Perspectives on Perception: The Debate between Davidson and McDowell Concerning the Nature of Experience

by Sheri D. Coombs

A thesis submitted to the Department of Philosophy in conformity with requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

Queen' s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada January, 2000

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The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelnùn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. This is a thesis about the structure of perception and the character of experience and perceptual knowledge. I begin by discussing certain familiar views of the perceptual process and the criteria of perceptual knowledge. 1 consider the idea that perception involves the acquisition of interna1 states or objects - 'appearances', 'expenences' or

'sense data' - understood as non-conceptual sensory intake and that perceptuai knowledge requires the application of concepts to such appearances, the processing of sensory 'data' by a conceptual scheme. 1 then move to the views of Donald Davidson and

John McDoweU, who both reject such 'scheme-content dualism'. I set out each philosopher's reasons for rejecting the dualism, and then move to their proposed alternatives. Davidson and McDowell agree that if the deliverances of expenence are non-conceptual in nature, they cannot play the episternic role of justimg beliefs.

Davidson's solution is to argue that sense expenences merely cause but do not warrant beliefs. McDowell, in contrast, holds that experiences can justify, but maintains that this is because our conceptual powers are already in play in the nature of experience itself. 1 conclude that each view has both good points and bad. Davidson has a plausible account of belief formation, but his coherentist account of justification is lacking, while

McDowell gives us the best explmation for belief justification, but msthe rkk of embracing idealism. Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One: Sense Experience and the Structure of Perception

Chapter Two: Scherne-Content Dualism

Chapter Three: Davidson vs- McDowell

Concluding Remarks

Bibiiography

Vitae . It is not usually the case that projects as extensive as this one resuIt fkom the efforts of a single person. This particular thesis being no exception, I would like to thank David Bakhurst for the guidance he offered me when 1 fbtcame to him with my then undeveloped ideas about philosophy of perception. Without David's patience and skill at directing me even when 1 knew not where 1wanted to go with this, 1 could not have even begun this thesis, let alone riished it. 1 also want to thank Henry Laycock, whose wit 1 fïnd inspirational in my struggle to figure things out, and UIi Scheck and Alistair Macleod for reading and commenthg on the final product. I would also very much like to thank my parents for al1 they have given me by way of financial and emotionai support, and for offering an interested ear when 1 wished to talk things out. Thanks are also given to rny big brother, who motivates me to work harder in the face of his usually off the cuff, yet always penetrating, criticisms and questions. Paul Sweeney also played a crucial role of patient Listener, and 1thank him for his encouragement and for believing in me. 1 want also to thank the Department of Philosophy and Queen's University for their financial support, which made my graduate work possible. This thesis presents an appraisd of two differing perspectives on perception: those

expounded by Donald Davidson and John McDoweii. Perception is the process whereby

a being obtains information about its environment fiom sense expenence. Although it is commonly agreed that al1 living creatures exhibithg some form of intelligent behavior perceive the world, Davidson and McDowell are concerned exclusively with the structure of human perception. They aim to advance a theory of perception that explains what goes on when a hurnan being gathers and uses aormation about the world he hdshimself to be in.

A theory of perception must aspire to explain the structure of the relationship between perceiver and perceived - that is, between a person and the objects which funiish the world. At the heart of this relationship is sense experience. Al1 the familiar explmations of perception - some of which are considered in chapter one - focus on the role of sense expenence in some way. It is difficult, however, to give a single philosophical definition of sense experience because the concept changes according to the particular theory of perception being discussed. Thus, whether you are a Realist or an

Anti-realist about perception (the two principal families of views), you will hold that perception is characterized by experiencing the world through the senses, but you dl likely disagree on the precise nature of what is experienced, and also on the manner in which it is experienced. Disagreement of this sort even occurs within variations in the sarne family: not al1 Realists, for example, concur on the nature or object of sense experience. There is thus no contentful general definition of sense expenence common to theones of perception.

AU theones of perception, however, share the goal of explainhg how, on the basis of sense experience, knowledge of the world is obtained. This is slightly different fkom the deiinîtion offered at the opening of the introduction, where 1 stated that perception is the receiving of information about the environment. GGaining knowledge should not be understood as identical with the acquisition of information. The term 'knowledge' has a distinct meanhg in the philosophicai canon, and very specific criteria have been enumerated to pin down exactly what a claim to knowledge amounts to. These criteria, to be discussed in chapter one, serve the purpose of distinguishing the conditions that must be met for a claim to qualifjr as howledge and not something weaker, like for example, mere belief

The relationship between experience, belief, and knowledge in theories of perception is very important, as we shall see. Beliefs are one imrnediately obvious product of human perception. On the bais of sense experience we come to believe that the cat is fat, the light is on, dinner is burning, the fire is warm, etc. Thus, a theory of perception must explain how we come to fonn perceptual beliefs about the world on the basis of sense experience. When these beliefs meet certain conditions they quali@ as knowledge. According to the renowned 'tripartite' definition of knowledge the beliefs in question must be true, and they must be justified. So in order for a theory of perception to explain the formation of perceptual knowledge it must explain how human beings acquire true perceptual beliefs, and how those beliefs are justified for the perceiver. It is easy to confuse the separate questions of the formation and the justification of

perceptual beliefs. However, if clanity is to be achieved, the questions must be kept

separate. The question of how perceptual beliefs are formed is a question of how

perceiving beings corne to entertain certain sorts of thoughts about the world; thoughts

which rnay or may not accurately represent the world they are about. It is a question

which demands an account of the ongin of our ideas about the world. The question of

how perceptual beliefs are justined is the question of how we can howthat such beliefs

are true of the world. It is a question that demands an account of the origin of our

confidence that our ideas accurately represent the world. Some theones of perception

appeal to sense experience to answer both these questions, and the debate about whether

such an appeal is plausible is the main focus of the proceeding chapters.

The debate between Davidson and McDowell centres around the role sense experience plays in the formation and justification of perceptual beliefs.

McDowell thinks experience must be construed in a rnanner that enables it to account for the formation and the justification of beliefs, whereas Davidson thinks experience can only account for the formation of beliefs, and not their justification.

Interestingly, Davidson and McDowelI arrive at their different views of sense experience by reacting against the same idea: narnely that justification is possible through a correspondence theory that relates beliefs to non-epistemic sense data given in experience. Davidson holds that only a belief can justi& another belief because only a belief can stand in the sort of relation that is necessary to justification. The sort of relation that is necessary to justification is the sort that is rational: Justification demands rationally relating a belief to something which acts as a reason for holding the belief true. McDowell agrees with Davidson that only something like a belief cmqualiQ as a reason, and so there mut be a problem with the attempt to justa a belief by appealing to non- epistemic (non-belief-me) sense experiences. The two diverge, however, on the best way to solve the problem: Davidson, on the one hand, argues for and accepts the initial premise that sense experiences are not like beliefs and moves fkom this to conclude that sense experience cannot therefore do the work of justification. McDowell, on the other hand, argues that the deliverances of the senses mutperform the work of justification, and concludes that they therefore should be construed Fom the outset as already conceptual in nature, as belief-like. Both arguments have temfic ramifications for how each philosopher views the structure of perception, and it is my goal here to Lay out the topography of their respective positions and to consider their strengths and weahesses.

We must begin, however, with some standard views of knowledge and perception, so that we can understand Davidson's and McDowell's point of departure. Chapter One

Sense Experience and the Structure of Perceotion

According to Jonathan Dancy, the conception of knowledge which has dominated

twentieth-century epistemology is the tripartite dennition of knowledge (Dancy 1985: 23). The tripartite. definition enurnerates three conditions that must be met in order for knowledge to obtain. Ifperson, A, is to how propositionp.

1. A must believe that p

2. p must be trzie

3. A must bejustified in believing that p.

By this definition, then, knowledge isjust9ed true belief:

The first condition, commonly caiied the belief condition, expresses the need for a person to be in an appropriate psychological relationship with the fact she is said to laiow. Of this relationship, Paul Moser writes: 'A knower must be psychologically related somehow to a proposition that is an object of knowledge for that knower.

Proponents of the standard analysis hold that only beliefs can provide the needed psychologicd relation' (Moser 1995: 234). Obviously, one cannot be said to know, Say, that Montreal is in Quebec, if one does not believe that Montreal is in Quebec. It is therefore necessary that if A is to know that p, A must believe that p. Having a cognitive conneciion to a proposition, however, is clearly not sufncient for laiowing it. Knowledge requires more than mere belief. Before a claim to knowledge cm be made, the belief in question must be shown to be a true representation of reai states of affairs. For me to know that my cat is a calico, for example, it must be the case that my cat is indeed a cako. My belief that my cat is a calico must be true. This is the second requirement expressed by the tripartite definition. The proposition which 1 believe must be true in order for me to claim bonafide Imowledge.

The tnith requirement is uncontroversiai. No-one holds that one can how a falsehood. What is controversial, indeed hotly debated, is what exactly it means for a proposition to be true. Most would agree that tmth has something to do with accurate representation of the world, but theories diverge on the matter of what that accuracy consists in, and how it is determined. One principal distinction is between correspondence theories of truth, on the one hand, and coherence theones on the other.

Correspondence theones claim that a belief (or statement, proposition, etc.) is tnie if it corresponds to objective states of affairs in the world. Coherence theones, in contrast, attribute tmth to a relation of coherence with other beliefs: a beiief is true if it coheres - fits together logically - with the believer's other beliefs. We will return to the concepts of correspondence and coherence later.

The third condition of the tripartite definition states that a belief must be justzped if it is to count as knowledge. What exactly does one require in requiring that a belief be justified? The justification of a belief consists in determining the reason, or reasons, its believer has for believing it. To justi& a belief is to relate that belief to something which can be appealed to as appropriate grounds for holding it. This is best brought out with an example. An ardent Toronto Maple Leafs fan, Anne, hdsa penny on the ground with the

'heads' side facing up on the moniing of the bal game in the Stanley Cup PIay-offs.

The Maple Leafs are contenders in this game. Anne interprets her find as a sign that she will have good luck, and cornes to believe that the Leafs will win this year's trophy. As it happens, the Leafs beat their opponents that evening, and so win the Cup. hne's belief that the Leafs will win tums out to be true, and so Anne feels safe in declaring that she knew the Leafis would win. But should we dlow that AMe really knew this? Was Anne justified in her belief that the Leafs would win? Mer aLl, hue's reason for holding the belief was the fact that she found what she took to be a lucky penny. Most would agree that this is not a reasonable basis for her belief. It was merely a coincidence that the game turned out as Anne predicted, and the justification condition is meant to preclude instances of lucky guesswork fiom qumgas knowledge.

Notice that the tripartite definition draws a distinction between a belief being true and a belief being justified. This is interesting because it implies that a belief is not generally taken to be justified by the mere fact that it is true. What justification requires is for a believer to be able to point towards appropriate reasons for holding a particular belief. It does not count if the believer is able, after she has formed her belief, to point out that her belief tumed out to be true. Justification dernands that a believer has fonned her belief in light of reasons that support it. Finding out later that a particular belief happened to have been true might, as Dancy puts it, vindicote the belief, but it does not justifi it (Dancy 1985: 23).

But suppose Anne had another reason, other than fiding the lucky penny, to believe that the Leafs will win the game. Would she be justified in her belief then? It depends upon the reason. In order for Anne to be justined in her belief, she must appeal

to something that can act as a reasonable ground for the belief. Not only are there

limitations on the sort of thing that can act as that reasonable ground (finding the luclq

penny cannot), there are also Limitations on what Anne, specifically, can appeal to as that

reasonable ground Had Anne had access to a reason for believing it tme that the Le&

will win the hockey game later, like stumbling upon an agreement signed by the team

captains to orchestrate the game in a manner that would ensure the Leaf's victory, she

would have had something valid to appeal to for justincation. But the appeal only works

if it is made to something that Anne can claim to have access to at the time she formed

her belief

Justification of a belief, then, consists in relating it to something, to which the believer has access and that, fkom the beIiever7sperspective is a good reason for holding the belief. Whether it b a good reason that is appealed to, or any reason at dl, is a matter to be detemiined by the circumstances surrounding the particular instance of attempted justification. 1

' Before 1 leave the discussion of the tripartite definition, 1 should note that it has been argued that the definition requùes supplementation if it is to specify sdïcient (and not just necessary) conditions for Icnowledge. The problem, fxst identified by Gettier (1963) is this: the tripartite definition admits the possïbiliv of justified yet false beliefs. For example, 1 might be justified in believing, falsely, that Jones is the murderer on the basis of evidence that hil~been fabricated by the police. Now imagine a case in which 1 believe that Smith is the murderer on the basis of compelling, yet fabncated, evidence, and moreover Smith is the murderer. The police have hedSmith precisely because they how he is really guilty. Here 1 have a true, justified belief which is nevertheless not knowledge. Mmy epistemologists have argued that a clause mutbe added to the definition to ensure the right kind of connection between belief, justification and fact. One plausible proposa1 is that the fact that Smith is the rnurderer must be the cause of my belief that he is. It is difficult, however, to specw the relevant causal connection in a ngorous way. Merall, the fact that Smith is the murderer rS among the causes of rny belief that he is, for it was that fact that caused the police to behim. It is clear that my belief must have 'appropriate' causal origins, and that the supplementation will involve an irreducibly normative element. L will not pursue the issue here, except to note that, as we shall see, the debate between Davidson and McDowell turns on the relevance of causal processes to the justification of belief and that it would be illuminating to consider how their respective positions might be developed to respond Gettier examples, The question, however, is beyond the scope of this dissertation. 1want now to tum the discussion towards justification in the particuIar context of

theones of perception. The question that will dominate the remainder of the chapter is:

What has been traditionally been seen as the basis for the justification of perceptual b eliefs?

It is best to begin with a brief outline of different theories of perception. My immediate objective here is to Say how each theory responds to the separate questions of how perceptual beliefs are formed, and how they are justified. The purpose of addressing the main divisions in perceptual theory is to introduce a particular theory of justification, namely the theory that prompts disquiet in Davidson and McDowell. The reader will thus forgive my neglect of theories which do not bear on the debate between Davidson and McDoweii.

Following Dancy (1985), theones of perception can be initially divided into two main families: Realism and Anti-realism. The debate between D avidson and McDowell is centered on issues arising in perceptual Realism. Realism in philosophy of perception is the view that the objects we take ourselves to perceive cm and do exist, and retain at

Ieast some of their properties, when we are not perceiving them. This is to Say that the existence of the objects of perception, and at lest part of their nature, is independent fiom the existence of any perceiver. The Realist thus admits the actuality of a mind- independent world - a wodd whose existence would be unaffected by the destruction of ail perceivers. For the Realist, reality cm be separated from realiality-as-we-perceive-it.

Anti-realism in philosophy of perception is the position that the objects we perceive do not retain their properties or continue to exist independently of our perception of them. The Anti-realist denies the existence of a world lying behind and apart fiom the world which we perceive. Thus for the Anti-realist there is no general distinction to be drawn between the 'real world' and the world we experience through perception. For the Anti-realist, the world we experience is the only world that there is, and it makes no sense to strive towards an understanding of the 'world in itself (the world as unperceived). Reality-as-we-perceive-it is the only reaIity the Anti-realist admits.

It is a rnistake to construe the difference between Realism and Anti-realism as consisting in the opposing claims that 'the world exists', on the one hand, and 'the world doesn't exist', on the other. Both Realism and Anti-realisrn agree that we do perceive a world filled with ordinary objects. Where they disagree is on the matter of what that world is. For the Realist the world exists as a place that harbors, among other things, mind-independent material objects which can be experienced. Their existence does not depend on their being perceived. For the Anti-realist the world exists as a construction out of experience; all that the world is and contains are projections out of experience. So the Anti-realist does not deny the existence of the world, but she redefines the world so that its character is dependent upon what we experience. What she denies is the existence of a world apart fiom the one we experience.

What does the Anti-realist have to Say about how percephal beliefs are formed, and how they are justified? This is a tricky business for the Anti-realist because, as we have seen, the Anti-realist denies that perception is of a world already there, waiting to be perceived. An Anti-realist thus does not have the luxury of appealing to an enduring concrete world to cause and ground his perceptions. If Anti-realism denies that perceptual beliefs are formed as consequences of a perceiver's interaction with the physical world, how, then, does it explain the formation of perceptual beliefs? A good answer is given by Dancy, in bis discussion of how Phenomenalism, a prominent fonn of

Anti-realism, explains the formation of perceptual beliefsa2 Dancy writes:

Suppose that on some occasion it seems to you as if there is a waii in fiont of you,

and you are right; there is a wall and you can see it. What explmation can be

given of the fact that it seems to you as if you are in fkont of a wall? How are we

to explain the occurrence of a perceptual experience? The realist.. .explanation

springs fkom the continuous existence of a materid object with certain properties

and the new event of a perceiver coming into contact with it. There was a wall

there al1 tirne, and this explains why when you arrived and opened your eyes you

seemed to see a wall. The phenomenalist's parallel answer is that there is indeed

something continuous here, which explains the occurrence of this perceptual

experience now; but it is not quite the realist's wall. There is a continuing or

permanent possibility of experience, which is triggered by the occurrence of

suitable conditions. So the phenomenalist explains your seeming to see a wall by

appeal to the permanently tme subjunctive conditional that if suitable conditions

were to occur you would seem to see a wall. (Dancy 1985: 160)

Dancy contrasts phenornenalism with another form of Anti-realism: Idealism. An Idealist's account of belief formation and justification &£Fers fkom a PhenornenaEst's account in the following way. Idealism locates reality in all and only that which is experienced. Phenomenalism allows for a slightly broader notion of reality: reality is a construction out of actual and possible experience The Phenomenalist accounts for the formation of perceptual beliefs by appealing to a subjunctive conditional which expresses a possibility of experience which is made actual upon the meeting of certain conditions. Perceptual beliefs are tnggered as the conditions that wodd make the possible experience actual are met.

What of the Phenomenalist's answer to the question of what justifies perceptual beliefs? How does a Phenomenalist answer the question of how a perceiver can know that his perceptual beliefs are true of the world? The Phenomenalist is in a peculiar and advantageous position for answering this question because, as discussed, the

Phenomenalist does not drive a wedge between the world and the world of expenence.

The Phenomenalist can thus deny that any such matching of perceptual befiefs to an independent world is necessary. Neither tmth nor justification need be construed as a relation of correspondence between belief and a world which is somehow independent of experience, for the world is just a construct out of perceptual beliefs. From this it follows that having an experience is reason enough for forming a perceptual belief about it because the object of the belief is the experience itseE, not something beyond the experience, like an objective world. The experience itself is the reason for holding the belief, and while the question of the adequacy of any particular belief cm arise, there can be no general question of whether our perceptual beliefs fit the world they purport to describe.

A Realist position in philosophy of perception denies this equation of world with experience. For the Realist, experience is very much of a world that is independent fiom experience. However, Realist accounts of what goes on during expenence of the world

Vary. They al1 concur on the idea that it is an objective world which is experienced, but they diverge on the matter of the way in which it is experienced. The main chasm in

Realism is between Direct Realz'sm and Tndirect RealrSm.

Direct Realism advances the idea that perceivers experience the world directly or

immediately; that is to say, during perception, perceivers are directly aware of the surrounding physical world with no intermediary between perceiver (the person who is experiencing) and perceived (the object being expenenced). Thus a Direct ReaList would say that in perceiving, for exarnple, a box on the floor, a perceiver is directly aware of the physical object which is the box; the perceiver is directly aware of the existence and properties of the box itself. This is not supposed to be a complicated idea; direct awareness in perception is just the idea that the immediate objects of perception are the objects which furnish the world.

Direct Realists Vary in the degree of Realism they are willing to defend. Ail agree that an object and its properties are perceived directly, but some deny that an object retains al1 its properties when it goes unperceived. Direct Realists who deny that an object retains al1 its properties when unperceived Dancy calls Scientific Direct Realists.

Direct Realists who insist that an object remains identical whether perceived or not are called Nai:ve Direct Realists.

The Naive Realist insists that an object continues to exist and retains all its properties when unperceived. By this he means that an unperceived object not only has a shape and size, but also remains coloured, smelly, rough or smooth, bitter or sweet, etc.

The point is that a perceived object is no different when it is iinperceived. Scientific

Realism, on the other hand, takes it to be case that: science has shown that physical objects do not retain when unperceived all of

the properties we perceive them as having: for some of those properîies are

dependent for their existence upon the existence of a perceiver. Thus colour,

taste, sound and smell, heat and roughness are not independent properties of the

object which it can retain unperceived. The object only has them in relation to the

perceiver. The scientSc direct realist accepts the dkectness of our perception, but

restricts his realism to a special group of properties. (Dancy 1985: 148)

ScientSc direct realism thus depends on adopting something like John Locke's famous contrast between primary and secondary qualities. Locke held that objects possess two types of charactenstics: those that are not dependent on our perception of the object, and those that are. The qualities that an object possesses regardless of whether it is perceived are its primary qualities. They are characteristics such as shape, size, or motion. These qualities have a different status than secondary qualities, which are characteristics it possesses in virtue of being perceived: characteristics such as colour, texture, taste, smell. (Dancy recommends we cal1 these 'sensory qualities' (1 985: 148)).

Zt could be argued that Scientific Direct Realism contains the seed of the idea that spawns Anti-realism. Scientific Direct Realism affirms that objects have qualities of the sort Locke would cal1 secondary; properties conditioned by, and thus relative to and dependent on, our perception of the object. Anti-realism takes the idea that properties of an object are conditioned by our perception of them to the extreme holding that everything about an object is relative to our perception of it. Now to Indirect Reaiism. This is the position that the world and its objects are experienced indirectly; that is to Say, during perception, perceivers are only indirectly aware of the surrounding physical world in virtue of being directly aware of an

intermedlary which sits between perceiver and perceived. The intemediaries introduced into the structure of perception by Indirect Realists has been variously labeled sense data, appearances, experiences, impressions, ideas, etc. Indirect realism may also take naïve or scientific foms.

The introduction of sense expenence into the structure of perception is the key eIement in the debate between Davidson and McDoweU. Both philosophers agree that it is not a good idea to advance a theory of perception that has perceivers directly aware of some perceptual intermediary instead of the world itself. Furthemore, both agree that it creates even more problems to try and appeal to that intermediary for justification of percephial beliefs. Davidson's and McDowel17sarguments for this, and their proposed solutions to the problems, will be discussed in chapters two and three below. Now it is necessary to give a more detailed account of why Indirect Realists see a need to ultroduce intermediaries into the structure of perception, and what exactly those intermediaries are.

For the Indirect realist, the objects of which we are directly aware in perception are not extemal, physical objects, but internal, non-physical objects. Such 'appearances' are representations of physical objects (though not necessarily flawless representations) produced in sense perception. They are located on the internal side of the split we comrnonsensically take to separate our intemal selves fiom the extemal world.

Appearances are thus not objects to be fodin the external world, but constituents of the internal realm - the realm we refer to as our minds. The nature of appearances will corne out more fUy with examination of the

arguments offered by Indirect Realism for their existence. There are many arguments, but most of them are variations of the famous 'argument hmillusion'. The argument fiom illusion is designed to show that what is perceived during perception cannot be extemal physical objects, so it must be sornething else. And that somethg else, it will be maintained, is an appearance. The argument is presented and developed nicely by A. J.

Ayer in the third chapter of his Die ProbZem of KnowZedge. Ayer eventually accepts the argument and adopts an Indirect Realist position. The starting point of the argument fiom illusion, as Ayer notes, is that

objects appear differently to different observers, or differently to the

same observer under different conditions, and Mer,that the way in

which they appear is causaily dependent upon extraneous factors such

as the presence of light, the position of the observer, or the state of his

nervous system. (Ayer 1956: 87)

These considerations about the relativity of perception are supposed to suggest that, because the way an object looks cmVary while the physical object does not change, whoever is looking at the object does not see the objectper se. An example is in order, and Ayer's own makes the point weli. Imagine, suggests Ayer, that a coin is perceived by two people at one time. To one person the coin looks round, and to the other, who is regarding it fkom a different angle, it looks elliptical. Since the coin cannot be both round and elliptical at once, it foiIows that one person is not perceiving the coin as it really is, and cannot therefore be perceiving the actual coin.

But does it follow fiom the possibility that an object can sometimes appear to be what it is not that the object is nevm itselfdirectly perceived? It is evident that Ayer believes so when he writes,

fiom different angles the coin rnay appear a variet. of shapes: let it be assumed

that one of them is the shape that it really is. There will be nothing to mark off

this appearance fiom the others except a difference of aspect which may be

extremely slight. There will in any case be no such ciifference between the way

in which the coin is perceived in this instance and the way in which it is perceived

in ail the others as to render it at all plausible to Say that they are generically

distinct; that the object which is directly perceived in this instance is of a different

kind altogether fkom that which is directly perceived in the others. But, since only

one of the appearances cm fail to be deceptive, we must allow that in all but one

of the instances it is not the physical object itself that is directly perceived. And if

we are willing to admit that the instances are al1 sufficiently alike for it to be

reasonable to hold that an object of the same type is directly perceived in every

case, it will follow that the physical object is not directly perceived in the

remaining instance either. In this way we are brought to the conclusion

that, even granting that physical objects may sometimes be perceived as they

reaily are, what is directly perceived is always something else. (Ayer 1956: 88-89) This argument, of course, grants a presupposition (one that is ddynoted by

Ayer): that when an object appears differently fiom its real nature it is not the object itself

which is perceived, but something else. Ayer characterizes the bstof the

presupposition as the suggestion that 'the object initerposes its appearance, like a sheet of

glass, between itself and the observer' (Ayer 1956: 89). A philosopher unwilIing to

admit this presupposition need not accept the concPusion Ayer draws fiom it. However,

there is a second and stronger formulation of the argument fkom illusion; one which does

not trade on the metaphoncal notion of a pane of glass separating observer fiom

observed. This second formulation notes the possibility of complete hallucinations, and its usual accompmying example is Macbeth's perceiving of the dagger; the dagger which is, of course, not a real physical object.

The fact that we cm make sense of the idea that Macbeth perceives a dagger where there is no dagger suggests that perception can be of something that is not a physical object. No doubt Macbeth did indeed thin'k hunself to be perceiving a dagger, but we know it was not a physical dagger because tïhere was no physical dagger present.

The argument fiom hallucination thus does not commit its benefactor to the idea of an apparent-dagger interposed between a real dagger and Macbeth. It does however make an argument for the presence of an apparent-dagger: the argument fÎom hallucination is put towards the same purpose as the argument fkom ilIusion, namely to enforce the idea that perception is not a direct relation between perceiver and physical object. The fact alone that perception is possible in the absence of amy physical object is enough to suggest this. And since, according to Ayer, there is mothing about the perception of an hallucinatory dagger to distinguish it fkom the perception of a real dagger, 'their analysis should follow the same pattern. So if we are bound in one case to Say that what is seen is a sense-datum, it is reasonable to hold that tbis is so in all. ' (Ayer 1956: 90)

Ayer suggests that the point of the argument fiom illusion cmbe made yet another way, which he claims is the strongest yet to compel philosophers of percep tion to accept that what we directly perceive are sense data, or appearances, and not physical objects. Ayer claims that declarations of the kind '1 see a cigarette case on the table', made by a perceiver upon experiencing a cigarette case on the table, are not strictly accurate. Such declarations, he argues, posit more than what is supportable by the perceptual experience. Ayer has already argued for the possibility that having an experience of a cigarette case on the table is consistent with the possibility that there is no cigarette case, or any object for that matter, on the table.

It may be suggested, therefore, that if I wish to give a strict account of my present

visual experience, 1 must make a more cautious statement. I must Say not that 1

see the cigarette case, if this is to cary the implication that there is a cigarette

case there, but only that it seems to me that 1am seeing it.. .And this seeming-

cigarette case, which lives only in my present experience, is an example of a

sense-datum. (Ayer 1956: 96)

For Indirect realists such as Ayer the sense datum is the proper direct object of perception. Those who accept the arguments fiom illusion accept that the content of expenence cannot be an objective physical object; it must be a subjective sense datum.

Indirect Realists, however, do not deny that experience of the objective world is possible. They claim that experience of the world is indirect, not non-existent. Notice that Indirect

Realism is in accordance with Anti-realism on the point of what is directly experienced in this sense: both agree that what is directly experienced is something which is itself conditioned by the experience. Thus Indirect Realists and Anti-realists a£Emthat perceptual expenence is of intemal appearances - sense data which are not objects, but, as Ayer puts it, seeming-objects. The Indirect Realist and the Anti-reaiist diverge of course on the matter of whether real objects lie behind these seeming-objects. Indirect realists afnrm that they do, while Anti-realists Ettheir ontology to the seeming-objects.

There is another way of tallcing about appearances, one which Ayer does not use fiequently, but is popular among critics of Indirect Realism: this way is to label appearances as 'the given'. This label captures the idea Ayer advances in his discussion of the seeming-cigarette case on the table. Recall Ayer's point here was to say that empiricd statements - statements that assert the objective existence of some object - cannot really make that assertion. If accuracy is demanded, says Ayer, empirïcal statements must be limited to claims about the way things appear to perceivers, not the way things really are - that is, the way such objects are independent of our perception of them. In a rare mention of givemess, Ayer states: 'we must give 'We content of experience" a narrower interpretation. We must take it to refer.. .ody to what is "visualiy giveny' to me, irrespective of its connection with anythrng else' (Ayer 1956: 98). Ayer's specific reference to the sense of sight should not be given too much weight; he really means to say 'sensually given', or 'given by the senses'. And what he means by 'given' is the sarne as what he means by 'apparent', namely the look of an object as conditioned by ouperception of it. Indirect Realists take appearance, or 'the given', to be not just the product of the perceptual process, but the means for the justification of perceptual beliefs. Like the

Phenomenalists, Indirect Realists suppose that appearances given in experience can act as reasons for holding perceptual beliefs because there is a certain infdlible charactenstic attributable to appearances that can spill over into beliefs about those appearances.

Here's how it works: Appearances are seemings - they refer to the subject's awareness of his own perceptual States. A subject cannot be mistaken about the way things seem to him. In viewing the cigarette case on the table, the viewer cannot be mistaken about the fact that it seems to him that there is a cigarette case on the table. (Although, as Ayer points out, he can be mistaken about whether there reaLly is a cigarette case on the table.)

Perceptual judgements of this kind - 1 seem to see a cigarette case - are thus said to be in£allible because the subject cannot be mistaken about the content of his own experience.

So when asked for the reason he has for believing there is a cigarette case, the subject appeals to the content of his experience - his experiencing the cigarette case - as the reason for holding the belief. Laurence Bonjour makes the point:

If the basic belief whose justification is at issue is the belief that P, then according

to the rnost straightforward version of the doctrine [of the given], this basic belief

is justified by appeal to an immediate eqerience of the very fact or state of affairs

or situation which it asserts to obtain: the fact that P. It is because 1immediately

experience the very fact which would make my belief true that 1am completely

justified in holding it, and it is this fact which is given. (Bonjour 1985 : 59) Ayer agrees when he writes 'the way that things appear supplies both the cause of our tendency to judge that they redy are whatever it may be and the ground for the validity of these judgements' (Ayer 1956:102). So the ground for the validity of perceptual beliefs about appearances are the appearances themselves. Therefore appearancesjustify - act as reasons for holding - beliefs about appearances and these in tum serve to justify beliefs about reality-

Davidson and McDowell are both critical of this theory of justification. The following chapter will discuss why they think that appealing to a perceptual given is useless to justify beliefs about the world as it is. Chapter Two

Chapter one closed with a theory of perception that explained the fornation of justified perceptual beliefs by invoking mental intennediaries called appearances. They are described as 'intermediate' because they are theorized to sit between the objects of the world and beliefs about those objects, and thus mediate between the two. Perceptual realists who think that perception is marked by the existence of these appearances concomitantly think that perception of the world is always indirect. This is so because the world, they say, is perceived only insofar as appearances are perceived. Appearances have also been labeled 'sense data' because they are said to anse from sense experience, and 'the given' because they are said to constitute the perceptual states whose content is al1 that is given in sense experience.

The aim of this chapter is to outline why philosophers Donald Davidson and John

McDowell are critical of the idea that mental intennediaries might figure in the justification of our perceptual beliefs. Their criticism begins with their mutual noting of a certain feature of justification: the fact that it is a rational relation. If something is to be appealed to in the justification of a belief, and more importantly if the appeal is to be successfirl, cvrtain criteria must be met: first, it must able to relate to the belief in a rational manner, and thus, second, the justifier must be of the sort of thing that can constitute a reason. Both Davidson and McDowell argue that sense data, conceived as mental intennediaries, cannot meet these criteria What is it about sense data that prevents thern, in the view of Davidson and

McDowell, fiom comprising reasons? This requires a preliminary sketch of what it

rneans to be a reason. McDowell provides a good starting point when he says,

We caanot really understand the relations in viaue of which a judgement

is warranted except as relations within the space of concepts. (McDowell1994:

7)

McDowell suggests that whatever we apped to for our reasons for holding beliefs must

reside in what he cdsthe 'space of concepts'. What does McDowell mean by this?

When McDowell tallcs about the space of concepts he rneans to invoke a certain

distinction made by Kant in his Cnrique of Pure Reason. This is Kant's distinction

between the conceptual activity of the Understanding, and the intuitions or sensory intake

of Sensibiliq. Understanding and Sensibility are distinguishable mental faculties, and

Kant draws the distinction between them as an initial response to his posing to hirnself a

certain question: What are the conditions that must be met for experience of the worId to

be possible? Expenence, Kant argues, issues fi-om the unity of conceptual activity, on the

one hand, and sensory intake on the other.

Before delving into Kant, it is necessary to make a point about temiinology.

There is some arnbiguity surromding the usage of the word 'expenence' . For

Empiricists, such as Ayer, experience is understood as akin to sensation; expenence is the

taking in of raw sensory data - appearances - which form the basis for our perceptual judgements. For Kant, and McDowell too, experience is more akin to judgement: when one experiences, one does not simply take in sensory data, one becomes aware that the layout of one's environment is thus and so. The difference is best understood by noting that experience, for Kant, is the result of the combined activity of concepts and sense data1 Experience for empiricists is more like the lone activity of sense data Thus, empiricists understand expenence in the way that Kant understands the sensation component of his notion of experience. The ambiguity is, 1think, primarily terminological. Kant just uses the word 'experience' where empiricists use 'perception', and empiricists use 'experience' where Kant uses 'sensation'. Henceforth when 1 use

'experience' it will be in Kant's sense, and 1 will use some variation of 'sensation' or

'sense data' for what empincists mean by experience.

When Kant wonders about the necessary conditions for possible experience he wonders about what must go on when a person cornes to know things about the surromding world. This, of course, is a general description of what al1 philosophers of perception, Davidson and McDowell included, are wondering about. But Kant was perhaps the hrst to articulate the question so precisely, and the extensive philosophy of experience he develops in response to it molded the musings of rnany who came after him. When Kant draws his distinction between Understanding and Sensibiliîy, that is, between conceptual activity and the data of sensation, he fathers a position since labeled

'scheme-content dualism'. Scheme-content dualism represents a certain theory about the fundamental structure of perception. It hoIds that perceptual knowledge is a result of the

1 In the first paragraph of the fust Critique, Kant defines experience as 'knowledge of objects'. This is why 1suggest we take Kant's usage of 'experience' to be the same as the regular usage of 'perception', the gathering of perceptual howiedge. He writes, 'For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of thernselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impression into that knowledge of objects which zk entided e~pe~ence.' (B 1 ; italics mine) activity of two distinct components, namely conceptual schemes and sensory content, or sense data, To speii out the dualism Mer,it is best to go into Kant.

Kant says that our perceptual knowledge derives kom a synthesis of intuitions and concepts. Intuitions are raw sensory data and are present through the activity of our faculty of Sensibility. Concepts are general ideas that are present through the activity of the Understanding. Concepts are the ideas that give intelligent form to the raw content of sensation. They are the ingredients out of which thoughts -judgements, perceptud beliefs - are formed. The specific nature of concepts, on the one hand, and sensation, on the other, derives f?om the peculiar way Kant classifies the powers of Understanding and

Sensibility. He associates Understanding with spontaneity and Sensibility with receptivity. Kant writes:

If the receptivity of our mind, its power of receiving representations in so far as it

is in any wise affected, is to be entitled sensibility, then the mind's power of

producing representations fkom itself, the spontaneity of knowledge, should be

called the understanding. Our nature is so constituted that our intuition can never

be other than sensible; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected

by objects. The faculty, on the other hand, which enables us to think the object of

sensible intuition is the understanding. (A5 1/B75)

It seems the difference between receptivity and spontaneity is manifest in the ways they each acquire representations. By 'representation' here, 1think we should understand any sort of content-carrying mental state, of which sense data and concepts are both instances. Now, spontaneity is descnbed as the 'mind's power of producing representations fiom itself and recep tivity as 'its power of receiving representatiom' .

The difference, then, between concepts and sense data is that whïle the latter arise as a result of oubeing 'af5ected by objects', concepts do not depend for their application on stimulation extemal to the Understanding. The sense datum is an interna1 response to surface stimulation, the concept is not.

Kant would not deny that some concepts get formed in response to what we sense.

Our concepts such as 'dog', 'warm', and other empirical notions, are surely responses to our sensing of dogs and warmth, etc. But, and this is one of Kant's most famous rnoves in epistemology, he also says that the Understanding must possess some concepts a priori, that is, prior to any experience of the world. It must be the case, Kant argues, that a person's Understanding is in possession of some concepts prior to that person having any experience, for without certain fundamental concepts the person would be unable to expenence anything in the fkst place. This is not to Say that a person is unable to experience, for example, a dog without already having the concept of 'dog', but that our experience of objects presupposes that we possess certain basic concepts such as causation, identity, substance. These are examples of what Kant calls 'pure concepts of the Understanding'. They are the concepts the Understanding possesses a priori, or in other words, innately; they do not derive fiom sense experience, for they are conditions for the possibility of sense experience.

Kant's position is thus that we form perceptual beliefs when the impressions we receive in sensation get organized by, or filtered through, the conceptual scheme of the

Understanding. Kant says we only experience the world, by which he means form perceptual beliefs or fùlly formed thoughts about the Iay out of the world around us,

when the concepts of the understanding get applied to the content of the senses. We do

not expenence the raw sense data, nor its filtration through the conceptual scheme; what

we experience is the outcome of the process.

Kant's emphasis is on the interplay between the activïty of concepts and sensory

intake. Expenence arises fiom their CO-operation. In an almost lyrical passage, Kant

expresses the importance of the relationship, as opposed to the importance of either single

term:

Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no

object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without

concepts are blind (ASlB75)

We took this foray into Kant in order to get a clearer notion of scheme-content

dualism. It should now be clear that scheme-content dualism is the idea that perception is marked by the application of internal conceptual schemes upon internal sense data.2 We need a clear notion of scheme-content dualism because it is the context in which

Davidson and McDowell formulate their objections to the idea of the given. The given is, of course, one halfof the dualism itself - 'the &en7 just is the 'raw data of sensation'.

Davidson and McDowell argue that if we adopt the dualism, will we be unable to arrive

2 It is true that the orïgin of this distinction lies in Kant. It can be argued, however, that even though Kant introduces the distinction between 'scherne' and 'content', his ultimate goal is to transcend it, for he thinks that expenence of the world is only possible in the context of an insoluble unity of these two mental faculties. So while the ongin of 'scheme-content dualism' can be attrr'buted to Kant, it must be kept in mind that Kant's final position is such that there is no true dualism there, for Sensibility and Understanding are indissolubly united in experience, In spite of this, however, there are interpretations of Kant, ones McDoweil would dub 'bad' interpretations, which seem to focus on the distinction rather than the unity. at a satis*g account of the justification of perceptual belief. It might seem that nothing could be a better reason for holding a particular belief then the pre-conceptualized data that gives rise to it. But, while it might seem like an attractive option, McDowell rnakes an argument that in the conte* of scheme-content dualism the given is incapable of figuring as a reason for belief and Davidson adds that the dualism is anyway fiaught with the undesirable consequence of skepticism. Their arguments make their way to a mutual conclusion: we should rethink ou-cornmitment to scheme-content dualism. 1want fïrst to present McDowell's argument, and then proceed to Davidson's.

McDowell explicitly treats the nature of scheme and content in terms of Kant's description of Understanding and Sensibility. He writes:

The picture is this: the fact that thoughts are not empty, the fact that thoughts have

.. .content, emerges out of an interplay of concepts and intuitions. 'Content' in

Davidson's dualism corresponds to intuitions, bits of experiential intake,

understood in terms of a dualistic conception of this interplay. (McDowell 1994:

4)

McDowell uses the Kantian fiamework to place sense data in a space that is separate fiom the space of concepts. According to the dualism, sensations are non- conceptual items. To say that sense data are non-conceptual is to Say that their occurrence is unmarked by the presence of conceptual capacities, that is, capacities

McDowei17sdefining intuitions as 'bits of experientid intake' is misleadhg because Kant thinks of experience as the result of intuitions combining with concepts. McDowell must be using 'experiential' here in the ernpiricists' sense - as akin to raw sensation. possessed by the faculty of understanding. But, McDowelI argues, only something which is conceptual in structure is capable of figuring as a reason for belief. If sensations are outside the space of concepts, they are outside the space of reasons too.

One crucial characteristic of the space of reasons is fieedom. McDoweU says that the motivation behind Kant's classifying the Understanding as 'spontaneous' is to bring out the power of the Understanding to fom concepts of its own accord and to apply them creatively in judgement or thought. McDoweU writes:

When Kant describes the understanding as a faculty of spontaneity, that reflects

his view of the relation between reason and keedom.. .In a slogan, the space of

reasons is the realm of fieedom. (McDowell19945)

McDoweli argues that the incentive to appeal to the given for justification in the context of scheme-content dualism can be seen to arise from the attribution of eeedom to the scheme. McDowell notes:

if our fieedom in empirical thinking is total, in particular if it is not constrained

from outside the conceptual sphere, that can seem to threaten the very possibility

that judgements of experience might be grounded in a way that relates them to

a reality external to thought .. .The more we play up the connection between

reason and fieedom, the more we risk losing our grip on how exercises of

concepts can constitute warranted judgements about the world. What we wanted to conceive as exercises of concepts threaten to degenerate into moves in a self-

contained garne. (McDowell1994: 5)

Appealing to sense data, which lie outside the space of reasons, seems like a solution to this possible degeneration. The idea, says McDowelI, 'is that when we have exhausted au the available moves within the space of concepts, al1 the available moves fiom one conceptualiy organized item to another, there is still one more move we can take: namely pointing to something that is simply received in experience' . (McDoweU

1994: 6) This is what is inviting about an appeal to non-conceptual sense data for justimg beliefs. They allow for the idea 'that the space of reasons, the space of justifications or warrants, extends more widely than the conceptual sphere. The extra extent of the space of reasons is supposed to allow it to incorporate non-conceptuai impacts fkom outside the realm of thought' (McDowell 1994: 7). These non-conceptual impacts are what guarantee the relevance of our thought to the world, and they do this because they are situated outside the space wherein fkeedom in thought resides.

But McDowell concludes that an appeal to the given cannot do what it seems able to, for the apparent aptitude of sense data to justie belisfs is merely apparent. McDowell is very clever here, in that his reason for denying sense data the power to justie follows directly from his nohg of what apparently makes sense data prime candidates for justifiers. The appeal of sense data to justie stems fkom their non-conceptual nature.

They provide information about how the world seems to be that is untainted by the internally directed activity of concepts. Therefore they provide what McDoweli calls the

'extemal constraint' on that internai activity, thereby linking the intemal activity with extemai reality. But if sense data are removed fkom the space of concepts, they are removed fiom the space of reasons. Remember McDoweU's initial conviction that we cannot understand the relation in virtue of which a belief is justified except as a relation within the conceptual domain. RemoWig sense data fiom that space precludes them from qualifying as a reason. So what makes sense data seem the prime connective between our beliefs and the world is achially what makes it impossible for them to qualiQ as a rational ground for our beliefs.

McDoweU is taking a stand here on what can constitute a reason. He takes the position that only something exhibithg the qualities Kant enurnerates of the understanding can quali@ as a reason for holding a particular belief. Sense data, being associated with passive receptivity, are precisely opposed to the understanding, thus they are precisely opposed to what cm count as a reason. Therefore, concludes McDowell, sense data cannot justiQ perceptual beiiefs.

Let us lmow tum to Davidson. Davidson's criticism of sense data as justifiers is set in a context of his criticism of scheme-content dualism. What Davidson means by scheme-content dualism is essentially the same as what McDowell sets up as the space of concepts versus the space of intuitions. Davidson's criticism of sense data as justifiers is stmctured slightly differently from McDowell's, though, in that McDowell brings out why sense data, because of their very nature in this context, cannot possibly qualiQ as reasons; whereas Davidson adds a reductio ad absurdum line and argues that appealing to sense data for justification in this context inevitably leads to skepticism, an unhealthy epistemological doctrine in Davidson's view. Skepticism in epistemology is most basically the view that knowledge, percephial or other, is impossible. The view is usually supported by attackùig the justification condition of the tripartite definition of lmowledge: most skeptics argue that justification of beliefs is impossible, thereby making laiowledge impossible. But attacking the justification condition is not the only route the skeptic can take. AU the skeptic needs to establish his doubt about the veracity of our beliefs is some way to suggest that the content of our beliefs might somehow corne apart, in ways we cannot discern, fkom the way the world is. The skeptic can thus play with the relation between mind and world that is thought to determine the content of our beliefs in order to suggest that it may be defective, that is, consistently convey fdse information. Thus the skeptic can concentrate his efforts on the structure of experience: if knowledge cornes fiom experience, and expenence is somehow defective, then so too will be Imowledge. Davidson thinks scheme-content dualism is an easy target for the skeptic.

We should observe that Davidson construes the notion of a conceptual scheme more widely than Kant does. From him, a concephial scheme cm be something like a language, a set of theories, or body of beliefs. He devotes a section of his famous paper

'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' to how others have described the dudism.

He begins with a quote fkom B. L. Whofi

.. .lmguage produces an organization of experience. We are inclined to think of

language simply as a technique of expression, and not realize that language fkst

of al1 is a classification and arrangement of the stream of sensory expenence

which results in a certain world order. (Whorf 1956: 55) He moves on to similar thoughts expressed by W.V.O. Quine:

The totality of our so-calied knowledge or beliefs.. .is a man-rnade fabric which

impinges on expenence only dong the edges...... total science is like a field of

force whose boundary conditions are experience. (Quine 1961 : 42)

In Davidson's own words the thoughts expressed by Whorf and Quine is the idea

that something is a language, and associated with a conceptual scheme.. .if it

stands in a certain relation (predicting, organi7;ing, facing, or fitting) expenence

(nature, redity, sensory promptings). .. The images and metaphors fall into two

main groups: conceptual schemes (languages) either organize something, or they

fit it.. .As for the entities that get organized, or which the scheme must fit, 1think

again we may detect two main ideas: either it is reality (the universe, the world,

nature), or it is expenence (the passing show, surface irritations, sensory

promptings, sense data, the given). (Davidson 1974: ml-92)

It is easy to see the similarity between Davidson' scheme-content dualisrn and

McDowell's spaces of concepts and sense data. Both express the idea that the intemal side of the common sensical split we posit between our interna1 selves and the extemal world is itself divided into two: on one side of the split we find conceptual activity, and on the other side we find the uninterpreted, or raw, content of experience - the given, seme data, or appearances. McDoweU showed why the dualism cannot provide a

plausible account of justification. Davidson adds that it leads to skepticism.

Davidson's criticism of scheme-content dualism focuses on the role that

appearances play in the dualism, that of mediating between beliefs and the world .4 This

is the position advanced by Indirect Realists. Recall that Indirect Realists posit sense

data to be the direct objects of perception, so knowledge of the world is formed based on

only an indirect awareness of it. Scheme-content dualism confïrms this. According to

scheme-content dualism, beliefs are formed when concepts are applied to the content of

experience, where the content of experience is, of course, sense data. So sense data, not

the world, are the primary source of our information about the world. The fact that

scheme-content dualism, like Indirect realism, relies on sense data to confer information

about the world is what Davidson finds problematic. fIis problem is two-fold: On the one hand, says Davidson, if we constnie the relationship between sense data and belief as

causal, we are lefl with nothhg fkom which to draw a reason, and on the other band, if we construe the relationship as rational, we are left with the possibility that sense data may misrepresent the world.

This needs spelling out. A causal relationship between sense data and belief would have it that perceptual beliefs are caused by appropriate sensations. It is a consequence of the nature of causality that a causal reIationship between sensation and belief wodd not ailow for the justification of the belief by the sense data. Davidson

Davidson's earlier writings on scheme-content dualism focus mainly on problems with the scheme rather than with the idea of content, In 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' Davidson makes as argument that it is impossible to attriiute to perceivers vastly ditTering conceptual schemes. The basis of this argument is Davidson's conception of radical interpretation, and fiom it he concludes that the absence of many conceptual schemes impiies the absence of one. 1 consider this argument in the next chapter. In his asserts this without much elaboration. His nrst mention of it in 'A Coherence Theory of

Tnith and Knowledge' is simply the declaration that 'a causal explmation of a belief does not show how or why the belief is justified' (Davidson 1983 :3 11). We should therefore take Davidson's reasons for rejecting a causal relation as potentially justiwg beliefs as minoring McDowell's, which he gives as consisting in the fact that a causal relation

perhaps secures that we cannot be blamed for what happens at çthe] outer

boundary [of the space of concepts], and hence that we cannot be blamed for

the inward influence of what happens there. What happens there is the result of

an alien force, the causal impact of the world, operating outside the control of our

spontaneity. But it is one thing to be exempt fkom blame, on the ground that the

position we find ourselves in can be traced ultimately to brute force, it is quite

another thing to have a justification. In effect the idea of [a causal relationship

between belief and] the Given offers exculpations where we wanted justifications.

(McDowell 1994: 8)

The other option, suggests Davidson, is that we dowthat sense data are rationally related to beliefs. This would necessarily change the countenance of sense data fiom what 1 have called 'raw intake' to something with what Davidson calls

'episternological significance'. For something to have episternological significance means for it to be like a belief. And for something to be like a belief, Davidson and

McDowell would agree, means for it to entertained, or thought about, by a person; it

later writings, particularly, 'A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge', Davidson tum his attention to experience, and attacks scheme-content dualhm by attacking the structure it attrihtes to expenence. means for it to be infused with the characteristics of Kant's understanding. Only something iike a belief can offer justification because only something Like a belief can enter into rational relations. If sense data are construed in this way, they have the characteristics necessary to just* beliefs. But, Davidson argues, this is no solution to the problem of justification, for if sense data are epistemologicaily significant there is a chance, just like with al1 other beliefs, that they may be fdse. And it is this chance which opens the door to the skeptic.

Because there is no helpful way of construing scheme-content dualism, Davidson thinks we should drop the whole notion altogether. And dong with it, we should drop the notion that sense data, conceptual or not, mediate between beliefs and the objects of the world. Trying to fit the intermediary in, either as causal element or rational element, leads to problems in both instances. Davidson concludes:

Introducing intermediate steps.. .me sensations or observations serves only to

make the epistemological problem more obvious. For if the intermediaries are

merely causes, they don? justi@ the beliefs they cause, while if they deliver

information, they may be lying. The moral is obvious. Since we cadt swear

intermediaries to truthfiilness, we should allow no intexmediaries between our

beliefs and their objects in the world. (Davidson 1983: 312)

There is another and much simpler reason Davidson might have enumerated to support his rejection of sense data, one which has nothing to do with whether we countenance them as causal or rational. This reason follows from the fact that sense data are, &er all, just appearances. They constitute perceptual states that embody, in Ayer's words, the 'looks' of objects. Thus they constitute what he cds 'seemings'. If

experience gives us access only to these seemings, then we are left with the impossible task of ascertaining whether the seemings represent things as they really are. Recall that

Ayer granted this is his cigarette case example. Skepticism gets a foothold fiom this simple fact alone: that sense data embody infornation about the way things appear, not the way thuigs are. Even if we gant that judgements about appearances are somehow infallible, no one has successfiilly shown how we can move, in a way that will silence the skeptic, fiom infallible judgements about such seemings to justified judgements about how things are. But Davidson's rejection of sense data makes this, to his own advantage, a moot problern.

In light of the failure of the Given, and the unsatisfactory theory of perception aczompanying it, Davidson urges we strive towards a 'correct epistemology'. Davidson and McDowell have differing ideas about what a correct epistemology wodd look like.

Each philosopher has a solution to the epistemological problems generated by the seeming necessiw to appeal to something outside the realm of our beliefs for their justification, and the ultimate failure of that appeal. However, while both philosophers are in agreement about the problem, they differ in their solutions. Each sees a need to overcome a certain way of thinking about the relationship between rnind and world: as if there sits in between our beliefs and the world an intennediary known as sense data that is non-conceptual yet informs our concepts, and is non-rational yet provides reasons for our believing what we do. WhiIe each philosopher's solution retains the imagery of a three-fold relationship between rnind, experience, and reality to explain perception, they merin how they finesse the relationships between the components. The next chapter will outline Davidson's proposal for a correct epistemology, foilowed by McDoweU's. Chapter Three

avldsoa0 vs. McDowell

Chapter two introduced the considerations in light of which Davidson and McDowell claim that sense data are unsuited to perform îhe work of justwg our perceptual beliefs. The heIpfid way in which McDoweil discusses the shortcomings of scheme- content dualism makes use of a lot of spatial metaphor. The metaphor starts with a split between two distinct spheres: the spheres of the subjective mind and the objective world.

1 have cdled this split 'cornmonsensical', by which 1 mean that it seems intuitively plausible for any person - that is, any perceiver - to posit this distinction between his intemal self lying behind his eyes, and the extemal world Iaid out before them.

The question which plagues Davidson and McDowell is how to understand what goes on in the vicinity of the eyes, or more generally, the senses. For it is the senses that bridge the gap between intemal mentai activity and externd objects. During sensory expenence we perceivers take in information about the world through our sense organs.

This information, the 'content of experience', provides the content of our perceptual beliefs. By experiencing the cigarette case on the table we corne to believe that there is a cigarette case on the table. But there is much disagreement on what it is to experience the cigarette case, and what relationship the expenencing has to our believing there to be a cigarette case before us. As we saw, some - Direct Realists - assert that the content of the experience of the cigarette case just is the extemal cigarette case; others - Indirect Realists - assert that the content of the experience must be camed by something intemal,

a sense datum or appearance.

But that 'something intemal', the sense datum, even though it is internal, has to be

of a different sort of thing than a perceptual belief. McDoweIl has pointed out that the

motivation behind appealing to the content of experience, when it cornes to justification,

stems f?om its potential for acting as a constraint on conceptual activity. And to act as a

constraint on our conceptual activity, sense data, it seems, have to be outside the space of

concepts. This pIaces sense data in some other internal realm, somehow adjacent to the

space of concepts.

This notion of contiguous spaces on the intemal side of the main divide between

the internal and the extemal captures the opposition posited in the scheme-content

dualism Davidson criticizes. Davidson too argues that the idea that perception is marked by internal non-conceptual sense data that get taken up into the (also internal) conceptual

sphere is problematic. However, Davidson does not use the proposed dualism to show that sense data cannot do the work of justification in the way that McDowell does.

Rather, Davidson argues that if sense data are appealed to for justification in the context of the dualism, skepticism will be inevitable.

The movement fkom scheme-content dualism to skepticism follows a path that can be traced through McDowell's spaces. Davidson ag-rees with McDowell when he says that justification requires relations within the conceptual realm, aIthough Davidson prefers to speak of 'systems of belief rather than the 'space of concepts'. If, says

Davidson, we allow sense data into the space of concepts, conferring ont0 them the qualities of belief so that they rnight qualiQ as reasons and thus be able to justi@, we will have to allow that, just me other beliefs, sense data will themselves stand in need of justification. It seems reasonable to assume that anything standing in need of justification camot itself jusw a perceptual belief, without the justification being contingent and thus incomplete. So trying to make sense data into belief-like entities - in Davidson's termhology, infushg thern with epistemic signincance - threatens the possibility of justified perceptual beliefs (perceptual howledge) and thus allows the skeptic a foothold.

The argument ca.also be expressed in terms of Kant's relation between the

Understanding and fieedom. Davidson would claim that if we treat sense experience as epistemologically significant - characterizable in terms of Kant's spontaneity - then we have to concede that we never have access to the world as it exists prior to our conceptualization of it. If sense data are like beliefs, if expenence is conceptual, expenence is not of the world as such, but of the world as already conceptualized. And we would have the impossible task of disceming whether the 'conceptualized world' is identical to the 'world in itself. Thus if we allow sense data epistemological significance we open the possibility that our perceptud beliefs do not reflect the world as it really is.

It is clear that Davidson is dissatisfied with atternpts to justiQ perceptual beliefs by appeahg to the content of sensation, be it constnied as conceptual or non-conceptual.

No matter which way sense data are retated to the beliefs they cannot justiq them without generating a host of difficulties. For if the sense datum is related to the belief rationally, it becomes the sort of thing that wiU stand in need of justification itself and thus fails to justifjr; and if the sense datum is related to the belief causally, it will provide an exculpation where we wanted a reason, and thus again fail to justify. Thus, says

Davidson, The approach to the problem ofjustification we have been tracing must be

wrong. We have been trying to see it this way: a person has al1 his beliefs about

the world - that is, all his beliefs. How cmhe tell if they are me, or apt to be

true? Only, we have been assumuin, by connecting his beliefs with the

deliverances of the senses one by one, or perhaps conj?onting the totality of his

beliefs with the tribunal of experience. No such confrontation makes sense, for of

course we can't get outside our skinç to fïnd out what is causing the intemal

happenings of which we are aware. Inbroducing intexmediate steps or entities Ulto

the causal chah, like sensations or vi>servations,serves only to make the

epistemological problem more obvious. For if the intennediaries are merely

causes they don't justie the beliefs they cause, while if they defiver information,

they may be lying. The moral is obvious. Since we can't swear intermediaries to

tnithfulness, we should downo intennediaries between our beliefs and their

objects in the world. Of course there are causal intennediaries. What we must

guard against are epistemic intermediaries. (Davidson 1983 : 3 12)

The 1sttwo sentences are the most important for they b~gto light the peculiarity of Davidson's position. He is not suggesting that sensory experience plays no part in the formation of perceptual knowledge about the world. This would be absurd.

What Davidson wants to elimùiate is the idea that our sensesjustzfi our beliefs, that is, give us reasons for our believing what we do. This is what he means when he says we must guard specifically against 'epistemic intermediaries'. An epistemic intemediary is one infused with the characteristics of belief, such as the involvement of concepts,

interpretative judgements, and Kant's spontaneity. Thus an epistemic intermediary is one which, by nature, stands in need of justification, and it is this need which is pounced on by the skeptic. Removing epistemic signincance fiom the intennediary removes this need, and thus closes the door to the skeptic. So this is precisely what Davidson suggests we do to further the establishment of a 'correct epistemology'.

Davidson formulates his recommendation for a 'correct epistemology' in iight of the problems he thinks issue fi-orn trying to justi@ perceptual beliefs by appeal to sensory experience in the context of scheme-content dualism. His final stand on those problems is that if sense data are construed in a way that might make them usefül to justiw then they usher in skepticism for, as Davidson puts it, 'they may be lying' ; And if they are construed in a way that prevents this possibility they are not the sort of thing that can justiQ a belief anyway. Because the problems al1 arise from trying to justiQ beliefs with the deliverances of the senses, Davidson's recommendation is to stop trying. But, of course, he does not stop there. His positive recommendation is to adopt a coherence theory of justification, and accept that the relationship between the senses and the world is causal, not rational.

A causal relationship between experience and belief changes the structure of perception fi-om scheme-content dualisrn to something more integrated and strearn-like.

On Davidson's view a perceptual experience is a causal process beghmhg with the objective world and ending with a belief about it, where the belief is an effect of the object which caused it. 1hesitate to Say 'direct effect' because Davidson does allow perceptuai intermediaries, but insists that they be causal and not epistemic. This means that the role played by our senses in belief-formation is not to explain why we believe what we do by delivering up reasons for those beliefs, but merely by acting as their cause-

Davidson must therefore provide an alternative account of the justification of perceptual knowledge. To this end, he offers a coherence theory of justification. A causal linkage between beliefs and their objects does not answer to the question of how those beliefs are justified. So Davidson argues that beliefs must be justified by a different sort of Iinkage: he says the test for truth is coherence with other beIiefS, not correspondence to sense data.

It may seem odd that Davidson puts forth coherence as the relation which justifies beliefs. After dl, Davidson wants to endorse a natural view of truth as correct representatim of the world. He fiankly states that 'tmth is correspondence with the way things are' (Davidson 1983 : 309). But Davidson denies that we can make any sense of the idea of establishing a correspondence of belief and world by confionting our beliefs with sensory data 'for of course we can't get outside our skins to fhd out what is causing the intemal happenings of which we are aware' (Davidson 1983: 3 12). Justification, therefore, must be possible to undertake fkom within the confines of our skin. On this,

Davidson is in agreement with Richard Rorty who mites:

nothing counts as justification unless by reference to what we already accept and

there is no way we can get outside our beliefs and our language so as to fhd some

test other tha.coherence. (Rorty 1980: 178) Coherence as a test for truth eliminates the need to appeal to something outside the confines of our beliefs, iike sense data, for their justification. This is wfiy Davidson likes it as a test for truth. But there is a problem that Davidson recognizes:

Mere coherence, no matter how strongly coherence is plausibly defined, cannot

guarantee that what is believed is so. Al1 that a coherence theory can maintain is

that most of the beliefs in a coherent total set of beliefs are true.

(Davidson 1983: 308)

Davidson thus seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wants to establish that sense experience cm yield perceptual beliefs that constitute knowledge of an independent world, but he maintains that the only plausible method of justification of those beliefs is by reference to other beliefs, so he seems to lose the connection with the world. Davidson's coherence theory of justification appears to have no provision to relate beliefs to the world, and his causal theory of perception has no provision to justie perceptual beliefs. What Davidson must do is integrate these two theories somehow. He must provide an argument to show that someone with a coherent set of beliefs can be sure those beliefs match up with - correspond to - the world. Moreover, he must provide this argument without reverting back to a view of perception which has this someone confronting her beliefs piecemeal with deliverances of thz senses. What Davidson needs is an argument that will establish 'correspondence without confrontation', as he puts it

(Davidson 1983: 307). And he thinks that he can provide this argument by putting a very special twist on his coherence theory. What Davidson seeks to show is that 'coherence yields correspondence' (Davidson 1983: 307). Hhe can show this what he wiU have is a version of correspondence theory that never directly relates a belief to the worId or to seme data, but yet purports to establish that our beliefs and the world do indeed match

UP-

To argue that 'coherence yields correspondence', Davidson sets out to show that it is possible for there to be only one coherent set of beliefs and that the beliefs in that set are (largely) tme. Usudy partisans of coherence theones of truth and knowledge are forced to contend with some sort of Conceptual Relativism. Conceptual Relativism in its most rudimentary form is the theory that reality is relative to conceptual schemes: what is real varies according to the contrasting commitments of differing conceptual schemes.

Coherentists are usually faced with this doctrine because they define tnrth solely in terms of coherence, and when faced with the possibility of differing yet equally coherent sets of beliefs they are forced to admit the possibility of differing yet equally true world-views, and thus differing yet equally 'real' worlds. Davidson wants to avoid Conceptual

Relativism but hang on to his coherence theory. So he makes an argument that there is, and only can be, one coherent set of beliefs, and that set of beliefs is the one which accurately depicts the one real world.

The first step in his argument is to show that there can be only one (largely) true body of beliefs, and Davidson daims to show this in 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual

Scheme' when he argues that it is impossible for there to exist two languages, and hence two conceptual schemes, which are incommensurable. By 'incommensurable' Davidson means 'not intertramlatable'. (see Davidson 1974: 185-96) The bais for bis argument is what he calls 'the principle of charity'. The principle of charity figures in Davidson's approach to the problem of radical

interpretation. Radical interpretation is the project of providing a translation of a hitherto

unknown language, which involves simultaneously making sense 'fkom scratch' of both

the behaviour and the mental states of those who speak it. As Simon Evnine puts it:

Suppose we came across some previously undiscovered tribe in some remote part

of the world. The members of this tribe appear to use a Ianguage though it is

totally unrecognizable to us, and they appear to perform various actions. Both of

these appearances presuppose that they have a wide range of beliefs, desires and

other mental states. If we could understand their language, we could use it to gain

some knowledge of their mental states. If we knew what their mental states were,

we could perhaps work out what they were saying. But unforhmately we know

nothing about any of this. lfwe are to interpret them, if we are to attribute beliefs,

desires and other mental states to them, assign meanings to their utterances and

Say what they are doing, we will have to find some way of doing this from

scratch. This is the problem of radical interpretation. (Evnine 1991 : 10)

To overcome the problem of radical interpretation what is needed is a position

from which to begin interpreting the foreign utterances of the tribe members. Davidson

argues that the only possible position fiom which an interpreter could begin is one wherein he assumes similarity between the tribe members' beliefs and his own. This

assumption is the heart of the principle of charity. The interpreter must assume that a tribe member's core beliefs match up with his own. Since the interpreter must take his own core beliefs to be true, he must presume the tribe member's are true too. Thus an interpreter must start with a presumption in favour of the tnith of the tribe members' beliefs if interpretation is to begin at dl. Davidson writes:

...the principle [of charity] directs the interpreter to translate or interpret so as to

read some of his own standards of truth into the pattern of sentences held true by

the speaker. (Davidson 1983: 3 16)

The principle of charity is not an option when it cornes to radical interpretation.

According to Davidson, it is a necessary first step if successful interpretation is to proceed:

for the only, and therefore unimpeachable, method available to the interpreter

autornatically puts the speaker's beliefs in accord with the standards of logic of

the interpreter, and hence credits the speaker with the plain tniths of logic.

(Davidson 1983: 3 16)

The weight that Davidson gives the principle of charity reveals his position on the possibility of varying conceptual schemes: there are none. This is not to Say that there cm be absolutely no variance when it cornes to the contents of particular beliefs held by particular persons, only that, generally speaking, world-views (bodies of beliefs) must

Iargely cohere with each other if interpretation is possible. Davidson never questions whether interpretation IS possible. He takes it as a demonstrated fact that interpretation and genuine understanding between speakers does happen, and indeed it would be an odd reflection to wonder whether communication is a real phenornenon. The position of the radical interpreter, which is the ultimate position of every person attempting to communkate, thus reveals the 'unimpeachable' truth that every perceiver must share a common set of basic beliefs. This establishes Davidson's premise that there cm be only one coherent set of beliefs. Since we must suppose that this set is 'largely true' we can conclude that it 'corresponds to' the way the world is.

But why is this so? Might it not be the case that, even though as interpreters we must attribute to speakers beliefs the same as our own, we are a22 wrong about the world?

Might not every perceiver, interpreter and ûibe member alike, be misled in his perceptions? Staunch skeptics would reply 'yes', and criticize Davidson's coherentism as inadequate to establish a connection between the world and our beliefs.

It might be replied that this is a symptom of misunderstanding Davidson.

Davidson's coherentism is not meant to act as a truth-relaying comection between mind and world. The purpose of his coherentism is to answer the different question of how we cm know that we know the wor2d- This is the question of justification. So Davidson is inexact when he says he says that 'coherence yields correspondence'. What he should

Say instead is 'coherence yields our knowledge of correspondence'. Davidson, as we have seen, advocates a causal theory of the formation of perceptual belief. And according to Davidson, the causal origin of our beliefs suggests that 'belief is in its nature veridical' (Davidson 1983 : 3 15). He clarifies: 'Belief can be seen to be veridical by considering what determines the existence and contents of a belief (ibid.). What detemiines the existence and content of a belief is its causal relation to its object in the world,

Thus an agent has only to reflect on what a belief is to appreciate that most of his

basic beliefs are true, and among his beliefs, those most securely held and that

cohere with the main body if his beliefs are the most apt to be true. The question,

how do I know my beliefs are generally tnie? thus answers itself because beliefs

are by nature generally true. Rephrased or expanded, the question becomes, how

can 1 tell whether my beliefs, which are by their nature generaily true, are

generally me? (Davidson 1983 : 3 19)

There is a rather obvious question that needs to be asked here: if Davidson thinks his causal theory of perception establishes that 'belief is in its nature veridical', why does he need an appeal to coherence to prove that our beliefs are me? Again, 1think this question is based upon a misunderstanding. The mistake is in thllikUig that Davidson is working towards a single goal, namely to Say how we form howledge about the world.

This is not a single goal. TUSay how vire form knowledge about the world it is necessary to answer not one, but two questions: (1) how do we form tnithfùl beliefs about the world? And (2) how do we know for sure those beliefs are truthfiil? Davidson's causal theory of perception answers the first question: we fonn truthful beliefs about the world by interacting causally with the objects that fiirnish it. But, recognizes Davidson, we could never know this ourseIves because we ca~otget outside the causal process to see the interaction taking place. We cannot make an appeal to our awareness of the world to justiQ our belief in it because 'justification seems to depend on the awareness, which is just another belief. So while we know the world via causally interacting with it, we don't kmw that we howit. Justification demands that we know why we how.

Knowing that we know the world is possible only by appeahg to the same store of knowledge to which that knowing belongs, by appealing to the coherence of that store.

1have presented Davidson's conviction that 'beiief is in its nature veridical' as following principaliy fkom his causal account on perception, and it is tme that Davidson does Link the essentially truthfirl nature of beliefs with their causal origins. However, as we have seen he also links the veridicality of beliefs with his principle of ch*. It follows nom the demands Davidson places on a radical interpreter that all perceivers harbour commensurable systems of beliefs. The idea is that if we are to Uzterpret others, which we surely do, we have to assume that most of what they believe is me. So the essentially tnithful nature of beliefs is also revealed by our necessary adoption of the principle of charity.

1make this point because the essentially veridical nature of belief plays an enormous part in Davidson's argument that coherence yields correspondence, and if it is grounded solely in the causal origin of beliefs it might be thought open to attack on the following grounds. Ha belief s being caused implies the belief must be tnie (veridical), and al1 beliefs are caused, then Davidson seems forced to conclude that al1 beliefs must be true in light of their ongin. Thus Davidson will have great difficulties explaining perceptual error. But it is not the case that Davidson thinks beliefs true in light of their origin, at least not solely in light of their origin. For he also makes the argument that we must take others' beliefs to be true in light of the prùiciple of charity. Thus Davidson should perhaps make the point that the general veridicality of beliefs foilows fiom their causal origin subsidiary to the main point that ûuth follows fiom our necessarily having to take others' beliefs as true in interpretation.

In fact, the attack on Davidson is anyway without teeth. For it mistakenly assumes that Davidson's attributing veridicality to the nature of belief implies that he thinks, absurdly, that all beliefs are tme. This is not what Davidson means by bis claim that belief is in its nature veridical; he does not mean to assert that each and every belief held by a speaker must be tme. Similarly, it does not follow nom the principle of charity that we rnust attribute ody tnie beliefs to a speaker. Likewise, it does not follow f?om the causal origin of beliefs that misrepresentation is impossible.

Let us tum now to John McDowell's position. In his Mind and World, McDowell also recognises that sensory experience, constnied as non-conceptual, cannot be made into a reason for holding a belief. 1have already explained why McDowell rejects the

Given as useless. To reiterate, McDowell thuiks that justification demands relations in the space of concepts, and sense data, residing outside that space, are thus unsuited to justie. Here McDowell and Davidson are in agreement.

However, McDowell hdsDavidson's endorsement of coherentism quite dissatisfj4ng. McDowell thinks that a coherence theory of justification is useless to ascertain whether beliefs make contact with the world. Of coherence theories, McDowell writes:

Such theories express precisely the unnedg idea that the spontaneity of

conceptual thinking is not subject to rational constraint £kom outside. Coherentist rhetoric suggests images of confinement within the sphere of thinking, as opposed

to being in touch with something outside it. (McDowell 1994: 15)

The idea that coherentism loses a connection with something outside the

conceptua1 sphere leads McDowell to reject the possibility that coherentism cmcapture

how thought bears on empirical reality. McDowellYsweli-suited metaphor to describe his

impression of coherence theories likens systems of beliefs for which coherence is the

operative test for truth to a 'fiictionless spinning in a void'. (McDowell 1994:14)

McDowell insists that this is not a satisfactory solution to the failure of the Given to justim beliefs, but he also insists that reverting back to an appeal to non-conceptual sense data for justification is likewise unsatisfactory. McDowell wants a theory of perception that has sensibility playing a justificatory roIe; he wants sense experiences themselves to constitute reasons for holding beliefs. He wants this because he thinks this the only intelligible means of ascertainhg thought's bearing on reality. The only way we can justie the tmth of a belief, McDowelI will Say, is by connecting it in a justificatory relation with our impressions of reality.

Tt seems that McDowell has made a pair of demands blatantly incompatible with each other. On the one hand he insists that justification of a belief is possible only by connecting it with something inside the space of reasons, and on the other, he insists that justification also demands an external constraint - a co~ectionbetween a belief and something to provide friction with the world. How is McDowell to satisw both these seemingly contrary demands on a theory of perception? McDowell's solution to the problern is to construe sensibility in such a way that allows it to act as a constraint on the space of concepts, while itselfconstihiting an element in that very space. McDowell, in a very Kantian spirit, recommends that we understand experience as an interplay, or better, a unity, between spontaneity (whose contribution is conceptual activity) and sensibility (whose contribution is sensory intake).

What is most important is the unity. Construed as a unity between understanding and intuition experience takes on a very different look fÏom that suggested by a scheme- content dualism. The dualism suggests that experience provides raw, unconceptualized data about empirical reality that afterwards gets taken up into a separate conceptual scheme. McDowell's understanding makes experience of the world into an act of receiving information about the world where the act of receiving is already and necessarily intùsed with conceptual activity. McDowell clarifies when he writes:

In the view 1 am urging, the conceptual contents that sit closest to the impact of

extemai reality on one's sensibility are not already, qua conceptual, some distance

away fkom that impact. They are not the results of a first step within the space of

reasons, a step that wouId be retraced by the last step in laying out justifications,

as that activity is conceived within the dualism of scheme and Given. This

supposed hrst step would be a move fkom an impression, conceived as the bare

reception of a bit of the Given, to a judgement justified by the impression. But it

is not like that: the conceptual contents that are most basic in this sense are

already possessed by impressions themselves, impingements by the world on our

sensibility. (McDowell1994: 9- I 0) McDowel17sunderstanding of experience as an inseparable combination of receptivity and spontaneity is different from either of the perspectives on experience discussed earlier. Chapter one presented the Indirect Realist's understanding of experience - scheme-content dualism - as providing the raw material to which concepts are applied.

McDowell is suggesting that expenence would not be possible in the first place if not for the implicit involvement of conceptual activity in the very process of sensing. This latter is quite different because it infbses experience with the characteristics of thought, the characteristics of spontaneity, whereas the former places experience somehow prior to the activity of thought.

Above we saw the development of Davidson's alternative take on experience: experience as causal. This iikewise removes experience fiom the realm of the epistemic, and also makes it impossible for experience to juste perceptuai beliefs. McDowel17s reasons for thinking that experience structured causaily disallows experience fiom justiwg beliefs were given in chapter two. Causal experience provides what McDoweII calls exculpations, instead of reasons. McDowell is quite adamant that 'empirical judgements in general .. . had better have content of a soit that admits of empirical justification' (McDowell 1994: 6) and so is led to insist that experience of empirical reality can play the justificatory role in perception. Infusing experience with spontaneity is what allows it to play this role for McDowell. Experience infused with concephrd activity is clearly not what Davidson has in mind when he reflects on the nature of expenence. Quite the contrary, for Davidson would charge McDowell with opening the door to skepticism or idealism when he credits experience with epistemic significance. For if we maintain that the deliverances of expenence are aiready conceptual in nature,

must we not either conclude that we have no lcnowledge of the world as it is out of

relation to our conceptual powers (skepticism) or that the world is in some sense a

constmct of the exercise of those powers (idealism)?

The debate between Davidson and McDoweU thus focuses on the nature of the

relationship between mind and world in light of their mutual rejection of scheme-content

dualism. Both philosophers agree that the intemal side of the main divide shouid not

partitioned into two spheres, one conceptual and one sensory. They agree that experience

should be a relationship between two entities, mind and world, not a jumble of

reiationships between beliefs, concepts, sense data, and reality. The problem they each

face in their mutual conviction is to present the simpler two-tem relationship between

mind and world in such a way that it provides explmation for how we gather empirical

content that is somehow both empincal content - rooted in the empiRcal world --and

empirical content - representations admitting rational justificztion. The relationship, it

seems, must be both causal and rational in order to provide the resources for these two

ta&. 1 believe that McDowell recognizes this while Davidson does not. Consider that

McDowell presents his view of experience as a third alternative to what he argues are the only other two considered in the literature. He states his opinion that epistemology is marked by

a tendency to oscillate between a pair of unsatisfj&g positions: on the

one side a coherentism that threatens to disconnect thought fiom reality, and

on the other side a vain appeal to the Given, in the sense of bare presences that are supposed to constitute the ultimate grounds of empirical judgments.

(McDowell 1994: 24)

Of course the see-saw swings upwards or downwards in correlation with whatever is considered most important at the time: we turn our hopes towards sense data - the given - when we reflect on the necessity for empirical constraint on ou.intemal beliefs.

And we recoil fiom this option when we notice that justification demands reasons, and in so noticing swing back towards coherentism, only to realize ouloss of 'fr-iction' and turn once more to sense data, and so on.

McDowell charges Davidson with occupying a position in this oscillation - the coherentists' position. This is the position that restricts the relationship between mind and world to causal operations, and restricts the rational, justificatory, realm to mind,

Davidson thinks this position best because it offers a separate answer to each question of how beliefs are formed, and how they are justified. McDoweIl's point, though, is that the answer Davidson's coherentism provides is woefiilly hadequate. McDowel17sobjective is to constmct a theory of experience that meets both conditions which hang fiom either end the see-saw, but meet them both with the same answer: sensory expenence.

1 believe McDowell's position is insightfil. If we accept McDoweilYsarguments rejecting a coherence theory of justification, then where else are we to look for our reasons other than in our experience of the world? And ifwe accept McDowell's arguments demanding extemal constraint on mental activity, again, where else are we to look for that constraint other than in our experience? McDowell's 'third option', which construes experience as both causal and rational, enables experience to play both pam of constraining belief formation, and providing the source for reasons in belief justification.

The final question, then, is whether McDoweU7stheory of perceptual experience cm stand up to criticism. As 1 remarked above, the principal objection that Davidson wodd bring to McDoweU is that by admitting that experience is laden with conceptual activity, McDowell commits himselfto some fonn of Idealism, the idea that we can make no sense of the world as it is out of all relation to our conceptuai powers, that the real world is not something that can be separated fiom the world-as-we-experience-it.

Philosophers such as Davidson, who like to maintain a scientific view of reality, which asserts the resolute independence of the physical world, would not take kindly to the idea that the world is a construction of thoughts. And, indeed, McDowell, despite his own protestations to the contrary, must be ready to maintain that reality is built, at least partially, out of thoughts because he treats the world we experience as already conceptual in kind, yet insists that experience puts us in touch with reality as it really is. So reality as it really is must, for McDowell, be already conceptual in nature. This clashes with dorementioned scientific views of reality, views which are not easy to let go.

Is this a valid criticism of McDowell? It appears to be if we focus on McDowell's insistence that conceptual activity is already at work in experience itself. But we must also credit McDowell with an insistence that experience is passive. He states:

In experience one finds oneself saddled with content. One's conceptual capacities

have already been brought into play, in the content's being available to one,

before one h2s any choice in the matter. The content is not something one has put together oneself, as when one decides what to Say about something. In fact it is

precisely because experience is passive, a case of receptivity in operation, that the

conception of expenence 1am recommending can satisfjr the craving for a limit to

lieedom that underlies the Myth of the Given. (McDowell1994: 10)

The key, then, and also. the confusion, lies in McDowel17sfusing receptivity and conceptual activity into one element, namely expenence. For McDowell, experience is both of these united, but neither one of them separated. Yet they each play, at least notionally if not concretely, distinct roles. This is rather difficult to construe, and perhaps

McDowell's position needs Merdevelopment before its strengths and weaknesses cm be properly discemed. But it does seem that McDowell is left in the same boat as Kant

(which would not be surprising as McDowefl borrows so heavily fiom Kant). Kant recognized the futility of pondering the noumena (the-world-apart- f?o~-our-experience) in light of his view of perception behg the outcome of fbsion between concepts and intuitions. McDowell has tried to keep the world in our sights by having it impinge, in receptivity, upon our min&. But he has irrevocably dtered it £kom what it once was by having our rninds, in spontaneity, cast it according to our mental equipment. In short,

McDowell wants ro preserve Kant's doctrine of the indissoluble unity of sensibility and understanding, receptivity and spontaneity, while purging it of the dualism of scheme and content. It is not clear, however, that McDowell can avoid the Kantian conclusion that the world as it is independent of our conceptual powers is unlaiown to us, except, of course, by identimg reality with the world as we conceptualize it- When Davidson and McDowell reject scheme-content dualism they reject the notion that

percephial experience is the result of conceptual activity upon given sense data. In this

dissertation, I have attempted to explain their respective reasons for rejecting the dualim,

to explore the similarities and differences between their positions, and to set out and

evaluate the alternative accounts that they offer. 1 am forced to conclude that neither of

their alternatives is wholly satisfactory. In my view, Davidson provides us with the best

account of how perceptual beliefs are fonned: his causal theory is appealing because it

deflates possible conceptions of mind which place mind outside and above the processes

of nature. Hîs coherentist theory of justification, however, does seem prey to the

objections McDowell brings to it. Moreover, McDowell's position appears to promise a

better account of the justification of perceptual belief. His attempt to show how

experience cm indeed justi& perceptual beliefs in a way that captures the 'fiction' between mind and world surely hits upon an attractive possibility, if it can be made it work. But it does seem prey to some customary philosophical concems which anse if we think of sense experience as infused with conceptual components. It seems we cm

endorse McDowell's view only by embracing some fom of skepticism or idealisrn, a conclusion fùndamentally at odds with McDowell's own intent.

McDowell and Davidson are both philosophers who aspire to propound positions

that do not so much solve as transcend traditiond philosophicaI conundrums, but I think we must conclude that in this neither is wholly successful. For al1 the excellence of their critiques of the positions they attack, their positive alternatives seem beset by some very traditional difficulties. Yet, despite this, there is much to be learned from reflecting on their respective contributions to our understanding of experience and the nature and origin of perceptual knowledge, as 1hope this thesis has revealed. Ayer, A. J. me Problem of Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1956.

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Dancy, Jonathan. Introduction to Contemporay Epistemology. Oxford: BlackweIl, 1985.

Davidson, Donald. 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', in his Inquiries into Tmth and Interpretatiun. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984,183-98.

Davidson, Donald. 'A Coherence Theory of Tnith and Knowledge' (1983), in E. Lepore (ed) Thand lnteipretation. Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidron. Oxford: Basil Blackweli, 1986,307-19.

Evnine, Simon. Donald Davidson. Stanford: Stdord University Press, 1991.

Gettier, Edmund L. '1s Justined True Belief Knowledge?' in Analysis, 23, 1963, 121-3.

Kant, Immanuel. Cnntiqueof Pure Reason. London: Macmillan, 1929.

McDowell, John. Mind and WorZd- London: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Moser, Paul. 'Epistemology', in R. Audi (ed) The Cambridge Dictionav of Philosophy. Cambridge: University Press, 1995.

Quine, W. V. O. 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', in From a Logical Point of Vzbv, second edition. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 196 1.

Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Miwor of Nature. Princeton, N.S.: Princeton University Press, 1980,

Whorf, B. L. 'The Punctual and Segmentative Aspects of Verbs in Hopi', in J. B Carro 11 (ed) Language, Thought and Rea2ity.- Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Who$ Cambridge, Mass.: The Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1956.