[lit-ideas] Re: "The Causal Theory of Perception"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:23:42 EDT
In a message dated 6/15/2009 6:03:37 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The causal theory of perception, what a crock: is seeing a seeming-lamp,
seeing a lamp? What is important isn't this conceptual stuff but
metaphysical realism or not: if we have adequate grounds for saying there is a
lamp,
it's not just seeming, it's a lamp.
WoW by Grice google books:
"Suppose that two people are considering the purchase of
a tie which both of them KNOW to be
medium-green.
They look at the tie in different _lights_, and one of them says,
'It is a _light-green_ now.'
The other comments,
'That may be, though it has a touch of blue
in it in _this_ light.'
---
"Strictly, it would be true to say,
'The tie _seems_ a light-green now'
and
'The tie _seems_ to have a touch of blue
in it under _this_ light, though'
---
But, Grice adds, "it would be otiose for A and B to put in
such qualificatory words since A and B know (and know that
the other knows) that there is no question of a _real_
change of colour".
-- uttered by Grice with R. Albritton as Chair,
Emerson Hall, Harvard -- Dept of Philosophy,
March 1967
-----
Grice keeps being a causalist. Consider Warnock in "On What Is Seen" and
Grice's example:
'Macbeth saw Banquo'.
"It would be otiose to deny that 'see' carries the entailment that what is
seen exists
by a loose talk like that."
"If we do know that Macbeth did hallucinate,
we can quite safely say (i) above
even though Banquo was not there to be
seen. And we should NOT conclude from
this loose talk that the entailment of
the existence of the visum is not
part of what is meant, or, less so, that
there are 'uses' of the word 'see'
which Lack this 'entailment'!"
-----
So
"A disimplicates that q, by uttering p", Grice defined, _not_ as a mere
denial of implicature, but as affirming 'negative' action:
"A denies what is _entailed_ by the dictum, i.e. means less than he says"
He thought disimplicatures were cowardly, irrational beasts to be avoided
like the plague. But was the way of witches: they may not exist, but they
do!
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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