'The Theory of Appearing', in M. Black (ed.), Philosophical Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963); R. Chisolm, 'The Problem of the Speckled Hen', Mind, 51 (1942); H. H. Price, Perception (London: George AlIen & Unwin, 1932), Ch. 5; R. J. Hirst, The Problems of Perception, (New York: George Allen & Unwin, 1959), Ch. 3. This is only a small sample of the relevant literature. The question is discussed by Russell in Lecture 7 of 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism', in R. C. Marsh (ed.), Logic and Knowledge (London: George AlIen & Unwin, 1956),256-8; and in sect. 12 of 'The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics', in Mysticism and Logic (London: George AlIen & Unwin, 1963). The problem philosophers usually discuss in connection with bad faith is whether, and how, we might characterize bad faith in a way that both does justice to what it is and yet avoids the appearance of paradox. I know of no such characterization, but this is not a topic we shall pursue. My thoughts on bad faith, such as they are, were influenced by reading (several years ago) an unpublished manuscript on self-deception and rationality by Eugene Valberg. A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. I, pt. IV, sect. VII. What is called Thinking?, tr. J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). This question keeps recurring in the lectures as part of a developing theme. I am, for my own ends, focusing on a central but none the less fairly narrow cross-section of this development, which cannot purport to represent Heidegger's thought in these lectures as a whole. What is called Thinking?, 43. Another example of 'scientific philosophy' mentioned by Heidegger in this context takes the form of 'documents and proofs, to explain to us that what we see and accept is properly not a tree but in reality a void, thinly sprinkled with electric charges here and there that race hither and yon at tremendous speeds'. Such 'proofs', however, do not yield the conclusion that the objects of experience are 'ideas buzzing about in our heads', but aim to alter our view of what the object, conceived in the first place as an external thing, 'really' is. Here is part of Moore's instructions (mentioned above, n. 1) for picking out a sense-datum:

And in order to point out to the reader what sort of things I mean by sense-data, I need only ask him to look at his own right hand. If he does this he will be able to pick out something ... with regard to

40

The Puzzle which he will see that it is, at first sight, a natural view to take, that that thing is identical, not indeed, with his whole right hand, but with that part of its surface which he is actually seeing, but will also (on a little reflection) be able to see that it is doubtful whether it can be identical with the part of the surface of his hand question. Things of this sort, Moore says, are what he means by 'sense-data' ('A Defense of Common Sense', in Philosophical Papers (New York: Collier, 1962), 54). It has crossed my mind that (ignoring the business about 'part of the surface', etc.) the ambivalence to which Moore alludes is an echo of our puzzle. I would add that, for Moore, this ambivalence was not simply conjured up, or feigned, as a device for explaining his use of the term 'sense-datum', but was something he genuinely felt. Thus at one point in 'A Reply to my Critics', after rehearsing an argument to the effect that the object of experience is never an external thing, he admits that the conclusion he has reached is incompatible with the view which, in the previous section of the 'Reply', he had said he was 'strongly inclined' to accept, namely, that the object of experience generally is an external thing. He continues: 'And this is the truth. I am strongly inclined to take both of these incompatible views. I am completely puzzled about the matter, and only wish I could see any way of settling it' (Schilpp (ed.), Philosophy a/G. E. Maore, 658-9). The last sentence quoted pretty well expresses my own situation in this regard.

3

The Explanation of the Puzzle 3.1. The puzzle consists in a conflict which emerges when we reflect in two different ways on our experience: when we reason about our experience on the basis of the causal picture of experience, and when we are open to our experience. Both kinds of reflection are philosophical. The reasoning is philosophical in that it depends on perceiving a possibility implicit in the facts comprising the causal picture of experience, and then deriving the consequences of the possibility thus perceived. Being open to our experience is philosophical in that it presupposes our having appreciated precisely the kind of reflection about experience that is philosophical in the first sense. Our puzzle, then, is brought to light by philosophical reflection. In that sense it is a philosophical puzzle. But there are other tasks for philosophy in this regard. Most obviously, once the puzzle has come to light, we must try to solve it. To solve the puzzle would be to demonstrate that the conflict in which it consists is merely apparent. This would involve exposing a mistake in our philosophical reflections-that is, the reflections which purport to reveal the conflict. Another philosophical task is to explain the puzzle, to make clear why the conflict is there to be uncovered in this way. In trying to explain the puzzle, we may allow ourselves to assume that there is no mistake in our philosophical reflections, that there really is a conflict such as we have described. This will be our mode of proceeding in the present Chapter. On the assumption that problematic reasoning is correct, that the conflict uncovered by philosophical reflection is real and not merely apparent, we shall try to explain why the conflict exists, why we are caught up in the puzzle. Now at one level the explanation of the puzzle is fairly obvious. We need simply point out the following two facts. First, the fact

42

The Puzzle

that we accept the causal picture of experience. The causal picture is part of everyday knowledge, part of our 'picture of the world' (as we shall say). Second, there is the fact that in everyday life we view the world (external objects) as present in experience. That is, in everyday life we accept the following proposition: (W) The world (external objects) is (are) present in experience. Given that our picture of the world includes the causal picture of experience, we have available (for philosophical reflection) the materials from which to derive the conclusion that the world is not present in experience. This is what we do in the problematic reasoning. We take part of our picture of the world and, by reflecting on it philosophically, we prove that (W) is false, that the world is not present in experience. But in everyday life we not only accept the causal picture of experience (as part of our picture of the world), we accept (W), that the world is present in experience. Thus, having reached the conclusion of the reasoning, if we then open up to our experience, all we find is the world. Let me elaborate briefly on these points. 3.2. The causal picture of experience is not an isolated set of propositions. It is part of a much larger picture, a much larger system of propositions. Along with the propositions comprising the causal picture of experience, the larger picture includes such propositions as the following: that we are animals of a certain kind (human beings), complex organisms; that we live on a huge moreor-less spherical body (called earth in English) along with many other kinds of animals; that this huge body revolves around a star that is vastly bigger than our earth; that on this body that we humans and other animals inhabit there are many kinds of plants and generally things which grow; that we can obtain nourishment from the latter; that there are (on earth) also many kinds of inanimate things and stuffs which we humans use, and depend on, and generally interact with, in various ways; and so on. If we consider anyone of the propositions-for example, the proposition about plants-it is obvious that accepting this proposition involves accepting countless others. Think about what we accept when we view something as a 'plant': that it grows out of the ground, that it requires water and sunlight, that it will eventually

The Explanation of the Puzzle

43

die ... Now think of what is involved in understanding what 'the ground' is, and 'water', and 'sunlight'; and what it is for something to be 'living', and to 'die'. There is (as philosophers have often observed) no end to the way the acceptance of propositions spreads out and ramifies; to the way the acceptance of anyone proposition interconnects with acceptance of indefinitely many others. This is the point of calling the larger picture, that to which the causal picture of experience belongs, a 'system' of propositions. The system, the larger picture, is what we shall mean by our 'picture of the world'. Our picture of the world is a scientific picture. We may think of the picture as an outline. Any normal human being brought up in our culture picks up the outline. Scientists are people who can fill in more of the outline than other people. They can fill in more details. But not just any details; the details filled in by science are those which enable us to understand and explain (in a particular way that I shall not attempt to characterize) why things happen in the world as they do. 'Why does boiling water evaporate?' 'Why does the sun rise and set?' 'What makes plants grow?' 'Why, when we open our eyes, do we see the world around us?' Note that, in the first instance at least, science wants to explain the world as we all know it. Thus the questions it begins by asking are questions formulated in terms of everyday kinds of objects, phenomena, and so on, kinds which anyone (more or less) who shares our outline picture would know about. So, unless you are already familiar with such things, unless you have already assimilated the outline picture, you will not understand these questions. You are not ready for SCIence. Ideas developed by scientists may eventually work their way into, and thus alter, the outline picture. It seems plausible that, to some extent, this has happened with the causal picture of experience.] In such a case, our picture of the world changes by way of addition. It may also happen (it has happened) that certain things get forced out of the picture. (To take the classic example, the belief that the body we live on revolves around the sun forced out the belief that the sun revolves around the body we live on.) But, even when the outline gets altered, it is ultimately on the basis of beliefs that fall within the outline.

44

The Puzzle

We might sum up the relation between science and our picture of the world by saying that our picture of the world has a place for science. But it would seem that this need not be a feature of every such picture, that there might be (and perhaps are) pictures of the world that have no place for what we call 'science'. 2 A non-scientific picture of the world would not, it seems, contain anything like the causal picture of experience. People with a non-scientific picture of the world would not reject the causal picture of experience; they would be mystified by it (and of course by much else that we take for granted). Is there anywhere a society or culture in which people hold a non-scientific picture of the world? It does not matter. All that matters, for present purposes, is that our picture is a scientific picture. More to the point, anyone who has picked up our picture of the world accepts the causal picture of experience. Thus anyone who has picked up our picture, for example, anyone reading this book, has the materials to prove that (W) is false, that the world is not present in experience. He need only reflect in a certain way. 3.3. But this same person accepts (W). We all accept (W). (W) is not actually included in our picture of the world, but we accept it. This should be uncontroversial. Do we not constantly and as a matter of course point out for each other, and make demonstrative reference to, external objects of everyday kinds (books, tables, trees, people)? This (it seems to me) is not something that can be seriously questioned, or argued about. It is just how things are with us. You and I are searching for a certain book on the shelves. I point and say, 'There it is.' I take (and you take) the object to which I point to be a book, an external object, and we both take this object to be present to us. (That is what pointing is all about.) Not only that; when I point, you take my arm, the arm that points, to be present in your experience: you follow its line to a certain spot on the shelves. So the shelves too, and the books on the shelves-all this you take as present. So do I. After all, our search is a search among objects present in our experience. And we (who are conducting the search, and who are part of the world) take each other to be present in each other's experience. This is how we live, accepting (W), that is, with the world present to us (and thus with ourselves present to each other).

The Explanation of the Puzzle

45

We live this way, notice, even when we are engaged in philosophical reflection, even when we are engaged in the problematic reasoning. Philosophy does not give us a new kind of life. So, having employed the reasoning to prove that (W) is false, that the world is not present to us, if we then reflect in the other way, if we open up to our experience, all we find is the world. (It was there all along.) 3.4. The conflict can be elicited by philosophical reflection because the conflict is part of the way we live. (Remember, for the purpose of trying to explain the puzzle, we are assuming that there are no mistakes in the problematic reasoning, that the puzzle has no solution.) The way we live contains an implicit conflict. We live with the world present to us, yet our picture of the world includes something (the causal picture of experience) on the basis of which we can prove that the world is not present to us. The philosophical response to this is predictable. It will be to say that, if in fact we live with an implicit conflict, it need not be that way. Once we are clear what follows from the causal picture of experience we realize that our ways of talking and thinking, our procedures and attitudes, are inappropriate to the truth. The truth is that (W) is false: the world is not present in experience. Thus our actual ways of thinking and so on need to be systematically corrected, overhauled. 3 If the puzzle is to be philosophically interesting, it must be the case that such a correction is in principle impossible. In other words, it must be the case that our acceptance of (W) is somehow necessary, or inevitable. And I think it is, in a conditional sense. We have a picture of the world. Given that that is so, we must accept (W). There is no way that we could have a picture of the world without accepting (W), without viewing the world as present in experience. Our picture of the world, we know, contains the causal picture of experience; it is a scientific picture. But this is irrelevant to the point about (W). For, we shall argue, the point about (W) holds with respect to any picture of the world, whether or not it contains the causal picture of experience (more generally, whether or not it is a scientific picture). Given that we have a picture of the world, any picture of the world, we cannot but accept (W): we cannot but view the world as present in experience. Given that we have our

46

The Puzzle

picture of the world, however, we can prove that (W) is false: we can prove that the world is not present in experience. 3.5. What is it to have a picture of the world? There are two main points here. First, someone who has a picture of the world must view that of which his picture is a picture as external: as something, a reality, whose existence is not exhausted by its presence (if any) in experience. Otherwise his picture is not, for him, a picture of the world. Secondly, someone who has a picture of the world, of a reality he views as external, must view this reality in terms of kinds, or types, or categories. These are provided by his picture of the world. The kinds in question need not be of the sorts provided by our picture of the world (natural kinds, artefact kinds etc.). But the picture he has must provide him with some kinds or other-that is, it must provide him with some ways or other of thinking about (organizing) that which he views as external. Otherwise what he has will not be a picture of the world. These two points, it seems to me, bring with them a third. When we describe someone as having a picture of a reality he views as external, which picture provides him with kinds, types, or categories, in terms of which he thinks about this reality (the world), we have described someone who has a language. The language he has will contain expressions for the kinds, in terms of which he thinks about the world. He will use this language, with its expressions for kinds, in thinking about the world. 4 In sum, to have a picture of the world is to have a picture of a reality we view as external, that is, as existing independently of being present in experience; to have such a picture, moreover, entails grasping a set of kinds, embodied in a language, which we apply to this reality. But why should our having a picture of a reality we view as existing independently of being present in experience (as external) entail that we view this same reality, the reality which our picture pictures, as present in experience? Why should our having a picture of the world be incompatible with our viewing what is present in experience as internal, that is, as existing only in so far as it is present in experience, hence as other than the reality to which we apply the kinds in our picture of the world, the reality we view as external?

The Explanation of the Puzzle

47

3.6. Let us ask ourselves (this is hardly a novel approach) how we come, or anyone comes, to have a picture of the world. We are not born with such a picture full blown in our heads. Nor is it magically implanted in us. Somehow we have to pick it up, learn it. This requires the help and guidance (encouragement, prodding, teaching) of people who have already learnt the picture. We (human beings) are born into an existing human setting or context: a context with a language and all sorts of customs and institutions and ways of doing things; a context with an already established, ongoing life. Guided by people who are already on the inside of this context, who already know their way around, we are gradually drawn into it. We gradually pick up the language and the world-picture whose kinds and categories, whose ways of thinking, are expressed in the language. The crucial point for our argument concerns how we acquire a grasp of these kinds; how we learn to use the relevant expressions. Consider how we learn what books or tables or trees are (how we learn to use the expressions book, table, tree)-that is, consider how this type of learning gets off the ground. Initially, and in a great many cases, we learn what the different kinds of external object are by having objects of the relevant kinds (or sometimes pictures of these objects) pointed out and named for us; or by having objects of the relevant kinds named for us when we are in some way interested in, or occupied with, them. The objects are named for us when they are present to us. Is there any other way in which we might learn what such objects are? Could such objects be introduced to us by description? I mean, could we start out in life learning what trees, books, or tables are by being given descriptions of these things? Of course later on, after we have to some extent become insiders, and thus have to some extent mastered a language, we are in a position to learn by description. But that is not what we are talking about now. We are talking about how we get to the stage where we are able to learn by description, how in the first place we pick up a language and a world-picture. It is obvious that, at the outset, learning by description is not on. It is obvious that, to get to the stage where we can learn by description, we must first learn by having things pointed out to us. This is how, to begin with, we learn what books, tables

48

The Puzzle

and trees are-by having instances of these kinds pointed out to us. How else could it be? But if we can learn what books and so on are only by having them pointed out to us, and if only what is present in experience can be pointed out to us, how could we fail to take these objects as present in experience? 3.7. We have chosen our examples of kinds of external object from (of course) our own picture of the world. But it should be clear that the argument will work for any kinds of external object. For any such kinds, the only way we could learn (at the ground level) what they are is by having instances of such kinds pointed out and named for us. So, for any such kinds, we must come to view instances of such kinds as (at least potentially) present in experience. It may well be objected that the argument begs the issue. The argument states that we could not have learnt what objects such as books, trees, and kinds of external objects in general, are except by having them pointed out to us. However, what gives us the right to assume that things like books and trees can be pointed out to us? An object can be pointed out to us only if it is present in experience. But that objects like books and trees (external objects) can be present in experience is precisely what, in the present context, we are not allowed to assume. So let us describe the matter more cautiously: by one means or another certain objects are drawn, or simply come, to our attention, and these objects are named for us as 'books' and 'trees'. This is how (at the ground level) we learn what such objects are. Now this apparently leaves open the possibility that the objects drawn to our attention are internal, but it does not materially alter the result. Certain objects, let us suppose, are drawn to our attention and called 'books', 'trees', or whatever. So these objects, whatever they are, are present to us. (How else could our attention be drawn to them?) And this, we are supposing, is how we learn what books, trees, and other kinds of object in our picture of the world, are: by having objects present to us called by the names of such kinds. In that case, the very process of learning what books and tables are (of learning how to use 'book' and 'tree') gives us no option but to regard books and trees and other kinds of external objects as objects that are (at least potentially) present in experience. Think about it.

The Explanation of the Puzzle

49

If we are taught what books and trees are by having objects present in our experience named for us as 'books' and 'trees', how could we fail to view books and trees as things which are present in experience? If (say) I am instructed about this object that it is a tree, and if that is the way I learn what trees are, how can I help thinking of trees as objects which can be present to me, present in my experience? Here, then, is the argument. We are brought to grasp the kinds of objects which make up the world, the kinds represented in our picture of the world, by having objects present in experience named for us as instances of these kinds. There is, at the ground level, no other way we could learn these kinds; no other way, then, that we could acquire a picture of the world. This being the case, it is inevitable that we should come to view objects of the kinds in question, external objects, as objects which can be present in experience. The fact that we have acquired, and thus have, a picture of the world guarantees that we regard the world (external objects) as present in experience, that we accept (W). The process of acquiring a picture of the world and the process of coming to accept (W) are one and the same process.

3.8. I shall call this 'the argument from acquisition'. We observed in sect. 3.3 that demonstrative reference to objects like books, trees, and tables is part of everyday life. We live (as we put it) with the world present to us, accepting (W). The argument from acquisition explains why this is so. Given how we learn the kinds of objects in our picture of the world, we cannot but view objects of those kinds as (possibly) present in experience. Yet, on the basis of the causal picture of experience, which is part of our picture of the world-the very picture whose acquisition makes it inevitable that we accept (W)-we can prove that such objects cannot be present in experience, that (W) is false. This is our quandary. It is important to appreciate that the conclusion of the argument from acquisition is not (W) itself, but that we cannot but accept (W). So it is not a proof of (W). If it were put forward as a proof of (W), the sceptic would be quick to point out that, from the fact that we cannot but view the world as present in experience, it does not follow that the world is present in experience. We can prove, by the

50

The Puzzle

problematic reasoning, that the world is not present in experience; but there is no countervailing argument to prove that the world is present in experience. It would, therefore, be a mistake to see the conclusion of the argument from acquisition as constituting one half of our antinomy. Our antinomy is not a classical antinomy. In classical antinomies (such as those of Kant) reasoning is at odds with reasoning. In our antinomy, what opposes the conclusion of the problematic reasoning is not (as we have stressed) the conclusion of another argument or piece of reasoning about experience but the deliverance of an entirely different kind of philosophical reflection: being open to our experience. Having reasoned to the conclusion that the world is never present in experience, that what is present is always an internal object, we open up to our experience and are confronted, it seems, by the world. In so far as it explains why we cannot but accept (W), the argument from acquisition explains why things are as they are when, in philosophical reflection, we are open to our experience. To be open to our experience is to be open to how things are within our experience. Given that we have a picture of the world, within our experience things cannot but be like this: the world is present. Someone who claims (in an ordinary case) that when he is open to his experience what he finds is an internal object, is still under the influence of a philosophical argument, such as the problematic reasoning. He is not yet open to his experience-that is, to how things are in his experience. Since he already knows how things are in his experience, he is not yet open to what he already knows. This is the philosophical counterpart of self-deception (see sect. 2.4). In the present chapter we are trying neither to expound the puzzle nor to solve it. The exposition is complete (Chapters 1 and 2). The solving of the puzzle, or the attempt to solve it, is yet to come (Chapters 4-8). What we are trying to do now, on the assumption that it has no solution, is to get behind the puzzle, to explain why it is there for us. The argument from acquisition figures not at the level of conflict but at the level of explanation. Implicit in the causal picture of experience, which is part of our picture of the world, is a possibility (the potential irrelevance of the external thing) on the basis of which it is provable that the world cannot be present in our

The Explanation of the Puzzle

51

experience. Yet (here is where the argument from acquisition comes in), given that we have a picture of the world, within our experience it cannot but be like this: the world is present. Thus we are set up for the antinomy, for the conflict which emerges when we first reason about our experience and then are open to it. 3.9. The argument from acquisition also helps to explain other things which relate to our situation vis-a-vis the puzzle. For one thing, it helps to explain why, if someone did not appreciate that a tree, for example, is something to which we can point, something which may be present in experience, we would say he does not understand what a tree is (what we mean by a 'tree'). But we need a distinction here. What is a tree? What do we mean by a 'tree'? We mean Ca tree is) something which grows out of the ground, has bark, branches, foliage, and so on. What is a book (what do we mean by a 'book')? A book is (we mean by 'book') something that has printed pages ... This is the sort of thing that a dictionary might tell us, or that we might tell someone who did not know the meaning of the relevant expressions. Let us say that each kind of external object recognized in a picture of the world-each kind, that is, for which the language embodying the picture contains an expression-has a specific content. In the case of natural kinds, we may allow that kinds with a different specific content might turn out to be the same kind, or that the same specific content may be associated with distinct kinds; but, generally, each kind has its own specific content. And, if someone does not know the specific content of a kind, we say that he does not understand what things of that kind are. Thus, if someone did not know that a book has pages, or that a tree has branches and leaves, we would say he does not know what a book is, what a tree is.5 Now it seems clear that the possibility of pointing and presence is not part of the specific content of any kind of external object. It is not part of the specific content of trees, for example, that trees can be pointed to and hence be present in experience. (If we were explaining what we mean by a 'tree', would we be apt to say it is something with bark and foliage ... and to which we can point?) Yet, as we noted, if a subject did not appreciate that a tree is

52

The Puzzle

something to which we can point, we would say that he does not understand what a tree is (what we mean by a 'tree'). Another example: trees have characteristic ways of looking, or appearing. Thus it is possible for an object to look like a tree without being a tree. Of course, this holds for other kinds of external object as well. So it can happen that a tree looks like an object which is not a tree. We can agree, I take it, that someone who has only read or heard about trees and is unsure what they look like, might none the less be said to understand what we mean by a 'tree' (what a tree is). But imagine someone who does not appreciate that trees are objects which look one way or another, hence that it is possible for something which is not a tree to look like a tree, or for a tree to look like something which is not a tree. 6 In this case, I believe, we would say the person does not understand what we mean by a 'tree'. But, as with the possibility of pointing, it seems incorrect to treat the possibility of appearing as part of the specific content of the kind, part of what we mean by 'tree'. Let us express ourselves as follows. That trees, books, etc., are objects which can be pointed to, hence that they are objects that are (or can be) present in experience, this belongs not to the specific content but to the metaphysical grammar of the respective kinds. The same goes for the possibility of appearing: it is part of the (metaphysical) grammar of these kinds, not their specific content. Notice, just as only what is present in experience can be pointed out or demonstratively referred to, only what is present can appear one way or another. If right now an object looks red to me, or looks like a tree, then that object-the very object which looks red, or like a tree-must be present in my experience. Thus, when we include the possibility of appearing in the metaphysical grammar of a kind, we thereby include the possibility of presence in experience. Objects of a kind whose metaphysical grammar includes that they can look one way or another are objects that can be present in experience. It also belongs to the metaphysical grammar of everyday kinds like books and trees that such objects exist independently of presence in experience, that they are external. If someone thought a tree or a book was the same kind of thing as an after-image, he would not understand what trees or books are. Yet being external is not part of the specific content of trees and books. It would be

The Explanation of the Puzzle

53

inappropriate to include in an explanation of what we mean by 'tree' or 'book' that these objects exist independently of presence in experience. 7 Let us confine our attention to those aspects of metaphysical grammar which relate to presence. All the familiar everyday kinds of external objects have a metaphysical grammar which includes the possibility of pointing and demonstrative reference and appearing and, therefore, presence in experience. Someone who did not appreciate that a shoe, a rock, a lump of gold, a cloud, a canary, or another human being is something which can be demonstratively referred to and can appear one way or another, that it is something that can be present in experience, could not be said to understand what these kinds of thing are. The everyday kinds in terms of which we think about the world have the possible presence of the world built into them-not as something which shows up in their specific content but as part of their common metaphysical grammar. 8 Nor is the distinction between specific content and metaphysical grammar confined to the level of trees and books. It reappears within the specific content of these kinds. A tree is something with branches; a book is something with pages. What do we mean by a 'branch' or a 'page'? However we fill in the specific content of these kinds, they have the same metaphysical grammar as the kinds in whose specific content they figure. (Hence a branch, or a page, is something that can be demonstratively referred to, that can appear one way or another, and so on.) The same will be true if we push this to the next level (to the kinds which figure in the specific content of branches and pages). A picture of the world is permeated through and through with the possible presence of the world. Thus our acceptance of (W) is involved not just in particular acts of pointing and demonstrative reference to external objects, but in general as well as non-demonstrative singular thoughts about such objects. It is involved in all our thinking about the world. My point is that the argument from acquisition makes it clear why this is so, why it could not be otherwise. The explanation lies in how, at the ground level, we learn what kinds of external objects are (what trees are, what books are); how we acquire a picture of the world. We acquire a world-picture via objects that are present to us. There is no other way it could happen.

54

The Puzzle

Consider, then, our predicament in the problematic reasoning. I begin with the thought that the book on the table is reflecting light to my eyes. In thinking this thought, I employ (what else?) kinds from our world-picture. It is part of the metaphysical grammar of these kinds that objects of these kinds can be present in experience. If I did not accept that books and tables are objects that can be present in experience, I would not understand what books and tables are. I would not be thinking the thought I am actually thinking. The same would be true if, having reached the conclusion of the reasoning, I have the thought that books and tables cannot be present in my experience. I could not think this thought unless I accepted that books and tables can be present in experience. It is, it seems, only because I do not accept the conclusion of the reasoning that I can think the conclusion. 3.10. It may be said that, even if we grant the foregoing analysis of our situation, it remains possible that, in the light of the problematic reasoning, we should abandon (W) and revise our picture of the world accordingly. Why should we not come to realize that something about our situation inevitably leads us astray, and then correct our mistake? Perhaps for us the road to truth must pass through error. Let us try to develop this idea. Our thinking about the world, we are to suppose, is contaminated by a deep and all-pervasive mistake: we take the objects present in experience to be instances of the kinds in our picture of the world, whereas the problematic reasoning demonstrates that such objects (books, trees, and so on) cannot be present in experience, that the only objects which can be present to us are internal objects. This is not just a mistake about this or that feature in our picture of the world. It is a mistake which has become entrenched in the metaphysical grammar of the kinds in this picture. How do we come to be so grossly and systematically mistaken about the true nature of our situation? The answer to this question must, we know, be compatible with the fact that the ground-level learning of the everyday kinds in our picture of the world can proceed only by having objects present to us drawn to our attention as instances of the relevant kinds-as books, trees, or whatever. What are the objects present to us that

The Explanation of the Puzzle

ss

figure in this learning process? We shall want to say that they are books and trees. But, of course, we cannot say this, since the idea right now is to explain how we come to be mistaken in precisely the way that issues in our wanting to say that it is books and trees that are present to us, hence that it is books and trees by reference to which we learn what books and trees are. But there may seem to be no difficulty here. Recall that, to avoid begging the issue in favour of the argument from acquisition, we restated the argument so as to leave open what the objects are by reference to which we learn the kinds in our picture of the world (see sect. 3.7). We then noted that this does not seem to affect the conclusion of the argument. That is, regardless of what the objects present to us are, since (at the ground level) we can only learn what books and trees are by having objects present to us named for us as books and trees, it is inevitable that we come to view books and trees as objects which can be present to us. Thus, the argument from acquisition seems to explain why we view objects like books and trees as present to us, that is, why we accept (W), and yet to leave open the possibility that, as the problematic reasoning demonstrates, books and trees are never present to us. This suggests, in an obvious way, an answer to the question of how we come to be so mistaken about the nature of our situation. It will be of interest at this point to consider another example which philosophers have discussed. Think how we learn what solidity is: it is by reference to things like rocks and hunks of wood. Such things, relatively large objects that we can see and feel, are pointed out to us as examples of things which are solid. Since this is how we learn what solidity is, we inevitably take rocks to be solid. But then one day we learn that rocks and such like are ultimately composed of tiny particles separated by empty space, that they are not really solid. And here, it seems, we use the same concept of solidity that we originally picked up. We picked up the concept (we learned what solidity is) by reference to things like rocks, only to learn, at a later stage, that such things, in fact, do not actually satisfy the concept. Now we could not learn this unless we already had the concept of solidity, and yet (let us assume) we could not have come to grasp the concept except by reference to relatively

56

The Puzzle

large perceptible objects like rocks, objects which do not satisfy the concept. I[ we can learn what solidity is by reference to objects which are not in fact solid, and retrospectively learn of our mistake, why might it not be like that with books, trees, tables, and other everyday kinds of external object? Why might it not be that our learning what such things are can proceed only by reference to objects that we later come to see are not books and tables but rather internal objects? It would happen in the following manner. Our attention is drawn to objects which, in fact, are internal. These objects are called 'book', 'table', and so on. In this way, although we become mistakenly committed to (W), the meaning of 'book' and 'table' is conveyed to us; we learn what books, tables, and the other kinds of external object are. Thus we are in a position to work through the problematic reasoning and discover that books, tables and so on cannot be what is present in experience, that the objects of experience must be internal. Once we have this result, we can give up (W) and revise our procedures and ways of thinking accordingly. 3.11. Now some philosophers will reject the point about solidity. Let us not raise problems on this score. Let us accept, then, that it is not part of the specific content of rocks, say, that they are solid. And clearly, this is not part of their metaphysical grammar. (Kinds of external object share the same grammar; but not all external objects are solid.) Thus, it remains possible that we should find out that rocks are not solid. But then the analogy is less than pefect. For it is part of the grammar of books, trees, and other kinds of external object that such objects can be present to us. This raises a problem. We are being told that we must revise our picture of the world. In particular, we must excise the possibility of presence from the metaphysical grammar of the kinds of external object. (All that will remain is externality.) Suppose we ask why we should do this. We will be referred to the problematic reasoning. But the reasoning, which is supposed to be our reason for revising the logical grammar of the kinds we employ, employs the very kinds whose grammar we are being told to revise. How do we get started here? This, you will

The Explanation of the Puzzle

57

recognize, is essentially the same predicament which we described at the end of sect. 3.9. As before, there may seem to be a way out of the predicament. True, when we first work through the problematic reasoning we have no option but to use kinds whose metaphysical grammar includes the possibility of presence. We have (after all) no option but to draw upon the picture of the world we actually have, and the metaphysical grammar of the kinds in the picture we actually have includes the possibility of presence. However, it might be held that this fact about the kinds in our picture of the world is not essential to the problematic reasoning, that the reasoning will work just as well with kinds whose grammar includes only externality. Thus, once we understand how we have gone wrong, nothing stands in the way of retrospectively revising these kinds in a way that allows us to take on board the conclusion of the reasoning-that is, to give up (W). B~ar in mind, we are not concerned with the practical reform of our thinking but with the theoretical question of how it goes wrong, and whether it is in principle open to reform. Is it not a legitimate task of philosophy to contemplate such questions? 3.12. Let us examine more carefully what goes on in the solidity example. How is it possible that we should learn what solidity is by having pointed out to us objects which are not solid? Suppose we say that to be solid is to have no holes or gaps. This is, in part anyway, the specific content of solidity. The idea is that rocks do not (strictly speaking) satisfy this part of the specific content; surprisingly, rocks are not solid. How is it that we can none the less teach someone what solidity is by drawing his attention to rocks? How could drawing someone's attention to objects which are, in fact, not solid manage to convey, or get across to him, what solidity is? The answer should be plain. To be solid is to have no gaps, and rocks look and feel to us as if they have no gaps. (If we chose instead a sponge or a piece of chicken wire, then we would not achieve our objective; we would lead the learner astray. Why? Well, because, unlike rocks, such things do not look and feel as if they have no gaps.) Still, once someone acquires by reference to things like rocks a grasp of what solidity is, he can then understand that these objects are, in fact, not solid.

58

The Puzzle

It will be useful to introduce a distinction here. If something looks (feels, etc.) F to us, or like an F, it can serve us as a teaching paradigm with respect to being F, or being an F. But not all teaching paradigms are true paradigms. A true paradigm of being F, or being an F, both looks (feels) like something which is F, or an F, and is the way it looks (feels). Rocks, then, are (or can be used as) teaching paradigms of solidity. But they are not true paradigms of solidity. We may suppose that none of the available teaching paradigms of solidity is a true paradigm. Similarly, it might be said, none of the available teaching paradigms of books and tables is a true paradigm. The only available teaching paradigms are internal objects. It is only (as we know from the problematic reasoning) such objects that can be present to us. Hence it is only such objects to which our attention can be drawn for the purpose of teaching us what books and tables (and other kinds of external object) are. Inevitably, then, we come to view the wrong objects, internal objects, as books and tables. And, since the objects we view as books and tables (namely, internal objects) are present to us, we mistakenly come to suppose that books and tables can be present to us: we mistakenly come to accept (W). However, despite the mistake about books and tables being present to us, we do in this way manage to learn what books and tables are. Thus we are in a position to discover, via the problematic reasoning, that the objects which serve as teaching paradigms for books and tables, and which are the only objects which can serve in this way, are not true paradigms; that, in principle, no teaching paradigm of a book or a table could possibly be a true paradigm. The last point should alert us to another shortcoming in the analogy. In the solidity example, we are not worrying about the problematic reasoning: the story we tell in setting out this example does not exclude the possibility of our having true paradigms. Rocks, hunks of wood, and so on may not be what they seem. But surely there might have been such objects, that is, there might have been objects which not only looked and felt as if they had no gaps but indeed had no gaps. However, if the problematic reasoning is correct, nothing which looks like a book or a tree could ever be a book or a tree; it must be an internal object. In fact, I think we can

The Explanation of the Puzzle

59

see that, if the reasoning is correct, there is no such thing as 'looking like a book' or 'looking like a tree'. What we mean by 'looking F (like an F)' is looking like something which is F (an F) would look under such-and-such circumstances. But, if the problematic reasoning is correct, there are no circumstances in which books, trees, and so on look any way to us. This goes back to the point we made in sect. 3.9: only what is present in experience can look this way or that way to us. If right now a certain object looks solid to us, or looks like a tree, then it, that very object, must right now be present to us. But, if the problematic reasoning is correct, there are no circumstances in which objects like books and trees (or objects which are solid) are present in experience. There are no circumstances in which instances of any kind of external object are present in experience-and not just as a matter of fact, but in the nature of the case. So, in the nature of the case, objects like trees and books can never look any way to us. In effect, what the problematic reasoning establishes is that there is for us no such thing as 'looking like a tree' or 'looking like a book' (or 'looking solid'). This means we could not learn that the objects which look like books and trees are, in fact, not books and trees (that the teaching paradigms are not true paradigms). How could we learn that the objects which look like books and trees are not books and trees when there is in the first place no such thing as 'looking like a book' , or 'looking like a tree'? In the context of the solidity example, we take for granted that solid objects can be present in experience. Solid objects are external objects. Thus the example takes for granted precisely what is called into question by the problematic reasoning. This is what allows the example to work. By the same token, if we put aside the problematic reasoning, we could construct an example about (say) trees, wherein we imagine learning what trees are by having pointed out to us objects which are not trees. Thus it seems possible that we should learn how to use the expression 'tree' by reference to artificial trees (suitably placed out of doors). But, of course, in this story we are not supposing ourselves to be cut off from external things. The objects pointed out to us and called 'trees' look like trees (which enables them to serve as teaching paradigms). Since they are not trees, they are not true paradigms. But they (the objects pointed out

60

The Puzzle

to us) are external objects. We are not in this story cut off from external objects. So there is nothing in the story which excludes the possibility of trees looking like trees. This possibility is just what is excluded by the conclusion of the problematic reasoning: trees cannot look like anything. There is no such a thing as 'looking like a tree'. And, if there is no such thing as 'looking like a tree', there can be no such thing as learning that objects which look like trees are not trees. But might we not teach someone what trees are by bringing about the right sort of hallucination on his part? Once again, we are smuggling into the imagined situation something incompatible with the conclusion of the problematic reasoning. The 'right sort' of the hallucination would be a hallucination in which the internal object looks like a tree. So, though trees would never show up in the experience of the unfortunate subject, we are supposing that they do show up in experience-in our experience (we who are imagining the situation). We are supposing that there is such a thing as 'looking like a tree'. Philosophers sometimes put forward the epistemic argument that, since internal objects are 'private' , if we were cut off from the world and thus in teaching had to rely on such objects, we could not know whether the learner had learnt what we were trying to convey; for we could not know whether his attention was drawn to an object of the right sort. Our argument is not, in this sense, epistemic. It is not that, were we cut off from the world, we could not know whether the learner's attention was drawn to an object of the right sort, but that, were we cut off, there would be no such thing as an object of 'the right sort'. In this context, being of 'the right sort' means being such that, by drawing someone's attention to an object of that sort, we can convey what, for example, a book or a tree is. But what sort of object could (at the ground level) convey what a book or a tree is except an object which looks like a book or a tree? The point is worth repeating. If we were cut off from the world, if external objects-objects such as books and trees-were objects which (in the nature of the case) could not be present to us, there would be for us no such thing as 'looking like a book' or 'looking like a tree'. So there would be nothing in virtue of which an internal object might convey what a book or a tree is.

The Explanation of the Puzzle

61

Here is another way of putting it. In the solidity example, we countenance the possibility that none of the available teaching paradigms is a true paradigm. If in learning (teaching) the kinds of external objects we were in principle cut off from these objects, our situation would be more desperate. Not only would none of the teaching paradigms be a true paradigm; there would be no teaching paradigms at all. Then how did we get where we are? How did we, how could we, acquire a picture of the world? 3.13. The inevitability of our accepting (W) goes deeper than the argument from acquisition may initially suggest. It is not just that the process by which we acquire a picture of the world inevitably leads us to accept (W). We cannot in reflecting on this process coherently suppose that its inevitable outcome, our acceptance of (W), is a mistake. If we suppose ourselves mistaken in accepting (W), that is, if we suppose ourselves cut off from the world, then we must suppose that nothing present to us could ever function as a teaching paradigm for the kinds in our picture of the world. In that case, we cannot make sense of the process by which we have learnt these kinds, by which we have come to have a picture of the world. A fortiori, we cannot make sense of our original supposition, namely, that this process has resulted in our coming mistakenly to accept (W).

Thus there was an element of sham when, in describing the ground-level learning process, we professed to leave open the possibility that the objects drawn to our attention and named for us as 'books' or 'trees' might be (as the problematic reasoning entails) exclusively internal. We cannot really leave this open. Between our description of the learning process and the supposed possibility there exists a hidden contradiction. If in describing the process by which we acquire a picture of the world we suppose ourselves cut off from the reality pictured by the picture whose acquisition we are describing, we shall be unable to make sense of the process we are claiming to describe. There is, then, a double inevitability about our accepting (W). It is inevitable that, in acquiring a picture of the world, we have come to accept (W). But it is also inevitable that we accept (W) in reflecting on how we acquired a picture of the world. So, if we tell a

62

The Puzzle

story in which this process has resulted in our mistakenly accepting (W), it will turn out that, in telling the story, we ourselves have been forced to accept the very proposition which, according to the story, we are mistaken in accepting. Our acceptance of (W), one might say, is inevitable both in fact and in reflection. 3.14. But remember, the (double) inevitability of our accepting (W) is just that, the inevitability of our accepting (W). This is what all our arguments in the present chapter have aimed to establish; they have not aimed to establish the truth of (W). Thus, as we stressed, they do not figure in the antinomy itself, but at the level of explaining why we are lumbered with the antinomy. But if it is inevitable that we accept (W), is it not thereby inevitable that we regard (W) as true? (This question contains the seeds of a real difficulty; see Chapter 8, especially n. 12.) In fact, once we grasp how deep our acceptance of (W) goes (that we cannot get around accepting it even in reflection), it may seem odd to describe our acceptance of (W) in terms of regarding (W) as 'true'. This relates to an earlier point. We said in sect. 2.4 that, when we are open to our experience, the conclusion of the problematic reasoning may seem not just false but absurd. Let me revert to my own case. It seems absurd to suggest that this object is not a book but an internal object. What lies behind the reaction is the peculiar status (W) has with us: the double inevitability of our accepting this proposition. (W) is not on a par with (say) the proposition that the earth is a massive spherical body which goes around the sun, or the proposition that we human beings live on the earth with other kinds of animals, physical stuffs, and objects, or that light is reflected to our eyes from these objects, and so on. In other words, (W) is not (as we remarked at the outset of sect. 3.3) part of our picture of the world. It is a proposition which we cannot but accept in virtue of having acquired a picture of the world-any picture of the world. When at the end of the problematic reasoning I conclude that the object present to me is not a book but an internal object, this judgement (unlike that of the everyday case where I suspect I may be hallucinating; see sect. 2.3) is not prompted by the belief that my circumstances are in some way special. Where there are special

The Explanation of the Puzzle

63

circumstances, (W) is not threatened. It is, however, precisely (W) that is threatened by the philosophical conclusion, the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, that the object present in my experience right now is not a book; and, as we just observed, (W) is not part of our (my) picture of the world. What is threatened here is not part of my picture of the world but something I accept in virtue of having a picture of the world, and, if I do not accept this, I cannot understand how I come to have such a picture. Hence the strength of the reaction. The idea that this object is not a book (but an internal object) is not just 'false'; it is 'absurd'. Compare this with how we would react to the suggestion, made solely on the basis of the problematic reasoning and in the absence of any relevant 'scientific' considerations (for example, new evidence, or a new theory about the brain), that the causal picture of experience is false. Here the reaction would (I think) be a sense, not of absurdity, but of incredulity-as if someone gave us a philosophical argument to the effect that watering plants does not help them grow, or that what we eat does not affect the state of our health. In the absence of some kind of radical, scientifically grounded shakeup in what we believe about ourselves and our relation to our environment, we simply will not believe that the causal picture is false. It fits in with, and is supported by, too many other things in our picture of the world. We 'know' the causal picture to be true.

NOTES

1. The difficulty is that it is uncertain how much detail belongs to the outline, and how much to science proper. For example, that we have brains, and that what happens in the brain determines how things are in experience, seem clearly part of the outline picture. But what about the widely known fact that different parts of the brain have different functions? It is at some points simply indeterminate what is, and what is not, part of our picture of the world. Perhaps this is obvious. 2. In recent years, philosophers (notably, Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam) have observed that it is part of our everyday understanding of certain common nouns that these nouns stand for 'natural' kinds. This nicely

64

The Puzzle

illustrates the sense in which our picture of the world has a place for science, and thereby what would be missing in a world-picture which did not have a place for science. A natural kind is precisely a kind (of substance, stuff, or phenomenon) which we regard as a proper subject for scientific investigation. Such kinds have an 'inner nature', an 'internal structure', which is what science aims to investigate. (It is often by reference to 'internal structure' that we explain the behaviour of instances of these kinds.) The detailed results of such investigation are not part of our everyday understanding of the relevant nouns (hear, light, tree, gold, etc.). It is not, in other words, part of our outline picture of the world. However, anyone who has picked up this picture appreciates that such nouns (in contrast, e.g., to nouns which stand for kinds of artefact) stand for kinds which are open to scientific investigation. The common nouns in a language embodying a world-picture with no place for science would not be nouns that stand for natural kinds. Such a language might contain a noun N which we would be prepared to translate as, say, 'heat' (this might be the best we could do); but it would have to be recognized that N did not stand for a natural kind (and in that sense N would not mean: heat). 3. Thus some philosophers suggest that those everyday judgements wherein we take ourselves to be referring demonstratively to external things need (in the light of philosophical reflection) to be replaced by something more complicated. To take the example of looking at a book, we ought not to think that this object strictly and literally is a book, but that it, the presented object, is in some way related to a book. As Russell puts it, the book is not something with which we are 'acquainted': we do not 'know it by acquaintance'. We know it only as 'the object related in a certain way to this object'-and here we pick out a sense-datum (internal object). We know the sense-datum 'by acquaintance', but the book only 'by description'. See, e.g., the 3rd essay under 'On the Nature of Acquaintance', in R. C. Marsh (ed.), Logic and Knowledge (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1956); 'Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description', in Mysticism and Logic (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1963); The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), ch. 5. Moore explains, but does not endorse, the view in 'Some Judgements of Perception', in Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922). 4. I do not wish to get drawn into a dispute about whether animals have a picture of the world. If someone wishes to insist that they do, he may take our argument to be restricted to such subjects as have a picture of

The Explanation of the Puzzle

65

the world embodied in a language. This will make the argument no less interesting. 5. Does this conflict with the (Kripke-Putnam) point that the names of natural kinds (e.g. 'tree') do not have definitions? I am not sure-it depends on what a 'definition' is. But I am sure that, if someone did not appreciate that a tree is something that has branches, etc., we would say that he does not know what a tree is (what we mean by a 'tree'). 6. No doubt it will not slip past the reader that I am blurring over the fact that there are two rather different types of case in which we speak of an object 'looking like an F, but not being an F': (1) where we are talking about the appearance of an object in standard circumstances (everything is in order, including the perceptual organs and brain of the subject); (2) where the appearance of the object is a function of non-standard (special) circumstances. When we speak of an artificial tree looking like (but not being) a tree, clearly a case of type 1 is intended. (The whole idea of artificial trees is that, in standard circumstances, they should look like trees.) If, on the other hand, we describe a case where, for a brief moment, a distant tree looks like a man, or a distant man like a tree, this would naturally be understood as a case of type 2. In some contexts the distinction is important; but I think we may safely ignore it here. (We may also ignore the distinction between, e.g., saying of a man that he 'looked like a tree' where we mean that we took (or were inclined to take) him for a tree, and the case where we say this, meaning that the man somehow reminded us of a tree.) 7. We must not confuse being external with being physical or material. The latter is traditionally defined in terms of filling out space, whereas externality is defined in terms of existing independently of presence in experience. That trees or books are material (physical) objects might be thought buried implicitly in the specific content of the kinds in question. But I think it would be quite wrong to say this about trees or books being external objects; there is no implicit reference to experience in the specific content of these kinds. It might be of interest to mention Kant here, since the distinction between being external and being material is important in the Critique of Pure Reason. Thus in the 'First Analogy' Kant argues for something we are simply taking for granted, namely, that we must conceive of external objects as material. His idea (if I understand him) is that only in so far as we conceive of objects as material can we impute to these objects the kind of independence which makes them external. Another idea of Kant's comes in here: that we conceive of ourselves as dealing with external objects is a condition of conceiving of ourselves at all, of our

66

The Puzzle

being self-conscious. (This figures in the argument of the 'transcendental deduction'.) Thus you could say that, for Kant, we would not be selfconscious unless we had a picture of the world. I shall not attempt to assess these larger Kantian claims, but later in the book (Chapter 7) I shall consider what might be thought the 'Kantian solution' to our puzzle. 8. Note, it is to everyday kinds that we are ascribing this sort of metaphysical grammar. The situation with scientific kinds (electrons, neutrinos, etc.) is more complicated and less clear. For one thing, there is the issue (raised by 'instrumentalism') of whether there 'are' such objects. Assuming there are, their grammar will include externality. (Obviously they are not internal objects.) But now we may ask, is it part of the grammar of such objects that they can appear one way or another (if only we had more powerful eyes)? Or is it that they cannot appear at all? Or is it simply not part of their grammar that they can appear? Or should scientific kinds be treated in a different way entirely-without reference to this distinction between content and grammar? It is worth observing that, however we answer these questions, there will remain a connection between scientific kinds and appearing. We conceive of scientific objects as somehow constituting the matter of everyday objects, and these latter objects fall under kinds whose grammar includes the possibility of appearing. This is related to the point, in sect. 3.2, that our picture of the world 'has a place for science' .

Part Two

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

4

The Object of Experience 4.1. The puzzle of experience consists in a conflict, or antinomy, which seems to emerge in the course of certain philosophical reflections. In explaining the conflict, we assumed that these reflections are entirely correct; in other words, that the conflict is real. Let us now consider the possibility that our reflections contain a mistake, and hence that the conflict is merely apparent. If we can expose a mistake in our reflections, we will have shown this to be the case. This is what we shall understand by a 'solution' to the puzzle: the exposing of a mistake in the reflections which purport to reveal the puzzle. Where in our reflections shall we look for a mistake? Perhaps we can organize our search in terms of the conflict itself. On one side there is the conclusion to which we are led by the problematic reasoning; on the other side there is how things are when we are open to our experience. It goes without saying that the reasoning may contain a mistake. So we must examine the reasoning. On the other side, however, there seems to be nothing to examine. Being open to our experience does not involve taking steps or making inferences or seeing connections. There is nothing we do wherein we might go wrong. Either we are open or we are not open. Although in being open to our experience we cannot go wrong, might we none the less be wrong? There are two ways we might try to introduce a sceptical wedge here. First, we might ask how, when we are open to our experience, we know that we are not hallucinating just then, or being tricked. In such a case, what we find will not be the world; but we will, presumably, think it is the world. For openness to our experience cannot discriminate between the case of hallucination (let us stick to this) and the ordinary case, where everything is as it should be.

70

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

The implication of this challenge is that, unless we exclude the possibility of hallucination, we have no right to trust the fact that we are being open to (how things are within) our experience. I think this misrepresents what is going on here. Granted, openness to our experience cannot detect hallucination. But that is not what it is being called upon to do. Its task is rather to overthrow the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, and the problematic reasoning itself takes for granted that the case we are dealing with is not one of hallucination, that it is a perfectly ordinary unproblematic case of perception. Thus, if we reason about my case right now, we unquestioningly treat it as a representative ordinary case-which, of course, it is! This is why the problematic reasoning has such farreaching consequences: why it enables us to prove that, not just in the exceptional case of hallucination but in the ordinary unexceptional case, hence in all cases quite generally, the object of experience is internal. We are not (I hope this is clear) maintaining that the possibility of hallucination (and the like) has no place in philosophical reflection on experience. But here is not the place. What might the place be? The possibility might be used (this is, in fact, how it is often used) as a step in an argument whose conclusion is that the object of experience is always internal. However, we have already reached this conclusion, and, as we said, we have reached it on the basis of an argument which takes for granted that the possibility of hallucination is not realized. Someone who raises the possibility of hallucination in this context is missing the point of being open to our experience. Think again of self-honesty. The point of self-honesty is not, say, to expose a personal conceit as the product of subtle conditioning or a secretly administered drug. (Do we worry about such things when we are trying to be honest with ourselves?) It would be powerless to do that. The point is to explode the conceit by making it face up to what we already know, that it is based on a lie. Similarly, the point of philosophical openness to our experience is not to detect hallucinations and tricks, which it cannot in any case do, but to undermine the conclusion of a piece of philosophical reasoning about our experience; to do this, that is, by putting us in touch with what we already know, that the world is present in our experience.

The Object of Experience

71

The second challenge is this: given that my case right now is an ordinary case, that I am not hallucinating, what gives me the right to assume that when I 'find' a book I am in fact being open to my experience? Is it not possible that I merely think I am being open, hence that what I find is in fact an internal object and not a book? In one sense this is possible, in another sense it is not possible. Consider the case of being open to ourselves, self-honesty. The possibility of merely thinking we are being honest with ourselves is just another wrinkle on the possibility of not being honest with ourselves; and it is part of not being honest that we know we are not being honest. In this sense it is not possible that we should 'merely think' we are being honest with ourselves: whatever we think, if we are not being honest with ourselves, we know it. In the nature of the case, however, this kind of knowledge does not do for us what we would like it to do: exclude the possibility of merely thinking we are being honest with ourselves. If it did, we would not in the first place be dishonest with ourselves. The same paradoxical complexity obtains, I believe, in the philosophical case. It is part of not being open to our experience that we know we are not being open, and in that sense we cannot 'merely think' we are being open. But, in the sense that matters, we obviously can do this, since the knowledge that we are not being open will not prevent us from not being open. (How could it? It is part of not being open.) What we would like to have, in both the philosophical and the personal case, is an infallible sign that we are being open-but, of course, there is none. We must not ask for more than we actually have. The mind which wants to be open can only try to be open. It must rely on itself, and, if it fails, it must blame itself. (And so it will, for it knows that it fails.) But if it fails it will not be through making a mistake. It will fail simply through not being open. As we said, either we are open or we are not. Let me just put it to you, then, that if, in the face of the problematic reasoning, you are open to how things are in your experience, all you find is the world. If you claim to find an internal object, you are not being open. And if you are not being open, you know you are not being open. So in looking for a mistake we shall confine our attention to the

72

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

other side of the antinomy, to the problematic reasoning. I am sure, in any case, that this is where most people think the mistake occurs. But we may narrow our attention still further. The reasoning, you will recall, divides into three stages: in the first stage, we assert the causal picture of experience; in the second stage, we extract a certain possibility from this picture, the potential irrelevance of the external object; in the third stage, using this possibility, we reason to the conclusion that the external object cannot be what is present in experience (see sects. 1.5-8). Now, with respect to the first stage, no one will in this context wish to question the facts of physics and physiology. It is only in the last bit of the causal picture, in the proposition that what happens in the brain is causally responsible for how things are in experience, that a philosopher might think there is a mistake. I have already considered, and rejected, this suggestion for solving the puzzle (Heidegger's solution, sect. 2.9). Let us take it, then, that, if there is a mistake in the problematic reasoning, it lies somewhere in the second two stages. (Actually, in Chapter 8 we shall consider a somewhat different possibility.) If we can satisfy ourselves that there is a mistake in this part of the reasoning, we shall not only dispel the conflict; we shall retain everything that we would like to retain (and in any case will retain): the causal picture of experience, and our acceptance of (W). Thus, a solution of this sort would enable us to harmonize what we believe about experience and the world with the immediate availability of the world in experience. It would enable us to harmonize the causal picture of experience with the fact of the world's presence in experience. Is that not the sort of thing we want? 4.2. We shall begin our examination of the reasoning with the third stage. This is where it is easiest to have doubts. The crucial assertion (see sect. 1. 7) is that the hypothesis of God's intervention-the hypothesis that half-way through the last five seconds God eliminated the book that I had been looking at, but at the same time compensated for the absence of the book by directly maintaining the activity in my brain just as it was when the book was playing a role in bringing about that activity-is compatible with 'things having been in my experience for the last five seconds just as they have been', where (here is the part philosophers will want to

The Object of Experience

73

question) we understand the sense of the latter to involve that a particular object, this object, the object on which I am now focusing, has been present in my experience for the whole of the last five seconds. So, the fact that this object has been present in my experience for the last five seconds is compatible with the book's having been eliminated two-and-a-half seconds ago. The same is true for any object on which I might focus, that is, any object which is present in my experience. Any object present in my experience is such that it might survive the kind of intervention described. In that case, no external object could ever be what is present in my experience (the object of my experience). We can all agree: God's intervention would in some sense leave 'things in my experience' the same. (This follows from the causal picture of experience.) An obvious way to challenge the reasoning is to challenge our account of the sense in which this would be so. The challenge will go as follows. We will say that, had God intervened, in whatever sense it would be true that 'things would have been in my experience just as they have been,' it would not be in the sense that this object has been (as it has been) present to me for the last five seconds. We will accept that, at the beginning of the five seconds, there was something present to me, the book. But we will say that, had God intervened, at the end of the five seconds nothing would have been present to me. Given that we have defined an 'object of experience' as something present in experience (sect. 1.2), this means we must recognize that experience may lack an object (in our sense). Before God intervenes, my experience has an object: the book. After God intervenes, although in some sense 'things remain the same in my experience', my experience does not have an object. This idea for solving the puzzle requires us to provide a sense in which it might be true that 'things remain the same in my experience', despite the fact that first something is present (my experience has an object) and then nothing is present (my experience lacks an object). If, after God intervenes, nothing is present in my experience, in what sense would it be true that 'things remain the same in my experience'? Perhaps the answer seems obvious. It would be true that it is as if something is present in my experience; more specifically, as if a book is present in my experience-that is, it would be true that, both before and after God intervenes, it is as

74

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

if a book is present in my experience. Of course, before God intervenes, a book is present in my experience. After God intervenes, this is no longer true. But, in order to give sense to the idea that 'things remain the same in my experience' , we need not suppose that something (an object) other than a book is present in my experience. We need suppose only that it is as if a book is present. Let us accept without further ado that, both before and after God intervenes, it is for me as if a book is present in my experience. Thus, before God intervenes, it is true both that a book is present in my experience and that it is as if a book is present. It is true, we may say, both that a fact of presence holds and that a fact of appearance holds. Note, the fact of appearance does not in any sense 'get in the way' of the book: at the same time that it is as if a book is present, a book is present to me. When (in stating the causal picture of experience) we say that 'how things are in my experience' is the upshot of the activity in my brain, we refer to a fact of appearance. It is a fact of appearance, not a fact of presence, that is the experiential upshot of the causal process. Right now, then, the book on the table is part of a causal process whose experiential upshot is that it is as if a book is present in my experience. And, we may assume, the book is present in my experience. If God intervened, the fact of presence would cease to hold; but, since the fact of appearance would continue to hold, 'in my experience things would remain the same'. We shall call this the appearance solution of the puzzle. 1 4.3. If it is true that it is as if such-and-such is the case, there must be an answer to the question, 'In what respect is it as if such-andsuch is the case?' Or, 'In virtue of what is it as if such-and-such is the case?' Or, 'What makes it as if such-and-such is the case?' These questions have different nuances, but basically they are all getting at the same thing. Suppose we say that it is 'as if it were raining'. Then you can ask, 'In what respect is it as if it were raining? What is it about the actual situation, in which it is not raining, which makes it as if were raining?' We may have in mind the moisture on the window panes, or the sound of water striking the pavement outside, or whatever. But, it seems, we must have something in mind. We cannot just dismiss the question of 'In what respect ... ?' (,What makes it ... ?') We cannot say, 'In no respect-it is simply

The Object of Experience

7S

as if it were raining.' A fact of appearance must be grounded on something. This is a general point about facts of appearance. A ground of a fact of appearance must not be confused with the cause of the ground. Suppose we ask, 'What makes it seem as if it were raining?' This is ambiguous. If we are looking for the ground of the appearance, the answer would refer us to, say, the moisture on the window panes. But the qestion might be construed as asking for the cause of the moisture, that is, the cause of the ground of the appearance. (We would be asking, in effect, 'What makes it make it seem as if ... ?') In what follows, where this kind of ambiguity threatens, it must be understood that we are always speaking about the grounds of facts of appearance, never the causes of such grounds. Now it is essential to the appearance solution that, both before and after God intervenes, a fact of appearance holds: it is as if a book is present in my experience. What grounds this fact? (What makes it as if, in what respect is it as if, a book were present?) With respect to the situation before God intervenes, the question has a straightforward answer. What makes it look as if a book is present in my experience is, in part anyway, that a book is present in my experience. But what grounds the fact of appearance after God intervenes? What makes it as if a book is present in my experience when no book, no relevant external thing, is present in my experience? The need to answer this question can be highlighted by considering certain far-fetched possibilities. Imagine that, because of a childhood reading trauma, whenever I see a book I get a distinctive type of headache. It now happens that, although it is completely dark, I get such a headache. Would it not be true that it is 'as if a book is present in my (visual) experience'? What we must say here is obvious. In the case described, it would be (for me) in some respect as if a book is present; but it would not be the right, or relevant, respect. What would the relevant respect be? At the very least, we must require that it be visually as if a book is present in my experience. In other words, it must look as if a book is present. Yet with not much ingenuity we can construct examples which defeat this qualification. It could be that, because of the trauma, whenever I see a book things get peculiarly blurred in my field of vision; and now things are blurred in that way, although there is no

76

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

question of my seeing a book (I am staring at the sky). So, again, it would be 'as if a book were present in my experience' . Should we require that it be in all respects, or perhaps in all visual respects, as if a book is present in my experience? That would be asking too much. I have this problem about books and blurred vision. But suppose, just once, I see a book without the blurredness. Then, for me, it would not be in all visual respects as if a book is present in my experience. Yet, on this occasion, a book is present. Maybe the solution is to stipulate that it be in the relevant respect as if a book is present in my experience. The solution? That is the problem: what is the relevant respect? Now, it is not that I am totally at a loss how to answer this question. But the answer I feel like giving is, for our purposes, the wrong answer. Let me pretend that, right now, God has intervened. So (I tell myself) no book, no external thing, is present in my experience. No book is present, but it is visually as if (it looks as if) a book is present. In virtue of what (in what respect) is this true? What is it in or about my experience which makes it look as if a book is present? Well, if I enter into the pretence, the answer I am inclined to give is that it looks as if a book is present because of this-and here I pick out a brownish object within my experience. It is the presence right now in my experience of this object that makes it look as if a book is present to me. Thus, if it disappeared and nothing took its place, it would not look as if a book is present in my experience. I suspect that, if the appearance solution seems like a way out of the puzzle, this is because we are overlooking the point that facts of appearance must be grounded. Before God intervenes, it looks as if a book is present to me. And a book is present to me. The presence of the book is what makes it look as if a book is present; it satisfies the need for a ground. I think most philosophers would readily acknowledge this point. Yet when it comes to the case where a fact of appearance holds but no relevant external object is present, philosophers tend (conveniently) to forget about the need for a ground-as though the identical fact of appearance might first be grounded on the presence of a book and then be totally ungrounded. What could possibly justify accepting such an asymmetry? Of course, the motive for accepting the assymmetry is plain enough

The Object of Experience

77

(we want to avoid internal objects). But we have no right to accept it. 2 Compare the case of appearances (facts of appearance) with that of beliefs. Suppose someone tells us he believes that the plane we just watched take off will crash. When we ask him on what he bases or grounds this belief, he says he has no ground; it is just a 'feeling' or a 'hunch'. Now it is, of course, possible to have such beliefs. Beliefs that require grounds may be ungrounded, in which case we evaluate them as irrational, or in some way less than rational. It should be clear, however, that there is no corresponding possibility with respect to facts of appearance. There is no such thing as an 'irrational' or 'less than rational' appearance. But it seems to me that the difference goes deeper. Whereas a belief which lacks a ground lacks proper credentials, it is still a belief. Thus we can evaluate it as a less than rational belief. In contrast, if you take the ground away from a fact of appearance, there is nothing left to evaluate. Without a ground, there is no fact of appearance. Let me re-enter the pretence. God has intervened. What grounds the fact of appearance? What makes it look as if a book is present? The presence of this object. Since by hypothesis the object I pick out is not a book, an external thing, it seems that it must be an internal object. The general position, I believe, is this. Facts of appearance must be grounded, and they can be grounded only on facts of presence. If it is not on the presence of an external object that a fact of appearance is grounded, it must be on the presence of an internal object. Thus with respect to the situation after God intervenes (when there is no external object present in my experience), it is futile to suggest that we might avoid an internal object by interpreting the experiential upshot of the causal process as a fact of appearance. Since it must be grounded on a fact of presence, and since we lack an external object, the fact of appearance will itself require what we are trying to avoid. 4.4. Facts of presence and facts of appearance are experiential facts in the sense that they presuppose experience. That it is say, it is only from within experience that something can be present, demonstratively available. Similarly, it is only from within experience that

78

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

it can look, or appear, as if something is present. In this respect, facts of presence and appearance may be contrasted with facts of existence, at least where the existence of external objects is concerned. The book can be present only from within experience; but the book exists on its own, whether or not it is present. The fact of the book's existence is not an experiential fact. In the previous chapter we made the point that only what is present in experience can look, or appear, one way or another. The way an object looks is, we might say, its way of being manifest to us. Here we have a third type of experiential fact-which must be distinguished from what we have been calling 'facts of appearance'. To take a classic example, the stick immersed in water looks bent. If we report this by saying, 'It looks bent,' by 'it' we refer to the stick. The associated fact of appearance might be reported by saying, 'It looks as if there is something bent there.' In this case, of course, we do not use 'it' to refer to the stick; we do not refer by 'it' at all. So that we do not confuse them with facts of appearance, let us call facts of the other type 'facts of manifestation'. The fact that the stick looks bent is a fact of manifestation; the fact that it looks as if a bent stick is present is a fact of appearance. The fact of manifestation, but not the fact of appearance, entails that a stick is present. But neither fact could obtain unless something is present. An object cannot appear (be manifest) one way or another without being present. But, equally, an object cannot be present without appearing one way or another. Visually (if this is relevant), the object must look one way or another. And, as we know, the way an object looks need not be the way it is. In the bent-stick example, the fact of appearance (versus manifestation) is that it looks as if something bent is present. A fact of appearance, we have argued, must be grounded on a fact of presence. In the example under consideration, it looks as if a bent stick is present because a stick is present. But the ground of the fact of appearance has another component, namely, the fact of manifestation: that the stick looks bent (that it is manifest in a bent way). If the stick did not look bent, it would not appear that something bent is present in my experience. When the stick is removed from the water, it looks straight. Now the relevant fact of appearance is that it looks as if something straight is present. And, as before, the

The Object of Experience

79

ground of this fact has two components: the fact of presence (the presence of the stick) and the fact of manifestation (that the stick looks straight-which it is). One reason for going into these matters is that I want to disassociate the argument of sect. 4.3 from a certain familiar argument for sense-data. The argument in question starts from the fact that objects can appear other than they are. The stick, say, looks bent. Now here an appeal is made to a principle which sounds rather like our point about grounding. Nothing, it will be said, can look F unless there is present in experience something which is F. In the bent-stick case, then, there must be something which is bent present in my experience. Since the bent object is not the stick, it must be an internal object Ca sense-datum). This argument rests on a confusion between facts of appearance and facts of manifestation. If in the bent-stick case the object present is not the stick but a sense-datum, then it cannot be true (as we are supposing) that the stick looks bent; for the stick cannot look bent unless it is present. The argument treats a fact of manifestation (that the stick looks bent) as if it were a fact of appearance. Thus it seeks to ground the fact of manifestation on a fact of presence. This is a mistake. If we try to ground a fact of manifestation on a fact of presence, we undermine its status as a fact of manifestation. The correct view, I think, is that a fact of manifestation is the ground, or part of the ground, of a fact of appearance; but a fact of manifestation itself has no ground. In this respect it is like a fact of presence, ungrounded. 3 4.5. Let us consider another way we might try to deny that, were God to intervene, my experience would have an object. What we shall question now is our assumption that, had God intervened, I would still be focused on something; that there would still be, for me, such an object as: this object. Granted, at the outset of the five seconds I am focused on the book. But (here is the suggestion), were God to intervene, were the book to be eliminated, there would be nothing on which I might focus. I would not be focused on anything. Of course, if, in representing my situation after God intervenes, we employ the emphatic demonstrative, we represent me as still focused on something. So, of course, we must (on that

80

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

representation) suppose that something is present in my experience (that my experience has an object). But this is precisely what needs to be questioned: our right to employ the emphatic demonstrative in this way: our right to represent me as still focused on something. If, after the book is gone, I am not focusing on anything, what am I doing? How are we to describe my situation? Perhaps we can say that I am under the impression that I am focusing on something but that this is an illusion. I am under an illusion of focusing. Could there be such an illusion? Could it be for me as if I were focusing on something, when in fact I am not? I have not invented the idea. It is (in essence) put forward in Gareth Evans's book The Varieties of Reference, and also in a paper by John McDowell. 4 Both of these writers would say that, after God intervenes, it is simply a mistake to suppose that I focus on something. I might think that that was what I was doing; it might be for me as if I were (as Evans puts it) having a 'demonstrative thought'. But, in fact, I would not be focusing on anything, or having such a thought. If this is right, the problematic reasoning would contain a mistake. We would have a way out of the puzzle. The trouble with such a solution is that it runs up against our point about grounding. For, clearly, it could not seem to me that I was picking out or focusing on something unless it also seemed to me as if something was present in my experience. But in virtue of what would it seem to me as if something was present in my experience? What would ground the fact of appearance? We are back where we were. s We asked, 'If, when the book is gone, I am not focusing, what am I doing?' I am not, according to Evans, having a genuine demonstrative thought. Suppose (not knowing God has intervened) I innocently think, 'This book is getting frayed.' I would think a thought with a demonstrative text (we might say), but it would not be a genuine demonstrative thought. Perhaps this answers the question of what I am doing: I am thinking a thought with a demonstrative text. But there is thinking and thinking. Right now, sitting here in my office, I might let the following words run through my mind: 'This waterfall is spectacular.' Am I thinking a thought with a demonstrative text? What is the difference between this case and that where (innocent of God's intervention) I think, 'This book

The Object of Experience

81

is getting frayed'? The waterfall thought is not serious. I am not really thinking it. But might I not really 'think' it? Not as things are. What would have to be different? There would (it seems) have to be something on which I could focus and which I take to be a waterfall. Or will you say that, if that happened (while sitting in my office), I would be under an illusion of focusing? In that case, it must look to me as if a waterfall is present. So, again, we have the question about grounding. There are many entry points into this particular circle. Evans speaks of a 'subject who essays a demonstrative identification' (p. 172), and of 'someone who essays a "this" -thought' (p. 179). The idea seems to be that we might try to pick out something, to focus on something, but/ail. Perhaps this is how we should describe my situation after God eliminates the book: I try, but fail, to focus on something. In that I fail, we are not entitled to infer the presence of something which survives the elimination of the book. Does this solve the puzzle? First of all, we must rule out irrelevant cases. I might try to focus on a certain object, but fail because I suddenly get very tired or grow dizzy, or because the way things are moving around in my visual field makes it difficult for me to fix on the object in question. Or I look for the object, but cannot find it. These are problems I might have and, if I had them, we might say that I tried but failed to pick out or focus on something. But I have no such problems in the case where God intervenes. I have no sense of an unfulfilled attempt. There are no obstacles, no hitches or let-downs. The reason we are to say that I try but fail to focus on something is, presumably, just that there is nothing for me to focus on; there is nothing present in my experience. There is no object of experience. But the mere lack of an object of experience, of something present in experience, will not of itself suffice for the possibility of my trying but failing to focus on something. If we are to make sense of this possibility, we must at least suppose that it looks to me as if something is present in my experience. But now we have the difficulty all over again: the fact of appearance (that it looks as if something is present) must be grounded on a fact of presence. So I have not failed to focus on something after all. In a real sense, I cannot 'try but fail' to focus on something. It

82

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

may be that what I focus on is not what I think I am focusing on; but, if I try to focus on something, I focus on something. For the same reason, there cannot be an 'illusion of focusing'. If there were such an illusion, it would depend on a fact of appearance (it would seem to me as if something were present in my experience). But a fact of appearance is grounded on a fact of presence-and, given the fact of presence, there would be something to focus on. So it would not be an illusion. After God intervenes, when no external object is present in my experience, I am neither trying but failing to focus on something nor having an illusion to this effect. I am focusing on something. The object on which I focus, then, must be an internal object. 6 4.6. The following objection may be raised. It is true that I cannot have the illusion of focusing, or try but fail to focus. This is because focusing is something I 'do', an 'act of mind'. Thus it is up to me (subject to my will). But it is not up to me whether something is there for me to focus on. Hence I might focus, but focus on nothing. Our mistake has been to regard focusing as if it came packaged with an object; as if, therefore, the impossibility of an illusion of focusing were at the same time the impossibility of an illusion concerning the presence of an object. I think this objection gets things partly right: focusing is up to me; whether something is present is not up to me. But it does not follow that I might focus and focus on nothing-unless, of course, we mean by this that what I focus on, the object of focusing, might not be part of the world. The objection regards focusing as though it were like pointing (making a pointing movement). Pointing is up to us; but whether there is something to point at is not up to us. Thus we can point at nothing. Now suppose (what is false) that we could not try but fail to point, or have an illusion of pointing. Then the analogy might seem perfect. None the less it would be a false analogy. In the case of focusing, our freedom is subject to a type of constraint that does not apply in the case of pointing. Imagine that within your experience everything is dark, and then a spot of light appears. A fact of presence now holds which did not hold a moment ago. Is it not evident that a

The Object of Experience

83

certain possibility exists now that did not exist a moment ago, namely, a new possibility offocusing (and demonstrative reference)? Unlike pointing, focusing is not self-contained. Its possibility depends on something other than itself. Let me employ a different comparison. The focusing of the mind is not like the focusing of a camera. A camera (if focused manually) need not be aimed at anything in particular. But the mind which focuses must find itself faced by that on which it focuses; something must be there, looking back at the mind. You can reach out with your hand to see if something is there. You can reach out and find nothing. It is different with focusing: the mind cannot reach unless it has already found something. Whether the mind reaches is up to the mind. But it has this option only with respect to something it has already found, something present in experience, and whether something is present is not up to the mind. The point may seem familiar. Mental focusing is 'intentional': it must have an object. This is true, but we are trying to get at precisely what such formulas pass over. In so far as the necessity for an object is expressed in a neutral manner, the order of dependency is lost sight of. For the idea is not that focusing resembles what Kant calls 'intellectual intuition'; that is, focusing is not an 'act of mind' which somehow guarantees, or creates for itself, a relevant object. It is, rather, an 'act of mind' that cannot get started without a relevant object. The object must already be given, facing us in expenence. When I look in a mirror, something-namely, an image of me (assuming the angle is right)-must look back at me. The image must look back in as much as my being in front of the mirror 'creates' the image. With respect to the order of dependency, we could view this as a model of what Kant meant by 'intellectual intuition'. Now, imagine that what looks back at me in the mirror literally looks back. Then it must find me, since, unless I were there, it would not be looking back. Considered from the standpoint of the image, here we have something which comes closer to being a model of the dependency involved in focusing. Obviously, though, it is not a perfect model. Something can be a potential object of focusing, in the sense that it can be present in experience without our focusing

84

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

on it. In contrast, if I am before the mirror, I must be actually looked back at, since my being there ensures that I am looked back at. How (we might ask) does the fact that we cannot focus without focusing on something differ from the fact that, say, we cannot touch without touching something? There is the same order of dependency: in the touching case, too, the object is not created by the act. One difference is that what is required by an act of touching is not a fact of presence, but only a fact of existence. Although I cannot touch unless there is (exists) something which I touch, what I touch need not be present in my experience. Another difference is this. In the case of touching, there is a sense in which I could have done just what I did without touching anything. When I touch this book, for instance, I make a certain movement with my hand. My hand comes into contact with the book; but I might have made precisely the same movement even had nothing been there-in which case I would not have touched anything. There is no comparable possibility in the case of focusing. There is something I do, an 'act'; but there is nothing I do such that I might have done it in the absence of something's being there for me to focus on. Rather, what I do is such that I can do it only given the object, given something present in my experience. We might put the difference between touching and focusing like this. In the case of touching, the necessity for an object is not inherent in what we do; it derives entirely from the way we describe what we do (as an act of 'touching'). In the case of focusing, although (as always) different things follow from different descriptions of what we do, the necessity for an object is inherent in what we do, in the 'act itself'. So, if we agree that I cannot try but fail to focus, or be under an illusion of focusing, then, since, after God intervenes, that is what I mean to be doing (focusing), that is what I am doing. And this means that, after God intervenes, something must be present to me; not because my doing what I am doing brings with it or creates a fact of presence, but because a fact of presence is a condition of my doing what I am doing. Nor can we avoid this conclusion by claiming that the necessity for an object in focusing is merely 'phenomenological': a necessity

The Object of Experience

85

of seeming. What is necessary (it might be said) is merely that it seems to the subject, to the one who focuses, that something is present to him. The reason for saying 'merely' here is to suggest that we are not required to suppose that anything actually is present to the focusing subject. But that is just what we are required to suppose-by the very fact of seeming. We have come back yet again to the point about grounding. In virtue of what does it seem to the focusing subject as if something is present to him? The question demands an answer, and the answer refers us to a fact of presence. 4.7. The solution we are presently considering to the puzzle, the appearance solution, depends on the idea that experience can lack an object; that there can be experience without anything present within it. In sects. 4.5-6 the argument was indirect. We attempted to answer an objection to the problematic reasoning which challenges our right to assume that, after God intervenes, I would still be focused on something. If I am focused on something, then something is present in my experience. Hence the challenge: our mistake is to assume that I am focused on something. In that case, we argued, an alternative conception of what I am doing must be provided; since the alternatives depend on supposing that it appears to me that something is present in my experience, we are led via the point about grounding back to a fact of presence. But, given the point about grounding, we can argue in a more direct way. In sect. 4.4 we distinguished three types of experiential facts: facts of presence, facts of appearance, and facts of manifestation. Now surely, after God intervenes, some such fact must hold for me. If no such fact held, there would be no such thing as my experience. But clearly there is such a thing as my experience after God intervenes. Hence, after God intervenes, some experiential fact must hold. If it is a fact of presence, then something is present to me. If it is a fact of manifestation, something is present to me. If it is a fact of appearance (if it appears that something is present to me), something is present to me. Anyway you look at it, something is present to me. A fact of presence holds. Imagine a case of complete sensory deprivation. I am in the tank; there is silence, darkness all around. This is a limiting case of experience. So (I am saying) it is a limiting case of presence. A limiting

86

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

case, but still a fact of presence obtains. There is this-the darkness (silence) all round. The darkness fills my experience. If you took it (and all other facts of presence) away, there would be NOTHING, as in death. There would be no such thing as my experience. As we said, that is not my situation (or non-situation) after God intervenes. Let me give this a Cartesian twist. Suppose I contemplate the possibility that God has intervened. I (somehow) talk myself into taking it seriously. However seriously I take the possibility, I cannot doubt that there is such a thing as my experience. This means that I cannot doubt that facts of presence hold. Were I unsure whether God had intervened, I would have doubts about the status of what is present in my experience (about whether it is, or is not, part of the world). But I could not doubt that something is present in my experience. I could no more doubt that than I could doubt that there is such a thing as my experience. To doubt one would be equivalent to doubting the other. 4.8. If the foregoing is correct, we are entitled to dismiss in advance any way out of the puzzle which depends on the possibility that experience might lack an object; that there might be experience with nothing present within it. There is no such possibility. No object (no fact of presence), no experience. The real question is how, in philosophizing about experience, we fail to see this. Since no one (I take it) will deny that, after God intervenes, a fact of appearance would hold within my experience, it must be that in our preoccupation with avoiding internal objects we overlook the point about grounding. This is at least part of why, or how, we come to think that experience might lack an object (in our sense). But there are other factors, other mistakes, which sometimes play a role here. The mistakes that I have in mind occur in what might be called 'grammatical solutions' to the puzzle. In the remainder of the present chapter we shall discuss two such mistakes. The first starts from the relatively uncontroversial possibility of assigning different grammatical or logical forms to a description of experience. Applied to our example, the idea is that, before God intervenes, two descriptions of my experience can be given. Both descriptions employ the very same expressions, but while one (the 'objectual' description) involves reference to an object of experience,

The Object of Experience

87

the other (the 'non-objectual' description) does not. The difference is due to the fact that, despite containing the same expressions, the descriptions are understood to have different grammatical (logical) forms. Thus, in our example, prior to God's intervention the objectual description of my experience is that 'a book is present in my experience' , or that 'my experience is of a book'. The non-objectual description employs the same words again, but with a different grammatical form. The difference in form is such that, whereas from the objectual description we can infer the presence of something in my experience, no such inference follows from the nonobjectual description. (We can quantify into the objectual, but not the non-objectual, description of experience.) Now, as we said, before God intervenes, both the objectual and non-objectual descriptions hold. After God intervenes, only the non-objectual description holds, and from the latter we cannot infer the presence of anything in my experience. Thus we may suppose that, after God intervenes, nothing is present in my experience. Yet, since the non-objectual description holds both before and after God intervenes, we have a sense in which within my experience 'things remain the same'. How exactly will this work? Let us take as the internal description of my experience the sentence that 'my experience is of a book'. The idea is that, grammatically (logically) speaking, there are two ways of interpreting this sentence. On the objectual interpretation, we understand the words 'a book' as a predicate, hence as true of (or satisfied by) something, namely, the object of my experience, that which is present in my experience. We can indicate the objectual interpretation by writing: 'my experience is of
88

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

anything present in my experience. In sum, on this interpretation of the internal description, we have no basis for inferring the presence in my experience of an object. (You cannot quantify into a predicate.) In effect, all the description tells us-this is how we mean it-is that my experience is a certain kind of experience, an of-abook-experience, from which it does not follow that there is a book, or any other relevant object, present in my experience. 8 The other, closely related, idea is that we should view the words 'of a book' as an adverbial modification. Basically the same points hold. Except now we think of the internal description as telling us the way I am experiencing, that I am experiencing in an of-a-book way (of-abookly).9 Once again, if that is all we mean by the description, we have no basis for inferring the presence in my experience of a book or any other item. (You cannot quantify into an adverb.) So, before God intervenes, we can say both that my experience 'is an experience of (a book)', which entails the presence in my experience of a book, and that my experience 'is an of-a-bookexperience' (or that I 'am experiencing in an of-a-book way'), which has no such entailment. In other words, before God intervenes, both the objectual and non-objectual interpretations of the internal description of my experience are true. After God intervenes, however, only the non-objectual interpretation holds. After God intervenes, whereas it remains true that my experience 'is an of-a-bookexperience', that I am 'experiencing of-a-bookly' (henceforth, we shall refer only to the complex predicate reading), it is no longer true that my experience is of (a book); but the former does not entail the presence in my experience of an object.

4.9. Now we can accept that, after God intervenes, my experience would be an of-a-book-experience. The problem, so far as solving the puzzle is concerned, is that it would also be the case that something (which looks like a book) is present in my experience. The fact that my experience is such-and-such kind of experience, that it satisfies a certain complex predicate, simply does not touch the necessity for a fact of presence. Then how do we get taken in here? Why does the fact that my experience is an of-a-bookexperience seem to obviate the need for an object of experience? Assume that, after God intervenes, it is correct to describe my

The Object of Experience

89

experience as 'an of-a-book-experience'. As a matter of logical form, this description will not of itself permit the inference to the presence in my experience of a relevant object. Now, suppose that in using the description to characterize my experience we mean to limit ourselves to saying just this, that my experience is an of-a-bookexperience. The fact is, meaning (intention) is free to limit itself in this way. We can mean to say just what kind of experience my experience is, and, if that is all we mean (and we can make it all we mean), then, given the logical point, it will not follow from what we mean that anything is present in my experience. It will not follow from what we mean, yet it must be so. Consider the case of touching. I touch the book with my hand. We could (what could stop us?) introduce a non-objectual way of describing this act, for example, as an 'of-a-book-touching'. If in describing my act we mean to confine ourselves to this-if we mean just to say what kind of touching my act of touching is, and that is all-then it will not follow from what we mean that there is something that I touch. But who would deny that there must be something that I touch? The necessity in this case is not (as we observed in sect. 4.6) inherent in what I do, but derives from our conception of what I do as an act of touching. Yet, given that conception of my act, there must be an object. It would be an obvious mistake to think that, because it does not follow from the non-objectual description of my act of touching that there is an object of touching, that my act of touching might lack an object. Such, I believe, is our mistake in the case of experience. We conflate a possible limitation on what we mean in describing experience with a possible limitation on what we thereby describe. (We conflate, as it were, the possibility of a non-objectual description of experience with the possibility of a non-objectual experience.) But, whereas our intention in describing experience may be limited to saying that the experience is such-and-such a kind of experience, the experience we thus describe cannot be limited to being that kind of experience-to being 'just' that kind of experience without there being something present within it, an object of experience. This is no more possible than that an act of touching should be 'just' a certain kind of touching, without there being something which is touched, an object of touching.

90

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

In the case of touching, as opposed to experience, it is not likely that we should fall into such a confusion. The reason is this. In the touching case, if there is no external object, there is no possibility of touching. So the need to suppose an internal object never arises. With experience, however, the absence of an external object leaves us with the possibility of experience. So in this case we start casting around for ways to avoid the unwanted supposition of an internal object. 4.10. We turn now to the second of the two mistakes to which we alluded at the outset of sect. 4.8-mistakes which falsely encourage us to suppose that experience might lack an object (that there might be experience without a fact of presence). The possibility of describing my experience of a book by means of a complex predicate ('an of-a-book-experience') should strike us as trivial, since, as we pointed out, the same type of possibility exists with respect to my touching a book, or, for that matter, my sitting three feet from a book. The possibility we shall now consider is not indiscriminate in this way. Here we shall be dealing with a possibility which seems to be restricted to the areas of mind and language. I refer to the possibility of having what Miss Anscombe calls an 'intentional object'. 10 Let us start by observing that it is not just 'meaning' in the sense of intention that can be limited. The possibility exists also with respect to 'meaning' in the sense of sense or content; that is, 'meaning' in the sense in which an expression or sentence may be said to have meaning. To illustrate this possibility, consider the sentence, (S) John gave Mary a book. We can say that (S) says that John gave Mary a book, or that what CS) says John gave Mary is a book, or again-if we use the expression 'the direct object of CS)' as synonomous with 'what CS) says John gave Mary'-that the direct object of (S) is a book. Now suppose someone asks which book is the direct object of CS), that is, which book is it that (S) says John gave Mary. There is no answer to this question; not because, assuming CS) is true, there is no book which John gave Mary, but because CS) simply does not say which book it was. What (S) says is limited in this respect: it says what kind of thing John gave Mary, without saying which thing of that kind it was.

The Object of Experience

91

Miss Anscombe uses the example of CS) to explain her thesis that sensation has an 'intentional object'. For our purposes, we may take this as the thesis that experience has an 'intentional object'. Consider the sentence, CS ') The direct object of CS) is a book. Superficially, it looks as if the expression 'a book' functions here as a predicate, as true of something, namely, of the direct object of CS). But if that were so, there would be an answer to the question of which book the direct object of CS) is, that is, which book CS) says John gave Mary, and we know there is no answer. CS) does not say which book John gave Mary Cit says only what kind of thing John gave Mary). Miss Anscombe suggests that we have to recognize that the words 'a book' in CS') have a special function. They are used not as a predicate but Cas she puts it) to give the direct object of CS), to give what CS) says John gave Mary. Her point Cl take it) is that the possibility of using language in this way exists, not just when we are talking about sentences, but when we are talking about experience as well. In the latter case, Miss Anscombe speaks of what is given as the 'intentional' rather than the 'direct' object. But the point is the same. Just as we can use the words 'a book' to give the direct object of CS), so we can use these words to give the intentional object of someone's experience. Let us agree to indicate the non-predicative use of the words 'a book' by the insertion of a colon. Thus, CS') The direct object of CS) is: a book. Similarly, in the case of experience, we may write, CE) The intentional object of my experience is: a book. The logical points carry over. Since the words 'a book' do not function as a predicate in CE), since they are not used as true of something, there is no answer to the question of which book the intentional object of my experience is; thus we cannot infer from CE) that there is some x such that x is a book and my experience is of x Cwe cannot, in this respect, quantify into CE». Obviously, to say that experience 'has an intentional object' in Miss Anscombe's sense does not mean that it has an object in our sense. It does not mean that there is something present in experi-

92

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

ence. You can see how someone might try to use this to solve our puzzle. He would say that, before God intervenes, it is true both that my experience is an experience of: a book, and that it is an experience of (a book). After God intervenes, only the former would be true. Thus, although after God intervenes my experience has an intentional object Cwhich provides for the sense in which 'things remain the same in my experience'), in our sense it lacks an object. In other words, after God intervenes, nothing is present in my experience. 4.11. Now, once again, we know this cannot be right. If nothing were present in my experience, there would be no such thing as my experience. So we have not solved the puzzle. Yet, once again, it may seem to us that we have solved the puzzle. It is worth being clear that the mistake in this case is not that which we discussed in sect. 4.9. There the mistake was to slip from a possible limitation on what we mean in using a sentence to describe experience to a possible limitation on the way experience can be. Miss Anscombe's view is not guilty of this type of confusion. It does not confuse what is possible with respect to a sentence about experience with what is possible with respect to experience. On the contrary, her view Cif I understand it) openly embraces the notion that in a certain respect experience is like a sentence. Consider a sentence about experience, for example, CE') My experience is of (a book). This sentence has an intentional object. Thus we can assert of CE'), CE") The intentional object of CE') is: a book. Note, in CE') the words 'a book' occur predicatively (the angle brackets make this explicit); hence, from CE') we can infer that there is something, a book, present in my experience. This, however, does not prevent us from saying about CE') that that sentence says what kind of thing is present in my experience, and from the sentence we use to say this, namely, (E"), no relevant existential inference will follow. Thus we cannot infer from CE") that there is a book such that it is the intentional object of CE'); in other words, that there is a book such that (E') says that it is what is present in my experience. We cannot infer this for the simple reason that (E') does not say of any particular book that it is what is present in my experience.

The Object of Experience

93

But, bear in mind, we are talking now not about experience but about a sentence about experience, and Miss Anscombe's point, as I said, is about experience. Experience is (in a certain respect) like a sentence: in the same way that the sentence (E') is limited to saying that the object of my experience is an object of a certain kind, my experience can be limited to being an experience of an object of a certain kind. l ! Such, in the proposed solution to our puzzle, is the situation after God intervenes. Here is another way of putting it. (E') might be characterized as a 'purely generic' sentence about experience in the sense that it is limited to saying that the object of experience is an object of a certain kind. (It does not say which book is the object of my experience.) Miss Anscombe's idea, in effect, is that experience itself can be purely generic: it can be limited to being of an object of a certain kind. That is to say, it can be of an object of a certain kind without there being any particular object which it is of. Once we recognize the possibility of experience being purely generic, we see the way out of the puzzle. Now, of course, this possibility is exactly what I think we must reject. There is no such possibility. Being purely generic (having an intentional object) is not a way experience can be. If, after God intervenes, my experience were purely generic, there would be no saying which object is the object of my experience. I could no more say which object is the object of my experience than I can say which object (E') says is the object of my experience. Just as (E') is limited to saying that the object of my experience is an object of a certain kind, so my experience would be limited to being of an object of a certain kind. The difficulty is simple. Experience is not subject to this type of limitation. Thus the question, 'Which object is the object of my experience?' must always have, for me, at least the following answer: this object is the object of my experience. If such an answer were not available, if there were no possibility of focusing or demonstrative reference, there would be no such thing as my experience. 4.12. To repeat, experience cannot be purely generic; it cannot have an intentional object. 12 How is it that we are (I know I have been) tempted to think otherwise?

94

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

Part of it, no doubt, is that the possibility of experience having an intentional object (being purely generic) seems to offer a way of avoiding internal objects of experience. But I think another factor is that, apart from experience, the possibility of having an intentional object obviously does exist elsewhere in the areas of mind and language-and, as we remarked above, not simply because it exists everywhere (like the trivial possibility of redescribing a state of affairs in terms of a complex predicate). It seems to be a peculiar, or characteristic, possibility of mind and language. Thus we carelessly suppose that it exists in the case of experience. For example, a person's wanting or desiring something can be limited to a kind. It can be limited in precisely the way that experience cannot be limited. I can want an apple-not this apple or that apple, but just an apple. What I want is just to have a thing of a certain kind; there is no particular thing of that kind which I want. In such a case, my wanting is purely generic. It has an (in this sense) intentional object. What I want is: an apple. This is a way wanting can be, a possible form of wanting. Again, I can draw (represent, describe, imagine) a man but no man in particular. If you ask me, 'Who is it you are drawing?', I will answer that it 'is not anyone', that it 'is just a man'. My drawing is purely generic. It has an intentional object, namely: a man. As a general point about mind, the possibility of this type of generic limitation is often noted by philosophers. My point is that it is a mistake to suppose that the possibility extends to experience. It is a mistake to suppose that experience can have an intentional object in the way that, say, desire can have an intentional object. J. L. Mackie, in his lecture, 'What's Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?', offers a diagnosis of how philosophers come to introduce sense-data, or 'mind-dependent objects', into their account of experience. He says it is the result of a confusion between what he calls the 'intentional' and the 'existent object' constructions in language. He illustrates the confusion as follows: I ask, in the intentional construction, for an apple. Then, by the existent object construction, which also holds for verbs of asking, there is an apple for which I ask. But perhaps there is no material apple anywhere around. So there must be an internal mind-dependent apple, an apple-like desider-

The Object of Experience

95

atum, for which I am asking in the first place. Extend this analysis to all cases, even those where there are apples about, and I am in the predicament of asking always for mind-dependent desiderata, unable to get past them and ask for a real apple, however plentiful apples may be. 13

The confusion (I take it) is this. When we ask in the intentional construction for an apple, we want (are asking for): an apple. That is, we want an apple, but it is not the case that there is a particular apple that we want. There is, in fact, no particular object in the world such that, in this case, it is what we want. Suppose, however, a philosopher insists that in such a case there must be some particular item that we want. Since we have agreed it is not an apple, or any other part of the world, it would seem that there must be something else-not an apple, but something apple-like; not part of the world, but something mind-dependent. Such reasoning certainly involves a confusion. (Has anyone ever been confused in this way?) In effect, the confusion would depend on our being somehow blind to the fact that wanting can be limited to wanting a thing of a certain kind, that it can be purely generic. Mackie's point is that this sort of confusion occurs when philosophers argue that, in the case of hallucination for example, the object of experience is not part of the world but mind-dependent. I believe Mackie is committing the mistake we described above. He correctly discerns a certain possibility with respect to desire, but incorrectly projects it on to experience. To be confused about experience in the way Mackie suggests would require our being blind to the possibility of having an experience which is limited to being an experience of a certain kind of object, a purely generic experience (an experience with an intentional object). But there is no such experience; there is nothing to which we might be blind. 4.13. Here is a (sketchy and somewhat obscure) speculation. In those cases where the possibility of an intentional object exists, there seems to be a connection with action and will. For instance, imagining, drawing, representing, and so on-these are things we can be said to 'do'. They are subject to the will. Thus we can mean or intend them in a certain way. We can mean the lines we are

96

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

drawing to stand for a particular object; or we can mean to limit ourselves to representing something of a certain kind. Desire, wanting, is not something we can be said to 'do'. Butthe point has often been made-if we want something, there must, it seems, be something which, under the right circumstances, we are prepared to do. So, at least in this conditional way, wanting involves being aimed at doing something. And our being thus aimed creates the possibility of generic limitation. We can, in wanting, aim ourselves in a limited way. Of course, the possibility of generic limitation is only one side of the coin. If desire can limit itself to something or other of a certain kind, it can aim at a particular thing of that kind. If we can mean to depict an F but no F in particular, we can narrow our intention down to a particular F. Where the will can expand, the will can contract. In a sense, desire is like a sentence about desire: just as a sentence can be limited to saying what kind of thing I want, my desire can be limited to wanting a thing of a certain kind. The theory is that this is because of the connection between desire and will. But, suppose we turn the theory back on language itself, for example, the sentence about desire. If a sentence is limited to saying what kind of thing I want, this is not because it aims to limit itself in that way. Even here there is a connection with will. A sentence must be limited in what it says. Otherwise it would say everything, that is, nothing. But how is it that sentences say (mean) anything at all? How is it that expressions mean one thing rather than another? At some level, the answer must be that speakers mean them in one way rather than another. But (one may object) the use of language is not a free-for-all. We would not use an expression to mean such-andsuch unless we supposed that that is what it meant. Clearly, there is an interplay between the 'meaning' which resides independently in language and that which resides in our will. The point is that one aspect of the interplay involves will: expressions could not mean what they mean unless we meant them in a certain way. In the case of experience, on the other hand, the connection with will is totally absent. (This is the old idea that experience is 'passive'.) That something is present to us, that we find ourselves faced by something in experience, this is just a fact-a brute given.

The Object of Experience

97

We can do things to alter or affect what is present, but doing these things, or meaning to do them, cannot be identified with the fact itself, the fact of presence. Yet it is only 'doing' or 'meaning' or 'meaning to do' that can limit itself in the way we are considering: that can stop itself short at the level of a kind. By the same token, it is only 'doing' or 'meaning to do' that can narrow itself in on a particular item. What is present in experience is, indeed, something particular, but not because we have made it so. This is simply how it is. Something Ca particular object, or array of objects) is there, present in experience. There are all sorts of things we can do with respect to what is present, but the fact that something is present is not one of them. It is, as we said, just a fact. 4.14. Let me point out, finally, that, even if there were a purely generic form of experience, this possibility would not (contrary to the suggestion at the end of sect. 4.10) enable us to solve the puzzle. What the solution contemplates is a layer of experience that is common to the situation both before and after God eliminates the book. The assumption is that, while the book is there, it, this book, is the object of my experience. If we suppose that what is left over after God intervenes is a purely generic experience, we must suppose that, with God's intervention, my experience jumps from being an experience of this book to being an experience of some book or other. But, apart from the fact that there is no such experience as the latter, this is obviously not the smooth transition we imagine when we say that, despite, the elimination of the book, 'things would remain the same in my experience'. Consider the case of wanting. There is a real difference between wanting a particular apple ('the one I just put on the table') and wanting some apple or other. These are different forms of wanting, and, if you went from, say, the first to the second, that would entail a real change on your part. (You would have to lose, or give up, your interest in the particular apple you originally wanted.) Would there not be an analogous change on my part if we suppose a shift from this book being present in my experience to an experience (if there could be such) of 'some book or other but none in particular'?14 There is another difficulty. This time let us start with the case of wanting. In fact, the two forms of wanting are not merely different,

98

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

they are in a way incompatible. In so far as I want that apple (the one I put on the table), it is false that I just want some apple or other. Each of these is a complete wanting, a full psychological reality, and (unless we suppose the two wantings are totally independent l5 ) each excludes the other. Thus it would be wrong, psychologically incoherent, to suggest a two-layered view of wanting in which these forms of wanting coexist; a view, that is, in which one wanting is directed at a specific object of a certain kind, while the other, which backs it up, limits itself to the kind. Now, whereas wanting can be purely generic, this possibility does not exist in the case of experience. But, if it did exist, the same point would hold. We would have two complete and incompatible forms of experience. There would be no chance, then, that experiences of these forms should line up one behind the other in the manner envisioned by the present solution of the puzzle.

NOTES

1. The general idea behind this solution, the idea that we may conceive of

the experiential upshot of the causal process as a fact of appearance, has been put forward, or at least considered, by many philosophers. It comes up in just about every systematic discussion of perceptual experience. The most careful presentation of the idea with which I am familiar occurs in H. P. Grice's well-known paper, 'The Causal Theory of Perception', repr. in G. J. Warnock (ed.), The Philosophy of Perception (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). 2. By way of illustrating this sort of one-sidedness, consider what is called the 'disjunctive view of appearances'. This view is put forward with the aim of avoiding intermediaries, things which 'get between' the subject and the world. The central idea, according to John McDowell's statement of the view, is that its appearing to someone that such-andsuch is the case 'can be either a mere appearance or the fact that suchand-such is the case making itself perceptually manifest to someone'. (See the third part of McDowell, 'Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge', Proceedings of the British Academy, 68 (1982), 472. See also Paul Snowdon, 'Perception, Vision and Causation', Proceedings of the Aristo-

The Object of Experience

99

telian Society, 81 (1980/1), and J. M. Hinton, Experiences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973) (both cited by McDoweU).) The latter is what we have called a fact of presence, where the object is part of the world (a fact, we might say, of 'external presence'). Thus McDowell writes that 'If we adopt the disjunctive conception of appearances, we have to take seriously the idea of an unmediated openness of the experiencing subject to "external" reality' (p. 478). So, the idea is that a fact of appearance may be either a fact of external presence or a mere fact of appearance. This is not easy to understand. How (assuming we are not making play with an ambiguity) could one and the same fact be either a mere fact of appearance or a fact of external presence? (How could one fact be either of two such seemingly different facts?) I think that what McDowell must mean (but see below) is that a fact of appearance may or may not be grounded on a fact of external presence. When he speaks of a 'mere appearance' he must, therefore, be referring to a fact of appearance which is not grounded on a fact of external presence (on a 'perceptually manifest' fact). (Note, this way of reading McDowell does not conflict with his aim of allowing the subject unmediated access to the world; when a fact of appearance is grounded on a fact of external presence, the fact of appearance does not 'get in the way' of the external object whose presence grounds the fact of appearance.) Thus, in our example, before God intervenes, the fact of appearance (its appearing that a book is present) would be grounded on a 'perceptually manifest' fact (on the presence of an external object, a book), whereas, after God intervenes, there would be a 'mere appearance' of a book; i.e. it would appear that a book is present but this fact of appearance would not be grounded on the presence of an external object. But the big question remains: on what, in such a case, would the fact of appearance be grounded? This question requires an answer. A 'mere appearance' cannot be so 'mere' that it has no ground whatever. (If there is no ground, there is no appearance.) I assume that, in the case where we have a 'perceptually manifest' fact, a fact of external presence, McDowell would be happy to take that fact as grounding the fact of appearance. But in the case of a 'mere appearance', where there is no 'perceptually manifest' fact, it is not clear how he would answer the question of what the ground might be. (He does not ask the question.) We are assuming, note, that, when (as we put it) a fact of appearance is grounded on a fact of external presence, these are distinct facts. Perhaps this will be judged a mistake. Perhaps, in such a case, we should say that the fact of appearance consists in the fact of presence. I have no objection to this way of putting the matter. For that is all that

100

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

it is-a way of putting the matter. It does not alter the facts. It does not help the disjunctive view. We will simply rephrase our question. Where no external object is present, where there is no fact of external presence, in what does the fact of appearance 'consist'? This question requires an answer no less than the question about 'grounding'? Really, they are the same question. 3. C. D. Broad, in his book Scientific Thought (Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, & Co., 1959), 240, writes: 'When I look at a penny from the side I am certainly aware of something; and it is certainly plausible to hold that this something is elliptical in the same plain sense in which a suitable bent piece of wire, looked at from straight above, is elliptical. If, in fact, nothing elliptical is before my mind, it is very hard to understand why the penny should seem elliptical rather than of any other shape.' The last sentence of this quote should make us pause, since it employs something very much like our point about grounding. But it is a misapplication of the point. To say the penny looks elliptical is to say how it, the penny, appears (is manifest) in our experience. It is to express a fact of manifestation. If we attempt to ground this fact on the presence of an internal object, we treat it in a manner appropriate to a fact of appearance; and, by inserting the internal object, we lose the fact with which we began. 4. Gareth Evans, The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982),136,145-6,172-3,179,182,184,199-200. McDowell's paper, 'Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space', appears in P. Pettit and J. McDowell (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); see especially sects. 2-4. 5. Evans says that it is a consequence of his 'realism ... that when a person hallucinates, so that it appears to him that he is confronting, say, a bus, then, whether or not he is taken in by the appearances, there is literally nothing before his mind'. He goes on to ask why this should 'seem so counter-intuitive' (which indeed it does). To answer this question, we have only to ask why it will seem to the hallucinator to be the right thing to say, [namely, that there is something before his mind]. And we have already answered this question. To hallucinate is precisely to be in a condition in which it seems to one as though one is confronting something. So of course it will seem right to the hallucinator to say he is actually confronting something; the situation is very like one in which he is confronting something.

The Object of Experience

6.

7.

8.

9.

101

It seems to me that, in the second case, Evans is asking the wrong question. What he should be asking is not why, for the hallucinator, it seems right to say that he is confronted by something (or that something is before his mind), but why, i.e. in virtue of what, there seems to be something confronting the hallucinator; or why, i.e. in what respect, his situation is like one in which he is confronting something. The question of the ground of what it seems to the hallucinator right to say may be answered by reference to the fact of appearance; but that leaves us with our question, which concerns the ground of the fact of appearance. Note, it follows that it cannot be a general condition of demonstrative reference (or focusing) that the object referred to (focused on) stand in a causal relation to the subject, the person who refers (focuses). It is a general condition that the object be present in the person's experience, but not that it be causally related to him. According to Evans, we can think demonstratively about an object only if we have what he calls a 'continuing informational link' with it, i.e. for some indeterminate stretch of time, and via one or more of our senses, we have to be 'getting information' from the object. Now it is pretty clear that an object which is 'giving information' to someone via his senses must be linked causally to that person. Presumably, it is 'giving information' to him by (directly or indirectly) acting on his senses. If we accept, then, that it is possible to refer demonstratively to an internal object, it follows that the obtaining of a 'continuing informational link' cannot be a general condition of demonstrative thought; for such a link can exist only in the case where the object of reference is an external thing. (Of course, that is precisely the restriction which Evans intends; see Varieties of Reference, Ch. 6, especially sects. 6.2,6.4,6.6.) There is in philosophical logic an established use of the term 'objectual' according to which quantifiers may have either an 'objectual' or 'substitutional' reading. When we speak here of 'quantification', we shall always mean quantification on the objectual (versus substitutional) reading. The basic idea can be found in C. J. Ducasse, 'Moore's "The Refutation of Idealism"', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy ofG. E. Moore (New York: Tudor, 1952). It is also implicit in Husserl's conception of the 'descriptive character' of experience; see his Logical Investigations, tr. J. N. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), vol. ii, investigation 5, ch. 2, especially sect. 11. See R. Chisolm, Theory of Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966), ch. 6.

102

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

10. 'The Intentionality of Sensation: A Grammatical Feature', in R. J. Butler (ed.), Analytical Philosophy, 2nd series (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965). ll. We must be careful to distinguish the idea of experience being a certain kind of experience, e.g. an of-a-book-experience, from the idea of experience being of an object of a certain kind. 12. Although it does not apply directly to experience, I think Miss Anscombe has hit on a point of general importance in the philosophy of language. There does exist the possibility of using an expressionan expression which on the surface looks as if it were functioning as a predicate (we shall confine ourselves to this)-in a non-predicative way, namely, to give something (as Miss Anscombe puts it). The example of using words to give the direct object of a sentence illustrates the possibility nicely. Another example is where we use one expression to 'give' the meaning of another. Ifwe say, e.g., 'The meaning of "fragile" is easily broken', we do not mean that 'easily broken' is true of the meaning of 'fragile'. Rather, we mean that the meaning of 'fragile' is: easily broken. We use 'easily broken' to give the meaning of 'fragile', and this is just different from using it as a predicate. We are, I think dealing here with an irreducibly different and basic way in which words can be used, with a different semantic role or function. (See my 'Improper Singular Terms', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1971-2). What is worth noting about this role is that it does not figure in the semantics of ordinary predicate logic, which many philosophers of language regard as adequate for a logical analysis of language, at least in so far as the analysis pertains to sentences that have a truth-value. This is what makes Miss Anscombe's point philosophically interesting. She did not dream up the possibility of using an expression to 'give' something (in her example, the direct object of a sentence). She is drawing our attention to a possibility which already exists, which is already there in the language, and thus must be accounted for in any complete analysis of language. 13. Proceedings of the British Academy, SS (1969), 120. 14. Note that you cannot get around the difficulty by giving up the notion of two layers of experience and maintaining that, whereas before God intervenes the only relevant experiential fact that holds is a fact of presence, after God intervenes my experience is purely generic; there would still be the peculiar shift or jump. 15. e.g. I have a long-standing desire for a particular apple I once saw, and, in addition, I would like some apple or other right now.

5

Experience and Continuity 5.1. The solution to the puzzle we shall consider in the present chapter starts from the conclusion reached in the last chapter, that experience cannot lack an object. Thus it takes as given that aspect of the problematic reasoning (that is, of the third stage of the reasoning) which says that, had God intervened half-way through the last five seconds, this object, the object on which I am now focused, would be an internal object. What it questions is whether, had God intervened, this object would be the same object as the object that was present before God's intervention, the object on which I was focused at the outset of the five-second interval. Suppose we deny the identity. We grant that, had God intervened, the object present to me now would be an internal object. We grant also that, in the case of hallucinations, and after-images, and so on, an internal object is present in experience. But if we deny the before-after identity assumed in the reasoning, nothing will follow about what is always present in my experience, or about what is actually present in my experience right now. Had God intervened, the object present to me would have been an internal object, but since in fact God has not intervened, the object present to me is the book. It needs to be stressed in this regard that the problematic reasoning does not depend on our accepting, as an epistemic possibility, that God might have just intervened (or might be intervening right now). So far as the reasoning goes, we may take it as certain that God has not intervened (and is not intervening). The reasoning requires us to take account only of what would be the case if God had intervened. It requires only that we accept a certain metaphysical possibility (the potential irrelevance of the external object). Given the metaphysical possibility, we can establish that, if God had intervened, an internal object would now be present in my

104

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

experience. But, unless we also accept an identity between the object that would now be present and the object that was actually present in my experience a few seconds ago, we cannot establish that the object actually present in my experience now is an internal object; nor, of course, can we establish the more general conclusion that it is always such an object that is present in my experience. Of course, to solve the puzzle, it is not sufficient simply to deny the before-after identity of the object of experience. We shall have to justify this denial in the light of the fact that in some sense, had God intervened, 'things would have remained the same in my experience'. Imagine that God intervenes. In what sense could it be true that 'things remain the same in my experience' if we suppose that, before God intervenes, a book is present in my experience, whereas, after God intervenes, an internal object is present in my experience? 5.2. Consider my experience before and after God intervenes. There is this object (before) and this object (after). Now, it may be said, to provide a sense in which 'things remain the same in my experience', we need only suppose that the objects before and after are, for me, indistinguishable. The indistinguishability of the objects will account for the 'sameness' within my experience; but it will not entitle us to infer an identity. From the fact that objects are (for a certain subject at a certain time) indistinguishable, it does not follow that they are identical. This simple point defeats the reasoning. The point is made by J. L. Austin in Sense and Sensibilia. 'Why,' he asks (in the course of trying to refute an argument used by Ayer and Price), 'should it not be the case that, in some few instances, perceiving one sort of thing is exactly like perceiving another?'l The case where God intervenes would be such an instance. Before God intervenes, the object present to me is external; after God intervenes, it is internal. But these distinct objects are, for me, indistinguishable. This accounts for the fact that 'things remain the same within my experience'. Austin's point is correct in itself, but it fails to address the problematic reasoning, since in the reasoning our basis for saying that the object of experience after God intervenes is identical with the object before the intervention is not that the objects in question

Experience and Continuity

105

are (for me) indistinguishable. That we are unable to distinguish x from y may, in the right circumstances, be a reason for judging that x is y (though, of course, it does not entail that x is y). Moreover, we may take it that the object after God intervenes looks to me exactly like the object before God intervenes (I find them indistinguishable). The point is, that is not our reason for concluding that they are identical. The reason is not that I am unable to distinguish this object, the object on which I am now focused, from the object on which I was focused five seconds ago, but that I have (for the last five seconds) remained focused on this object-which is a very different kind of reason. 5.3. Let us attempt to bring out how different it is. To find objects indistinguishable we must make a comparison. The mind looks first at one object and then at another, and cannot find a difference. And to make a comparison is to have a thought, namely, a thought of the form: 'this is just like that' (,there is no difference between this and that'). In contrast, the mind which remains fixed on something does not make comparisons. It does not move between this and that, but simply stays with this. Moreover, staying with an object cannot be equated with having a thought about the object. One might be tempted to suppose that staying with an object is the same as having a certain temporal identity-thought about the object, that is, a thought of the form: 'this (now) is identical with that (back then)'. However, it should be plain on reflection that we may have such a thought without the continuity essential to remaining focused on something. Perhaps we might conceive of the relevant identity-thought in a different way. In the above representation we took the emphatic demonstratives to stand for (roughly) simultaneous acts of demonstrative reference. We assumed it is the objects of reference that are linked to different times ('now' versus 'back then'). Perhaps, to represent the identity-thought here, we should introduce a notation wherein the emphatic demonstratives are understood to stand for acts of reference which themselves occur at different times. Thus: 'this . .. is identical with this'. (The ellipsis indicates the passing of time.) But this still will not give us what we need, since (pace Hume) you can have such a thought without the necessary kind of continu-

106

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

ous surveillance. (This (I pick out a cat which then disappears under the bed) . . . is identical with (the cat reappears) this. ') I think we must in the end recognize that staying focused on an object cannot be equated with having a thought (not even an identity-thought) about the object. The mind finds itself faced by something, by this object. That it stays with the object is not a thought about the object. Rather, like the initial focusing on the object, it is something which puts us in a position to have a thought about the object. In that sense, like the initial focusing, staying with the object is 'prior' to thought. In fact, there is more than a likeness here. Staying with the object is a form of focusing on the object: it is a 'temporally elongated' focusing on the object. The mind, we could say, focuses on something present to it, and consciously extends what it is doing through time. Suppose, then, that five seconds ago I focused on whatever it was that was present when I looked at the book, and that I remained focused on the object in question up to the present moment. The problematic reasoning says that if God, in conjunction with eliminating the book at some point during this period of time, had maintained the activity in my brain, then, 'within my experience things would have been just as they have been'. In what sense is this true? The reasoning depends on our taking it to be true in the following sense, that I would have remained focused on the identical object that I initially focused on. In order to defeat the reasoning, this is what we must deny. We must say that, had God intervened, it would not be true that I have remained focused on the object on which I am now focused. Pick out something present in your experience and stay focused on it for five seconds. (Actually do this.) Could it not have happened that at some point during the five seconds God intervened in the way that we are supposing? Is not the hypothesis of God's intervention compatible with your having done exactly what you have done, that is, with your having remained focused on a given item throughout the whole of the five seconds? The claim implicit in these questions is different from the claim that, despite God's intervention, you might be unable to distinguish the object at the end of the five seconds from the object at the beginning. It is a claim not about indistinguishability but about continuity. To defeat the

Experience and Continuity

107

problematic reasoning it is the claim about continuity (about remaining focused) that we must deny. 5.4. And this, it may seem, is easy enough to deny. It is, after all, a familiar possibility that things can happen so fast, or in such a confusing way, that we are unable to detect the fact that one object has been replaced by another. It can happen that a replacement of objects occurs right before our eyes (literally), but without our detecting it. In such a case, let us say, there is phenomenal continuity without objective continuity-without, that is, a continuity of objects. Imagine a machine, a Replacer. You put a penny, say, on the platform on top of the Replacer, and load the machine with others. Depressing a button causes the penny on top to disappear down a chute and one of the loaded pennies to take its place. If the button is held in the depressed position, the process will keep recurring (until the loaded pennies run out). There is also a speed control. At slow speeds, it is obvious to the eye what is going on. But if you turn up the speed sufficiently, it is impossible (for us) to tell. There seems to be a single penny sitting on the platform. If pennies of different coloration are loaded in the right way, and the speed is turned up, 'the penny' on the platform will undergo a change a colour. But, of course, there would still be phenomenal continuity. (If there were not phenomenal continuity, we would not conceive of the case as one in which something changes colour.) On the other hand, if we slow down the replacement process to the point where we can detect breaks or gaps, phenomenal continuity will be lost, even if all the pennies look exactly the same colour. But, since in this case external objects replace external objects, we do not yet have a model for what happens in the case where God intervenes. In the latter case, an internal object replaces an external object. The following example will bring us closer to what we are looking for. I am gazing steadily at a smudge on the wall. At a certain moment it fades. At the same moment, and at the very same point in my visual field, an after-image appears. This occurs in such a way that I do not detect the fact of replacement. So there is phenomenal continuity-phenomenal continuity along with objective discontinuity. At any given moment in the relevant timeinterval I would be focused on something. Yet it would be incorrect

108

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

to say that there was something on which I remained (stayecl) focused throughout that period of time. Why could it not be like that in the case where God intervenes? At the moment when God eliminates the book an internal object takes its place. This happens in such a way that within my experience I detect no gap or break. There is perfect phenomenal continuity. But, by hypothesis, we do not in this case have objective continuity. From the standpoint of the objects, there is a radical break. I begin with an object in the world, and end up with an object that exists only in my experience. In such a case, despite the phenomenal continuity, I cannot be correctly described as 'remaining focused (fixed) on' a given object. We shall call this the continuity solution to the puzzle. 5.5. Phenomenal continuity is a matter of appearance: over a certain period of time, it looks as if one object remains present in experience. A fact of appearance, as we have stressed, must be grounded. What grounds the fact of appearance in a case of phenomenal continuity? What makes it look as if one object remains present? In the case where there is objective continuity, we have a ready answer. It looks as if a single object remains present because a single object remains present. But what about the case where a phenomenal continuity overlays an objective discontinuity-as, for example, in the case of the Replacer? What grounds the phenomenal continuity in this case? One answer we can reject straight away is that the pennies all look exactly alike. When the Replacer is slowed down, the pennies may look exactly alike. Yet I shall see them as distinct. The Replacer speeds up. A hundred pennies are one after the other present in my experience, but there is phenomenal continuity. It looks as if just one penny remains present in my experience. On what would this appearance of continuity over time be grounded? This much seems true, that at any moment in the relevant period of time it looks as if a penny is present to me, and a penny is present. But it is obvious that that is not sufficient. Imagine I scan a line of pennies spread out on the table. At any given moment it looks as if a penny is present, and there is a penny present in my experience; but it does not appear that a given penny remains present. What,

Experience and Continuity

109

one might ask, must be added to the simple fact of presence, the presence of a penny, so as to yield the appearance of continued presence? A perplexing question. Imagine that I am looking at the Replacer when no penny is on the platform. No penny is present in my experience. Then a penny emerges on the platform. A penny is present in my experience. So first it does not, and then it does, appear that a penny is present. If it is asked what grounds this difference in appearance, the only answer will be: the presence of the penny. Now consider another contrast. First the Replacer operates slowly, and then the speed is turned up. So, first there is no phenomenal continuity, and then there is. First there appears to be a rapid series of pennies, one replacing the other, and then it appears that a single penny remains present. Suppose we ask, as before, what grounds the difference. What is it, in other words, which stands to the fact that a penny appears to remain present in the way that the presence of a penny stands (in the prior case) to the fact a penny appears to be present? I hope just asking this question will make you see that, in a real sense, it has no answer. There is nothing, no positive datum, which might be added to the presence of an object to create the appearance of continued presence. The only thing there is is 'more of the same' , a fact of presence. Throughout the interval of time, a penny is present in my experience-but (by hypothesis) not the same penny.2 Before the replacement speed is increased, I am aware of gaps. When the speed is reduced, I no longer detect gaps. What 'fills in' the gaps? Is there anything? All I can say is that I fail to detect any gaps. This, roughly expressed, is what grounds phenomenal continuity: the presence of something plus the failure to detect gaps. You could say that what must be added to a fact of presence to ground phenomenal continuity is purely negative. Given the presence of something, the ground is not what we find in experience, but what we do not find. We do not find a break or gap. The purpose of these remarks is to head off any notion that, just as the appearance of a book or penny or whatever Ca fact of appearance) must be grounded on the presence of an object in experience, so the appearance of continued presence must be

HO

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

grounded on the continued presence of an object in experience. If that were the case, we could immediately reject the continuity solution: the suggestion that we have no right to describe me as 'remaining' focused on something throughout the period of time during which God intervenes; the suggestion, that is, that the continuity might be phenomenal but not objective. But we cannot on this basis reject the continuity solution. Where there is phenomenal without objective continuity, what grounds the phenomenal continuity is, given the fact of presence, not the continued presence of something but simply our failure to detect a relevant break or gap. 5.6. Thus the continuity solution of the puzzle seems to be on safer ground than the appearance solution. The appearance solution says that, if God intervened, it would appear that a book is present to me, but nothing would be present to me; no fact of presence would hold. Against this we argued that, if a fact of appearance holds, a fact of presence holds as well, since a fact of appearance is grounded on a fact of presence. In effect, the appearance solution depends on a non-existent possibility. But, while it cannot be true both that it appears that a book is present to me and that nothing is present to me, it can be true both that it appears a book remains present to me and yet that nothing remains present to me. It is possible to have phenomenal without objective continuity. In particular, it is possible to have phenomenal continuity through the replacement of an external by an internal object. This, according to the continuity solution, is what happens in the case where God intervenes. The type of possibility, then, on which the continuity solution depends is, in itself, a genuine possibility. However, there is, as we shall see, a difficulty in supposing that the possibility can be realized in the case where God intervenes. The reason we have missed the difficulty is that we have been concentrating on what transpires within experience, and have let slip into the background the fact that (in some sense) what transpires within experience is the product of what transpires in the brain. Remember, the continuity solution starts by granting that, after the book is eliminated, the object present in my experience is internal. If we consider the relation between the activity in my brain

Experience and Continuity

111

and how things are in my experience at this stage, after the book is gone, it seems clear we must say that the object which is present is present because of the activity in my brain. For we are granting that the object present at this stage is an internal object, and surely the presence of an internal object in my experience is the result of what is happening in my brain. Think of the case where I am having an after-image. Would we not say that the presence of the after-image is caused by the activity in my brain? Then this is what we must say about the internal object present in my experience after God intervenes. Its presence is caused by the activity in my brain. This should not be controversial. Now the activity in my brain which, prior to God's intervention, is the outcome of a chain of events involving the book is, after God eliminates the book, maintained directly by God. So the activity after God eliminates the book is, in the following sense, the same brain activity as the activity that occurs before God eliminates the book: it is a continuation of the brain activity that occurs before God eliminates the book. Imagine a ball being kept aloft and in motion by a spray of water. Suppose God intervenes. God eliminates the spray and directly maintains the movement of the ball. Despite the change in causal antecedents, the ball keeps moving in the same way. Causally speaking, this case is parallel to the brain case. In the brain case, before God intervenes, the activity in my brain is maintained by a process involving the book, light rays, and my eyes and nervous system. When the book is eliminated, God directly maintains the activity in my brain. Thus the same activity continues; only its causal antecedents change. After God intervenes, we said, the activity in my brain causes the presence of an internal object. It follows then that, before God intervenes, an internal object is present in my experience. If, after God intervenes, the activity in my brain is causally sufficient for the presence in my experience of an internal object, how could the activity in my brain before God intervenes fail to be sufficient for the presence of an internal object-the same internal object? The only change that occurs is in the antecedents of the activity. The activity itself remains the same. Perhaps it will be easier to see the point if we reverse the order of events. At the outset, there is no book. God maintains the right sort

112

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

of activity in my brain: the sort of activity that, as we first tell the story, God induces in my brain after eliminating the book. Thus, at the outset, the activity in my brain is causing the presence of an internal object. An internal object is present in my experience. Then God introduces the book and allows it to take over. By reflecting light in the usual way, the book causes (via my eyes and nervous system) the very same activity (that is, a continuation of the same activity) in my brain that a moment earlier was maintained by God. (Compare: first God keeps the ball moving, then the spray takes over.) Would not the same internal object be present in my experience? If, before the book is introduced, the activity in my brain is sufficient for the presence in my experience of an internal object, would not a continuation of that activity be sufficient for the presence of the same object after the book is introduced? Clearly, the point here is indifferent to the order of the events. It does not matter at which end of the time interval we begin. Once we grant that at one end the object present to me is internal, and that the presence of this object is the upshot of what is happening in my brain, the continuity in the activity of my brain guarantees that the object present in my experience at the other end is internal; indeed, it guarantees that the object present at the other end is the same object. Let us recapitulate. The problematic reasoning assumes that I remain focused on something, on one and the same object, right through God's intervention. The continuity solution challenges this assumption by drawing our attention to the possibility of phenomenal without objective continuity. This suggests that, from the fact that after God intervenes the object of my experience is internal, we are not forced to conclude that the object before God intervenes is internal. Instead, we may suppose that within my experience an internal object replaces an external object in such a way as to preserve phenomenal continuity. But a problem arises when we try to combine this supposition with the fact, which is built into the hypothesis of God's intervention, that the activity in my brain remains constant over the period of time in which the replacement occurs. If the activity remains constant, then, since, after God intervenes, the activity causes the presence of an internal object (so much is granted by the continuity solution), contrary to what the

Experience and Continuity

113

solution requires we cannot suppose that the object present to me before God intervenes is external; for, if the activity in my brain suffices for the presence of an internal object after the intervention, the same activity (activity of which the activity after the intervention is a continuation) must have sufficed for the presence of that same object before the intervention (and similarly in the other direction). This seems to establish that our original assumption in the problematic reasoning was correct: I would remain focused on the same object right through God's intervention. 5.7. We have contrasted the appearance and continuity solutions to the puzzle in terms of the possibilities to which they appeal. The appearance solution appeals to the possibility of experience lacking an object (of experience without a relevant fact of presence). We argued that there is no such possibility. In contrast, the possibility to which the continuity solution appeals-the possibility of phenomenal continuity-cum-objective discontinuity-is a genuine possibility. The problem with the continuity solution, as we just explained, lies not in the possibility to which it appeals but in the attempt to integrate this possibility into the case where God intervenes. But this is misleading. It implies that, for example, in the case where phenomenal continuity is generated by the speed of the Replacer, or where the after-image smoothly replaces the smudge, there is no problem, that the problem is peculiar to the case where God intervenes. But, in fact, when we speak about 'the case where God intervenes', we are not really talking about a particular case of experience to be contrasted with other cases. Rather, we are talking about a possibility which, in the light of the causal picture of experience, we can discern in any case of experience-that is, in any case of experience wherein the putative object is part of the world. This relates to the point (sect. 5.1) that the problematic reasoning does not depend on our accepting, as an epistemic possibility, that right now might be a case in which God is intervening. We may take ourselves to know that God is not intervening. The argument depends only on our accepting the metaphysical possibility of God's intervention, a possibility which is given with the potential irrelevance of the external thing and which therefore is implicit in the

114

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

causal picture of experience. This possibility, if it exists at all, exists (as we said) in any case in which the putative object of experience is an external object. With respect to any such case, God's intervention is a (metaphysical) possibility. And the possibility can, it seems, always be used to show that what is present in experience cannot be an external object. Hence it can be used to show that there is no possibility of phenomenal without objective continuity. For, when we contemplate the possibility of distinct objects replacing one another in a phenomenally continuous way, we must suppose that at least one of the objects present to us is external, and hence that external objects can be present in experience. Consider once again the Replacer case. We described this as a case in which, underlying the phenomenal continuity, there is an objective discontinuity of pennies. This assumes that the pennies are present in our experience. It is because of the speed with which they, the pennies, replace one another in our experience that the appearance of continuity arises. What about the case where the smudge is replaced by an after-image? Here we assumed that initially the smudge is present in experience (we could have made the reverse assumption). First the smudge is present, then the after-image; but it happens so fast that we do not detect any gap. So there is phenomenal continuity-phenomenal continuity, that is, without objective continuity. Now consider a case involving only after-images. In this case, we no longer have the possibility of phenomenal without objective continuity. The reason is that, with respect to after-images, phenomenal continuity is objective continuity. Thus there is no possibility of revealing an underlying objective discontinuity by slowing things down. What could that be like? First, presumably, there would be a phenomenally continuous long-lasting after-image. Then there would be a series of short-lasting after-images with little breaks in between. But that would be the only way you could describe it. You could not say that the broken series of short-lasting images emerged as the result of slowing down a previously more rapidly moving series of images. When there appeared to be a long-lasting image, that is, when there was phenomenal continuity, there were no short lasting lmages. To repeat, the possibility of phenomenal without objective conti-

Experience and Continuity

l15

nuity presupposes that at least some of the objects which participate in the phenomenally continuous replacement of objects, and thus

are present in experience, are external objects, part of the world. But the presupposition can always be undermined by the possibility implicit in the causal picture of experience: the potential irrelevance of the external object. So, with respect to the pennies example, once we reflect on it in the light of the causal picture of experience, we can prove that the pennies are not what is present in my experience, and hence that we cannot think of this case as one in which a phenomenal continuity is produced by a rapid succession of pennies within our experience; for that, as we just said, presupposes that the pennies are present in our experience. The same applies to the smudge and after-image case. Had we, in reflecting on this case, brought to bear the metaphysical possibility of God's intervention, we could have shown it is not the smudge that is present in our experience. If the smudge is not present in our experience, there is no chance of its being replaced in our experience by an after-image. We lose the possibility of viewing this case as one in which the replacement of an external by an internal object preserves phenomenal continuity. But what has happened to the possibility? Did we not accept that it is a genuine possibility? (Was it not on this basis that we contrasted the continuity solution with the appearance solution?) Which is it: is there, or is there not, such a possibility? 5.8. Of course there is such a possibility. I assert this in the same spirit that I would assert the possibility of external things being present in experience. These are possibilities (they are at bottom the same possibility) which it is absurd to deny. Yet, given the causal picture of experience, we can prove that there are no such possibilities. What we have come upon here is an extension of our basic puzzle, one which concerns, not presence per se, but continued presence. We know it can seem that a single object remains present when in fact one object replaces another. We know, in other words, that there can be phenomenal without objective continuity; that, unlike facts of appearance without facts of presence, this is a genuine possibility. But it seems to depend on an incomplete view of things:

116

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

one which simply looks out from within experience to the world and fails to include the causal genesis of experience by the world. Once that is included, the original possibility comes under threat. Once we include the causal picture of experience, the possibility of phenomenal without objective continuity gets squeezed out of the picture. It should be obvious then that this possibility, on which the continuity solution depends, cannot solve our puzzle. How could it solve our puzzle when it is itself subject to the very conflict, or antinomy, which gives rise to the puzzle? Perhaps we can gain some insight into what is going on here if we relate these points about the continuity solution to the explanation of the puzzle that we gave in Chapter 3. Within experience, a replacement of external objects can appear as a single object remaining present; the same goes for an external! internal replacement. Who will deny that these are genuine possibilities? My point is that, when we contemplate such possibilities, our compass is restricted to how things are within experience. If we widen our compass to include the relationship between the latter and the activity of the brain, and if we work out the implications of this relationship, what seems possible from the less inclusive perspective no longer seems possible. Here is another possibility: external objects can appear (look) other than they are. Will anyone deny this possibility? The problem is the same. When we enlarge our compass in the manner required by the causal picture of experience, when we include not just how things are within experience but the fact that how things are within experience is an outcome of what happens in the brain, the possibility of external objects appearing other than they are seems to vanish. For, as we emphasized in Chapter 3 (see especially sect. 3.12), objects can appear other than they are only if they are in the first place present in experience; but reflection on the causal picture of experience teaches us that external objects cannot be present in expenence. The point can be developed in terms of other ideas that we discussed in Chapter 3. Recall the distinction between 'specific content' and 'metaphysical grammar' (sect. 3.9). This is a distinction which applies to kinds of external object, kinds which figure in a

Experience and Continuity

117

picture of the world (external reality). Whereas the specific content of each kind of external thing is (as the name implies) specific to that kind, all such kinds share the same metaphysical grammar. The grammar includes the following: that objects of the kinds in question are external (have an existence which is independent of presence in experience); that they can be present in experience, and hence available for us to focus on and refer to demonstratively; that they appear (look, feel, and so on) one way or another; that (therefore) it is possible for objects which are not of a given kind to look like objects of that kind, and for objects which are of the kind to look like objects which are not of the kind. To acquire a picture of the world is to acquire a picture whose kinds have this type of grammar. Someone who has a picture of the world mayor may not know what trees or books are-that is, he mayor may not know the specific content of these particular kinds. But there must be some kinds such that he knows what these kinds are; and, for these kinds, he must know that objects of these kinds are external, that they can be present in experience (demonstratively available and so on), that they have characteristic ways of appearing, and that they can appear other than they are. I do not claim that this little account of the metaphysical grammar of external kinds is complete, or that I know how to make it complete. But there are certain fairly obvious things we have left out which bear directly on our present topic. For one thing, someone who is fully into our (or any) picture of the world, and who knows what (say) trees are, knows not only that objects present to him can appear to be trees when they are not trees, but that there can appear to be trees present to him when no relevant part of the world is present. This person, I would maintain, implicitly recognizes the possibility of internal objects: objects whose existence is exhausted by the fact of their presence in experience, and whose presence in experience grounds facts of appearance when no relevant part of the world is present in experience. We could say, then, that someone who has a picture of the world recognizes the possibility of objects which have no place in this picture. An account of metaphysical grammar must also make reference to the ideas about continuity that we have been trying to explain in the present section. Thus, to know what a tree is we must know not just

118

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

that trees are objects that can be present in experience; we must know that trees are objects that can remain present in experience. We must know not just that trees are objects on which we can fix, or focus, in experience, but that they are objects on which we can remain focused. 3 We would not mention these things in explaining what a tree is to someone (they are not part of the specific content of the kind). However, if someone did not know such things, he would not know what a tree is, what we mean by a 'tree'-that is, he would not know the metaphysical grammar of this kind. Again, to know what a tree is we must know not just that an object present to us may appear to be a tree when it is not, and that a tree which is present may appear to be something other than a tree, but that a given tree can appear to remain present when in fact it does not-when in fact there is a replacement of trees. This, too, belongs to the metaphysical grammar (versus specific content) of trees. It is, of course, far-fetched to imagine a phenomenally continuous replacement of trees by trees. (Trees are harder to manipulate than pennies.) But the possibility exists. If it belongs to the grammar of one kind of external object, it belongs to the grammar of all such kinds. And this possibility is a short step from the more exotic possibility that directly concerns us. If the metaphysical grammar of the kinds in a world-picture must recognize both the possibility of internal objects and the possibility of phenomenal continuity-cum-objective discontinuity, it must recognize the possibility of phenomenal continuity persisting through the replacement of an external by an internal object (and conversely). Perhaps it has never occurred to us that, say, the replacement of a smudge by an after-image need not disrupt phenomenal continuity. But when the idea is proposed it immediately makes sense. It is a possibility we have implicitly recognized all along. It belongs to the metaphysical grammar of the kinds which figure in our (in any) picture of the world. So, to bring all this together, anyone who has a picture of the world, any picture of the world, must grasp the possibility of phenomenal without objective continuity. More specifically, he must grasp the possibility of a phenomenal continuity involving an internal/external replacement of objects. At the same time, anyone who has our picture of the world, which includes the causal picture

Experience and Continuity

119

of experience, can (as we have argued) prove that no such replacement is possible. It follows that for anyone who has our picture of the world, there is an implicit conflict about this possibility; just as, for the same reasons, there is an implicit conflict about the possibility of external objects (the world) being present in experience. Now, the continuity solution appeals to the possibility of a phenomenally continuous internal/external replacement of objects. It appeals, in other words, to a possibility which can be made the subject of essentially the same puzzle we have raised about the object of experience. We can, if we wish, use the possibility to illustrate the puzzle. Obviously, then, we cannot use it to solve the puzzle.

NOTES

1. Sense and Sensibilia (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 52. 2. For any moment m during the interval, there is a penny p such that pis present at m; but it is not true that there is a p such that, for any m, p is present at m. 3. We must also know that trees are objects that can continue through gaps in their presence; but this is already implicit in the grammatical fact (the fact of metaphysical grammar) that trees are external objects, i.e. objects whose existence is independent of presence in experience.

6

Two Conceptions of Experience 6.1. There must (one feels) be some way of fitting together our picture of the world, including the causal picture of experience, and the presence in experience of the world. A solution to the puzzle would show us how to do this, how to fit these things together. So far, our search for a solution has concentrated on the object of experience. We considered, first (Chapter 4), the possibility that after God intervenes my experience would lack an object, that there would be nothing present in my experience, and, secondly (Chapter 5), the possibility that, although after God intervenes there would be something present in my experience, it would not be identical with what is present before God intervenes. Let us now redirect our attention slightly. Let us look away from the object of experience and ask ourselves what we mean in this context by 'experience'. Perhaps our mistake lies here, in the conception of experience that we have been using. Since a solution to the puzzle must harmonize the causal picture of experience with the presence in experience of the world, we may, to begin with, set aside the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, and take it (as we do in any case) that the world is present in experience. Right now, the book is present in my experience. The question is: what do we mean, that is, refer to, by 'my experience'? One thing seems clear. We do not mean anything I can actually pick out or focus on right now, in the way that I can focus on the book. When the book is present in my experience, there is something of which I can judge, 'This is a book'; there is nothing of which I can judge, 'This is my experience.' By my experience we do not mean something that is, right now, demonstratively available. Nor do we mean something that might be demonstratively available. The argument is simple. Anything that is, or might be, demonstra-

Two Conceptions of Experience

121

tively available is something actually or potentially present in my experience. But what is actually or potentially present in my experience cannot be my experience. This means that there is, in a sense, nothing which is my experience: there is nothing (no object or process or event) in the world which is my experience. The argument is as before. Any part of the world is potentially present in my experience. So no part of the world can be my experience. I myself (the human being which is me) am part of the world. I am, like any other part of the world, potentially present within my experience. And not just my arms and legs, etc. With the right apparatus, even my brain and the events and processes occurring in my brain could be brought within my experience. So, by our argument, we can exclude these things as well. Whatever we refer to by 'my experience' when we speak of things being 'present in my experience', it is not what is going on in my brain. Or anywhere else in the world. To what then do we refer? We refer, it seems, to something within which the world is present but which is not part of the world. Having been led to this answer to our question, we may wonder whether something is wrong with the question. We may wonder whether the question rests on a false presupposition, namely, that, in speaking of things being present in my experience, we use the words 'my experience' to refer to something, hence that there is something to which we refer by these words. Of course, when we say the book is present, we may, if we please, add the words 'in my experience'. But this merely serves to indicate that we are talking about experiential rather than physical presence. It is a grammatical illusion to suppose that we refer by these words; it is a grammatical illusion, then, to suppose there is something to which we refer. There is nothing to which we refer-not just nothing in the world, but nothing. We might call this the Negativist view of experience. On the N egativist view, the world is a totality or system of objects of which I (the human being, along with my brain) am a part. Objects in the world exist independently of whether they are present, and any object, including myself (as well as any part of myself, like my brain), may be present. In saying this, and no more, we are not

122

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

leaving anything out of account. The world, including the human being that I am, is present or it is not present. There is nothing 'within which' the world is present. In that case there is with respect to facts of presence nothing which is mine as opposed to yours. Yet the fact that the book is present right now is a fact which holds within my experience, not yours. And, within your experience, facts of presence hold which do not hold in mine. How, on the Negativist view, are we to make sense of this simultaneous multiplicity of facts of presence? It will not suffice to say that the fact that the book is present right now is causally dependent on one brain rather than another. For that it is my experience within which the book is present is settled in advance of knowing on which brain the fact of presence depends. Thus, should the fact of the book's presence turn out to depend on the brain over there rather than up here, it would remain true that it holds within my experience. A simultaneous multiplicity of separate facts of presence seems to require a multiplicity of separate horizons within which such facts hold, one of which horizons is 'mine'. On the Negativist view, there is in this respect nothing to call 'mine'. But there is a more fundamental point, one which arises even if we confine ourselves to a single fact of presence. Suppose we say (with the Solipsist) that, right now, the presence of the book is the one and only fact of presence. Still, this fact is a different fact from the fact that the book exists. (The book might have existed without being present.) What must strike us here, I think, is that the fact of presence needs something which the fact of existence does not. It needs something within which to hold. In contrast, the fact of existence is autonomous: it holds on its own. The book exists on its own; it is present only from within experience. Let me give an analogy. Consider what might be called facts of symbolic significance, for example, the fact that a particular rock is a milestone. Pretty clearly, this is a different fact from the fact that the rock exists. The rock might have existed without being a milestone, without having that kind of significance. I think we can appreciate that one of these facts needs something which the other does not. The fact of significance, in contrast to the fact of existence,

Two Conceptions of Experience

123

needs a social context. Only from within a social context can an object have symbolic significance. (Only from within a social context can a rock be a milestone.) It is the same with facts of presence. Unlike facts of existence, they need something within which to hold. Only from within experience can an object be present. So (it seems), there is something to which each of us refers by 'my experience', something within which the world is present but which cannot be included in the world. If there were no such subjectmatter, the world would exist, but it would not be present. Nothing would be present. Nor would it appear that anything is present. Nor would anything appear one way or another. Let us call such facts-facts of presence, appearance, and manifestation (see sect. 4.4), that is, facts which hold only from within experience'experiential facts' or 'facts of experience'. If there were no such thing as experience, facts of existence would hold, but there would be no facts of experience. But is it not also the case that without such facts there would be no such thing as (my) experience? Thus, as we remarked in sect. 4.7, the total absence of facts of presence is the equivalent of death. Not darkness, silence, and so on, but NOTHING, an absolute blank. Experience, it seems, is a subject-matter which needs something within it, that is, present within it, in order to be. On the one hand, it is only from within experience that something can be present (that a fact of presence can hold). On the other hand, if nothing is present within it, there is no it, no experience. Notice what this means. If you ask, concerning an ordinary object, 'What is it?' and I answer that it is 'what I keep my tools in', you may naturally raise a further question. 'Yes, but what is it?' You want to know what the object is in itself. Roughly, there are kinds to which the object belongs such that the object would have been an object of these kinds even had there been nothing in the object, and you want to know what at least one of these kinds is. If, however, we characterize experience as that within which things are present, the natural follow-on question (,Yes, but what is it?') has no answer. There is no kind of thing to which my experience belongs such that my experience might have been a thing of that kind even had nothing been present within it. Had nothing been present within it, there would have been no 'it', no such thing as my experience. Experience

124

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

(on the present conception) is nothing in itself. It has no character or nature of its own. This tallies with the point that the subject-matter we are asking about, that which we call 'my experience', is not part of the world. What is part of the world must have a character of its own. We may describe an object or process in the world via reference to something else, but it is always something in itself. Someone who accepts that by 'my experience' we refer to that within which the world is present, but keeps hankering for an answer to the 'Yes, but what is it?' question, may not have taken in fully what he has accepted; he may be thinking of experience as if it were part of the world. In sum, if there were no such thing as experience, the world would not be present. Nothing would be present. There would be NOTHING. Yet, in its own way, experience too is nothing. It is nothing in itself. That without which there would be NOTHING is, in itself, nothing. This is the conception of experience that we have been using in our discussion. 6.2. Each of us, I believe, has an implicit grasp of this conception. Each of us has the idea of a horizon within which the world is present, and which is 'mine'. The world is present within the horizon, but since the horizon is nothing in itself, we cannot include it (it?) in the world. I am not saying (of course) that in everyday life this is always, or generally, what we mean by the words '(my) experience'. But, even if we never articulate it, the conception of such a horizon is with us all the time, in the same way that the idea of our own death is with us all the time. (Indeed, the idea of our own death is the idea of there no longer being the horizon.) I shall call this conception of experience the horizonal conception of experience. Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, says that the subject-that is, 'the metaphysical subject'-is neither the body nor the soul (5.631, 5.5421). The body and the soul are part of the world. But the metaphysical subject, he says, is not part of the world; it is a 'limit' of the world (5.632-3). 'If I wrote a book called The World as I found it, I should have to include a report on my body ... this being a method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in

Two Conceptions of Experience

125

an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book' (5.631). Wittgenstein's conception of a 'limit' of the world, the metaphysical subject, is, I think, very close to the conception of experience that we are trying to catch hold of here: the conception of an experiential horizon. In other words, what Wittgenstein means by 'the metaphysical subject' is what we have been meaning by '(my) experience'. I In reporting on what I 'find' in the world, Wittgenstein says, I include a reference to my body (the human being that I am); and to my soul-if there is such a thing; that is, these things, like other parts of the world, can show up (be present) within the experiential horizon. But 'that within which' they show up, my experience (the horizon), is not part of the world; not even a spiritual part. If my experience were part of the world, it would have a character of its own. But, on the horizonal conception, experience has no character of its own. So it is not part of the world. Rather, it is a 'limit' of the world, a 'that within which' the world is present. 2 For the same reason, experience (on the horizonal conception) cannot be viewed as something which occurs in the brain or soul. Anything which occurs in the brain or soul would be part of the world; it would have a character of its own. Experience, on the horizonal conception, is not something which 'occurs' at all. It is neither an external object nor an external phenomenon (activity, process, series of states). Is it, then, an internal object (phenomenon)? This is equally wide of the mark. If my experience were an internal object (phenomenon), it would, like an after-image, exist only in so far as it is present in my experience-which is absurd. On the horizonal conception, the external-internal contrast does not apply to experience. Experience is the subject-matter by reference to which the contrast is defined. (What is 'external' exists independently of whether it is present in experience; what is 'internal' exists only in so far as it is present in experience.) 6.3. The claim, once again, is not that the horizonal conception is the only conception of experience we have, or that it is the only correct conception. (In a moment, we shall consider the possibility

126

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

that it is a false conception.) I am saying just that we have such a conception, and that, looking back on things now, this is the conception we have been assuming all along in the book. We have, all along, been conceiving of experience as a mere 'limit' or 'horizon', as something which is nothing in itself. 3 I will try to explain now how this bears on our puzzle. Let us go back to the point in Chapter 4 about grounding. We considered the possibility that, after God intervenes, nothing would be present in my experience (my experience would lack an object). The point about grounding kept blocking our attempts to solve the puzzle in this way. Recall the appearance solution (sects. 4.2-3). The idea behind the solution is that, were God to intervene, 'things would remain the same in my experience' in the sense that both before and after the intervention it would look as if a book is present; but, whereas before the intervention a book would be present, this would not be the case after the intervention. After the intervention, a fact of appearance would hold, but no fact of presence. The trouble with such a solution (we said) is that a fact of appearance must be grounded on something, on a fact of presence. Since, after God intervenes, no external thing is present, the object whose presence grounds the fact of appearance (that is, the object whose presence makes it look as if a book is present), must be internal. Now conceding that a fact of appearance must be grounded, why (it might be asked) should we suppose that the ground must be a fact of presence? This is where our conception of experience becomes relevant. It may seem we are being forced to suppose that the ground of appearance is a fact of presence by the way we are conceiving of experience, namely, as a horizonal subject-matter. For, given this conception of experience, there is nothing else the ground might be. If my experience is nothing in itself, it has in itself nothing to contribute to the ground of a fact of appearance. The ground can come only from what is present within experience. It may occur to us that the horizonal conception of experience is a misconception, the product of an illusion. On the horizonal conception, the world is present in my experience; but nothing in the world is my experience. My experience is simply the horizon, that within which the world is present. The truth, however, may be

Two Conceptions of Experience

127

that my experience is, indeed, part of the world, a phenomenon (a process, a series of states, etc.) which occurs in me, but a part of the world which is not available to me. It is not too difficult to think of how this might happen. A cine-camera, for example, cannot bring its own filming process within what it films. Does this mean the filming process is not part of the world?4 Why could it not be like that with experience? Of course, since the experiential phenomenon eludes him, it seems to the subject as if his experience is a mere horizon. He looks out and finds nothing but the object of experience, the world. (The cine-camera 'finds' only what it is filming.) The world is present within his experience, and his experience seems to have no character of its own. So he has the illusion that his experience is a mere horizon, that it is nothing in itself, hence that it is not part of the world. s Perhaps our earlier rejection of the appearance solution was based on this illusion. The point about grounding defeats the solution only if we suppose that what grounds a fact of appearance must be a fact of presence. Why do we suppose this? The supposition, it may be said, rests on the illusion of experience as something which is not part of the world but a mere horizon within which the world is present, and thus is something which is nothing in itself, something which has no character of its own (no intrinsic character)-no character, that is, apart from the character of what is present within it. On this conception of experience there is nothing on which to ground a fact of appearance but a fact of presence. Once we see through the illusion and abandon the false conception of experience to which it gives rise, we see the possibility of an alternative ground for facts of appearance, namely, the character of experience which is not available to us, its intrinsic character. It is worth recalling that the Negativist also claims that we are under an illusion here, but one which has very different consequences. According to the Negativist, our mistake is to think that there is something (anything) to which we refer by 'my experience'. There is not just nothing in the world, but nothing (full stop). The present suggestion is that we are under an illusion with the opposite tendency: it prevents us from realizing that what we refer to is part of the world. So, we end up with the idea that we refer to something which is not part of the world.

128

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

Note, finally, that our puzzle exists as much for Negativism as for the horizonal conception of experience. On the horizonal conception the problem is that, since experience is nothing in itself, there is nothing on which to ground a fact of appearance except a fact of presence. But this problem arises even more pointedly on the Negativist view of experience. For now experience is not just nothing in itself; it is just nothing. 6.4. Let us, then, abandon the horizonal conception of experience,

and consider what goes in its place. Experience, on our new conception, is a phenomenon: a process or activity or series of states or events. My experience is a phenomenon which occurs on my part-just like the activity (the states, processes, etc.) in my brain. (Perhaps it is the activity in my brain.) So, of course, just like the activity in my brain, my experience is a part of the world. Just like the activity in my brain, my experience has a character of its own. The intrinsic character is not available to me, but it is there all the same. If my experience did not have an intrinsic character, my experience would not be what it is: a genuine phenomenon, part of the world. We shall call this conception of experience, the conception we are opposing to the horizonal conception and in terms of which we are hoping to solve the puzzle, the phenomenal conception of experience. 6 The phenomenal conception of experience is not unfamiliar in philosophy. In fact, it is the dominant philosophical conception-at least 'officially'. Pick up almost any recent book or article on perception, turn to almost any page, and you will find references to 'experiences', 'experiential (perceptual) states', 'processes', 'events', and so on. What is apt to strike a philosopher as strange, or obscurantist, or confused, is not the idea of an experiential phenomenon, but that of an experiential horizon-something 'within which' the world is present but not itself part of the world. None the less, the phenomenal conception of experience gives rise to awkward, if familiar, questions. What kind of phenomenon is experience? Is it material (physical) or spiritual (immaterial)? Does it occur in the brain or the soul? That is, in a material or spiritual medium? I mention these questions simply to observe that they do not arise on the horizonal conception of experience. On the

Two Conceptions of Experience

129

horizonal conception, experience is not something occurring in my head or my soul, in one kind of medium or another. It does not occur anywhere, in any medium. It does not occur at all. On the phenomenal conception, experience has an intrinsic character Ca character apart from the character of what is present within it). I think that often when philosophers talk about 'visual sensations', 'sense impressions', 'sense ideas', 'sense images', or 'sensory content', or when they say that visual experience has a special 'sensory character', and so on, they are talking not about the object of experience, that is, what is present in experience, but about the character of experience itself (its intrinsic character). They mean something, then, which is 'in' or 'part of' experience without being present in experience. Thus, what is 'in' experience in this sense is not demonstratively available; it is not there for the subject to focus on. An analogy suggests itself here with pictures. There are two senses in which something can be said to be 'in' a picture. Suppose I have a picture of the Taj Mahal. Then the Taj Mahal may be said to be 'in' the picture. It is the object pictured. But we may also speak of patches of colour on the surface of the picture, the pictorial medium, being 'in' the picture. When, referring to its intrinsic character, we speak of something being 'in' experience without being present in experience, this may be understood in a sense analogous to that in which the coloured shapes are 'in' the picture, rather than the sense in which the object pictured is 'in' the picture. So, if we want to distinguish two conceptions of experience, we need a distinction between the intrinsic character of experience and what is present in experience, the object of experience. With respect to its intrinsic character, let us speak of the sensory content of experience. On the horizonal conception of experience, we describe the experiential upshot of what happens in the brain in terms of 'how things are in experience' -because there is just no other way to describe it, nothing else which the upshot might be. On the phenomenal conception, however, there is something else. We may describe the experiential upshot as the occurrence on the subject's part of a certain phenomenon: a phenomenon, that is, with a certain sensory content. And this content may ground facts of appearance. Consider then the case where God intervenes. We may say that,

130

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

after the intervention, when no book is present, what makes it look as if a book is present (what grounds the fact of appearance) is not the presence of something else in my experience (an internal object) but the sensory content of my experience, which is not present in my experience. 7 Of course all we really have, so far, is a suggestive name. What properties may we assign to the sensory content of experience? Are we meant to think of it as itself having, say, colour and shape? Is the sensory content of my experience right now coloured and shaped, so that, although it is not available to me, if someone could look into my head (soul) he would discern a little coloured object of such-and-such a shape? Let us not worry too much about the properties of sensory content. 8 For our purposes, the important idea is that sensory content is a feature of experience that is not present to the subject. So, whatever properties it has, in grounding facts of appearance sensory content does not play the role of an intermediary. It does not 'get in the way' of the world. At the same time, the conception of experience as a phenomenon with sensory content integrates smoothly into the causal picture of experience. (We have no particular difficulty conceiving of the experiential upshot of the causal process as the occurrence of such a phenomenon.) In short, the phenomenal conception of experience seems to give us what we want: a way of harmonzing the causal picture of experience with the presence in experience of the world. 6.5. Before examining this solution to the puzzle, there is another point about the phenomenal conception of experience that I would like to discuss briefly. When, for the purpose of explaining this conception, we sought to explain the sense in which something might be in experience without being present in experience-that is, without being an object of experience-we drew an analogy with pictures. We pointed out that the coloured shapes on the surface of a picture, although they are not the object pictured, can be said to be 'in' the picture. Now this analogy may be useful, but I think we may be tempted to go beyond it. I think that, when we conceive of experience as something which occurs in our heads (or souls), it is extremely natural to adopt a Representationalist view of experience,

Two Conceptions of Experience

131

that is, to think of what is going on in the head as representing what is out in the world, in the very way that a picture or image represents an object in the world. On this model, the sensory content of experience will play the same role as the coloured shapes in a picture. It will function, not as the object, but as the vehicle, of representation. The object, as we said, will be the thing in the world-the external object. This kind of Representationalism (let us call it 'contemporary') is not the traditional Representationalism of Descartes and Locke. Traditional Representationalism takes the vehicle of representation (the sensory content, the ideas, etc.) to be what is present in experience. The object in the world is represented by what is present in experience, but is not itself present. Such a view is compatible with the causal picture of experience, but it is explicitly at odds with the other part of what we require for a solution to our puzzle. This is not the case with contemporary Representationalism, or so it would seem. At least the following is true: contemporary Representationalism does not place anything 'between' the subject and the world. Nevertheless we must be careful here. Suppose I make a picture of the book on my desk. The coloured shapes in the picture represent the book (they are the vehicle), and in that sense the book is 'in' the picture. Now consider the idea that my experience has a sensory content, and that, like the coloured shapes in the picture, the sensory content of my experience represents the book. So we could say that, in a representational sense, the book is 'in' my experience. In itself, such a view is (I guess) harmless. But, if the book is 'in' my experience in the sense that the sensory content of my experience represents the book, what has happened to the fact that the book is present in my experience? The danger is that we may forget about the fact of presence, or suppose we are dealing with that fact in dealing with the fact of representation. These are, I want to insist, utterly different facts; there is no way of equating them. As noted in sect. 1.2, we have a strong inclination to view what is present in experience as existing when it is present: if it is present now, it exists now. We have no comparable inclination with respect to representation. In our example, the book represented by my picture exists now. Would it matter if the book were destroyed?

132

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

Would we be any less inclined to say then that the picture represents the book? Or think of it from the standpoint of experience: suppose that the sensory content of my experience represents the book, and that the book is present in my experience. Then God eliminates the book. We will want to say that the book can no longer be present in my experience. But there seems no reason to deny that, if the sensory content of my experience remains the same, it continues to represent the book. Again, a fact of representation involves a relation between two objects (particulars): the object which represents and the object represented. A fact of presence is simpler. It involves only one object. There is just: this object-the object which is there, present in experience. Thus, even if we allow that the object which is present is represented by something in the mind or brain of the subject (something in his mind or brain, but not available to him), that fact, the fact of representation, would be a different fact, a fact that cannot be identified with the simple fact of the object's presence. Yet another way to see the difference between the two kinds of fact is this. The book's presence in my experience makes the book demonstratively available to me. There is nothing remotely like this in the case of pictorial representation. Here is the picture of the book. Is the book demonstratively available to the picture? Again, if the book is present in my experience, it appears that something is present. If the book is present, it must be manifest in some way or other (it must look one way or another). But the book is not manifest to the picture of the book; it does not appear to the picture that something is present. Facts of representation have nothing to do with facts of appearance or facts of manifestation. They are part of a different ball-game entirely. Maybe it will be said that we are not making a fair comparison. Whereas the picture of the book is outside my head, the experiential phenomenon is inside my head. But, in a way, that is the point. It is obvious that representation outside the head has, unlike a fact of presence, nothing to do with demonstrative availability or appearance or manifestation. The point is that 'location' cannot be what makes the difference. Moving a picture from outside to inside the head will not give us a fact of presence.

Two Conceptions of Experience

133

I am not denying that (for some purposes, anyway) we can talk properly about the mind or brain 'representing the world'. I am saying that, in talking this way, we not yet talking about the fact of the world's presence in experience. We are nowhere near that fact. I would add that, in talking this way, we must be careful not to let the problems peculiar to the topic of representation (they are for the most part problems involving semantical concepts) obscure from us the problems which are peculiar to experience. Otherwise we may in the latter case miss the hardest problem of all-the puzzle of expenence. 6.6. The suggestion, once again, is that, if we give up the conception of experience as a horizonal subject-matter, and view it instead as a genuine phenomenon, a process or activity occurring on the part of the subject, this will enable us to solve the puzzle. On the phenomenal conception of experience, we can say that, after God intervenes, the appearance of a book is grounded on something which is 'in' experience without being present in experience, namely, the intrinsic character of experience, its sensory content. Does this solve the puzzle? Both before and after God intervenes, it appears that a book is present to me. The supposition is that, after God intervenes, the fact of appearance is grounded on the sensory content of my experience. What grounds this fact before God intervenes? The answer may seem obvious. If, after God intervenes, the fact of appearance is grounded on the sensory content of my experience, it must be grounded on the sensory content of my experience before God intervenes. Let us assume that this is so. So we are assuming that, both before and after God intervenes, the fact that it appears that a book is present is grounded on the sensory content of my experience. We are also assuming (this is essential to solving the puzzle) that before God intervenes a book is present in my experience. But then would it not be that fact, the fact of the book's presence, that grounds the fact of appearance? Is this not what we have been saying all along-that, in the case where an external object is present in experience, it is presence of this object which grounds the corresponding fact of appearance? If we view the fact of appearance as grounded on sensory content, the role

134

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

of the external thing is no longer clear. And then it is no longer clear how we can think of it as present in experience. In fact, it seems clear that we cannot think of it this way. Let us make sure that we have got everything straight. We are assuming that the following five propositions are true of my actual situation right now. (1) The experiential upshot of the activity in my brain is the occurrence of a phenomenon with a particular sensory content. (2) There is a book in front of me which is involved (in the right sort of way) in the causal process whose last stage is the activity in my brain. (3) The book is present in my experience. (4) Corresponding to the presence of the book, there is a fact of appearance: it looks as if a book is present. (5) This fact of appearance is grounded on the sensory content of my experience. Now the immediate problem centres around (3) and (5). If we suppose the sensory content of my experience is grounding the fact of appearance (the fact that it looks as if a book is present), we cannot also suppose that the presence of the book is grounding the fact of appearance. We cannot, in other words, suppose that both these things are grounding the fact of appearance: the sensory content of my experience and the presence of the book. This brings us to the point which we made in the paragraph before last. If the book is present in my experience, that fact would ground the fact of appearance. Think about it. Suppose that, right now, not only does it look as if a book is present to me, but a book actually is present to me. If a book is present to me, if I can here and now pick out a book and refer to it demonstratively, is there any sense to the idea that it is in virtue of something else, something other than the presence of the book, that it looks as if a book is present? When it comes to making it look as if a book is present, could anything possibly usurp the role of an actually present book? Hence, if we suppose that what is grounding the fact of appearance is not the presence of the book but the sensory content of my experience, it seems we have no option but to conclude that the book is, after all, not present in my experience. (If the King is around, he is in charge; if someone other than the King is in charge, we must infer that the King is not around.) So, on the phenomenal conception of experience, it turns out, contrary to what we supposed in (3), that, right now, no book

Two Conceptions of Experience

135

is present to me. It appears as if a book is present to me, but no book (no external thing) is actually present. 6.7. Perhaps we can avoid this conclusion by supposing that the sensory content of my experience grounds the fact of appearance only in the case where no external thing is present (for instance, after God has intervened). This would amount to denying that (5) holds of my actual situation. We would say that, right now (when a book is present), the fact that it looks as if a book is present is grounded not on the sensory content but on the presence of the book. But, then, what is the role of the sensory content of my experience? How is this content related to the presence of the book? If, in the case where an external object is present, we say the presence of that object grounds the corresponding fact of appearance, then, in such a case, the sensory content is out of a job. In any event, it is plainly inconsistent to suppose that, whereas now (when a book is present) the fact that it appears that a book is present is grounded on the presence of the book, nevertheless, were God to intervene, the very same fact would be grounded on the sensory content of my experience. For the hypothesis is that, right now, my experience already has the sensory content in question, the same content (call it'SC') it would have after God intervenes. Given that, after God intervenes, it would be se that grounds the fact of appearance, then, since my experience already has se, it must be that se is what grounds the fact of appearance right now. If we suppose that se grounds the fact of appearance in one case, we must suppose that it does so in the other as well. Perhaps the view should be this. In the case where we want to say that a book is present, and where accordingly we must say it is the presence of the book that makes it look as if a book is present (that grounds the fact of appearance), we should say that my experience does not have a sensory content. In other words, we should say that my experience has a sensory content only in the case where the relevant fact of appearance is not grounded on the presence of an external object. To see why this will not work, consider again the reverse-order argument that we employed in sect. 5.6. Instead of starting with the

136

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

book present, and God then removing the book while maintaining the activity in my brain, we assumed that God first causes precisely that activity in the absence of a book, and then introduces a book to maintain the activity. In Chapter 5 the point was that, since before God introduces the book an internal object is present, the same must be true after God introduces the book. For, granting (as we were at that stage) that the activity in my brain suffices for the presence of an internal object before the book is introduced, the activity after the book is introduced must suffice for the presence of that same object, since it is a continuation of the same activity (introducing the book only alters the causal antecedents of the activity). In the present case, of course, internal objects do not come into it. Rather, we are to suppose that the activity which God brings about in my brain before introducing the book suffices for my experience having such-and-such a sensory content. How, then, could my experience fail to have the same content after God introduces the book? If the activity in my brain suffices for a particular sensory content before the book is there, it must suffice for the same content after the book is there; for it is a continuation of the same activity. So we cannot suppose that, after the book is introduced, my experience lacks sensory content. And, if it has such content after the book is introduced, we cannot suppose that this content suddenly ceases to do what it does before the book is there: that it suddenly ceases to ground the fact of appearance. And now we can repeat the argument we used above. If, after God introduces the book, it is present in my experience, that fact would ground the corresponding fact of appearance. Since we have just agreed that, after the book was introduced, the fact of appearance would still be grounded on the sensory content of my experience, we must conclude that the book would not be present in my experience. Let us be clear: nothing gets in the way of the book; nothing (like an internal object) screens it off. The book is there on the table in front of me. All the causal conditions are right. And it appears that a book is present to me. What more could we ask for? But (strangely enough) the book is not actually present to me. Of course, I am not now asserting that this is true-but it is what follows on the phenomenal conception of experience. Or, rather, it is what follows

Two Conceptions of Experience

137

on the phenomenal conception if, in the manner described, we try to use the conception to solve our puzzle. You could think of it like this. When in the reverse-order case God introduces the book, everything is, experientially speaking, already in place. The show is in full swing. The introduction of the book only changes the causal background. What happens? A book gets slotted causally into a situation that is experientially complete. Causally, things get rearranged, but experientially nothing alters. The book is no more present after it gets introduced than it was before. It is there, acting on me, and it appears that a book is present to me; but it is not present to me. The troubling thought is that the situation we have just described is indistinguishable from my actual present situation. So, on the phenomenal conception of experience, the book is not present to me. No external object is present to me. Nor any internal object. Nothing is present to me. If on the horizonal conception of experience we are led to the conclusion that the world is never present to me, that the object is always internal, on the phenomenal conception we get the conclusion that experience never has an object, that nothing is ever present to me. 6.S. It may be alleged that we are begging an important issue. Suppose we take it as given that it appears that a book is present to me, that this fact is grounded on the sensory content of my experience, and that the fact that my experience has this content is the upshot of the right sort of causal process involving the book and my brain. We have been arguing that, under these conditions, no relevant fact of presence would hold. Only a fact of appearance. But suppose someone says that he regards these same conditions as constituting the analysis of a fact of presence, that is, of an external object's being present in experience. The analysis, he says, is that an external object is present to me just in case it causes (via the activity in my brain) my experience to have a sensory content which grounds the corresponding fact of appearance. So we cannot maintain that only the fact of appearance would hold. For the fact of appearance to hold in the conditions specified is just what it is, or means, for an object to be 'present' to me, 'present' in experiencefor a fact of presence to hold. In the face of such a claim, our

138

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

argument that an object satisfying the above conditions would not be present to me begs the issue-the issue of what it is (means) for something to be present to me. This is a desperate move. Consider the fact of appearance that is supposed to enter into the analysis of an object's being present to me. What is the appearance? It is the appearance that an object is present to me. The analysis, then, when spelt out, tells us that an object is present to me just in case it causes a sensory content which grounds the fact that there appears to be an object present to me. But then it tells us that an object is present to me just in case it causes a sensory content which grounds the fact that there appears to be an object which causes a sensory content which grounds the fact that there appears to be an object present to me. But then it tells us ... The point should be obvious. It is a general, logical point about analysis. You cannot, on pain of a regress, analyse being so-and-so in terms of appearing to be so-and-so. In the case at hand, we are supposed to be giving an analysis of presence, that is, of an external thing's being present. And the analysis is supposed to be in terms of appearance. The appearance of what? The appearance of presence. Clearly, this violates the general point about analysis. We have not given an 'analysis' of anything. There can be no question of 'analysing' presence in terms of the appearance of presence. 6.9. Whereas on the horizonal conception of experience we can argue from the causal picture of experience to the conclusion that the object of experience is always internal, on the phenomenal conception we can (as we did in sect. 6.7) use the causal picture of experience to argue that nothing is ever present in experience. A conception which has this consequence will not give us a way of harmonizing the causal picture of experience with the presence of the world in experience. It will not help us solve the puzzle. It may be, however, that we have not properly described the phenomenal conception of experience, and thus have not yet given ourselves a genuine alternative to the horizonal conception. In fact, it may seem on reflection that what we have described is not a phenomenal conception of experience at all, but an impossible hybrid in which the conception of an experiential horizon is

Two Conceptions of Experience

139

confusedly run together with the conception of a phenomenon. Thus in describing the phenomenal conception we have retained the conception of experience as 'that within which' the world is present. On a truly phenomenal conception of experience, it might be said, this would not make sense. A fact of presence (or appearance) cannot hold from within a state or process or activity occurring in someone's brain or soul. A state or process, etc., is not the right sort of environment for such a fact. In so far as we think of experience as 'that within which' the world is present, we cannot think of experience as a phenomenon, as part of the world. And, in so far as we think of experience as part of the world, we cannot think of it as 'that within which' the world is present. These conceptions will not go together. They cannot be combined. Let me try to give a feeling for the gulf that has to be bridged here, for the impossibility of the enterprise. Imagine I am looking at a man who is looking at a tree. The tree, I assume, is reflecting light to his eyes. It seems natural to conceive of the man's experience as the result of this process. What do I mean by 'the man's experience'? Well, I am not too clear about that, but, whatever it is, it is something occurring in (on the part of) the man. Perhaps I vaguely think of it as occurring in his head. So, over there is the tree, over here is the man, and inside the man's head, because of what is occurring between the tree and the man, his experience is occurring. This is how I conceive of the man's experience, as something occurring in his head. By analogy, then, I must conceive of my experience in the same way. (Am I special?) The same picture must apply. So, right now, as a result of light rays and so on, I must suppose that my experience is occurring in my head. Now this seems all right until I 'back up' and take in the fact (which I somehow passed over while occupied with the relation between the man and the tree) that the man and the tree are present in my experience. I am, after all, considering the relation between this man and this tree. Suddenly the original picture no longer makes sense. In the original picture, the man's experience occurs in his head; so, by analogy, mine must occur in my head. (Why should it be different with me than with him?) But when I contemplate the fact that the man is present within my experience, my experience seems to undergo a quantum expansion. I can no longer conceive of

140

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

it as occurring in my head. Or anywhere else 'in' me. I can no longer conceive of it as 'occurring' anywhere. Schopenhauer remarks (in The World as Will and Representation, ii, ch. 1) that 'materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself'. In our terms, we might say that a philosophy which (like materialism) views experience as something occurring in the head, or in the soul, is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of his own experience. Suppose, in the case just described, I point to the man. Behind the arm that points, there is a head (my head). The arm that points, and the man to which it points, are present in my experience. Can I now locate my experience in the head behind the pointing arm? How could the man 'out there', at a distance from my head, be present in my experience, if my experience is something which is occurring 'back up here', inside my head? What occurs inside my head might represent the man, but that is not what we are talking about. We are talking not about representing the man but about the fact that the man, this man, is present in my experience (see sect. 6.5). Sooner or later it must come home to us that what we mean here by 'my experience' is not something it makes sense to think of as occurring in my head. Or in my soul. Or anywhere else. And, of course, if we shift to the man's standpoint, the same must be true with respect to his experience-that is, if we think of the tree as present in his experience, we are thinking of his experience not as something 'occurring' in him but as an experiential horizon. He has his horizon, as I have mine. The point of these reflections is not to deny that there is an experiential phenomenon occurring in the man (or in me), but simply to dramatize the difference between any such phenomenon and what we mean by 'experience' when we speak of something being 'present in experience'. Try to juxtapose these things in their stark disparity: the horizon within which the objects around you are present, and something you conceive of as occurring inside your head (or soul). There is just no way of combining or unifying them, of incorporating the horizon into the phenomenon, or the phenomenon into the horizon. If you see this, you see the justice of the complaint that, in our attempt to solve the puzzle by appealing to the phenomenal (versus horizonal) conception of experience, we

Two Conceptions of Experience

141

have not, in fact, properly described that conception. We have described an impossible hybrid conception. 6.10. Let us, then, exorcize from our conception of experience any hint of a 'that within which'. By 'experience' we shall mean a pure phenomenon (process, activity, etc.) occurring in the subject. Thus we shall mean something about which it makes no sense to think of objects as present within it. Will this give us a solution to the puzzle? We are farther than ever from a solution. A solution of the puzzle will enable us to reconcile the world's presence in experience with a certain part of our picture of the world, namely, the causal picture of experience. It will enable us, then, to view the world in the way which, given that we have a picture of the world, we cannot but view the world-as present in experience. But how are we to view the world as present in experience if we employ a conception of experience in which it makes no sense to think ofthe world as present in experience? This is the problem for the conception of experience as a pure phenomenon: we lose the possibility of something, anything, being present in experience. Philosophers have different ways of hiding this problem. One way is to assimilate facts of presence to facts of representation. Employing a representational model of experience, we get diverted by questions concerning representation, and never come to grips with the fact that the world is present in experience. There is, as such, no special difficulty in the idea of a phenomenon inside the head representing an object outside the head; nor is there a special difficulty in combining this idea with the causal picture of experience. In so far as we think of experience in these terms, it is (relatively) smooth sailing. Why should it not be? We are ignoring the fact at the centre of our puzzle, the fact of the world's presence (see sect. 6.5). Another camouflage is to suppose that the experiential phenomenon has the remarkable property of being 'directed' at something. This is often what is involved in discussions about the 'intentionality' of experience. We unthinkingly start with the conception of experience as a process or series of states on the part of the subject. We then sense (correctly) that such a conception does not allow for the

142

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

fact of the world's presence in experience. In order to remedy the deficiency, we confer on the relevant process, etc., the property of being 'directed (pointed, aimed)' at the world. Of course we are then saddled with the problem of how to explain this property9 (the 'problem of intentionality'). But, however we explain it, we never quite get what we want: the presence of the world. To get that, we have to start in a totally different place, with a totally different conception of experience. We have to start with a conception not of a state or process, but of a horizon. If we start there, there is no problem; for the horizon with which we start already has the world present within it. IO Or rather, there is no problem at the start. The problem (as we know) comes later, when we attempt to integrate this conception of experience with our picture of the world. 6.11. There may be another way of sorting things out here. Thus far, in speaking of two conceptions of experience, we have assumed that these are competing conceptions; that there is one subject-matter of which each conception purports to be the correct conception. But perhaps there is no competition. Perhaps, instead, there is an ambiguity (and hence a potential equivocation). The thought is that each conception has its own subject-matter. There is the experiential phenomenon, and the experiential horizon. One occurs in the subject's head or soul; the other does not occur anywhere. They are utterly disparate subject-matters, but both go by the name 'experience'. Consider again the case where I am looking at the man looking at the tree. In the light of the causal facts, I suppose that there is an experiential phenomenon occurring right now in the man's head (soul). Since the same kind of facts holds in my case, the same sort of phenomenon must be occurring in my head as well. But, if I refer to this subject-matter as 'my experience', I shall have to recognize two subject-matters under that name: a 'little' one (as we might ~ay) and a 'big' one. For, in addition to the experience occurring up here in my head-the 'little' experience-there is that which takes in part of the world, that within which I now pick out the man-the 'big' experience. Whereas the 'little' experience is occurring in my head, the 'big experience-the experiential horizon-is not occurring anywhere.

Two Conceptions of Experience

143

Let us assume there are these two experiential subject-matters: the horizonal and the phenomenal. Now, it might be said, what makes sense with respect to one subject-matter does not make sense with respect to the other. In particular, propositions about 'how things are in experience' make sense only if by 'experience' we mean the experiential horizon. On the other hand, causal propositions about experience, and propositions which rest on such propositions, make sense only ifby 'experience' we mean an experiential phenomenon. In the first stage of the problematic reasoning, the extraphilosophical stage, we simply take cognizance of the causal picture of experience (sect. 1.5). The causal picture of experience is part of our world-picture. Thus it is part of our world-picture that what happens in our brains is causally responsible for our experience. Here we have a causal proposition about experience. And the proposition is perfectly in order, assuming that by 'experience' we mean what occurs in the head (or soul), an experiential phenomenon. In the second stage, the reasoning becomes philosophical: we extract from the causal picture of experience the potential irrelevance of the external object. Thus we arrive at the proposition: (G) Were God to eliminate the book but ensure that the activity in my brain remains the same, my experience would remain the same. Does this involve a mistake? Once again, it depends on what we mean (refer to) by 'experience'. Now (G), we know, rests on the causal proposition about experience that we assert as part of the causal picture of experience. So if by 'experience' here we mean a phenomenon occurring on my part, (G) is quite in order; if, however, we refer to the experiential horizon, the proposition does not make sense. Recall what happened in sect. 1.6. We began with (G). But (G), we said, leaves it unclear what is supposed to remain the same, since it is unclear what we mean by 'my experience'. This led us to interpret (G) as: (G*) Were God to eliminate the book but ensure that the activity in my brain remains the same, how things are in my experience would remain the same.

144

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

Now in (G) it is possible to take the words 'my experience' to refer to a phenomenon. If that is how we take (mean) them, (G) expresses a true, and hence legitimate, causal proposition. There is, however, no way of making sense of (G*). In order to make sense of the words 'how things are in my experience', we must refer by 'my experience' to the experiential horizon. But then the proposition as a whole will be (according to the present suggestion) illegitimate: it will be a causal proposition about the experiential horizon. Now, clearly, it is essential to the problematic reasoning that we should interpret (G) horizonally, that is, as (G*). For the conclusion of the reasoning is a proposition about what is present in experience (it says that what is present in experience is never part of the world). If we interpret (G) phenomenally, this proposition cannot possibly follow. From a proposition about an experiential phenomenon, nothing can follow about what is present in experience. (What presence needs is not a phenomenon but a subject-matter which is nothing in itself-an experiential horizon.) Yet, if we interpret (G) horizonally, it expresses an illegitimate proposition. Here, then, is a diagnosis of the mistake in the problematic reasoning. (G) can be interpreted either phenomenally or, as made explicit in (G*), horizonally. Interpreted phenomenally (G) is true, but it will not yield the conclusion of the reasoning. On the horizonal interpretation, it yields the conclusion, but it is an illegitimate proposition. The reasoning trades on our confusing, or conflating, these two interpretations. From the phenomenal interpretation of (G) we gain the sense that (G) is true. However, what the reasoning needs, and what we actually use in deriving the conclusion, is the horizonal interpretation-on which interpretation (G) is illegitimate. Let us (adopting a Kantian mode of expression) call this putative conflation of the phenomenal and the horizonal conceptions of experience 'the paralogism of experience'. The view which diagnoses the mistake in the problematic reasoning as involving such a conflation, or confusion, may thus be called the 'paralogistic solution' of our puzzle. When we originally presented the antinomy, we assumed that there is a subject-matter called 'experience' which we can reason about in causal terms or to which we can be open. That is to say, we assumed it is one and the same subject-matter in both cases. In

Two Conceptions of Experience

145

the light of the paralogistic solution, this would seem to be a mistaken assumption. The truth would seem to be that there is one subject-matter about which we can reason causally, and another to which we can be open. That about which we can reason causally is an experiential phenomenon; that to which we can be open is the experiential horizon. These are incomparably different subjectmatters. They lie (as it were) in different dimensions and call for different modes of reflection. 6.12. The paralogistic solution has an important element in common with what (in Chapter 2) we termed 'Heidegger's solution': they both, and for the same reason, reject the horizonal interpretation of (G), that is (G*), as illegitimate. The difference is that, since it postulates two experiential subject-matters, the paralogistic solution has a place for legitimate causal propositions about experience, and for propositions based on such propositions. Thus it permits us to accept the whole of the causal picture of experience, as well as the phenomenal interpretation of (G). In contrast to Heidegger's solution, then, the paralogistic solution seems to do what we have asked of a solution to our puzzle: it seems to show us how we can keep both the presence of the world and the causal picture of experience. But we may have doubts. First, once we draw the phenomenal-horizonal contrast, and are clear that it is the experiential horizon that is brought into play by facts of presence (and appearance, and manifestation), it becomes less than clear in what way or sense the relevant phenomenon, the state or process, etc., that occurs in the subject's brain or soul, is experiential. Why is it not simply a process or state or whatever in the SUbject's brain or soul? Let me briefly state how I see things in this regard. It can be put in a few sentences. Like most philosophers these days, I believe that the idea of there being a soul (a spiritual substance) in us, and hence the idea that there are soul-related phenomena (spiritUal phenomena) occurring in us, is a fiction. The only phenomena occurring in us are, roughly speaking, biological phenomena. Thus the only phenomena occurring in us that are relevant to experience are the events and processes, and so on, which occur in our sense organs, nervous systems, and brains. So, the book is reflecting light to my

146

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

eyes right now; messages are being sent to my brain; as a result, certain things are happening in my visual cortex. As far as phenomena are concerned, that is it-the whole story. There are no peculiarly 'experiential' phenomena occurring in me. There is just what is happening in my eyes, nervous system, and brain. Because of what is happening in my eyes, nervous system, and brain, things are as they are in my experience. And, of course, here by the words 'my experience' I do not refer to a phenomenon. I do not refer to anything occurring in my brain or soul or any other part of the world. I refer not to a part of the world but to that within which the world is present, to the experiential horizon.11 So, the book is present-there within the experiential horizon. This is not a phenomenon occurring in me, but a fact. You could sum up my view with a slogan: there are no experiential phenomena, only experiential facts. But suppose that there are 'experiential' phenomena occurring in us, and that these phenomena are caused by the activity of our brains. I think we will still not have a way out of the puzzle. The reason is simple. Whether or not there are 'experiential' phenomena occurring in us, and whether or not these phenomena are the causal outcome of the activity in our brains, we cannot (it seems to me) get away from the fact that how things are within experience is the causal outcome of the activity in our brains. This is just a brute, undeniable, fact which, whatever philosophical position we adopt, we all know to be true. We know that, if someone were to interfere with our brains in the right way, this would have consequences within our experience. We know that one day our brains will shut down completely, and then there will be nothing within our experience: there will be no such thing as our experience: there will be NOTHING. We know these things, and no one is going to talk us out of them by suggesting that we are confusing or conflating two ways of interpreting causal propositions about experience. Even if we agree to distinguish two interpretations of such propositions, a phenomenal and a horizonal interpretation, and to accept the phenomenally interpreted causal propositions as true, we shall also accept as true the horizonally interpreted causal propositions about experience. That is, we shall accept as true, propositions to the effect that, because such-and-such happens in our brains, things are

Two Conceptions of Experience

147

thus-and-so within our experience. And obviously, if we accept these propositions as true, we cannot dismiss them as illegitimate. You will note that I am now more or less repeating what I said at the end of Chapter 2, in rejecting Heidegger's solution. Well, this is the bottom line-so perhaps I should state the point less dogmatically. If someone thinks there are 'experiential' phenomena which occur in our brains or souls; and if, further, he can persuade himself that the only legitimate causal propositions about experience are propositions about such phenomena (and hence that the proposition that what happens in the brain is causally responsible for how things are within experience is an illegitimate proposition); this person, since he will accept (G) only on the phenomenal interpretation, will think that we have found a solution to our puzzle. On the other hand, someone who regards it as a hard fact that things are as they are within our experience because of what is occurring in our brains; someone who therefore regards a proposition to this effect, however philosophically difficult, as legitimate; this person will be forced to accept (G*), the horizonal interpretation of (G). He will thus be in a position to prove, via the third stage of the problematic reasoning, that what is present in experience is always internal. Such a person will not think that we have found a solution to the puzzle. This is my situation. I do not think that we have found a solution to the puzzle.

NOTES

1. Thus, I would say that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was not a Negativist (although in some of his later work he seems to drift towards Negativism; see the postscript to Saul Kripke's Wiugenslein on Rules and Private Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982)). What is the connection between Negativism and Solipsism? The Solipsist says, There is (now) just one fact of presence.' The Negativist is forced to accept this, since he says there is nothing- no 'horizon', no 'limit' or 'metaphysical self' -in terms of which we might conceive of a multiplicity of facts of presence. But, even if we recognize some such subject-matter, the pull of Solipsism will remain. For we, each of us (the obvious incoherence

148

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

of this is lost on me), may have the thought that my horizon is the horizon, in the sense that it is on a different plane from all the others. My horizon (the thought is) 'takes in' all the others: it is the allencompassing horizon. In that case, the unique position of my horizon, of my experience, transfers to the fact of presence which (now) holds within it. So we get a kind of Solipsism after all, and this, I suspect, is the kind which really occupies Wittgenstein in the Tractatus. 2. Note that, although we are identifying the horizonal conception of experience with Wittgenstein's conception of the metaphysical subject, when we use the expressions 'subject' and 'subject of experience', we shall generally mean something which is part of the world, namely, a human being. Thus, on our understanding, the subject of experience is something that shows up within experience (the experiential horizon): I show up within my experience. This raises questions that we are not going to discuss in the present book, questions about the self and the first-person and Solipsism. The subject, the one who is me, is a human being. (He is one human being among many.) But what makes one human being, rather than any other, me? And among the multiplicity of experiential horizons, what makes one mine? What, moreover, is the relation between these two uses of the first-person, i.e. between the'!, and the 'my' in, 'I show up in my experience'? I intend to discuss these questions in another book. Here I will simply assert that they do not touch our puzzle about the object of experience. However they are answered, the puzzle will still be there. 3. The conception of experience as 'something which is nothing in itself' sounds very much like Sartre's conception, in Being and Nothingness, of the 'for-itself'. But Sartre (perhaps confusedly) also conceives of the 'for-itself' as that which acts; this does not fit easily with the idea of the 'for-itself' as a mere 'limit', a horizonal subject-matter. The conception of such a subject-matter is, however, strongly suggested by the following passage from Heidegger: 'Let us think of Being according to its original meaning, as presence ... it is man, open toward Being, who alone lets Being arrive as presence. Such a becoming present needs the openness of a clearing, and by this need remains appropriated to human being' (Identity and Difference, tr. J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974),31). Here, 'the openness of a clearing' is a nice image for the kind of nothingness which experience (the horizon) is. Facts of presence need this kind of nothingness, or emptiness, within which to hold. 4. See K. Gunderson, 'Asymmetries and Mind-Body Perplexities', in

Two Conceptions of Experience

149

D. M. Rosenthal (ed.), Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971). 5. Strawson seems to have some such illusion in mind when he writes that, because we always attend to 'causal relations between objects of perception', we 'overlook the special character of perception itself ... When x is a physical object andy is a perception of x, then x is observed and y is enjoyed.' Perception, it seems, cannot itself be for us an object of perception. (We 'enjoy' rather than 'observe' it.) But there is such a thing as 'perception itself', and it stands to its object in a causal relation. See 'Perception and its Objects', in G. F. Macdonald (ed.), Perception and Identity (London: Macmillan, 1981), 52. 6. This use of 'phenomenal' must not, of course, be confused with that in the expression 'phenomenal continuity' (Chapter 5). In the latter case, 'phenomenal' is synonomous with 'apparent'. What we mean in calling a conception of experience 'phenomenal' is that it is a conception which views experience as a phenomenon, i.e. a process, or activity, etc. 7. Since it is something which is not present in experience, the sensory content of experience must be sharply distinguished from what is usually meant by 'sense-data'. Let me mention a few examples of philosophers who employ the notion of sensory content. In ch. 1 of his book Sense and Content (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), Christopher Peacocke argues that 'visual experiences' have to have 'sensational properties'. It seems pretty clear from the discussion that Peacocke understands not these properties, but rather the external thing, as what is present to the subject. Thus, for Peacocke, 'sensational properties' are properties of experience which are not present in experience. Another example can be found in H. P. Grice's view that 'sight is to be distinguished from other senses by the special character of the experiences involved in seeing'. Grice explicitly acknowledges that, in contrast to the object of perception, this 'character' eludes 'inspection and description' (see 'Some Remarks about the Senses', in R. J. Butler (ed.), Analytical Philosophy, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962) 152-3). The third example I shall mention is Frege in 'The Thought' (repr. in P. F. Strawson (ed.), Philosophical Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). Frege writes, 'I go for a walk with a companion. 1 see a green field, I have a visual impression of the green as well. I have it but I do not see it' (p. 26). The sense impression of green, as Frege puts it, 'belongs to the content of his consciousness' (p. 27); but it is not what is present to him, the object of experience. (See also pp. 30, 36.) It may be of interest to contrast Frege with Russell in this respect. They have, I think, fundamentally different conceptions of mind.

ISO

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

Russell (in 'Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description', repr. in Mysticism and Logic, (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1963) ) attacks the view that, in order for someone to be 'acquainted' with a particular object, there has to be 'in' his mind a corresponding mental reality, an 'idea of' that object (p. 160). Russell maintains that acquaintance 'brings the object itself before the mind' (p. 166). When we are acquainted with an object, then, the object is 'before' the mind, but nothing is 'in' the mind. If you substitute 'experience' for 'mind' here, this is like what we have been saying about the horizonal conception of experience. The mind (experience) gets its character entirely from what is 'before' (present in) it, from the object of acquaintance (experience); it has no character of its own. Russell (on this way of reading him) might be said to have a horizonal conception of mind. However, he muddies the waters by characterizing the view he wishes to oppose as introducing 'a veil between us and outside things' (p. 160). Remember Russell's target (in the passage quoted) is the view that, if x is 'before' the mind, something corresponding to x must be 'in' the mind. This view entails that the mind has a character of its own, apart from what is 'before' it. It entails, in our jargon, a phenomenal conception of mind. Frege, if I understand him, holds precisely such a conception. But Frege does not hold (and his conception of mind does not require him to hold) that what is 'in' the mind when x is 'before' the mind (i.e. when x is an object of acquaintance) acts as a veil between us and x. On the contrary, it would seem that something can act as a veil in this way only if it is itself an object of acquaintance, i.e. 'before' the mind. Now Russell, as everyone knows, holds that we are acquainted not with external things but with sensedata. It is really his own view, then, and not the view he is attacking, which introduces a 'veil between us and outside things'. 8. The difficulty is not peculiar to sensory content. It holds equally with respect to the properties of internal objects (we alluded to this in sect. 2.2). It is no easier to describe the intrinsic character of experience than to describe what exists only within experience. This might be a good place to mention the view held by Moore in 'The Refutation of Idealism', Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948). Moore says that experience (consciousness) has a 'transparent' or 'diaphanous' character. When we try to catch hold of experience (consciousness) itself, 'and to see whal, distinctly, it is, it seems to vanish: it seems as if we had before us a mere emptiness. When we try to introspect the sensation of blue, all we can see is the blue: the other element is as if it were diaphanous' (p. 25). There is, I

Two Conceptions of Experience

151

believe, a confusion here. I suspect that what is behind Moore's view, what is prompting him to make these observations, is the horizonal conception of experience. But, if you look at what he actually says, he seems to be conceiving of experience (consciousness) as a phenomenon, as something with a character of its own; it is just that this character is one of being transparent. Thus understood, Moore's view must be distinguished from the view we are discussing in the text. His view is not that experience is a phenomenon whose character is unavailable to the subject (in the way, e.g., that the filming process is unavailable to the cine-camera), but that it is a phenomenon with a funny see-through character. This has the consequence that, although Moore employs the phenomenal conception of experience, his view is of no help in solving our puzzle. If the character of the experiential phenomenon is one of transparency, it is not such as might ground a fact of appearance. How could what is 'transparent' make it look as if a book (or anything else) is present in experience? 9. See, e.g., the ingenious and complex account offered by John Searle in Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), ch. 2. Searle's account raises difficult points in its own right, but (as should be clear from what I say in the text) my main objection is to the very idea of such an account. It starts in the wrong place, with the conception of experience as a phenomenon. 10. With respect to the horizonal conception of experience, the 'intentionality' of experience may be explained as the need for an object, i.e. the need for something present within experience. Unless there is something present within experience, there is no such thing as experience. We might say that, for experience (on the horizonal conception), to be is to have something present within it. This is simply an aspect of the fact that experience (on the horizonal conception) has no character of its own, that it is nothing in itself. Thus the source of the intentionality in this case, the need for an object, is not quite the same as in the case of focusing. For focusing is something in itself. It is something we 'do', an 'act of mind'. But it is an act which cannot get started unless the mind finds itself faced by something on which to focus (see sect. 4.6). 11. If this is right, there is no mind-body problem where experience is concerned. There is no 'experiential' phenomenon about which to argue whether it is material or immaterial (whether it occurs in the brain or the soul). There is no mind-body problem, but there is our puzzle. In the recent ever-expanding literature spawned by Hilary Putnam's twin-earth examples, the view has been gaining ground that 'mental content' actually incorporates objects in the world, and hence that it

152

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle cannot be thought of as 'in the head (soul)'. I have a definite sympathy with this view, although the talk of 'content' strikes me as slightly confusing. In any case, I am not going to discuss the relevant literature here. I will merely observe that, if the view in question (that objects in the world enter into 'mental content') is applied to experience, it presupposes the horizonal versus the phenomenal conception of experience, or mind. (It is not clear to me that adherents of the view appreciate this point, since they go on talking about experiential 'states' and 'processes', etc.) Thus, if we conceive of my experience as something occurring right now in my head (or soul), as a phenomenon, it will seem mystifying as to how its 'content' should include the book on my desk. To make room for this idea (to make room in my experience, as it were, for the book), we must effect a complete break with the conception of experience as a process or series of states, and allow ourselves to use within philosophy a conception that we are already in touch with outside philosophy: the conception of an experiential horizon. The original Putnam examples are contained in his paper, 'The Meaning of Meaning', in Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). Several papers by Tyler Burge which have also been influential in this are: 'Individualism and the Mental', in P. French, T. Vehling, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979); 'Other Bodies', in A. Woodfield (ed.), Thought And Object (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); 'Cartesian Error and the Objectivity of Perception', in P. Pettit and J. McDowell (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). The introduction to the latter volume contains a helpful discussion of the general significance of Putnam's and Burge's ideas for the philosophy of mind.

7

Exte'rnality: Kant and Phenomenalism 7.1. There is a certain symmetry between the solutions considered in Chapter 6 and those which will occupy us (more briefly) in the present chapter. In Chapter 6 we called into question the conception of experience that we have been using, the conception of experience as a subject-matter which is not part of the world but simply 'that within which' the world is present. There were two ideas. The first was that this conception of experience, the horizonal conception, rests on an illusion. It is a false conception, and needs to be replaced by a different one, that of experience as a phenomenon (the phenomenal conception of experience). Once we make the replacement, we can solve the puzzle by the appearance solution. The second idea allowed us to keep both conceptions. There are, according to this idea, two subject-matters we call 'experience', a phenomenal and a horizonal. Our mistake takes the form of an equivocation on 'experience' in (G). Since on the horizonal interpretation (G) is illegitimate, the truth of (G) requires the phenomenal interpretation; but the conclusion of the problematic reasoning requires the horizonal conception of experience (the 'paralogism of experience'). Similarly, in the present section, one of the solutions we shall consider alleges that we are using a false conception, a conception which needs to be replaced, and the other that we are equivocating between (or confusing) two valid conceptions. In this case, however, the relevant conceptions are conceptions not of experience but of externality. The generalized conclusion of the problematic reasoning is that no external object is ever present in experience. An external object,

154

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

as we have understood this, is an object whose existence is independent of its presence in experience. Such is the conception of externality that we have been assuming. What is wrong with this conception? What other conception might there be? One view is that the conception of externality just defined, and which we have been using in this book, is a philosophical invention. The conception we actually have and use (in real life) does not refer to a kind of existence which is independent of presence in experience: we have no conception of any such presence-independent existence; that is, we have no conception of objects which are external in the sense defined. This is the main idea behind Phenomenalism. The Phenomenalist wants to rid philosophy of a false conception of externality and to recapture the true conception, the conception we actually use. What is the true conception? The true conception, according to Phenomenalism, defines externality in terms of the possible presence of objects whose existence consists in their presence, internal objects. Where certain possibilities of presence (or patterns of such possibilities) obtain, there we have an 'external' object; where there is presence without the appropriate possibilities, there we have an 'internal' object. The position is not straightforward. Strictly speaking, what is present is always an internal object. Yet the Phenomenalist does not deny that we employ an external/internal distinction; nor does he deny that external objects are, in a sense, present in experience. He aims to tell us what the distinction actually amounts to, what it actually means to say that an external (versus internal) object is present in experience. His point is that unless we are (in philosophy) clear about what this means, we will find ourselves (in philosophy) denying that external objects are present in experience. The other view about externality we shall consider comes from Kant. (I shall draw here mainly on the discussion in the A version of the Fourth Paralogism.) Kant maintains that we have two conceptions of externality: an everyday or 'empirical' conception, and a 'transcendental' conception. These are both valid conceptions but they have different domains of application. The former applies to what Kant often calls 'outer appearances', the latter to 'things-inthemselves' . Outer appearances are 'external' precisely in the sense that they

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

155

are outer, that is, in the sense that they are 'objects which are to be found in space' (A373). This is the empirical conception of externality. The book in front of me is an empirically external object; and so am I-the human being, or body, that I am. (How else could the book be in front of me?) Objects which are 'internal' in our sense (objects which exist only in so far as they are present) would, for Kant, be empirically internal. Such objects (Kant would say) exist in time, but are not to be found in space. The book is not only in front of me, it is present in my experience. Generally, for Kant, empirically external objects are present in experience. (The world is present to us.) But such objects, objects like the book, do not 'exist independently of us and our sensibility' (A639). That is to say, they are not transcendentally external. Note, this latter conception of externality, Kant's transcendental conception, would seem to be the very conception we have been using. According to Kant, however, and contrary to what we have been assuming, objects which are external in the transcendental sense cannot be present in experience. Imagine I am unsure whether or not I am hallucinating. This means, Kant would say, I am unsure whether this object is empirically internal or external; but the possibility of the object's being transcendentally external is not left open. It is excluded by the fact that the object about whose status I am uncertain is demonstratively available to me (present within the experiential horizon). A thingin-itself is not a possible object of experience. This means that the transcendental conception of externality has no legitimate use within experience. It cannot be applied to anything which exists in space, or time, or therefore to anything which we can think of in terms of causality. What use does it have? Its only (legitimate) use, it seems, lies in the philosophical propositions which comprise Kant's doctrine of Transcendental Idealism (for example, the proposition that there are objects which are transcendentally external). Now, although the transcendental conception of externality does have a legitimate philosophical use, Kant's point is that in philosophy we tend to confuse this conception with the empirical conception of externality: we regard empirically external objects as things-in-themselves. The result is that we end up denying that

156

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

empirical objects are present in experience. This is what happens in the problematic reasoning. So we have two possible mistakes here, two suggestions for solving the puzzle. The Phenomenalist says that our mistake consists in using a false conception of externality. The Kantian says that we are confusing two conceptions of externality. Let us look at these suggestions in more detail. 7.2. We shall begin with Kant's paralogistic solution. In the A version of the Fourth Paralogism, Kant defines an 'idealist' as someone who does not 'deny the existence of external objects', but who does 'not admit that their existence is known through immediate perception' (A368). A philosopher who accepts the conclusion of the problematic reasoning without qualification would, in this sense, be an 'idealist'. Kant then goes on to define a 'transcendental realist' as someone who regards outer appearances-ordinary empirical things (books, trees, people, and so on), objects which exist in space-as things-in-themselves. In other words, a transcendental realist regards ordinary things as existing independently of us and our sensibility. So I guess that, without realizing it, we have in this book been transcendental realists. The transcendental realist, Kant tells us, will be the very one 'who afterwards plays the part of the empirical idealist' (by which he means 'idealist' in the sense that he has just defined); that is, someone who conceives of everyday (empirical) objects as transcendentally external will end up being forced to deny that such objects are present in experience. Well, this seems to describe our fate. We have conceived of ordinary empirical objects as transcendentally external and have been forced (by the problematic reasoning) to the conclusion that such objects are never present in experience. Our mistake, presumably, lies in conflating the empirical and transcendental conceptions of externality. But where exactly do we commit the mistake? And how exactly does it contribute to our reaching the paradoxical conclusion? In the first stage of the problematic reasoning we assert the causal picture of experience. This is just part of our picture of the world. What we assert here we might have asserted in an extra-philosophical context. So there is no reason to suppose that at this stage we are guilty of a philosophical confusion. Consider, for instance, the

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

157

proposition that the book in front of me is reflecting light to my eyes. According to Kant, if we conceive of the book as a thing-initself, as transcendentally external, we are making a philosophical mistake. Now that may be. But there is no reason to suppose that in asserting the proposition about the book reflecting light we are making a philosophical mistake. So, if we accept that it is a mistake to view ordinary objects as transcendentally external, there is no reason to suppose that in the first stage of the problematic reasoning we are viewing ordinary objects as transcendentally external. I think Kant would say that the mistake, the confusion, occurs in the second stage of the reasoning, when the reasoning gets philosophical. More precisely, it occurs when we assert that the book is potentially irrelevant to my experience; or when on this basis we assert (G), that, were God to eliminate the book but ensure that the activity in my brain remains the same, my experience would remain the same. For now, Kant would say, we are conceiving of the book not just as something which exists in space, etc. (which is how we conceived of it in the first stage of the reasoning), but as something which exists independently of us and our sensibility (as something which has a presence-independent existence). We are conceiving of the book, the ordinary empirical object, as transcendentally external-as if it were a thing-in-itself. To repeat, assuming this is a philosophical mistake, there is no reason to suppose we make the mistake in the first stage of the reasoning. There is no reason to suppose that simply asserting the causal picture of experience involves any philosophical mistake at all. But what reason is there to suppose that we make a mistake in the second stage, when we assert that the book is potentially irrelevant to my experience? Kant's point, I surmise (he does not really supply the details), would be that, unless we conceive of the book as transcendentally external, we could not think of it as separate from my experience in the way required by the thought that it, the book, is potentially irrelevant to how things are in my experience. It is only of something whose existence is presencetranscendent, a thing-in-itself, that such a thought could possibly be true. But, Kant would say, the book is not a thing-in-itself. In so far as we think of the book as potentially irrelevant to my experience, we are illegitimately conceiving of the book, the empirically external

158

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

thing, as transcendentally external. We fall into this mistake because we do not, in the first place, properly distinguish the two conceptions of externality. 7.3. Here, then, we have a Kantian criticism of the problematic reasoning, a Kantian solution to our puzzle. The problematic reasoning depends on our confusing the empirical and transcendental conceptions of externality. The mistake occurs when, in the second stage, we assert of the book that it is potentially irrelevant to my experience. In order to conceive of an object as potentially irrelevant to experience we must conceive of it as transcendentally external. The book, however, is only empirically external. It exists in space but not independently of our sensibility. Since we fail properly to distinguish the two conceptions of externality, we (in our philosophical reflections) confusedly think of the book as external in both ways, and thus are prepared to assert its potential irrelevance to my experience. The first question one wants to raise here is this. Are objects which exist in space not 'external' in precisely the sense we have been assuming, the sense that Kant calls 'transcendental'? The way we think of such objects (our conception of them) may, indeed, be dependent on our sensibility (on the way the objects show up in our experience). But their existence, it would seem, is independent of our sensibility. I The point is reinforced by the fact that we conceive of objects in space, objects like the book in front of me, as having causal powers. The book reflects light, the light strikes my eyes. Indirectly, then, the book acts on me. And then, because of that, things are as they are in my experience. This, of course, is just what we accept in accepting the causal picture of experience. We think of the book as having powers which are indirectly (via my sense organs and brains) responsible for how things are in my experience. Now (as remarked above), when we think of the book in this way we have no reason to suppose we are making a philosophical mistake. But are we not, in thus thinking of the book, thinking of it as transcendentally external? When we think of the book as indirectly causing things to be as they are within my experience, are we not thinking of the

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

159

book as having an existence which is independent of presence in experience? So this is one problem with the Kantian solution. You have to drive a wedge between an object's existing in space and having causal powers, on the one hand, and its having an existence that is independent of presence in experience, on the other. I do not see how this is possible. But there is another, more fundamental problem. Suppose we concede that everyday objects like the book are not transcendentally external. They exist in space (and have causal powers): they are empirically external. But they do not have an existence which is presence-independent, which is independent of our sensibility. So, though we are not quite sure what it comes to, we are conceding that there is distinction between empirical and transcendental externality, and that it is a philosophical mistake to think of ordinary objects like the book as transcendentally external. This will still not solve our puzzle. The solution depends on rejecting the proposition that the book is potentially irrelevant to my experience. The reason for rejecting the proposition is that it involves an illegitimate use of the transcendental conception of externality. The idea is, if we did not (illegitimately) conceive of the book as transcendentally external, we could not accept the proposition as true. This cannot be right. Whatever exactly we make of the distinction between the empirical and transcendental externality, by Kant's own reckoning the empirical conception must be sufficient for the proposition about the potential irrelevance of the book. This follows from the fact that the empirical conception is sufficient for the propositions which make up the causal picture of experience. Kant would not want to claim that the proposition about the book reflecting light, or the proposition about the light stimulating my eyes, or about the activity in my brain and my experience, are philosophically illegitimate. He must allow us to think of the empirical object, the book, as involved in a process which (via my eyes and brain) determines how things are in my experience. So he must grant that, in thinking of the book in this way, in thinking the propositions about the book, light, and so on, all we need is the empirical conception of externality. For, once again, there is no

160

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

reason to suppose that in thinking these propositions we are making a philosophical mistake. Yet these same propositions entail the philosophical proposition about the potential irrelevance of the book. So, if the empirical conception of externality suffices for the causal picture of experience, for the propositions about the book, light, and so on, it must suffice for the philosophical proposition that the book is potentially irrelevant to my experience. It seems, then, that, whatever exactly it amounts to, we do not need the transcendental conception of externality to generate our puzzle. All we need is the conception that Kant is willing to grant us, the empirical conception of externality. Kant wants to draw a line, as it were, around the sphere of empirical thought. He wants to say that, when we think about empirical objects, objects which exist in space (and time), it is illegitimate to conceive of these objects as transcendentally external. (And, he would say, in everyday life we do not conceive of them in that way; the mistake occurs only in philosophy.) My point is that, however we understand Kant's conception of transcendental externality, and the contrast with empirical externality, it will not solve the puzzle to place such a restriction on empirical thought. Assuming the restriction, the puzzle develops entirely within the boundaries of empirical thought. Relying solely on the empirical conception of externality, we can use the causal picture of experience to prove that what is present in experience is always empirically internal. Yet, if we open up to our experience, what looks back at us is the world-an empirically external object. 7.4. Unlike Kant, the Phenomenalist says that there is just one legitimate conception of externality, the conception we use in everyday life. Philosophers (according to the Phenomenalist) distort this conception by reading into it more than it actually contains. Thus, they regard the world as having a presence-independent existence. For Kant, although we do not need (or use) the transcendental conception in everyday life, philosophy needs it in order to express the complete truth about what there is. For the Phenomenalist, the transcendental conception of externality has no legitimate use at all; it is simply a false conception. What, according to the Phenomenalist, is the true conception of

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

161

externality? The true conception (the conception we actually use) is one that, in the last analysis, recognizes only presence-dependent existence. The actual content of our beliefs about the world involves no more than that. Phenomenalism, then, claims to leave all our extra-philosophical beliefs about the world intact. What gets weeded out is simply a perverse philosophical interpretation of these beliefs. Consider, for example, the proposition that this is a book (an external thing). Phenomenalism allows us to accept the proposition. But it will challenge the 'philosophical' interpretation of the proposition, the interpretation according to which the object I focus on, the object present to me, has a presence-independent existence. The object actually present in my experience exists only in so far as it is present. To say, or think, of it that it 'is a book (external object)' means that it, the object present to me, is part of a certain pattern or series of possible internal objects: those that would be present under such-and-such circumstances. So, if I judge, 'This is a book,' what I really judge, that is, the true content of my judgement as revealed by analysis, has the form of the following conditional: were such-and-such circumstances to obtain, internal objects with suchand-such properties would follow upon this. We may call this conditional the 'Phenomenalist conditional' . The difficulty (which has often been remarked upon) is that, not only does the Phenomenalist conditional fail to capture the content of the original categorical, but also the truth of the conditional itself seems to depend on the truth of categorical causal propositions involving reference to objects which are external in the very sense that the Phenomenalist wants to exclude. It is not, one wants to say, an accident that under such-and-such circumstances things would be thus-and-so in my experience. In the case at hand, it is because a book is there that, under such-and-such circumstances, things would be thus-and-so in my experience. We may call this 'the causal categorical' . The Phenomenalist will reply, naturally, that we are begging the question. The point of Phenomenalism, he will say, is that the truth of his conditional is ultimate: it is not because of anything that it holds-it simply holds. Now that may be, but the causal categorical that we want to assert about the book is a proposition which the Phenomenalist must in any case accept, for it follows from the

162

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

causal picture of experience, and the Phenomenalist must, if he wishes to leave our extra-philosophical beliefs as they were, accept the causal picture of experience. So the Phenomenalist must now offer us a conditional by which to replace the causal categorical: the proposition that, because a book is there, under such-and-such circumstances, things would be thus-and-so within my experience. What might this be? How, in the first place, will the Phenomenalist account for the fact that a book is there, that is, that a book exists in my environment? He will say, predictably, that it comes to this: under such-and-such circumstances things would be thus-and-so within my experience (internal objects with such-and-such properties would be present). But would that not also have to be his account of the causal conditional about the book? If he refers to how things would be within my experience to capture what we see as the existence of a book in my environment, he has, it seems, used up all his resources. He has nothing left in terms of which to capture what we see as a causal relationship between the book, which exists in my environment, and how (in such-and-such circumstances) things would be within my experience. 2 7.5. The main point I wish to make about Phenomenalism, however, is not that the Phenomenalist interpretation of externality does not do justice to the conception we actually use (no one believes that any more), but that, if it did do justice to the conception we actually use, Phenomenalism could not (for that very reason) solve our puzzle. We can, in this regard, more or less repeat the argument we used with respect to the Kantian solution. In Kant's case we saw that, having accepted that there is a contrast to be drawn between empirical and transcendental externality, and having agreed to exclude from our thinking the transcendental conception, the puzzle breaks out all over again within the 'restricted' sphere of empirical thought. The same sort of thing happens with respect to Phenomenalism. Assuming that Phenomenalism succeeds in capturing the content of our extra-philosophical beliefs about the world, the puzzle will break out within this new interpretation of things. Phenomenalism will have its own version of the puzzle to contend with. If Phenomenalism captures our extra-philosophical beliefs about

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

163

the world, it captures the causal picture of experience. But then on that basis we shall be able to infer, in Phenomenalistic terms, the proposition that the book is potentially irrelevant to my experience. And on this basis, in turn, we shall be able to prove that the book is not present in my experience, that the object present to me is internal. More generally, we shall be able to prove that what is present in experience is always internal. Perhaps this is confusing. Phenomenalism begins with the idea that, strictly speaking, the object of experience is always internal. So how could the conclusion of the problematic reasoning be thought to pose a difficulty for Phenomenalism? The conclusion of the reasoning and Phenomenalism seem to be made for each another. But we are forgetting that it is also part of Phenomenalism to preserve the contrast between external and internal. This is essential to its aim of preserving our extra-philosophical beliefs. The Phenomenalist does not want to abolish the external-internal contrast but to show us what it really amounts to. Consider once again the Macbethtype uncertainty situation: 'Is this a book before me?' I am uncertain whether the object I pick out is external (part of the world) or internal. The Phenomenalist has his own way of explicating such uncertainty. He says that I am, in effect, uncertain about what would be present in my experience, that is, about the character of the internal objects that would be present, were such-and-such circumstances to obtain. Strictly speaking, there is no question but that this is internal. The question is what, given the relevant circumstances, would follow upon this. We might say that the Phenomenalist distinguishes two kinds of pattern or sequence of internal objects: external object patterns and internal object patterns. The Macbeth-type uncertainty can then be represented as uncertainty about which kind of pattern, external or internal, this object belongs to. Now my point is this. Once we have a Phenomenalistic interpretation of the problematic reasoning, the conclusion will be not just that the object present in experience is always internal (that goes without saying), but that the object present is always part of an internal object pattern. And clearly, this conclusion is, for the Phenomenalist, just as impossible to accept as it is for us, using our unreconstructed contrast between external and

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle ._.,;lnal, to accept that the object present in experience is always internal. There is, however, one respect in which Phenomenalism does seem to make a difference to the puzzle. The conflict, as we have presented it, involves two ways of reflecting on experience: we first reason about our experience (on the basis of the causal picture), and then we are open to it. Now, whereas both forms of reflection figure in the Kantian version of the puzzle, in the Phenomenalistic version it is not clear how being open to our experience could oppose the reasoning, how it could reveal the presence of an external object. For, according to the Phenomenalist, the presence of an external object consists in the presence of an internal object which is part of a temporally extended pattern of internal objects. And how could just being open to our experience reveal a temporally extended pattern of external objects? No, what the Phenomenalist must oppose to reasoning about our experience is not being open to our experience but, rather, a kind of testing. 3 The Phenomenalistically interpreted conclusion is that this object is part of an internal object pattern. The conclusion entails, then, that were circumstances C realized, things would be thus-andso within my experience-where being thus-and-so is not how things would be if the object present were external, that is, part of an external object pattern. Of course, if we now proceed to bring about C, the conditional will be falsified. So we have a conflict. But we have not produced the conflict by being open to our experience. Being open to our experience does not involve carrying .out tests, or falsifying conditionals. This, it seems to me, is a further mark against Phenomenalism. Having reasoned to the conclusion that external things are never present in experience, do we really need a lest to overthrow the conclusion? When we reject a proposition on the basis of a test, we reject it as false. When we reject the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, we reject it as absurd. So we do not reject it on the basis of a test. So any view that requires that that is our basis cannot be correct. Note, finally, that these observations bring to light another way in which being open to our experience, as a kind of philosophical reflection, resembles being honest with ourselves (see sects. 2.4-5).

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

165

To be honest with ourselves we do not have to expose our beliefs to any kind of test. (What good would it do? Bad faith can deal with the results, however they turn out.) To be honest with ourselves there is nothing to do but just that: be honest with ourselves. It is the same with being philosophically open to our experience. Testing does not come into it. What do we have to do to be open to our experience? There is nothing to do but just that: be open to our experience.

NOTES

1. But if we say that empirical things, objects in space (outer appearances), are transcendentally external, it will turn out that appearances (empirical objects) and things-in-themselves are one and the same. Does this not strike at the heart of Kant's whole philosophy? It depends on how you read him. The interpretation we have assumed in the text involves that there are two distinct domains of objects: empirical objects, or appearances, and things-in-themselves. This interpretation (we might call it 'the two-domain interpretation') is essential if the Kantian refutation of the problematic reasoning is to get off the ground. (It is essential to other aspects of Kant's thinking as well, for example, his solution to the antinomy of freedom.) There is, however, another interpretation of Kant which, though it will not help solve our puzzle, is intrinsically more plausible and, I would say, more in keeping with the general spirit of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is to understand the appearance-thingin-itself contrast not as holding between two domains of objects, but as, in fact, presupposing a single domain-namely, as a contrast between how objects appear, or show up, within the experiential horizon (and consequent upon this, how we conceive of them), and how these objects are in themselves, i.e. apart from how they show up, etc. (hence apart from how we conceive of them). That there is only one relevant domain of objects is, on this reading, part of the logic of contrast. (What sense would it make to contrast how an object appears with how it is in itself, unless there is just one 'it' that we are talking about?) When Kant is viewed in this way, the synthetic necessities he is interested in (the necessities of mathematics and metaphysics) turn out to be necessities concerning how things appear: life as we know it from within the

166

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

experiential horizon. But, to explain why these necessities hold (Kant's 'transcendental' arguments), we must accept the idea that that which appears has a way of being 'in itself' (apart from how it appears). Indeed, we seem to get committed to this idea as soon as we suppose that there is something, a presence-independent reality, which appears, i.e. which shows itself within the experiential horizon. (Thus, although the Kantian idea makes me uneasy, I seem to be committed to it in this book.) We said that the 'one domain' interpretation of Kant is more in keeping with the spirit of the Critique; but there is no denying that Kant often encourages the two domain interpretation. A good place to study the tension between the two interpretations is in 'Phenomena and Noumena' (ch. 3 of 'The Analytic of Principles'). 2. In his paper 'Phenomenalism' (repr. in Philosophical Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1963)) A. J. Ayer tries to meet this type of objection by claiming that the objects in terms of which the Phenomenalist would analyse the existence of the book do not occur 'in physical time or space' (they occur, rather, 'in sensory time and space'). It is, he says, only events in physical time that 'can properly be said to have causes at all' (p. 147). Thus, I take it, he would reject as illegitimate propositions of the sort that we are saying the Phenomenalist cannot handle, e.g., the proposition that the book, by reflecting light, indirectly causes it to be the case that such-and-such internal objects occur in my experience. The trouble is that these propositions seem to follow, for the Phenomenalist, from the causal picture of experience. And the Phenomenalist, as Ayer himself acknowledges (pp. 147-8), wants to leave us with that picture. However, I think there is something in what Ayer is saying. A sensedatum (internal object) does not, we might say, occur simpliciter. It occurs only within experience: it needs a horizon within which to occur. Now, if we think of a sense-datum's relations to other such objects, we may be inclined to say that causation is not included among these relations, that at the level of sense-data there is no causation. None the less, a standpoint exists from which we may (the possibility is implicit in causal picture of experience) view objects at this level, i.e. sense-data, as caused. We may view their occurrence within experience as caused by events in the world. Thus we can say that, because of such-and-such events in the brain, such-and-such occurs within experience. In fact, were it not for certain events in the world, there would be no experiential level of objects at all. Here is an analogy. Within the world of a play, the characters do not create one another. So there is a sense in which the characters in a play are not created. But, of course, regarded from a different standpoint, the characters in a play are created. Similarly, if we

Externality: Kant and Phenomenalism

167

consider the relations between sense-data (these being relations which hold only from within the experiential horizon), we can give sense to saying that these objects do not stand in causal relations. But, if we accept the causal picture of experience, it will also be true that they do stand in causal relations. That there occur such objects (within experience) is the result of what happens in the world. 3. This is closely related to the point that, for phenomenalism, perception of external objects is essentially a kind of prediction. See, e.g., C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Evaluation, ii (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1946), bk. H.

8

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning: Strawson on Hume and Wittgenstein 8.1. At the beginning of Chapter 4 we said that a 'solution' to the puzzle must expose a mistake in the problematic reasoning. Only this, we explained, will enable us to harmonize the causal picture of experience, which is part of our picture of the world, with the presence of the world in experience, that is, with our acceptance of (W). The view we shall consider in the present section does not fit easily into this scheme of things. It purports to expose a philosophical mistake which relates to the problematic reasoning, but not a mistake in the reasoning. In fact, the view starts by admitting that the problematic reasoning may be correct. Our mistake (if that is the right word) occurs, not in the reasoning itself, but in our attitude towards the reasoning. We make too much of it; we take it too seriously. What then is the philosophically correct attitude towards the problematic reasoning? Instead of engaging in the seemingly futile attempt to refute it (to find a mistake in the reasoning), we ought to ignore the reasoning. Would this 'solve' the puzzle? Yes and no: our mistake, on this view, is to keep knocking our heads against the wall looking for a mistake. We solve the puzzle by realizing that we are not required to solve it. Such a view is developed by P. F. Strawson in his book Skepticism and Naturalism. I Strawson does not consider our puzzle about the object of experience. His interest is not in (W), the proposition that external things are present to us, but in the proposition that such things exist. Strawson's target is traditional scepticism (we shall keep

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

169

to the earlier spelling). The sceptic argues that we have no right to our belief in the existence of external things. As we remarked in sect. 2.3, the problematic reasoning is just the sort of argument that a sceptic would appeal to in this regard. He would say that we believe in the existence of external things because we take them to be present to us; but this is undermined by the problematic reasoning. So, although worrying about our puzzle is not the same as worrying about scepticism, the reasoning which figures in the puzzle has an obvious bearing on scepticism. And Strawson's response to scepticism, as we shall see, carries over in an obvious way to the reasoning. 8.2. Strawson associates his position with both Hume and Wittgenstein. He states it first in terms of Hume. The basic point is that we 'simply cannot help believing in the existence of body' (p. 11). The 'belief' in question is 'ineradicably planted in our minds by Nature' (p. 10). Thus it is 'idle' to argue or reason either in support of, or against, scepticism (p. 11). Such arguments, Strawson says (representing Hume, but also speaking for himself), 'are not to be met by argument. They are simply to be neglected (except, perhaps, in so far as they supply a harmless amusement, a mild diverson to the intellect). They are to be neglected because they are idle; powerless against the force of nature, of our naturally implanted disposition to belief' (p. 13). Thus Strawson quotes Hume/ with approval, to the effect that "tis in vain to ask Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.' The 'must' here is, presumably, one of natural necessity. We are built, or programmed, in such a way that we cannot but take the existence of body for granted. What we need to focus on here is Strawson's move (whether Hume would agree with this is not entirely clear, but never mind) from the natural fact of our being unable not to 'believe in the existence of body', from its being in that sense 'idle' for us to concern ourselves with arguments, to the thought that such arguments 'are not to be met by argument ... [but] are simply to be neglected'.3 In saying the arguments 'are simply to be neglected', Strawson means, I take it, not just that they will be neglected (ignored), but that we have reason to neglect them; that we are entitled to ignore them. So the situation is this. The sceptic offers

170

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

arguments, reasons, which are supposed to show that we have no right to believe in the existence of body, that (rather) we ought to suspend belief in this regard. Strawson responds by appealing to the supposed fact of nature that we 'cannot help' believing in the existence of body. This fact, Strawson emphasizes, is not a counter reason or argument, a reason for questioning or rejecting the sceptical conclusion. That is, the point of appealing to the fact of nature is not to refute the sceptical reasoning. (If you are playing that game, you have already gone wrong.) None the less, the fact of nature is appealed to as a reason. It is a reason for ignoring or neglecting the sceptical reasoning. The way this would apply to our puzzle is clear. You would say, it is a brute fact of nature that we cannot help taking it to be everyday external things (books and tables) that are present in experience (a brute fact that we cannot help accepting (W)). In this sense, it is 'idle' to concern ourselves with the problematic reasoning. So the reasoning is to be ignored, neglected. That is, given the fact of nature, we are entitled to ignore the reasoning. Anyone who has read Hume knows that there is another side to his thinking. Thus, as Strawson observes, having remarked that "tis vain to ask Whether there be body or not?', Hume proceeds (with a view to answering the question, 'What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body?') to give arguments whose conclusion is that we do not, after all, have the right to believe in the existence of body. (At times, in fact, he seems to be saying something stronger, namely, that this 'belief' of ours is incoherent, or absurd.) When Hume 4 reviews his situation, he feels himself to be in conflict. At this point in his reflections the sceptical arguments convince him. He sees that he ought not to believe in the existence of body. But he knows that, sooner or later, he will slip back into his old habits of thought. Hume is, in a way, like the weak-willed man. The weakwilled man sees that he ought not to do such-and-such, but knows in advance that he will yield to the temptation to do it. Hume sees that he ought not to believe in the existence of body but knows in advance that he will yield to his natural impulse to do so. To the extent that it involves a conflict, I have a definite sympathy with this side of Hume. (But Hume's conflict is not that of our antinomy; see sect. 2.5). In Strawson, however, there is no conflict.

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

171

He simply latches on to one side of Hume and ignores the other. But then, one might ask, why should he not? Is his point not that we have a right to ignore the sceptical arguments? In any event, it is the naturalist side of Hume that may seem to give us a way out of our puzzle. So we shall confine our attention to it. 8.3. Strawson, we said, holds that it is naturally impossible for us to accept the conclusion of the sceptical arguments; and this fact, he says, entitles us to ignore the arguments. The principle seems to be: if we cannot help believing something, we are entitled to ignore arguments to the effect that we ought not to believe it. Now it may seem that Strawson is on firm ground here. Consider the practical analogue of his principle. If it is naturally impossible for us to stop doing something, if we cannot help doing it, we are entitled to ignore reasons (arguments) why we ought to stop doing it. ('Ought implies can. ') There are qualifications and refinements one might add here, but the general idea seems right. So, if it is true that we cannot help believing in the existence of body, maybe Strawson is right; maybe the fact of nature, the fact that we cannot help believing this, entitles us to ignore the arguments that we ought not to believe it. But the position is not yet clear. In what sense are we entitled to ignore the sceptical arguments? Is it that we are not required to familiarize ourselves with them, or try to understand them? Clearly not: Strawson is addressing philosophers, people whose business is to understand such arguments. Yet, in so far as Strawson is addressing philosophers, his point would seem to be that it is as philosophers that we are entitled to ignore the sceptical arguments. Ignoring the arguments is, it seems, the philosophically correct stance. That is, having understood them, we are entitled to ignore them. But why? Is it because they are bad arguments? Is it, in other words, because they depend on obviously false assumptions or invalid inferences? I think we may assume that Strawson does not believe this to be the case. If the arguments were bad arguments, we would have no reason to appeal to the fact of nature. Strawson's idea is that we may appeal to the fact of nature (that we cannot help believing in the existence of body) as a reason for ignoring the

172

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

sceptical arguments. But, if the arguments were bad arguments, we would already have a reason for ignoring them-the fact that they are bad arguments. It is consistent with Strawson's position not just that we do not view the sceptical arguments as bad arguments, but that we view them as good arguments, at least in this sense: that we do not find anything wrong with them. In fact, this would seem to be what his position requires. For, once again, if we found something wrong with them, we would not need to appeal to the fact of nature as a reason for ignoring them. We are to assume, then, that, when we consider the sceptical arguments, we cannot find anything wrong with them. But we must also assume that, when we examine them, we are not convinced by the arguments, that the arguments do not seem correct (comprised of true premisses and valid inferences). If the arguments seemed correct, there would be no sense to the suggestion that we are entitled to ignore them. Are we, on examining an argument, entitled to think, 'Yes, this is right, but I shall ignore it'? So our situation vis-a-vis the sceptical arguments has to be rather delicately balanced. They do not seem to us correct (we are not convinced by them); yet neither do they seem incorrect. Speaking generally now, this would seem to be a possible situation with respect to an argument. We can find ourselves less than convinced by an argument, yet unable to locate a mistake in it. We may, in such a case, have an interest in analysing the argument, to see exactly where it goes wrong. But, apart from that, it might be said that in certain circumstances we are entitled to ignore the argument. In what circumstances? If we are independently convinced (certain) that the conclusion is false. That is, if we are not convinced by the argument itself, but are convinced that the conclusion is false, then, even though we cannot find a mistake in the argument, it might be said that we are entitled to ignore the argument. For then, despite our inability to locate it, we shall be convinced there is a mistake in the argument (a false premiss or an invalid inference). And so we will have a reason for ignoring the argument. (If you are convinced object X is in a certain drawer with a lot of other objects, then (assuming you do not need it immediately), even if you cannot see X straight away, you have a reason for not bothering to look for it.)

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

173

Is this how Strawson regards our position vis-a.-vis the sceptical arguments? I do not think so. Thus he never says (like Moore famously does) that he is certain the sceptical conclusion is false: that he 'knows' body exists. And it is not hard to see why he does not say this. If he said he was certain that body exists, that the conclusion of the sceptical arguments is false, that would (as we observed) imply he is equally certain that these arguments contain a mistake-which would mean that he has a reason for ignoring the arguments. But, if he has this reason for ignoring the sceptical arguments, what point could there be in appealing to the fact of nature? No, what Strawson says is not that he is certain that body exists, that the sceptical conclusion is false, but that as a matter of natural necessity he (we) cannot help believing it is false. His reason, the reason to which he appeals for ignoring the sceptical arguments, is not, we might say, an evaluative reason, but a natural one. Let me try to explain this. A natural as opposed to an evaluative reason for ignoring an argument does not address the argument itself. Think again about the practical case. If it is physically impossible to stop acting in a certain way, this would be a natural reason for ignoring an argument whose conclusion is that we ought to stop acting in that way. An evaluative reason, on the other hand, would be to the effect that such-and-such is wrong with the argument. The point about Strawson is that, since he appeals to a natural reason for ignoring the sceptical arguments, we must suppose that he does not have an evaluative reason. If he had an evaluative reason (if he thought something was wrong with the sceptical arguments), there would be no point in appealing to a natural reason. 5 Who needs Nature when you have Reason on your side? 8.4. Let us repeat, Strawson's position does not (cannot) involve his being convinced by the sceptical arguments, that they seem to him correct. (There may be a subtle difference between being convinced by an argument, and the argument's seeming correct, but nothing hangs on this.) If he were convinced by the arguments, he would find himself (like Hume, and like we have found ourselves) entangled in a puzzle or conflict. But, as he describes it, his position

174

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

does not involve a conflict. His position (as I see it) involves four elements: he cannot find anything wrong with the sceptical arguments; he is not convinced by the arguments; he cannot, as a matter of natural necessity, help believing that body exists (that the conclusion of the arguments is false); this fact gives him a natural (as opposed to evaluative) reason for ignoring the arguments. But now it becomes harder to make sense of Strawson's position. The first thing here is to remind ourselves of something which is close to being a tautology, and yet (philosophically) is far from trivial. If someone believes that p, then this is how things are for him: p. Let us suppose that what Strawson (following Hume) says is right, that it is a fact of nature, a fact about how we are built, that we believe in the existence of body. Keep in mind, this is our belief that we are talking about. It is not just that some subjects or other cannot help believing in the existence of body; we are those subjects. And also keep the 'tautology' in mind. If someone believes something, then that is how things are for him. It is no different if we are the believers. The 'tautology' applies to us. So here is how things are for us: body exists. Nothing we think of by way of argument or reasoning will alter its being the case that things are for us this way. If it is a matter of natural necessity (of how we are built) that our 'belief field' contains the proposition that bodies exist, arguments which provide us with reasons why we ought not to believe that bodies exist will have no effect on the contents of our 'belief field'. They will not be able to dislodge this proposition. It will remain true for us that: body exists. In that case, however, and with the same necessity, we must believe there is something wrong with these arguments. We must then have a reason, an evaluative reason, for ignoring them. You see what this comes to. If, indeed, it is a fact of nature that we cannot help believing in the existence of body, then it is a fact of nature that things are for us like this: body exists. And if things are (as a matter of natural necessity) like that for us, we must (with the same necessity) have an evaluative reason for ignoring any argument whose conclusion calls into question that body exists. We must have an evaluative reason for ignoring the sceptical arguments. But, in so far as we have such a reason, there can be no point in appealing to the fact of nature, the fact that we cannot help believing in the

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

175

existence of body; no point, that is, in appealing to this fact as a reason for ignoring the sceptical arguments. For that is why we are appealing to this fact. We are appealing to it as a reason, that is, a natural reason, for ignoring the arguments, whereas, it seems, we do not need such a reason. Why? Because we already have an evaluative reason for ignoring the arguments. (The evaluative reason pre-empts the whole of the territory that might be occupied here by a reason.) In sum, if it is a fact of nature that we cannot help believing in the existence of body, there can be for us no point in appealing to that fact as a reason for ignoring the sceptical arguments. The fact itself, once you think through what it entails, seems to undermine its being used in this way. 8.5. Let us reconsider the parallel we suggested earlier between belief and action (sect. 8.3). If it is naturally impossible to stop doing certain things, this is a reason for ignoring an argument whose conclusion is that such things ought not to be done. But, assuming it is true that we cannot help believing a certain proposition, this fact does not entitle us to ignore arguments to the effect that the proposition is false, and hence ought not to be believed. Perhaps we can explain why the parallel breaks down. In so far as we believe something, we must believe that there is something wrong with an argument whose conclusion contradicts what we believe. 6 But we may do something, perform an action, without thereby believing there is something wrong with an argument against performing the action. (In our own eyes, we stand guilty.) What lies behind this contrast between the evaluation of belief and action is the fact that an evaluation of an argument for a certain proposition, and hence for believing that proposition, is itself a belief. Thus our believing something may itself entail that we evaluate an argument in a certain way (or that, if we were familiar with the argument, we would evaluate it in a certain way). In particular, if we are convinced a given proposition is false, we thereby evaluate negatively any argument which has that proposition as its conclusion. The corresponding point does not hold in the case of action. The fact of our doing something does not itself have any entailments about how we would evaluate arguments for or against doing what we do. Why? Because an action is an action and not a

176

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

belief. (In the end, there is a difference here.) It follows that performing an action cannot of itself entail that we have an evaluative reason for ignoring an argument whose conclusion requires us to do something incompatible with the action we perform (in the way that our believing that p of itself entails our having an evaluative reason for ignoring an argument which requires us to believe something incompatible with p). Hence, should it be a fact of nature that we cannot help performing an action, we will not thereby have an evaluative reason for ignoring an argument which says we ought not to perform the action. In contrast to the belief case, then, the fact of nature will not ensure that there is no point in our appealing to it (the fact of nature) as entitling us to ignore an argument which says we ought not to perform the action. That is, there may remain a point in our appealing to the fact of nature for this purpose, whereas there can be no point to such an appeal in the case of belief.

8.6. The main question for us is whether Strawson's naturalistic response to scepticism might give us a way around our puzzle. Can we, in other words, respond to the puzzle by claiming that we have a natural (versus evaluative) reason for ignoring the problematic reasoning? It should be clear now that this will not work. Let us suppose that, as a matter of natural necessity, we cannot help accepting (W), that external objects are present in experience. So, as a matter of natural necessity (this is the way we are built) we cannot help viewing the conclusion of the problematic reasoning as false. Can we appeal to this fact, the fact of nature, as entitling us to ignore the problematic reasoning? If as a matter of natural necessity we cannot help believing (W), then (as a matter of natural necessity) this is how things are for us: the world is present: the conclusion of the problematic reasoning is false. This means we have an evaluative reason for believing that something is wrong with the problematic reasoning (that it contains a false premiss or invalid inference). So we have an evaluative reason for ignoring the reasoning. What point could there be, then, in appealing to the fact of nature? (Any point there might be is already catered for by the evaluative reason.) In sum, if we are sure the conclusion of the reasoning is false, we do not need to appeal to the fact of nature, and the fact of nature

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

177

ensures that we are sure; it robs itself of the possibility of being of any use to us in this regard. Yet (it may be said), if Hume and Strawson are right, if there is such a fact of nature, it will ensure that the way things are for us is such that, although we cannot (as Strawson wants to do in the case of the sceptical arguments) appeal to the fact of nature as a natural reason for ignoring the problematic reasoning, we will, because of the fact of nature, have an evaluative reason to which we can appeal. What will that be? It will not be that we cannot help believing that the world is present in experience, but simply that: the world is present in experience: the conclusion of the reasoning is false. So we will maintain that, even though we cannot find a mistake in the reasoning, there must be a mistake, and that we are therefore entitled to ignore the reasoning. Adopting such a position makes sense, however, only on the assumption that we are in the kind of delicately balanced epistemic situation described in sect. 8.3; only, that is, on the assumption that, while we cannot find anything wrong with the reasoning, neither does the reasoning seem to us correct. But this is not our situation (at least it is not my situation). It is, rather, the kind of situation we assumed on behalf of Strawson, in order to make sense of the fact that, unlike Hume, he does not regard the sceptical arguments as creating a conflict for philosophical reflection. Suppose Strawson were to examine the arguments (he does not actually do this in his book) and they seemed to him correct. Suppose also that, as a matter of natural necessity, things are for him like this: the conclusion of the sceptical arguments is false. Then, surely, Strawson could not see himself as philosophically entitled to ignore the arguments. 7 Surely, like Hume, he would see himself as faced by a conflict. This is basically my situation with respect to the problematic reasoning. When I go through the reasoning, it seems correct: what is present in my experience is not part of the world. Yet, having reached this conclusion, if I open up to my experience all I find is the world. The conclusion seems absurd. Does this entitle me to ignore the reasoning? How could it? I can repeat the reasoning at will, with the same results. Of course, when I cease philosophizing and go about my everyday

178

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

business I will (just like Hume says) forget about the reasoning. Equally, I will cease being open to my experience. The puzzle will cease to occupy me. But this is beside the point. While I am philosophizing, the puzzle occupies me. And, in that context, the fact that when I am open to my experience the conclusion of the reasoning strikes me as absurd is not a reason for ignoring the reasoning; it is part of the puzzle. 8.7. The Humean idea is that our acceptance of (W) is a matter of natural necessity. In Chapter 3 we developed a different idea of the necessity. Hume would say that our acceptance of (W) is a matter of how human beings are programmed or built. It is, then, a fact about the world. The account in Chapter 3 was that it is a fact, not about the world, but about having a picture of the world. Given that one has a picture of the world-not just our picture, but any pictureit is inevitable that he accepts (W). First of all, we argued (the 'argument from acquisition', in sect. 3.7), that it is inevitable that, in the process of acquiring a picture of the world, we come to accept (W). But then, to counter the impression that this process is compatible with our none the less being mistaken in accepting (W), we observed (sects. 3.9-13) a further inevitability, namely, that, when we try to conceive of how the process might have resulted in such a mistake, it turns out that, in order to make sense of the process, we are forced to accept (W). So, we said (sect. 3.14), our acceptance of (W) is doubly inevitable: inevitable in fact, and inevitable in reflection. In so far, then, as Strawson would say that there is a deep reason why we accept (W), that our acceptance of (W) is inevitable (necessary), we are in agreement with him. Our point against Strawson is that the fact of this inevitability cannot be used in a certain way. We cannot appeal to it as a reason for ignoring the problematic reasoning, the reasoning whose conclusion is that (W) is false. Nor does the inevitability of our accepting (W) do anything to refute the reasoning. To refute the reasoning, whose conclusion is that (W) is false, we must show a mistake in the reasoning. To show that we cannot but accept (W) is not to show a mistake in the reasoning. It does not touch the reasoning.

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

179

And you will recall that when, in Chapter 3, we pointed out the inevitability of our accepting (W), of our taking the world to be present in experience, our aim was neither to refute the reasoning nor to justify ignoring the reasoning. Our aim was rather to explain why, when we cease reasoning about our experience and simply open up to it, all we find is the world. In short, our aim was not to solve the puzzle but to explain why it is there for us. In the remainder of this chapter we shall consider Strawson's other authority: Wittgenstein in On Certainty. Here, too, we can find an account of the inevitability of our accepting (W), although it is different from the account we find in Hume. It is, as we shall try to show, related to the account we gave in Chapter 3. (Perhaps it was obvious to the reader that, in that chapter, we had Wittgenstein very much in mind.) But I hope it is clear now that, whatever account is given of the inevitability, this will not enable us to solve our puzzle. Hence Wittgenstein's account in On Certainty cannot have for our puzzle the kind of significance that Strawson would assign to it. Strawson would say that Wittgenstein, like Hume, has shown us that we are entitled to ignore the problematic reasoning. If we are entitled to ignore the reasoning, we are not required to solve the puzzle. That's the solution. I do not see a solution to our puzzle in On Certainty. It seems to me that one can accept the whole of that book and then go on to raise the puzzle. Indeed, so far from solving the puzzle, I think the ideas in On Certainty can be used to explain why the puzzle exists, that is, why it is there for us. 8.8. At one point in On Certainty Wittgenstein says: '''There are physical objects" is nonsense' (35); 'no such proposition ... can be formulated' (36).8 This is perhaps misleading. The reason he gives for saying that no such proposition can be formulated is that '''physical object" is a logical concept'. I quote the whole passage: 'A is a physical object' is a piece of instruction which we would give only to someone who doesn't yet understand what 'A' means, or what 'physical object' means. Thus it is instruction about the use of words, and 'physical object' is a logical conception. (Like colour, quantity ... ) And that is why no such proposition as: 'There are physical objects' can be formulated. (36)

This suggests that, if we took something that was not a logical concept, for instance, aardvark, then we could formulate the relevant

180

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

existential proposition: there are aardvarks. This would not be nonsense, but might convey information-even, that is, when 'aardvark' is already understood. Apparently, with a logical concept, if you understand it you already know whether there are such things (hence no information is conveyed). But does this not presuppose that the proposition in question is not nonsense (that it can be formulated)? It seems to me that Wittgenstein's point here might be expressed by saying, not that, (P) There are physical objects is nonsense (or that it cannot be formulated), but that it is what he often calls a logical or grammatical proposition: a proposition which has in our system of language-games the status of a rule. What would then be a kind of nonsense is treating (P) as if it were of the same type as the proposition about aardvarks (except more general). But a rule is not, as such, nonsense. Nor is it analytic. A rule is a rule. Let us understand (P) this way. It has the status of a rule in our system of language-games. The general conception (I am going to take a lot for granted here) is this. Being able to think is a matter of having mastered rules. We cannot think without rules. A languagegame is an activity, defined by rules, involving the use of symbols. To master a language-game is to master certain rules; it is to learn to think in a certain way. The rules of a language-game (like those of any game) fix what is possible, what makes sense, within the game. In learning language (for the first time), we pick up a whole interconnected system of language-games. This happens in the course of our getting drawn into the ongoing life of a community of people who are already insiders of the system. And it happens in what Wittgenstein calls a 'purely practical' way (95), which is the only way it could happen: we imitate the insiders, and they encourage and direct us. But they do not, they could not, explain the rules to us (assuming they could explain them to themselves). Our being able to understand such explanations would require that we were already insiders. One way or another, we gradually get the hang of things; we become insiders. How does (P) fit into this? (P), I take it, is a rule not of a particular language-game but of the system as a whole. You might say that in our system of languagegames, whatever game we pick up, we pick up (P).

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

181

Different languages (English, German, Russian, etc.) can belong to the same system oflanguage-games. If languages can be translated into one another, they belong to the same system. For present purposes, we may assume that all the languages known to man belong to the same system of language-games; but this assumption is not essential (I do not know whether Wittgenstein would accept it). Some of the points Wittgenstein wants to make will emerge if we contrast the process of being drawn into our system of languagegames (SL) with that of learning an ordinary game in a 'purely practical' way. Imagine that we come across people playing a game (G) that we do not understand. We watch uncomprehendingly for a while and then we are invited to join in. We imitate the players as best we can. They give us directions, correct (get annoyed with, laugh at) us, and so on; but they never explicitly state rules. Gradually we cotton on. We become insiders of G. Let us note the following differences between this case and that of being drawn into SL. 1. In learning G we do not thereby learn any other games. Ordinary games can be learned in isolation. But the 'games' which comprise SL are interconnected in such a way that we cannot, at least not at the outset, get drawn into them one at a time. (This is the point of speaking here of a 'system' of games.) 2. In learning G, that is basically all we learn. In being drawn into SL, we pick up much else; much else, that is, besides languagegames. We take over the values and customs of the community whose system SL is. More important for present purposes, we take over a system of beliefs: a picture of the world. (But people who share the same system of language-games need not share the same values, etc., or picture of the world.) All this happens gradually and (to use the current jargon) in a holistic way, that is, in the same way we pick up SL. ('Light dawns gradually over the whole' (141». Indeed, acquiring a world-picture is part and parcel of the process whereby we get drawn into SL. 3. We choose to join in G, to become insiders. We do not choose to get drawn into SL. Nor do we choose to acquire the world-picture that we acquire in the course of being drawn into SL. Willy-nilly we get drawn into the system and a world-picture, and then we simply find ourselves on the inside of that system, with that world-picture.

182

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

4. G occurs within the context of SL. We enter G from within SL. In this sense, SL is a wider context: it surrounds, or envelops, G. But there is no wider context from within which we enter SL. SL is for us the widest context of all, the outer context. This is why there is no such thing as choosing to join SL, in the way we choose to join G. From outside G, we think of G as a 'game' which 'people are playing'. This is what we choose: to join a 'game', etc. But outside SL we do not think at all. It is by becoming insiders of SL, by mastering its rules, that we learn to think (and hence to choose). 5. Not only is there for us no wider context than SL (a context which stands to SL in the way SL stands to G); once we are insiders of SL, there is a sense in which we have no alternative to SL. There is no co-ordinate system to which we can switch over, in the way that someone who speaks both English and Russian can switch from one to the other (or in the way that someone who can play two ordinary games can switch from one to the other). For this type of switch takes place within the context of our system of languagegames. Nor can it be compared to an ordinary case of learning something new (we decide to learn Russian, or how to play bridge). Once again, the ordinary case presupposes our system of languagegames. We learn from within this system (that is, using its resources), the system in which we were brought up. If we wanted to enter an alternative system of language-games, we would have to be brought up (as it were) all over again. What stands between us and an alternative system of language-games is the fact that we have lived the lives we have lived. We might have lived different lives, and hence have been on the inside of different language-gamesbut here we are. Again, alternative systems may (why not?) exist, and may be described by us in an external way (Wittgenstein likes to describe such alternatives). However, in the nature of the case we cannot make sense of what is 'going on' in these other systems. What makes sense is already fixed (for us) by the rules of our own system, the system on the inside of which we find ourselves and from whose perspective we contemplate the alternatives. In sum, there is for us no context wider than SL, nor are there alternatives at the same level. I shall say that our system of language-

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

183

games is 'all that we have'. It exhausts our resources for thinking, for making sense of things. An ordinary game is just one game among many. But our system of language-games is, for us, the system of language-games. Thus whereas what does (or does not) make sense in an ordinary game G will be viewed by us in that way, that is, as making (or not making) sense in G, what does (or does not) make sense within our system of language-games is viewed simply as making or not making sense, full stop. It follows that the rules which in our system of language-games fix what makes sense, and what does not, will be such that we cannot give grounds for them, or show them to be reasonable (in the way that we might do this with respect to the rules of an ordinary game). Whenever we give grounds for something, or argue that it is reasonable, we fall back on the rules of the system; we have nothing else to fall back on. Our system of language-games, as Wittgenstein puts it, 'is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there-like our life' (559). That is, we find ourselves on the inside of this system, and it is all that we have. 8.9. We said that, for Wittgenstein, (P) is a logical proposition. It has the status of a rule of our system of language-games (of the system as a whole). I take it that this would also be Wittgenstein's view of (W). These propositions are rules of a system on the inside of which we find ourselves and which is all that we have. Hence we cannot justify our acceptance of (W) or (P). Our acceptance of such proposition is 'not reasonable (or unreasonable)'. (W) and ep) are propositions which, as Strawson puts it, 'We simply cannot help accepting ... as defining the areas within which the questions come up of which beliefs we should rationally hold .. .' (Skepticism and Naturalism, 20). However, it should be clear that, for Wittgenstein, the sense in which we 'cannot help accepting' (W) and (P) is not that of natural necessity. We accept these propositions not because of how we are built but, as we said, because they are rules of the system on the inside of which we find ourselves and which is all that we have. It is not a matter of natural necessity that we find ourselves where we find ourselves; or that, finding ourselves where we find ourselves, there is nowhere else for us to be. 9 We are dealing here, not with a

184

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

fact of nature but with, one might say, a fact of life. Where Hume appeals to a fact of nature, Wittgenstein appeals to a fact of life. The notion that (W) and (P) are 'rules in a system of games' may seem to trivialize, and hence misrepresent, the status they actually have with us. But, if it seems like that, we are probably thinking of (W) and (P) as if they were rules in an ordinary game. We are using as our model the acceptance of rules in an ordinary game. We have, therefore, not yet been properly impressed by the fact of life which lies behind our acceptance of the rules in our system of languagegames. This is, I think, the hard part of Wittgenstein's thought, and the part that gives it its particular edge. Ordinary games are, in fact, the only model we have for understanding our position on the inside of a system of language-games. But the model leads us astray. We are enveloped by our system of language-games in a manner that is radically unlike our position on the inside of an ordinary game. From the inside, the system has no outer boundary-in the same way that our lives have no outer boundary. From the inside, there is no outside: the system takes up all the game-space there is. Let us confine out attention now to (W). I would like to bring out the connection between the fact of life which, on Wittgenstein's view, makes inevitable our acceptance of (W), and the account of the inevitability that we gave in Chapter 3. Wittgenstein's fact of life has two parts or aspects: that we simply 'find ourselves' on the inside of a system, and that the system on the inside of which we find ourselves is 'all that we have'. The account we gave of the inevitability also has a dual character. First, the process by which we acquire a picture of the world has the inevitable outcome that we accept (W); and, secondly, if we reflect on this process and attempt to understand how it works, it turns out that in these reflections too we are forced to accept (W). Not only, then, do we actually accept (W) as the inevitable result of having acquired a picture of the world; we cannot get out from under (W) even in reflection. The first point is related to Wittgenstein's idea that (W) is a rule of the system on the inside of which we simply find ourselves; the second to his idea that, since there is for us no outside, the system is all that we have. We do not, as Wittgenstein stresses, choose our system of language-games. We are born into a community in which the system

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

185

is established and, guided by those who are already insiders, we are gradually drawn into the system. This process is an integral part, or aspect, of the process by which we are drawn into the ongoing life of the community and take over its picture of the world. So, in the process of acquiring our picture of the world, we come to accept the rules of the system. We come in this way, then, to accept (W). Guided by insiders, and without any choice in the matter, we become insiders. How are we guided? One way is that people point out and name for us objects present in our experience. This is how, at the ground level, we learn the kinds in our world-picture, how we learn what books, tables, and trees are. Since it is initially by reference to objects present in our experience (and how else might it be?) that we learn what such things are, it is inevitable that we come to take such things to be present in our experience; inevitable that we come to accept (W).lO The argument from acquisition (as we called it) holds not just with respect to the kinds in our scientific picture of the world but with respect to the kinds in any picture of the world, that is, any picture of an external reality. The acquisition of any such picture has, for those who acquire it, the acceptance of (W) as an inevitable consequence. Thus, as we have several times remarked, (W) itself cannot properly be included within our picture of the world-or any picture of the world. (W) cannot properly be conceived as a proposition about the world (an empirical proposition). Here I trust you will see the connection with the first aspect of Wittgenstein's fact of life. If (W) is not a proposition about the world, what kind of proposition is it? How should we conceive of it? Wittgenstein has an answer to this question. (W) is not an empirical but what he calls a 'logical' proposition: a rule in our system of language-games. (W) is a rule, that is, in a system which we did not choose to be on the inside of but learnt in a 'purely practical' way, and now simply find ourselves on the inside of. Consider now the second aspect of Wittgenstein's fact of life. Our system of language-games is all that we have. Its rules define for us the outer limits of sense. Unlike the rules of an ordinary game, we have no standpoint outside the system from which we can call the rules of our system into question. For us on the inside, there is no

186

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

outside. But why (one might ask) can we not question the rules from inside the system? Not all at once, of course, but one at a time. This is, in effect, what we attempted to do in Chapter 3 with respect to (W). We noted there that the process by which we acquire a picture of the world, although it inevitably results in our accepting (W), seems to leave open the possibility that we are mistaken in accepting (W). At the ground level, we said, the only way we can learn the kinds in our world-picture is by having objects present in our experience named for us as instances of these kinds. It is inevitable, then, that we come to view objects of these kinds as (potentially) present in our experience. This is what we called the 'argument from acquisition'. However, we observed, the argument would seem to hold with the same force, and to deliver the same conclusion, on the hypothesis that the objects present to us are not instances of the kinds in question but are, as the problematic reasoning establishes, internal objects. Given how we learn what external kinds are, would it not be just as inevitable that we should take the objects present to us to be instances of these kinds, and hence that we should accept (W), even if the objects actually present to us were always internal objects? We saw, however, that under examination the suggestion breaks down. We are to suppose that we learn the kinds in our worldpicture, the external kinds, by reference to internal objects. It has to be that way because, if we accept the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, only internal objects are present to us; objects which instantiate external kinds are, in principle, never present to us. Now, is it possible that we should learn what (say) trees are by having internal objects named for us as trees? Could an internal object (a hallucinatory object, perhaps) serve in this connection as a teaching paradigm? Yes, provided it looks like a tree. Here (to review the argument of sect. 3.12) is where the difficulty lies. Only what is present in experience can look one way or another. If in principle external objects cannot be present to us, external objects cannot look one way or another. A tree, then, cannot look onc way or another. It cannot look like a tree or like what is not a tree. Nor can something which is not a tree look like a tree. There is, in short, no such thing as looking like a tree. Or like any other kind of external object. The difficulty should now be obvious. We can teach someone

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

187

what a tree is by drawing his attention to an object which is not a tree only if the object which serves as our teaching paradigm looks like a tree. But, if trees cannot be present to us, nothing looks like a tree. There is no such thing as 'looking like a tree'. There is no such thing as looking like any kind of external object. Thus if, trying to accommodate the conclusion of the problematic reasoning, we tell ourselves a story in which the acquisition of our world-picture has led us mistakenly to accept (W), we shall find that in telling the story we have secretly been forced to accept (W), that otherwise we could not make sense of the story.ll To think this through and reveal the inconsistency is a way of exhibiting to ourselves Wittgenstein's point that the system of which (W) is a rule is all that we have. The inconsistency makes manifest that we cannot get around accepting (W). It makes manifest that, wherever we go, (W) will be there. It is like bumping into a wall we thought we had a way of circumventing. We do not deduce the wall is there; we actually come up against it. Similarly, we may think we see a way of circumventing (W). That is, we tell ourselves a story wherein our acceptance of (W) is a mistake. But, if we examine the story, it turns out to depend on our accepting (W). Unless we accepted (W), we could not make sense of the story. What has happened here? We have not deduced that (W) is a rule in a system which is all that we have. We have, in trying to circumvent (W), simply come up against it. From inside our system of language-games, we are out in the world: the world is present in our experience: we accept (W). And from inside there is no outside. ll So, whichever way we turn, we accept (W). We cannot get around accepting (W), How does this relate to our puzzle? We know in advance that it will not solve the puzzle. It will not solve the puzzle because it does nothing to undermine the problematic reasoning. It neither refutes the reasoning, nor entitles us to ignore the reasoning. Hence, when we turn from these reflections about rules and language-games and consult our picture of the world-the very picture we acquired in being drawn into our system of language-games-we find (as before) the familiar facts about physical objects, light, the eye and brain, and so on. In other words, we find the causal picture of experiencethe picture we began with and which we all believe. If we now reflect on this picture in the right way, we can (as before) extract

188

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

from it a certain possibility, the potential irrelevance of the external thing. Then what? Once we grasp this possibility, we are on our way: we can prove that external things cannot be present in experience. We can prove that (W) is false. As far as I can see, there is nothing in On Certainty which in any way threatens or even touches this reasoning; so there is nothing which might solve our puzzle. What we can, I think, get from On Certainty is not a solution to the puzzle but a way of explaining the puzzle, that is, why we have the puzzle. The explanation, roughly, is that the world-picture we acquired in being drawn into our system of language-games contains something which is at odds with a rule of the system. Our system of language-games has (W) as a rule. We simply find ourselves on the inside of this system and it is all that we have. On the other hand, our picture of the world, the picture we acquired in being drawn into the system, contains the causal picture of experience, and implicit in the causal picture is a possibility on the basis of which we can reason to the conclusion that (W) is false, that the world is not present in experience. Yet, given that the system of which we are insiders has (W) as a rule, we live with the world present to us. The world fills the experiential horizon-it cannot be otherwise for insiders of the system. Hence, if we (we insiders) cease reasoning about our experience and simply open up to how things are within it, we cannot (except, of course, in special cases) but find the world. This would be the Wittgensteinian explanation of our puzzle. 8.10. Let us return briefly to the proposition Wittgenstein actually discusses, (P), the proposition that there are physical objects (bodies). Assuming that physical objects are the paradigms of external objects, what is the relation between (P) and (W), the proposition that physical objects (external objects) are present in experience? One might be inclined to say that we could not accept (W) unless we accepted (P), that acceptance of (W) presupposes acceptance of (P). But this expresses a purely logical relationship. We must not imagine that we accepted (P) before accepting (W). It helps to think here in terms of the argument from acquisition. We learnt what different kinds of physical (external) things are by having such objects pointed out and named for us as instances of

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

189

the relevant kinds, and thus came to accept (W). People said, 'That is a tree,' 'This is a book,' and so on. Clearly, there is no way that our accepting that there are such objects, that there are trees and books, might have inserted itself prior to our accepting that such objects can be present to us. (P), like (W), is a rule of our system-the system on the inside of which we find ourselves and which is all that we have. So, when the sceptic challenges us to justify our acceptance of (P), we are at a loss.13 Generally, from inside a game the rules of the game cannot be justified. From inside, we simply accept the rules. Otherwise we would not be on the inside. We would not be playing the game. In the case of an ordinary game, however, since there is such a thing as our not playing the game, we can adopt a standpoint from which the question of justification makes sense. No such possibility exists in the case of our system of language-games. We cannot then adopt a standpoint from which we can seriously entertain a demand that we justify our acceptance of (P). For us, all possible standpoints are internal to the system of which (P) is a rule. So, for us, all possible justifications depend on our accepting (P). In this case, the demand for a justification is apt to strike us as absurd. Well, be honest, does it not (sometimes) strike you that way?14 However, this is not quite the end of it. The sceptic will say that, if physical objects were present in experience, he would not be asking us to justify our acceptance of (P). If physical objects were present to us, that would be our justification. But, the sceptic maintains, we can prove that physical objects are not present in experience. We can prove this, he says, by reasoning on the basis of things that we all believe. And it seems that the sceptic is right here. But does this not give him the foothold he needs? If physical objects are not present in experience, how do we know that there are such objects? What justifies us in accepting (P)?IS What shall our response be? Are we (as Strawson thinks) entitled to ignore the reasoning to which the sceptic appeals? Not, certainly, if we think the reasoning is correct. But, if the reasoning is correct, if physical objects are not present in experience, it is hard to suppress the question the sceptic wants to ask: How do we know that physical objects exist? It now looks as if we can raise a puzzle about (P) analogous to the

190

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

puzzle, or antinomy, that we have raised about (W). On the one hand, the problematic reasoning seems to require us to justify our acceptance of (P). This is the sceptic's point. On the other hand, the whole business of doubting the existence of physical objects, and thus of being required to justify our acceptance of (P), seems absurd. Here is where Wittgenstein's point comes in. (P) is a rule of the system on the inside of which we find ourselves and which is all that we have. Does this refute the sceptical challenge? No. Is it a reason for ignoring the sceptical challenge? No, again. It is a way of explaining why the challenge seems (as it does) absurd. It is a way of explaining, then, why we have this conflict or puzzle about (P). It should be obvious, though, that the puzzle about (P) is derivative from, and hence secondary to, the puzzle about (W). The sceptic needs the problematic reasoning-or some other argument with the same conclusion: that the world is not present in experience, that (W) is false-to justify his demand for a justification of our accepting (P). But, as we know, the conclusion that the world is not present in our experience itself gives rise to a puzzle, in that, if we put aside the reasoning which leads to this conclusion and open up to our experience, all we find is the world. Thus, before we ever get to the puzzle about (P), we shall have the puzzle about (W), the puzzle of experience. It is the primary puzzle.

NOTES

1. P. F. Strawson, Skepticism and Naturalism (London: Methuen, 1987), ch. 1. 2. D. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), bk. 1, pt. 4, sect. 2. 3. What Strawson actually speaks of at this point are not 'sceptical arguments' but 'sceptical doubts'; I am assuming that by 'sceptical doubts' he includes the reasoning or arguments on which the doubts are based. 4. Hume, Treatise, end of sect. 2. S. We must not confuse a 'natural reason' for ignoring an argument with a 'cause'. Rather, a cause will typically enter into a natural reason etc.

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

6.

7.

8. 9.

191

Suppose X causes me to act in a certain way. Then X is the cause of my behaviour. Suppose there is an argument whose conclusion is that I should cease the behaviour. Then the fact that X causes the behaviour is a natural reason for ignoring the argument. The natural reason for ignoring the argument is not X itself, but the fact that X causes my behaviour, whereas the cause of my behaviour is not the fact that X causes my behaviour, but X itself. Obviously, this needs to be qualified to take into account the case where we are, independently, more convinced of the correctness of the argument than of the falsehood of its conclusion. But for purposes of establishing the contrast with action, the unqualified statement will do. The implication is that, in the delicately balanced case, we are philosophically entitled to ignore the arguments. I shall let the implication stand in the text, but is it, in general, right? Is it right even with respect to arguments that we are sure contain a mistake? Strawson's parenthetical suggestion (quoted above) that the only philosophical motive we might have for being interested in the sceptic's arguments is that of 'harmless amusement, a mild diversion to the intellect' might strike one as anti-philosophical (hence as something that Strawson does not believe himself). Consider a different example. I have never actually been convinced by Zeno's arguments (in contrast to the problematic reasoning). I am sure they contain a mistake. I would, however, very much like to understand clearly and fully what the mistake is. Is this a desire for a bit of intellectual diversion? Then maybe that is how we should describe an interest in philosophy. Of course, other things are relevant here besides one's attitude towards the conclusion of an argument-e.g., whether the argument is seductive or 'interesting', and whether it touches on basic issues and concepts. Bur, in general, I do not believe that being convinced that the conclusion of an argument is false (let alone not being convinced it is true) automatically means that further philosophical investigation will be less than serious. Unless otherwise indicated, all the Wittgenstein references are to On Certainty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969). Wittgenstein does, however, allow that there are natural constraints on which language-games are possible and on who is capable of being drawn into which language-games. See, e.g., Philosophical Investigations, p. 230, and the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, V-I. Notice the interdependence here. Consider, e.g, the supposition that ordinary physical objects constantly fuse and divide. That this supposition is not realized is, one might say, a condition of our having the language-games we have concerning number and identity. (If objects

192

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

were not reasonably stable, these language-games could not take hold.) But now think about the supposition itself. In formulating the supposition we draw upon the very language-games (our concepts of number and identity) that depend on the non-realization of the supposition. 10. Cf. On Certainty, 374: 'We teach a child "that is your hand", not "that is perhaps (or probably) your hand." That is how a child learns the innumerable language-games that are concerned with his hand. An investigation of question, "whether this is really a hand" never occurs to him. Nor, on the other hand, does he learn that he knows that this is a hand.' Wittgenstein uses 'hand' because he has Moore's famous example in mind. But obviously we could substitute tree, or book, or countless other common nouns here. 11. Note that the argument here does not depend on our idea that it is part of the metaphysical grammar of the kind we refer to as 'trees' that trees can look one way or another (see sect. 3.9). We may assume, for the sake of the argument, that we have eliminated from the metaphysical grammar of the kinds in our world-picture everything but the externality of the objects which are instances ofthese kinds (see sects. 3.10-11). What requires us, in telling the story, to accept (W) is not that the denial of (W) is incompatible with part of the metaphysical grammar of trees, but that it is incompatible with our coming to learn what trees are (the specific content of this kind) in the way that the story assumes, namely, by reference to internal teaching paradigms. For, even if we eliminate the possibility of looking, etc., from the grammar of trees, it is still true that, unless there is such a thing as 'looking like a tree', there can be no possibility of teaching someone what a tree is by reference to an internal paradigm. 12. The reader has cause to wonder what is going on here. If from the inside there is no outside, then how can I so much as have the thought of an outside, hence of an inside? For where am I, in having these thoughts? On the inside of the system. Where else? Certainly, philosophy does not provide me with a new standpoint, with resources for thinking which transcend the system on the inside of which I find myself. Whatever I have I get from inside the system. (This is Wittgenstein's point when, at Investigations, 97, he speaks of the 'illusion' that philosophy deals with 'super-concepts'.) But then these very thoughts should not be available to me. I should not be thinking them. There is in all of this an obvious double-mindedness which I do not know how to avoid. Consider the earlier thought (near the end of sect. 8.8) that for insiders of our system of language-games what makes sense

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

193

in the system makes sense full stop, not relative to the system. If this thought is true, we (I) should not be thinking it, since the reference to 'our system of language-games' implies recognition of the possibility of alternative systems; which in turn implies recognition of the possibility, relative to alternative systems, of alternative limits on what makes sense. The predicament here (which is like the predicament stated by Wittgenstein at the end of the Tractatus) lends force to the position taken by Donald Davidson, namely, that we cannot give sense to the idea of a 'conceptual framework' or 'system of thought', and that we ought in philosophy to stop speaking and thinking in such terms (see 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984)). But, apart from the double-rnindedness, thinking in such terms seems perfectly OK. We start by noting that what makes sense for others is fixed by their system; no problem yet. So then we turn the idea back on ourselves, on our system. If it applies to them, why should it not apply to us? (See Thomas Nagel's discussion of Davidson in The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), sect. 2, ch. 6.) More importantly, this type of thought seems essential to certain kinds of explanation in philosophy-e.g. to the explanation with which we are occupied right now in the text. In any case, once we have the thoughts we have them; we cannot pretend we have not had them. Notice that the doub1e-rnindedness is not confined to thoughts about systems of language-games and frameworks. It seems to be implicit in any attempt to 'get behind' the fact that such-and-such makes sense for us, or that we believe or accept such-and-such. Consider Hume's idea that our belief in (P) is a matter of natural necessity. When we view (P) in this light, it is bound to occur to us that Nature (for her own purposes) might have implanted a false belief in us. Recall the 'tautology' (sect. 8.4). If someone believes (accepts) that p, then things are for him like this: p. In the present case, p is (P), and we are the believers. Thus, as a matter of natural necessity, things are for us like this: (P). But then how can we be thinking that (P) may be false? Yet that, as we just observed, is what we are prompted to think by reflecting on the supposed fact that our belief in (P) is a matter of natural necessity. It would seem that if what Hume says is true then we (he) should not be thinking it. Much the same can be said with respect to our own attempt in Chapter 3 to explain why we cannot but accept (W): if the explanation is correct, we should not be thinking it. (But here we are, thinking it.) 13. In some ways, this is reminiscent of Carnap's view that the question of

194

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle

whether there are Fs is meaningful only if it is an 'internal' question (see sect. 2 of 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology', repr. in Carnap, Meaning and Necessity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956)). If for 'Fs' we substitute 'aardvarks', then the question is meaningful in what Carnap calls 'thing language with its framework for things'. For, in accepting the framework, we accept rules for investigating and answering such questions. But there is (Carnap says) no legitimate question about 'the reality of the thing world itself'. The question cannot properly be raised within the thing framework, since, if we accept the framework, we have already answered the question. (Using Wittgenstein's terminology, we could say that within the framework the proposition that there are things (physical objects) is a 'logical (grammatical)' proposition.) And, from outside the framework, i.e. as an external question, there are no rules for answering the question. But Carnap thinks that there is, from outside, a genuine 'practical' (versus 'theoretical') question, namely, a question of whether we ought to use the thing framework (a question which, Carnap tells us, will be decided on the basis of the 'efficiency, fruitfulness, and simplicty' of the framework). It ought to be plain from what we have said that any such notion is quite foreign to the later Wittgenstein. We simply find ourselves on the inside of a system of language-games, and from the inside there is no outside. So there can be no 'practical' question here, no 'choosing' to adopt such a system. In his earlier work, however, Wittgenstein sometimes sounds more like Carnap. Thus, e.g., in the material from the 'The Yellow Book,' included in Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge 1932-1935, ed. A. Ambrose (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979),69-70, he draws a distinction 'between rejecting a hypothesis as false and rejecting a symbolism as impractical' . 14. Wittgenstein would say, I think, that someone (a philosopher, naturally) who asks for a justification of (P) is mistaking (P) for an empirical proposition (like our earlier proposition that there are aardvarks). In 308 he says he is 'inclined to believe that not everything that has the form of an empirical proposition is one'. But note, for Wittgenstein, the line between what does and does not belong to 'logic' is not sharp (see 309, 318-20). This is of a piece with his idea that not all empirical propositions have the same status (see, e.g., 167 and 213). None the less, in contrast to Quine, Wittgenstein does not hold that the logical-empirical distinction is not a genuine distinction. Some propositions are clearly one or the other. I have been assuming that (P) is clearly logical. (Of course this is an extended use of the term 'logical'.)

Ignoring the Problematic Reasoning

19S

IS. It is sometimes maintained that the use by the sceptic of arguments like the problematic reasoning involves an inconsistency. The sceptic uses the arguments to call (P) into question. Yet, since the arguments are based on propositions about physical objects, if he did not accept (r), he could not use the arguments. (See H. H. Price's discussion of what he calls the 'Causal Version of the Argument from Illusion', in Perception (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1932), ch. 2).) Against this, Russell and Quine have put forward the view that the sceptic's procedure is perfectly legitimate: it is simply an instance of arguing by reductio ad absurdum. (See Russell, 'The Ultimate Constituents of Matter', repr. in Mysticism and Logic (London: George AlIen & Unwin, 1963), and Quine, 'The Nature of Natural Knowledge', in S. Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). For a discussion of Quine's position, see Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), ch. 6. Stroud accuses Quine of being inconsistent in his attitude towards the sceptic's reductio argument, but, as far as I can tell, Stroud has nothing against the argument itself.) Let us suppose the sceptic uses the problematic reasoning by way of a reductio. One difficulty with the Russell-Quine view is that the conclusion of the reasoning contradicts not (P) but (W); so, strictly speaking, it would be not ep) but (W) that is reduced to absurdity. There is, however, a more serious difficulty. It is essential to the reductio method that at the outset we may either accept or not accept the assumed proposition (that which then gets reduced to absurdity). This is, really, the point of the method: it allows us to reason about a proposition, with a view to evaluating its truth value, while freeing ourselves from whatever commitment we actually have to the proposition. Consider, to take a classic example of a reductio, St Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God. The assumed proposition is that God does not exist. Supposing the argument to be correct, this proposition gets reduced to absurdity. We are required, then, to accept that God exists. Clearly, to use Anselm's argument, it is not essential that we initially accept the assumed proposition. Indeed, it is essential that such acceptance is not essential. (Thus the argument can be used by agnostics and believers, as well as atheists.) But if (P) has the status of a rule in our system of language-games, it is not a proposition that we mayor may not accept. We cannot free ourselves from a commitment to (P). We may say we are assuming it for the purposes of a reductio, but in fact we are not. We are only going through the motions of a reductio. Propositions which have for us the status of rules, etc., cannot

196

Possible Solutions to the Puzzle be exposed to this method of argument. Notice, however, this does not touch the problematic reasoning itself. We may not be able to use the reasoning to reduce (P) to absurdity, but the reasoning stands. And its conclusion contradicts (P)-or, rather, (W). The brief remarks in this note do not do justice to the issue about scepticism and reductio arguments raised by the Russell-Quine view. This note is, in fact, a partial and highly condensed version of what was, in the original draft of the book, a fairly long chapter.

9

Conclusion: The Puzzle of Experience and Everyday Puzzlement 9.1. Our overall situation is, it seems, incoherent. On the basis of the causal picture of experience, which is part of our picture of the world, we can, by the problematic reasoning, prove that the world is not present in experience. Yet the very fact that we have a picture of the world (any picture of the world) involves that we cannot but accept (W), that the world is present in experience (hence the special status of (W)). This is what lies behind the philosophical conflict, or antinomy, that we are calling 'the puzzle of experience'. If we reason about experience on the basis of our picture of the world, we get forced to the conclusion that the world is not present in experience. But, given that we have a picture of the world, we cannot shake off the presence of the world. Thus, if we put aside the reasoning and open up to our experience, all we find is the world. So you could say that we live with a puzzle. To present and articulate the puzzle, to bring it to light, this requires philosophical reflection: first, the problematic reasoning; then, being open to our experience (Chapters 1 and 2). But the puzzle which is thus brought to light is already there, implicit in our lives. Note, this last statement is itself based on philosophical reflection, namely, on our explanation of how the puzzle arises (Chapter 3). Moreover, the explanation presupposed that there is no mistake in the problematic reasoning. We looked for a mistake in the reasoning (Chapters 4-7), and in our attitude to the reasoning (Chapter 8), but we did not find a mistake. Had we found a mistake in the

198

Conclusion

reasoning, it would not be true that the puzzle is 'already there', implict in our lives. We would have solved the puzzle. Thus the puzzle of experience is both philosophical and extraphilosophical. It is philosophical in that philosophical reflection is required: first, to formulate the puzzle; secondly, to examine the formulation critically (that is, with a view to finding a mistake, to solve the puzzle); thirdly, to explain how the puzzle arises. It is extra-philosophical in that, if the explanation given is correct (which in turn presupposes that there is no mistake in the formulation of the puzzle), the puzzle is implicit in the content of our picture of the world plus the very fact that we have a picture of the world. 9.2. There is a sense, then, in which we are 'stuck' with the puzzle. The puzzle might disappear, but, unlike solving it (finding a mistake in the problematic reasoning), this would not be the product of philosophical reflection. The point should be clear from our explanation of the puzzle. The disappearance of the puzzle would require either that our picture of the world alters in such a way that it no longer includes the causal picture of experience, or that the contrast between external and internal somehow ceases to figure in our thinking. In the former case, the reasoning by which we prove the falsehood of (W) could not get started. In the latter case, (W) could not be formulated. We would think (make sense of things) in a new way. We would have a way of thinking in which we did not see ourselves as thinking about an external reality; a way of thinking, therefore, in which we did not have a picture of the world. These would be (to put it mildly) radical changes; but there is no need to insist that they could not occur. Let me use Wittgenstein's idea here. We operate with a certain picture of the world-cumsystem of language-games. Let us call this picture-cum-system, etc., 'our framework'. (W), then, may be regarded as a rule of our framework, part of its 'logic'. In order for the puzzle to disappear there would have to be a basic change in our framework: either in its world-picture, or in one of its rules. We may talk in a facile way about the possibility of such changes, but the thing to realize is this: the kind of possibility we are talking about is such that, in an important sense, we do not know what we are talking about. Consider, first, the relevant change in our world-picture. What

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

199

kind of change would be required in order for the puzzle to disappear? Presumably, the causal picture of experience would have to go-at least that part of the picture where we connect what happens in the brain with how things are in experience. But we could not neatly excise from our picture of the world the idea that the brain is responsible for how things are in experience. If we drop this idea, what shall we make of such familiar facts as that taking drugs, or a blow to the head, can affect how things look to us? Perhaps we would organize our picture of the world in such a way that there would no longer be such 'facts'. But then it is obvious that the change in question would be very messy and extended, and would have ramifications that we cannot clearly foresee. The other sort of change, where we cease to think in terms of the external-internal contrast, is more radical still. This would, if anything would, involve a change in our whole system oflanguage-games. Here it is not a matter of being unable to see how exactly things would work out: we cannot see anything. If we try to imagine a life in which nothing figures with us as external versus internal, a life in which the contrast has no meaning, we draw a blank. Phenomenalism, remember, does not describe such a life: it attempts to give an analysis of externality (of the conception we actually use).· Nor do we get a description of a life without the contrast from scepticism. The sceptic needs the contrast in order to state what he is willing to accept, and what he wishes to question. These views do not go far enough. And going far enough is going too far. The truth is, if someone gave us a description of a life without the external-internal contrast we would not understand it. The closest we shall come to what we are looking for is a philosophical gesture towards a description, such as Hegel makes at the end of the Phenomenology of Mind. Perhaps if we had what Hegel calls 'Absolute Knowledge' we would have reached a stage of thought beyond the external-internal contrast. The contrast would have fallen away and we would not have the puzzle. But that is not where we are; we do not have such knowledge. So we have the puzzle. The point, once again, is that, while a framework which does not employ the external-internal contrast might evolve out of ours, we cannot pin our hopes on a wise man (a philosopher, say) devising or thinking up such a framework for us. He will be in the same position

200

Conclusion

as the rest of us: the framework will be 'all that he has'. Thus, if his aim is to construct a framework that lacks the external-internal contrast, he will not know where to begin; wherever he begins, he will find himself already relying on the contrast. In away, the kind of change we are contemplating is like the change that actually occurred in our individual lives when we were drawn into our framework. Being drawn into our framework was, for us, learning to think. The evolution of our framework into a framework which does not employ the external-internal contrast, a framework in which the puzzle of experience does not arise, would involve our coming to think in a new way. This might happen, the puzzle might disappear; but it is not a task that thinking can set itself, in the way that it can set itself the task of solving the puzzle. (If it should happen that we find ourselves on the inside of a new framework, it will not be because we figured out how to get there; any more than we figured out how to get to where we are, where we actually find ourselves, on the inside of our framework.) Thus to someone in the grip of the puzzle, someone who wants to solve it, the news that such a change might occur is of zero interest. Where we are, the puzzle exists. What does it matter that somewhere down the road the puzzle may not exist? 9.3. Life goes on, but the puzzle is there. I believe (though I shall not attempt to show this) that there are other puzzles-puzzles about the self and death, about the will, about time-which have a similar character. These puzzles do not arise through a mistake in our philosophical reflections. So there are no solutions to the puzzles. Philosophy must, of course, look for solutions, but, with respect to the puzzles I now have in mind, I do not think we shall find solutions. In these cases, the ultimate role of philosophy is to shed light on our predicament, to explain why we are caught up in the puzzles. Some philosophical puzzles, we might say, are 'extra-philosophically based'. We shall speak of these simply as 'extra-philosophical' puzzles. They are philosophical in the sense that they require philosophical reflection for their articulation and critical analysis; but the puzzles themselves have a reality outside philosophy. In this sense, the puzzle of experience is an extra-philosophical puzzle: it is an extra-philosophically based philosophical puzzle.

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

201

The extra-philosophical puzzles have an underlying unity, a common thread. We saw in Chapter 6 how the puzzle of experience depends on experience being a certain kind of subject-matter: not a phenomenon, part of the world, but the horizon within which the world is present. One way or another, it seems to me, the extraphilosophical puzzles all involve this same horizonal subject-matter. They all involve a subject-matter concerning which we may be tempted to say there is no such subject-matter (see Negativism, sect. 6.1): a subject-matter which, as we tried to explain, is nothing in itself. The obvious implication of saying that some philosophical puzzles have a basis outside philosophy is that there are philosophical puzzles (that is, puzzles whose formulation and analysis require philosophical reflection) which do not have an extra-philosophical basis; that there are philosophical puzzles which might be called purely philosophical. I think there are such puzzles. I think, in fact, that most philosophical puzzles are purely philosophical puzzles. But this may be misleading. Philosophical reflection cannot spin a puzzle out of nothing. It must have something on which to reflect, and this can only come from our framework (our picture of the world-cum-system of languagegames). In the case of an extra-philosophical puzzle, there is a problem in our framework. The role of philosophy is to bring the problem to light, and trace it back to its sources. But, in the nature of the case, it cannot solve the puzzle (there is no solution). With a purely philosophical puzzle, there is no relevant problem in our framework. Rather, a problem is introduced by philosophical reflection. That is, in reflecting on our framework, we misrepresent it in some way. Philosophical reflection makes a mistake, and this creates a problem for philosophical reflection. So now it has the task of sorting things out, of removing the problem which it has created for itself. Solving a philosophical puzzle, then, is exposing a philosophical mistake. Thus the only solvable philosophical puzzles are those which are purely philosophical. It is a family affair: we undo, by philosophizing, what we have done by philosophizing. The idea is not that purely philosophical puzzles are trivial or uninteresting. On the contrary, many of the really interesting and challenging philosophical puzzles-like the problem of induction,

202

Conclusion

the paradoxes of confirmation, Zeno's paradoxes about motion, the semantic paradoxes in logic (to mention, haphazardly, a few)-are (I believe) purely philosophical. They are interesting because the mistakes introduced by philosophical reflection reveal something about our framework. Not an incoherence or a fault, but an unclarity. Something is obscure to us; this invites misrepresentation. We fall for it, get ourselves into a mess, and thus incur the obligation of setting things straight. The process (the trip down into the hole and the attempt to clamber back out again) is a way of exploring our framework. Anyone who has tried his hand at this knows that it is not easy to carry through successfully. But for that very reason, anyone who has grappled with philosophical puzzles will be suspicious of a division according to which some puzzles, the ones we are calling 'extra-philosophical', that is, the ones which we are saying have a basis outside philosophy (in our framework), are unsolvable. The danger is not that the division gives us an excuse for not trying to solve these puzzles (nothing could excuse us from trying; nor, in discussing the puzzle of experience, have we excused ourselves), but that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot be sure that, ultimately, it is not we who are at fault-we, in our philosophical reflections, and not our framework. And if we are at fault, there is a solution. Even if we are able to give a plausible-seeming explanation of how the puzzle arises, and why we cannot escape it, we cannot be entirely sure but that the trouble may, after all, lie not in our framework but in our reflections on our framework. Perhaps the 'explanation' we have given is a rationalization for our inability to solve the puzzle. Of course there is no way of being entirely sure, of excluding once and for all the possibility of a mistake. But there is something else to take account of here. If a problem exists in our framework, how could this be totally lost on us? Extra-philosophical puzzles have, I think, ways of manifesting themselves outside philosophy. One (but not the only) way is in a thought to the effect that something we regard as a fact is 'impossible' or 'incomprehensible' or 'does not make sense'. The thought simply comes over us, without any preliminary argument or analysis. That is, none of the familiar but hard-to-define methods of reflection that we associate with philosophy is required. But behind the thought, if we trace things back,

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

203

we shall find at work the elements of a philosophical puzzle. The thought, we might say, is a symptom of the puzzle trying to work its way into everyday consciousness. To repeat, we get such symptoms only in the case of extraphilosophical puzzles; not in the case of purely philosophical puzzles. Consider Zeno's arrow paradox. This seeks to demonstrate that nothing moves. I do not believe that in the course of everyday life anyone is ever puzzled by motion as such. There is never the spontaneous thought, 'How can it be?' If we have such a thought, it will occur only after we have worked through something like Zeno's argument (only after some philosophical preparation). In contrast, the fact that 'I shall die', that there will be NOTHING, can strike us in precisely this way, as uncanny, or incomprehensible. That is, it can strike us this way without any prior reflection. There is something here that we do not comprehend. If we follow things back, if we properly analyse our own lack of comprehension, we will, I think, come upon a philosophical puzzle about the self. A philosophical puzzle, that is, which has a reality outside philosophy. Whereas Zeno's paradox is purely philosophical, the puzzle about the self is extra-philosophical. It has no solution. We need philosophy to formulate the puzzle, and thus we may go through life without ever formulating it. None the less, the puzzle has a way of making itself known outside philosophy, in everyday consciousness. This is not the case with Zeno's puzzle about motion. Of course I do not expect the reader to accept these statements in the absence of a detailed consideration of the relevant puzzles. Still less do I expect him to accept, just like that, the idea of a general division of philosophical puzzles into those which have and those which do not have an extra-philosophical reality and manifestation. Let us stick to one puzzle. We have considered in detail the puzzle of experience. We have stated the puzzle, and have tried and failed to solve it. We have also given an explanation of how and why the puzzle arises; that is, of how and why it arises in philosophical reflection. In the remainder of the book, we shall try to describe the manifestation of the puzzle outside philosophy, in everyday consciousness, and to make clear how the problem for everyday consciousness relates back to the underlying philosophical puzzle.

204

Conclusion

9.4. How does the puzzle of experience show itself outside philosophy, that is, in everyday consciousness? It shows itself in our reaction to the causal picture of experience. The causal picture is not the product of philosophical reflection; it is part of our picture of the world. Philosophy comes in when we reflect on a possibility implicit in the picture (the potential irrelevance of the external object). Let us distance ourselves from such reflections and attempt to regain our philosophically innocent attitude towards the causal picture of experience. Let us, in other words, contemplate the picture in a way that restricts itself to the facts which comprise the picture and ignores the possibility implicit in the facts. Surely we sometimes have such an attitude. Surely we sometimes consider the causal picture of experience without considering the possibility implicit in the picture. Sometimes all we consider, all that interests us, are the facts about the causal genesis of experience. Imagine that we are reviewing these facts: light is reflected by the external thing, it impinges on the eye, and so on. How, if we are being innocent, would we complete the story? How, in particular, would we conceive of the upshot of the causal process, the part that we vaguely refer to as 'experience'? You may recall our asking this question once before, back in Chapter 1 (sect. 1.6). We said then that by 'experience', or 'my experience', we mean a subject-matter about which we can ask how things are 'within it'. Thus we said that what we ought to say is not that the activity in my brain causes 'my experience', but that it causes 'things to be as they are in my experience'. However, as we observed, this is still vague. In saying that the activity in my brain causes 'things to be as they are in my experience', do we mean that the activity in my brain causes the presence of an object in my experience? Now at that point (in sect. 1.6) we had to be cagey, since with a view to developing the problematic reasoning we had already drawn attention to the potential irrelevance of the external thing. In other words, at that point our attitude towards the causal picture of experience was clearly not innocent. Thus we could not allow ourselves to describe the activity in my brain as causing 'the presence of an object', since, in the light of the potential irrelevance of the external thing, this would have led us rather directly to the conclusion that the object of experience must be internal. We

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

205

decided to leave our description of the experiential upshot vague, and let the issue be resolved by the further course of the reasoning. But now that we have adopted (or pretended to adopt) an innocent attitude, our interest in the causal picture is confined entirely to the picture itself, the facts. The possibility implicit in the facts will not occur to us. From the standpoint of such innocence, and in contrast to our earlier position, it would seem that we now have no reason not to describe the experiential upshot of the causal process, the upshot of the activity in my brain, as 'the presence of an object'. What sort of object? Not an internal object. Our reason for introducing internal objects was not the causal picture of experience itself. It was an argument, an argument based on a possibility implicit in the picture-the possibility that we have now excluded from consideration. Given our present (innocent) attitude, apart from special cases (after-images, hallucinations, etc.), the idea of internal objects will just not come up; it will never so much as cross our minds. We will simply take it without question that the objects present in experience are everyday external things, like the book in front of me on the desk. Notice, the attitude of philosophical innocence must not be confused with that of being open to our experience. The latter, as we explained it (see sect. 2.3), presupposes that we have already been impressed by a piece of philosophical reasoning (such as the problematic reasoning) whose conclusion is that the world is not present to us: we can be open to our experience only in the face of such reasoning (in the same way that we can be open to ourselves, self-honest, only in the face of a motive for hiding the truth from ourselves). Being open to our experience, then, is precisely not being philosophically innocent; it is a peculiarly philosophical way of being. In any case, it should be clear that the philosophically innocent completion of the causal picture of experience will refer to the presence of an everyday external object. Let me innocently consider my own case. The book reflects light which strikes my eyes which causes ... the activity in the visual cortex of my brain. What does that cause? What is the experiential upshot? The presence of this object. What is this object? A book. The activity in my brain causes the presence ofthe book.

206

Conclusion

9.5. Now I hope you will agree that, although we have injected some philosophical jargon into our representation of the innocent standpoint, this way of completing the causal picture is not contrived or artificial. Imagine we are telling a child about these things, about how light is reflected from objects, how it strikes the eye, and so on. We use the book as our example. How would we complete the story? First this happens, and then that ... and then what? We see the book. The activity in our brains causes us (we say) to 'see the book'. This is, I think, how we would naturally describe to a child the culmination of the causal process. Nor would our choice of description be just for the child's sake. It represents how we would (innocently) describe things to ourselves. What does the activity in our brains cause? It causes us to 'see the book'. And by 'see the book' we would mean, I think, nothing more nor less than that the book is (visually) present to us, present in our experience. One thing happens, and then another, and then, as the result of all this ... the world is there, present within the experiential horizon. Is that not how (when we are innocent) we think of it? Thus it would not innocently occur to us to characterize the outcome of the brain's activity in terms of a fact of appearance or a novel grammatical form. The introduction of such ideas into the causal picture of experience presupposes that our reflections have already taken a philosophical turn. But, in that case, we may as well go all the way-all the way to internal objects. For (if the arguments in Chapter 4 were correct) we cannot stop with facts of appearance or hyphenated predicates; these are, rather, stop-gap measures which in the end give way to facts of presence. And, in the context of philosophical reflection (that is, of considering the possibility implicit in the causal picture of experience), facts of presence require internal objects. Note also that we do not innocently view the experiential upshot of the activity in the brain (our 'seeing the book') as a further bit of activity occurring in us, a further process or phenomenon of some sort. (So we do not view it as an 'immaterial' process or phenomenon; this too betrays the influence of philosophy.) The book is simply there, available for us to fix on. Is this a process or activity on our part? It is just a fact, a fact of presence. There is no relevant activity or phenomenon here; no activity, that is, in addition to the

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

207

activity in the brain. To make an innocent inventory: there is the activity in the brain, the book, and the fact of the book's presence within the experiential horizon. And that is all (compare sect. 6.12). The book figures in the causal process which brings about the activity in the brain, and the activity in the brain causes the book to be present within experience. It causes it to be the case that we 'see the book'. But now we must observe that, although (or perhaps because) it originates in innocence, there is something perplexing about this view of the matter. And I think we sometimes actually feel perplexed or puzzled. The perplexity (puzzlement) is quite different from that which we have been discussing up to now. It does not take the form of a conflict, based partly on an argument, with respect to the object of experience. In the present as opposed to the philosophical case, there is no argument. Nor is there a conflict. That is, we do not oscillate between conceiving of the object as internal and external. Our conception of the object is perfectly stable: the object is unwaveringly part of the world, external. Our puzzlement in this case takes the form of a sheer lack of comprehension. We take the experiential upshot of the causal process to be the presence of an external object. Things happen in the brain and then, as a result, the world is present. This is our innocent view of the matter, but there is something puzzling about it. Our own innocent conception of the experiential outcome of the causal process is incomprehensible to us. Think about what we might tell the child: 'and then what happens in our brains causes us to see the object'. Do we not feel a little fraudulent about this part of the story? The truth is, we do not understand it. We understand it no better than the child. We innocently take the activity in the brain to cause the presence of the world, and this baffles us. I think that if we look into this bafflement we shall find that it is intimately connected to the same factors which generate the puzzle of experience: our innocent bafflement is a displaced version of the puzzle. It is, you might say, the form the puzzle takes when we are unphilosophical about the causal picture of experience. A student of mine once said to me that the amazing thing about seeing is that it happens inside the head, and yet the object we see

208

Conclusion

is out there. How, one might ask, does seeing manage to jump out and take in something at a distance from where it (the seeing) happens, at a distance from the head or brain? Let us admit that we can relate to this. There is something 'amazing' about seeing. It may not be obvious straight away, but the amazement or puzzlement which my student expressed (and which I think we can all enter into) is at bottom the same as the puzzlement to which we have just alluded. It is everyday puzzlement about the experiential outcome of the causal process; it is puzzlement, that is, which belongs to the philosophically innocent view of the causal picture of experience. There are two questions we must try to answer. What is it exactly, when we are innocent, that puzzles us about the experiential outcome of the causal process? (What is the source of our everyday puzzlement in this regard?) And, assuming we can identify the relevant feature (the source), why does it puzzle us? 9.6. We may begin by remarking that, whatever it is that we do not understand, it is something we (innocently) accept or believe. Thus what puzzles us is not that the activity in the brain suffices all by itself for the presence of the object. For that is not something we believe-not even innocently. For example, I do not believe that the activity in my brain suffices all by itself for the presence of the book in front of me. That would be a totally wild belief, and the state of affairs which would make it true would be puzzling in a way that is very different from the way in which the actual state of affairs is puzzling. Let us pursue this briefly. It is a condition of the book's being present in my (visual) experience, that it should be sufficiently illuminated, that it should not be blocked from view or too far away. We might indicate such conditions by saying that the book must be 'experientially accessible'.2 Another, more fundamental, condition is that the book must exist. To put it naIvely: unless something exists, it cannot be present in experience. Where the object of experience is internal, these conditions (existence and experiential accessibility) create no problem for the thought that what is happening in my brain is by itself causally sufficient for the presence of the object. The reason is obvious. In this case, the activity in my brain is by itself sufficient for the

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

209

existence of the object, and the existence of the object just is its presence. Thus there is no room for the possibility of the object's being situated in such a way that it is not experientially accessible, or, more generally, of its existing without being present in experience. But in our innocence we are taking it for granted that the object is external. Hence we cannot suppose the satisfaction of the aforementioned conditions is guaranteed by the activity of the brain. The book might be hidden, or destroyed. Could it be brought back into existence by inducing such-and-such activity in my brain? Could you in this way make the book come closer or spring into view? When I (innocently) ask, 'How could what is happening inside my head cause the book to be present in my experience?', I do not express puzzlement at the 'fact' that the activity of the brain is sufficient for the existence and accessibility of the book. The satisfaction of these conditions is presupposed. It is not part of what puzzles me but sets the stage for my puzzlement. I am puzzled, not at the causing of the book's existence or accessibility, but, given its existence and accessibility, at the causing of its presence. However, we have not put our finger yet on what it is, exactly, that is puzzling here. 9.7. Let us go back to the way my student expressed it. 'Seeing happens inside the head, yet the object is out there.' In this spirit one might ask, 'How does seeing manage to jump out and take in things at a distance?'3 But the question betrays a confusion. My 'seeing the book' , for instance, is not inside my head. My 'seeing the book' is a fact of presence, the book's presence within my experience. Nor (a related confusion) is my experience, the horizon within which the book is present, inside my head (see sect. 6.9). The book is outside my head, the activity in my brain is inside my head. The book, which is at a distance from my head (brain), is present in my experience. Where is my experience, the horizon within which the book is present? Is it outside or inside my head? Neither. It is not anywhere. Thus I do not believe it would be correct to represent our puzzlement as that of not understanding how experience, which occurs in the head, is able to include things at a distance from the head, things at a distance from where it occurs. If this were what puzzled us, our puzzlement would involve our accepting a kind of

Conclusion nonsense, namely, that it is by somehow traversing space that the experiential horizon includes what it includes. Objects present within my experience (the horizon), objects other than my body, are at a distance from my body (my head, my brain). It is, of course, true that these objects would not be, as they are, present in my experience were it not that light reflected by them traverses the space between the objects and my head. This is the only 'jumping', or traversing of space, that is involved here. My experience, that within which the objects are present, does not do any 'jumping'. It is a gross confusion to suppose otherwise, and I do not think our puzzlement about the causation of presence depends on such a confusion. Here is another hypothesis about the source of the puzzlement. I look at the book and have the thought that it, this object, is present in my experience because of what is happening right now in my brain. But then I am puzzled. How could that be? How could what is happening in my brain suffice causally for the book's presence in my experience? My brain is inside my head, the book is out there. How could something happening inside my head make it the case that something out there is present in my experience? This a step in the right direction, but it is still misleading. For it still sounds as if the puzzlement has essentially to do with distance, or spatial position. What, in this regard, is the point of characterizing the book as 'out there'? Is it that the book is distant from here, from the vicinity of where I am (where my body is)? More specifically, that the book is distant from where my brain is? But it seems clear that my puzzlement would be exactly the same in the case where the book is (as it is) very close to me. It would be the same were the object of experience in my hand. It would be the same if we take my hand, or some other part of my body, to be the object of experience. It does not seem to matter, so far as the puzzlement goes, what the distance of the object is from my body, or from my brain. In fact, the puzzlement would be the same even if we suppose that the object present in my experience is my brain. Yet in expressing the puzzlement it is somehow not irrelevant to characterize the object as 'out there'. The reason is this. What puzzles us about the causation of presence is not that the object in the world, the external object, which is present in my experience is

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

211

located at a distance from me, or from my brain-the brain whose activity causes the object to be present-but, I think, simply the fact that the object thus caused to be present is external, part of the world. Thus, if we turn our attention from the case where the brain causes the presence of an external object to that of its causing the presence of an internal object, like an after-image, there is no longer the same sense of puzzlement. What is puzzling is not the causing by the brain of presence as such, but the causing of the presence of something whose existence is not exhausted by its presence: the causing of the presence of something, an object, whose presence cannot be caused just by causing it (the object) to exist. Now, any object that is literally at a distance from me (from my body, my brain) must be such an object, an external thing: only another body, hence an external object, can be literally at a distance from my body. This is why it is relevant, in expressing the puzzlement, to describe the object of experience as 'out there'. Although, of itself, distance is not essential to the puzzlement, describing the object as 'out there' highlights what is essential, namely, that the object whose presence is caused by the activity in my brain is part of the world, an external thing. 9.8. At one point in reflecting on these matters I thought the puzzlement had to do with the fact that, viewed in an innocent way, the causal picture of experience forces us to regard the external object as having two radically different roles. We have to think of the object as figuring in the causal chain and as being present in experience, as being: this object. (There is a jump in roles, so to speak, rather than in space.) The way these roles differ can be brought out by observing that, in so far as the object figures in the causal chain, it figures on the way to bringing about the activity in my brain; 'on the way', then, to bringing it about that things are as they are in my experience. And, in so far as the object figures 'on the way' to bringing it about that things are as they are in my experience, it does not yet figure in my experience, as present to me, since its presence in my experience is part of what is brought about by the last stage of the causal chain, the activity in my brain. The thought we might have here is: how does the object 'jump' from its position in the causal chain that brings it about that things are as they are in my experience to being present in my experience? How

212

Conclusion

does it 'jump' from figuring on the way to bringing it about that things are as they are in my experience to figuring in my experience? But, if you think about it carefully, the puzzlement that concerns us remains even if we prescind away from the object's role in the causal chain-the chain which results in the object's presence. It seems to be located entirely in what happens after the object makes its contribution to this chain, namely, in the simple fact (fact?) that the presence of the object is caused by what is happening in my brain. Or rather, this is what is puzzling if the object we are talking about is part of the world. Once again, so far as our puzzlement goes, the essential thing is the externality of the object caused to be present. That the object figures in the causal chain, and thus as an instrument of its own presence, has the same sort of relevance to our puzzlement as the fact of the object's being at a distance from my body. Only an external object could figure in this way. The role of the object in the causal chain (like the fact that it is at a distance from my body) highlights the object's externality. It highlights this in that, since the object makes it contribution to the chain prior to the events which cause its (the object's) presence, it (the object) must exist independently of being present; which is to say, it must be an external object. Notice, although the puzzlement concerns the part of the causal chain after the object makes it contribution, we are not to suppose that the earlier part of the chain, the part where the object makes its contribution, is incidental-as if, for example, the activity in my brain might cause the book to be present even were the book not reflecting light which strikes my eyes. We may take the satisfaction of such prior causal conditions as given, in the same way that we are taking the existence and accessibility of the object as given (see sect. 9.6). All right; given all the conditions, the activity in my brain causes an external object to be present. This is the bit that is puzzling. How (given all the conditions) could what is happening in my brain cause the world to be present? You could put it like this. Viewed innocently, the causal picture of experience involves two 'causal directions'. On the one hand, causation runs from the external object to the brain. But then it seems to reverse and go back out in the direction of the external object: what happens in the brain causes the object to be present.

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

213

There is nothing puzzling about causation in the first direction. It is only after turning the corner, when we are moving back to the object, that the causal process becomes puzzling. Why? This was the second of the two questions raised at the end of sect. 9.5. Assuming we have correctly identified what it is in the causal picture of experience that we find puzzling when we are philosophically innocent-assuming, that is, that what we find puzzling is the 'fact' that causal process has as its upshot the presence of external things, the world-why is this puzzling? 9.9. The initial inclination, I think, is to say that there is no way that what happens in the brain could cause an external thing to be present. But it is stronger than that: there is no way there could be a way. There is, as we say, no 'conceivable' way. We hear a story about someone bending a fork at a distance. We refuse to believe it on the grounds that (trickery aside) there is no way a person could bend a fork at a distance. However, there could be a way-for example, if the person's brain emitted waves with such-and-such properties. When, in this case, we say 'there is no way', we express our conviction that, although there could be a way (although ways are 'conceivable'), in fact none exists. But, with respect to my brain causing a thing to be present, it seems there could be no way this could happen; there is no 'conceivable' way. Thus we would (most likely) agree that my brain is not acting on, or influencing, the external things present to me, for instance, the book. It is the other way around: the book is (via my eyes and nervous system) acting on my brain. So, if we are trying to describe the way in which my brain causes the presence of the book, we would not say that it is by somehow acting on the book. We would not say that because we do not, in the first place, believe that my brain is acting on the book. But this does not yet reach the heart of the matter. Even were we to alter our view and come to believe that my brain is acting on the book, that would still not give us a way in which my brain could be thought of as causing the book to be present. No matter how my brain might act on a thing, it could not be in that way, by acting on it, that my brain causes the thing to be present. And now, perhaps, the nature of our puzzlement will start to become clear. For, if it is not

214

Conclusion

by acting on it that my brain might cause a thing to be present, then how? In what way? It seems there is no way, no 'conceivable' way. Of itself there is nothing puzzling about the idea that the activity in my brain should act on (affect) an external object. We already know that what happens in my brain affects other parts of my body. It is just an extension of this idea to suppose that my brain might indirectly act on objects outside my body. (This is where people talk about 'brainwaves'.) But such a possibility does not help us understand what we would like to understand: how the activity in my brain might cause an object to be present in my experience. My brain might (indirectly, via 'brainwaves') bring about a change in an object. But an object's becoming present is clearly not a change in the object. It is a change within my experience, which is brought about by a change in my brain. This is worth spelling out carefully. How could my brain cause an external object to be present? The only way (at least, the only straightforward way; see sect. 9.10) is by acting on the object. If my brain were to act on the book in front of me, this would cause-or, at any rate, tend to cause-a change in the book. (Thus, if the action of my brain on the book did not cause a change in the book, we would say that the book had 'resisted' change, that it remained unchanged 'despite' the action of my brain, etc.) But this is the wrong kind of change. The kind of change which is the becoming present of an external object, the change from the object's not being present in experience to its being present, has nothing to do with a change in the object. The book is present in my experience. I close my eyes. The book is no longer present. I open my eyes and the book is once more present. Does this change, from the book being present to it not being present, or from it not being present to it being present, entail a change in the book? Or a tendency to such a change? (Do the molecules in the book tend to get moved around, say?) If the book being present were the result of my brain acting on it, on the book, there would be such an entailment. It would follow that the book, in becoming present, becomes (or has a tendency to become) in some way internally different. But clearly there is no such entailment. So it cannot be by acting on the book that my brain causes the book to be present. Yet, if it is not by in some way acting on it that my brain causes the book to be present, then how? We have no answer to this

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

215

question. There is no answer to it. There is no way, no 'conceivable' way, that the activity of the brain would cause an external object to be present in experience. 9.10. Our everyday puzzlement, let me stress, is not at the fact that external things are present in experience. This is where we begin, with the world present to us. Puzzlement arises only when we combine the fact of the world's presence with the causal picture of experience; when, that is, we attempt to view the fact of presence as caused by what is happening in the brain. We are puzzled because, in our innocence, we take the fact of presence to be the presence of an external thing, and we cannot understand how the brain could cause such a fact. A qualification is needed. It is not quite true that we cannot in any way give sense to the idea of 'causing the presence' of an external thing. If the room is dark and I turn on the light, this might be described as 'causing the book to become present'. Imagine that my brain had the power of illuminating objects around me. Imagine, further, that this power is activitated by certain emanations from a nearby object. The room is dark. Emanations from the book cause my brain to light up the book. This case, which is formally analogous to the previous case, might be described as a case in which my brain 'causes the presence' of an external thing. Causally speaking, it is a wild case, a case that will never happen. Yet it is comprehensible in a way in which the causing of presence in the typical everyday case, the sort of case which (as we innocently suppose) happens all the timethat which is happening right now, for example, as I look at the book-may strike us as incomprehensible. What we are imagining, really, is my brain's causing the book to become experientially accessible. It is correct to describe this as a case of 'causing the presence' of the book only in so far as we are (innocently) taking it for granted that, once the book is accessible, the activity in my brain causes the book to be present; in other words, only in so far as we are taking for granted the very thing that may puzzle us. The point will be obvious as soon as we reflect that the activity in my brain might illuminate the book, and in this way cause the book to be accessible, without the book's thereby becoming present in my experience. In the imagined case, the activity in

216

Conclusion

my brain does double duty: it causes the book to be accessible and to be present. The first is wild, but we understand it; the second is (for the innocent mind) commonplace but incomprehensible. 9.11. Perhaps we can now see the relationship between the puzzle of experience, the philosophical puzzle, and our everyday puzzlement. The philosophical puzzle takes the form of a conflict between the conclusion we reach when, on the basis of the causal picture of experience, we reason about our experience, and what we find when we put aside the reasoning and simply open up to our experience. The reasoning tells us that the object of experience, what is present in experience, is never part of the world but always an internal object; yet, when we open up to our experience, all we find is the world. This is the philosophical puzzle. The everyday puzzlement takes the form of a lack of comprehension when we innocently contemplate the causal picture of experience; that is, when we contemplate the causal picture without reflecting on the possibility implicit in the picture. For, when we innocently contemplate the picture, we take the experiential outcome of the causal process to be the presence of the world, and we do not understand how this could be. We do not understand how the activity of the brain might cause an external thing to be present in experience. The link between the everyday puzzlement and the philosophical puzzle emerges when we note that the problem faced by everyday consciousness, the problem of making sense of the experiential outcome of the causal process, does not arise for unblinkered philosophical reflection. It does not arise because, when we reflect philosophically on the causal picture of experience, we reach (or ought to reach) the conclusion that the object of experience is internal. Thus, philosophically, we may take the experiential outcome of the causal process (more specifically, the experiential outcome of what happens in the brain) to be the presence in experience of an internal object, an object whose existence consists in its presence, and, as we have already observed, there is no problem understanding how the presence of such an object should be caused by what happens in the brain. Viewed philosophically, the causal picture of experience makes sense. So there is a kind of trade-off here-which brings out the

The Puzzle and Everyday Puzzlement

217

connection. In everyday consciousness, because we omit to reflect in a certain way, the puzzle of experience remains hidden. We are not called upon to reject what, given that we have a picture of the world, we cannot reject: the presence of the world. Thus we are not aware of any conflict. The price we pay is that part of our picture of the world, the causal picture of experience, is ultimately incomprehensible to us. Philosophy 'saves' us from this particular puzzlement, but also at a price. It reveals the underlying conflict (which is there in any case). Philosophy allows us to make sense of the causal picture of experience by requiring us to reject the presence of the world. It allows us to make sense of the causal picture of experience by requiring us to reject what we cannot reject. We are puzzled in one way, you could say, precisely because we are not puzzled in the other. We have the everyday puzzlement because we fail to see the philosophical puzzle. This is what lay behind our earlier remark (sect. 9.S) that the everyday puzzlement is a displaced version of the philosophical puzzle. Our situation in this respect might be compared to a machine with an internal kink. If the machine case is removed, the kink pops up. If the case is left on, the kink stays out of sight; but the machine does not work quite properly. It is one or the other. And so with us, in our relation to the world and the causal picture of experience. As long as we do not philosophize about the causal picture, the kink in our lives remains hidden. At the surface, however, something is amiss. Given the world's presence in experience, which we find it absurd to deny, the causal picture of experience is mystifying. And, if we do philosophize about the causal picture? Now the picture makes sense-but the kink emerges. We are forced to deny what we find it absurd to deny: the presence of the world in experi~nce.

NOTES

1. The same applies, I think, to William James's 'Radical Empiricism'. For, after claiming to replace the external-internal contrast by 'pure

218

Conclusion

experience', James proceeds to show us how, in terms of 'pure experience', we can make sense of the contrast. See his Essays in Radical Empiricism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), especially the first two essays. 2. See P. F. Strawson, 'Causation in Perception', in Freedom and Resentment (London: Methuen, 1974). 3. Consider C. D. Broad's remark that, 'In its purely phenomenological aspect seeing is ostensibly saltatory. It seems to leap the spatial gap between the percipient's body and a remote region of space.' 'Some Elementary Reflexions on Sense-Perception', repr. in R. J. Swartz (ed.), Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1965), 32.

Bibliography of Works Cited ANSCOMBE, G. E. M., 'The Intentionality of Sensation', ed. R. J. Butler, Analytical Philosophy, 2nd ser. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965). AUSTIN, J. L., Sense and Sensibilia (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). AYER, A. J" 'Phenomenalism', in Philosophical Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1963). BARNES, W. H. F., 'The Myth of Sense-Data', Proceedings 0/ the Aristotelian Society, 45 (1944-5). BOUWSMA, O. K., 'Moore's Theory of Sense-Data', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy o/G. E. Moore (New York: Tudor, 1952). BROAD, C. D., Scientific Thought (Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, & Co., 1959). - - 'Some Elementary Reflexions on Sense-Perception', in R. I. Swartz (ed.), Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1965). BURGE, T., 'Individualism and the Mental', in P. French, T. Vehling, and H. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, iv (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979). - - 'Other Bodies', in A. Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). - - 'Cartesian Error and the Objectivity of Perception', in P. Pettit and I. McDowell (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). CARNAP, R., 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology', in Meaning and Necessity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). CHISOLM, R., 'The Problem of the Speckled Hen', Mind, 51 (1942). - - 'The Theory of Appearing', in M. Black (ed.), Philosophical Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, NI: Prentice Hall, 1963).

220

Bibliography

CHISOLM, R., Theory of Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966). CLARKE, T., 'Seeing Surfaces and Physical Objects', in M. Black (ed.) Philosophy in America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965). DAVIDSON, D., 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). DUCASSE, C. J., 'Moore's "The Refutation of Idealism"', in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy ofG. E. Moore (New York: Tudor, 1952). EVANS, G., The Varieties of Reference (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). FREGE, G., 'The Thought', in P. F. Strawson (ed.), Philosophical Logic (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). GRICE, H. P., 'Some Remarks about the Senses', in R. J. Butler (ed.), Analytical Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962). - - 'The Causal Theory of Perception', in G. J. Warnock (ed.), The Philosophy of Perception (London: Oxford University Press, 1967). GUNDERSON, K., 'Asymmetries and Mind-Body Perplexities', in D. M. Rosenthal (ed.), Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971). HEGEL, G. W. F., The Phenomenology of Mind, tr. J. B. Baillie (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). HEIDEGGER, M., What is called Thinking?, tr. J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968). - - Identity and Difference, tr. J. Stambaugh (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1974). HINTON, J. M., Experiences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). HIRST, R. J., The Problems of Perception (New York: George AlIen & Unwin, 1959). HUME, D., Treatise of Human Nature ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960). HussERL, E., Logical Investigations, tr. J. N. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970). JAMES, W., Essays in Radical Empiricism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976).

Bibliography

221

KANT, 1., Critique of Pure Reason, tr. N. Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1961). KRIPKE, S., Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (Oxford: Blackwell,1982). LEWIS, C. 1., An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1946). MACKIE, J. L., 'What's Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?', Proceedings of the British Academy, 55 (1969). McDoWELL, J., 'Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge', Proceedings of the British Academy, 68 (1982). - - 'Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space', in J. McDowell and P. Pettit (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). MOORE, G. E., 'The Nature and Reality of Objects of Perception', 'The Status of Sense-Data', 'Some Judgements of Perception', and 'The Refutation of Idealism', Philosophical Studies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948). - - Some Main Problems of Philosophy (New York: Collier, 1962). - - 'A Defense of Common Sense', Philosophical Papers (New York: Collier, 1962). NAGEL, T., The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). PAUL, G. A., 'Is there a Problem about Sense-Data?', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 15 (1936). PEACOCKE, C., Sense and Content (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). PETTIT, P., and McDoWELL, J. (eds.), Subject, Thought, and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). PRICE, H. H., Perception (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1932). PUTNAM, H., 'The Meaning of Meaning', in Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). QUINE, W. V., 'The Nature of Natural Knowledge', in S. Guttenplan (ed.), Mind and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). RUSSELL, B., 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism', and 'On the Nature of Acquaintance', in R. C. Marsh (ed.), Logic and Knowledge (London: George Alien & Unwin, 1956). - - The Problems of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959). - - 'The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics', 'Knowledge by

222

Bibliography

Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description', and 'The Ultimate Constituents of Matter', in Mysticism and Logic, (London: George AlIen and Unwin, 1963). SARTRE, J.-P., Being and Nothingness, tr. H. Barnes (London: Methuen, 1969). SCHOPENHAUER, A., The World as Will and Representation, tr. E. F. J. Payne (New York: Dover, 1958). SEARLE, J., Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). SNOWDON, P., 'Perception, Vision and Causation', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 81 (1980/1). STRAWSON, P. F., 'Causation in Perception', in Freedom and Resentment (London: Methuen, 1974). - - 'Perception and its Objects', in G. F. Macdonald (ed.), Perception and Identity (London: Macmillan, 1981). - - Skeplicism and Naturalism (London: Methuen, 1987). STROUD, B., The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). VALBERG, J. J., 'Improper Singular Terms', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1971-2). WITTGENSTEIN, L., Philosophical Investigations, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillian, 1958). - - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961). - - Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964). - - On Certainty, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969). - - Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge 1932-1935, ed. A. Ambrose (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979).

Index absurdity: of accepting the conclusion of the problematic reasoning 28-9, 62-3 versus incredulity 63 acquaintance 4-5,64 n. 3 Anscombe, G. E. M. 90-3, 102 n. 12 Anselm, St 195 n. 15 antinomy 21, 50 the argument from acquisition 49-51, 55, 186 and the explanation of the puzzle 50-1; see also metaphysical grammar; specific content; and the inevitability of accepting (W) 61-3,186-7,197 Austin, J. L. 104 Ayer, A. J. 166-7 n. 2 bad faith (self-deception) 27-9, 165 see also self-honesty Barnes, W. H. F. 39 n. 2 belief 171, 174 versus facts of appearance 77 parallel with action 175-6 philosophical 'tautology' about 174 Berkeley, G. 9 Bouwsma, O. K. 38 n. 1 Broad, C. D. 100 n. 3, 218 n. 3 Burge, T. 152 n. 11 Carnap, R. 193-4 n. 13 the causal picture of experience 10, 36, 42 and the Kantian solution 159-60 and Phenomenalism 161-3, 166-7 n. 2 the philosophically innocent attitude toward 204-9 and puzzlement 207 the causal theory of perception 10 causation 35, 37 and experience 35-8,146-7,204-5

of presence 207, 213 -16 Chisolm, R. 39 n. 2, 101 n. 9 Clarke, T. 20 n. 4 conflict 173-4, 177 see also antinomy continuity: and the activity of the brain 111-12 in experience 105-7 over external and internal objects 107-8, 113, 118 the ground of phenomenal 108-10 phenomenal versus objective 107-10, 113-16,118-19 Davidson, D. 193 n. 12 death 86, 123, 203 Descartes, R. 8 direct (immediate, demonstrative) availability 5 the disjunctive view of appearances 98-100 n. 2 double-mindedness 192-3 n. 12 Ducasse, C. J. 10 1 n. 8 emphatic demonstrative 8-9 Evans, G. 80-1, 100-1 nn. 4, 5, and 6 experience (my) 12-13, 120-4 and the activity of the brain 12, 126, 204-5 being open to 21,24-9,30,33, 50, 71 ; see also self-honesty and demonstrative availability 120-1 and facts of presence (versus existence) 122-4 gulf between the horizonal and phenomenal conceptions of 139-40 as having no character of its own 124 the horizonal conception of 124-6; bearing on the appearance solution 126-7; as an illusion 126-7; and the Tractatus 124-5 how things are within (in) 12-14, 15, 37, 146

224

Index

experience (my) (cont.): internal description of 13; adverbial interpretation 88; complex predicate interpretation 87-90; objectual interpretation 87 lacking an object 73, 81, 85, 86, 89-90,92 'little' versus 'big' 142 meaning (intention), contrast with 89,90 'mine' versus 'yours' 122 Negativist view of (Negativism) 121-2, 127-8, 147 n. I as not part of the world 123-4 as nothing in itself 123-4, 148 n. 3 object of 4-7 phenomenal conception of 128-9; as a hybrid conception 140-1; purified 141; redescribed 138-41; and a solution to the puzzle 130, 133-7 potential irrelevance to ll, 159-60 presence in 4-7 purely generic 93-5,97-8 sentence, compared to a 92-3 and will (intention) 96 experiential facts (facts of experience) 77-8,85 see also facts of presence, appearance, manifestation experiential phenomena 145-7 versus experiential facts 146 externality 153-6 and causal powers 158 empirical versus transcendental conceptions of 154-60, 165-6 n. 1 and metaphysical grammar 52,57, 192 n. II and Phenomenalism 154, 160-5 and space 158 facts of appearance 74,77-8 grounded on facts of presence 77-8, 98-100 n. 2, 100-1 n. 5 grounded on sensory content 133-7 grounding (the need for a ground) 74-7 facts of life 184-6 facts of manifestation 78-9, 100 n. 3 facts of nature 170 appealed to as a reason 170 facts of presence 74, 77-8 analysis in terms of facts of appearance 137-8

cannot be equated with facts of representation 131-3 the contrast with facts of existence 122-3 facts of representation 131-2, 141 facts of symbolic significance 122-3 focusing on (fixing on, picking out) 6, 79-85 illusion of 80-2, 84 versus intellectual intuition 83 and intentionality 83 and phenomenological necessity 84-5 remaining focused on 15-16, 105-7; see also continuity versus touching 4 trying and failing 81-2,84 Frege, G. 149-50 n. 7 (G), (G*) 12-13 Grice, H. P. 98 n. I, 149 n. 7 Gunderson, K. 148 n.4

Hegel, G. W. F. 199 Heidegger, M. 31-6 the leap 32-3 science (scientific philosophy) 33-6, 39n.8 solution of the puzzle 36-8, 145, 148 n. 3 Hinton,]. M. 99 n. 2 Hirst, R. ]. 39 n. 2 Hume, D. 29-30,169-71,173-4, 177-9 and conflict 170, 184, 193 n. 12 Hussed, E. 19 n. 2, 101 n. 8 identity: before-after 103-7 thought 105-6 Indirect Realism 31 indistinguishability 104-5 intentional object: connection with action and will 95-6 in mind and language 93-5; see also wanting see also solutions to the puzzle (grammatical) intentionality 141-2,151 n. 9 and the horizonal conception of experience 151 n. 10 lames, W. 217-18 n. I

Index Kant, I. 65-6 n. 7,83, 154-60, 165-6 n.l the two-domain interpretation of 165-6 n. I Kripke, S. 63 n. 2,65 n. 1,147 n. 1 Lewis, C. I. 167 n. 3 looking like F (an F) 59-60, 65 n. 6, 186-7 McDoweU, J. 80,98-9 n. 2, 100 n. 4 Mackie, J. L. 94-5 the Man in the Street 30-1 meaning (intention) 89 free to limit itself 89 meaning (sense) 90 mental content 151-2 n. 11 metaphysical granunar 52-3, 116-18, 192 n. 11 see also specific content mind-body problem 151 n. 11 Moore, G. E. 19-20 n. 3,38 n. 1, 39-40 n. 9,150-1 n. 8, 173 Nagel, T. 193 n. 12 Naive Realism 30-1 nature (natural necessity) 169 and belief 171,174,176 and belief in the existence of body 170,173 and ignoring the problematic reasoning 169-71 Negativism, see experience (Negativist view of) NOTHING 38,86,123-4,146,203 object of experience 4-7 see also experience (lacking an object); focusing on; solution to the puzzle (appearance, grammatical) object(s) 8 external 8; see also externality; presence (of the world) internal 8, 9, 18, 22-3; and the activity ofthe brain 110-12; see also sense-data material (physical) 8, 65 n. 7; see also physical objects objectual interpretation: of internal descriptions of experience 86-8 of quantification 101 n. 7 ontological argument 195 n. 15

225

(P) 180 paradigms (teaching versus true) 58-9, 61 Paul, G. A. 38 n. 2 Peacocke, C. 149 n. 7 Phenomenalism 154, 160-2, 166-7 n. 2 and causation 166-7 n. 2 and the conclusion of the problematic reasoning 164 and the internal-external contrast 163-4 and the Phenomenalist conditional 161-2 philosophical reflection (philosophy) 10-11,41,45,50,197-8,201-2, 204 and explaining the puzzle 41, 191 n 7, 197 and the extra-philosophical puzzle 216-17 see also experience (being open to); puzzles physical object(s): the concept of 179 the existence of 179-81; see also rules (P) picture of the world (world-picture) 52-4,46 acquisition of 47-9, 186; see also argument from acquisition and the causal picture of experience 42,45 and the contrast between phenomenal and objective continuity 118-19 the kinds which figure in 46, 47, 63-4 n. 2; see also metaphysical grammar; specific content and language 47,64-5 n. 4 revising 54-6; see also solidity as a scientific picture 43-4,45, 63 n. 1; and natural kinds 63-4 n. 2; and scientific kinds 66 n. 8 presence: in experience (experiential) 4-7 temporal 5, 19 n. 1 of whole versus part of object 20 n. 4 of the world 44-5 see also facts of presence Price, Ho H. 39 n. 2, 195 n. 15 the problematic reasoning 3,9-18, 112-13 and metaphysical versus epistemic possibility 104-5, 113-15 a mistake in 69,72

226

Index

the problematic reasoning (cont.): as a reductio 17-18 refuting 178-9; see also solutions to the puzzle reverse order 111-12, 135-6 stages of: first 11; second ll; third 14-18 Putnam, H. 63 n. 2, 65 n. 5, 151-2 n. 11 the puzzle of experience: as both philosophical and extraphilosophical 197-8: see also puzzles as an extra-philosophical puzzle 204-17; and the causation of presence 215-16; the connection with distance 207-8,209-10; the connection with externality 211-13; the connection with the philosophical puzzle 216-17; and the 'jump' in roles 211-12; the source of 213-14 as inescapable 197-200 and the 'logic' of our framework 198-200 and our world-picture 198-9 puzzles: extra-philosophical puzzles (puzzlement) and incomprehensible 'facts' 202-3, 207 philosophical versus extraphilosophical 198, 200-3 and philosophy 41,197-203,216-17 purely philosophical 201-2 Quine, W. V. 194 n. 14, 195-6 n. 15 reason 173 reasons: evaluative versus natural 173-8, 190-1 n. 5 for ignoring the problematic reasoning 170-5 practical 171 reference: demonstrative 6-7, 101 n. 6; over time 105-6 object of 19 n. 1 the Replacer 107, 113-14 Representationalism 31 the Representationalist view of experience 130-3, 141 rules (grammatical, logical propositions) 179-81

(P) as a rule 180-1, 183, 188-90 (W) as a rule 183, 188-90 Russell, B. 4, 19-20 n. 3, 64 n. 3, 149-50 n. 7, 195-6 n. 15 Sartre, J.-P. 148 n. 3 sceptical arguments 170-6 bad and good 171-2 scepticism (about the external world) 23, 169, 188-90 and reductio ad absurdum 195-6 n. 15 Schopenhauer, A. 140 Searle, J. 151 n. 9 self-honesty 27-9 sense-data 18, 19-20 n. 3, 149-50 n. 7 see also objects (internal) sensory content 129-30, 149-50 n. 7 see also experience (phenomenal conception of) sensory deprivation 85-6 Snowdon, P. 98-9 n. 2 solidity 55-6 solipsism 147 n. 1, 148 n.2 solutions to the puzzle 41,69,72,120, 168 the appearance solution 73-4,85-6, 98 n. 1,110,113; see also experience (the horizonal conception of) the continuity solution 108,110-13, ll5; and the basic puzzle 115-19; and the problematic reasoning 113 versus an explanation of the puzzle 41-2,45,50 grammatical solutions 86-98 Heidegger's solution 36-8, 145, 147 and ignoring the problematic reasoning 168-70,176-8 the Kantian solution 156-60 the paralogistic solution (the paralogism of experience) 142-7, 153 based on the phenomenal conception of experience 130-7 the Phenomenalist solution 156, 160-5 specific content 51-3,116-17 Strawson, P. F. 149 n. 5, 168-75, 176-9,183,189,191 n. 7, 217 n. 2 Stroud, B. 195 n. 15 subject (of experience) 148 n. 2 surprise 25-6 time-lag argument 19 n. 1 touching 84,89-90 see also focusing on

Index transparency of consciousness (experience) 150-1 n. 8 Valberg, E. 39 n. 4 Valberg, J. J. 102 n. 12

227

purely generic 94-6, 98 Wittgenstein, L. 124-5, 147-8 n. 2, 169,179-81,183-90,191 n. 9, 192 nn. 10 and 12, 194 nn. 13 and 15 and the explanation of the puzzle 187-8

(W) 42

wanting (desire) 94-6, 97-8 as having an intentional object 94-6

Zeno's arguments (paradox) 191 n. 7, 203