EPM: Chs III

1
EPM Chs III IV

• Pete Mandik
• Chairman, Department of Philosophy
• Coordinator, Cognitive Science Laboratory
• William Paterson University, New Jersey USA

2
Ch III The Logic of Looks

• Main idea the statement "X looks green to
  Jones" differs from "Jones sees that x is green"
  in that whereas the latter both ascribes a
  propositional claim to Jones' experience and
  endorses it, the former ascribes the claim but
  does not endorse it.

3
Spelling out the Logic of Looks Thesis

• Situation 1 Jones wants to say that the tie is
  green and he believes viewing conditions to be
  normal so he says the tie is green.
• Situation 2 Jones wants to say that the tie is
  green and he notices a weird light (and thus
  believes conditions to be abnormal) so he says
  the tie looks green.
• Note that in situation 2, Jones must already have
  some prior grasp of the concepts of being green
  and normal conditions.

4
Advantages of the Logic of Looks Thesis

1. it permits a parallel treatment of
   'qualitative' and 'existential' seeming or
   looking.
2. it explains how things can have a merely
   generic look, a fact which would be puzzling
   indeed if looking red were a natural as opposed
   to an epistemic fact about objects.

5
it permits a parallel treatment of
'qualitative' and 'existential' seeming or
looking.

• Qualitative seeming That tie looks green
• Explanation you are sure there exists a tie but
  withhold endorsement of the claim that it has a
  green quality
• Existential seeming It seems like there is a
  green tie
• Explanation you withhold endorsement of whether
  there exists a tie yet alone whether what exists
  has a green quality

6
it explains how things can have a merely
generic look, a fact which would be puzzling
indeed if looking red were a natural as opposed
to an epistemic fact about objects.

• A thing that is red is also a determinate shade
  of red
• Something can seem red without seeming to be some
  determinate shade of red
• You can endorse that a thing is red while being
  unsure which determinate shade it is

7
Entailment of the Logic of Looks Thesis

• Contrary to Sense Datum Theory, it is false that
  some X looks green to Jones at time t entails
  that some Y is green at time t
• There does not have to be a green sense datum in
  your mind for an illusion (a thing that is not
  green) to look green

8
X looks green to Jones entails

• Jones is capable of grasping that he is disposed
  to say that X is green
• Jones is capable of grasping that the current
  conditions are not normal (not the way in which
  things look the way they really are).

9
Therefore the concept of being green is
conceptually prior to the concept of looking
green.
10
Ch IV Explaining Looks

• Main idea The fundamental grammar of the
  attribute red is
• physical object x is red at place p and at time
  t.

11
Why?

1. The sense of red in X looks red and X is
   red is the same sense. Sometimes things really
   are the way they look. So therefore whatever
   redness is involved in sensations is the same
   redness involved in physical objects.
2. Whatever redness is involved in physical objects
   is conceptually more basic than whatever redness
   is involved in sensations because the way things
   are is conceptually prior to the way things look.

12

• THE END