[lit-ideas] Re: "The Causal Theory of Perception"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:22:26 EDT
In a message dated 6/16/2009 6:53:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
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.
----
Let's see if I can do better.
You (Donal McEvoy) was asking about CTP -- and the metaphysical realism and
the issue of truth.
There _is_ a sense in which the Causal Theory of Perception _allows_ for a
realist interpretation.
Surely if you say,
"That pillar box seems red to me"
as being *caused* by
a pillar box which _seems_ (or is) red,
you are bound to be making a connection.
But from what I read in Grice -- only Section III of Causal Theory of
Perception deals with those metaphysical issues, of truth, etc.
Most historically, it seems that 'philosophers of perception' of the
Gricean ilk -- Oxford in the 1930s, 1940s, etc. -- were into "Phenomenalism"
proper. How to analyse 'reports of sensation' per se. Recall the classic by G.
A. Paul, "Is there a problem about sense data?"
----
So, no talk of reality or truth would have appealed the Oxonian, because he
was into the 'linguistic botanising' of proper ways to describe our
'sensa' -- J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia.
Ayer, a post-Viennese, and others, laughed at the Oxonians, but in
retrospect, it seems they did a good job in analysing all sorts of linguistic
phenomena that those into 'realism' and 'truth' would never had even dreamed
they existed?
Cheers,
JL Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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