In my recent series of articles on perception, I have been trying to establish a coherent basis for Direct Realism: The thesis that we directly perceive objective objects in the external world. This means (1) that objects of perception have an independent existence. They do not depend on our perception of them, and may exist unperceived; (2) Such objective objects have a relatively enduring history, and are re-identifiable; (3) Objective objects are public, and may be perceived by more than one subject; (4) the distinction between appearance and reality hold with respect to such objects. These criteria for “objectivity” seem quite reasonable. Examples of normal, objective objects are tables, chairs, cars, trees, houses, computers, and so on.
Those mental or cerebral experiences we denote by the term “sensations,” however, do not meet any of the above criteria for objectivity. Indeed, sensations have the character of “subjectivity,” which is diametrically opposed to “objectivity.” In fact, only by recognizing a “clear” distinction between “sensation” and “perception” will there be any possibility of forming a coherent account of the nature of our perceptual consciousness.
Our experience is one of constantly changing sensations or “impressions” of the external world. Nevertheless, within this constantly changing flux, this “stream of consciousness” we directly perceive relatively permanent, public objects that we call “reality.” We know these “things” in our environment do not cease to exist when we are not looking at them, and they have a nature, or properties, that our independent of our minds. We “know” the world existed long before any humans came upon the scene. Yet if we assimilate the notion of sensation to perception, there will be no way to account for our perception of that external world; the world we all take for granted in our natural and “naive” attitude toward life.
Let us remember what is meant by the term “sensation” here. In the narrow sense, “sensation” refers to the feelings we have of our internal states, those pains, itches, pleasures, anxieties we feel in our guts. But in the wider sense used here, “sensation” also refers to the common experiences we have with all our “sense” organs. We are “sentient” creatures, and we “sense” the world by means of our eyes, ears, nose, touch, taste. As Aristotle says, each sense has its “proper” sensible, that is, those things that are unique to each sense organ. So the proper sensible for sight is color, for the ears, sound; for the nose, odors; for e touch, textures; for taste, flavors.
In the 17th century, John Locke supported the thesis that such “proper sensibles” (those subjective experiences confined to a single sense organ) denoted the “secondary qualities” of bodies, and they were nothing in the bodies themselves, but the disposition in the bodies to cause such sensations in ourselves by the motion of the primary qualities (number, extension, mobility, bulk, etc.). This is a difficult thesis to swallow. Here is Edmund Husserl, from the text, “Ideas” discussing the subject: “I call to mind the familiar distinction between ‘secondary’ and ‘primary’ qualities, according to which the specific qualities of sense should be ‘merely subjective’ and only the geometrical-physical qualities ‘objective.’ The color and sound of a thing, its smell, its taste, and so forth, though they appear to cleave to the thing ‘bodily’…are not themselves and as they appear to be, real, but mere ‘signs’ of certain primary qualities.”
Emond Husserl was writing in the early 20th century (1913) but the same issues are alive today. Consider, for example, the science of color, which has come a long way since the 17th century. Yet color scientists and others are split along the lines of “objectivists” and “subjectivists.” As C. L. Hardin puts it in, “Color for Philosophers; Unweaving the Rainbow”: “Endeavoring to find a home for colors the among the objects that appear to bear them, some materialists hold that colors are constituents of the physical world, quite independent of human or other sentient beings. These are the ‘objectivists.’ Others hold that although colors are indeed features of material objects, they are so only as dispositions of those objects to affect organisms in an appropriate sensory fashion under the proper circumstances. These are the ‘subjectivists.’ ” After a consideration of the relevant scientific issues, Hardin leans toward the subjectivist position, quoting, from the ancient of days, the words of Democritus: “By convention color exists, by convention bitter, by convention sweet but in reality atoms and the void.”
The thesis is hard to take because in our common viewpoint, it is so “obvious” that, e.g, colors are “out there” in the external world. We are acquainted with no object that does not come to us replete with sensory qualities. If phenomenal color, the color in the color, were in truth a product of our sensory systems or brains, then the world, independent of sentient beings would be a colorless mass. The energy of sunlight would still interact with the electrons on the surfaces of bodies, but the chromatic spectacle of life would be missing. Can that be true?
The answer, surprisingly, is yes, it could be true. Because only by making such a distinction between the “primary” and “secondary” qualities of things, can we come up with a satisfactory account of the nature of human perception and the claim that we are directly aware of an external world. More on this next time.
Puzzle
In the old days, a fortune teller was getting a quarter for each fortune she told. But times were bad and she complained as follows: “The week before last, I earned less than $3. Last week a third as much and this week less than half as much as the week before.” So how much did she make in the three weeks in question?
Answer to last week’s question
If you put dots over the following numbers: .5, .97, .46 and add them to 80, the result will be 82.
