EPM: Chs III & IV

Pete MandikChairman, Department of PhilosophyCoordinator, Cognitive Science LaboratoryWilliam Paterson University, New Jersey USA

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Ch III “The Logic of ‘Looks’”

Main idea: “… the statement "X looks green to Jones" differs from "Jones sees that x is green" in that whereas the latter both ascribes a propositional claim to Jones' experience and endorses it, the former ascribes the claim but does not endorse it.”

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Spelling out the Logic of Looks ThesisSituation 1: Jones wants

to say that the tie is green and he believes viewing conditions to be normal so he says “the tie is green”.

Situation 2: Jones wants to say that the tie is green and he notices a weird light (and thus believes conditions to be abnormal) so he says “the tie looks green”.

Note that in situation 2, Jones must already have some prior grasp of the concepts of being green and normal conditions.

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Advantages of the Logic of Looks Thesis1. “…it permits a parallel treatment of

'qualitative' and 'existential' seeming or looking.”

2. “…it explains how things can have a merely generic look, a fact which would be puzzling indeed if looking red were a natural as opposed to [an] epistemic fact about objects.”

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“…it permits a parallel treatment of 'qualitative' and 'existential' seeming or looking.”

Qualitative seeming: That tie looks green

Explanation: you are sure there exists a tie but withhold endorsement of the claim that it has a green quality

Existential seeming: It seems like there is a green tie

Explanation: you withhold endorsement of whether there exists a tie yet alone whether what exists has a green quality

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“…it explains how things can have a merely generic look, a fact which would be puzzling indeed if looking red were a natural as opposed to [an] epistemic fact about objects.”

A thing that is red is also a determinate shade of red

Something can seem red without seeming to be some determinate shade of red

You can endorse that a thing is red while being unsure which determinate shade it is

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Entailment of the Logic of Looks ThesisContrary to Sense Datum Theory, it is

false that “some X looks green to Jones at time t” entails that “some Y is green at time t”

There does not have to be a green sense datum in your mind for an illusion (a thing that is not green) to look green

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X looks green to Jones entailsJones is capable of grasping that he is

disposed to say that X is green&Jones is capable of grasping that the

current conditions are not normal (not the way in which things look the way they really are).

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Therefore the concept of being green is conceptually prior to the concept of looking green.

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Ch IV “Explaining Looks”

Main idea: “The fundamental grammar of the attribute red is

physical object x is red at place p and at time t.”

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Why?

1. The sense of “red” in “X looks red” and “X is red” is the same sense. Sometimes things really are the way they look. So therefore whatever redness is involved in sensations is the same redness involved in physical objects.

2. Whatever redness is involved in physical objects is conceptually more basic than whatever redness is involved in sensations because the way things are is conceptually prior to the way things look.

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THE END