What makes Grice a philosopher of perception

by JLS
for the GC

I was encouraging Doctorow to use and use 'variables': philosophy is in the variables!

There is a passage in Grice, WoW, that irritates some scientists (or scienticists) and attackers of Grice's play group way of doing philosophy. It may relate to Kramer's point about the uses, multifarious, of 'cause' here and there.

The paper is entitled, "The causal theory of perception", so one would expect some reference to, er, ... cause. Instead, it's all about the implicature of saying,

--- "That pillar box SEEMS red to me" on the face of a red pillar box shining onto your face.

Grice was a PHILOSOPHER of perception. Scientists of perception (psychologists) can, on the other hand, be VERY boring. Have you noticed that all boring textbooks on psychology start with boring, long accounts on 'causal' accounts of the retina and stuff. Makes you wonder if you are reading the right book.

Grice knew about this. He didn't care for the 'causal' qua causal theory of perception. He knew that, ceteris paribus, given this or that inaccuracy in the pscyhologist's use of 'cause, it held true (if not water).

So here is the point he makes about what the PHILOSOPHER has to say about casuistics -- or singular causation at its worse: nothing:

-----

"I suggest that the best procdure for the

Causal Theorist is to indicate the

mode of causal connection by examples."

---

"To say that, for an object to be

perceived by X, it is sufficient that it

should be CAUSALLY INVOLVED in the

generation of some sense-impression

by X

------ in the kind of way
------ in which, for example, when
------ I look at my hand in a good light,
------ my hand is causally responsible
------ for its looking to me as if there were a hand
------ before me, or in which ... (and so on).

---------- WHATEVER THAT KIND OF WAY MAY BE
-------------- [emphasis Grice's]."

--- (WoW, 240).

"And to be enlightened on that question, one

must have RECOURSE TO THE SPECIALIST. I see

nothing ABSURD in the idea that a nonspecialist

concept shoud contain, so to speak, a BLANK

space to be filled in by the specialist."

------ Only later he started to fear Eddington's table!


Grice goes on:

"That this is so, for example, in the case of the

concept of seeing is perhaps indicated by the

consideration that if we were in doubt about

the correctness of speaking of a certain creature

with peculiar sense-organs as SEEING objects, we might

well wish to hear from a specialist in A COMPARATIVE

ACCOUNT OF THE HUMAN EYE and the relevant sense-organs

of the creature in question." (p. 240, originally 1961)


---- These creatures should NOT include Wonderland creatures:


"Alice felt that in that case she really
ought to listen to it, so she sat down,
and said `Thank you' rather sadly.

`In winter, when the fields are white,
I sing this song for your delight --


only I don't sing it,' he added, as an explanation.

`I see you don't,' said Alice.

`If you can see whether I'm singing or not, you're sharper eyes than most.' Humpty Dumpty remarked severely. Alice was silent."