The Epistemologically Primary Sense of 'See'

Richard Hennessey questions the distinction between existentially loaded and existentially neutral senses of 'sees' and cognates.  He quotes me as saying:

'Sees’ is often taken to be a so-called verb of success:  if S sees x, then it follows that x exists.  On this understanding of ‘sees’ one cannot see what doesn’t exist. Call this the existentially loaded sense of ‘sees’ and contrast it with the existentially neutral sense according to which ‘S sees x’ does not entail ‘X exists.’

I should add that I consider the existentially neutral sense of 'see' primary for the purposes of epistemology.  For if visual perception is a  source (along with tactile, auditory, etc. perception) of our knowledge of the existence of material things, then it seems obvious that the perception verbs must be taken in their existentially neutral senses.  For existentially loaded uses of these verbs presuppose the mind-independent existence of material things.

So here is a bone of contention between me and Hennessey.  I maintain  that seeing in the epistemologically primary sense does not entail the existence, outside the mind, of that which is seen.  Hennessey, I take it, disagrees.

We agree, however, that a parallel distinction ought not be made with respect to 'knows': there is no legitimate sense of 'knows' according to which 'S knows x' does not entail 'x exists.'  Now consider this argument that Hennessey's discussion suggests:

1. Every instance of seeing is an instance of knowing

2. Every instance of knowing is existence-entailing

Therefore

3. Every instance of seeing is existence-entailing.

I reject the initial premise, and with it the argument.  So I persist in my view that seeing an object does not entail the existence of the object seen.  Hennessey and I agree that seeing is an intentional or object-directed state of the subject:  one cannot see without seeing something.  Where we disagree is on the question whether there are, or could be, cases in which the object seen does not exist.

I would say that there are actual cases of this.  Suppose a person claims to have seen a ghost and behaves in a manner that makes it very unlikely that the person is lying or joking.  (The person may be your young daughter with whom you have just watched an episode of "Celebrity Ghost Stories.") The person is trembling with fear as she recounts her experience and describes its object in some detail, an object that is of course distinct from the experiencing.  (Describing an ugly man with a wart on his nose, she is describing an object  of experiencing, not the experiencing as mental act.)  Now suppose you are convinced that there are no ghosts.  What will you say to the person?  Two options:

A. You didn't see anything: ghosts do not exist and you can't see what does not exist!

B.  You saw something, but what you saw does not exist, so have no fear!

Clearly, the first answer won't do.  The subject had a terrifying visual experience in which something visually appeared.  If you give the first answer, you are denying the existence of the subject's visual experience.  But that denial involves unbearable chutzpah: the subject, from her behavior, clearly did have a disturbing object-directed experience.   You are  presumably also confusing not seeing something with seeing something that does not exist.  That would be a sort of operator shift fallacy.  One cannot validly move from

S sees something that does not exist

to

It is not the case that S sees something.

The correct answer is (B).  The person saw something, but what she saw does not exist.

In dreams, too, we sometimes see what does not exist.  I once had a dream about my cat, Maya.  It was an incredibly vivid dream, but also a lucid one: I knew I am was dreaming, and I knew that the cat that I saw, felt, and heard was dead and gone, and therefore nonexistent (assuming presentism).  And so I philosophized within the dream: this cat does not exist and yet I see and hear and feel this cat.  Examples like this, which of course hark back to Descartes' famous dream argument, are phenomenological evidence that we sometimes perceive objects that do not exist.

(There are those who will 'go adverbial' here, but the adverbial theory gets the phenomenology wrong, among other things.)

Hallucinations and dreams provide actual (nonmodal) examples of cases in which we perceive what does not exist.  But even if we never dreamt or hallucinated, we would still have (modal) reason to deny the validity of the inference from 'S sees x' to 'X exists.'  For suppose I see a tree, one that exists apart from my seeing it.  My perception would in that case be veridical.  But it is an undeniable phenomonological fact that there is no intrinsic difference, no difference internal to the experience, between veridical and nonveridical perception.  That is: there is no feature of the intentional object that certifies its existence outside the mind, that certifies that it is more than a merely intentional object.  It is therefore logically possible that I have the experience of seeing a tree without it being the case that the object of the experience exists. Since the object seen is what it is whether or not it exists, I cannot validily infer the existence of the object from my seeing it.  It is possible that theobject not exist even if in actuality the tree perceived exists extramentally.

What I am saying is consistent with perception being caused in the normal cases.   For me to see an existing green tree it is causally necessary that light of the right wavelengths enter my retina, that my brain be supplied with oxygenated blood, etc.  What I am saying is inconsistent, however, with a philosophical  (not scientific) theory according to which causation is logically necessary for perception.  So consider a third senses of 'sees' according to which there are two logically necessary conditions on seeing, first, that the object seen exists, and second, that the object seen stand in the right causal relation to S.  This is a gesture in the direction of a causal theory of perception according to which causation is a logical ingredient in perception.

What I am maintaining is clearly inconsistent with such a philosophical theory.   For if the proverbial drunk literally (not figuratively) sees the proverbial pink rat when in the grip of delirium tremens, a rat that does not extramentally exist, then his seeing cannot involve causation from the side of the rat.  For presumably an existent effect cannot have a nonexistent cause.

Related articles

On Seeing: Intentionality without Aspectuality?

Is Natural Causation Existence-Conferring?

Causation, Existence, and the Modified Leibniz Question

Merely Intentional Objects and the 'Existential Fallacy'

Phenomenon and Existence

Mary Neal's Out-of-Body Experiences

Do Merely Intentional Objects Have Being of Their Own? With a Little Help from Ingarden

 

Comments

[Richard E. Hennessey]

Thank you for your reply, Bill.

I'm caught up in life's stuff for the next few days, but I'll reply as soon and as well as I can.

[David Brightly]

Hello Bill, and a Happy New Year to you.

You say,

I should add that I consider the existentially neutral sense of 'see' primary for the purposes of epistemology. For if visual perception is a source (along with tactile, auditory, etc. perception) of our knowledge of the existence of material things, then it seems obvious that the perception verbs must be taken in their existentially neutral senses. For existentially loaded uses of these verbs presuppose the mind-independent existence of material things.

I disagree that it seems obvious. To me, the opposite seems obvious. For if it's true that visual perception is a source of our knowledge of the existence of material objects, then surely this fact warrants the inference from I see a cat to There is a cat else it would seem that visual perception is not a source, etc. In the context of thinking about the puzzle of intentionality (I take this post to be an aside to your series on intentionality) do we not have to assume that the senses give us knowledge of objects? The assumption is implicit, for example, in the distinction between 'complete' and 'incomplete' objects. If we can't assume this then it's no use offering us a picture of your car and contrasting the seeing of the complete car with the incomplete seeing of the car. For we are entitled to ask, What car?

[BV]

Happy New Year to you too, David. And thanks for the comment.

Epistemology is concerned, among other things, with the justification of knowledge claims. How do I justify the claim to know that the tree I see exists, and that at least one material thing exists? If I say that I am justified in that I see the tree, where 'see' is used in the existence-entailing way, then I beg the question. For then I am not justifying the claim, but presupposing that it is true.

[David Brightly]

Thank you, Bill. I appreciate that in discussing these epistemological issues we must use the non-question-begging, existence-neutral sense of 'see'. My point is that for the distinction between 'complete' and 'incomplete' to make any sense, the epistemological question as to whether seeing is existence-entailing has to have already been settled favourably, though with the caveat that mistakes occur sometimes. In the context of your latest aporetic tetrad,

1. If S sees x, then x exists
2. Seeing is an intentional state
3. Every intentional state is such that its intentional object is incomplete
4. Nothing that exists is incomplete,

this would rule out the escape of denying (1). Indeed, can we not replace 'see' with 'veridically see' in (1) and (2) and obtain a rather more vexing aporia?