METAPFIILOSOPHY Vol. 19, No. 2, April 1988 0 0 2 6 I068 $2.00

REALISM, SKEPTICISM (AND EMPIRICISM)

MARK LEON

(I) The Text:

The doctor wearily announced that the deterioration in Fred’s body was irreversible. That unfortunate verdict had been anticipated. What followed had not. For he went on to suggest a course of action which though it implied a radical rupture in the lives of Fred’s family, from Fred’s point of view it would be as if there were no rupture at all. What he suggested was that Fred’s brain be removed from his body and placed in a vat hooked up to a machine which would feed in all the stimulation that might have been expected through the course of Fred’s life. Such a machine hooked up to the vat would enable the maintenance of Fred’s life and mind and indeed the life of his mind. From Fred’s point of view there would be no noticing, as we would say, of the rupture. From his point of view it would be as if things went on as before. It would be with Fred as if nothing had happened.

It’s not hard to imagine that Fred’s (still undoubted) misfortune could turn into a stroke of fortune. It’s not hard to imagine, given our current climate, that the much feared nuclear war came to be and that all, bar Fred’s brain in his independently sustaining vat, was wiped out. This might be counted a stroke of fortune from Fred’s point of view for such an occurrence need not be discernible.

What’s crucial in this tale of two ruptures - the first of which removes Fred from his community and the second of which removes his community from him - is that there is a level of description at which external occurrences are indiscernible, for the inner life as we say goes on just as before. Just as I have no reason now to suppose I am a brain in a vat, so neither has Fred. Though his life does not go on as before, it seems as if i t does.

(11) The nature of the argument:

Philosophical arguments can be double-edged tools; when there is evidence which stands in conflict with a particular thesis one might just as easily reject the evidence as take the thesis to be disproved; and if a thesis has apparently unpalatable consequences, for example, ends in solipsism, one can just as easily take the consequence as reject the thesis. In this paper I contrast two forms of realism, an intrinsic and an extrinsic version. And the argument is of this underdetermined form; if successful I show extrinsic realism to have an unpalatable sceptical

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consequence - but I do not take that to constitute a refutation of the account any more than I take i t to be a consequence with which we have to live. What I will urge is that extrinsic realism does have the sceptical consequence I heap on i t , and so it is at least as badly off as (is claimed of) intrinsic realism, though its problem arises in a slightly different way.

(111) The argument: A. Preliminary matters. That realism' and the seeds of a radical scepticism go together, is a thought that has had much currency. I take a realist as holding that the world and our representations of it (our experiences, our thoughts, our beliefs) are in a certain sense logically independent. A natural way of interpreting this logical independence is as suggesting that the world could be as we believe it to be even were there no creatures like us to have beliefs or theories about it; and that there could be creatures like us, with beliefs and theories like ours, which happen to be massively false of the world.* It is because of this logical gulf between our beliefs and the way the world is that epistemological worries loom so large in a realist's concerns; if it is logically possible that all our beliefs are false how do we know they are not'?

That phenomenalism or idealism promise to avoid such generalised sceptical doubts has undoubtedly contributed to the acceptance of such theories. I take phenomenalism (or idealism) to be suggesting that the being of objects consist (in some complex way) in the being of experiences (or 'ideas'). Because objects are not logically independent of our expcriences (or ideas) but are defined in terms of them (or constituted by them), not all our experiences (or ideas) could fail to be veridical, The distinction here between veridical and non-veridical experiences (or representations more generally) is internal, involving say, the relation of coherence between experiences (or representations), rather than external involving some sort of correspondence to inde- pendently existing objects. So while it might be possible for any of our experiences to fail to be veridical, it is not possible for all; for veridicality depends on a relation amongst experiences.

Phenomenalism undoubtedly can draw some comfort from its apparent lack of embarrassment over epistemological issues or worries3; however, as much comfort as there is to be drawn from this course it is not enough to save it from its overriding metaphysical embarrassment - the attempt to represent objects as constituted by experience (or ideas).

' My concern here is with the issue of reduction rather than with the issue of bivalence. Another way of putting this point is by suggesting that for a realist the truth-

conditions of our representations transcend their verification conditions or assertability conditions.

Whether there is being in such an appearance is not an issue I will take up.

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Or so I am (here) content to assert. But then we look to be caught between an unacceptable metaphysics and a problematic epistemology.

However, some suggest this is not so, that a realist can navigate between the Charybdis of phenomenalism and the scylla of scepticism. In the course of this paper I examine the possibi ' ty of a realism

with an eye to its epistemological virtues. First I look at intrinsic realism; then I set up an extrinsic model; and then I raise two considerations relevant to its epistemological virtues. Lastly I look at the issue in the context of the claim that empiricism is dead.

But first a disclaimer. I do not mean to suggest that as ordinarily conceived realism cannot have a plausible or justified epistemology; that we have no reason to believe as we do on a realist scheme, Following Quine it seems correct to say that the best way of justifying our beliefs is by giving them a naturalised explanation; (perhaps following Quine) we can understand this as suggesting the following: that our beliefs are more or less correct is a function of their being an accommodation to the world. The idea here is that were our beliefs not more or less correct we would never have survived. Intuitively the point is that it would not be a fortunate fact that there were a match between our representations and the world - as if this were to be, if so, a kind of cosmic coincidence or pre-established harmony - for if there were no such match we would not have s ~ r v i v e d . ~ In this way one approximates the idea that though massive mis-match is a logical possibility on a realist scheme, it is not a physical possibility. Still some might not be satisfied with this (admittedly fallibilist) justification. Hence the reason for exploring a potentially stronger account.

ccmpatible with the logical impossibility of all our bell "'., fs being false,

B. Intrinsic realism and massive mismatch. How might massive mis- match seem possible for a.realist? Consider Fred. From our God's eye vantage point we can make the following claims: There was a time when Fred, like us, had a set of beliefs about the world which (for the sake of charity if not argument) were mostly correct and which (because they were reliably arrived at or whatever) constituted knowledge. But there came a time after his fall when his beliefs, in the first place his 'occasional' beliefs, were no longer (mostly) correct -when he thought of himself as lying on the beach soaking up the sun he was in fact awash in the vat being fed the appropriate, that is (perhaps) qualitatively identical stimulation. And even later some of his eternal beliefs like the belief that there are trees, and animals, and so on, turned out to be no longer correct. Whereas his representational states once matched the world after the fall, they no longer did.

This is just the more appropriately named theory of natural elimination, the non- adaptive are eliminated.

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When we abandon our God’s eye vantage point we cease pondering over Fred’s fall and begin to wonder about our own. If the world could ‘look’ one way to Fred yet be another way, how do we know that the world as it looks to us is in fact as our states represent it to be? How do we know that we are not like Fred in a vat? How do we know that we (unlike Fred) have not always been in a vat and the world is altogether different. What we imagine is a generalisation of Fred’s condition; not only might we now be brains in a vat, but maybe we have always been brains in a vat. (This parallels the old claim - if we are sometimes deceived maybe we are always deceived). Either way our plight would be more radical than Fred’s. And the conclusion, that such radical mismatch is possible seems to arise out of the (realist’s) independence condition: our representational states are one thing; the world is another; so whether there is match of the world by our states is not something for which we have a logical uarantee.

As I’ve characterised the (traditional.) realist he is committed to the logical possiblity of all (or a massive set of) our beliefs turning out false. So he is committed to the following assumption: we can imagine our beliefs (and other representational states) remaining unchanged, having the same representational content, no matter how we shuffle the world to which we are related - whether the world is as we believe it to be, or whether we are the unwitting victims of an evil demon (as the old tale went) or whether we are brains in a vat (as the drier secularised contemporary version goes), the content of our beliefs remain the same while their truth-values change. This realist thought experiment involves the possibility of holding content fast while altering truth value by shuffling worlds.

F

C. Extrinsic realism and (away with) massive mismatch. But now consider an alternative account of representational content. Take as. model a thermometer. Suppose for arguments sake that a thermometer

’ The traditional realist is what can be called an intrinsic realist. I don’t want to dcfine that troublesome term, in part because the doctrine gains most of its force negatively by comparison with extrinsic rcalism (which takes over in a moment), but also because it is troublesome. Still something like the following is meant: The intrinsic realist thinks of our representational states likc formal signs: ‘A formal sign is one whose whole nature and being are simply a tcprcsenting, or a meaning, or a signifying of something else. Such signs, in other words, are nothing but meanings or intentions.’ Compare this with an instrumental sign: ‘ . . . by an instrumental sign is meant one which signifies its signification to a knowing power only by being first apprehended itself . . . one must first apprehend the sign and only then does one apprehend the significatum.’ My interpretation is as follows: An instrumental sign has a content as a function of standing in somc relation to something else, whether i t be a natural relationship (like smoke and fire) or a conventional one (like sounds and objects signified). A formal sign intrinsically (not naturally, as onc might be tempted to say) represents one state of affairs and not some other. The quotations are from Veatch 1970, p . 13. For putting me in the way of the rclevant passage I would like to thank James Gricve.

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can be said to have a representational content; it represents its surrounds as having a certain temperature." How does a thermometer come to have a representational content? It does so as a function of an extrinsic relation in which it stands to heat; states of the thermometer vary with heat since they causally depend upon states of heat in its vicinity. Accordingly states of the thermometer convey information about heat in the thermometer's vicinity. In this way it can be thought of as accruing a representational content - it represents the heat in its surrounds as being of a certain strength. Just as a thermometer might represent heat in its vicinity so it may misrepresent heat in its vicinity.' This might occur if there is some breakdown in its functioning. (The more sophisticated the thermometer the more liable to such breakdown. But the possibility stands for the humblest of instruments). To misrepresent heat in its surrounds is for the thermometer to be in one state appropriate for one degree of heat, when that degree of heat does not obtain. To sum up: the condition for the thermometer's representing heat in its environment is for states of it to vary with states of heat. Once calibrated the content can be read off. And as with our own instruments, the senses, we might be misled; on occasion the thermo- meter is liable to misrepresent.

The question which now naturally arises is whether a thermometer can massively and systematically misrepresent heat in its vicinity. The surprising answer seems to be that it cannot. For consider: that it has a representational content depends on a standard sort of association of states of the thermometer and states of its surroundings; how accurately it represents its environment (in that respect in which it does) is relative to that standard. When we imagine a massive or systematic mismatch what we imagine contravenes the conditions for having a representa- tional content (and so for having an accurate representational content). Think of a possible breakdown of the thermometer's representational capacity in two respects; as being massive, and as being systematic. A massive breakdown would be one in which there is no correlation any longer between states of the thermometer and states of its environment. But then it would no more in those conditions represent heat in its environment than it would represent (changes in) my blood pressure - all things being equal of course. To have a representational content (on this model) presupposes a more or less invariant relation. The terms of the supposition breaks that condition. So such massive misrepresenta- tion is not possible. What now of a massive but systematic mismatch? Again this would not be possible. And for the same reason. That a

' There are reasons for thinking that a thermometer (certainly a crudc one) is not a device which can instantiate cognitive states, still it is a further question whether they can have content. I think nothing is lost if we assume they can. ' Being able to misrepresent might be thought a condition for representing. If so, well

and good.

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thermometer represents heat is a function of its varying with heat; that it represents heat of one degree and not another is a function of one of its states varying with that degree of heat and not another. A massive but systematic change in that relationship would accordingly constitute a massive and systematic change in representational content. In a nutshell there is a representational content where there is a systematic relation; there is change in that content where there is a systematic change in that relation. And where there is such a change rather than there being massive misrepresentation there remains massive (accurate) representa- tion but with a new content.

On this account representational content is a function of what in fact obtains; where there is a change in what standardly obtains there is either a change in content or an elimination of content. Rut either way inaccuracy cannot generalise. No one would suppose states of thermo- meters are formal signs of heat. However, it used to be supposed that our representational states were formal signs of various conditions. But just as instruments have come to dominate our lives so they have come to dominate the models we have of ourselves. Now it is almost true to say that n o one supposes our representational states are formal signs. So of course what we now have to do is apply this instrumental model to ourselves.

That an experience represents a certain state of affairs depends on its being of a type normally, or standardly, produced by that state of affairs. But of course our senses can malfunction - after all they are instrumental all too instrumental! So i t is possible on occasion for our cxperiences to misrepresent the world. But could they massively misrepresent the world? Of course not on this account. Their actual content is fixed by what obtains standardly, to suppose a massive unsystematic or massive systematic change in their operation is once more to suppose either a breakdown in representational capacity or a massive change in content. Misrepresentation cannot generalise.

What has been claimed of experience has also been claimed of our beliefs. That they have one content and not another is a function of the conditions which typically give rise to them. All content accrues extrinsically.

So it seems if we jettison an account of representational content in terms of some intrinsic relation, we have jettisoned the possibility, that unseemly consequences of realism, of massive error. On the extrinsic account massive error is not possible. One can think of this point in Peircian terms: any of our representational states could misrepresent the world; but not all of them. Whereas Peirce came to this point in virtue of defining accuracy of belief (or truth) in terms of our long term convergence in judgement - there is no logical gap between what we believe and what is true, for what is true is what we will in the long term come to believe - the beauty of this naturalised model is that it depends

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on no such idealist strategy. It simpiy depends on an extrinsic account of representational content. What better argument could there be for this notion than that it delivers such a satisfactory metaphysical and epistemological result - a confluence of realist metaphysics and plausible epistemology?

(IV). Epistemological Consequences: Davidson, Putnam (and Fred) A . The Claims. In recent years both Davidson and Putnam have challenged the possibility of massive error. Davidson takes this challenge to be compatible with realism;’ Putnam takes this to be compatible only with what he calls internal realism (which he dissociates from metaphysical realism).9

Davidson considers the possibility that for all we know we could be brains in a vat. He attempts to undercut the possibility by pointing out what the account supposes, namely the idea that we can ‘determine what a person means independently of what he believes, and inde- pendently of what caused the belief, . . (but) we can’t in general first identify beliefs or meanings and then ask what caused them. The causality determines the propositional content of what we say and believe.’ (Transcript of Davidson 1980. p. 13)

The problem of the brain in the vat apparently evaporates. We suppose some fiendish scientist (or benign one in Fred’s case) could take a brain and put it in a vat and feed in all the stimulation which prompts thoughts like we are soaking up the sun on the beach. . . . But Davidson’s point is that if the history of the brain (its being in a vat) were correct then it is not the case that it has false beliefs about lying in the sun, rather it has true beliefs the content of which is given in terms of the sensory stimulation being fed it, or the states of the machine maintaining it. That it utters or even thinks (in some purely phenomeno- logical sense) ‘I am lying on the beach soaking up the sun’ doesn’t mean we are to interpret that homophonically. On the contrary, as in our own case, we need to look at the causal conditions which prompt its utterances to know what is meant. So in general, whenever we are tempted to take a set of representations as being massively incorrect we should rather take those representations to be massively correct but having of course a different content.

Putnam’s point (at least in the case of his argument about brains in the vat) is similar. He asks us to consider the conditions which must be

” Davidson’s argument is taken from a paper presented at the Sixth Spring Colloquium in Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1980, entitled “Coherence theory of truth and knowledge”. (Davidson in fact has a numbcr of arguments purporting to show how massive error is not possible. This one I find the most compelling). ’ Putnam 1981, Chapter 1 . Taken in isolation this argument is compatible with that

fullcr version of realism, the metaphysical variety.

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satisfied for us to intelligibly suppose that we are brains in a vat. Clearly in asking that question we wish it to be the case that the question bears its standard meaning. But for it to have its standard meaning for ‘brain’ to refer to brain, and ‘vat’ to refer to vat, we must suppose that we are not brains in a vat. (The point is caught more vividly in terms of the supposition that the rest of our beliefs are false, beliefs like trees are green and so on. For us to have those beliefs and so be in a position to question them, requires a certain type of (causal) commerce with their referents. In the absence of that commerce we might use the same words, but the words do not have the same referents. Our thoughts do not have the same content). In general for our terms to have the same referents, for our ‘brain in the vat’ supposition to be intelligible, we cannot be brains in a vat. For if we were we could not be making that supposition but some other; for if we were brains in a vat the causal conditions which prompt our representations and utterances would be different. Once again if representational content depends on what standardly obtains, then change (or difference of) standard association (what we are supposing in asking the sceptical question) issues in a different representational content. We simply haven’t managed to ask the right question. But here is the bite in the sceptical pie; in order for us to successfully ask the right question the answer must be that we are not brains in a vat. The supposition is self-refuting.

But you might say hold on a moment. Doesn’t Fred have false beliefs about his state? What happens to Fred’s beliefs after his fall? One might have two responses to this question. One natural response given the extrinsic account would be to say that after a while Fred no longer labours under the illusion that he is happily as before partaking of life in the fullest sense. It’s not that he has false beliefs of his plight; rather he has a new set of beliefs given by the new set of conditions on which his belief states are dependent. If the content of a belief is a function of a set of conditions of a standard sort, then when those conditions change the content changes. A second more moderate response would be to say that Fred’s beliefs don’t change in content, that he does labour under the illusion that he is still at large in society. One might here appeal to the fact that though his immediate condition changes nevertheless there still is a community of which he is an outlying member which can be appealed to in assigning content to his beliefs. When he is in the sort of state that members of his community are in when conditions around them are such . , . then like them his state has such and such a content.

If that is one’s line the heaping of misery upon misery is an attempt to take account of it. If an umbilical cord to a community still remains that cord can be severed if the community can be removed from him. After a while we are bound to say (bound by the theory) that Fred has a new set of beliefs which are mostly correct about his new situation. Aggin falsehood fails to generalise.

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B. The Consequences. So we go along with extrinsic realism. We can know that while any of our representations may be false not all can. Still that leaves us with two problems. I take them in order of malignancy.

First the less serious one. Content on that account is extrinsic and externalist; extrinsic in that content is not a function of the intrinsic character of the relevant state; and externalist in that the content is a function of a set of conditions external to that state - the set of conditions on which such states, typically, causally depend. So where there is a change in those conditions there is a change in content. But here is the problem. Isn’t there a sense in which we, like Fred, might be none the wiser; the change as has been constantly emphasised is not (in some sense) discernible from within. If there is a systematic change in the conditions which give rise to our representational states, there is a systematic change in their content. Before and-after the subject remains a reliable indicator of his environment. But from the inner perspective no such change is (or need be) noticeable. If it is not noticeable how can i t be known to have taken place? And if it cannot be known that there has been a change, how can the subject be said to know he is in a state with one content and not another. We might be assured, as Davidson assures us, that our representational states are mostly correct. But we can no longer be assured of their content. We can no longer be assured that they represent us as lying on the beach soaking up the sun, as opposed to receiving stimulation of a certain kind, or our machine being in such and such a state . . . Paradoxically the very thing which assures the massive veracity of beliefs shields their content from our knowledge. We might know we are mostly right without knowing what we are mostly right about.

And the same, unseemly point, can be made about Putnam’s argument. Putnam argues that the representational content of a belief is not determined by what goes on in the head. For once again it depends on the causal conditions which prompt our utterances, or which give rise to our representations. For argument’s sake we can go along with this and yet we can find ourselves in a variant of the realist’s old sceptical plight. For if meaning or representational content does not turn on the intrinsic features of our representations, how, simply enjoying those intrinsic features, do we know what our representations represent?

If, in blocking scepticism of (an admittedly suspicious kind) one defines representational content in terms of causal conditions in the way indicated, we do end up with full knowledge that all our representations cannot be mistaken; but we also end up with ignorance as to what our knowledge consists in; i.e. what it is knowledge of; what it is that we believe. And that, I suspect, is as bad as facing the possibility of ‘mere’ massive error. For we have substituted for knowing what we might be wrong about, not knowing what we are right about.

It is important that the full force of this position be appreciated; that

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we stand to the meaning or representational content of our utterances, representations, as a radical interpreter stands to an alien. Except only worse. For the radical interpreter can both hear the utterances of his subject and associate with them conditions he can observe which are independent of the speaker. '(' But we cannot associate conditions in this way if it is granted (and this is the bare minimum any realist account must grant) that for all we know (or notice) our experiences are being differently caused from the way we imagine or think we imagine them to be caused. For all we know (in virtue of their having a different causal ancestry) they have a different content. " This is like being told that most of a foreigner's words (whose language we do not understand) are true, but we do not yet know what those words mean, so we do not know (as it would be natural to say) what is true. That our representations are mostly veridical is small comfort once it is realised that the language is our own, for we stand to that language as a foreigner stands to ours; we know our representations are (mostly true); but we don't know what it is that is (mostly) true. And I suspect it is no comfort to the sceptic whose interest is in what we know; not just in the fact that we know it; but in knowing what it is that is known. The notion of representational content has gone completely opaque. Descartes' notion of a mental state as wholly transparent to the subject needed correction. This account would seem to err on the other side.

Now for the second problem. The first point required giving to the cxtrinsic account the claim that most of our representations could not be false. The second point involves giving much less. The extrinsic account depends on associations of a standard sort. For the notion of content depends on such associations. Accordingly the account is correct in its own terms to point out that if there is a systematic switch in causal conditions then there is a systematic switch in the content of our representations. In effect this comes to the claim that for our representations to have any content at all they must be mostly correct. Interestingly enough we can accept that, without accepting what the extrinsic account really wants us to believe, that most of our representa- tions are correct. For it is apparent that ou r so-called representations might have (once again for all we know) no content at all. If this were the case, of course, it would be fatuous to call them representations. But that does not hide the possibility that for all we know it is fatuous to

Actually his advantage is only rclativc. For hc stands with respect to the-content of his rcprcscntations as we stand to ours.

' I Nothing in what I say calls on any serious use of the 'hoary' distinction between what is directly observable and what is not. The point is independent of whether one directly pcrccivcs physical objects, o r indircctly pcrccivcs them. What I am calling on is a principle which sets such a train of qucstions in motion. Thc principle is that qualitatively identical states can be differentially caused. Any rcalist must allow this, whether direct o r indirect; whcthcr hc bc an intrinsic or extrinsic rcprcscntationalist. Once this is recognised the point about thc 'opacity' of content follows.

Ill

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suppose that we have representational states, that is, states with any content. The point is that what the extrinsic account smuggled in is the notion of a systematic relationship or dependency; our representational states have a systematic dependency on their causal conditions. But how do we know, the sceptic is surely entitled to ask, that there is any systematic relationship between our states and those of an external kind? We cannot know this from the apparent regularity in our own states, for the intrinsic character of our own states does not determine content. Of course we could not be said to be massively wrong if our states had no content (if there were no systematic relation between them and external states) but that does not show that our representations are right about anything. And that, of course, is what the sceptic wishes to know; that we are right about something (as well as what it is we are right about).

This point can be put in Putnam’s way; he asks us to imagine that just as we have a notion of qualitative identity which we apply in the case of experiences or sensations, that we have a notion of qualitative identity which applies to thoughts (or representations) in general. Then the claim is that what is going on in our heads does not fix the ‘content’ of those representations; for like a thermometer the content is fixed by the causal conditions which prompt these representations. It seems to me that that is enough to throw the sceptical question at Putnam once again. This time in deference to the argument we can ask not how do we know we are not brains in a vat? but how do we know that our ‘apparent’ representations have an content at all, let alone the specific content we imagine them to have. 72

‘’ There is, I think, a parallel problem in Descartes’ attempt to stop the sceptical push. We can agree with him that doubting makes it true that I am thinking. But it doesn’t follow that if I am doubting (and so thinking) I know that I am doubting (and so thinking). The thought or belief that I am doubting (or thinking) is another distinct, higher-order belief. Of course Descartes might be appealing to a sclf-intimating thesis, namely, to think is to know that you think. But this principle, apart from begging the question is, 1 think, false. I can think without knowing I am thinking, without knowing what I am thinking, as in the case of unconscious thought (if it is possible, as I suspect but will not argue it is). Alternatively, Descartes’ thought is that to doubt that one doubts is to make true that one is thinking. Again 1 accept that. But why knowledge can escape us this time is because what makes true that I am thinking is the higher order doubt - not the lower order one. So of course if 1 doubt and I doubt whether I doubt, I think. But knowledge of this can still escape us. Both Putnam and Descartes suppose in effect that certain suppositions are self- refuting. I do not wish to deny this. What I am attempting to exhibit is that a serious sceptic need not be put off by that: if I doubt I think; if I suppose 1 am a brain in a vat 1 am not (or havc not always been) a brain in a vat. Still this might be true without my knowing that I am thinking, and without my knowing whether I am a brain in a vat or not. Putnam suggests that realism (as he dubs, I think, the intrinsic account) supposes a God’s eye view; but claims there is not God’s eye view. But this applies as much to Putnam. If I cannot determine what the content of my belief is, when I enjoy the belief, I cannot determine that it has a content either if it is fixed in the way he suggests. So Putnam cannot take up the God’s cyc vicw cither.

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The point put another way, is that this account of representational content presupposes rather than establishes realism. Admittedly I started off by asking simply whether it is possible to be a realist and deny the logical possibility of massive falsehood. But both Davidson and Putnam suggest we can be assured that there is no massive falsehood; hence no need to worry about a generalised scepticism. Davidson drawing on the notion of representational content he gives us, suggests that there is a presumption in favour of the truth of our beliefs. And even if we cannot say, taking our beliefs one by one, which is true and which false, we still at least know that most of them are true. I am now suggesting that this line is too quick. I can no longer (given for argument’s sake the acceptance of the account of content) suppose that all our beliefs contrary to what he says are false; but what is equally bad is that there is nothing to stop me from supposing that maybe I lack beliefs altogether, for maybe my states have no representational content, do not depend on any systematic causal relation, whether engendered by the ordinary object we standardly suspect, or the machine which maintains our brain in the vat . . .

Some no doubt will be suspicious about this thought, about how seriously this form of scepticism could be carried. They might say how could you talk about having thoughts, about the representational content of your thoughts, about the truth of your beliefs, without presupposing that the conditions are satisifed in virtue of which these claims are intelligible. I must admit that I cannot, except in this way, make the point I wish to make. But for all that perhaps there is no point that I wish to make! If I cannot tell what the point is from the inside, I cannot tell that there is a point from the inside. But this talk of what it is like from the inside is conceded by Putnam. If Davidson is a realist it must be conceded by him too. So on this second point we take back what was granted for argument’s sake in the first. Even if it is the case that our representations are mostly correct, even though we fail to know what states they represent, we still do not know that our states have a representational content at all. It is logically possible if one were a realist for there to be no systematic relation between our states and states of an external kind, so even if massive misrepresentation isn’t possible, massive (correct) representation need not obtain either. We do not know that our states are genuinely representational, for we do not know that they systematically depend on or are systematically induced by, external states. At most if there is an argument here against the sceptic, that argument must be a variation of the one I gave originally; its being physically impossible that our states not be representational. But if my original argument was cold comfort for the sceptic, so is this one.

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(V) Extrinsic Realism and Empiricism.

Davidson has claimed (in ‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme’) that if one gives up, as he has counselled us, the duality of experience and conceptual scheme, what remains is a doctrine unlike empiricism.” There is something to this. But T will suggest there is a perfectly legitimate sense in which Davidson remains well within an empiricist framework, where that is taken as a thesis about the origin of our ideas (or as I will show) about the nature of content.

We associate with empiricism the doctrine (or variant of it) that content of a belief (or even concept) is a function of experience. Liberally interpreted this is the thesis that what is meaningful (has content) makes a difference to our experience. Typically (though Locke is a problem here) we associate with empiricism the doctrine that meaning (or content) is fully specified in terms of that experiential difference. Clearly Davidson does not embrace the stronger thesis. Apparently Davidson does not go aiong in entirety with the former thesis, for he draws no distinction which might be thought crucial to empiricism, between observable and theoretical entities. This is a clue to his rejection of the duality of scheme and content; the duality Davidson sees as arising out of the possibility of having a notion of content specified in terms of experience, for then theoretical interpreta- tions are interpretations which go beyond the given in experience. If there is no differentiating between the content of observables and unobservables, if all content is specified in terms of the causal conditions on which representations depend (as opposed to the given in experi- ence), then perhaps the duality of conceptual scheme and experience (content) drops out. Still what is left in the Davidsonian position is a variant of the empiricist claim, namely, that what we can conceive of is a function of what we are acquainted with. Of course here we operate with a more liberal notion of acquaintance; we are or can be acquainted with whatever can leave traces on our experiences (or perhaps more generally our representational states), so we can have beliefs about all manner of theoretical entities so long as they causally make a difference to our experience, directly or indirectly. The duality of scheme and content has gone and that is significant. But what remains is the linking of content to acquaintance. And that is even more significant. It is at least in this respect that a rationalist is likely to differ: there is no reason why content could not transcend what in fact obtains.

It is still true, for Davidson, that what we can conceive of (what has content) is what can make a (causal) difference to our experience (or ’’ The dualism of scheme and content ‘ , . Is itself a dogma of empiricism, the third

dogma. The third, and perhaps the last, for if we give it up it is not clear that there is anything distinctive left to call empiricism’. (Davidson 1973, p. 1 1 ) . My point is that there is something very distinctive of empiricism left. And that it contrasts as always with a rationalist conception.

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representational states more generally). In effect we replace or elaborate on the claim that there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses with the claim that there is nothing in the mind that was not prompted by certain causal interactions with the world; the world we can conceive of is a function of the world we are acquainted with. Just as a thermometer could only come to represent what leaves traces on it, so the totality of our representational states can only have as representational content that which leaves traces on them. This in a different context is what is meant to assure us that our representations are mostly correct. They are mostly correct for their content is determined by what in fact prompts them, by what they are standardly associated with.I4

Epistemological after-thought The direction of my argument is not towards scepticism. From an epistemological point of view extrinsic realism is in the same boat as thc intrinsic variety. I haven’t denied there is knowledge on the intrinsic variety, and so strictly speaking I am not to be taken as denying it on the extrinsic variety. What I have done when speaking with the sceptical voice is point out a vulnerability to scepticism (if that is one’s line) that the extrinsic account possesses. Epistemological problems begin with epistemic counterparts - the possibility of qualitatively identical states, objects (or worlds). We are prompted to answer how we know we are seeing an object of a certain kind given that the experience we enjoy which gives rise to our belief‘ could just as easily have been non- veridical; we are prompted to answer how we know we are seeing an object of a certain kind given that the object we see could be duplicated by a qualitatively identical one which is nevertheless distinct - a decoy as opposed to the real thing. More recently I have suggested that even the extrinsic variety suffers from the presence of an epistemic counterpart; the possibility of a twin world which puts us in exactly the same epistemological state but which is radically different from our world.’s Just as hallucinatory experiences are epistemic counterparts to veridical ones, and decoy objects counterparts to the genuine one, so twin worlds are counterparts to our world. The sceptical push is the same in each case: given that we cannot from the inside distinguish the genuine article from the counterpart, what reason have we for believing that what we enjoy is the genuine article? If this strategy is to-be met presumably the

I‘ Thc contrast bctwccn rationalism and empiricism does not quite overlap with the contrast betwccn nativism and ‘environmentalism’. For there is nothing to preclude the possibility o f an idea, or concept, which is innate having an cmpirical content - such an idea, concept or belief might havc been ‘selected for’ because of its adaptive value. Still if an idea lackcd empirical content it is difficult to see how such an idea (if intelligible) could be other than innate.

I s Alternatively put: the possibility of qualitatively identical representational states but differing in content.

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suggestion will be knowledge need not require in all conditions knowledge that the counterpart does not obtain - it is not always relevant that I might have been in a non-veridical state. So one might be tempted to argue, that though it is true that change of content cannot be discefned from the inside, this is no more damaging than the idea that veridical experiences cannot be differentiated from non-veridical ones from the inside. Presumably knowledge of a different content comes when there is a switch in the content of the lower order beliefs. Just as there is a change in content of the lower order belief when the conditions which prompt those beliefs change systematically, so there is a change in content of our higher order beliefs (beliefs about the content of the lower order ones) at the point at which the conditions on which they depend change, namely, the lower order beliefs - in this way external changes filter through into internal ones. And the crucial premise somewhere along the line will be knowledge does not require that these changes be internally discriminable. Perhaps. But then this is a strategy which applies to both the intrinsic and extrinsic accounts. Whereas the former has a problem in assuring us that not all our beliefs are false (given that logically they could be) the latter has the problem of assuring us that our beliefs have one representational content and not another (given that logically they could have had the other), and more significantly still, there is the problem of assuring us that our mental states have some representational content in the first place. For all I know I am not sitting at a table typing away on a machine of somewhat antique provenance; and for all I know my states do not represent me as sitting at a table. For all I know my states have no representational content at all. What springs to mind is the picture of a continuous but random shuffling of flash cards by a monkey. The cards like our states might appear to have some significance; but perhaps our states like the cards lack (representational) significance.

Of course I’m not taken in by any of this. But that is not because 1 have been assured that each of these sceptical tacks is logically impossible. University of The Witwatersrand Johannesburg, 2001 South Africa

REFERENCES

Davidson D. ‘Coherence theory of truth and knowledge’. Paper delivered at the Spring Colloquium in Philosophy, at the University of the Witwatersrand, 1980.

Davidson D . ‘On the very idea of a conceptual scheme’. Presidential Address, American Philosophical Association, December 1973.

Putnam H. Reason, truth and history Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1981.

Veatch H . B. Intentional logic Hamden-Connecticut, Archon Books, 1970.