Tag Archives: epistemology

The Dynamics of Thought: “The Soul is All Things”

Posted on by

(This post assumes that thought or perception is self-cognizant, that is, that to have a perception or thought is to be aware of it, as a function of the perception or thought itself, and that awareness does not owe to some capacity over and above perception or thought itself.  See this post for Aristotle’s position.)

As an addendum to the idea that awareness is concomitant with all thought insofar as as it is thought, it is important to discuss the overall flexibility of the soul as a capacity par excellence. In contrast to some readings of the Platonic account which has all knowledge somehow latent within us in Recollection, the Aristotelian account maintains that thought is something entirely plastic and receptive to its objects. This is the case to such a degree that Aristotle can make the seemingly shocking statement that, “Let us now summarize our results about soul, and repeat that the soul is in a way all existing things” (De Anima 431b21, trans. Smith). This may in fact be the explanation for why Aristotle does not need to appeal to some feature over and above the mere presence of a thought to account for an awareness of that thought. For if the soul were not an all-accommodating capacity, a potentiality, then this would mean it would have only a capacity determinate for certain thoughts; it could only have an awareness of those objects for which it was a determinate capacity. This would entail that if the soul were to meet anything outside the confines of its proscribed capacity, it would not be aware of them.  Yet this is absurd; anything we think of, we are aware of. Therefore, if we want to preserve the feature of psychology that thought brings with it an awareness of itself, we would do well by also maintaining, with Aristotle, that the “soul is all things.”

Does Perceiving Require a Perception of a Perception?

Posted on by

Since we perceive that we are seeing and hearing, it is necessary that one perceives that one sees either by sight or by some other sense…Further, if the sense which perceived sight were to be other than sight, then either this will carry on into infinity or there will be some sense which will be of itself, with the result that one should grant this in the case of the first sense (De Anima, 425b22 ff., trans. Shields).

In the De Anima passage above Aristotle tells us that there are no perceptions of perceptions, that is, a perception as such does not need to appeal to yet another perception to explain our awareness of it.  Rather the capacity of perception itself, when active, carries with it the awareness of its own perception.  Aristotle’s main problem with multiplying perceptions here is that this will lead to perceptions of perceptions of perceptions, a never-ending cascade of perceptual regress, if you will. 

There would seem to be at least two other difficulties Aristotle would wish to avoid with “perceptions of perception.”(1)  The first is that the second perception would not be “of” the object of perception, the purported intention of the thought.  Rather it would be of the first perception (even if this included the original object as well), relegating the first perception to a role not unlike the one played by the Forms in Plato’s epistemology.  That is, the first perception would be the noetic stuff given to the awareness, just as the Forms are ultimately that by which and of which a thought is about.  On this understanding the first perception would be of the object, while the second perception would be of the perception of the object.  Consciousness is thus directly removed from the true object of its intention, and there is an awareness not of something out there in the world, but at a remove of one step from that world.  If this is so, it is easy to see why Aristotle would avoid this difficulty by positing that a perception, or a thought, carries with it its own awareness. 

The second difficulty for “perceptions of perception” is that the two perceptions are presumably identical.  And either they are precisely identical, in which case one of them is superfluous, or they differ only in that the second is the perception of the first, while the first is of some other object.  In this second case then, the second perception perceives the first perception with the result that there is an awareness of either the first perception or the object of the first perception, it is unclear to say which.  Whichever the object of the second perception though, it would seem better served, since we have already granted that a perception qua mere perception (in the second perception) has the capacity to serve as an awareness, that we grant this same power to the first perception, eliminating what appears to be an unneeded appeal to the unsure grounds of infinite regress.

REFERENCES:

(1)
This impulse to put “safeguards” in place for capacities seems to be a mainstay in philosophy: for every capacity there must be some further capacity over and above this one in order to ensure proper functioning of the capacity.  John McDowell criticizes this maneuver lucidly when he says, “Some people have a capacity to throw a basketball through the hoop from the free-throw line. Any instantiation of such a capacity is imperfect; even the best players do not make all their free throws” (McDowell 245).  Thus, to make a basket with (a given) regularity belongs to the capacity itself, not by a capacity over and above the ability to hit a free throw.

Aristotle, and Christopher Shields. De Anima. Trans. Christopher Shields.  Oxford: Clarendon, 2016.

McDowell, John (2010), ‘Tyler Burge on disjunctivism’, Philosophical Explorations, 13: 3, 243-255

The Perceptive Daisy: I See You, I See You Not

Posted on by

Thus far in the Theaetetus Socrates, Theodorus and Theaetetus have begun to discuss the nature of knowledge, discussing the Protagorean (and simplistic) ‘man is the measure’ tagline as a prompt to their first candidate: perceiving is knowledge.[1]  What does Socrates mean, or more properly, what does he take Theaetetus to have accepted, by “perceiving is knowledge?”  One thoughtful and easily producible experiment on this thesis is offered by Socrates at 165a, to which I will now turn.

 Socrates: In fact I say this is the most incredible question, and I think it is something like this: is it possible for the same man to know what he knows and not to know what he knows?

 

Theodorus: What then do we reply, Theaetetus?

 

Theaetetus: It is impossible, I think.

 

Socrates: It is not impossible, if you make seeing knowing. How would you deal with the inescapable question, trapped inside a well, so to speak, when some intrepid person asks you, placing his hand on one of your eyes, “Do you see my cloak with your covered eye?”

 

Theaetetus: I will deny I see it with this eye, but with the other I say I can see it.

 

Socrates: So then, do you both see and not see the same thing?

 

Theaetetus: Indeed–– yet in this specified way.

 

Socrates: Yet I did not arrange the question in this way nor did I ask how, but whether that which you know is also that which you do not know. But now what you do not see you appear to see. And you happened to agree that seeing was knowing and not seeing was not knowing. Therefore from these things consider how it turns out for you.

 

Theaetetus: Yet I do consider that it is at odds with what I hypothesized (Translation mine, Theaetetus 165a2-d1). [2]

(Not all Platonic experiments on the eye are so compelling or provocative. Notably in the Timaeus, I think, it is given out as proof that light emanates from the eye on the grounds that if you squeeze it a light is seen!)

I really am attracted to this little scenario, especially in light of the current investigation as to whether perception is knowledge.  Perhaps I am taken in by the simple novelty of the experiment, attributing too much to it–– for example, Cornford seems to dismiss it as a “cavil” and sophistry unfair to Protagoras’ position.  Yet what is going on philosophically when the eye is covered?

Assuming that perceiving is knowledge, say we then proceed to cover one eye and look at an eye chart with our uncovered eye.  Socrates says this shows that we both know and don’t know, since we both see (with one eye) and don’t see (with the other eye).  This seems like an easy position to refute, even from a Platonic standpoint.  Elsewhere Socrates says that the eyes are merely instruments and that the soul is that which really sees; so in this case the soul, qua self, would know, yet could not be said to not know.

However, playing along, what does covering one eye and seeing with the other prove if perceiving is knowing?  That we neither know nor not know?  This seems absurd.  That we know?  Yet we also do not know, with the eye that is covered.  That we don’t know?  Yet we do know with the eye that is uncovered.  Perhaps then, it is a proof that we don’t know whether we know or don’t know, since we perceive that we both see/know with one eye and don’t see/know with the other, and to perceive is to know.  This then would be a self-defeating belief, it seems.

Furthermore, stepping away from the confines of this dialogue for a moment: is this a proof that seeing does not occur in the eye(s), but in the mind, and thus one explanation for how or why Plato created a distinction between the instruments of the self (body) and the self itself (soul)?

 

 

REFERENCES: 

[1] Starting at about 165a
[2] ΣΩ. Λέγω δὴ τὸ δεινότατον ἐρώτημα, ἔστι δὲ οἶμαι
τοιόνδε τι· “Ἆρα οἷόν τε τὸν αὐτὸν εἰδότα τι τοῦτο ὃ οἶδεν
μὴ εἰδέναι;”
ΘΕΟ. Τί δὴ οὖν ἀποκρινούμεθα, ὦ Θεαίτητε; (5)
ΘΕΑΙ. Ἀδύνατόν που, οἶμαι ἔγωγε.
ΣΩ. Οὔκ, εἰ τὸ ὁρᾶν γε ἐπίστασθαι θήσεις. τί γὰρ
χρήσῃ ἀφύκτῳ ἐρωτήματι, τὸ λεγόμενον ἐν φρέατι συσχό-
μενος, ὅταν ἐρωτᾷ ἀνέκπληκτος ἀνήρ, καταλαβὼν τῇ χειρὶ
(c) σοῦ τὸν ἕτερον ὀφθαλμόν, εἰ ὁρᾷς τὸ ἱμάτιον τῷ κατειλημ-
μένῳ;
ΘΕΑΙ. Οὐ φήσω οἶμαι τούτῳ γε, τῷ μέντοι ἑτέρῳ.
ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν ὁρᾷς τε καὶ οὐχ ὁρᾷς ἅμα ταὐτόν;
ΘΕΑΙ. Οὕτω γέ πως. (5)
ΣΩ. Οὐδὲν ἐγώ, φήσει, τοῦτο οὔτε τάττω οὔτ’ ἠρόμην
τὸ ὅπως, ἀλλ’ εἰ ὃ ἐπίστασαι, τοῦτο καὶ οὐκ ἐπίστασαι.
νῦν δὲ ὃ οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὁρῶν φαίνῃ. ὡμολογηκὼς δὲ τυγχάνεις
τὸ ὁρᾶν ἐπίστασθαι καὶ τὸ μὴ ὁρᾶν μὴ ἐπίστασθαι. ἐξ
οὖν τούτων λογίζου τί σοι συμβαίνει. (10)
(d) ΘΕΑΙ. Ἀλλὰ λογίζομαι ὅτι τἀναντία οἷς ὑπεθέμην.