[lit-ideas] Re: The Causal Theory of Perception
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2014 12:27:25 -0500 (EST)
Grice delivered "The Causal Theory of Perception" to the Aristotelian
Society (meeting at Cambridge).
Price, whose "Perception" (London, Methuen) Grice quotes there, was a
President of the Aristotelian Society.
Both had Oxford credentials, too.
In a message dated 2/3/2014 10:35:35 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I don't think that Grice would be so naive as to claim that, just because
I say that I saw something, there was really something there. My statement
that I saw a cat on the porch may be true or it may be false; but for it to
be true the condition needs to be satisfied that there was really a cat on
the porch. Of course, as I said before, this seems to be more of an
observation on how we ordinarily use our language to talk about seeing than on
the reality of seeing. It doesn't solve the metaphysical questions of the
existence of the object, or the subject, or the nature of seeing. Besides, even
if "I saw a cat" ordinarily entails that there was a cat, it doesn't
entail anything about its being the cause of my perception. But folks like
Wittgenstein and Grice had high expectations from linguistic analysis. :)
That above is O. K.'s response to a post by McEvoy.
I would add that Grice seems to be interested, perhaps unlike Witters,
into what philosophers SAY.
This I know was considered by McEvoy, and he is clear that he is or wants
to be into something more 'realistic', as it were.
When I say that Grice is into what philosophers say, I could quote a few
passages where Grice speaks of PHILOSOPHERS talking explicitly about the
'sense' of this or that word which may belong to the philosophical lexicon.
Such as "see".
So, when he is considering, in the third William James Lecture, a case like
"Macbeth saw Banquo"
he is ready to allow that this is a loose use of 'see', that may be
explained conversationally. He considers a similar example:
The tie is medium-blue in this light, but dark-blue in this other light.
He notes that strictly, 'seems' seems like a better option:
"The tie SEEMS medium-blue in this light, but dark blue in this other
light".
SINCE a change of colour, on the part of the tie, is 'out of the question'.
Yet, to qualify the phrase, with a 'seems', rather than an 'is', would be
to be overinformative, or more perspicuous than required.
After the 'tie' example he introduces the
"Macbeth saw Banquo".
And he notes that in connection with what he has just introduced as his
Modified Occam's Razor ("do not multiply senses beyond necessity"). So he
would oppose a manoeuvre (which at Oxford I have located with philosophers
like
L. J. Cohen, of Queen's College) according to which 'see' has different
_senses_, one which has this existential implication ( -- "therefore, Banquo
was there to be seen") and one which doesn't.
Rather, it's best to explicate this with DISIMPLICATURE. Granted, Grice's
thoughts on disimplicature bring their own share of problems.
Implicatures are cancelled, and we implicate when we mean more than we say
("a distinction seldom made by Witters," Grice has it).
ENTAILMENTS (as the existential clause in a report of 'seeing') are,
rather, DROPPED (rather than cancelled). And we disimplicate when we mean LESS
than we say.
McEvoy makes a good point about what truth has to do with all this.
"We may as well argue that if we mean by "God exists" that God really does
exist, then our saying "God exists" entails that it is the case that God
exists, and so conclude that it is in fact the case that God exists. As an
argument this is both feeble and confused, switching from 'meaning' to
'truth' in an invalid way."
Mmm.
It's interesting that McEvoy should bring in God, since an example like
that was mentioned in a recent obituary of Geach. (Geach distinguishes between
the implicatures of "God exists" and "There is a God").
So, I would agree with McEvoy that one has to be careful as to what truth
a philosophical analysis of a colloquial locution like 'see' could shed on
a causal theory of perception.
Again, we should see Grice as resuming Locke's position (he mentions
Locke's analysis of reports of temperature of colour in the second or so page
of
"Causal Theory"), and he is also dealing with Price, whom Grice must have
known. He was one of the big Ws at Oxford.
In the reply to Grice, White quotes from Chisholm as arriving at a theory
similar to Grice's.
So, while the FOCUS of Grice's analysis is to clarify the terminology of
'implication', 'entailment', 'presupposition', 'disimplicature' in reports of
sense-data and 'seeing', he is also suggesting that there is some truth to
the bigger picture which should be seen as METAPHYSICAL, perhaps ('the
metaphysics of perception', or the ontology of perception, if you prefer) AND
analytic. For a philosopher should NOT be concerned with merely contingent,
synthetic facts.
Locke vs. Boyle, as it were. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
ps. In memoriam H. H. Price, cited by Grice in "Causal theory of
perception".
Henry Habberley Price
Born: 17 May 1899, Neath, Glamorganshire, Wales
Died: 26 November 1984, Oxford
School: Analytic philosophy
Main interest: Philosophy of perception
Influenced by H. A. Prichard.
Henry Habberley Price (17 May 1899 – 26 November 1984), usually cited as H.
H. Price, was a Welsh philosopher, known for his work on perception. He
also wrote on parapsychology.
Born in Neath, Glamorganshire, Wales, Price was educated at Winchester
College and New College, Oxford.
He obtained first-class honours in Literae Humaniores in 1921.
He was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, 1922–4, Assistant Lecturer in
philosophy at the university of Liverpool (1922–3), Fellow and Tutor of
Trinity College Oxford (1924–35), Lecturer in philosophy at Oxford (1932–5)
and Wykeham Professor of Logic and Fellow of New College (1935–59).
Price was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1943 to 1944.
He was elected to the British Academy in 1943.
Price is perhaps best known for his work on the philosophy of perception.
Price argues for a sophisticated sense-datum account, although he rejects
phenomenalism.
This may relate to McEvoy on internal vs. external world: "the pillar box
is red" (external world), "the pillar box seems red to me" (internal world).
"It looks to me as if the pillar box in front of me is red"
(internal-cum-external world), and so on. Grice mentions Phenomenalism as
thought of
wrongly as an alternative to the Causal Theory of Perception, and spends some
time trying to reconcile. A final causal analysis of 'seeing', for example,
may be rephrased in phenomenalist terms.
In his book Thinking and Experience, Price moves from perception to
thought and argues for a dispositionalist account of conceptual cognition.
-- which should amuse McEvoy, since as Whitehead 'knew' (I'm using 'know'
alla McEvoy), electrons know.
Concepts are held to be a kind of intellectual capacity, manifested in
perceptual contexts as recognitional capacities.
This may relate to Aquinas and Aristotle that O. K. was citing, in an
intereseting quote that made a distinction between 'intelligible' and
'sensible'
as I recall. And I am reminded of the geniality of J. L. Austin when
promoting his seminar at Oxford as being on
"Sense and Sensibilia".
("I'm attending a seminar by Austin (pronounced 'austn/) on "Sense and
Sensibilia"" -- "Oh, I never liked her novel!")
For Price, concepts are not some kind of mental entity or representation.
The ultimate appeal is to a species of memory distinct from event
recollection. And Grice would have loved this since the gist of his approach to
'I'
(and 'you') is in terms of 'memory' or mnemonic temporary states in
examples that save Locke from Reid.
Price died in Oxford.
Price had written various publications on parapsychology, often advocating
new concepts and theories.
He was President of the Society for Psychical Research (1939–40, 1960–1)
Price had speculated on the nature of the afterlife and developed his own
hypothesis about what the afterlife may be like.
According to Price after death the self will find itself in a dream world
of memories and mental images from their life.
Price wrote that the hypothetical "next world would be realms of real
mental images."
Price however believes that the self may be able to draw upon its memories
of previous physical existence to create an environment of totally new
images.
According to Price, the dream world does not follow the laws of physics
just as ordinary dreams do not ("I can dream that I am flying")
In addition, Price writes that each person will experience a world of
their own, though he also wrote that the dream world doesn't necessarily have
to
be solipsistic as different selves may be able to communicate with each
other by dream telepathy ("Tell me your dream; I'll tell you mine").
Price invented the concept of "place memories" (see Stone Tape).
Price proposes that hauntings could be explained by memories becoming lost
from an individual's mind and then somehow attaching itself to the
environment which could be picked up by others as hallucinations.
This should propose a slight alleged counterexample to the version of the
Causal Theory of Perception that Grice takes from Price's "Perception" (p.
44) and quotes in "Causal Theory of Perception".
Price also believed that "place memories" could explain psychometry -- in
this he agrees with Geary.
Linking his afterlife hypothesis with the concept of place memories Price
proposes another hypothesis called the "psychic ether" hypothesis.
Price notes that this hypothesis explains where the memories would be
stored for hauntings as well as for clairvoyance, ghosts and other paranormal
phenomena.
Price proposes that a universal psychic ether coexisting dimension exists
as an intermediary between the mental and ordinary matter.
According to Price, the psychic ether consists of images and ideas.
Price notes that apparitions are actually memories from people and that
under the right conditions they can be seen as hallucinations.
Again, to echo Grice, not all hallucinations are veridical.
Price believes that the dreamlike world of the afterlife exists in the
psychic ether.
The psychic ether of Price is a posited level of reality consisting of
persisting, dynamic images created by the mind and capable of being perceived
by certain persons.
Some researchers have attempted to update the afterlife hypothesis of
Price.
Michele Grosso in an extension of Price's theory suggested that the ego may
become fragmented in the afterlife state and when ones wish's and desires
are played out may experience a transpersonal state akin to those
experienced by the mystics.
Similarly, the psychical researcher Ralph Noyes published an article (in a
magazine) discussing the theories of Price and attempted to update them
with recent finds in parapsychology.
He succeeded.
Noyes proposes that the mental world of Price is a psychosphere which he
defined as a vast and complex cauldron of ideas, memories, volitions, desires
and all the other furniture of conscious experience and unconscious mental
functioning.
The most common criticism of Price's afterlife hypothesis has come from the
religious community as his suggestions are not consistent with traditional
Christian teaching, nor the teachings of any other monotheistic religion.
Price writes:
When I see a tomato there is
much that I can doubt.
I can doubt whether it is a tomato
that I am seeing, and not a cleverly
painted piece of wax.
I can doubt whether there is any
material thing there at all.
Perhaps what I took for a tomato was really
a reflection; perhaps I am even the victim of
some hallucination.
One thing however I cannot doubt: that
there exists a red patch of a round
and somewhat bulgy shape, standing out
from a background of other colour-patches,
and having a certain visual depth, and that this whole
field of colour is directly present to my consciousness.
Price, H. H. Perception. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1932.
Grice deals with this as the D-or-D conversational implicature: the
'tomato' implicature:
"That tomato seems red to me" IMPLICATES, for Grice, that either it is NOT,
or that someone (the perceiving subject included) may have a doubt (or
two) as to whether the tomato is actually red.
This implicature, Grice notes, is perfectly cancellable (and thus it is
not an entailment and part of the 'sense' or meaning of a 'sense-datum
statement'):
"The tomato before my eyes seems red; and what accounts for this is the
very fact that it _is_, you know."
Works by Price:
Perception
Truth and Corrigibility
Hume's Theory of the External World
Thinking and Representation.(1946) Hertz Trust Philosophical lecture,
British Academy
Thinking and Experience
Belief
Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, based on the Sarum lectures
Philosophical Interactions with Parapsychology: The Major Writings of H. H.
Price on Parapsychology and Survival, editor Frank B. Dilley
Collected Works of Henry H. Price four volumes, editor Martha Kneale
Thinking and Experience, and Some Aspects of the Conflict between Science
and Religion, reprints
Price, H. H. Haunting and the “psychic ether” hypothesis: With some
preliminary reflections on the present condition and possible future of
psychical research. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 45,
307–374.
Price, H. H. Some philosophical questions about telepathy and
clairvoyance. Philosophy, 15
Price, H.H. Harold Arthur Prichard, Proceedings of the British Academy,
XXXIII,
Price, H. H. Psychical research and human personality. Hibbert Journal, 105
–113.
Price, H. H. Survival and the idea of “another world.” Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research, 50, Price, H. H. Psychical research and
human nature. Journal of Parapsychology, 23,
Price, H. H. Apparitions: Two theories. Journal of Parapsychology, 24
Price, H. H., “Survival and the Idea of ‘ Another World’,” Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research, Reprinted in John Hick (ed.).
Classical and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Religion, second
edition,
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
Price, Hick, and Disembodied Existence, Bruce R. Reichenbach, Religious
Studies, Vol. 15,
Toynvee, A., Mant, A.K., Smart, N., Hinton, J., Yudkin, S., Rhode, E.,
Heywood R., Price, H.H.
Man’s Concern with Death. London, Great Britain: Hoddler and Stouhton.
Christopher Moreman Beyond the Threshold: Afterlife Beliefs and
Experiences in World Religions
Price, H. H. Some philosophical questions about telepathy and
clairvoyance. Philosophy, 15, 363– Pamela Rae Heath A New Theory on Place
Memory
James Houran From Shaman to scientist: essays on humanity's search for
spirits
Price, H. H. Haunting and the psychic ether hypothesis; with some
preliminary reflections on the present condition and possible future of
psychical
research. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 45,
K. Ramakrishna Rao, V. Gowri Rammohan New frontiers of human science: a
festschrift for K. Ramakrishna Rao
Dr. Mehra Shrikhande Paranormal Experiences
Carroll B. Nash Parapsychology, the science of psiology
Gracia Fay Ellwood The uttermost deep: the challenge of near-death
experiences
Grosso, M. The survival of personality in a mind-dependent world. Journal
of the American Society for Psychical Research, 73
K. Ramakrishna Rao, V. Gowri Rammohan New Frontiers of Human Science: A
Festschrift for K. Ramakrishna Rao
Ralph Noyes The concept of a psychosphere: A heuristic suggestion Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research Volume: 62
Libby Ahluwalia Understanding philosophy of religion Edexcel
H.H. Price’s Model of Disembodied Survival
J. Harrison, 'Henry Habberley Price, 1899–1984', Proceedings of the
British Academy, 80,
Categories: 1899 births, 1984 deaths, 20th-century philosophers, Alumni
of New College, Oxford, Analytic philosophers, Fellows of New College,
Oxford, People educated at Winchester College, Parapsychologists, People from
Neath, Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford, Welsh philosophers,
Presidents of the Aristotelian Society
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