[lit-ideas] Re: "The Causal Theory of Perception"
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:52:50 +0000 (GMT)
I've looked at this post (below) a few times and it is very learned, no doubt,
but really I am too simple-minded to be persuaded by what I don't clearly
understand.
Best,
Donal
--- On Tue, 16/6/09, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: "The Causal Theory of Perception"
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tuesday, 16 June, 2009, 11:09 AM
> In a message dated 6/16/2009 4:01:23
> A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
> writes:
> The "lamp" example is surely about physical objects.
>
>
> ----
>
> But does Grice use the example of the 'lamp'.
>
> Oddly, over the weekend I went to see "Easy Virtue", and at
> one point the
> American (Miss Biele, playing Larita) is witnessing a
> conversation between
> the very English Whittakers:
>
> VERONICA Whitaker: And then we have to think of
> the
>
>
> arrangments for the Japanese lamp night
> LARITA:
> Oh. Japanese lamps -- are they from Japan?
> Mr.
> Whitaker: No. Fortnum and Mason.
>
> ----
>
> McEvoy:
>
> >There is no reason not to extend CTP to stuff like
> >"dangerously-looking" and this may be interesting,
> >but this stuff is surely not a physical object.
>
> Well, Tom is. Tom is dangerous looking. I.e. He looks
> dangerous. I.e He
> seems dangerous. I.e. he _seems_. Like the lamp-seeming
> object, there's a
> Tom-seeming object, to wit: Tom.
>
> I'm surprised you cannot understand an appropriate
> analogy.
>
> McEvoy:
>
> >Yet surely the point raised in a previous post still
> applies - if we are
> right to say "he was >dangerous-looking", then he
> was dangerous-looking.
>
> Which is silly in the first place. Hence Albritton and
> Grice's point: the
> expressions of the form
>
> x-looking
>
> or
>
>
> x-seeming
>
>
> _are_ otiose, because they incorporate what should be the
> main verb in a
> clause.
>
> "Look" is silly per se in that it involves _just_ one
> sense. "Seem" does
> slightly better, in that it may not involve _any_:
>
>
> cfr. Bradley's book, "Reality and
> Appearance"
>
> Surely 'keep up apperance', saving up the phenomena, etc.
> -- the Seeming --
> does not require appeal to "reality".
>
> This Oxford stuff is in connection with Berlin's doubts in
> "Phenomenalism"
> in _Mind_. We's _NOT_ Continentals.
>
> ----
>
> McEvoy:
>
> >Whether in the case of lamps or other stuff, how does
> the CTP say
> anything important that >cannot be (better) covered by
> metaphysical realism and
> the issue of truth?
>
> Well, if they follow one book in the continent, it is
>
> Husserl,
> "Philosophy Without Presuppositions".
>
> We have to go, only, by the only thing we have, our
> brilliant analyses of
> ordinary talk. The way we say, 'see'. The underlying
> logical grammar
> displayed in the logical form of 'seem' utterances.
>
> Surely 'true', as Ramsey noted, is _redundant_ (The
> redundant theory of
> truth_). "Real" is a trouser word ("Look! A _real duck!"),
> metaphysics is
> confusing (you mean _ontology_, and _special ontology_ at
> that).
>
> There are two levels
>
> p and n
>
> p stands for 'phainomenal'
>
> it's a sentence adverbial
>
> (Ph), p. To be read:
> Phenomenally, p.
>
>
>
> It seems as if p (e.g. It seems as if
> it's raining)
>
>
> No entailment or implication
>
>
> (Ph) is the non-factive par excellence.
>
> (Nu), p To be
> read, Noumenally, p
>
>
>
> It _is_ raining cats and dogs.
>
> Philosophers like Grice, etc, are analysing the logic of
> phenomanalist --
> not noumenal -- or as in the Continent they confusingly
> called it,
> 'physicalist' -- language.
>
> (cfr. Sellars, The Structure of Appearance -- and review of
> it, in Dummett,
> Truth and other enigmas).
>
>
> In 'phenomenalist' language, sometimes there is _at_ most,
> an 'implicature'
> referring to a 'noumenal' level (or stratum of language,
> as Weismann, the
> only Vienna Circle refugee to find refuge in
> England):
>
> The pillar box
> seems red
>
>
> doubt or denial: The pillar box is _not_ red.
>
>
> But, as Grice explains in the Part III of "Causal Theory of
> Perception" --
> online: "Don't go and ask me to provide a theory of the
> causal chain that
> connects my belief, "it seems to me as if the pillar box is
> red", with
> _anything_ to do with the real pillar box affecting my
> retina. You might just as
> well ask G. E. Moore his evidence why he thought as if he
> had two hands."
>
> Cheers,
>
> J. L. Speranza
> Buenos Aires, Argentina
>
>
>
>
> **************Download the AOL Classifieds Toolbar for
> local deals at your
> fingertips.
> (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolclassifieds/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000004)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub,
> vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
