THE NATURE OF OBJECT OF PERCEPTION AND ITS ROLE IN THE KNOWLEDGE CONCERNING THE EXTERNAL WORLD Mika Suojanen University of Turku ∙ 2015 Finland Copyright © 2015 by Mika Suojanen All rights reserved. Department of Philosophy University of Turku FIN-20014 Turku Finland Printed in Finland by Painosalama Oy ABSTRACT UNIVERSITY OF TURKU Faculty of Social Sciences The Department of Behavioural Sciences and Philosophy Philosophy SUOJANEN, MIKA: The Nature of Object of Perception and Its Role in the Knowledge Concerning the External World Licentiate Thesis, pages 132 March 2015 Havaintoon liittyvät ongelmat ovat kuuluneet filosofiaan tämän alusta asti. Käyttäen henkilön omakohtaista havaintoti- lannetta lähtökohtana ja filosofista aineistoa, tutkimus käsittelee tiedon ja havainnon suhdetta. Tutkimusongelmana on, miten tietää, mitä havaitsee parhaillaan. Arkielämän uskomus, että havainnon perusteella tiedetään havainnon kohde materiaaliseksi objektiksi, tullaan osoittamaan epäluotettavaksi. On mahdollista, että yksilöt, jotka havaitaan välittömäs- ti, ovat mielensisäisiä kuvia, muotoja, ääniä, tuntemuksia, makuja ja tuoksuja. Näennäisyys/todellisuus erottelun mu- kaan havaintomaailma on näennäinen eikä todellinen, mielestä riippumaton ulkomaailma. Kuitenkaan erottelu ei välttä- mättä kiellä ulkomaailman olemassa oloa, vaan mielensisäisten yksilöiden kautta olemme yhteydessä ulkomaailmaan. Siis meillä on tietoa epäsuorasti ulkomaailmasta havaintokokemuksen kautta. Tutkimus keskittyy erityisesti George Berkeleyn väitteen perusteisiin, että materiaaliset objektit ovat mielensisäisiä ideoita, ja juuri nämä havaitaan suoraan. Henkilön ominaisuuksien kuten mielen, tietoisuuden ja aivojen välttämättömyys havaintokokemukselle tukee havainnon kausaalista teoriaa. Lopuksi tutkimuksessa kysytään perusteita, miksi havainnossa on mielensisäisiä entiteettejä. Havain- to ei tavoittaisi suoraan materiaalista objektia ilman oletusta havaitsijan ja ulkomaailman välissä olevista lisäentiteeteis- tä. Tutkimuksen tulokset kuitenkin esittävät, että havainto ei ole riittävä syy tietää, mikä havaintoilmentymä on ja että tällaisten havaintoilmentymien olemassaolo on välttämätöntä, jotta tietää havaitsevansa ulkomaailman. Kuitenkaan Berkeleyn teoriasta ei seuraa aineen mahdottomuus. Tutkimuksen päätulos on, että yksittäiset tietoväitteet ulkomaail- masta eivät ole koskaan suoraan ja välittömästi ulkomaailman kohteista. Havaitsijan omat ominaisuudet vaikuttavat, millaisina havaittavat objektit ilmenevät havaintotilanteessa. Avainsanat: havainto, havaintotieto, ilmentymä, ulkomaailma, Berkeley, kausaalinen havaintoteoria, aistiominaisuudet. Questions concerning perception are as old as the field of philosophy itself. Using the first-person perspective as a start- ing point and philosophical documents, the study examines the relationship between knowledge and perception. The problem is that of how one knows what one immediately perceives. The everyday belief that an object of perception is known to be a material object on grounds of perception is demonstrated as unreliable. It is possible that directly per- ceived sensible particulars are mind-internal images, shapes, sounds, touches, tastes and smells. According to the ap- pearance/reality distinction, the world of perception is the apparent realm, not the real external world. However, the distinction does not necessarily refute the existence of the external world. We have a causal connection with the external world via mind-internal particulars, and therefore we have indirect knowledge about the external world through percep- tual experience. The research especially concerns the reasons for George Berkeley’s claim that material things are mind- dependent ideas that really are perceived. The necessity of a perceiver’s own qualities for perceptual experience, such as mind, consciousness, and the brain, supports the causal theory of perception. Finally, it is asked why mind-internal entities are present when perceiving an object. Perception would not directly discern material objects without the pre- supposition of extra entities located between a perceiver and the external world. Nevertheless, the results show that perception is not sufficient to know what a perceptual object is, and that the existence of appearances is necessary to know that the external world is being perceived. However, the impossibility of matter does not follow from Berkeley’s theory. The main result of the research is that singular knowledge claims about the external world never refer directly and immediately to the objects of the external world. A perceiver’s own qualities affect how perceptual objects appear in a perceptual situation. Keywords: perception, perceptual knowledge, appearance, the external world, Berkeley, the causal theory of perception, sensory qualities. Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 a) Research Problems ....................................................................................................... 1 b) Preface ......................................................................................................................... 3 c) Methods and Their Reliability ................................................................................... 14 2. ‘PERCEPTION’ IN ARGUMENTS THAT THE OBJECT OF PERCEPTION IS AN EXTERNAL ENTITY ....................................................................................................... 19 a) Classical Philosophy .................................................................................................. 19 1) Dualism .................................................................................................................. 19 2) The Veil of Perception ........................................................................................... 25 b) Contemporary Analytic Philosophy .......................................................................... 27 1) The Analytic Method Reconsidered ...................................................................... 27 2) A Criterion to Know What One Perceives ............................................................ 33 c) Phenomenology: Perception without the Senses ....................................................... 39 d) Cognitive Science: Reliability of Perceptual Knowledge ......................................... 44 3. A STARTING POINT: THE CAUSAL THEORY OF PERCEPTION ........................ 47 a) The Analysis Framework: Three Categories ............................................................. 53 b) Criteria of Substance ................................................................................................. 54 c) Comparison of Substance to Categories of Attribute and Relation ........................... 55 4. THE KNOWING AND THE MEANING OF ‘APPEARANCE’ ................................. 58 a) How Can We Know What Appearance Is? ............................................................... 58 b) The internal and External Appearances ..................................................................... 64 c) Two Meanings of ‘Appearance’ ................................................................................ 69 d) Sense-datum Fallacies ............................................................................................... 72 e) Chisholm on the Status of Appearances .................................................................... 77 f) The Adverbial Theory of the Object of Experience ................................................... 84 g) Activity and Passivity in Perception .......................................................................... 85 5. GEORGE BERKELEY'S REASONS WHY AN OBJECT OF PERCEPTION IS NOT A MATERIAL SUBSTANCE ........................................................................................... 89 a) A Contradiction.......................................................................................................... 89 b) The Appearance and the Matter: Two Entities .......................................................... 91 c) What One Perceives Are Sensible Qualities .............................................................. 93 d) Likeness: One Sensory Idea is like another Sensory Idea ......................................... 94 e) Berkeley’s Master Argument Represented ................................................................ 97 6. THE SIMILARITY OF THE VISUAL PERCEPTUAL OBJECT AND THE IMAGE .......................................................................................................................................... 100 a) A Perceptual Object and an Image .......................................................................... 100 b) The Object of Perception and the Image are Mind-dependent ................................ 101 c) Critical Evaluation of the Premises ......................................................................... 103 d) An Objection and a Reply ....................................................................................... 106 7. THE RESULTS ........................................................................................................... 108 a) The Base of Empirical Knowledge is Subjective .................................................... 108 8. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 111 References .......................................................................................................................