In this chapter we begin by introducing two hats that a philosophical theory of perception needs to wear. The first is the epistemological hat, which focuses on perception’s role of providing us with information about the external world; the second is the phenomenological hat, which focuses on the conscious aspects of perceptual experiences. By focusing on these two hats - these two different jobs that a theory of perception must play - we can identify “tests” for an adequate philosophical theory of perception. 在本章中,我们首先介绍了知觉哲学理论需要戴的两顶帽子。第一顶是认识论的帽子,侧重于知觉为我们提供外部世界信息的作用;第二顶是现象学的帽子,侧重于知觉体验的意识方面。通过关注这两顶帽子--知觉理论必须扮演的这两种不同的角色--我们可以为知觉的适当哲学理论找出 "检验标准"。
The remainder of the chapter then considers the way that philosophical thinking about perceptual experience developed from Aristotle through the Modern Philosophers, as the theories that were developed and the assumptions that shaped them also serve to set the scene for the development of the philosophy of perception as an independent sub-discipline in the twentieth century. 本章的其余部分将探讨从亚里士多德到现代哲学家关于知觉经验的哲学思考是如何发展的,因为所发展的理论和形成这些理论的假设也为二十世纪知觉哲学作为一门独立的分支学科的发展奠定了基础。
Over the course of this book, we will be thinking philosophically about our capacity for sense perception - our capacity to perceive the world and our bodies by means of our sense organs. 在本书中,我们将从哲学角度思考我们的感知能力--我们通过感觉器官感知世界和身体的能力。
The Two Hats 两顶帽子
If one is of a scientific bent, one might wonder just what the role of philosophical theorizing about perception is: Isn’t empirical science in the process of discovering what the nature of a perceptual experience is and what is going on when we perceive? The relationship between the philosophy of perception and the associated sciences of the mind will be discussed in more detail in Part II, but for now, let us simply note that philosophical thinking about perception has a remit that is broader than that of the sciences. In particular, philosophical theorizing about perception is informed in part by considerations from other branches of philosophy. 如果一个人有科学倾向,那么他可能会问,关于知觉的哲学理论究竟起什么作用:实证科学不就是在发现知觉体验的本质以及我们知觉时发生了什么吗?知觉哲学与相关的心灵科学之间的关系将在第二部分中详细讨论,但现在我们只想指出,知觉哲学思考的范围比科学思考的范围更广。尤其是,关于知觉的哲学理论研究部分地借鉴了哲学其他分支的观点。
So whilst philosophers are indeed concerned with many of the questions that concern empirical investigators - questions of how our capacity to perceive is related to our brains, bodies, and environment, for instance - philosophical theories of perception are also explicitly fashioned to take more philosophical considerations into account. Two considerations that are of particular importance to the philosophy of perception are the following: 因此,尽管哲学家确实关注许多与实证研究者有关的问题--例如我们的感知能力与我们的大脑、身体和环境之间的关系,但感知的哲学理论也明确地考虑到了更多的哲学因素。对于知觉哲学来说,以下两个考虑因素尤为重要:
Epistemology: One of the main reasons for philosophical interest in perception is that it is the primary source of our knowledge of the world in which we live. So any philosophical theory of perception is going to both inform, and be informed by, epistemological considerations. One consideration for a theory of perception, then, will be how well it can make sense of perception’s role as a source of empirical knowledge. 认识论:哲学对知觉感兴趣的一个主要原因是,知觉是我们对所处世界的认识的主要来源。因此,任何关于知觉的哲学理论都要从认识论的角度来考虑问题。那么,知觉理论的一个考虑因素就是,它能在多大程度上理解知觉作为经验知识来源的作用。
Phenomenology: Perceptual experiences are paradigmatically conscious experiences: they have a phenomenology or there is, in Nagel’s influential terminology, something it is like to perceive (1974/1979). And given that there is something it is like to perceive, we can ask what it is like to perceive: what, specifically, it is like to see a pink elephant, to smell coffee, or to touch sandpaper? A further test of a philosophical theory of perception will be how accurately it can capture what it is like to have perceptual experiences. 现象学:知觉经验是典型的有意识经验:它们具有现象学,或者用纳格尔颇具影响力的术语来说,存在着某种 "感知 "的感觉(1974/1979)。既然存在着感知的感觉,我们就可以问感知的感觉是什么:具体来说,看到一头粉红色的大象、闻到咖啡的香味或触摸到砂纸的感觉是什么?对知觉哲学理论的进一步检验,就是看它能在多大程度上准确捕捉到知觉体验的感觉。
To put it metaphorically, these considerations suggest that an adequate philosophical theory of perception has (at least) two different hats to wear - an epistemological hat and a phenomenological hat. How successfully a particular theory wears each of these hats will therefore be an important choice point when it comes to assessing different theories of perception. 打个比方,这些考虑表明,一个适当的知觉哲学理论(至少)要戴两顶不同的帽子--一顶认识论的帽子和一顶现象学的帽子。因此,在评估不同的知觉理论时,特定理论如何成功地戴上这两顶帽子将是一个重要的选择点。
Of course, these are not the only important considerations to bear in mind when it comes to evaluating a theory of perception. In addition, there are metaphysical considerations to take into account, such as the fact that any theory of perception will claim that certain things exist, and can hence be assessed in part by querying whether or not these ontological commitments are metaphysically acceptable given the alternatives available. Furthermore, as we shall see, certain philosophical theories of perception incorporate metaphysical commitments about the world itself; if there are reasons to think that these commitments are mistaken, this will constitute a problem with that theory of perception. And finally, whilst it is true that philosophers of perception have a range of concerns that distinguish them from empirical scientists, the conceptual tools they use in philosophical thinking about perceptual experience have often been forged by empirical science. So despite the differences in emphasis, science does exert a significant influence on the philosophy of perception, in part by providing conceptual tools that are then utilized in developing philosophical theories, and in part by discovering various phenomena that philosophical theories of perception are then required to accommodate. 当然,在评估知觉理论时,需要考虑的重要因素不仅仅是这些。此外,还有一些形而上学的考虑因素需要考虑,比如任何知觉理论都会宣称某些事物存在,因此,在评估知觉理论时,可以部分地质疑这些本体论承诺在形而上学上是否是可以接受的,因为还有其他的选择。此外,正如我们将要看到的,某些关于知觉的哲学理论包含了对世界本身的形而上学承诺;如果有理由认为这些承诺是错误的,这将构成该知觉理论的一个问题。最后,尽管知觉哲学家确实有一系列有别于经验科学家的关注点,但他们在关于知觉经验的哲学思考中使用的概念工具往往是由经验科学铸造的。因此,尽管侧重点不同,但科学确实对知觉哲学产生了重大影响,一方面是通过提供概念工具,然后利用这些工具来发展哲学理论,另一方面是通过发现各种现象,然后要求知觉哲学理论去适应这些现象。
The Interaction of Phenomenology, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Science: Vision in Modern Philosophy 现象学、认识论、形而上学和科学的互动:现代哲学的视野
Before we move on to consider the way the philosophy of perception developed as a distinct sub-discipline in the twentieth century, it would be instructive to sketch how these considerations - phenomenology, epistemology, metaphysics, and the science of the time - worked together to shape discussions of the nature of perception in the Modern philosophers. These discussions exert a significant influence on subsequent theorizing in the philosophy of perception in at least two ways. First, they show a tendency to focus on vision as the paradigmatic case of perception; second, they incorporate a particular way of conceiving of the relationship between perception and the world, and hence frame our conception of the concerns that philosophical theories of perception are expected to address. 在我们继续探讨知觉哲学如何在二十世纪发展成为一门独特的分支学科之前,我们不妨先勾勒一下这些因素--现象学、认识论、形而上学和当时的科学--是如何共同塑造了现代哲学家对知觉本质的讨论。这些讨论至少在两个方面对后来的知觉哲学理论产生了重要影响。首先,这些讨论显示出一种倾向,即把视觉作为知觉的范例;其次,这些讨论包含了一种构想知觉与世界之间关系的特殊方式,从而框定了我们对知觉哲学理论所要解决的问题的概念。
Prior to the scientific revolution, thinking about perception (like science in general) had been dominated by Aristotelian considerations. For Aristotle, although vision does involve a causal process, it is a process by which the sensible qualities of external objects - such as their colors - are transferred from the object to the perceiver’s mind (1984: Book II). On Aristotle’s hylomorphic view, objects themselves are composites of matter and immaterial form. When we perceive objects, we receive the form of the object without its matter. This process proceeds as follows: air is transparent as it contains a substance which, when fire (or something resembling fire) is present in it, can be “set in movement” - changed or affected - by color. So the first stage of this causal process is that the colored object affects the transparent medium. The now affected transparent medium can then act on the perceiver in turn, which on Aristotle’s view it does by altering - again, changing or affecting - the perceiver’s sense organ. The sense thereby “receives the sensible form of things without the matter” ( 674 ), similar to the way in which sealing wax can receive the design of a signet ring without receiving the metal that the ring is made of. In this way, the colors of objects, but not the objects themselves, are transmitted from the object to the medium and from the medium to our eyes, which for animals such as us constitutes our seeing the object. 在科学革命之前,关于知觉的思考(就像一般的科学一样)一直以亚里士多德的观点为主导。在亚里士多德看来,尽管视觉确实涉及一个因果过程,但它只是一个将外物的感性特质(如颜色)从物体转移到感知者头脑中的过程(1984 年:第二卷)。根据亚里士多德的同构观点,物体本身是物质和非物质形式的复合体。当我们感知物体时,我们接收的是物体的形式,而不是它的物质。这个过程如下:空气是透明的,因为它含有一种物质,当其中有火(或类似火的东西)时,这种物质就会被颜色 "激发"--改变或影响。因此,这个因果过程的第一阶段是,有色物体影响透明介质。现在受到影响的透明媒介可以反过来作用于感知者,在亚里士多德看来,它是通过改变--同样是改变或影响--感知者的感觉器官来做到这一点的。感官由此 "接受事物的感性形式而不接受物质"(674),就像封蜡可以接受印章戒指的图案而不接受戒指的金属一样。通过这种方式,物体的颜色,而不是物体本身,从物体传递到媒介,再从媒介传递到我们的眼睛,这对于像我们这样的动物来说,就构成了我们看到物体。
The Aristotelian view began to fall out of favor as the scientific revolution gathered steam during the early Modern period, however. In place of this hylomorphic physics, a more austere mechanistic physics was developed in which matter had only basic properties, such as size and shape, position and motion. On such a view, there is no scope for vision to involve sensible qualities such as color being transmitted to the perceiver, as objects that possess only basic properties do not actually have such qualities to be transmitted. So where Aristotle thought that what is transferred to the mind is the form of what we perceive, on the modern mechanistic view the way in which perceptible objects are perceived is by mechanical contact: by a process of things bumping and pushing, coming into contact with one another. Descartes thus explains the mechanisms of visual perception by analogy to the way a blind man navigates his environment by means of a stick. What matters here, 然而,随着近代早期科学革命的蓬勃发展,亚里士多德的观点开始失宠。取而代之的是一种更为严谨的机械物理学,在这种物理学中,物质只具有基本属性,如大小和形状、位置和运动。根据这种观点,视觉不可能将颜色等可感知的特质传递给感知者,因为只具有基本属性的物体实际上并不具有可传递的特质。因此,亚里士多德认为,传递给心灵的是我们所感知的事物的形式,而现代机械论认为,可感知的物体是通过机械接触被感知的:通过事物相互碰撞和推动、相互接触的过程被感知的。因此,笛卡尔将视觉感知的机制类比为盲人用棍子导航的方式。这里重要的是
Descartes suggests, is simply how one thing pushes against another - objects affect the stick by resisting its movements and the stick, in turn, pushes against the man’s hand: nothing needs to “issue from the bodies and pass along his stick to his hand” (1637/2001: 153). Sight, suggests Descartes, works in a similar way: when light is reflected from an object, this affects the light in a particular way (in Descartes’ view, by giving the particles that constitute it a unique “spin” that correlates with one of the different colors that we experience when we perceive objects). When these particles reach a perceiver’s eye, they push on the retina, and this particular “pushing” excites the nerves of the retina in a distinctive way, which in turn excites the brain, causing the perceiver to have certain sensations. 笛卡尔认为,这只是一物对另一物的推动--物体通过抵制木棍的运动来影响木棍,而木棍反过来又推动人的手:没有任何东西需要 "从物体中发出,沿着木棍传到人的手上"(1637/2001: 153)。笛卡尔认为,视觉也是以类似的方式运作的:当光线从物体上反射出来时,光线会受到某种特定方式的影响(在笛卡尔看来,光线会给构成光线的微粒带来一种独特的 "自旋",这种 "自旋 "与我们感知物体时所体验到的不同颜色中的一种相关联)。当这些粒子到达感知者的眼睛时,它们会推动视网膜,这种特殊的 "推动 "会以一种独特的方式兴奋视网膜的神经,进而兴奋大脑,使感知者产生某种感觉。
But the motions which are thus excited in the brain by the nerves affect the soul or mind, which is intimately conjoined with the brain, in different ways, according to their own diversity. And the different affections of our mind, or thoughts, immediately following upon these motions, are called perceptions of the senses, or in common speech, sensations. 但是,神经在大脑中激发的运动,根据其自身的多样性,以不同的方式影响着与大脑紧密相连的灵魂或思想。紧随这些运动而来的心灵或思想的不同影响,被称为感官的知觉,或者通俗地说,感觉。
(1644/1985: 280)
So sensations do correlate with some feature of the nature of the object - different objects affect the brain in different ways according to their own diversity - but whilst these sensations do enable us to perceive the world, like the sensations the blind man receives from his stick, Descartes cautions us against simply assuming that they resemble the objects with which we began. 因此,感觉确实与物体性质的某些特征相关--不同的物体根据其自身的多样性以不同的方式影响大脑--但是,尽管这些感觉确实使我们能够感知世界,就像盲人从他的棍子上得到的感觉一样,笛卡尔告诫我们不要简单地假设它们与我们开始时的物体相似。
So in Descartes, we find a philosophical theory of visual perception that is both constrained by features of the science at the time - in particular, the austere metaphysical picture of the nature of matter - yet is also shaped by the conceptual tools it makes available, such as the mechanistic view of causation as involving particles engaged in billiard ball-type collisions or interactions. When viewed through a philosophical lens, however - in particular, when we ask how well the theory wears the epistemological and phenomenological hats - this picture appears less than satisfactory. 因此,在笛卡尔那里,我们发现了一种关于视觉感知的哲学理论,它既受制于当时的科学特征--尤其是关于物质本质的朴素形而上学图景--同时也受制于它所提供的概念工具,例如关于因果关系的机械论观点,即涉及参与台球式碰撞或相互作用的粒子。然而,如果从哲学的角度来看,尤其是当我们询问该理论在认识论和现象学方面的表现如何时,这幅图景就显得不那么令人满意了。
As far as the phenomenological hat is concerned, to the extent that the theory has any kind of story to tell about what it is like for us to perceive, it is essentially stipulative; according to the theory, it is the sensations that are ultimately caused by the perceptual process that account for what it is like to have conscious perceptual experiences. To this extent, then, the theory could be claimed to capture what it is like for us to perceive - it is a matter of the particular sensations that occur at the end of the causal chain. Yet we might have two concerns with such a view. First is that there is no non-stipulative explanation of why it is like this to have any given experience - this is just accounted for by the nature of the sensations that happen to occur when human minds are affected in a certain way; there is no deeper explanation of why this kind of experience corresponds with these aspects of the world. Second, when we talk about “what it is like” to perceive, it can be natural to think that part of capturing the phenomenology of perception would be to capture the sense that, in vision at least, when we experience our environment, our experiences 就现象学的帽子而言,就该理论对我们的知觉是什么样的这一问题的描述而言,它基本上是规定性的;根据该理论,知觉过程最终引起的感觉才是有意识的知觉体验是什么样的。因此,在这一程度上,该理论可以说是捕捉到了我们的知觉是什么样子的--这是一个发生在因果链末端的特定感觉的问题。然而,我们可能会对这种观点有两个担忧。首先,我们无法以非偷换概念的方式解释为什么会有这样的体验--这只是人类思维受到某种影响时偶然产生的感觉的性质;我们无法更深入地解释为什么这种体验与世界的这些方面相吻合。其次,当我们谈论感知 "是什么样的 "时,很自然地会想到,捕捉感知现象学的一部分就是捕捉这样一种感觉,即至少在视觉上,当我们体验我们的环境时,我们的体验
appear to give us some kind of access to the nature of the external world. Yet, as Descartes makes clear, on this picture there is no reason to think that our experiences resemble the external world at all. 我们的经验似乎能让我们了解外部世界的本质。然而,正如笛卡尔明确指出的那样,在这种情况下,我们没有理由认为我们的经验与外部世界完全相似。
We might also choose to express this underlying disquiet in epistemological terms: on the face of it, it appears as though one type of knowledge that we acquire from visual experience is knowledge of what the external world is really like. Yet when we look at this theory, we find that it is not clear that it can accommodate this. The story it has about how we get knowledge of the world on the basis of perception turns on the analogy to the blind man’s stick. In this case, we know that the sensations caused by the stick meeting a sidewalk kerb do not in any way resemble that kerb, yet despite this, the man can still acquire knowledge about the location and size of the kerb on their basis, which can enable him to successfully navigate his environment. In this way, the perceptual process thus understood can give us knowledge of the external world. However, this knowledge is not quite what we were looking for from our discussion of the phenomenological hat: one thing that we cannot know from our perceptual experiences, thus understood, is what the world is really like - as Descartes says, we cannot assume that the sensations we enjoy bear any resemblance to the external objects themselves. 我们也可以选择用认识论的术语来表达这种潜在的不安:从表面上看,我们从视觉经验中获得的一种知识似乎是关于外部世界到底是什么样子的知识。然而,当我们研究这一理论时,却发现它并不清楚自己是否能适应这一点。关于我们如何在感知的基础上获得关于世界的知识,它所讲述的故事是以盲人的棍子作类比。在这种情况下,我们知道棍子碰到人行道路缘石引起的感觉与路缘石没有任何相似之处,但尽管如此,盲人仍然可以在此基础上获得关于路缘石位置和大小的知识,从而使他能够成功地驾驭他所处的环境。这样,我们所理解的知觉过程就能为我们提供关于外部世界的知识。然而,这种知识与我们在讨论现象学帽子时所寻找的并不完全相同:我们无法从我们这样理解的知觉经验中知道世界到底是什么样子的--正如笛卡尔所说,我们不能假定我们所享受的感觉与外部对象本身有任何相似之处。
On this picture, then, our primary mode of conscious awareness in perception is awareness of sensations, which are understood as fundamentally distinct from, albeit caused by, external objects. To the extent that we can be said to be aware of external objects by having perceptual experiences, then our awareness of the world is indirect - we are aware of the world by being aware of the sensations that this world causes. This indirectness can also be framed as a challenge for epistemology. Our primary epistemic access is to the sensations; to the extent that we get knowledge about the world by enjoying these sensations, it is by inference. Just as the blind man infers that there is a curb in front of him by the sensations he receives through the stick (in conjunction with knowledge that these sensations correspond with curbs), we infer that there are objects present in our environment on the basis of the fact that we are having certain sensations, in conjunction with knowledge about the kinds of objects that these sensations correspond with. 因此,在这幅图景中,我们在感知中的主要意识模式是对感觉的意识,而感觉被理解为从根本上有别于外物,尽管是由外物引起的。如果说我们是通过知觉经验来意识到外部对象的,那么我们对世界的意识就是间接的--我们是通过意识到这个世界所引起的感觉来意识到这个世界的。这种间接性也可以说是对认识论的挑战。我们的主要认识论途径是感觉;如果我们通过享受这些感觉来获得关于世界的知识,那也是通过推论获得的。正如盲人通过棍子获得的感觉推断出前方有路边(同时还知道这些感觉与路边相对应),我们推断出环境中有物体存在的依据是我们正在产生某种感觉,同时还知道这些感觉所对应的物体种类。
Locke develops a similar picture, although he more directly addresses the phenomenological question of explaining what it is like to have visual experiences. Where Descartes had sensations, Locke has Ideas, which have usually been understood as mental objects - the things in our minds that we immediately perceive that are caused by and represent (by resembling, in part) the objects in the world. Again, influenced by the conceptual tools provided by the science of his day, Locke held a broadly “atomic” theory of ideas, according to which experience furnishes the mind with a store of simple atomic ideas, which could then be combined into more complex “molecules” by the activity of the mind. So although Locke’s view also appears to involve an indirect awareness of the world, and thus often meets similar epistemological criticisms, he does have a more straightforward phenomenological story to tell: the things that we are directly aware of - the things we pre-theoretically take to be external objects - are in fact ideas or mental objects. In some dimensions, such as size, shape, motion, and location - Locke’s primary 洛克描绘了一幅类似的图景,尽管他更直接地解决了解释视觉经验是什么样子的现象学问题。笛卡尔的 "感觉",洛克的 "理念"(Ideas),通常被理解为精神对象--我们头脑中立即感知到的事物,它们是由世界中的对象引起的,并代表了世界中的对象(部分类似)。同样,受到当时科学所提供的概念工具的影响,洛克持有一种广义的 "原子 "观念理论,根据这种理论,经验为心灵提供了一个简单的原子观念储存库,然后可以通过心灵活动将其组合成更复杂的 "分子"。因此,尽管洛克的观点似乎也涉及到对世界的间接认识,因而经常遭到类似的认识论批评,但他确实有一个更直接的现象学故事:我们直接意识到的事物--我们在理论前认为是外部对象的事物--实际上是观念或精神对象。在某些维度上,如大小、形状、运动和位置--洛克的主要研究对象--是 "观念 "或 "心理对象"。
qualities - the ideas resemble their causes; both ideas and material objects possess primary qualities. In other cases, however, our ideas fail to resemble anything in the objects at all: where qualities such as color, smell, taste, and so on are concerned, these are qualities that are literally possessed only by ideas. Although material objects are not literally colored, they do nonetheless have associated “secondary” qualities alongside their primary qualities, where their secondary qualities can be understood merely as powers to produce ideas (involving colors, smells, and tastes) in perceivers. So where the phenomenology of experience tells us that we perceive a world populated by objects that possess not only primary qualities but also colors, smells, and tastes, we are partly right and partly wrong. We are right that mindindependent external objects do possess both primary and secondary qualities, but are mistaken if we think that the secondary qualities they possess just are colors, smells, and tastes; in fact, they are merely the powers to produce ideas with those qualities. Locke characterizes the difference between primary and secondary qualities using the notion of resemblance: 在另一些情况下,我们的观念与物体中的任何东西都不相似。然而,在另一些情况下,我们的观念却与物象中的任何东西都不相似:就颜色、气味、味道等特质而言,这些特质实际上只为观念所拥有。虽然物质对象并没有真正的颜色,但它们确实与主要特质一起具有相关的 "次要 "特质,而它们的次要特质仅仅可以被理解为在感知者身上产生观念(涉及颜色、气味和味道)的力量。因此,当经验现象学告诉我们,我们感知到的世界中的物体不仅具有主要特质,还具有颜色、气味和味道时,我们部分是对的,部分是错的。我们说独立于心智的外物确实同时具有主要特质和次要特质是对的,但如果我们认为它们所具有的次要特质仅仅是颜色、气味和味道,那就错了;事实上,它们仅仅是产生具有这些特质的观念的能力。洛克用 "相似性 "这一概念来描述初级特质和次级特质之间的区别:
[T]he ideas of primary qualities of bodies, are resemblances of them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves; but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves. [关于身体主要特质的观念,是它们的相似之处,它们的模式确实存在于身体本身;但这些次要特质在我们心中产生的观念,与它们完全没有相似之处。我们的观念并不存在于身体本身。
(Locke 1690/1961: 51) (洛克 1690/1961: 51)。
So although mind-independent objects do possess both primary and secondary qualities, according to Locke, we are mistaken if we think the secondary qualities are like the colors, smells, and tastes we encounter in experience. Likewise, we are right that there are objects that we are immediately aware of; it is just that we are wrong in thinking that these are mind-independent external objects: they are in fact ideas. For this reason, this kind of picture is often referred to as a version of indirect realism: “realism”, because it accepts the existence of a realistically understood external world, yet “indirect” because it accepts that our phenomenological and epistemological access to this external world proceeds via more primitive forms of access: in this case, to ideas. However, these experiences can serve to give us knowledge of the external world because the ideas that we are aware of resemble the objects that populate the external world, at least in those qualities that are most important for action, such as size, shape, and location. 因此,洛克认为,尽管独立于心智的客体确实同时具有主要特质和次要特质,但如果我们认为次要特质就像我们在经验中遇到的颜色、气味和味道,那我们就错了。同样,我们认为存在我们立即意识到的对象是正确的,只是我们认为这些对象是独立于心灵的外在对象是错误的:它们实际上是观念。因此,这种图景通常被称为间接现实主义的一个版本:"现实主义 "是因为它承认存在一个现实地理解的外部世界,而 "间接 "则是因为它承认我们在现象学和认识论上是通过更原始的形式进入这个外部世界的:在这里,是进入观念。然而,这些经验可以为我们提供关于外部世界的知识,因为我们意识到的观念与外部世界中的物体很相似,至少在那些对行动最重要的品质上,如大小、形状和位置。
In both Descartes and Locke then, the science of the time shaped both the austere metaphysics of the external world and the mechanistic, causal understanding of the perceptual process. The knock-on effects of these constraints then led the subsequent theories of perception to have difficulties in successfully wearing the phenomenological and epistemological hats. By framing the issues in this way, we can then see the theoretical developments of later Modern philosophers as their attempts to defuse this tension in different ways. 在笛卡尔和洛克那里,当时的科学既塑造了对外部世界的朴素形而上学,也塑造了对知觉过程的机械论、因果论理解。这些限制的连锁反应导致后来的知觉理论难以成功地戴上现象学和认识论的帽子。通过这样的问题框架,我们可以将后来现代哲学家的理论发展视为他们试图以不同方式化解这种紧张关系的尝试。
Berkeley, for example, argued that these overall theoretical commitments are actually best coupled with a rejection of metaphysical realism. Berkeley argues first that, if it is true that we perceive only ideas, then from the straightforward-looking 例如,伯克利认为,这些总体理论承诺实际上最好与对形而上学现实主义的否定结合起来。首先,伯克利认为,如果我们确实只感知理念,那么从直观的角度来看
claim that we do in fact perceive ordinary external objects, we can derive the conclusion that ordinary external objects are in fact ideas. Of course, this argument doesn’t consider the possibility (touched on above) that the verb “perceives” is in fact ambiguous, having both a direct and an indirect sense. When the two occurrences of the verb are clarified in this way - that we directly perceive only ideas but that we thereby indirectly perceive external objects - Berkeley’s conclusion no longer follows. To bolster his argument, Berkeley therefore attacks Locke’s claim that ideas resemble mind-independent objects, at least where the primary qualities are concerned: “an idea can be like nothing but an idea” (1734/1982: 8). So to the extent that the categories we have for thinking about objects, including shape and size as well as color and texture, characterize ideas, we cannot assume that things that are not ideas can be characterized by these qualities. Moreover, when we reflect on these considerations, we can come to question how we could have ever come to the conception of traditional “external” objects in the first place. 如果说我们确实感知到了普通的外物,那么我们就可以得出结论:普通的外物其实就是观念。当然,这一论证并没有考虑到(上文提到的)一种可能性,即动词 "感知 "实际上是含糊的,既有直接意义,也有间接意义。如果以这种方式澄清了动词的两种用法--我们直接感知的只是观念,但我们也因此间接地感知外物--柏克莱的结论就不再成立了。为了支持他的论点,柏克莱因此攻击洛克的主张,即观念类似于与心灵无关的对象,至少在主要特质方面是如此:"一个理念除了理念之外什么都不像"(1734/1982:8)。因此,只要我们思考对象的范畴,包括形状和大小以及颜色和质地,是观念的特征,我们就不能假定不是观念的事物也能被这些特质所表征。此外,当我们对这些问题进行反思时,我们会质疑我们当初是如何形成传统的 "外在 "物的概念的。
In this way, Berkeley attempts to undermine the metaphysical realist aspect of the indirect realist position, and in consequence, his approach has arguably an easier time wearing the phenomenological and epistemological hats. If we were simply mistaken about the metaphysical status of ordinary objects - we thought they were mind-independent external objects when in fact they are mind-dependent ideas then what it is like to have a visual experience will be as it seems: it is like being directly aware of ordinary objects (it is just that they are not mind-independent). Moreover, as our awareness of these objects is not mediated, then our direct experience of ideas constitutes direct awareness of the world of ordinary objects. There are of course a range of objections to Berkeley’s “Idealist” view, but it serves as an interesting example of how the phenomenological, epistemological, metaphysical, and scientific considerations all interact with one another in the construction of a philosophical theory of perception. 通过这种方式,伯克利试图削弱间接现实主义立场的形而上学现实主义方面,因此,他的方法可以说更容易戴上现象学和认识论的帽子。如果我们只是搞错了普通对象的形而上学地位--我们以为它们是不依赖于心灵的外在对象,而事实上它们是依赖于心灵的观念,那么视觉经验的感觉就会像它看起来的那样:它就像直接意识到普通对象一样(只是它们不是不依赖于心灵的)。此外,由于我们对这些对象的认识并不是中介性的,那么我们对观念的直接经验就构成了对普通对象世界的直接认识。当然,对伯克利的 "唯心主义 "观点有一系列反对意见,但它可以作为一个有趣的例子,说明在构建知觉的哲学理论时,现象学、认识论、形而上学和科学等方面的考虑是如何相互作用的。
Hume, in contrast, retains Locke’s commitment to metaphysical realism alongside the broad outline of his theory of ideas. However, finding that Berkeley’s “ingenious” arguments “admit of no answer” (1748/2011: 136, fn.a), he is thus less optimistic about the ability of our awareness of ideas to put us in a position to gain knowledge of an external world. Hume says that “here philosophy finds herself quite embarrassed. … By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects” (1748/2011: 134)? He notes that appealing to experience will not help in this case, as nothing that is in experience could speak to how those experiences are caused. He therefore concludes that, where this issue is concerned, “the profounder and more philosophical sceptics will always triumph” (1748/2011: 135). Hume therefore reluctantly seems to think that if we want to maintain metaphysical realism, then skepticism is unavoidable. 与此相反,休谟保留了洛克对形而上学现实主义的承诺,以及其思想理论的大纲。然而,他发现柏克莱 "巧妙 "的论证 "无法回答"(1748/2011: 136, fn.a),因此对我们的观念意识能否使我们获得外部世界的知识不太乐观。休谟说:"在这里,哲学发现自己相当尴尬。......有什么论据可以证明,心灵的感知一定是由外物引起的"(1748/2011:134)?他指出,在这种情况下,诉诸经验是无济于事的,因为经验中的任何东西都无法说明这些经验是如何引起的。因此,他得出结论说,在这个问题上,"更深奥、更哲学的怀疑论者将永远获胜"(1748/2011:135)。因此,休谟似乎不情愿地认为,如果我们要坚持形而上学的现实主义,那么怀疑论是不可避免的。
Thomas Reid, however, tries to find a third way between skepticism and idealism. Finding both Locke’s attempt to account for perception of ordinary objects in terms of awareness of ideas and Berkeley’s attempt to identify ordinary objects with ideas unacceptable, he develops a theory on which the perception of ordinary objects is direct. Whilst Reid does accept that most of our perceptions are accompanied by sensations, he agrees with Berkeley that we cannot make any sense of the idea that 然而,托马斯-里德试图在怀疑论和唯心论之间找到第三条道路。他发现洛克试图用对观念的认识来解释对普通物体的感知,而伯克利则试图将普通物体与观念相提并论,这两者都是不可接受的。虽然里德承认我们的大部分感知都伴随着感觉,但他同意柏克莱的观点,即我们无法理解 "感觉 "这一概念。
these sensations resemble anything that is non-mental. Instead, he argues that due to the way we are constituted, our having sensations of certain kinds leads us to immediately and automatically conceive of the object that caused the sensations as having certain properties. He explains this using the example of smelling a rose: 这些感觉类似于任何非精神的东西。相反,他认为,由于我们的构成方式,我们对某些种类的感觉会导致我们立即自动地把引起这些感觉的对象想象成具有某些属性。他以闻到玫瑰花香为例解释了这一点:
The object of my perception, in this case, is that quality in the rose which I discern by the sense of smell. Observing that the agreeable sensation is raised when the rose is near, and ceases when it is removed, I am led, by my nature, to conclude some quality to be in the rose, which is the cause of this sensation. This quality in the rose is the object perceived; and that act of my mind by which I have the conviction and belief of this quality, is what in this case I call perception. 在这种情况下,我的感知对象就是我通过嗅觉辨别出来的玫瑰花的品质。我观察到,当玫瑰靠近我时,我就会产生愉快的感觉,而当玫瑰移开我时,这种感觉就会消失。玫瑰中的这种品质就是被感知的对象;而我对这种品质深信不疑的心灵行为,在这种情况下就是我所说的感知。
(1785/2011: 227)
So for Reid, perceiving is not a matter of reasoning from sensations to the existence of the external world. Instead, he argues, perception is the act of mind by which we have a “conception, and an immediate natural conviction” (200) of an external object. So while sensations do play a causal role in this process, they do not play an epistemological role, which enables Reid to claim that his theory qualifies as a direct realism as there is nothing (no thing) - no sensations, no ideas - to mediate our perceptual access to the environment. As to how well Reid’s theory wears the phenomenological and epistemological hats, that is of course open to debate. 因此,在里德看来,感知并不是从感觉推理出外部世界的存在。相反,他认为,感知是一种心智行为,通过这种行为,我们对外部对象有了 "概念和直接的自然信念"(200)。因此,尽管感觉在这一过程中扮演了因果角色,但它们并不扮演认识论角色,这使得里德能够宣称他的理论符合直接现实主义的条件,因为没有任何东西--没有感觉,没有观念--来中介我们对环境的感知。至于里德的理论在现象学和认识论这两顶帽子上戴得如何,当然还有待商榷。
Conclusion 结论
This brief sketch of some of the key theories of visual perception in the Modern era plays a useful role in showing how the range of considerations we identified phenomenology, epistemology, metaphysics, and the science of the time - interact in the construction of philosophical theories of perception. Following the science of the time, all the Moderns accepted a broadly mechanistic, causal background story for perception - that perceptual experiences, or at least the ideas/sensations we enjoy during perceptual experience, occur at the end of a causal chain that, assuming realism, starts with external objects. Yet each puts the puzzle pieces together differently. 对近代视觉感知的一些重要理论的简要概述,有助于说明我们所确定的现象学、认识论、形而上学和当时的科学等一系列考虑因素是如何在感知哲学理论的构建过程中相互作用的。根据当时的科学,所有的现代人都接受了一个广泛的机械论、因果论的感知背景故事--即感知体验,或者至少是我们在感知体验中享受到的观念/感觉,发生在一个因果链的末端,假定现实主义,这个因果链是从外部对象开始的。然而,每个人拼凑拼图的方式都不尽相同。
Of the four philosophers explored here, Descartes allows the science to drive his theorizing almost exclusively; in some ways, Descartes is more interested in drawing out the philosophical consequences of what the science tells us than developing an independent philosophical theory. As we saw, however, this leaves the subsequent theory struggling both to say anything interesting about the phenomenological aspects of perception and to explain how perception can play the epistemological role we take it to. Against this background, Locke develops a metaphysics of ideas to try to enable the theory to better wear the phenomenological and epistemological hats, but this comes with two downsides: first that it requires us to be radically mistaken about the direct objects of our awareness - we thought they were mindindependent material objects, when in fact they are mind-dependent ideas - and 在本文探讨的四位哲学家中,笛卡尔几乎只让科学来驱动他的理论研究;在某些方面,笛卡尔更感兴趣的是引出科学告诉我们的哲学后果,而不是发展独立的哲学理论。然而,正如我们所看到的,这使得后来的理论既难以对知觉的现象学方面做出任何有趣的论述,也难以解释知觉如何扮演我们认为的认识论角色。在此背景下,洛克发展了观念形而上学,试图使理论更好地戴上现象学和认识论的帽子,但这有两个弊端:首先,它要求我们对我们知觉的直接对象有根本性的误解--我们以为它们是独立于心灵的物质对象,而事实上它们是独立于心灵的观念--其次,它要求我们对我们知觉的直接对象有根本性的误解--我们以为它们是独立于心灵的物质对象,而事实上它们是独立于心灵的观念。
second, as Hume reluctantly conceded, this picture makes it difficult to see how perceptual experiences, thus understood, can give us knowledge of the external world. Berkeley then attempts to resolve these epistemological problems using a revisionist Idealist metaphysics, whereas Reid retains the original realist metaphysics but attempts to show how a theory of perception can wear the epistemological hat by engaging in a distinctively philosophical project that distinguishes the mental act of perceiving from the having of sensations, where that is understood as an activity which is involved in perceiving but is not itself constitutive of perceiving. 其次,正如休谟勉强承认的那样,这种图景使我们难以理解知觉经验如何能给我们带来关于外部世界的知识。伯克利试图用一种修正的理想主义形而上学来解决这些认识论问题,而里德则保留了原有的现实主义形而上学,但试图证明知觉理论如何能戴上认识论的帽子,他参与了一个独特的哲学项目,将知觉的心理行为与感觉的产生区分开来,感觉的产生被理解为一种参与知觉的活动,但其本身并不构成知觉。
This brief overview provides us with two things. First, it provides us with a sketch of the lay of the land that twentieth-century philosophers were faced with as they began to develop philosophical theories of perception in the early parts of the century. In the first part of this book, we will explore how the principles, preoccupations, and predilections that were inherited from the Moderns, including their tendency to focus on vision, have been taken up, amended, and sometimes discarded as philosophical theories of perception developed from the early twentieth century to the present day. In addition, it shows us how the wider context - particularly concerning dominant approaches in the science of the time - exerted a strong influence on the way in which philosophical theories of perception developed. As we shall see, this influence is as strong today as it was in the Modern period. In the second part of this book, we will therefore explore the contemporary interactions between empirical science and the philosophy of perception. 这一简要概述为我们提供了两方面的信息。首先,它为我们勾勒出二十世纪哲学家在本世纪初开始发展知觉哲学理论时所面临的局面。在本书的第一部分,我们将探讨从二十世纪初至今的知觉哲学理论发展过程中,从现代派那里继承下来的原则、先入之见和偏好,包括他们关注视觉的倾向,是如何被继承、修正,有时甚至被抛弃的。此外,它还向我们展示了更广泛的背景--尤其是当时科学的主流方法--是如何对知觉哲学理论的发展方式产生巨大影响的。正如我们将看到的那样,这种影响在今天与在现代时期一样强烈。因此,在本书的第二部分,我们将探讨当代实证科学与知觉哲学之间的互动关系。
Questions 问题
Descartes draws an analogy between our perceptual situation and a blind man navigating his environment by means of a stick. How plausible do you find this analogy? 笛卡尔将我们的知觉状况比喻为盲人用一根棍子导航。你觉得这个类比的可信度如何?
Locke attempts to ensure that his theory can wear the phenomenological hat by positing ideas to bear the qualities that we are aware of in perception. Does this response successfully accommodate what it’s like to perceive? 洛克试图确保他的理论能够戴上现象学的帽子,他假定观念具有我们在感知中意识到的特质。这种回应成功地适应了感知的感觉吗?
By denying that sensations have an inferential role to play in the perceptual process, Reid holds that his theory qualifies as a version of direct realism. How well does Reid’s theory wear the epistemological hat? 通过否认感觉在知觉过程中的推论作用,里德认为他的理论是直接现实主义的一个版本。里德的理论戴上认识论的帽子后效果如何?
Further Reading 更多阅读
Extracts from Aristotle and the Modern philosophers’ discussions of perception can be found in Volume I of Perception: Critical Concepts in Pbilosophy (Fish 2016). 亚里士多德和现代哲学家关于知觉的讨论摘录见《知觉》第一卷:哲学中的关键概念》(Fish,2016 年)。
Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com
PART I 第 I 部分
Philosophical Theories of Visual Perception 视觉感知的哲学理论
Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com
2 Sense Datum Theories 2 感知基准理论
Overview 概述
This chapter begins by introducing two key principles by which philosophical theories of visual perception may be distinguished from one another: the Phenomenal Principle and the Common Factor Principle. The Phenomenal Principle states that if I am consciously aware of a property, then a bearer of that property must exist for me to be consciously aware of. The Common Factor Principle states that any indiscriminable perceptual experiences, including veridical perceptions, hallucinations, and illusions, have an underlying mental state in common. 本章首先介绍了视觉感知哲学理论可以相互区分的两个关键原则:现象原则和共同因素原则。现象原理 "指出,如果我有意识地意识到某种属性,那么该属性的携带者就必须存在,我才能有意识地意识到它。共同因素原理指出,任何不加区分的知觉体验,包括真实的知觉、幻觉和错觉,都有一个共同的基本心理状态。
These principles, together with some other unexceptional premises, can be used to argue that in all visual experience, whether perceptual or otherwise, we sense nonphysical objects, which nowadays are usually known as sense data. 这些原则连同其他一些不例外的前提可以用来论证,在所有的视觉经验中,无论是知觉经验还是其他经验,我们都能感觉到非物理对象,这些对象如今通常被称为感官数据。
This theory is outlined and difficulties for it are then discussed, including claims that it gets the phenomenology of visual experience wrong, that it cannot deliver a satisfactory epistemology, and that it is metaphysically problematic. 我们概述了这一理论,然后讨论了它所面临的困难,包括它弄错了视觉经验现象学、无法提供令人满意的认识论以及形而上学上的问题。
One of the interesting features of the development of philosophical theories of perception in the Modern philosophers was the explicit introduction of mental objects as the immediate objects of perception over and above the sensations that occur when we perceive. Why might we think that this introduction of a new metaphysical category is warranted? 近代哲学家们在发展知觉哲学理论时的一个有趣特点,就是明确引入精神客体作为知觉的直接对象,而不是我们在知觉时产生的感觉。为什么我们会认为有必要引入一个新的形而上学范畴呢?
The Phenomenal Principle 现象原理
One significant reason can be found in a well-known passage by H.H. Price, in which he contends that: 其中一个重要原因可以从 H.H. Price 的一段著名论述中找到:
When I see a tomato there is much that I can doubt. I can doubt whether it is a tomato I am seeing or 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 当我看到一个西红柿时,我有很多地方可以怀疑。我会怀疑我看到的到底是一个西红柿,还是一块涂得很巧妙的蜡。我可以怀疑那里是否有任何物质。也许我以为的西红柿是
really a reflection; perhaps I am even the victim of a 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. 也许我是幻觉的受害者。不过,有一点我是不会怀疑的:那就是我的意识中存在着一个圆形的红色斑块,形状有些凸起,从其他颜色斑块的背景中脱颖而出,具有一定的视觉深度,而且这整个颜色区域是直接呈现在我的意识中的。
(Price 1932: 3) (普赖斯,1932:3)
This principle - that if I have an experience as of something red, then there must be a red thing that I experience - was named the Phenomenal Principle by Howard Robinson, who formulates it explicitly as follows: 霍华德-罗宾逊(Howard Robinson)将这一原则命名为 "现象原则"(Phenomenal Principle):
§ If there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality then there is something of which the subject is aware which does possess that quality. § 如果主体感性地认为有某种东西具有某种感性品质,那么主体就会意识到确实有某种东西具有这种品质。
(Robinson 1994: 32) (罗宾逊,1994 年:32)。
To clarify the terminology present here, “sensibly appears” is used to indicate that we are dealing with conscious awareness. To say that there sensibly appears to me to be something pink is to say that I am consciously aware of pinkness: that pinkness is phenomenally present to me. The Phenomenal Principle then states that in such a case, there must actually be something pink of which I am aware. It is important to note that the Phenomenal Principle has the form of a conditional (an if - then statement) with a phenomenological antecedent and a metaphysical consequent. It tells us that, in order for things to be a certain way for us, phenomenologically, certain things must exist. 为了澄清这里的术语,"感性地显现 "用来表示我们在处理有意识的意识。说 "在我的感官中似乎有粉红色的东西",就是说我有意识地意识到了粉红色:粉红色在我的现象中是存在的。那么,现象原理就指出,在这种情况下,实际上一定有我意识到的粉红色的东西。值得注意的是,现象学原理是一个条件("如果"-"那么 "语句)的形式,有一个现象学的前件和一个形而上学的后件。它告诉我们,为了让事物以某种方式存在于我们的现象学中,某些事物必须存在。
As these brief discussions indicate, the main motivation for endorsing the Phenomenal Principle derives from our own introspective knowledge of what it is like for us to have conscious experiences. You can test the strength of this motivation for yourself by closing this book and looking at it. The force behind the Phenomenal Principle is simply this: in order for your experience to be the way it is, pinkness and rectangularity have to actually be there for you to be aware of - there must be current instantiations of these properties to adequately explain what it is like for you to have this experience. The Phenomenal Principle codifies this by saying that whenever we have an instance of this kind of conscious awareness, then there must be something - some object - that the subject is aware of and that bears the properties that characterize what it is like for the subject. 正如这些简短的讨论所表明的,赞同现象学原理的主要动机来自我们自己对有意识体验的内省知识。你可以合上这本书,看看它,自己测试一下这种动机的强度。现象原理背后的力量就是:为了让你的体验成为现实,粉红色和长方形必须真实存在,让你意识到--必须有这些属性的当前实例,才能充分解释你的这种体验是什么样的。现象学原理》对此进行了编纂,指出只要我们有这种有意识的意识的实例,那么就一定有某种东西--某种客体--是主体所意识到的,并且具有描述主体的体验的特征的属性。
Are there any other arguments in favor of the Phenomenal Principle? Possibly; it might also be argued to be an implicit commitment of our linguistic practices. Take, for example, the phenomenon of afterimages. If you stare at a bright light for a while, you will usually find that when you close your eyes, you are aware of a bright spot in the center of your visual field that is roughly the same size and shape as the light you were staring at. When having such an experience, you might assent to the truth of the following statement: I am aware of a bright, circular patch. In assenting to the truth of such a statement, you appear to be committing yourself to the existence of a bright, circular patch that you are aware of. This patch would be 还有其他支持现象原则的论据吗?有可能;也可以说它是我们语言实践的一种隐含承诺。例如,残像现象。如果你盯着一束强光看了一会儿,通常会发现当你闭上眼睛时,你会意识到在你的视野中心有一个亮点,它的大小和形状与你盯着的那束光大致相同。在有这种体验时,你可能会同意以下陈述的真实性:我意识到一个明亮的圆形光斑。在认同这种说法的真实性时,你似乎在承诺你所意识到的明亮圆形光斑的存在。这个光斑是
the kind of object that the Phenomenal Principle insists must be involved in every visual experience. So the defender of the Phenomenal Principle might also argue that the language we use in talking about our experiences incorporates a tacit commitment to the Phenomenal Principle. 现象学原理 "坚持认为,每一种视觉体验都必须包含这样一种对象。因此,"现象原理 "的捍卫者也可以说,我们在谈论自己的体验时所使用的语言包含了对 "现象原理 "的默示承诺。
Yet the Phenomenal Principle alone cannot explain why we might feel the need to introduce mental objects as the immediate objects of perception. After all, when you look at this book and enjoy a pink, rectangular kind of experience, there is something pink and rectangular that you are aware of - the mind-independent book itself. Why not hold that this is the immediate object of the experience? To take us all the way to mental objects, we need something else. 然而,仅凭现象原理并不能解释为什么我们会觉得有必要引入精神对象作为感知的直接对象。毕竟,当你看着这本书,享受一种粉红色的、长方形的体验时,你意识到了一个粉红色的、长方形的东西--与心灵无关的书本身。为什么不认为这就是体验的直接对象呢?要把我们一直带到精神客体,我们还需要别的东西。
Mental Objects and the Common Factor Principle 心智对象与公因式原理
To introduce the principle that bridges this gap, consider that different experiences, all of which fall under the general heading of visual experiences, can be more or less correct or successful. Tradition distinguishes three cases: 为了介绍弥合这一差距的原则,请考虑一下不同的体验,所有这些体验都属于视觉体验的总标题,都可能或多或少地正确或成功。传统将其分为三种情况:
Fully successful cases of perception - cases in which an object is seen and seen correctly or “as it is” - will be termed perception or sometimes veridical perception. When it comes to the associated verb, if we find a subject “seeing” or “perceiving”, it should be understood that we are dealing with a case of successful perception. 完全成功的感知--看到并正确地看到物体或 "如其所是"--将被称为感知,有时也被称为真实的感知。说到相关的动词,如果我们发现一个主语 "看到 "或 "感知到",就应该理解为我们正在处理一个成功的感知案例。
In contrast, “illusion” refers to cases in which something is seen, but seen incorrectly or “as it is not”. So, for example, illusions includes cases in which a round object is seen to be oval, a blue object is seen to be green, or a tall object is seen to be short. Unfortunately, as there is no aesthetically acceptable verb form, when it is required we will have to talk about subject’s being under an illusion or suffering from an illusion. 相比之下,"错觉 "指的是看到了某些东西,但看到的却是错误的或 "不正确的"。因此,举例来说,错觉包括把圆形物体看成椭圆形,把蓝色物体看成绿色,或者把高的物体看成矮的。遗憾的是,由于没有美学上可接受的动词形式,当需要使用时,我们只能谈论主体处于幻觉之下或遭受幻觉之苦。
Finally, the term “hallucination” refers to cases in which it seems to the subject as though something is seen, but where in fact nothing is seen. Classic examples include Macbeth’s hallucination of a dagger and Hamlet’s hallucination of his father. Thankfully, we have an acceptable verb form here: hallucinate. 最后,"幻觉 "一词指的是主体似乎看到了什么,但实际上什么也没看到的情况。经典的例子包括麦克白对匕首的幻觉和哈姆雷特对父亲的幻觉。值得庆幸的是,我们在这里有一个可以接受的动词形式:hallucinate(幻觉)。
If we need a term that refers to an experience regardless of which of these three categories it fits into, we will use the term “perceptual (or visual) experience”. So where you find this term, it should be read as a generic term that includes perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations. We may also from time to time distinguish the “good cases”, i.e. the fully successful cases of veridical perception, from a general group of “bad cases” that includes both illusions and hallucinations. 如果我们需要一个术语来指代一种体验,而不管它属于这三个类别中的哪一个,我们就会使用 "知觉(或视觉)体验 "这个术语。因此,无论你在哪里找到这个术语,它都应该被理解为一个包括知觉、幻觉和幻觉的通用术语。我们还可以不时地将 "好的案例",即完全成功的真实知觉案例,与包括错觉和幻觉在内的 "坏的案例 "区分开来。
Now, when we focus on the bad cases of illusion and hallucination, the Phenomenal Principle can be used as a premise in an argument for the existence of mental objects. Consider hallucination first as it is the simplest case. When a subject hallucinates, there sensibly appears to that subject to be something that possesses at least one sensible quality. Take a hallucination of a pink elephant, for example. In such a case, there sensibly appears to the subject to be something that possesses the quality 现在,当我们把注意力集中在幻觉和幻听这两种糟糕的情况时,现象原理就可以作为论证精神客体存在的前提。首先考虑幻觉,因为它是最简单的情况。当一个人产生幻觉时,在他的感官上会出现至少具有一种感官特质的东西。以幻觉中的粉红色大象为例。在这种情况下,主体会理智地认为某种东西具有以下品质
of pinkness. If we accept the Phenomenal Principle, then this entails that there is something of which the subject is aware that possesses the quality of pinkness. Yet as this is a case of hallucination, there is no suitable pink thing in the world - the pink thing of which the subject is aware is not, therefore, a worldly entity. 粉红色。如果我们接受 "现象原理",那么这就意味着主体所意识到的某种东西具有粉红色的特质。然而,由于这是一个幻觉案例,世界上并不存在合适的粉红色事物--因此,主体意识到的粉红色事物并不是一个世界实体。
In the case of illusion, the considerations are similar. Once again, there sensibly appears to the subject of illusion to be something that possesses a sensible quality. If a gray elephant looks pink to the subject, then once again there sensibly appears to the subject to be something that possesses the quality of pinkness. The Phenomenal Principle therefore insists that there is something of which the subject is aware which possesses the quality of pinkness. Yet the only worldly candidate to be the experienced object in this case - the elephant - does not have the property of pinkness, so cannot be the pink thing of which the subject is aware. 在幻觉的情况下,考虑的因素是相似的。同样,对于幻觉的主体来说,感性上似乎存在着某种具有感性特质的东西。如果一头灰色的大象在主体看来是粉红色的,那么在主体看来,同样有某种东西具有粉红色的特质。因此,"现象原理 "坚持认为,存在着某种主体所意识到的具有粉红色特质的东西。然而,在这种情况下,作为经验对象的唯一世俗候选者--大象--并不具备粉红色的特质,所以它不可能是主体所意识到的粉红色事物。
These arguments give us the first stages of what are known as the argument from ballucination and argument from illusion, respectively. They move from an endorsement of the Phenomenal Principle, together with the plausible claim that hallucinations and illusions are cases in which there sensibly appears to the subject to be something that possesses a sensible quality, to the conclusion that the subject is aware of something that cannot be identified with an everyday worldly object. More formally, the arguments work as follows: 这些论证分别为我们提供了所谓幻觉论证和错觉论证的第一阶段。这些论证从现象原理的认可,以及幻觉和错觉是主体感性地看到某种具有感性特质的东西这一可信的说法,发展到主体意识到某种无法与日常世俗对象相提并论的东西这一结论。更正式地说,论证过程如下:
Premise 1 ( PP ): If there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality, then there is something of which the subject is aware which does possess that quality. 前提 1 ( PP ):如果主体感性地认为有某种东西具有某种感性品质,那么主体就会意识到确实有某种东西具有这种品质。
Premise 2(b): In hallucination, there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality when there is no suitable worldly object at all. 前提 2(b):在幻觉中,当一个主体根本没有合适的世俗对象时,他就会感性地认为有某种具有特定感性品质的东西存在。
Premise 2(i): In illusion, there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality when there is no suitable worldly object that possesses that quality. 前提 2(i):在幻觉中,主体会感性地认为存在某种具有特定感性品质的东西,而实际上并不存在具有这种品质的合适的世俗对象。
Conclusion (b): In hallucination, the something of which the subject is aware is not an everyday worldly object. 结论 (b):在幻觉中,主体意识到的东西并不是日常生活中的物体。
Conclusion (i): In illusion, the something of which the subject is aware is not an everyday worldly object. 结论 (i):在幻觉中,主体意识到的东西并不是日常的世俗之物。
If the subject is not aware of an everyday worldly object, what is the subject aware of? Well, whatever it is, it is pink. And as (we can safely stipulate) there is nothing pink in the subject’s brain, the object of awareness in these cases is typically taken to be nonphysical. Given that hallucinations seem to depend only on processes internal to the subject - processes in the brain, for example - the object of hallucinatory experience is also typically (although not exclusively) taken to be mind-dependent and “private” to its subject, in the sense that only the subject of the hallucination can be aware of that particular object. The standard contemporary answer to the question of what subjects are aware of in cases of illusion and hallucination is therefore this: subjects are aware of nonphysical, mental objects known as sense data (singular: sense datum). 如果主体意识不到日常生活中的物体,那么主体意识到的是什么呢?不管它是什么,它是粉红色的。由于(我们可以有把握地假设)主体的大脑中没有任何粉红色的东西,在这种情况下,意识的对象通常被认为是非物理的。鉴于幻觉似乎只依赖于主体的内部过程--例如大脑中的过程--幻觉体验的对象也通常(尽管不完全)被认为是依赖于心智的,是主体的 "私有 "对象,也就是说,只有幻觉的主体才能意识到那个特定的对象。因此,对于主体在幻觉和幻觉中意识到了什么这一问题,当代的标准答案是:主体意识到了被称为感官数据(单数:sense datum)的非物理的精神对象。
This gives us the positive conclusion of the first stage of the arguments from illusion and hallucination (which, for simplicity’s sake, I will combine): 这样,我们就得出了幻觉和幻觉论证第一阶段的正面结论(为简单起见,我将这两个论证合并在一起):
Conclusion (+): In hallucination and illusion, subjects are aware of sense data. 结论(+):在幻觉和错觉中,受试者会意识到感官数据。
Thus far, however, we only have an argument for mental objects/sense data as the immediate objects of perception in the bad cases. We don’t yet have a generalized argument that mental objects are the immediate objects of perception in all cases. To get this, we need to deploy our second principle: the Common Factor Principle. 然而,到目前为止,我们只有一个论证,即精神客体/感官数据在不好的情况下是感知的直接客体。我们还没有一个概括性的论证,证明心理对象在所有情况下都是感知的直接对象。为此,我们需要运用我们的第二个原则:共同因素原则。
Now, the core of any philosophical theory of perception is an account of the nature of the mental state or event that occurs when we perceive. With this in mind, consider the following three situations: a subject is seeing an elephant that has been painted pink; a subject is under the illusion that the very same elephant, unpainted, is pink (perhaps because of new, experimental lighting at the zoo); and a subject is hallucinating (or maybe dreaming) that they are at the zoo looking at a pink elephant. And assume that the experiences the subject has in these three cases cannot be told apart, that is, that they are indiscriminable or indistinguishable from one another. The Common Factor Principle says that in such indiscriminable cases of perception, illusion, and hallucination, the mental state or event that occurs is the same, regardless of which of these categories the visual experience falls into. 现在,任何关于知觉的哲学理论的核心都是对我们在知觉时所发生的心理状态或事件的性质的解释。有鉴于此,请考虑以下三种情况:一个实验对象看到了一头被涂成粉红色的大象;一个实验对象产生了错觉,以为那头没有被涂成粉红色的大象也是粉红色的(也许是因为动物园里采用了新的实验灯光);一个实验对象产生了幻觉(也许是在做梦),以为自己在动物园里看到了一头粉红色的大象。假设受试者在这三种情况下的体验无法区分,也就是说,它们是不加区分或无法区分的。共同因素原理认为,在感知、错觉和幻觉这种无差别的情况下,无论视觉体验属于其中的哪一种,所发生的心理状态或事件都是相同的。
In order to be clear, let me say a little more about the idea that perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations have a “mental state or event” in common. The reason we need to say more is because, on one level at least, these three experiences are importantly distinct - they are a perception, illusion, and hallucination in turn! Given this, what does it mean to say that the mental state or event in these three cases is the same? 为了清楚起见,让我再多说几句关于知觉、幻觉和幻觉具有 "精神状态或事件 "这一共同点的看法。我们之所以需要多说几句,是因为至少在一个层面上,这三种体验有着重要的区别--它们依次是知觉、幻觉和幻觉!既然如此,说这三种情况下的精神状态或事件是相同的又是什么意思呢?
Let me explain by way of an analogy. Consider: 让我打个比方来解释一下。想想看
two different sorts of burn, exactly alike in the type of physical injury they involve (call it type BB ), but differing with respect to what causes the injury; there are sunburns, in which BB is caused by exposure to the sun, and scorches, in which BB is caused by proximity to a source of heat. 有两种不同的烧伤,它们所涉及的身体伤害类型完全相同(称之为 BB 类型),但造成伤害的原因却不同;一种是晒伤, BB 是由暴露在阳光下造成的,另一种是烧焦, BB 是由接近热源造成的。
(Child 1994: 145) (Child 1994:145)
In such a case, although sunburns and scorches are different injuries, they nonetheless have a “physical injury” in common - a burn of type BB. Likewise, the Common Factor Principle states that, although there is a sense in which perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations are different mental states, they nonetheless have a “mental state or event” in common. The latter claim is to be understood as analogous to the former. I will mark this by saying that, according to the Common Factor Principle, perception, illusion, and hallucination have an “underlying” mental state or event in common. 在这种情况下,虽然晒伤和烧伤是不同的伤害,但它们却有一个共同的 "身体伤害"-- BB 型烧伤。同样,"共同因素原则 "指出,虽然在某种意义上,知觉、幻觉和幻觉是不同的精神状态,但它们有一个共同的 "精神状态或事件"。后一种说法应被理解为与前一种说法类似。根据共同因素原则,知觉、幻觉和幻觉都有一个共同的 "潜在 "精神状态或事件。
This principle can then be appended to the arguments from hallucination and illusion that have been developed thus far to create a general argument for the conclusion that the immediate objects of perception are mental. Recall that the positive conclusion of the first stage of the arguments from hallucination and illusion was that the immediate objects of ballucination and illusion are mental: 然后,我们可以将这一原则附加到迄今为止所提出的幻觉和错觉论证中,从而为知觉的直接对象是精神性的这一结论建立一个一般性论证。回想一下,幻觉和错觉论证第一阶段的正面结论是,幻觉和错觉的直接对象是精神的:
Conclusion (+): In hallucination and illusion, subjects are aware of sense data. 结论 (+):在幻觉和错觉中,受试者会意识到感官数据。
Another way of phrasing this would be to say that in cases of hallucination and illusion, the “underlying mental state” that subjects enjoy is the state of being aware of sense data of certain kinds. So long as we assume that there could be a hallucinatory/illusory counterpart of any possible veridical perception - that is, for any veridical perception, there could be a phenomenologically indiscriminable experience that was not itself a veridical perception - then, given the Common Factor Principle’s claim that phenomenologically indiscriminable perceptions, hallucinations, and illusions have an underlying mental state in common, we can infer that we must be aware of sense data in veridical perception too. 另一种说法是,在幻觉和错觉的情况下,主体所享有的 "基本精神状态 "是意识到某种感官数据的状态。只要我们假定任何可能的真实知觉都可能存在幻觉/幻觉的对应物--也就是说,对于任何真实知觉来说,都可能存在一种本身不是真实知觉的现象学上无差别的体验--那么,鉴于 "共同因素原理 "声称现象学上无差别的知觉、幻觉和幻觉都有一种共同的潜在心理状态,我们就可以推断出,在真实知觉中,我们也必须意识到感觉数据。
So should we accept the Common Factor Principle? Well, there are a number of reasons why this principle might seem appealing. For instance, in the kind of case discussed above, the subject may be completely unable to distinguish between the experience they have when they perceive, when they hallucinate, and when they suffer from an illusion. If we think that our introspective capacities must be able to turn up a difference between two mental states or events if there is a difference there to be turned up, then the fact that we cannot discover a difference between perceptions, illusions, and hallucinations would show that there are no differences between them. Even if we do not hold such a strong view of introspection, the fact that the experiences in these different situations can be indiscriminable could at least be cited as evidence (albeit defeasible evidence) that the subject’s underlying mental state or event must be the same. 那么,我们是否应该接受 "公因式原则 "呢?这个原则看起来很吸引人,原因有很多。例如,在上文讨论的那种情况下,主体可能完全无法区分他们在感知、幻觉和错觉时的体验。如果我们认为,我们的内省能力必须能够发现两种精神状态或事件之间的差异,如果存在差异的话,那么我们无法发现知觉、幻觉和幻觉之间的差异这一事实就表明它们之间不存在差异。即使我们不对内省持如此强烈的看法,这些不同情况下的体验可以是无差别的这一事实至少可以作为证据(尽管是可击败的证据),证明主体的基本精神状态或事件必须是相同的。
We might also appeal to ways we find it natural to speak. Above, when I outlined the three pink elephant experiences - one veridical, one illusory, one a hallucination - I talked about them being indistinguishable from one another. However, it would have been very natural to express the commonality between these experiences by saying that the subject’s experience is the same in each case. Alternatively, consider a case in which we are having one of these pink elephant experiences, but do not know which one; that is, we do not know whether we are seeing a pink elephant, under the illusion that a gray elephant is pink, or simply hallucinating. In such a case we might naturally say that we are having the experience of seeming to see a pink elephant, where this is understood as something that could occur regardless of which of the three situations we are actually in. 我们还可以借鉴我们认为自然的说话方式。在上文,当我概述三种粉红色大象的体验--一种是真实的,一种是虚幻的,一种是幻觉--时,我谈到了它们之间的不可区分性。然而,如果我们用 "主体的体验在每种情况下都是一样的 "来表达这些体验之间的共性,那将是非常自然的。或者,我们可以考虑这样一种情况,即我们有其中一种粉红色大象的体验,但不知道是哪一种;也就是说,我们不知道自己是看到了粉红色大象,还是产生了灰色大象是粉红色的错觉,抑或仅仅是产生了幻觉。在这种情况下,我们可以很自然地说,我们正在经历似乎看到了一头粉红色大象的体验,这可以理解为无论我们实际处于这三种情况中的哪一种,都可能发生的事情。
Another argument in favor of the Common Factor Principle, particularly with respect to its role in the arguments from illusion and hallucination, focuses on the implausibility of the alternatives. In considering what would be involved in 支持 "共同因素原则 "的另一个论点,特别是关于它在幻觉和幻觉论证中的作用,集中在替代方案的不可信上。在考虑
nevertheless insisting that, whilst non-veridical experiences involved mental objects, veridical experiences did not, Price contends: 尽管如此,普赖斯还是坚持认为,非验证性经验涉及精神对象,而验证性经验则不涉及精神对象:
Is it not incredible that two entities so similar in all these qualities should really be so utterly different: that the one should be a real constituent of a material object, wholly independent of the observer’s mind and organism, while the other is merely the fleeting product of his cerebral processes? 在所有这些特性上如此相似的两个实体竟如此截然不同:一个是物质对象的真正组成部分,完全独立于观察者的思想和机体,而另一个只是他大脑过程中的短暂产物,这难道不令人难以置信吗?
(1932: 31-2)
So Price argues that the indiscriminability of perception and cases of hallucination and/or illusion give us reason to think that if one is an awareness of sense data, then so must the other be. Yet in response to this kind of consideration, Austin asks: “If I am told that a lemon is generically different from a piece of soap, do I expect that no piece of soap could look like a lemon? Why should I” (1962: 50)? 因此,普赖斯认为,知觉与幻觉和/或错觉的不可分性让我们有理由认为,如果一个是对感官数据的认识,那么另一个也一定是。然而,奥斯汀在回应这种思考时问道:"如果我被告知柠檬是一种感官数据,那么另一种感官数据也一定是感官数据:"如果我被告知柠檬与一块肥皂有着本质区别,那么我是否会认为没有一块肥皂看起来像柠檬呢?我为什么要这样做"(1962:50)?
However, there is a closely related way of developing this kind of consideration that cannot be resisted in this way. This turns on the thought that our experiences of the color of objects can change quite substantially depending upon the particular viewing conditions at the time. As examples of this, A.D. Smith mentions “the common phenomenon of looking at an article of clothing under the artificial lighting of a shop and discovering its ‘real’ colour in daylight” and “the way in which our awareness of the colours of objects changes as dawn gives way to the full light of morning, or as dusk descends” (2002: 27). If we make the plausible assumption that there is a unique “real” color that each object is, then in these transition cases, at least one of our perceptions of these objects would have to count as illusory. When we consider how familiar these cases are, we can see that transitions from experiences that qualify as perceptual to experiences that qualify as illusory are pervasive. Given this, it would seem implausible to hold that they involve distinct kinds of awareness - an awareness of sense data in the illusory cases and some other kind of awareness in the perceptual cases. 然而,还有一种与之密切相关的方法,也是我们无法回避的。这就是,我们对物体颜色的体验会因当时特定的观看条件而发生很大的变化。作为这方面的例子,史密斯(A.D. Smith)提到了 "在商店的人工照明下看一件衣服,而在日光下发现它的'真实'颜色的常见现象",以及 "我们对物体颜色的认识随着黎明让位于晨光,或随着黄昏的降临而发生变化的方式"(2002: 27)。如果我们假设每个物体都有一种独特的 "真实 "颜色,那么在这些过渡情况中,我们对这些物体的感知至少有一种是虚幻的。当我们考虑到这些情况是多么常见时,我们就会发现,从符合感知条件的体验过渡到符合虚幻条件的体验是普遍存在的。有鉴于此,认为它们涉及不同类型的意识--在虚幻的情况下是对感官数据的意识,而在知觉的情况下是某种其他类型的意识--似乎是难以置信的。
A second reason connected to and reinforcing these considerations turns on evidence from psychology and neuroscience. We know from studying a range of phenomena that our ability to have veridical perceptions depends upon the right kinds of activity taking place in our brains. We also know that if this brain activity is altered in certain predictable ways, subjects can be made to have illusory experiences. We are also confident that brain activity alone can be sufficient for a subject to have a hallucination. If we accept the first phase of the arguments from illusion/hallucination, we therefore have strong reasons to think that in the case of hallucination, brain activity of the right kind is all that is needed to create a sense datum of which the subject is aware. What is more, the subject being aware of this sense datum suffices for the subject to have an experience that is indiscriminable from a perception. Given this, if the same kind of brain activity were to occur during a perceptual episode, then it should also be sufficient to create a sense datum of which the subject is aware. And, as before, the existence and awareness of this sense datum would suffice for the subject to have an experience that seemed perceptual. So, regardless of the ways in which perceptions, hallucinations, and illusions may differ, there is good reason to think that they share a common element - a common awareness of sense data. 与上述考虑相关并加强这些考虑的第二个原因是来自心理学和神经科学的证据。通过对一系列现象的研究,我们知道,我们能否获得真实的感知取决于我们大脑中是否发生了正确的活动。我们还知道,如果以某些可预测的方式改变大脑活动,就能使受试者产生虚幻的体验。我们还确信,仅凭大脑活动就足以让受试者产生幻觉。因此,如果我们接受幻觉/幻觉论证的第一阶段,我们就有充分的理由认为,在幻觉的情况下,只需要适当的大脑活动就能产生主体意识到的感官数据。更重要的是,主体意识到这一感觉基准就足以使主体产生一种与知觉无异的体验。有鉴于此,如果在知觉过程中发生了同样的大脑活动,那么它也足以产生主体意识到的感官数据。而且,与之前一样,这种感官数据的存在和意识足以让主体产生一种似乎是知觉的体验。因此,无论知觉、幻觉和错觉在哪些方面存在差异,我们都有充分的理由认为它们有一个共同的要素--对感官数据的共同意识。
The Time-Lag Argument 时滞论证
The standard arguments from illusion and hallucination both attempt to prove something of a deceptive case and then extend that conclusion to perceptual cases too. An alternative argument known as the time-lag argument does not involve two stages. Instead, it simply operates with the Phenomenal Principle together with the premise that in time-lag cases, there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality when the only suitable worldly object either no longer exists or has changed its qualities. What makes this argument different from the others is that it attempts to include all cases - perceptual and non-perceptual - as time-lag cases. So an extra generalizing stage of the argument is not required. The defense of the claim that all cases of perception are time-lag cases turns on two related considerations. The first is that where distant objects are concerned, light from those objects takes a finite time to reach us, and that the objects may well have changed during that time. For instance, the distance to some stars is so large that by the time the light from those stars reaches our eyes, the stars themselves will have ceased to exist. Yet it is only when the light reaches our eyes that we have a visual experience of the star. So in such an experience, there sensibly appears to a subject to be something star-like when the only suitable worldly object no longer exists. Given the Phenomenal Principle, this entails that there must be something of which the subject is aware which possesses whatever qualities the “star” appears to have. As the star itself no longer exists, this provides another reason to think that the thing of which the subject is aware is a proxy star - a sense datum. Yet even in everyday cases, it takes a finite amount of time for light from an object to reach our eyes and be processed by our visual systems. Although in such cases the time-lag is so miniscule the object will not have had time to cease to exist or change its properties, we can contemplate the possibility that it might have done, and when we do, we see that we would have had the experience that we have regardless. The conclusion the argument aims to establish is therefore that in all cases of visual experience, we are aware of a sense datum. 幻觉和幻觉的标准论证都试图证明某种欺骗性情况,然后将这一结论也扩展到知觉情况。另一种被称为时滞论证的论证不涉及两个阶段。相反,它只是利用现象原理和一个前提,即在时滞情况下,当唯一合适的世俗对象不复存在或改变了它的品质时,在主体的感官上似乎存在着某种具有特定感官品质的东西。这个论证与其他论证的不同之处在于,它试图把所有情况--知觉的和非知觉的--都作为时滞情况。因此,不需要额外的概括论证阶段。为 "所有感知情况都是时滞情况 "这一说法进行辩护,需要考虑两个相关因素。首先,就遥远的物体而言,这些物体发出的光线需要一定的时间才能到达我们的视线,而在这段时间里,这些物体很可能已经发生了变化。例如,有些恒星距离我们非常遥远,当这些恒星发出的光线到达我们的眼睛时,恒星本身已经不存在了。然而,只有当光线到达我们的眼睛时,我们才会对恒星产生视觉体验。因此,在这种体验中,当唯一合适的世俗对象不复存在时,主体就会理智地认为存在着类似星星的东西。根据现象原理,这就意味着一定存在着某种主体所意识到的东西,它具有 "恒星 "看起来所具有的品质。由于恒星本身已不复存在,这就提供了另一个理由,让我们认为主体所意识到的东西是一颗代理恒星--一种感官基准。 然而,即使在日常生活中,物体发出的光线到达我们的眼睛并被我们的视觉系统处理也需要一定的时间。虽然在这种情况下,时间差是如此微小,物体没有时间停止存在或改变其属性,但我们可以考虑它可能已经改变的可能性,当我们这样做时,我们就会发现,无论如何,我们都会有这样的体验。因此,论证所要得出的结论是,在所有视觉体验中,我们都能意识到感官基准。
Sense Datum Theory 感性基准理论
Phenomenal Principle Common Factor Principle v^(v)\stackrel{v}{v} 现象原理 公因式原理 v^(v)\stackrel{v}{v}
As we have seen, the sense datum theory arises from acceptance of both the Phenomenal Principle and the Common Factor Principle. To enable us to see the relationships between different theories of perception with regard to their acceptance 正如我们所看到的,感性基准理论产生于对现象原理和共同因素原理的接受。为了使我们能够看清不同知觉理论在接受方面的关系
or rejection of these principles, this will be represented as above. Together, these principles suggest that as every experience of certain qualities or properties requires us to be aware of bearers of those qualities or properties, and as we have to give the same analysis of good case experience as we do of bad case experience, then the property-bearers that we are aware of cannot be everyday material objects. It is only a small step from there, via the thought that there are no objects outside the mind that could play the required role, to the view that visual experience must, therefore, involve an awareness of mental objects - sense data. 如果我们不同意或拒绝这些原则,就会出现上述情况。这些原则共同表明,由于对某些品质或属性的每一种体验都要求我们意识到这些品质或属性的承载者,并且由于我们必须对好的体验和坏的体验进行同样的分析,那么我们意识到的属性承载者就不可能是日常的物质对象。通过 "在心灵之外没有任何物体可以扮演所需的角色 "这一想法,我们只需迈出一小步,就可以得出这样的观点:因此,视觉经验必须包含对心灵物体--感官数据--的意识。
Given that the sense datum theory accepts the Common Factor Principle, the primary formulation of the theory will thus be an analysis of that common factor - that is, of a visual experience where, recall, this is neutral as to whether a case is perceptual, hallucinatory, or illusory. A sense datum analysis of seeing or veridical perception will then have to involve the analysis of the common factor, together with an analysis of what differentiates the veridical cases from the deceptive cases that involve the same common factor. We will explore this in due course; but for now, let’s explore the primary formulation of the sense datum theory as an analysis of visual experience: 鉴于感官数据理论接受 "共同因素原则",因此,该理论的主要表述将是对该共同因素的分析--即对视觉经验的分析,回顾一下,这对于一个案例是知觉的、幻觉的还是虚幻的是中性的。因此,对视觉或真实知觉的感官数据分析必须包括对共同因素的分析,以及对涉及同一共同因素的真实案例与欺骗案例的区别的分析。我们将在适当的时候探讨这个问题;但现在,让我们来探讨作为视觉经验分析的感官基准理论的主要表述:
A subject SS has a visual experience as of a property FF if and only if: 当且仅当 SS 主体对属性 FF 有视觉体验时:
SS senses an FF sense datum, DD. SS 感知一个 FF 感知数据, DD 。
To clarify this theory, we need to say something about both what sense data are and what the relation of sensing is. 为了澄清这一理论,我们需要说明感官数据是什么以及感官的关系是什么。
The Metaphysics of Sense Data 感官数据的形而上学
Sense data are defined as nonphysical objects of awareness, which are logically private to a single subject. In addition to this, the classical picture of sense data also insists that they “actually possess standard sensible qualities, for example, shape, colour, loudness, ‘feel’ of various sorts [but] possess no intrinsic intentionality” (Robinson 1994: 2). We will look at this idea of intentionality in more detail in the next chapter, but the key claim Robinson is making for present purposes is that whilst it might be the case that when we have a given visual experience, we take the sense data to be “of the world” as a matter of habit or custom - that is, we are accustomed to take the sense data to be worldly objects - they are not “of the world” in their intrinsic nature. In their intrinsic nature, sense data possess “only sensible qualities which do not refer beyond themselves” (1994: 2). 感官数据被定义为非物理的感知对象,在逻辑上只属于一个主体。除此之外,感官数据的经典图景还坚持认为,感官数据 "实际上具有标准的感官特质,例如形状、颜色、响度、各种'感觉',[但]不具有内在的意向性"(罗宾逊,1994:2)。我们将在下一章更详细地探讨意向性这一概念,但就目前而言,罗宾逊提出的关键主张是,虽然我们在获得某种视觉体验时,可能会习惯性地将感官数据视为 "世界的"--也就是说,我们习惯性地将感官数据视为世俗之物--但它们的内在本质并非 "世界的"。就其内在性质而言,感官数据 "只具有不超越自身的感性特质"(1994:2)。
In the present philosophical environment, the very fact that sense data are held to be nonphysical would be reason enough for them to be viewed with deep suspicion. But not only are they nonphysical, they are also a very strange kind of existent. Barnes (1965: 143-52) asks a number of pertinent questions, including the following: Does a particular sense datum persist while I blink or is it replaced by a new one? Do sense data change in size as I move closer/further away, or are they constantly replaced by new smaller/larger sense data? If one sense datum moves across a visual field, does the whole package of sense data (the visual field) change, 在当前的哲学环境中,感官数据被认为是非物理的这一事实本身就足以让人们对它们深表怀疑。但感官数据不仅是非物理的,而且还是一种非常奇怪的存在。巴恩斯(1965:143-52)提出了一系列相关问题,包括以下问题:当我眨眼时,特定的感官数据是持续存在还是被新的感官数据取代?感官数据的大小是随着我的移动而改变,还是不断被新的更小/更大的感官数据所取代?如果一个感官数据在视野中移动,整个感官数据包(视野)是否会发生变化?
or do the different component sense data change their relative positions? If sense data really exist, the thought goes, these questions must have answers. 还是不同的感官数据会改变它们的相对位置?如果感官数据真的存在,那么这些问题一定会有答案。
Whilst it is of course open for sense datum theorists to simply stipulate answers to these queries, Barnes worries about the fact that there seems to be no ground for choosing one answer over another. “It may be said that to answer these questions is not important”, he accepts. “I am inclined to agree that it is not; but the only reason I can see for this is that, [sense data] being wholly fictitious entities, we can attribute to them what qualities we please” (1965: 150). The thought here is that the fact that these metaphysical questions do not admit to any principled investigation suggests that the metaphysical realm in question does not really exist. 当然,感性数据论者可以简单地规定这些问题的答案,但巴恩斯担心的是,似乎没有理由选择一种答案而不是另一种答案。"也许有人会说,回答这些问题并不重要。"我倾向于同意这一点;但我所能看到的唯一理由是,[感官数据]是完全虚构的实体,我们可以随心所欲地赋予它们任何特质"(1965: 150)。这里的想法是,这些形而上学问题不允许任何原则性的研究,这表明有关的形而上学领域并不真正存在。
Another metaphysical worry is brought to light in an objection that, according to Chisholm (1942: 368), is originally due to Gilbert Ryle: the “Problem of the Speckled Hen”. When you perceive a speckled hen, you are likely to see that it has a large number of speckles without being able to see precisely how many speckles it has. Whilst the hen, as an existing object, has to have a determinate number of speckles (given the metaphysical principle that to be is to be determinate), our perception of the hen is indeterminate as to its speckledness. The difficulty that this indeterminacy creates is that as sense data are what we are immediately aware of in perception and as our awareness is indeterminate, it seems to imply that the sense data will have to be indeterminate in nature. But this can be argued to contravene the metaphysical principle cited above. 另一个形而上学的忧虑在吉尔伯特-赖尔(Gilbert Ryle)(1942: 368)提出的反对意见 "斑点母鸡问题 "中显现出来。当你看到一只有斑点的母鸡时,你可能会看到它有很多斑点,但却无法准确地看到它有多少斑点。虽然母鸡作为一个存在的物体,必须有确定数量的斑点(鉴于 "存在就是确定 "这一形而上学原则),但我们对母鸡斑点的感知却是不确定的。这种不确定性造成的困难是,由于感官数据是我们在感知中立即意识到的,而我们的意识是不确定的,这似乎意味着感官数据在本质上必须是不确定的。但这可以说是违背了上述形而上学原则。
In response to this objection, sense datum theorists might stipulate that sensing something does not entail being aware of every feature of that thing (Robinson 1994: 193). Yet this doesn’t quite seem to solve the problem. It is one thing to allow that we might fail to notice some feature of a sense datum but quite another to claim that a sense datum could have features that we are unable to become aware of. Yet it seems that the speckled hen could be just such a case. Even if I try to count the hen’s speckles, I may be unable to. So if the sense datum is determinate as to its number of speckles, this must therefore be a feature of the sense datum that I am unable to become aware of. As Armstrong says, this “has the paradoxical consequence that objects specially postulated to do phenomenological justice to perception are now credited with characteristics that lie quite outside perceptual awareness” (1968: 220-1). 针对这一反对意见,感觉数据论者可能会规定,感觉到某一事物并不意味着意识到该事物的每一个特征(Robinson 1994: 193)。然而,这似乎并不能完全解决问题。允许我们可能无法注意到感官原型的某些特征是一回事,但声称感官原型可能具有我们无法意识到的特征又是另一回事。然而,斑点母鸡似乎就是这样一种情况。即使我想数一数这只母鸡的斑点,也可能数不出来。因此,如果感性原点的斑点数量是确定的,那么这一定是我无法意识到的感性原点的一个特征。正如阿姆斯特朗所说,这 "产生了一个自相矛盾的结果,即为了使知觉在现象学上保持公正而特别假定的对象,现在却被认为具有知觉意识之外的特征"(1968:220-1)。
The Relation of Sensing 感知的关系
When it comes to the relationship of “sensing”, a natural way to understand the notion is in a pseudo-perceptual way: as kind of like seeing sense data. But if this is how we are to understand the notion then, as Gilbert Ryle points out (1949/1990: 204-5), we would be left with a troublesome regress. If sensing an object, D, was a matter of perceiving DD, and DD was perceived in virtue of sensing some further object D^(**)D^{*} (as the sense datum theory of perception suggests), then we have simply ended up where we began. So the relationship of sensing needs to be understood in a non-perceptual way. Having said this, however, further analyses of this relationship have not been forthcoming. The relationship of sensing is left fundamental and unanalyzed. This is not necessarily a problem, though, as Wittgenstein says, all explanations must come to an end somewhere. 说到 "感知 "的关系,理解这一概念的一种自然方式是伪感知方式:就像看到感官数据一样。但如果我们要这样理解这个概念,那么,正如吉尔伯特-赖尔所指出的(1949/1990:204-5),我们就会陷入一个麻烦的倒退。如果感知一个对象D是感知 DD 的事情,而 DD 是通过感知另一个对象 D^(**)D^{*} 而被感知的(正如感知的感觉基准理论所暗示的那样),那么我们就只是在我们开始的地方结束了。因此,我们需要从非感知的角度来理解感知的关系。然而,尽管如此,对这种关系的进一步分析并没有出现。感知的关系是根本性的,没有得到分析。但这并不一定是个问题,正如维特根斯坦所说,所有的解释都必须有一个终结。
This gives us the sense datum take on the ontological structure of perception. What about the phenomenological side? In order to discuss this adequately, let me take a moment to introduce some important theoretical terminology. Philosophical theories of the conscious aspects of mental states and events often utilize the notion of phenomenal character. To provide a theory of the conscious aspects of an experience is then to provide a theory of that experience’s phenomenal character. The problem is that people disagree as to what phenomenal character is. On one influential reading, the defining feature of phenomenal character is that it is a property of an experience; thus Byrne suggests we should just stipulate that "the phenomenal character of an experience ee is a property, specifically a property of ee : that property that types ee according to what it’s like to undergo e^('')e^{\prime \prime} (Byrne 2002: 9). Yet there are theorists who agree that experiences have phenomenal characters, but reject the claim that they are properties of those experiences. This is because those theorists take the defining feature of phenomenal character to be what it is that we are aware of when we perceivelintrospect and they argue that there is no reason to suppose that, in such cases, we become aware of properties of experiences (e.g. Tye 2000). 这为我们提供了感知本体论结构的感性数据。那么现象学方面呢?为了充分讨论这个问题,请允许我花一点时间介绍一些重要的理论术语。关于心理状态和事件的意识方面的哲学理论通常使用现象学特征的概念。提供一种关于体验的意识方面的理论,就是提供一种关于体验的现象特征的理论。问题在于,人们对现象特征的定义存在分歧。根据一种有影响力的解读,现象特性的定义特征是它是一种体验的属性;因此拜恩建议我们只需规定 "体验的现象特性 ee 是一种属性,具体来说是 ee 的一种属性:这种属性根据体验 e^('')e^{\prime \prime} 的感受将 ee 类型化(拜恩,2002:9)。然而,也有一些理论家同意经验具有现象特征,但拒绝接受现象特征是这些经验的属性的说法。这是因为这些理论家认为,现象特性的决定性特征是我们在感知自省时所意识到的东西,他们认为,没有理由认为,在这种情况下,我们会意识到经验的属性(如 Tye 2000)。
For this reason I find it helps to keep things clear if we distinguish between phenomenal character and presentational character. The former, phenomenal character, is understood according to Byrne’s definition - as the property of an experience that types that experience by what it is like to undergo it. The latter, presentational character, is understood as whatever it is that we become aware of when we perceive or introspect. As we shall see as we proceed, this distinction enables us to accommodate anything that anybody might wish to claim by denying that phenomenal characters are properties of experiences by treating whatever they say about phenomenal character as a claim about presentational character and then identifying an appropriate phenomenal character to fit. 因此,我认为将现象特性和呈现特性区分开来有助于保持事物的清晰。根据伯恩的定义,前者,即现象特性,可以理解为一种经验的属性,这种属性通过经历它时的感受来对经验进行分类。而后者,即呈现特征,则被理解为我们在感知或内省时所意识到的任何东西。正如我们接下来要看到的,这种区分使我们能够容纳任何人通过否认现象特征是经验的属性而提出的任何主张,把他们所说的关于现象特征的任何主张都视为关于呈现特征的主张,然后找出一个合适的现象特征来加以配合。
To see how this works, consider what the sense datum theorist would say we are directly aware of when we perceive. On this theory, we are directly aware of the sensible qualities of sense data. So the presentational character of an experience, according to the sense datum theory, will be constituted by the sensible properties of the sense data that the subject is aware of. Yet although these sensible qualities are properties of sense data, and sense data are constituents of an experience, it would be a fallacy of composition to assume that these properties are thereby properties of the experience itself. So these properties should not be identified with the phenomenal character of a sense datum experience. Yet there is an associated property that such an experience would have that would type it by what it is like to undergo it: it is the property the experience has of being a sensing of sense datum (or collection of sense data) DD. The sense datum theorist can therefore identify this property with the phenomenal character of the experience. 要了解这一点的原理,请考虑一下感性数据论者所说的我们在感知时直接意识到了什么。根据这一理论,我们直接意识到感官数据的感性特质。因此,根据感性数据理论,体验的呈现性将由主体所意识到的感性数据的感性特质所构成。然而,尽管这些感性特质是感性数据的属性,而感性数据又是经验的构成要素,但如果假定这些属性就是经验本身的属性,那就犯了构成谬误。因此,这些属性不应与感觉数据经验的现象特性相提并论。然而,这样一种经验会有一个相关的属性,它将以经历这种经验的感受来对其进行类型化:这就是这种经验所具有的感官数据(或感官数据的集合) DD 的属性。因此,感觉数据论者可以把这种特性与经验的现象特性联系起来。
Sense Datum Theory and the Two Hats 感性基准理论和两顶帽子
The Phenomenological Hat 现象学帽子
As we have seen, the sense datum theory is motivated primarily by phenomenological considerations. In particular, it is motivated by the thought that you cannot do justice to what it is like to have an experience unless that experience actually involves an awareness of objects. However, it has been argued that the austere nature of sense 正如我们所看到的,感觉基准理论主要是出于现象学的考虑。特别是,它的动机是认为,除非经验确实涉及对对象的认识,否则就无法公正地描述经验的感受。不过,也有人认为,感性数据理论的朴素性质
data - as objects that only possess sensible qualities - makes it difficult for the theory to adequately capture the phenomenology of “real” experiences. This is Strawson: 数据作为仅具有感性特质的对象,使得该理论难以充分捕捉 "真实 "体验的现象学。这就是斯特劳森:
Suppose a non-philosophical observer gazing idly through a window. To him we address the request, ‘Give us a description of your current visual experience’ […] Uncautioned as to exactly what we want, he might reply in such terms as these: 'I see the red light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of the elms; I see the dappled deer grazing in groups on the vivid green grass … and so on. 假设有一个非哲学的观察者透过窗户悠闲地注视着我们。我们对他提出这样的要求:'请描述一下你当前的视觉体验'[......]他可能会毫不犹豫地回答:'我看到夕阳的红光透过榆树黑色而茂密的枝叶;我看到夕阳的红光透过榆树黑色而茂密的枝叶:我看到夕阳的红光透过榆树茂密的黑枝;我看到斑驳的鹿群在鲜绿的草地上吃草......等等。
(1979: 43)
However, if the considerations presented in the arguments for sense data are accepted, it is possible that the subject might have an experience of this very kind even if there were no elms, no deer, no grass, etc. So we ask our observer to explain what his experience is like without committing himself to the existence of the (purportedly) perceived objects. If the sense datum theory is correct, then this ought to be possible by describing the sensible properties possessed by the immediate objects of his experience. Yet Strawson claims that a careful subject “does not start talking about lights and colours, patches and patterns. For he sees that to do so would be to falsify the character of the experience he actually enjoyed” (1979: 43). Although the subject could attempt to exhaustively describe this in terms of patches of color, this would, according to Strawson, falsify the character of my experience - it would fail to adequately capture what it is like to have that experience. 然而,如果接受感官数据论证中提出的观点,那么即使没有榆树、没有鹿、没有草等等,主体也有可能获得这种体验。因此,我们要求观察者解释他的体验是什么样的,而不承诺(所谓的)感知对象的存在。如果感性数据理论是正确的,那么通过描述其经验的直接对象所具有的感性属性,这应该是可能的。然而,斯特劳森声称,一个谨慎的主体 "不会开始谈论光线和颜色、斑块和图案。因为他知道,这样做就会篡改他实际享受的体验的特征"(1979:43)。斯特劳森认为,尽管主体可以尝试用色彩斑块来详尽描述这种体验,但这会篡改 "我 "的体验特征--无法充分捕捉到这种体验的感受。
A more specific phenomenological problem area for sense datum theory has concerned our experience of depth. The premise for this objection is that depth is a phenomenological feature of our visual experiences - that the experience of depth is, strictly speaking, a purely perceptual phenomenon. If this premise is accepted, then it seems that the sense datum theorist has three choices: either to claim that depth is a further sui generis sensible property that sense data can possess (a response Robinson (1994: 206) describes as “ad hoc and bogus”); to accept that the sense datum theory fails; or to accept that sense data are in fact three-dimensional and are literally at a distance from the perceiver. This option is taken up by sense datum theorists such as Jackson (1977: 102). Yet even given the strangeness of this claim, it is unclear that it can resolve the problem. Depth perception, as it is normally understood, is a feature of binocular vision. So even if sense data are in three-dimensions, there are still questions about how depth is sensed: is sensing binocular? Other sense datum theorists (such as Robinson: 206-7) therefore prefer to reject the premise, endorsing Berkeley’s famous claim that: 感觉基准理论的一个更具体的现象学问题领域涉及我们对深度的体验。这种反对意见的前提是,深度是我们视觉经验的现象学特征--严格地说,深度经验是一种纯粹的知觉现象。如果接受这一前提,那么感觉数据论者似乎有三种选择:要么声称深度是感觉数据可能具有的另一种自成一类的感性属性(罗宾逊(1994:206)将这一回应描述为 "特别的和虚假的");要么接受感觉数据理论的失败;要么接受感觉数据实际上是三维的,并且与感知者有一定的距离。杰克逊(Jackson,1977:102)等感官数据理论家采用了这一选择。然而,即使考虑到这种说法的奇怪之处,我们也不清楚它是否能解决问题。深度知觉,按照通常的理解,是双眼视觉的一个特征。因此,即使感官数据是三维的,关于深度是如何感知的问题仍然存在:感知是双眼的吗?因此,其他感官数据论者(如罗宾逊:206-7)倾向于拒绝这一前提,他们赞同伯克利的著名论断:"感官数据是三维的:
distance of itself … cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed end-wise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye. Which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter. 距离本身......是看不见的。因为距离是一条面向眼睛一端的线,它只在眼睛的底部投射出一个点。无论距离是长是短,这个点始终保持不变。
(1709/1910: 13)
This response treats the experience of depth as not, strictly speaking, part of the phenomenal nature of the visual experience at all, but rather as a result of the cognitive states that naturally accompany the experience. 这种回答认为,严格来说,深度体验根本不是视觉体验现象本质的一部分,而是自然伴随着这种体验的认知状态的结果。
The Epistemological Hat 认识论的帽子
As we might expect from the fact that the sense datum theory is motivated primarily by phenomenological considerations, it has been criticized for being unable to adequately wear the epistemological hat. 正如我们所预料的那样,由于感性数据理论的主要动机是现象学的考虑,它被批评为无法充分戴上认识论的帽子。
Typically, the sense datum theorist will claim that we perceive external objects “in virtue of” the sensing of sense data. A realist version of sense datum theory, which endorses the mind-independence of the material world, is therefore a version of Indirect Realism. As we saw in the previous chapter, the suggestion that it is “indirect” indicates that everyday material objects are held to be perceived indirectly, in virtue of an awareness of sense data, which are the direct or immediate objects of experience. This picture has led to the objection that in claiming that all we are ever directly aware of are sense data and only through them aware of the external world, we “raise a veil” that separates us from the external world. Jonathan Bennett therefore calls this the “veil-of-perception doctrine” (1971: 69). 通常,感官数据论者会宣称,我们 "凭借 "对感官数据的感知来感知外部对象。因此,认可物质世界与心灵无关的感觉数据理论的现实主义版本就是间接现实主义版本。正如我们在上一章所看到的,"间接 "这一说法表明,日常物质对象被认为是凭借对感官数据的感知而被间接感知的,而感官数据则是直接或直接的经验对象。这种情况导致了一种反对意见,即我们声称我们直接意识到的只是感官数据,而且只是通过感官数据意识到外部世界,这就 "揭开了一层面纱",把我们与外部世界隔开了。因此,乔纳森-贝内特称之为 "感知之纱学说"(1971:69)。
Mental Objects and the Concept of an External World 精神客体与外部世界的概念
Ryle suggests the problems run even deeper than this. He wonders how, given the commitments of the sense datum view, we could get to a point where we had the concept of a mind-independent world at all. He illustrates this concern with the following analogy: 赖尔认为问题比这还要深。他想知道,鉴于感性数据观的承诺,我们怎么会有一个与心灵无关的世界的概念。他用下面的比喻来说明这一问题:
There is immured in a windowless cell a prisoner, who has lived there in solitary confinement since birth. All that comes to him from the outside wall is flickers of light thrown upon his cell-walls and tappings heard through the stones; yet from these observed flashes and tappings he becomes, or seems to become, apprised of unobserved football-matches, flower-gardens, and eclipses of the sun. How then does he learn the ciphers in which his signals are arranged, or even find out that there are such things as ciphers? How can he interpret the messages which he somehow deciphers, given that the vocabularies of those messages are the vocabularies of football and astronomy and not those of flickers and tappings? 在一间没有窗户的牢房里,关押着一名囚犯,他从出生起就被单独监禁。从外墙传来的只是投射到他牢房墙壁上的闪烁光线和透过石块听到的敲击声;然而,从这些观察到的闪烁和敲击声中,他变得,或者说似乎变得,了解到未被观察到的足球比赛、花圃和日食。那么,他又是如何知道他的信号是用什么密码编排的,甚至是如何发现有密码这种东西的?既然这些信息的语汇是足球和天文学的语汇,而不是闪烁和敲击的语汇,那么他又如何解读他以某种方式破译的信息呢?
(1949/1990: 212)
We need to be careful here. Some of the appeal of this objection is sensationalist, playing on the image of some kind of cognitive “ray” being aimed at the world by our minds but being thwarted by sense data that “get in the way”. But most realist sense datum theorists would not deny that external objects can be objects of 我们在这里需要谨慎。这种反对意见的某些吸引力是感觉主义的,它利用的是我们的头脑瞄准世界的某种认知 "光线 "却被 "碍手碍脚 "的感官数据所阻挡的形象。但大多数现实主义感官数据论者并不否认外物可以成为我们的认知对象。
perceptual awareness, they would just hold that this awareness is mediated by sense data. As Dancy puts it, sense datum theory “does not have the consequence that external objects are unobservable; it purports simply to tell us something about what it is to observe them” (1985: 165). To see how this might work, consider the relationship between seeing objects and seeing their surfaces. Jackson (1977) argues that we do not directly “see” material objects, but merely their facing surfaces. We then see the objects in virtue of seeing their surfaces. On the face of it, this is a reasonable claim. But if we then view the relationship between sense data and objects on this model, it is no longer obvious that it involves a veil of perception. Nobody thinks that objects’ surfaces “hide” the objects themselves from us - rather, they “facilitate” or “mediate” this awareness. This is exactly the way that sense datum theorists view the relationship between our awareness of sense data and our awareness of (the facing surfaces of) objects. 他们只是认为,这种认识是以感觉数据为中介的。正如丹西所说,感觉数据理论 "并不会导致外部对象不可观察的结果;它只是想告诉我们观察外部对象的意义"(1985: 165)。要了解这一点是如何发挥作用的,请考虑一下看到物体和看到物体表面之间的关系。杰克逊(1977)认为,我们并不直接 "看到 "物质对象,而只是看到它们的表面。然后,我们通过看到物体的表面来看到物体。从表面上看,这种说法是合理的。但是,如果我们按照这种模式来看待感官数据与物体之间的关系,那么它涉及感知面纱的说法就不再明显了。没有人会认为物体的表面向我们 "隐藏 "了物体本身--相反,它们 "促进 "或 "中介 "了这种感知。这正是感性数据论者看待我们对感性数据的认识与我们对(物体表面)的认识之间关系的方式。
Yet even if the sense datum theorist can adequately rebut the objection that the theory precludes the awareness of external objects, a key epistemological question remains: How does perception, so understood, enable us to acquire knowledge of the external world? Traditionally, this kind of theory of perception has been associated with foundationalist theories of epistemology. Foundationalism begins from the observation that many of our empirical beliefs are justified by the relationships they stand in to other beliefs. So, for instance, my belief that <London has a higher population that New Zealand> is justified by my beliefs that <the population of London is around 9 million> and <the population of New Zealand is around 5 million>. However, my belief that London is more populous is only conditionally justified; it is only justified if my beliefs about the relevant populations are justified. So what justifies me in these beliefs? Well, the thought goes, other beliefs, such as beliefs about the results of recent censuses and so on. 然而,即使感性数据论者能够充分反驳关于该理论排除对外部对象的认识的反对意见,一个关键的认识论问题依然存在:如此理解的知觉如何使我们获得关于外部世界的知识?传统上,这种知觉理论与认识论的基础主义理论有关。基础主义的出发点是,我们的许多经验信念都是通过它们与其他信念之间的关系来证明的。因此,举例来说,我认为<伦敦的人口比新西兰多>是合理的,因为我认为<伦敦的人口约为900万>和<新西兰的人口约为500万>。然而,我认为伦敦人口更多的信念只是有条件的;只有当我对相关人口的信念是合理的时候,它才是合理的。那么,是什么使我的这些信念合理呢?嗯,我想是其他信念,比如关于最近人口普查结果的信念等等。
However, this suggests the threat of a worrisome regress. If every belief is only justified if another belief is justified, and if that belief is only justified if a yet further belief is justified, then it looks as though we will never be in a position to say that any of our beliefs actually is (unconditionally) justified. To avoid this, the Foundationalist claims that all of our empirical beliefs ultimately depend for their justification on certain foundational beliefs - beliefs that are justified in a special unconditional way. 然而,这意味着一种令人担忧的倒退的威胁。如果每个信念只有在另一个信念成立的情况下才成立,而这个信念又只有在另一个信念成立的情况下才成立,那么我们似乎永远无法说我们的任何信念实际上是(无条件地)成立的。为了避免这种情况,基础论者声称,我们所有的经验信念最终都依赖于某些基础信念来证明其合理性--这些信念是以一种特殊的无条件方式证明其合理性的。
What are these foundational beliefs? Well, as Lewis put it, “empiricists generally are agreed that nonperceptual synthetic knowledge rests finally on knowledge which is perceptual, and so find the root problem in the nature of perception” (1952: 170). So the foundationalist’s foundations are our beliefs about our own sensory experience. Why these beliefs? Because: 这些基本信念是什么呢?正如刘易斯所说,"经验主义者普遍认为,非知觉的合成知识最终是建立在知觉知识之上的,因此他们在知觉的本质中找到了问题的根源"(1952: 170)。因此,基础论者的基础是我们对自身感官经验的信念。为什么是这些信念呢?因为
When I perceive a door, I may be deceived by a cleverly painted pattern on the wall, but the presentation which greets my eye is an indubitable fact of my experience… The given element is this incorrigible presentational element; the criticizable and dubitable element is the element of interpretation. 当我看到一扇门时,我可能会被墙上巧妙绘制的图案所欺骗,但迎面而来的呈现却是我的经验中无可争辩的事实......既定的元素就是这种无可救药的呈现元素;可批评和可怀疑的元素就是解释元素。
The similarity between this claim and Price’s phenomenological defense of the Phenomenal Principle is striking. According to Lewis, what marks out beliefs about our own experiences is that, whilst there is much that can be doubted, there is a core belief which is indubitable or incorrigible. This explains why these beliefs are justified and hence apt to serve as our epistemological foundations. According to traditional foundationalist versions of sense datum theory, our beliefs about the external world are then justified by beliefs about our own experiences. 这一主张与普赖斯从现象学角度为 "现象原理 "所做的辩护有着惊人的相似之处。刘易斯认为,关于我们自身经验的信念的特点是,虽然有很多地方可以怀疑,但有一个核心信念是不可否认或不可救药的。这就解释了为什么这些信念是合理的,从而成为我们认识论的基础。根据传统基础主义的感性数据理论,我们对外部世界的信念是通过对自身经验的信念来证明的。
To say that something is indubitable is to say that it cannot be doubted. To say that something is incorrigible is to say that it cannot be corrected. However, I’m not sure that either of these two notions are quite what the Foundationalist is looking for. To see why, note that there are two reasons why it may be impossible to doubt something or impossible for something to be corrected. In the first case, either because it could be false, but we’re not cognitively equipped to doubt it, or because it simply couldn’t be false (it is infallible). In the second case, either because it could be false, but you are in a far better position than me to know whether it is true or false (so although you might get it wrong, you’re guaranteed to be in a better position than me), or because it simply couldn’t be false (it is infallible). For the purposes of epistemology, it looks to be the second sense of indubitability/incorrigibility that is relevant, which suggests that the really important notion is that infallibility of being unable to be false. 说某件事情无可辩驳,就是说它不容置疑。说某件事情无可救药,就是说它无法被纠正。然而,我不确定这两个概念中的任何一个都完全符合基础论者的要求。要想知道为什么,请注意,有两种原因可以导致不可能怀疑某件事情或不可能纠正某件事情。在第一种情况下,要么是因为它可能是假的,但我们没有认知能力去怀疑它,要么是因为它根本不可能是假的(它是无懈可击的)。在第二种情况下,要么是因为它可能是假的,但你比我更清楚它是真是假(所以尽管你可能会弄错,但你肯定比我更清楚),要么是因为它根本不可能是假的(它是无懈可击的)。就认识论而言,与之相关的似乎是第二种意义上的 "不可推翻性"/"不可抹杀性",这表明真正重要的概念是 "不可能是假的"。
Over the years, many philosophers have argued that such a claim renders sense datum theory fundamentally unable to deliver a satisfactory epistemology. The worry is highlighted by the very arguments that aim to show that sense data are necessary. As the second stage of the arguments from illusion and hallucination makes clear, the sense data that we are aware of in a case of perception are exactly the same as those we would have been aware of in an indiscriminable case of illusion or hallucination. 多年来,许多哲学家都认为,这种说法使得感性数据理论从根本上无法提供令人满意的认识论。旨在证明感性数据是必要的论证恰恰凸显了这种担忧。正如幻觉和幻觉论证的第二阶段所明确指出的,我们在知觉情况下所意识到的感官数据,与我们在不加区分的幻觉或幻觉情况下所意识到的感官数据是完全一样的。
Given this, we can see that the sense datum theory is committed to the idea that an experience of a particular kind could occur in the absence of appropriate objects. Yet this has the consequence that we cannot move deductively from one to the other. Given the possibility of hallucinations, our having an experience of a certain kind does not entail anything about the world whatsoever. Induction is likewise problematic. An inductive justification would claim that we are justified in assuming that experiences of certain kinds are reliable indicators of the world being a certain way because we have previously established the regularity of these two events coming together. Yet in the present case, this is a nonstarter as we have 有鉴于此,我们可以看到,感性数据理论致力于这样一种观点,即在没有适当对象的情况下,某种特定类型的经验也可能发生。然而,这样做的后果是,我们无法从一种经验演绎到另一种经验。考虑到幻觉的可能性,我们的某种体验并不意味着世界的任何情况。归纳法同样存在问题。一个归纳式的理由会声称,我们有理由假定某类经验是世界以某种方式存在的可靠指标,因为我们之前已经确定了这两个事件同时发生的规律性。然而,在目前的情况下,这是不可能的,因为我们已经
no independent access to the world on which to establish that a certain kind of experience is correlated with the world being a certain way. 没有独立进入世界的途径,无法据此确定某种体验与世界的某种方式相关联。
At this point, purist sense datum theorists may turn to abduction; to suggesting that our belief that sense data correlate with the external world is justified as it is the best available explanation of certain evidence. In this context, the “evidence” is that experience is highly organized and predictable, both across senses and across time. The “best available explanation” of this evidence is then held to be that the experiences are reliably correlated with a highly organized and predictable external reality. 在这一点上,纯粹感官数据论者可能会转向诱导;暗示我们认为感官数据与外部世界相关的信念是合理的,因为它是对某些证据的最佳解释。在这种情况下,"证据 "就是经验具有高度的条理性和可预测性,无论是跨感官还是跨时间。因此,对这一证据的 "最佳解释 "就是,这些经验与高度组织化和可预测的外部现实有可靠的相关性。
To see how this might work, imagine a scientist observing (what we now know to be) alpha-particle tracks in a cloud chamber. At first, let us suppose the scientist just sees the tracks. Yet after careful experimentation, they realize that the presence of tracks is reliably correlated with the presence of certain materials in the chamber. The scientist therefore hypothesizes that these materials all emit a certain particle, which they call an alpha-particle. After a period of using the hypothesis, they become so familiar with the hypothesis that they start to think and talk directly about alpha-particles, bypassing the tracks in both thought and language. Indeed, the scientist may even get to a point where they no longer really “see” the tracks, in that they no longer perceptually attend to the tracks at all. Instead, they attend directly to the alpha-particles (we might say, they “see” the alpha-particles) in virtue of their more basic kind of awareness of the tracks. This is, I take it, pretty much how the abductive approach sees the role of sense data in visual experience. 为了了解这可能是如何实现的,请想象一位科学家在云室中观察(我们现在知道的)阿尔法粒子的轨迹。起初,我们假设科学家只是看到了轨迹。然而,经过仔细实验后,他们发现轨迹的存在与云室中某些物质的存在有可靠的相关性。因此,科学家假设这些材料都会发射某种粒子,他们称之为阿尔法粒子。经过一段时间的使用,他们对这一假设变得如此熟悉,以至于他们开始直接思考和谈论阿尔法粒子,在思维和语言上都绕过了轨道。事实上,科学家甚至可以达到这样一种境界,即他们不再真正 "看到 "轨道,因为他们在知觉上根本不再关注轨道。相反,他们直接关注阿尔法粒子(我们可以说,他们 "看到 "了阿尔法粒子),因为他们对轨道有一种更基本的认识。我认为,归纳法就是这样看待感官数据在视觉经验中的作用的。
However, some theorists, including some sense datum theorists, have worried that treating our belief in the external world as a “theory” formulated to explain the “evidence” is implausible. For example, Price contends that “we do not invent [the theory that there is an external world]. We have already on other grounds formed a conception of the physical world” (1932: 89). Likewise, Armstrong says that “surely we are not prepared to degrade bodies into hypotheses? We want to say that our assurance of the existence of the physical world is far stronger than any assurance we could obtain by indirectly confirming a theory” (1968: 30). Uriah Kriegel puts the point as follows: 然而,一些理论家,包括一些感性数据论者,担心把我们对外部世界的信念视为一种为解释 "证据 "而制定的 "理论 "是难以置信的。例如,普赖斯认为,"我们并没有发明[存在外部世界的理论]。我们已经基于其他理由形成了物理世界的概念"(1932:89)。同样,阿姆斯特朗也说:"我们肯定不准备把身体降格为假设。我们想说的是,我们对物理世界存在的确信远远强于我们通过间接证实理论而获得的任何确信"(1968: 30)。乌里亚-克里格尔(Uriah Kriegel)的观点如下:
[I]n casting knowledge of ordinary physical objects as based on something like inference to the best explanation, [the sense datum theory] offers the wrong model of such knowledge. On a more plausible model, we know that the table is brown by seeing that the table is brown and endorsing what we see. We do not know that the table is brown by first being perceptually aware of objects other than the table and then inferring that there must be a brown table if we are to be perceptually aware of those other objects. [感性数据理论]把对普通物理对象的认识建立在类似于对最佳解释的推理之上,为这种认识提供了错误的模型。在一个更可信的模型中,我们知道桌子是棕色的,是因为我们看到桌子是棕色的,并认可我们所看到的。我们知道桌子是棕色的,并不是先从知觉上意识到桌子以外的其他物体,然后推断出如果我们要从知觉上意识到这些其他物体,就必须有一张棕色的桌子。
(2011b: 247)
Moreover, Price goes on to suggest that it is not the “best explanation” anyway; he claims there are a “thousand and one” other hypotheses such as the hypothesis that God causes all of our experiences, most of which are “much simpler” (1932: 89). 此外,普赖斯还表示,无论如何,这都不是 "最好的解释";他声称还有 "一千零一种 "其他假说,比如上帝导致了我们所有的经历,而大多数假说都 "简单得多"(1932: 89)。
Sense Datum Theory as a Theory of Seeing 作为视觉理论的感官基准理论
As we saw, the fact that the sense datum theory accepts the Common Factor Principle means that the primary formulation of the theory is an analysis of the visual experience, which is the common factor involved in all cases: perceptual, hallucinatory, or illusory. This means that the theory we have been investigating thus far does not tell us what is required for the subject to have a veridical experience, or more specifically that it does not explain the circumstances in which the episode of sensing an FF sense datum constitutes a successful perceiving of that property. To get a sense datum analysis of seeing, then we need to ask what differentiates the veridical cases that involve a certain visual experience from the deceptive cases that involve the same common factor. 正如我们所看到的,感觉基准理论接受 "共同因素原则 "这一事实,意味着该理论的主要表述是对视觉体验的分析,而视觉体验是所有情况(知觉体验、幻觉体验或虚幻体验)所涉及的共同因素。这就意味着,我们迄今为止所研究的理论并没有告诉我们主体获得真实体验所需要的条件,或者更具体地说,它并没有解释在何种情况下,感知 FF 感官数据的情节构成了对该属性的成功感知。为了对视觉进行感官数据分析,我们就需要问,是什么将涉及某种视觉体验的真实案例与涉及相同共同因素的欺骗案例区分开来。
In order to develop such a theory, we need a way of identifying, out of all of the occasions on which a subject has a visual experience as of a property FF, which of those occasions are ones in which the subject actually sees property FF. This is similar to the discussion from within epistemology about what distinguishes mere belief from knowledge proper. A component of an influential response to this question has been that at least part of what distinguishes knowledge from mere belief is that, to know something, your belief has to be true. On such a view, knowledge shares something with failed attempts to know - believing - but is a case of believing in which other conditions are met. We can imagine, the thought goes, that a belief might fortuitously happen to be true in situations where we would not want to say the subject has knowledge. Such analyses therefore hold that other conditions, such as the belief being justified, also need to be met. So cases of knowledge are a subset of cases of belief - the cases of belief in which the belief is also true (and justified, and …). 为了发展这样一种理论,我们需要一种方法来确定,在主体对属性 FF 产生视觉体验的所有场合中,哪些场合是主体真正看到属性 FF 的场合。这类似于认识论内部关于如何区分单纯的信念与知识本身的讨论。对这一问题的一个有影响力的回应是,知识与单纯的信念的至少部分区别在于,要知道某件事情,你的信念必须是真的。根据这种观点,知识与失败的求知尝试--"相信"--有相同之处,但 "相信 "满足了其他条件。我们可以想象,在我们不想说主体拥有知识的情况下,一种信念可能会偶然成为现实。因此,这种分析认为,还需要满足其他条件,比如信念是合理的。因此,知识的情况是信念的情况的一个子集--在信念的情况中,信念也是真的(并且是合理的,以及......)。
If we try and adopt this tactic in the case of perception, we would treat veridical perception - seeing - as visual-experience-plus. That is to say, a seeing of property FF would be a case in which subjects have a visual experience as of an FF and some other conditions are met. The question then becomes, what is the nature of these 如果我们尝试在感知中采用这种策略,我们就会把真实的感知--看见--视为视觉经验加。也就是说,对 FF 属性的观看,是指主体对 FF 有视觉体验,并且满足其他一些条件的情况。那么问题来了,这些条件的性质是什么呢?
“other conditions”? One suggestion is that S’s visual experience as of an FF needs to be satisfied, where - at least for the sense datum theory - a visual experience will be satisfied so long as the external object or scene “matches” the subject’s experience, where “matching” is a matter of resemblance between sense data and scene. The analysis of seeing would therefore be: "其他条件"?有一种说法是,需要满足 S 对 FF 的视觉经验,这里--至少对感觉数据理论来说--只要外部对象或场景 "匹配 "主体的经验,视觉经验就会得到满足,这里的 "匹配 "是感觉数据和场景之间的相似性问题。因此,对视觉的分析将是:
A subject SS sees an FF object, OO, if and only if: 当且仅当 SS 主语看到 FF 宾语 OO 时:
SS has a visual experience as of an FF object ( =S=S senses an FF sense datum, DD ), and SS 对 FF 物体有视觉体验( =S=S 感觉到 FF 感官基准, DD ),并且
this visual experience is satisfied ( =D=D resembles FF object, OO ). 这种视觉体验得到了满足( =D=D 像 FF 物体, OO )。
An initial concern with the appeal to satisfaction concerns precisely what is required for an experience to be satisfied. For instance, consider a visual experience as of a distant airplane, and suppose my having that visual experience involves my sensing a speck-like sense datum. Does this match or resemble the world? After all, a speck does not resemble an airplane. Yet intuitively we would want to count this as a case of successfully seeing an airplane inasmuch as this is what airplanes look like from a distance. So there is work to do to give an account of what kinds of relationships between experience and object/scene qualify as “matching”. 对满足感的诉求的最初关注点是,一种体验的满足感究竟需要什么。例如,假设我的视觉经验是遥远的飞机,假设我的视觉经验是我感觉到一个斑点状的感官数据。这与世界相符或相似吗?毕竟,一个小点并不像一架飞机。然而,凭直觉,我们想把这算作成功看到飞机的案例,因为飞机从远处看就是这个样子。因此,要说明经验与物体/场景之间什么样的关系才算 "匹配",还有很多工作要做。
Nevertheless, even if this difficulty can be overcome, this analysis will not yet work. An appeal to satisfaction alone will not distinguish between those visual experiences that qualify as veridical and those that do not. Consider Grice’s example of the clock on the shelf. In this example, a subject has a visual experience as of a clock on a shelf, so the first condition of our analysis of seeing is met. What is more, there is a suitable clock on a suitable shelf in front of the subject, so the second condition is met. As both conditions are met, our current analysis would count this as a case in which SS sees the clock on the shelf. However, as Grice goes on to say: 然而,即使能够克服这一困难,这种分析也是行不通的。仅仅诉诸满足感并不能区分哪些视觉经验是真实的,哪些不是。请看格莱斯举的架子上的钟表的例子。在这个例子中,被试的视觉经验是架子上的钟表,因此我们对 "看 "的分析的第一个条件得到了满足。更重要的是,在主体面前的合适的架子上有一个合适的时钟,因此第二个条件得到了满足。由于这两个条件都满足,我们目前的分析将把这看作是 SS 看到架子上的钟的情况。然而,正如格莱斯接着所说:
it is logically conceivable that there should be some method by which an expert could make it look to X as if there were a clock on the shelf on occasions where the shelf was empty: there might be some apparatus by which X’s cortex could be suitably stimulated, or some technique analogous to post-hypnotic suggestion. If such treatment were applied to X on an occasion when there actually was a clock on the shelf, and if X’s impressions were found to continue unchanged when the clock was removed or its position altered, then I think we should be inclined to say that X did not see the clock that was before his eyes. 从逻辑上可以想象,应该有某种方法可以让专家在架子上是空的情况下让 X 看起来架子上好像有一个钟:可能有某种仪器可以适当地刺激 X 的大脑皮层,或者有某种类似于催眠后暗示的技术。如果在架子上确实有钟的情况下对 X 进行这种处理,并且发现当钟被移走或其位置被改变时,X 的印象仍然保持不变,那么我认为我们应该倾向于说 X 没有看到他眼前的钟。
(1961: 142)
Grice goes on to say that: 格莱斯接着说
I think we should be inclined to say that X did not see the clock that was before his eyes just because we should regard the clock as playing no part in the origination of his impression. … There seems then a good case for allowing that [a causal] condition is necessary. 我认为我们应该倾向于说 X 没有看到他眼前的钟,因为我们应该认为钟在他的印象的产生中没有起到任何作用。......因此,似乎有充分的理由允许[因果]条件是必要的。
In other words, Grice suggests that it is a necessary condition that for SS to see the clock, the clock must be the cause of SS 's experience. Yet as Grice notes, causation alone will also not provide a sufficient condition for seeing to take place. For one thing, there is the problem of picking out which component of the long causal chain is the component which is seen; an experience is causally dependent on numerous states of affairs - from states of our brains and eyes down to states of the electricity plant that generates the electricity that lights up the room - none of which are seen. For another, there is an issue with nonstandard experiences. For example, we might think that my hallucination was caused by my brain, but we do not want to say that in having a hallucination, I see my brain. 换句话说,格赖斯认为, SS 要看到时钟,时钟必须是 SS 经验的原因,这是一个必要条件。然而,正如格赖斯所指出的,单凭因果关系并不能为 "看见 "的发生提供充分的条件。首先,在漫长的因果链中,要找出哪一个部分才是被看见的部分是有问题的;一个经验在因果上依赖于许多事态--从我们的大脑和眼睛的事态到发电照亮房间的发电厂的事态--其中没有一个是被看见的。另外,还有一个非标准体验的问题。例如,我们可能会认为我的幻觉是由我的大脑造成的,但我们不想说在产生幻觉时,我看到了我的大脑。
To resolve this, a causal condition can be added to the satisfaction condition to get the following analysis of object perception (a comparable analysis of property perception is a little more complex): 为了解决这个问题,可以在满足条件中加入一个因果条件,从而得到下面的物体感知分析(对属性感知的类似分析要复杂一些):
Subject SS sees object O if and only if: 当且仅当主语 SS 看到客体 O 时:
SS has a visual experience, E , as of O , and SS 与 O 一样有视觉体验 E,并且
E is satisfied, and E 满足,并且
E was caused by O. E 是由 O 引起的。
Yet this analysis has also been criticized. Consider the following counterexamples (Lewis 1980): 然而,这种分析也受到了批评。请看以下反例(刘易斯,1980 年):
The Brain Before the Eyes: I hallucinate at random (thus the experience is caused by my brain) and seem to see a brain before my eyes which perfectly matches (purely accidentally) my own brain. But my brain is before my eyes-it has been removed from my skull and all nerves (etc.) have been stretched somehow. In this case, the first condition of the analysis is met-I have a visual experience as of a brain before my eyes. So is the second condition: this experience is satisfied as there is a brain before my eyes. And so is the final condition: my having this experience was caused by the brain before my eyes. As all three conditions are met, our analysis would count this as a case in which I see the brain before my eyes. But that doesn’t seem right. 眼前的大脑:我随意产生了幻觉(因此这种体验是由我的大脑引起的),似乎在我眼前看到了一个与我自己的大脑完全吻合(纯属偶然)的大脑。但是,我的大脑就在我的眼前--它已经从我的头骨中移除,所有的神经(等)都被莫名其妙地拉长了。在这种情况下,分析的第一个条件得到了满足--我有了大脑在我眼前的视觉体验。第二个条件也是如此:这种体验得到了满足,因为我的眼前有一个大脑。最后一个条件也满足了:我的这种体验是由我眼前的大脑造成的。由于这三个条件都满足,我们的分析将把它视为我看到了眼前的大脑。但这似乎并不正确。
The Light Meter: I am blind, but electrodes have been implanted in my brain in such a way that when a light meter mounted on my head receives light over a certain threshold level, they will cause me to have an experience of a certain sort of landscape. By chance, just such a landscape is before my eyes, and its illumination is enough to turn on the electrodes. Once again, the first condition of the analysis is met-I have a visual experience as of a certain kind of landscape. So is the second condition: this experience is satisfied as there is just such a landscape in front of me. And so is the final condition: my having this experience was caused by the landscape. As all three conditions are met, our analysis would count this as a case in which I see the landscape. But again, that doesn’t seem quite right. 测光表我是个盲人,但我的大脑中被植入了电极,当安装在我头上的测光表接收到的光线超过某个阈值时,它们就会让我体验到某种风景。一个偶然的机会,我的眼前出现了这样一幅风景画,它的光亮足以让我打开电极。分析的第一个条件再次得到满足--我有了关于某种风景的视觉体验。第二个条件也是如此:这种体验得到了满足,因为我眼前就有这样一幅风景。最后一个条件也是如此:我的这种体验是由风景引起的。由于这三个条件都得到了满足,我们的分析将把它视为 "我看到了风景"。但这似乎又不太对。
Lewis describes these scenarios as cases of veridical ballucination; they are cases that we intuitively want to describe as hallucinatory, but where the hallucination 刘易斯将这些情景描述为真实幻觉的案例;这些案例我们直觉上想将其描述为幻觉,但在这些幻觉中
just happens to both be caused by and to match the world. Yet while we want to classify these cases as hallucinations, our analysis as it stands counts these situations as cases in which something is seen. This suggests that we need to augment our conditions to rule out such cases as counting as cases of seeing. 而这些幻觉恰好既是由世界造成的,又与世界相吻合。然而,虽然我们想把这些情况归类为幻觉,但我们目前的分析却把这些情况算作看到了什么的情况。这表明我们需要增加条件,以排除将这些情况算作 "看见 "的情况。
Grice suggests that maybe what we need to do is to restrict the modes of causal mediation to the standard ones. Even if we can’t spell out what they are (yet), we can nevertheless leave “a blank space to be filled in by the specialist” (1961). With this modification made, our analysis of seeing would hold that: 格莱斯建议,也许我们需要做的是将因果中介模式限制在标准模式之内。即使我们还不能说清楚它们是什么,但我们可以留下 "一个空白,由专家来填补"(1961)。经过这样的修改,我们对 "看 "的分析就可以认为:
Subject S sees object O if and only if: 当且仅当主体 S 看到客体 O 时:
S has a visual experience, E , as of O , and S 对 O 有视觉体验,E 和
E is satisfied, and E 满足,并且
E was caused by O in the normal visual way. E 是由 O 以正常的视觉方式造成的。
The problem with this proposal, Lewis argues, is that it is too strong, and rules out possible cases of nonstandard seeing. For example, if it turned out that some people had visual systems which work on different principles to the rest of us, then their causal relation would be mediated in something other than “the normal visual way”, and hence they would not be said to see. Alternatively, and perhaps more plausibly, it would also appear to rule out the very possibility of prosthetic seeing. Suppose, for example, that scientists developed a prosthetic eye which, when used to replace a damaged eye, would function just like a normal eye. Although this operation would seem to be a way of restoring a subject’s sight, on this view, as the causal relation in such subjects would not be the normal visual causal relation, this operation would leave subjects unable to see. In both of these cases, Lewis suggests, we should not rule out the possibility that these subjects might really be said to see. So the proposed modification should be rejected as it is too strong. 刘易斯认为,这一提议的问题在于它过于强势,排除了非标准视觉的可能情况。例如,如果事实证明有些人的视觉系统与我们其他人的工作原理不同,那么他们的因果关系就会以 "正常视觉方式 "以外的其他方式为中介,因此就不能说他们看见了。另外,也许更有道理的是,这似乎也排除了义眼的可能性。例如,假设科学家们研制出了一种义眼,用来代替受损的眼睛,其功能与正常眼睛无异。虽然这种手术似乎是恢复受试者视力的一种方法,但根据这种观点,由于这种受试者的因果关系不是正常的视觉因果关系,因此这种手术将使受试者无法看见。刘易斯认为,在这两种情况下,我们都不应该排除这些主体可能真的被说成是能看见的。因此,我们应该拒绝接受所建议的修改,因为它太强了。
Lewis instead suggests that what is required is that the visual experience we have is counterfactually dependent upon the scene before the eyes. The underlying thought here is that if you really see an object/scene, then any changes in that object/scene would be reflected by changes in the visual experience. With this modification made, our analysis of seeing would hold that subject SS sees object OO if and only if: 相反,刘易斯认为,我们所需要的是视觉体验反事实地依赖于眼前的场景。这里的基本思想是,如果你真的看到了一个物体/场景,那么该物体/场景的任何变化都会通过视觉体验的变化反映出来。做了这一修改后,我们对 "看见 "的分析就会认为,主体 SS 看到了物体 OO 如果且仅如果:
S has a visual experience, E , as of O , and S 对 O 有视觉体验,E 和
E is satisfied, and E 满足,并且
E was caused by O, and E 是由 O 引起的,而
the phenomenal character of E is counterfactually dependent upon O . E 的现象特性反事实地取决于 O。
This would rule out the original counterexamples as follows: 这就排除了最初的反例,如下所示:
The Brain before the Eyes: As I am hallucinating, I would have had an experience as of a brain before my eyes even if the brain had not been there. So the counterfactual dependence of experience on scene does not hold. 眼前的大脑:当我产生幻觉时,即使大脑不在眼前,我也会产生大脑就在眼前的体验。因此,经验对场景的反事实依赖并不成立。
The Light Meter: Again, it doesn’t matter what the scene in front of the subject is, so long as the illumination was adequate. You could change various aspects of the scene (so long as the overall illumination remained the same) without 测光表:同样,只要光照充足,拍摄对象前面的场景是什么并不重要。您可以改变场景的各个方面(只要整体照明保持不变),而不需要
thereby changing the nature of the visual experience. So the counterfactual dependence of experience on scene does not hold. 从而改变视觉体验的性质。因此,体验对场景的反事实依赖并不成立。
Lewis on Causation 刘易斯谈因果关系
Strictly speaking, for Lewis, the last two clauses of this analysis are not entirely distinct. This is because Lewis endorses a counterfactual theory of causation, according to which, to say that A caused B is to say no more than that the existence of B is counterfactually dependent on the existence of A - that had A not existed, then B would not have existed (see his paper “Causation” in his (1986) Pbilosophical Papers volume II). 严格地说,对刘易斯而言,这一分析的最后两个分句并不完全不同。这是因为刘易斯赞同因果关系的反事实理论,根据这一理论,说 A 导致了 B,不过是说 B 的存在反事实地依赖于 A 的存在--如果 A 不存在,那么 B 就不会存在(见他的论文《因果关系》,载于其《哲学论文集》(1986 年)第二卷)。
Yet the addition of the counterfactual dependence clause would allow for nonstandard/prosthetic seeing, because in each of these cases if these alternative systems really worked, then if you changed the scene, the experience would change, and hence we have a counterfactual dependence of experience on scene. However, there is a further counterexample from Michael Tye (1982) which involves two robots, Tom and Tim. 然而,添加反事实依赖条款将允许非标准/假象观看,因为在上述每种情况下,如果这些替代系统真的起作用,那么如果你改变场景,体验就会改变,因此我们就有了体验对场景的反事实依赖。然而,迈克尔-泰(Michael Tye,1982 年)又提出了一个反例,涉及两个机器人汤姆和蒂姆。
Although I cannot see it, I am standing facing a mirror angled so I see an area to my right. Behind the mirror, and therefore hidden from my view, stands robot Tim. Away to my right, hidden behind a wall, stands Tim’s left-right inverted robot twin, Tom, who is facing the mirror. Robot Tom is therefore reflected in the mirror, such that the image I see is of a robot which looks just like Tim would if the mirror were to be removed. Now, Tom is wired up so that all his movements are caused by Tim’s movements - the only reason he is standing where he is, is because Tim is standing where he is. And any movements Tim makes are copied (but left-right inverted) - if Tim waves his left hand, then Tom waves his right hand, and the mirror image of Tom “waves its left hand”. 虽然我看不到,但我正对着一面镜子站着,镜子的角度让我看到了右边的一个区域。镜子后面站着机器人蒂姆,我看不到他。在我的右边,一堵墙后面隐藏着蒂姆的左右倒置的机器人双胞胎汤姆,他正对着镜子。因此,机器人汤姆被反射在镜子里,所以我看到的是一个机器人的影像,如果把镜子拿掉,它看起来就像蒂姆一样。现在,汤姆的所有动作都是由蒂姆的动作引起的--他站在原地的唯一原因就是蒂姆站在原地。蒂姆的任何动作都会被复制(但左右颠倒)--如果蒂姆挥动左手,汤姆就会挥动右手,汤姆的镜像也会 "挥动左手"。
MIRROR 镜子
Figure 2.1 图 2.1
If I stand at the appropriate place in this setup and look toward the mirror, I will have a visual experience as of a robot in front of me, so the first condition of Lewis’s revised analysis will be met. As is the second condition: my experience is satisfied as there is just such a robot in front of me - robot Tim. As is the third condition: my having this very experience is caused by the robot that is in front of me (Tim), as it is Tim’s being where he is that causes Tom to be where he is. And Lewis’s final condition is also met. The phenomenological features of my experience are counterfactually dependent upon Tim - if he moves, Tom will move and my experience will change accordingly. As all four conditions are met, Lewis’s revised analysis would count this as a case in which I see robot Tim. Yet although all the conditions of this analysis of seeing are met, our intuitions remain that it is Tom, not Tim, which we see. 如果我站在这个装置的适当位置,朝镜子看去,我就会有一种机器人就在我面前的视觉体验,因此刘易斯修正分析的第一个条件就得到了满足。第二个条件也是如此:我的体验得到了满足,因为我面前就有这样一个机器人--机器人蒂姆。第三个条件是:我的这种体验是由我面前的机器人(蒂姆)引起的,因为正是蒂姆的存在导致了汤姆的存在。刘易斯的最后一个条件也得到了满足。我的体验的现象学特征反事实地依赖于蒂姆--如果他移动,汤姆也会移动,我的体验也会随之改变。由于满足了所有四个条件,刘易斯修订后的分析将把这一情况视为我看到了机器人蒂姆。然而,尽管这个关于 "看见 "的分析满足了所有条件,我们的直觉仍然认为我们看见的是汤姆,而不是蒂姆。
We will pick this discussion up again as we explore other theories of perception; but for now, note that any theory that endorses the Common Factor Principle and proposes to provide a primary analysis of visual experience, understood as a general category that includes all successful and unsuccessful cases, faces the requirement to provide an additional analysis of what then distinguishes the successful cases from the unsuccessful ones. As we have seen, this is not obviously straightforward and, in particular, merely appealing to a causal connection between the visual experience and the object or scene it is an experience of faces some thorny problems. 我们将在探讨其他知觉理论时再次讨论这个问题;但现在要注意的是,任何赞同 "共同因素原则"(Common Factor Principle)并提议对视觉经验(被理解为包括所有成功和不成功案例的一般类别)进行主要分析的理论,都面临着对成功案例与不成功案例之间的区别进行额外分析的要求。正如我们所看到的,这显然不是简单明了的,尤其是,仅仅诉诸视觉经验与它所体验的对象或场景之间的因果联系面临着一些棘手的问题。
Questions 问题
How compelling are the arguments in favor of sense data? Where are their weaknesses? 支持感性数据的论据有多大说服力?它们的弱点在哪里?
How compelling are the metaphysical objections to mental objects? Should they make us avoid such objects in our theories of perception? 对精神客体的形而上学反对有多大说服力?它们是否应该使我们在知觉理论中回避这些对象?
What makes it the case that, on a given occasion, a visual experience of a certain kind qualifies as a case of veridical perception? 是什么让某一特定场合的某种视觉体验成为真实感知的案例?
Further Reading 更多阅读
Important classic readings on sense datum theory, including papers or extracts from Russell, Moore, Price, Ayer, Austin, Barnes, Jackson and Grice, can all be found in Volume I of Perception: Critical Concepts in Pbilosophy (Fish 2016). 关于感觉基准理论的重要经典读物,包括罗素、摩尔、普赖斯、艾耶尔、奥斯汀、巴恩斯、杰克逊和格莱斯的论文或摘录,都可以在《知觉》第一卷中找到:哲学中的关键概念》(Fish,2016 年)。
These readings also contain Chapter 8 from Howard Robinson’s (1994) Perception, which remains the classic contemporary defense of sense data. Although Robinson eventually (and tentatively) favors an anti-realist version of the theory, the majority of the book is an argument for the philosophy of perception claim that perception involves sense data and takes no stand on this metaphysical question. 这些读本还包含霍华德-罗宾逊(Howard Robinson,1994 年)的《感知》(Perception)一书中的第 8 章,该书仍然是当代为感官数据辩护的经典之作。尽管罗宾逊最终(暂时)倾向于反现实主义版本的理论,但该书的大部分内容都是在论证知觉哲学关于知觉涉及感官数据的主张,而没有对这一形而上学问题采取任何立场。