(Javier Anta) CouldSemanticPropertiesbePerceived.pdf

8/16/2019 (Javier Anta) CouldSemanticPropertiesbePerceived.pdf

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Could Semantic Properties be perceived in Written Language?

The case for Semasthesia

Javier Anta (CCiL), 2016Philosophy and Cognitive Science

Universitat de Barcelona

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to answer whether certain language specific properties, mainly semantic

properties, are visual perceived in written language contexts or not. In addition to the perceptual content, we

also will pay attention to the wide manifold of perceptual experiences linked to each particular condition.

From the diversity of visual phenomenology we could inference, by means of Siegel’s argument, that there

must be something in perceptual content (e.g. namely, some fine-grained properties) causing differences invisual experiences. We will argue that meaning is not one of those properties perceived in written language

(neither in speech, according to O’Callaghan), thought semantic properties are decisive for explanatories

purposes. In that sense, our proposal is that we might perceive visually “meaningfulness” or “charge of

meaning” in a piece of written language.

KEY WORDS

High-level properties. Perceptual content. Semantic properties. Written Language Perception.

1. Introduction: Experiencing Written Language and its Content.

Following O’Callaghan’s general strategy, let suppose we do not have any knowledge nor

competence of Thai language at all, and suddenly, we came across with this symbols on a website,

(a) “เพ อนก นหาง าย เพ อนตายหายาก”

Forget now the cognitive process that entails being unable to understand a Thai sentence as (a).

Firstly, we need to ask an essential question about the perceptual content: what is visually

perceived in (a)? To give an answer to this very question depends on how liberal or conservative,

rich or austere is our position concerning the content of perception, but disregarding our particular

position there must be certain common properties from all perspectives as well as there might be

other more controversial properties. We will try to delimitate both.

Secondly, we also need to regard the perceptual phenomenology: what is visually

experienced in (a)? As Siegel underlines, the perceptual experience of (a) is notably differentdepending, in our specific case, on being competent or user of Thai language (Ea) or not competent

(E’a). Her argument entails that, based on this phenomenological difference, there must be a

difference in its perceptual content that also implies a difference in the high-level propertiescontained in (a) and (‘a). The strength of Siegel’s argument lay on the fact that the differences


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between two overall experiences are successful explained by the difference in the content of this

two visual experience, which might imply they have different contents, and from difference in

content might follow that they have different properties as well1. It occurs the case of havingcompetence with Thai, which can be instanced in in two different minds where one is Thai

competent (Ea) and the other not (E’a) and also strongly, in the very same mind but in two different

moments with a learning time between (Ea) and (Ea). These are the two paradigmatic cases of phenomenal difference. Nevertheless, it would be interesting for the sake of our analysis to takeinto account other kinds of phenomenal difference, much more subtleties than the paradigmatic

ones, and check if different high-level properties could explain the variety of experiences. In our

case, we will argue that there are certain high-level language specific properties, namely, semantic properties with a very specific characterization (it will be properly defined later), which will give

a satisfactory explanation of this manifold of different perceptual experiences. In this sense, we

aim to synthetize the two main perspectives in the current debate on whether the meaning is

something perceptible: the “against perceive meaning” position (O’Callaghan) and “ pro-semantic properties” view (Siegel, Bayne and Reiland) in our proposal to solve the puzzle of semantic

properties in visual content2.

2. Written Language Properties in Visual Content and its Phenomenal Manifold

Imagine you came across with (a) and you know nothing of Thai language but the fact that(a) is written actually in Thai alphabet because you are familiarized at some extent with this writing

system (your ex had a tattoo in Thai). Let’s call the perceptual experience (E2a) that anyone can

experience under this conditions described (C2), namely, recognition of Thai writing system.

Suppose you learnt a couple of expression in spoken Thai but you know nothing of its writtensystem (C3), from now on the experience will be labeled as (E3a). The next step is to argue that

the very complexity involved in the perception of language is better explained mainly from the

perceptual field and not from the intervention of the cognitive system in the perceptual realm.

Firstly we will evaluate in a “different cognitive abilities scenario” which are the propertiesof (a) carried in the perceptual content under each condition (C) and its correspondent

differentiated experience (E); in that sense we could analyze whether different visual experiences

are good explained by different contents in perception with different properties. The scenario is:

(C’a) No knowledge of Thai at all: we have an experience of (a) as (E’a) that can be phenomenogically characterized as visual noise. The perceptual properties are in a

1 The structure of Siege’s argument is what follows: “(1) If the overall experience of which E1 is a part differs from

the overall phenomenology of which E2 is a part, then there is a phenomenological difference between the sensoryexperiences E1 and E2. (2) If there is a phenomenological difference between the sensory experiences E1 and E2, then

E1 and E2 differ in content. (3) If there is a difference in content between E1 and E2, it is a difference with respect

to K-properties represented in E1 and E2.” (Siegel; 2006)2 This debate would be briefly sketched in this way: Some author as Siegel (2006, 2011) and Bayne (2009) claims that

we can experience the meaning, at that might explain the divergence between experience language being competent

with it and having no competence. O’Callaghan (2010, 2011) denies that we can experience semantic properties in

auditive perception in the specific case of speech, also add that phenomenal differences relays on other mid/high-level

properties called language specific properties (LSP). Other philosophers, mainly Reiland (2015), criticizes

O’Callaghan argument as a very constraint one by defending experiences of meaning.


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minimum, mostly low-level, only allows to perceive (a) in a sub-graphematic level, which

means that cannot be distinguished the minimal visual units that linguistically compounds

(a). From this position (a) could be just perceived as a cluster of amorphous lines.Analogally, if (a) were spoken the auditive perception would be restricted to the sub-

phonemic level.

(C2a) The only ability of recognizing Thai writing system: the phenomenology (E2a) has acorrespondence in the “grafematic distinction” that implies the visual perception of (a) as

a set of iconically distinguishable unities or, in other words, something that have parts.

Anyone in this situation perceive “ต” apart from “ย”. Of course, (Ea’) has a phenomenologyvisually noisier than (E2a).

(C2b) The only ability of recognizing certain Thai spoken expressions: it is the auditive

counterpart of (C2a) as well as (E2b) is the auditive version of phenomenology (E2a).

When listening to those expression from this cognitive condition it is possible to perceptually distinguish, with very poor accuracy, certain constitutive parts as phonemes

or lexemes.

(C1a) Learning Thai: an intermediate situation between (Ca) and (C’a) with notably visual

recognition of graphemes and words in the string of symbols at some extent. In this positiona Thai learner can localized set of graphemes that are not individualized by low-level

properties (its nearness or position) but by high-level ones: the LSP.

(Ca) Full competence with Thai: all the visual components of (a), graphemes and lexemes, are

easily and quickly recognizable with high level of precision and accuracy, even withoutknowledge of what and which are morphemes or lexemes. Its phenomenology (Ea) is

opposed to (E’a) in the sense that when perceptually experiencing (a) in normal condition

there no visual noise but visual comfort , that means that the eye moves through the elements

of (a) with no resistance.

LINGUISTIC. LEVELS PROPERTIES RELATED PHENOMENAL DIVERSITY

Super-lexemic Cognition Ca / Ea

Lexemic High-level: LSP and Meaning Charge C1a / E1a

Graphemic Mid-level: Similarity and Interdependence C2a & C2b / E2a & E2b

Sub-graphemic (glyphic) Low-level: Size, Shape, and Position. C’a/ E’a

Table 1. Properties of written language in perception.

As all this cases show, what is visually experienced and visually perceived in (a) changegiven different cognitive background related to the linguistic competence of (a). Nevertheless, itwon’t be necessary to go beyond perception to explain this, as we will argue in the next section.

3. How much complex might be the perception for perceiving semantic properties?


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In this section we are going to repeat the steps followed in O’Callaghan’s argument for the

spoken language case, but now translated to the written case. It consist on going up from a

conservative position to a moderate perspective, and then to a liberal view, on which kind of properties are required for explaining satisfactorily phenomenal diversity. Although, our

conclusion would be different at some extent from the O’Callaghan’s one.

Conservative Position and the Low-Level properties of Written Language.

Let’s suppose that we have to explain the variety of perceptual phenomenology (E) from a

conservative position, where the only properties that can be perceived are the low-level ones. Inthat point, all the experiences in the scenario above would have the same low-level visual

properties of written language: shape, size-length, (color is irrelevant here) and it would be

perceived its relative position in the linear ordering. Mid/high level properties as semantics one

are totally rejected for explanatory purposes on this level, thought it would be very complicated toexplain phenomenal difference just with this very limited sources.

The conservative view would explain written language perception arguing for visual

discontinuities of (a): can be separated both in graphemic-alphabetic unities like “เ” or “พ ” and inlexical set of graphemes isolated by the wide central gap of (a):

(ai)“เพ อนก นหาง าย เพ อนตายหายาก” is separated “เพ อนก นหาง าย-เพ อนตายหายาก”

Obviously, it strongly depends on the specific writing system of each language. One of the

main reason for using Thai is because of the difference on how it is written and how it is read,having visual discontinuities in the writing that do not correspond with the reading discontinuities,

and in a certain way, also in the way it is perceived.

(a j) “เพ อนก นหาง าย-เพ อนตายหายาก”

(b) “Pheuuanginhaangaay- pheuuandtaayhaayak ” (Transliteration of (a))

Both (a j) and (b) are separated by “- “ in two sentences. Nevertheless, the sentences of (a j)and (b) have not the same discontinuities, because for instance you see four graphemic separations

in “เพ อน” while you read it as “ pheuuan” with no separation. That plainly means that (E2a)and (E2b) are irreducible one to the other, though both perceptual experiences would have the

same discontinuities (low-level properties) on (aii) in their perceptual content. The property that

make possible to distinguish (E2a) and (E2b) have to be found in higher levels.

In that sense, how the visual capacity of perceiving discontinuities can explain the phenomenal difference between (Ea) and (E’a), (Ea) and (E1a) or (E’a)? If (a j) has exactly the

same discontinuities in the visual content of someone with no knowledge of Thai (C’a) nor Thai

written system (C2a), with few spoken Thai expression (C2a), in learning process of Thai (C1a)


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or full proficiency of Thai (Ca); then, visual discontinuities argument3 of the conservative view is

not explanatorily sufficient.

Moderate Position and the Mid-level properties of Written Language.

The upper level is to support a moderate position on which are the properties perceived inwritten language. Keeping our methodological analogy with O’Callaghan analyses of spokenlanguage case, we need to check if mid-level perceptual properties as similarity, on one hand, and

interdependence of graphemic components, on the other, are sufficient and/or necessaries for

explain phenomenal divergence.

Let assume firstly that the cognitive agents of (C’a), (C2a) and (C2b) would perceive not just that some graphemes of (a) are repeated along the string of symbols, but also that there is a

pattern of repetition (colored in blue and green in (aiii)) between the two sentential parts of (a),

(ah) “เพ อนก นหาง าย-เพ อนตายหายาก”

Just for the sake of comparing, the spoken (transliterated) case would be,

(bi) “Pheuuanginhaangaay- pheuuandtaayhaayak ”

From that perspective, the repetition of identical graphemes only implies a quite developedvisual capacity of pattern recognition. Even supposing that (C’a), (C2a) and (C2b) are highly

mastered in pattern recognition and can tell all the repeated and not repeated set of graphemes, stillits perceptual experiences are not the same (E’a), (E2a) and (E2b) than (Ea) precisely because the

elements of (a) are perceived in a more systemic and integrative way from (Ca) having an

experience (Ea) that may not be aware of how set of graphemes occurs in (a). A weaker form of

similarity would be even worst in explanatory terms. That “า” and “เ” are graphemic symbols with

very close low-level visual properties (its common vertical trace), does not tell us anything aboutwhy (E2a) and (Ea) experienced perceptually them in a quite different manner.

Beside how fast, visually precise or accurate in pattern recognition might be any perceptualexperience of written language, its phenomenal idiosyncrasy begin with the Language-Specific

Properties4 (LSP). From a moderate position you can support LSP claiming the visual perception

of light interdependences of graphemes, which may be reflected in its phenomenology:

(ag) “เพ อ น” (ak ) “เพ อ า”

While (C’a) and (C2a) have the same perceptual phenomenology concerning (ag) and (ak ),

from (Ca) it would be possible to experience (ag) has having certain “visual comfort” as well as toexperience (ak ) as suffering from a kind of “visual discomfort”, still without knowing thegrammatical rule which claims that (ag) constitutes a part of Thai language and (ak ) does not.

Obviously, this properties seem to be rather necessaries for our purpose, but still not sufficient.

3 Visual Discontinuities Argument as it have been developed in this section of the paper, it also would be barely

defined as follow: from all the visually discrete unities (graphemes, words, sentences, etc) that compounds a written

language piece as (a) could explain its different visual experiences.4 Language-Specific Properties are those properties in perceptual content that are intrinsic to linguistic phenomena.


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Liberal Position and the High-Level properties of Written Language.

The most sophisticate position concerning properties in perceptual content is the liberal

one or rich perspective. This entails the belief that the perceptual system is strong enough as to

grasp certain high-level properties, which applied to our case it would imply the claiming thatsome complex LSP and/or semantics properties (and which ones) in the written language are perceived. May be this view the key for characterizing differences in perceptual content and

phenomenology?

We apply the O’Callaghan’s argument in the case of written language to defend that the

meaning is not a semantic property that can be perceived. Then, let take the case of homographswords:

(c) คาพองรป stand for (i) address, (j) close, (k) desert and (h) present

The homography in writing, as the homophony in speech, means that very different words

with its very different meaning are written with the same string of graphemic symbols. In the caseof (c) the homograph words have largely separated meanings among each other. Supposing that

we can “see” the meaning, then, due to the existence of phenomena as homography, we need to

perceive the very sensitivity of this set of graphemes to the context to perceive the correct meaningin its word (a high-level relation upon high-level properties), which seems to exceed by far the

capacity of the perceptual system.

Nevertheless, we do not support the O’Callaghan’s claiming that both apparent semantic

properties in general and the meaning within auditional content could be reduced to certain LSP

intrinsic properties as for instance homophony. The very presence of some LSP in visual contendlead us to consider that some semantic phenomena it is happening in perception, although it has to

be other thing than “meaning”. We assert, following O’Callaghan, that we cannot see the meaningin a writing; but, in opposition to him, we may say we can see (and have the visual experience of) a certain “semantic disposition” in written language under certain cognitive background.

As a previous pay for its explanatory potential, for high-level theorist it is required to draw

lines on which properties are perceived and which not. Firstly, we can postulate the integrated or

systemic linguistic interdependence of all the elements of (a) as high-level LSP in perception. It

does not claim other thing that the visual perception of (a) as a linguistic piece of information anda cluster of interrelated linguistic elements. There is no need in saying that this is not a linguistic

cognitive process because there is not cognitive penetration in the perceptual field but a perceptual

readiness for (a) to be cognitively processed that can be experienced in visual perception (as is

the case of (Ea) and at some extent of (E1a)) as a sort of “visual comfort”. Secondly, and because

of being perceived as a cluster of linguistic information, (a) also can being perceived as havingsematic charge. This does not mean that in (Ca) you can see the meaning of (a) as we had

underlined before, but you can perceive in (a) its systemic pre-disposition for functionally

referring to some extensions5: its meaningfulness or charge of meaning.

…

5 This extensions only can be linguistically determined in cognition, obviously not in perception.


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As it have been argued above, the liberal position offers an extremely satisfactory as well

as a quite simple way to explain the phenomenal manifold of our scenario, just by appealing to

certain semantic properties defined in the last paragraph. Explaining the same from a conservativeor moderate position would be, by far, much more complex precisely because it would require to

appeal to estrange interconnections among low and mid-level properties in written language.

4. Conclusion: The case for Semasthesia.

At this point, we would answer to the title of this paper that, yes, we could perceive

semantic properties in written language though not the meaning, because of its excessive

complexity of processing, but the meaningfulness or its meaning charge. We have not just

rehearsed O’Callaghan argument, we have also separated the semantic properties that could be

perceived in vision, the charge of meaning or meaningfulness, from those that cannot be perceived,

like the bare meaning; synthetizing an “against perceive meaning” position, like O’Callaghan, with

a view that support semantic properties in perceptual content, like Siegel or Reiland.

The dispositional feature of this high-level LSP depicts the readiness of perception for

language processing, as a process that involves cognition in a wide holistic way. Though meaning

is a property of language that cannot be seen as we roughly see the symbols that compound words

and sentences, supporting human semasthesia (for “sema” meaningful and “aesthesis” sensation)

from a liberal or pro-richness position is claiming that the informational richness of language is

something which yet occurs in perception and not exclusively after in central cognition.

References

A. Jody. 2013. “Semantic Perception: How the Illusion of a Common Language Arises andPersists”, Oxford University Press, 2013, 374pp.

O’Callaghan, C. 2010. “Experiencing Speech”. Philosophical Issues, 20, pp. 305-332

O’Callaghan, C. 2011. “Against Hearing Meanings”. Philosophical Quarterly, 245, pp. 783-807

Reiland, I. 2014. “On Experiencing High-Level Properties”. American Philosophical Quarterly,

51, pp. 177-187

Reiland, I. 2015. “On Experiencing Meanings” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 53, 2015, pp.

481-492Siegel, S. 2006. “Which Properties are Represented in Perception?” Perceptual Experience. Ed.

T. S. Gendler, J. Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 481-503

Bayne, T. 2009. “Perception and the Reach of Phenomenal Content”. Philosophical Quarterly,

236, pp. 385-404

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