Experience and Reason Fabian Dorsch Habilitation Thesis Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of Fribourg

Table of Contents Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Part I: The Firstvs. the Third-Personal Perspective 35 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism 35 2 The Unity of Hallucinations 57 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation 79 Part II: In Defense of Experiential Rationalism 97 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons 97 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency 125 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations 159 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement 191 Part III: In Defense of Experiential Intentionalism 223 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing 223 9 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining 261 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction 275 iii Table of Contents 11 Experience and Introspection 299 Appendix: Co-Authored Essays 347 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication 347 Written together with Gianfranco Soldati 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error 361 Written together with Gianfranco Soldati Bibliography 389 iv Acknowledgements I have co-authored the chapters 12 and 13 with Gianfranco Soldati. With the exception of chapters 7 and 13 (which are currently under review), all essays in this collection are already published or accepted for publication. Chapter 1 has been published as: 'Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism', special issue on The Ontology of Colours, Rivista di Estetica, vol. 43, 2010, pp. 85-108. Chapter 2 has been published as: 'The Unity of Hallucinations', Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, vol. 9, 2010, pp. 171-191. Chapter 3 – 'The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation' – has been invited as a submission to a collection of essays on aesthetics and the empirical sciences, to be edited by Greg Currie, Matthew Kieran and Aaron Meskin. Chapter 4 is forthcoming as: 'The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons', in Phenomenal Presence, edited by Fabian Dorsch and Fiona Macpherson (currently under review with Oxford University Press). Chapter 5 has been published as: 'Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency', in Mental Actions, edited by Lucy O'Brien and Matthew Soteriou, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 38-71. Chapter 6 has been published as: 'Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations', dialectica, vol. 61, 2007, pp. 417-446. Chapter 8 has been published as: 'Transparency and Imagining Seeing', Philosophical Explorations, vol. 13 (3), 2010, pp. 173-200. Chapter 9 – 'The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining' – is to appear in 2012 as part of my book Imagination for Routledge's series New Problems of Philosophy. Chapter 10 is forthcoming as: 'Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction', special issue on Contemporary German Philosophy, Enrahonar, vol. 47, 2011. Chapter 11 is forthcoming as: 'Experience and Introspection', in Hallucination, edited by F. Macpherson and D. Platchias, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 2011. Chapter 12 has been published as: 'Conceptual Qualia and Communication', together with Gianfranco Soldati, in The Foundations of Interaction Design, online publication of the Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea, 2005, pp. 1-14. v

Introduction This collection brings together a selection of my recently published or forthcoming articles. What unites them is their common concern with one of the central ambitions of philosophy, namely to get clearer about our first-personal perspective onto the world and our minds. Three aspects of that perspective are of particular importance: consciousness, intentionality, and rationality. The collected essays address metaphysical and epistemological questions both concerning the nature of each of these aspects and concerning the various connections among them. More generally, given that intentionality and rationality are both normative phenomena, the main theme of the articles is the relationship between consciousness and normativity and the centrality of this relationship to our first-personal perspective. This focus culminates in the defense of two specific views, experiential rationalism and experiential intentionalism. The first is, very roughly, the view that how our mental episodes are given in consciousness reflects their rational role in our mental lives: it is part of what our mental episodes subjectively are like that we phenomenally experience them as providing and/or responding to certain kinds of reasons. The central claim of the second view, on the other hand, is that the intentionality of our mental episodes is essentially linked to consciousness and involves a token-reflexive element: they intentionally present not only the world, but also themselves as being a certain way. Some of the essays also deal with the contrast between our firstand our third-personal perspectives and the - to some extent related - division of labour between philosophy and the empirical sciences. Both perspectives have their limitations and sometimes conflict with each other, raising the question of what the consequences are for accounts of our first-personal knowledge and its internal or external objects. In this introduction, I provide an outline of these issues and of the essays dealing with them. My discussion proceeds in two steps. First, I motivate the two views to be defended - experiential rationalism and experiential intentionalism - and describe how they conceive of the relationship of consciousness to rationality and to intentionality, respectively. Second, I provide a summary of each of the chapters to come and point out how they relate to the views and issues introduced beforehand. The presentation of the chapters largely 1 Introduction follows the structure of the collection, which consists of three main parts: one on the contrast between the firstand the third-personal perspectives; another on experiential rationalism; and a third on experiential intentionalism. The collection also includes an appendix with text that have been co-authored together with Gianfranco Soldati, and which are thematically closely linked to the already published or forthcoming essays and are therefore introduced in the context of the description of the latter. There are many other important connections between the collected essays, which are fairly independent of the shared themes which characterise the three parts. In particular, each part contains essays on aesthetic issues, or on issues in epistemology, the philosophy of mind or the philosophy of normativity. Correspondingly, some of the articles form part of smaller projects. Chapters 3, 6 and 7, say, aim at the formulation of a satisfactory account of aesthetic experience and aesthetic evaluation; while chapters 2, 4, 8, 11 and 13 are meant to establish a particular theory of perception and of sensory experience. By contrast, the present ordering of the chapters is meant to highlight the fact that the issue of the relationship between consciousness and normativity merits a more general treatment which reaches across the limits of the various philosophical disciplines and problems. It should be clear, given the diversity of the collected articles, that the goal of this collection cannot be to provide a fully developed defense of experiential rationalism and experiential intentionalism, or to complete the more specific projects just mentioned. This would most of all require addressing the main objections and alternative views in much more detail, and also showing how the positions put forward here fare with respect to other philosophical problems - notably the nature of waking consciousness, the source of normativity, the ontological status of reasons, and the objectivity of our recognition of them. But the essays of this collection none the less offer substantial support for experiential rationalism and experiential intentionalism, both in general and in their application to specific problems. Indeed, the present material may form the basis of more thorough defenses of the two views; and I intend to make us of some of it to write a monograph on experiential rationalism in the near future. I. Main Themes and Theses Consciousness and Rationality: Experiential Rationalism Our mental episodes - perceptions, imaginings, thoughts, sensations, feelings, and so on - form part of our stream of consciousness. As such, each of them possesses a specific phenomenal character and resembles other episodes 2 Introduction with respect to different aspects of that character.1 One way of picking out phenomenal character is by identifying it as the most determinate property of mental episodes which is accessible to us from our first-personal perspective - notably through introspection (Williamson, 1990, 48f.). This is compatible with the more traditional characterisation of phenomenal character in terms of what the episodes are subjectively like, or how it is for the subject to have them (Nagel, 1974). It is controversial whether judgemental or other thoughts possess a phenomenal character. But, together with Gianfranco Soldati, I have argued that they do (see ch. 12). The phenomenal character of our mental episodes is not their only important feature. They also possess a certain rational role. Episodes may differ in rational role in two independent ways: they may differ in which reasons (if any) they provide us with access to; and they may also differ in which reasons (if any) they are sensitive to.2 The reasons concerned may be epistemic, practical, aesthetic or perhaps also other kinds of reasons.3 Seeing differs from visualising because only the former provides justification for belief; it differs from judging because only the latter is governed by reasons for belief; and it differs from desiring because the two kinds of episode provide us with different kinds of reason. Although there may be mental episodes which are non-rational in so far as they are not linked to any kind of reasons for first-order attitudes, they arguably give us at least reasons to ascribe them to ourselves in introspective second-order judgements (Peacocke, 2008). Whether mental episodes belong to the same or to different basic mental kinds - or, alternatively, possess the same or different natures - is a matter of which phenomenal character and which rational role they possess. Of course, not all differences in character or role constitute a difference in basic kind. Seeing a tree and seeing a book differ both phenomenologically and in whether they entitle us to judge that there is a tree before us; but the two episodes still belong to the same basic mental kind, namely (visual) perception. But if two episodes differ in character or role independently of what they make us aware of, then they typically - if not always - belong to different basic 1I sometimes also speak of their conscious or subjective character. 2The essays are intended to stay neutral on whether reasons are identical with facts that speak for or against having certain attitudes (Parfit, 1997; McDowell, 1998a; McNaughton and Rawling, 2004; Dancy, 2000; Kolodny, 2005), or instead with our subjective take on such facts (Davidson, 1980; Pollock and Cruz, 1999; Turri, 2009; Gibbons, 2010). But partly to make things simpler, I assume in what follows that reasons are constituted by facts. 3For instance, there are rational relations among the sensory and intellectual imaginings involved in a complex imaginative project (e.g., that of imagining the fictional world of a novel), and rational norms governing those imaginative episodes, both of which may perhaps to be explained by reference to some quasi-epistemic or hypothetical type of theoretical reasons. The idea here is that fictional truth works in a similar fashion to real truth and generates a similar kind of rationality and normativity. 3 Introduction mental kinds. In the case of sensory episodes, there are exceptions to this claim with respect to non-presentational phenomenal differences. The character of seeing a tree - but not its basic mental kind - depends partly on whether the experience involves the phenomenon of blur (Peacocke, 1983). But the experience does not present the tree as being blurred: the tree does not appear to be blurred in the same sense in which it appears to be green (see ch. 13). Similarly, if qualia inversion is a possibility, then experiences may differ in their non-presentational phenomenal aspects without differing in their mental kinds (Block, 1990). On the other hand, if purely non-presentational episodes are a possibility, then such intrinsic phenomenal differences actually do indicate differences in nature. Accordingly, differences in general aspects of character or role - that is, aspects which are unconnected to which entities or propositions are presented - are, by and large, correlated to differences in basic kind. There is also a correlation between general aspects of phenomenal character and general aspects of rational role: a difference in one of them is at least normally accompanied by a difference in the other. For instance, episodes of seeing, visualising and visually recalling differ both in their general role and in their general character.4 Even the special case of episodes which are first-personally indistinguishable from other episodes - such as perfect hallucinations which are characterised by the fact that we cannot tell them apart from corresponding veridical perceptions - appears to conform to this correlation claim.5 It is part of their subjective indiscriminability that perceptions and perfect hallucinations incline us to form the same judgements - if not, we would be able to distinguish them in this respect (see ch. 11). So, from our first-personal perspective, sameness in character seems to come with sameness in role. Moreover, although there is disagreement about whether this firstpersonal impression is indeed true to the nature of perfect hallucinations and whether they really share their character and role with perceptions, the recent intentionalist or disjunctivist contenders in this debate agree at least on the correlation of these two features of perceptual experiences.6 These considerations raise the question of how to explain the fact that, on 4In addition, even specific rational differences come with specific phenomenal differences - though not necessarily the other way round, as the examples of blur or non-presentational phenomenal aspects illustrate. Two perceptions which differ in their involvment of blur, but not in which objects and features they present, have the same justificatory power. At best, blurred vision has perhaps a subjective rational impact in so far as the experiences concerned incline us less strongly to form the relevant perceptual beliefs than corresponding focussed experiences would do. 5I sometimes also speak of 'perceptual' or 'perception-like hallucinations' when talking about perfect hallucinations. 6Notable exceptions are the disjunctivist view with intentionalist elements defended in chapters 8, 11 and 13 and, possibly, the version of disjunctivism defended by John McDowell (e.g., in McDowell (1998a)). 4 Introduction the general level, character and role are correlated both to each other and to basic mental kind; and the fact that this correlation is first-personally accessible. Experiential rationalism promises to account for both facts in a satisfactory manner. The central thesis of this view is that the phenomenal character of our mental episodes is partly determined by - and therefore reflects or indicates - their rational role. Perceptions, say, have the power to justify beliefs about the actual world, sensory imaginings do not - or at least not intrinsically (see Dorsch (2011b)); and this difference in rational role is salient in a difference in what it is like to enjoy the respective episodes (see ch. 4). The truth of this view would explain why phenomenal character and rational role are correlated, at least as long as nothing goes wrong; and also why we have access to both and their correlation from the inside. The phenomenal aspect of episodes in question may be described as an experience of rational role, that is, an experience both of justificatory power and of justification: we phenomenally experience our mental episodes as providing us with access to, or as being based on, reasons. For example, we experience judgemental - but not imaginative - thoughts as well-founded (see ch. 5); or we experience perceptual - but not imaginative - experiences as supporting belief (see chs. 11 and 4). But the aspect may also be described as an experience of reasons, independently of whether reasons are identical with facts our with our subjective take on them. Our feeling of hunger makes us aware of the fact that we are in need of food; and it does so in such a way that this fact - or our awareness of it - is given to us as speaking in favour of (deciding to) eat. Two features of this experience are particularly noteworthy. The first is that it has motivational consequences. We normally rely on perceptions and judgements - but not on imaginings - when acting or deciding what to believe or do precisely because we are phenomenally aware of their reason-giving power. Experiential rationalism provides at least a partial explanation7 of this impact on our inclinations by maintaining that, when we are perceiving or judging, it seems to us as if we are aware of facts, and these facts - or our awareness of them - seem to constitute reasons for us. There are plenty examples showing that the mere recognition of facts (e.g., that someone is suffering and in need of help) - and possibly even the normative judgement that these recognised facts constitute reasons - fails to motivate us. By contrast, the assumed experience of reasons is an experience of them as reasons, and as reasons for us. This is reflected, for instance, in the fact that a perception automatically inclines us to form certain judgements in the absence of doubts about its trustworthiness. That is, motivation does not require something in 7A full explanation would also have to identify the fundamental source of motivation - for instance, the reasons themselves which speak for or against having a certain attiude. 5 Introduction addition to perception; rather, the failure to move us presupposes the presence of some further intervening factor. The second important feature of our experience of rational role is that it may already be present in small children or higher animals that enjoy consciousness and are capable of responding to facts in ways more complex than mere reflexes or associations.8 Having this experience of rational role presupposes neither the possession of the concept of a reason (or other concepts), nor the ability to reflect on or self-ascribe reasons. It suffices that the beings in question can be described in rational terms from the third-personal perspective. It is equally unnecessary that subjects have to be able to identify and produce the reasons concerned, say. We experience occurrent beliefs as well-founded even if we do not any more know why we have formed them, or perhaps even what speaks in favour of having them (see ch. 5). In Defense of Experiential Rationalism The defense of experiential rationalism put forward in the present articles concentrates on the illustration of some of the explanatory resources of this view and its related advantages over competing positions. But given the selectiveness of the chosen topics - perception, judgement and aesthetic evaluation - it is perhaps helpful to mention other phenomena to which experiential rationalism can be successfully applied, but which are not much more discussed in this collection. A common theme is thereby that experiential rationalism combines elements of opposing views - notably empiricism and rationalism, as well as internalism and externalism - and can therefore perhaps avoid some of the main difficulties of either view, while keeping many of their respective benefits. It emphasises the importance of empiricism in so far as it acknowledges the significance of experience - in this case the kind of awareness coming with the presence and enjoyment of conscious mental episodes - in our cognitive and productive interaction with the world. And it preserves some of the central ideas of rationalism by highlighting the centrality of the rational dimension of our mental life. Similarly, internalism is endorsed in so far as justification is assumed to be partly a matter of our experience of reasons; while externalism is upheld in so far as justification is also taken to be dependent on whether our subjective take on reasons corresponds to what is objectively the case (e.g., to the reason-constituting facts).9 8See, for instance, Beckers et al. (2006, 2009) for some evidence for the claim that children and animals are capable of such responses. I return to this issue further below. 9The two contrasts of externalism/internalism and empiricism/rationalism are not completely unrelated. While externalism is typically combined with, or motivated by, empiricist ideas (e.g., Wittgenstein (1984b)), internalism is often linked to, or inspired by, rationalist ideas (e.g., Kant (1990)). Note also that the first contrast has been used to describe other 6 Introduction Self-Knowledge. Some of the benefits of choosing experiential rationalism as an alternative to more empiricist or more rationalist views become clear when we consider the phenomenon of first-personal self-knowledge. The issue of what justifies our first-personal reference to ourselves with the concept 'I' may serve as a good example of how experiential rationalism provides a good alternative to more one-sided positions.10 Certain rationalist accounts - which assume that introspective self-reference is solely grounded in our capacity to refer with the concept 'I' to the thinker of the respective thought, and not also in our experience of thinking (Peacocke, 2008; see also Kant (1990)'s 'I think') - fail to rule out the reasonableness of questioning our identity with the thinker of that (or any other) thought (Soldati, 2011). But first-personal self-reference does not allow for the reasonableness of such doubt (Martin, 1995). By contrast, certain empiricist accounts - which assume that self-knowledge is grounded solely in inner or outer experience (Armstrong, 1993; Dretske, 1995) - face the problem that introspection does not seem to reveal a self over and above the introspected mental episodes (Hume, 2007; Shoemaker, 1994a). Experiential rationalism offers an alternative to both approaches by revealing our self-experience to be an integral part of our experience of reasons. Mental states can be providers of, or responders to, reasons only within a unified rational net of states, which again means that they form part of a rationally unified mind and, hence, of a rational self. Moreover, we cannot reasonably question our identity with this self, given that it is constitutive of a mind being ours that we have access to it from the inside (i.e., via conscious awareness and introspection). Hence, our experience of mental episodes as providing or responding to reasons amounts to an experience of them as parts of our self and can therefore ground our introspective self-references. Rational Justification. Rational justification is another phenomena which is perhaps best explained in terms of experiential rationalism. This time, the main competing views are externalism and internalism about justification, which differ in whether they identify elements external or internal to the mind as responsible for the normative status of our attitudes or their formation (Pollock and Cruz, 1999; Conee and Feldman, 2004).11 possible groupings of positions than the one put forward here in the main text - for instance, relative to whether we have easy or special access to what justifies us (Chisholm, 1977; BonJour and Sosa, 2003), or to whether we are automatically motivated by what we take to justify us (Williams, 1980; Wallace, 2006). 10I discuss this issue in more detail in recent and still unfinished work. 11The terms 'externalism' and 'internalism' have been used to describe other ways of dividing the various positions on justification into two groups – notably the distinction between views which do, or do not, require for justification that we have internal access 7 Introduction Externalist views maintain that justification is a matter of the actual presence of reason-constituting facts (Parfit, 1997; Dancy, 2000; Kolodny, 2005). They typically do so because they insist on an intimate connection between justification and objective value: our formation of a certain attitude is justified only if it helps us to attain some relevant valuable end (e.g., knowledge or truth in the case of beliefs, morality or well-being in the case of intentions, and so on); and this attainment requires the attitude to conform to the facts. Indeed, the facts are often said to speak in favour of an attitude because they render it more likely than not that forming that attitude will lead to the attainment of some value (Grundmann, 2009). Consider the example of merely hallucinating someone calling your name in a busy and noisy location, where this experience is indistinguishable for you from a corresponding genuine perception. In response, you will probably form the belief that someone is trying to get your attention, as well as the intention to look out for that person. But, of course, your belief will fall short of knowledge, and your intention will fail to lead to a successful search. Indeed, your two attitudes may hinder your quest for knowledge and practical success by keeping you from forming other and better ones. According to externalism, this means that your belief and your intention are unjustified, even though you may (wrongly) take them to be perfectly reasonable. Internalist views, on the other hand, claim that what matters for our justification is which reason-constituting facts we (rightly or wrongly) do - or would on reflection - take to obtain in the shape of our perceptions, beliefs, and so on (see Williams (1980), Davidson (1980), Conee and Feldman (2004), Gibbons (2010), and the references in footnote 3). This claim is usually motivated by the observation of a close link between justification and our subjective perspective: our formation of an attitude is justified only if it conforms to what we do, or would, identify as relevant facts from our subjective perspective; and we hold people responsible for their attitudes relative to the reason-constituting facts accessible to them (Owens, 2000). Return to the example of your perfect hallucination of someone calling your name. In that situation, we expect you to come to believe that someone is trying to get your attention, and to intend to look out for that person. Indeed, we would assess you as having done something wrong if you were not to acquire these two attitudes - assuming that you are attentive, do not suspect (or have reason to suspect) your experience to be hallucinatory and have no other pressing practical concerns. More specifically, your failure to form those attitudes would show a certain unresponsiveness to what perceptually or doxastically seem to you to be the to the justifying elements (Chisholm, 1977; BonJour and Sosa, 2003); and the distinction between views which do, or do not, require for justification that the justifying elements have motivational power (Williams, 1980; Wallace, 2006). 8 Introduction relevant facts. Externalist and internalist accounts of justification are in competition with each other in so far as they identify different justifying elements: either reasonconstituting facts, or our subjective take on such reasons. But their exclusive focus on just one of the two elements renders both views equally inadequate. Externalism is deficient in that it does not capture the link of justification to our subjective perspective, given that it does not take into account how things seem to us. Internalism, by contrast, fails to connect justification to the attainment of objectively valuable ends, given that it ignores the potential mismatch between what we take to be our reasons and what our reasons in fact are. Experiential rationalism allows us to reject the forced choice between either the facts or our take on them as decisive factors, and to assume that justification is a matter of both. Accordingly, our formation or revision of an attitude is justified just in case two conditions are met: (i) it conforms to which mental episodes we experientially (or possibly also judgementally) take to make us aware of facts as constituting reasons for us; and (ii) it conforms to the actual presence of such reason-constituting facts (i.e., how things seem and how they are do indeed match). The main concession to be made is that, in cases where we get it wrong (such as in the hallucination example above), it merely seems to us as if our attitude formation is reasonable, while in fact it is not.12 Rational Motivation. Externalism and internalism also face serious difficulties when trying to explain why the awareness of reason-constituting facts is actually capable of moving us to form respective attitudes.13 That this is puzzling is revealed by cases in which people respond with different - or no - attitudes to exactly the same facts. Not everyone who notices that another person 12The acceptance of both conditions on justification raises the worry that we might actually be dealing with two unconnected kinds of normativity (Wright, 2004). In response, it is perhaps possible to adopt a naive realist stance on our awareness of reasons: namely that it always matches the facts. This is probably best done within a disjunctivist framework (see chs. 8 and 11). According to disjunctivism, subjectively indistinguishable pairs of mental states - such as veridical perceptions and perfect hallucinations, states of knowledge and mere beliefs, or moral intentions and mere commitments - belong to distinct mental kinds because the first members of the pairs (i.e., the 'good' cases) are essentially relations to external facts, while the second members (i.e., the 'bad' cases) are not. Applied to the current case, disjunctivism maintains that being aware of a reason implies the actual presence of a reason; while, if things go wrong, we are not really aware of reasons, it just seems so to us. One important consequence of this view is that the two conditions on justification (i) and (ii) turn out to coincide. 13Indeed,they face other objections as well - for instance, in connection with skeptical worries and with the problem of circular or regressive justification, respectively (BonJour and Sosa, 2003; McDowell, 1998a; Wright, 2004). 9 Introduction is in need becomes thereby committed to help her; and people may disagree about which theory to endorse, or how much to value an artwork, although they base their conclusions on the same pieces of evidence (cf. Parfit (1997), Van Fraassen (1980), Budd (1999) and chapter 6). Accordingly, merely becoming aware of certain facts does not suffice to determine whether we acquire attitudes, or which attitudes in particular. It has been proposed - both by internalists and by externalists - that whether we decide to help someone in response to recognising that she is in need, say, depends on our general causal dispositions (Bratman, 1987; Broome, 2005) or our previous contingent inclinations Williams (1980). But this does not help to understand in which sense attitude formation is a response to reasons, and why it subjectively matters for us whether the objective facts speak for or against certain attitudes. This need for explanation is especially pressing in cases where we are wrong about the facts, and where it would consequently be better in view of our aim to attain knowledge, morality, and so on, not to respond to our take on things (Kolodny, 2007). A more plausible internalist answer is to claim that what is additionally needed for rational motivation is that we actually recognise the facts concerned as constituting reasons for us (Owens, 2000). Accordingly, people may differ in whether they recognise facts as reasons for their own attitude formation, and in whether they recognise them as reasons in favour of this or of that attitude. Externalists, on the other hand, may want to locate the difference instead in the presence or absence of a desire to form attitudes in conformity with what one takes to be one's reasons (Parfit, 1997). But this suggestion also presupposes that we recognise facts as reasons for us. Because of this common assumption, both proposals do not apply easily to the whole range of attitude formation and cannot identify the common motivational element among the different types of motivation involved - notably the highly reflective formation of beliefs or intentions in deliberate reasoning (Shah and Velleman, 2005; Owens, 2000), and the non-inferential formation of perceptual beliefs or some aesthetic judgements (Sibley, 2001c). Moreover, they both proposals threaten to over-intellectualise our formation of attitudes, given that they make justification and motivation dependent on our capacity to recognise facts as reasons. Although there is disagreement about the precise nature of the required access, it is typically assumed that it has to be reflective and involve normative concepts, such as that of a reason or a norm.14 However, while infants and higher animals lack the required 14Among the candidate characterisations of the required access are: (i) the ability to identify the justifying elements and their normative power (Chisholm, 1977; Lehrer, 1997; BonJour and Sosa, 2003; Conee and Feldman, 2004); (ii) the capacity to determine and grasp the nature and status of the related norms (Korsgaard, 1996); (iii) the ability to 10 Introduction reflective powers and normative concepts, they seem to be perfectly capable of forming justified or unjustified attitudes. Already very young children respond to what they see, remember and learn things, have preferences and even can recognise the attitudes of others (Onishi and Baillargeon, 2005; Beckers et al., 2009; Perner and Roessler, 2011). The case is perhaps less clear with respect to animals. But even there, we have no problem, say, with assuming that some dogs are wrong in trusting their owners in the light of their past experiences of bad treatment (see Hurley and Nudds (2006) for discussion); and recent evidence suggests that some mammals engage in simple forms of reasoning (Beckers et al., 2006). Experiential rationalism avoids the problem of over-intellectualisation and is thus able to provide a satisfactory explanation of rational motivation by weakening the internalist demand for some form of access to reasons. It accepts the internalist idea that what moves us to form attitudes is our awareness of facts as reasons. But it departs from internalism in claiming that we can recognise facts as reason-constituting not only by means of conceptual reflection, but also by means of non-conceptual experience; and that, indeed, the latter constitutes our canonical form of access to reasons. As noted above, this phenomenal awareness of reasons requires neither specific conceptual or linguistic capacities, nor the ability to reflectively point out reasons to oneself or others. Hence, it can already be present in infants and animals, once they are able to consciously believe, intend or value. Moreover, the unity of motivation can be preserved, given that it always happens in response to our - experiential or reflective - recognition of reasons. Consciousness and Intentionality: Experiential Intentionalism Experiential rationalism assumes the presence of phenomenal - or experiential - awareness of the rational role of our mental episodes (as well as of the reason-constituting status of the facts which those episodes make us aware of). This raises the question of the nature of the kind of awareness involved. The core tenet of experiential intentionalism is that it is a form of (non-conceptual) token-reflexive intentionality: that we phenomenally experience our mental episodes as being a certain way means that they intentionally present themselves as being that way (see chs. 8 and 13). For instance, our experience of the rational role of our mental episodes consists in their intentional self-presentation as providers of or responders to reasons (see chs. 11 and 4). Similarly, that perceptual experiences are phenomenally given to us as relations to existing entities in our environment means that it is part of their recognize which seeming reasons would survive fully informed and rational deliberation (Williams, 1980; Railton, 2003); or (iv) our basic entitlement to rational projects (Wright, 2004; Pritchard, 2005). 11 Introduction intentional content that they are relational. The presentational aspect of our episodes is therefore concerned not only with part of the world, but also with part of our mind, namely with the episodes themselves. The intentional nature of phenomenal awareness leaves room for the possibility of error. Hallucinations, for example, present themselves as sources of support for belief, but in reality do not possess such justificatory power. It is important to note, however, that the erroneous presentation is not concerned with aspects of the phenomenal character of the episodes. Rather, the erroneous presentation is part of that character. That is, some phenomenal aspect misleads us about some non-phenomenal aspect. This is not to deny that we can err about which phenomenal aspects our episodes possess. But such an error could not be grounded in how the episodes are phenomenally given to us in the stream of consciousness. While we can misperceive a white object as being red (e.g., under red illumination), we cannot misexperience a whiteexperience as being a red-experience (see ch. 13). This is due to the fact that the phenomenal aspects of our mental episodes are not objects of phenomenal awareness, but rather its constituents or determinations. What phenomenal awareness presents us with is, instead, the non-phenomenal structure of mental episodes (see chs. 8 and 11). Some of the collected essays apply this picture specifically to perceptual experiences (see especially chapters 11 and 13). Perfect hallucinations present themselves as relational and reason-giving. This misleading presentation is part of their character, while their true lack of relationality and of justificatory power is part of their structure. Correspondingly, the relationality of (veridical) perceptions should not be understood in terms of a relational form of awareness of, or acquaintance with, the world. Perceptual awareness is intentional in nature. The central advantage of experiential intentionalism over more orthodox forms of intentionalism is perhaps that it can properly acknowledge the priority of perceptions over perfect hallucinations - that is, the fact that, from the inside, perfect hallucinations seem to be perceptions, and not vice versa.15 This means that what perfect hallucinations are like for us should be spelled out in terms of perceptions; and important features of perfect hallucinations are to be explained by reference to their subjective indistinguishability from perceptions (see chs. 2 and 11). Orthodox intentionalism claims, for instance, that the phenomenal character common to all perceptual experiences is neutral on whether its bearers are perceptual or hallucinatory, while experiential intentionalism maintains that this character (rightly or wrongly) identifies its 15What makes forms of intentionalism 'orthodox' is that they are predominant in contemporary philosophy, and not that they have strong affinities to the original versions of intentionalism put forward by the phenomenologists (see chs. 11 and 13 for more on this). 12 Introduction bearers as perceptions. In chapter 8, I exploit this difference in order to show that M. G. F. Martin's important argument in his essay The Transparency of Experience (Martin, 2002b) - which I elucidate and defend in the same chapter - speaks against orthodox intentionalism, but not against experiential intentionalism. Indeed, much of the appeal of disjunctivism seems to be owed to the fact that orthodox intentionalism cannot accommodate the priority of perceptions over hallucinations, given that it takes the basic mental kind involved to include both veridical and hallucinatory perceptual experiences and, therefore, cannot identify the character or role of those experiences as distinctively perceptual. Another example is that orthodox intentionalism has difficulties to account for the fact that perfect hallucinations possess subjective rational force (or authority) only to the extent that we take them to be perceptions. By contrast, experiential intentionalism assumes that the character common to all perceptual experiences is characteristic of perceptions (rather than hallucinations) since it involves the presentation of the experiences as perceptions (rather than hallucinations); and that the rational role of perceptions is distinctive of them since it is not even shared by perfect hallucinations (see chs. 8 and 11). Accordingly, experiential rationalism has the resources to account for the authoritative role of unrecognised perfect hallucinations in our formation of beliefs: they present themselves as perceptions, and we therefore rely on them to the same extent to which we rely on perceptions. Intentionalism need - and should - not deny the relationality of perception. But there are several options of how to accommodate this feature within an intentionalist framework. It might be tempting, for instance, to understand the relation, which is present in perception and absent in hallucination, primarily in causal terms; and the phenomenal awareness of our perceptual experiences as relations to the world in terms of an experience of causality (Searle, 1983). But it would then be difficult to link the relationality of perceptions to their reason-giving force, given that the fact that our experiences are caused by the world is not enough to establish their power to justify beliefs about the world. A better alternative seems to be to assume a rational difference in relationality between perceptions and hallucinations. The idea is that the justificatory power of perceptions is constitutively dependent on the presence of the objects or facts concerned. That is, external entities are constitutive of the rational role - rather than the phenomenal character - of perceptions. Given that the rational role of our mental episodes is essential to them, the resulting position constitutes a form of disjunctivism, despite also embracing intentionalism. This mixed view is possible because its disjunctivist and its intentionalist elements are concerned with different aspects of our perceptual 13 Introduction experiences. While their phenomenal character is understood in intentionalist terms and, hence, as common to both perceptions and hallucinations, their structure is taken to be partly rational in nature and, hence, as establishing a difference in basic mental kind between the two types of perceptual experience. The disjunctivism defended in the present essays (see especially chapters 8 and 11) is therefore an instance of structural disjunctivism - disjunctivism about the non-phenomenal, structural part of the nature of perceptual experiences. It is contrasted both with phenomenal disjunctivism - disjunctivism about the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences - and with general conjunctivism which assumes that perceptions and hallucinations do not differ in nature.16 Experiential intentionalism differs from more orthodox versions of intentionalism not only in its involvement of token-reflexive intentionality and the subsequent accommodation of the priority of perceptions over perfect hallucinations, but also in two other important aspects (see ch. 11). First, intentionality is understood as requiring consciousness. According to experiential rationalism, our mental episodes present themselves and parts of the world as being a certain way. But this presupposes a conscious subjective perspective to which they present themselves, and which itself cannot again be explained in intentional terms.17 In other words, being an intentional presentation of something requires having a phenomenal character; and having a phenomenal character means being non-intentionally given to a conscious subject. As a consequence, while non-conscious or non-mental states may count as representational in a different sense, they are not intentional according to experiential intentionalism. Second, intentionality is understood as a normative phenomenon: it consists in the subjection of our mental episodes to certain norms or requirements which specify when the episodes should or should not occur relative to the actual state of the world or of our mind. A perceptual 16Main proponents of phenomenal disjunctivism are (Martin, 2002b, 2010) and (Fish, 2009). Other disjunctivists - like (Snowdon, 1980, 1990) or (McDowell, 1998a) - are not necessarily commited to this version of disjunctivism. See (Dorsch, 2011a) and the chapters 8 and 11 for more on how best to distinguish the various kinds of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences and other mental phenomena. Note also that, in chapter 11, I use 'experiential disjunctivism' in order to refer to what I have labelled here 'phenomenal disjunctivism'. Others have called the same position 'naive realist disjunctivism' (Nudds, 2010). 17It is perhaps promising - also in light of the comments above on the kind of selfexperience involved in our phenomenal awareness of our mental episodes - to argue that the unity and perspectivalness of our perspective onto the world and our mind is partly a matter of our access and responsiveness to reasons. And mental episodes may count as conscious precisely because they are presented to such a rationally unified perspective. But this would still leave unresolved the issue of what it means for us, as subjects, to count as being conscious (e.g., when being awake or dreaming). 14 Introduction experience of something red, for instance, should occur only if it relates us to something red in our environment in such a way as to put us into the position to acquire perceptual knowledge about the redness of that object. One advantage of this normative account of intentionality is that it links intentionality to rational role and to fundamental values, like the value of knowledge or of morality. For example, both the justificatory power of perceptions and their subjection to the norm just mentioned have their origin in the fact that it is of cognitive value for us to stand in the specified perceptual relation to the world. To sum up, the combination of experiential rationalism, experiential intentionalism and structural disjunctivism assumes several significant links between consciousness and normativity. First, although consciousness itself is not an intentional phenomenon, the conscious character of our mental episodes is largely a matter of their intentionality. Second, their intentionality is a normative feature deriving from fundamental values which our mental episodes help us to achieve. Third, their intentionality - and, hence, also their character - also reflects their rational role, another of their normative features. Accordingly, the two main aspects of our mental episodes - namely their phenomenal character and their rational role - are intentionally connected to each other. This ensures that our canonical access to the rational role of our mental episodes is first-personal. Only in cases where the phenomenal character of our mental episodes is misleading does the third-personal perspective become relevant in rational matters. Otherwise, the latter's concern should mainly be with non-rational aspects of the structure of our episodes - such as their causal origin, their neuronal constitution, or their evolutionary value or function. II. The Individual Chapters The collected articles are divided into three parts and an appendix, each of which comprises three chapters. The first part is concerned with the relationship between, and the limits of, our firstand our third-personal perspectives. Its three chapters address this general issue before the background of a more specific discussion of the nature of colours, of hallucinations and of aesthetic evaluation, respectively. The next three articles constitute the second part, which is concerned with the defense of experiential rationalism in the context of such diverse topics as the phenomenal presence of perceptual reasons, the conscious character and involuntariness of judgements, our self-knowledge of mental agency, or the justification of our aesthetic evaluations. The essays of the third part make the case for experiential intentionalism as the best account of the character of perceptual experiences. Their argument for experiential 15 Introduction intentionalism is combined with a defense of structural disjunctivism about perceptual experiences, and of the idea that sensory and affective instances of imagining (i.e., instances of objectual imagining) are instances of imagining the character of sensory or affective episodes (i.e., instances of experiential imagining). The essays in the appendix have been written in co-authorship with Gianfranco Soldati, or are yet unpublished (though currently under review for publication). They are included because they neatly supplement the other chapters and add further support to the defense of a phenomenological approach to thought, of experiential intentionalism about perceptual experiences, and of experiential rationalism about aesthetic experience, respectively. Because of their close thematic links to the preceding articles, I describe the chapters of the appendix in the context of introducing the essays of the three main parts of this collection. Part I: The Firstvs. the Third-Personal Perspective Chapter 1: Colour Realism and Colour Resemblance. One prominent ambition of theories of colour is to pay full justice to how colours are subjectively given to us; and another to reconcile this first-personal perspective on colours with the third-personal one of the natural sciences. The goal of this article is to question whether we can satisfy the second ambition on the assumption that the first should and can be met. I aim to defend a negative answer to this question by arguing that the various kinds of experienced colour resemblances - that is, similarities in hue distance, sameness in superdeterminables, and resemblances between surfaces, volumes and illuminants - cannot be fully accounted for in terms of the mental representation of the scientifically studied properties, with which colours are identified in response to the second ambition. Given that how coloured objects are from the third-personal perspective is not sufficient to explain how they subjectively seem to be from the first-personal perspective, the conclusion should perhaps be that our colour experiences 'project' certain of their phenomenal aspects onto the perceived objects (Dorsch, 2009). Chapter 2: The Unity of Hallucinations. My primary aim in this chapter is to provide a philosophical account of the unity of hallucinations, which can capture both perfect hallucinations (which are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions) and imperfect hallucinations (all others). In addition, I mean to get clearer about the division of labour between philosophy and the cognitive sciences. Recently, the epistemic conception of perfect hallucinations – according to which we cannot say more about their nature than that they are subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions, but not themselves perceptions - has gained considerable prominence in the literature. Assuming that this conception is largely on the right track - at least when it comes down to 16 Introduction what philosophy can teach us - I focus on two main tasks: (a) to provide a satisfactory phenomenology of the subjective character of perceptions and perfect hallucinations and (b) to redress the philosophers' neglect of imperfect hallucinations. More specifically, I intend to apply one of the central tenets of the epistemic conception - namely that hallucinations can and should be positively characterised in terms of their phenomenological connections to perceptions - to imperfect hallucinations as well. That is, I try to show that we can positively specify the class of hallucinations by reference to the distinctive ways in which we consciously and first-personally experience them relative to perceptions. The task of saying more about their underlying thirdpersonal nature should then be left to the cognitive sciences. Two ambitions of the essay are of particular significance. First, it aims to answer the question of why we group perfect and imperfect hallucinations together. Philosophers have been interested in hallucinations mainly within the context of providing a theory of perception; and for this task, only perfect hallucinations matter. One important goal of my paper is to shift attention from theories of perception to theories of hallucination, and to show that providing an account of hallucinations in all its forms is worthwhile in its own rights. Central to my argument is a detailed phenomenological description of the rich phenomenal character of perceptual and hallucinatory experiences. Such a description has been missing in the recent literature on perceptions and hallucinations, despite the fact that the phenomenal character of experiences is essential to them and hence should be the subject of study of any satisfactory theory of them. Second, the essay intends to highlight the contrast between our first-personal perspective onto the phenomenal character of experiences and our third-personal perspective onto the underlying causal and neuronal structures. It thereby stresses an important limitation of the philosophy of mind, given that it cannot say anything substantial about the nature of hallucinations (over and above the observation that they subjectively resemble perceptions without being perceptual). Another important conclusion is that hallucinations do not form a mental kind (in contrast, say, to perceptions, beliefs, or imaginings). For the cognitive sciences reveal that hallucinatory experiences may be subjectively similar to perceptions for very different reasons, indicating large differences in their non-phenomenal natures. Chapter 3: The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation. Empirical findings can have an impact on aesthetic evaluation in at least two ways. First - within criticism - they may influence how we assess particular objects, or types of objects. And second - whithin philosophy - they may influence which account of aesthetic value and evaluation we prefer. In this chapter, I address both kinds of relevance, and with respect to a variety of 17 Introduction possible sources of empirical evidence reaching beyond our own experiences of the objects concerned - such as art-history, evolutionary psychology or the cognitive sciences. My discussion concentrates thereby on several features which are commonly ascribed to aesthetic evaluations, notably: (i) that they are concerned with concrete objects, and not with types of objects; and (ii) that they are to be justified in terms of reasons. Within criticism, both features threaten to severely limit - or even negate - the applicability of empirical findings (especially of a more systematic and scientific nature). The concreteness of aesthetic evaluations manifests itself in two facts: (i.1) not only the qualities, but also the particularity of the objects may matter (e.g., because of the particularity of expression and attachment); (i.2) relatively small qualitative details may matter. Empirical research, however, is not concerned with (i.1); and it can capture (i.2) only in exchange for generality (not to speak of the needed resources and, possibly, luck). In particular, even if it is possible to discover hedged aesthetic principles, empirical evidence cannot help us to discern when they apply due to the openness of the hedging condition. The rationality of aesthetic evaluations, on the other hand, is closely related to the fact that what matters in aesthetic appreciation is not only to recognise the value of objects (we often know it already), but also to understand why they possess this value, or how they realise it (we often disagree about this). But empirical findings cannot contribute much to the identification of reasons (rather than what we take to be reasons), nor to the explanation of how these reasons render the attribution of specific aesthetic values intelligible, given that both tasks are essentially concerned with normativity. At best, they may help us to notice features of objects which we then recognise as reasons - but only if they take the concreteness of the latter sufficiently into account (e.g., by investigating the nature and context of an individual painting). Within philosophy, empirical studies promise to be more relevant - for instance, by tracing back sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities to basic aspects of natural or sexual selection, or by identifying factors as substantially influencing our aesthetic evaluations, which our theories of aesthetic value take to be irrelevant or even detrimental. This may actually link back to the discussion about aesthetic criticism in so far as the suggested revisions of our theories may very well lead to the denial of the features (i) or (ii). Empirical facts about the origin of one of our current practices, however, do not automatically render that practice intelligible: they may be completely extrinsic to its contemporary significance for our lives. And even if they do contribute to the explanation of our practice, this is not something that we can discover empirically due to the normative nature of the explanation concerned. The same is true of the assessment of whether certain evaluations (e.g., those influenced by what 18 Introduction we take to be non-aesthetic factors) are of good aesthetic standing (or even aesthetic in the first place). Empirical evidence may show that we often fail to live up to our standards and thus perhaps question them; but it may not weaken those standards, or replace them with new ones. The same limitations do not pertain to our first-hand and first-personal experience of aesthetics objects, which is also of an empirical nature. It concerns particular objects and provides us with reasons; and it enables us to make sense of the aesthetic value of an object. This appears to suggest that there is a fundamental divide among our empirical ways of accessing aesthetic objects. Perhaps, any more indirect or third-personal evidence becomes relevant for aesthetic evaluation only if it is integrated with our more basic aesthetic experiences (e.g., when art-historical facts concern the particular object in question, or psychological evidence is focussed on our specific response). Otherwise, empirical findings may just bring us to question our considered views about the values of objects or the nature of those values. The so-called 'test of time' may serve as an illustration. Part of why objects survive this test is that people (whether they are experienced critics or ordinary lay people) continue over the centuries and cultures to care about their preservation for aesthetic reasons. This provides us with empirical evidence - though, it seems, not about the aesthetic value of the objects concerned, but instead about the more general quality of our own evaluation (e.g., bringing us to reconsider the matter). Part II: In Defense of Experiential Rationalism Chapter 4: The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons. Partly building on the phenomenological considerations about the character of perceptions in the previous chapter, the aim of this essay is to motivate the view that the rational role of our mental episodes is phenomenologically salient, and to illustrate how this helps to distinguish sensory from intellectual episodes and categorise them into more specific and basic mental kinds. Among the features of our mental episodes that are phenomenologically salient is their presentationality. In the case of perception, perceptual imagination, episodic memory or bodily sensation, the respective phenomenal aspects may be labelled sensory aspects, given that the kind of objectual presentation concerned is sensory in nature. By contrast, thoughts may instead be taken to involve intellectual aspects, given that the kind of propositional presentation concerned is intellectual in nature. In this essay, I shift attention to a third class of phenomenal aspects - and a second class of non-sensory ones - which pertain both to sensory and to intellectual episodes (as well as to other episodes, such as affective or conative ones). They are perhaps best called rational aspects because they are determined by, and thus reflect, the rational role of the episodes concerned - that is, whether these episodes provide us 19 Introduction with and/or are responsive to epistemic, practical or other reasons. To take the example of perceptions, they provide us with reasons for belief because they bring us into relational contact with facts in the world; and since their relationality is phenomenologically salient, their reason-giving power is so, too. While the chapter concentrates mainly on perceptual experiences, it also extends the discussion to judgemental thoughts, episodic memories and instances of imagining. The defense of experiential rationalism is thereby focussed largely on the establishment of the particular claim that the rational aspects of phenomenal character are, in two respects, more significant and fundamental than the aspects linked to sensory or intellectual presentation. First, the various basic mental kinds, to which our episodes belong, can be individuated by reference to the rational aspects of their phenomenal characters. For example, seeing and visualising differ in that only the former give us reasons for belief; while perceptions and judgemental thoughts differ in that only the latter are also responsive to epistemic reasons. By contrast, the sensory and intellectual aspects are solely connected to the concrete exemplification of these basic mental kinds - such as to the specification of which particular beliefs the episodes provide us with reasons for. That is, while the rational aspects reflect the kind-constituting rational role of our episodes (e.g.,their type or attitude), the sensory and intellectual aspects reflect the specific realisation of that role (e.g., their particular content). Second, the difference between sensory and intellectual aspects - and, hence, between sensory and intellectual episodes - can be spelled out in terms of the non-neutrality and the reason-insensitivity of the presentational elements concerned. More precisely, the claim is that phenomenal aspects - and mental episodes - are sensory because they are (partially or fully) unresponsive to theoretical reasons, while none the less being non-neutral about their presented objects as being a certain way (either as part of the present or past actual world, or as part of some possible or imagined world). The non-neutrality condition excludes episodes which involve conative forms of presentation, rather than sensory ones; while the reason-insensitivity condition rules out judgemental, imaginative and other thoughts. Accordingly, the rational role of presentational episodes - and, hence, also the rational aspects of their character - indicates whether the presentation involved is sensory or intellectual in nature. What is particularly important here is that theoretical reasons comprise not only epistemic reasons (i.e., reasons for belief), but also the corresponding quasi-epistemic reasons at work in imaginative projects (i.e., the reasons governing the coherence between, say, what we visualise and what we suppose to be the case in a given imagined situation). In particular, while imaginative thoughts are subject to the rational pressure exerted by episodes of visualising 20 Introduction which form part of the same imaginative project, the latter are immune to such pressure. When we visualise a character in a novel as being blonde, we should not also imagine that she has dark hair - or only in conjunction with supposing that our episode of visualising is something like an 'imaginative illusion'. Such rational tensions therefore do not demand from us to modify our episode of visualising, but instead to imaginatively reassess their 'veridicality' with respect to the imagined situation. The resulting view of the rational dimension of the phenomenal character of our mental episodes can also shed more light on what it means to say that certain reasons are reasons for us. They become reasons for us only in so far as their presence and rational impact is phenomenally accessible to us from our first-personal perspective. While it is possible to judge that there is good reason to help a particular person in need without being motivated to help her, it is not possible to remain so unmoved when phenomenally experiencing our awareness of her neediness as giving us access to this good reason to help her (see also the section on rational motivation above). Chapter 5: Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency. This essay provides support for experiential rationalism by addressing the question of the scope and nature of our self-knowledge of judging and of mental agency. This question is addressed through an investigation of what best explains our inability to form judgemental thoughts (or occurrent beliefs) in direct response to practical reasons. Contrary to what Williams and others have argued, their involuntariness cannot be due to their subjection to a truth norm. The reason for this is that we can fail to adhere to such a norm and still count as judging, leaving at least in principle room for the impact of practical considerations. Instead, it is argued that we cannot form judgements at will because we subjectively experience them as responses to epistemic reasons, and because this is incompatible with also experiencing them as direct responses to practical reasons (as happens, say, when we imagine something). However, this latter awareness does not extend to indirect agency - such as cheering oneself up by thinking of something nice, or breaking a window by throwing a stone - which relies on epistemic or causal processes as means. Judging may - and should - therefore still count as an indirect mental action. The essay thus proposes a novel way of accounting for the involuntariness of our formation of judgemental thoughts (and, subsequently, beliefs): namely in terms of their phenomenal character, rather than their subjection to epistemic norms. This is possible because experiential rationalism argues that phenomenal consciousness is already permeated with normativity. The application of experiential rationalism to judgemental and imaginative thoughts presupposes that they possess a phenomenal character. This presupposition is defended in 21 Introduction more detail in chapter 12. But it is worthwhile to point out that the argument presented in this chapter does not assume that phenomenal differences are as fine-grained as differences in propositional content, but only that differences in propositional attitude are phenomenologically salient. This has the advantage of making it possible to avoid most skeptical worries raised in the literature about the phenomenality of thinking, given that they are concerned with the salience of concepts or propositions. Indeed, it seems more difficult to deny that there is a phenomenal difference between, say, judging that it rains and imagining that it rains than between, say, thinking that it rains and thinking that it rains a bit. The chapter also introduces and defends a new account of our self-knowledge of our own intentional actions, by basing the latter on our experience of direct motivation and control by practical reasons. It uses this account to determine the scope both of our mental agency and of our awareness of our own agency. As part of these considerations, the essay spells out an important distinction between two kinds of results of actions which has been previously neglected in the literature (in contrast to some close-by distinctions): namely the distinction between results that are direct responses to practical control (e.g., the results of visualising a tree, or raising one's arm) and results that have been brought about by cognitive or causal processes triggered by practical control (e.g., the results of remembering the name of a person, or breaking a glass). This distinction is significant since it demarcates the border of action awareness (i.e., between results that we experience as actively produced and results that we experience as occurring passively); and because it helps to make clear in which sense acts of judging, remembering, and so on, are instances of mental agency - namely in the second, indirect sense. One important fact, which the chapter assumes without arguing for it, is that there is a difference between different kinds of reasons - notably epistemic and practical reasons - and, hence, between our experiences of them. It has recently been become almost standard to recognise that epistemic and practical rationality are closely intertwined (Owens (2000); Feldman (2000)). And some philosophers have been moved by this observation - as well as by ideas originating in James (2005) - to accept that there is no significant difference between the two kinds of rationality. Typical claims include that beliefs formed for reasons of utility, rather than truth, may count as justified; or that epistemic justification is, fundamentally, a form of practical justification because, say, truth or other epistemic goals are only of instrumental value (Foley (1987); Kornblith (1993); Papineau (1999)). By contrast, I would still like to insist on the presence of at least three significant differences between the two types of rationality (while acknowledging their intimate links). First, epistemic rationality does not involve instrumental rationality (Owens (2003)). Second, 22 Introduction epistemic rationality does not allow for tie-braking. In particular, it is not rational to form one of two evidentially equally well-supported, but inconsistent beliefs (Harman (1999)). And third, being epistemically justified is incommensurable with being practically justified. There is, for instance, no overall answer to the question of whether a belief showing one kind of justification and lacking the other is justified or not. Philosophers may have overlooked these differences because they have understood agency in terms of Kantian 'spontaneity' - that is, as the employment of rational capacities on behalf of the subject, in contrast to his or her passive subjection to merely causal processes (cf. Wallace (2006) for a similar distinction). But, partly for the reasons mentioned, genuine agency and practical rationality should require more than this, namely additionally something like means-end justifiability (Pink (1996)). Chapter 12: Conceptual Qualia and Communication. Experiential rationalism assumes that thoughts are phenomenally conscious and thus possess a subjective character. This assumption has been subject to the skeptical worry that only sensory episodes - such as perceptual experiences or bodily sensations - involve phenomenal consciousness (cf., e.g., Carruthers (2000)). Chapter 4 has already tried to make plausible that the question of the existence of non-sensory aspects of phenomenal character is not limited to thought. If perceptions possess a subjective character, then they are very likely to possess non-sensory phenomenal aspects - namely those aspects concerned with their rational role. However, considerations of this kind do not speak against all forms of skepticism about phenomenal thought. For even if it is assumed that thoughts possess a phenomenal character in so far as their rational role and the involved attitude towards their propositional content is phenomenologically salient, it is still possible to doubt that differences in what is thought - that is, differences in propositional content or in the concepts involved - lead to phenomenal differences. After briefly defending the idea that thoughts are not mental dispositions, but instead part of the stream of consciousness and, hence, mental episodes with a phenomenal character, Gianfranco Soldati and I concentrate in this chapter on the issue of whether this character is (roughly) as fine-grained as propositional differences and put forward two considerations in favour of a positive answer. The first consideration exploits the fact that we can introspectively distinguish between thoughts that differ just in their propositional content. For instance, we can tell from the inside whether we are thinking that it rains or whether we are instead thinking that snow is white. Now, denying that this difference is phenomenologically salient requires accepting that introspection provides us with access to features of our thoughts, which are neither aspects of phenomenal character, nor correlated to and thus reflected in such 23 Introduction aspects. But it is unclear how introspection could make such features accessible to us, and which features could be concerned. The second consideration deals with our ability to individuate and understand assertions of thoughts with different propositional contents and argues that the best explanation of this ability maintains that our conscious experiences of understanding differ phenomenally in relation to differences in what is understood. Our main defense of this view involves responding to three potential objections, namely that we rely on a simplifying and potentially circular theory of understanding other minds, that thought is phenomenal only to the extent to which it involves imagery, and that the character of thinking is to unspecific or vague to capture (many) propositional differences. Chapter 6: Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations. This and the following essay defend experiential rationalism about objective evaluations. Although I concentrate my discussion on assessments in aesthetic matters, many of the considerations and arguments should apply equally well to moral evaluations. Moreover, the defense of experiential rationalism is largely only indirect, given that much of the argumentation is concerned with the rejection of the two predominant alternative views, rather than with the provision of positive reasons for the acceptance of experiential rationalism. The first of the two traditional positions to be rejected follows both Hume and Kant in taking aesthetic evaluations to be based on emotional responses, while the second instead follows Sibley in assuming that they are grounded in some form of non-inferential and purely cognitive higher-level perception.18 As a better alternative to both views, I put forward the idea that we evaluate objects in response to recognising certain descriptive facts about them as reasons - that is, as speaking - for or against certain evaluations. Since aesthetic judgement is largely not a matter of deduction and principles, the rational assessment involved should be understood as involving a largely unprincipled form of inference or reasoning, such as it is central to, say, the visually based estimation of how many people are seated in a football stadium (Bender, 1995). Chapter 6 is reserved for the discussion of emotion-based accounts of aesthetic assessment. Within the debate on the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, it has a long tradition, and is still very common, to endorse the sentimentalist view that our aesthetic evaluations are rationally grounded on, or even constituted by, certain of our emotional responses to the objects concerned. Such a view faces, however, the serious challenge to satisfactorily deal with the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among emotionally 18In chapter 7, I adopt Sibley's talk of 'perception'. But what he has in mind may equally well be labelled 'intuition' - as long as it is not mixed up with the kind of rational intuition involved in the understanding and recognition of apriori truths (Bealer, 2002). 24 Introduction based and epistemically appropriate verdicts. I argue that the sentimentalist approach to aesthetic epistemology cannot accept and accommodate this possibility without thereby undermining the assumed capacity of emotions to justify corresponding aesthetic evaluations - that is, without undermining the very sentimentalist idea at the core of its account. And I also try to show that sentimentalists can hope to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement only by giving up the further view that aesthetic assessments are intersubjective - a view which is almost as traditional and widely held in aesthetics as sentimentalism, and which is indeed often enough combined with the latter. My ultimate conclusion is therefore that this popular combination of views should better be avoided: either sentimentalism or intersubjectivism has to make way. Given that our aesthetic judgements and our related practice of criticism purport to aspire to intersubjectivity, it seems best to give up on emotions as grounds for aesthetic evaluations and take them instead to be grounds for judgements about subjective preferences. Chapter 7: Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement. The chapter on Frank Sibley's approach to the epistemology of aesthetic properties does two things. First and foremost, it argues against an experience-based account of the justification of our aesthetic judgements - another popular, this time nonsentimentalist alternative to experiential rationalism in aesthetic matters - by illustrating how it fails to do justice to our practice of pointing to lower-level features of artworks in support of our ascriptions of higher-level descriptive or evaluative aesthetic properties to those works. Second and more briefly, it argues for a more rationalist view which construes aesthetic judgements as based on a form of non-deductive reasoning in response to the recognition of lower-level features as epistemic reasons for the ascription of higher-level aesthetic properties. That is, the chapter does not merely exclude one further rival of experiential rationalism, but also provides positive considerations in favour of the latter position. Besides, although the discussion is focussed on the perceivability of aesthetic qualities, my hope is that its points and conclusions can also be applied to other forms of non-inferential access (e.g., intuition or feeling), as well as other kinds of higher-level properties (e.g., natural kinds, affordances, character traits or non-aesthetic values). Proponents of the idea that our canonical access to higher-level descriptive or evaluative aesthetic properties is experiential face the problem of reconciling this idea with the fact that we support our resulting aesthetic judgements when challenged to do so by reference to lower-level features which contribute to the realisation of the aesthetic properties. The kind of support provided cannot be understood as evidential support since that would render aesthetic justification inferential and non-experiential. For instance, seeing something as (approxi25 Introduction mately) circular or red is sufficient to justify the respective perceptual belief; identifying any lower-level features in virtue of which the object is circular or red does not add anything to the epistemic standing of our judgement. We can infer the colour of a surface when we come to know its reflectance properties only if we already know about the correlation between the two kinds of properties. But acquiring knowledge of this correlation requires access to colours which is epistemically independent of - and privileged with respect to - our recognition of reflectances (see also ch. 1). But this raises the question of how our practice of supporting aesthetic judgements can be made sense of in non-epistemic terms. I discuss and reject four different options open to proponents of the experience-based account, namely to maintain that reference to the lower-level features: (i) helps others to experience the higher-level aesthetic qualities for themselves; (ii) increases our confidence in our ascription of the aesthetic properties; (iii) enriches our aesthetic appreciation and renders it more intelligible; or (iv) satisfies a special kind of curiosity of ours which is distinctive of our aesthetic engagement with objects, and distinct from our theoretical interest in gaining knowledge about which lower-level features realise which higher-level ones. What all four options have in common is that they cannot capture the normative dimension of our practice - that is, that we should be able to provide support for our aesthetic judgements when reasonably challenged. In addition, they also cannot explain why our distinctively aesthetic curiosity - in contrast with our theoretical curiosity - is limited to certain (levels of) lower-level features. From the point of view of a scientist or a metaphysician, it is interesting to discover the molecular structure of a painting, say. But from the point of view of an art critic, this kind of knowledge is normally completely irrelevant. My contention is that both aspects of aesthetic appreciation can be satisfactorily elucidated only on the assumption that lower-level features constitute epistemic reasons for aesthetic judgements - reasons which we typically recognise as reasons with the kind of phenomenal experience described by experiential rationalism. Part III: In Defense of Experiential Intentionalism Chapter 8: Transparency and Imagining Seeing. In this chapter, I object both to orthodox intentionalism and to phenomenal disjunctivism. My main concern is thereby with the powerful and complex argument against intentionalism - and for disjunctivism - about perceptual experiences presented by M. G. F. Martin in his article The Transparency of Experience (Martin, 2002b). This argument consists of two premisses which entail a conclusion that seems at odds with intentionalism. The first premiss is that, as reflection on the subjective character of visualising an external thing reveals, visualising is not 26 Introduction neutral about the presence of the visualised thing in the imagined situation. According to the second premiss, visualising an external thing consists - at least in some cases - in imagining a visual perception of it. Both premisses taken together imply that imagining a visual perception of an external thing is not neutral about that thing's presence in the imagined situation. But this appears to contradict the intentionalist assumption that the presence of a visual perception in a situation is compatible with the absence of a suitable object of perception in that very same situation. Indeed, intentionalists typically accept the incompability of Martin's conclusion with their own view and, as a result, tend to reject one of the two premisses of Martin's argument. My first aim in this chapter is to show that they have been misguided on both counts. They have been wrong about rejecting one of the premisses because they have not sufficiently taken into account Martin's reasons for endorsing them. And they have been wrong about accepting the incompatibility of intentionalism with the conclusion of Martin's argument because they have too narrow a conception of intentionalism. It is true that orthodox intentionalism is incompatible with Martin's conclusion. And, by defending the two premisses, I try to show that his argument against orthodox intentionalism is sound. But this does not mean that other versions of intentionalism do not have the resources to accommodate the fact that imagining perceiving something is non-neutral about the latter. In fact, non-orthodox versions of intentionalism may very well be able to accommodate the conclusion of Martin's argument, without giving up on their intentionalist commitments. In particular, experiential intentionalism - which differs significantly from those forms of intentionalism currently en vogue (e.g., those defended in the writings of Dretske, Burge, Tye or Byrne), most notably in linking intentionality essentially to consciousness, and in assuming a self-reflexive element as part of perceptual (and other kinds of) intentionality - can endorse Martin's argument. Moreover, it turns out that the considerations about how intentionalism can accommodate Martin's conclusion can actually be used to formulate an objection against phenomenal disjunctivism. The noted problem for this version of disjunctivism is that it cannot explain how it is possible for us to experientially imagine hallucinating something. All that phenomenal disjunctivists can account for is that we can experientially imagine seeing something and then intellectually imagine that the imagined experience is hallucinatory. The reason for this is that phenomenal disjunctivism assumes that all we know about the character of perfect hallucinations is that they are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. But this knowledge does not suffice to experientially imagine hallucinating something - that is, to imagine the instantiation of the character of a perception-like hallucinations. However, imaginatively thinking 27 Introduction of an experientially imagined experience of seeing as an experience of hallucinating cannot cancel out the fact that imagining seeing implies the presence of the seen object in the imagined situation. Given that this presence is incompatible with imagining having a hallucination, phenomenal disjunctivists cannot accommodate imaginative projects of the latter kind. All they can allow for is imagining a situation in which there is an experience of seeing and a seen object, and in which this experience is taken to be hallucinatory. My second goal in this chapter is, accordingly, to argue that experiential intentionalism should be preferred not only over orthodox intentionalism, but also over phenomenal disjunctivism. Chapter 9: The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining. The claim that objectual imagining (e.g., visualising) is essentially a form of experiential imagining (e.g., imagining seeing) has been central to the objection against orthodox intentionalism presented in the last chapter. This and the next chapter are meant to provide further support for this claim. In the essay on Hume and his influence on later accounts of imagining, I focus on the prospects of the Representational Account of imagining – the view that imagining amounts to imaginatively representing some cognitive type of episode, such as an experience of seeing or a judgemental thought. The claim that visualising consists literally of imagining seeing is an instance of the Representational Account, as applied to visual imagining. I trace the origins of this account to Hume's comments on the nature of imaginative episodes and discuss how his treatment of imagining survives the general objections to his theory of the mind (e.g., linked to his notion of 'vivacity', or his disrespect of the distinction between sensory and intellectual episodes). So the defense here of the idea that objectual imagining should be understood in terms of experiential imagining is purely negative. Chapter 10: Emotional Imagining and Our Reponses to Fictions. The next chapter provides some positive support for this idea, this time applied to affective instances of objectual imagining. I use the disagreement between Richard Moran and Kendall Walton on the nature of our affective responses to fiction as a background for my discussion and defend a view on the issue which is opposed to Moran's account and improves on Walton's. Moran takes imagination-based affective responses to be instances of genuine emotion and treats them as episodes with an emotional attitude towards their contents. I argue against the existence of such attitudes, and that the affective element of such responses should rather be taken to be part of what is imagined. In this respect, I follow Walton; and I also agree with the latter that our affective responses to fiction are, as a consequence, not instances of real emotion. 28 Introduction However, this gives rise to the challenge to be more specific about the nature of our responses and explain how they can still involve a phenomenologically salient affective element, given that propositionally imagining that one feels a certain emotion is ruled out because it may be done in a dispassionate way. The answer - already suggested, but not properly spelled out by Walton - is that affectively responding to some fictional element consists in imaginatively representing an experience of emotional feeling towards it. The central thought is that the conscious and imaginative representation of the affective character of an instance of genuine emotion itself involves the respective phenomenologically salient affective element, despite not instantiating it. In short, affectively imagining something amounts to experientially imagining an emotional experience of it. Chapter 11: Experience and Introspection. This chapter continues my argument against orthodox intentionalism and phenomenal disjunctivism about perceptual experiences, this time combined with positive considerations in favour of experiential intentionalism and structural disjunctivism.19 One central fact about hallucinations is that they may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Indeed, it has been argued that the hallucinatory experiences concerned cannot - and need not - be characterised in any more positive general terms. This epistemic conception of hallucinations has been advocated as the best choice for proponents of phenomenal disjunctivism - the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their introspectible subjective characters. In this chapter, I aim to formulate and defend experiential intentionalims as an intentionalist alternative to phenomenal disjunctivism. Experiential intentionalism does not only enjoy some advantages over its rival, but also can largely hold on to the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations. First of all, I spell out in a bit more detail in which sense hallucinations may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions, and why this leads us to erroneously judge them to be perceptions (see sections I–III and VIII). Then, I raise three challenges each for phenomenal disjunctivism and its intentionalist counterpart (see sections IV and V). Phenomenal disjunctivism has serious difficulties with explaining why it is reasonable from our first-personal perspective to endorse perfect hallucinations in belief, and with elucidating how assuming a relational form of awareness helps us to account for two central features of perceptions, namely that they are conscious and that their justificatory power is easily accessible to the subject. Intentionalism, on the other hand, faces the problems of accounting for the error involved in intro19Note that, in the essay, I use the expression 'experiential disjunctivism' instead of 'phenomenal disjunctivism'. 29 Introduction spectively judging perfect hallucinations to be perceptions, of accommodating the possibility of non-perceptual experiences that are introspectively indistinguishable from perceptual ones, and of avoiding an error theory about our phenomenologically based ordinary conception of perceptions. And, finally, I propose my alternative both to phenomenal disjunctivism and to orthodox intentionalism. As already noted, experiential intentionalism takes perceptions and perfect hallucinations to share a common character which is partly to be specified in intentional - and, hence, normative - terms (see sections VI and VII). The central thought is that the hallucinations concerned are intentionally - and erroneously - presented to us as relating us to the world. Adopting this view promises to enable us to meet the six challenges raised before (see sections VI–VIII), and to get clearer about the available views on the nature of perceptual experiences (see section IX). Experiential intentionalism is compatible with the epistemic conception of hallucinations, as well as with the disjunctivist view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their third-personal structures. It also maintains that there are actually two forms of access from the inside and, relatedly, two aspects to the subjective indistinguishability of mental episodes: (i) that we cannot distinguish their first-personal characters in introspective awareness ; and (ii) that we cannot distinguish their third-personal structures in experiential awareness - that is, in how they are phenomenally given in consciousness. While phenomenal disjunctivism makes the mistake of ignoring (ii) and reducing subjective indiscriminability to (i), experiential intentionalism correctly identifies (ii) as the primary source of the subjective indistinguishability of perfect hallucinations. Accordingly, the intentional error involved in such hallucinations is due to the fact that we consciously experience them as possessing a relational structure. Experiential intentionalism can also accommodate the fact that, from our first-personal perspective, both perceptions and hallucinations seem to be relational, and can account for the subjective rational force of both kinds of experience - and its easy accessibility - by reference to their shared intentional presentation of themselves as reason-providers. Chapter 13: Intentionalism, Experiential Error and Phenomenal Error. In this essay, Gianfranco Soldati and I address in more detail the fundamental question of how intentionalism can accommodate the relationality of perceptions. The idea that perception is both intentional and relational is central to experiential intentionalism, especially in its combination with structural disjunctivism. Hence, there is a need to prove that this view on percepion is indeed coherent. Our proposal is, not surprisingly, that the intentionality and the relationality concern different aspects: the first pertains to the phenomenal part of the nature of perceptual experiences, while the latter belongs to 30 Introduction the non-phenomenal part of the nature of perceptions (and is missing in the case of hallucinations). One particular challenge, which we take up here, is to show how the relationality of perceptions becomes phenomenologically salient, despite being part of their non-phenomenal structure. So much of the chapter is devoted to a detailed formulation of experiential intentionalism - which we take to be much closer to the original kind of intentionalism to be found in the early writings of the phenomenologists (notably Husserl) than contemporary versions of intentionalism (i.e., what I have labelled 'orthodox intentionalism') - and of its consequences for the philosophy of perception. As part of this discussion, we distinguish different ways in which we may, or may not, err with respect to the nature of our perceptual experiences. First, we may be subject to doxastic error: we may form false beliefs about the essential or non-essential features of our experiences, including their phenomenal character. Second, we may fall victim to experiential error: the phenomenal character of our experiences may mislead us about their non-phenomenal features (e.g., when perfect hallucinations present themselves as relational). Third, we cannot be subject to phenomenal error: our phenomenal awareness of our experiences cannot ground wrong judgements about their phenomenal character, given that both consist in how the experiences are given in consciousness (i.e., in what it is like for us to have them). But the last observation poses a problem for phenomenal disjunctivism. According to this form of disjunctivism, when we wrongly judge our perfect hallucinations to be perceptions, we wrongly judge them to possess a phenomenal character (i.e., that of perceptions) which they in fact do not possess. In order to avoid the postulation of phenomenal error, phenomenal disjunctivists have to locate the source of our judgemental error in something else than our phenomenal awareness of our hallucinatory experiences. But it is not clear what else could fill in this role. Experiential intentionalism, by contrast, has a straightforward answer: we make a judgemental error because we are subject to experiential error, that is, because our phenomenal awareness misleads us about the non-phenomenal nature of our perfect hallucinations.20 20Each chapter comes with its own acknowledgements. For comments on this introduction, I would like to thank Davor Bodrozic, Stefaan Cuypers and Gianfranco Soldati. More generally, I am very grateful to my family, friends and teachers for their continuing support, criticism and patience.

Part I The Firstvs. the Third-Personal Perspective

Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism I. Our various theories and conceptions of colours are influenced by the two main perspectives which we have on them. On the one hand, colours are directly given to us, in our conscious perceptual experiences, as features of objects in our environment. As part of these experiences, the colours instantiated by the objects are presented as having certain qualitative and certain categorial properties. Among the sensorily presented qualitative features of colours are, first of all, their various internal similarities and differences. Thus, two colours may be experienced as being closer to each other in their hue, their saturation or their brightness than a third colour. Their qualitative features also include the property of being unique (or elemental) or, alternatively, the property of being binary (or compound). While unique shades of hue are experienced as not involving any other colour hues, binary shades of hue are experienced as being qualitatively composed out of the former. The property of being instantiated independently of our particular experiences and the property of being instantiated by some actually existing objects are some of the categorical features1, which we non-sensorily experience colour instances as having. That is, the colours which we perceive are given to us as mind-independent properties of real objects. Another relevant aspect though probably more controversial may perhaps be that we experience colour instances as determining our perceptions of them. The idea is that, while seeing the colours of objects, we are aware of the fact that, if the colours would have been different, our experiences of them would have been correspondingly 1The label is not accidental since the properties at issue correspond to some extent to Kant's categories (cf. the discussion in chapters 2 and 4). It does not matter for what follows that the categorical features pertain to colour instances, while the qualitative features pertain to colours. 35 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 different as well (cf. chapters 2 and 4). The categorial features are the same for all perceived colours instances that we perceive. The qualitative features, of course, differ relative to which colour we experience. The non-sensory presentation of the categorical features of colour instances and the sensory presentation of the qualitative features of the colours involved contribute to the subjective character of the relevant colour experiences - to what they are subjectively like. This means that the character of our colour experiences shows both categorical and qualitative aspects: they are experiences of what appear to be mind-independently instantiated properties standing in certain internal relations to other properties of the same kind. On the other hand, the phenomenon of colour is subject of the natural sciences, notably physics and cognitive science. The empirical investigations concerned focus on many different aspects of colours and colour vision, such as the relevant physical properties of coloured entities, their interaction with light, the effects of light on the retina, or the resulting processing of these stimuli in the visual system of the brain. Some of the corresponding studies have to rely on our subjective access to colours to get their extensions right - for instance, if we want to find out which retinal stimulations are linked to which particular colours. But the knowledge gained is still empirical and thirdpersonal in nature, unlike our first-personal knowledge about the qualitative and categorical features of colours. It has been one prominent ambition of theories of colour to pay full justice to how they are given to us subjectively; and another to reconcile the insights about colours from the first-personal perspective with those of the third-personal one. The goal of this article is to question whether we can satisfy the second ambition on the assumption that the first should and can be met. That is, I aim to look exclusively at a position which promises to take our colour experiences at face value and to accommodate both their qualitative and their categorical features mentioned above. There are plenty of theories which deny one or the other aspect; and plenty of responses arguing that this disqualifies them as satisfactory accounts of colours.2 Here, I simply take for granted that the latter are right. Accordingly, colours are understood as properties that stand in certain internal relations to each other and are actually instantiated independently of our experiences of them. The question is then whether these first-personally characterised properties can be identified with third-personally accessible properties.3 2See Hardin (1988) and Byrne and Hilbert (1997b) (especially the introduction) for good overviews. See also the detailed discussion in Dorsch (2009). 3My underlying doubts concern not only the claim that the subjectively given colours can be identified with scientifically accessible properties, but also the more general assumption that first-personal elements of experience may be studied from a third-personal point of 36 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism In section II, I specify the two elements needed for an account of colour to be able to fulfil both ambitions - namely naive realism and reductionism about colours - and illustrate how the resulting view is commited to accounting for the qualitative aspects of colour experiences in terms of the representation of the physical properties identified with colours. Section III introduces types of surface reflectances properties as the best candidates for the identification with surface colours. In section IV, I distinguish two kinds of hue resemblance among surface colours - in respect of shared superdeterminables and in respect of hue distance - and specify how the reductive naive realism may account for each of them. My focus is thereby on the view developed by Byrne and Hilbert (1997a, 2003), which constitutes perhaps the most detailed and sophisticated version of reductive naive realism put forward recently. Section V then tries to show that their best attempt at explaining the experienced similarity concerning shared superdeterminables is bound to fail. The essay closes with section VI by arguing that reductive naive realism does not fare better with regard to an account of the subjective hue resemblances among coloured entities of different substances (i.e., between surface, volume and illuminant colours). My conclusion is therefore that the second ambition is better to be given up, and that - in the case of colours and our experience of them - our first-personal and third-personal perspectives do not concern the same kind of property. II. The account of colours to be discussed in this essay endorses naive realism about colours. The realist aspect of this endorsement is that the view under consideration assigns colours the status of features that are actually instantiated independently of our particular experiences of them and therefore are open to genuine recognition.4 And the naive aspect consists in its acceptance that colours possess also the qualitative (as well as any additional) features which they are presented as having. Both aspects together ensure that colours really are as they are subjectively given to us - and thus that the first ambition is satisfied. It is worthwhile to note that naive realism - as understood here - does not exclude the possibility of aspects of the nature of colours which are not revealed to us by our colour experiences (cf. Kalderon (2012)). The view at issue combines this naive realist stance with a reductionist approach to colours which identifies them with third-personally accessible - and typically, though not necessarily, physical - properties. This means, among other things, that the subjective presentation of colours in fact amounts to a view. I address the latter issue in chapters 2 and 11, while I focus here on the former. 4See McDowell (1998d) for discussion of this notion of objectivity. 37 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 presentation - or representation, if one prefers - of the properties identified with colours. For instance, it is these properties which are given to us as being similar or different in certain respects, or as instantiated independently of our perception of them. But again, their full objective nature need not be revealed to us in subjective experience. The presentational link involved may be understood in different ways. According to some positions, it consists in a relation of acquaintance or manifestation of the presented objects and features (cf., e.g., Kalderon (2012)). Others treat it as a representational link to be spelled out in causal, informational or teleological terms (cf., e.g., Dretske (1995) and Tye (1995, 2000)). And again others take it to be intentional in nature, meaning that the mental episodes concerned are appearances that are subject to a certain kind of norm (e.g., to to occur only if certain conditions on the world are satisfied; cf., e.g., chapters 11 and 13). One important difference between representationality and the other two options concerns their relation to consciousness. The property of being a manifestation or appearance of something is taken to be a constituent of the subjective character of the episodes concerned. Accordingly, only conscious mental states can involve acquaintance or intentionality. Representationality, by contrast, need not necessarily pertain to conscious mental states - other entities, such as non-conscious mental states, photographs or paintings, may be representational as well.5 For what follows, it does not matter which understanding of the presentational link is endorsed by the proponents of reductive naive realism (or RNR for short). It suffices to note that they all accept that colours are properties, which are really as they are subjectively given to us, and which we can none the less individuate and study by means of the natural sciences. Their view thus indeed combines the two ambitions introduced above. None the less, reductionism about colours is most naturally combined with a reductionist approach to the subjective presentation of colours. In accordance with this, I give preference in what follows to a representational understanding of the relation between our colour experiences and the third-personal properties identified with colours. One of the main motivations for adopting RNR is that it promises an account of the presentational aspects of the first-personal character of colour experiences (and presumably other episodes) in terms of the represented thirdpersonally accessible properties. Indeed, it is arguable that the provision of such an account is part of the second ambition, and actually its main point. 5Partly for this reason, it seems more natural to claim (if at all) that the representational properties of a mental episode determine, rather than constitute, its subjective character (cf. Tye (1995) for the former, and Dretske (1995) for the latter view). Some philosophers use the term 'intentionality' to denote what I mean by 'representationality' (cf. chapter 11 for a discussion of the distinction hinted at here). 38 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism The thought is that how colours are given to us in experience can be elucidated exclusively in terms of how they really are; and that how colours really are is, ultimately, a matter of their third-personally accessible nature. Accordingly, the reflection in experience of the similarities and differences among colours, their unique or binary nature, their mind-independent instantiation, and so on, is said to be explained by reference to properties open to scientific investigation.6 This idea presupposes that there is a robust correlation between the presentational first-personal aspects of colour experiences, on the one hand, and the relevant third-personal aspects of whichever properties are identified with colours and taken to be represented by those experiences, on the other. That is, how colours are subjectively presented as being should be correlated to how they are from the third-personal perspective. For the latter can explain the former only if the two covary relative to each other. Accepting RNR already comes with assuming such a correlation. The first factor which is relevant here is that RNR understands the first-personal presentation of colours in terms of the representation (or relational or intentional presentation) of the third-personally accessible properties identified with colours. The fact that colours are subjectively given as standing in certain similarity and mixture relations amounts therefore to the fact that the relevant physical properties are represented by our colour experiences as standing in those second-order relations. The second important element is that such a representational link presupposes, minimally, a nomological correlation under normal conditions between how property instances are represented by the respective mental states or episodes and how they really are.7 Given that all colour experiences subjectively present colours as having the same categorical features, the interesting connection obtains between the variable first-personal presentation of the qualitative features of colours and the respective variable representation of part of the third-personal nature of colours. What we thus get is a rather specific correlation thesis: two veridical colour perceptions differ in their qualitative aspect if and only if they represent colour properties that differ third-personally in whichever respect is relevant.8 6Views, which aim to be reductive not only with respect to colours, but also with respect to conscious experience, typically deny in addition that there are any non-presentational aspects of the characters of our mental episodes (cf., e.g., Dretske (1995) and Tye (1995)). But proponents of RNR need to be commited to such a strong form of 'representationalism'. They only have to maintain that the first-personal features, which colours are experienced as having, are determined by some of their third-personal features. 7See, for instance Dretske (1995), Tye (1995), Byrne and Hilbert (1997a), and Dorsch (2009). 8Cf. the 'Necessity' thesis in Byrne and Hilbert (1997a). The restriction to veridical colour perceptions is needed to accommodate the fact that different conceptions of the presentational link may lead to different treatments of non-veridical colour experiences. The 39 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 The direction of explanation runs thereby from right to left: our colour experiences have a certain qualitative aspect because they represent their objects as having certain third-personal properties with certain second-order features (i.e., similarity and mixture relations). If this correlation thesis turns out to be false, the qualitative aspect of colour experiences cannot be adequately accounted for in terms of the representation of the third-personal properties with which colours are identified by RNR. This would not only undermine part of the reason for endorsing this view, but also cast more generally doubt on the prospects of fulfilling the second ambition. III. The endorsement of RNR may therefore be challenged in at least two ways. It may be argued that the correlation thesis is false - for instance, by pointing out certain counterexamples. And it may be argued that - even assuming that the correlation thesis is true - the qualitative aspect of colour experiences cannot be accounted for in terms of the representation of third-personally accessible properties. But proponents of RNR have been very resourceful in adapting their views to such objections or counterexamples. One of their main strategies has thereby been to vary the nature and number of the properties, which they claim colours to be identical with.9 latter include colour illusions - as they may occur, for instance, when we are looking at objects in heavily coloured light or in near darkness; and hallucinations of coloured objects - which may be the result, for instance, of having taken some hallucinogenic substance. They do not, however, include perceptual experiences which are veridical with respect to the presented colours and non-veridical with respect to some other perceivable property. Under which conditions colour experiences turn out to be veridical colour perceptions may be difficult to specify in substantial terms, but it is not impossible (cf. (Dorsch, 2009, ch. 3.3) and Allen (2010a)). Besides, what holds in the case of non-veridical colour experiences depends on which account of the presentational link is endorsed. Intentionalists and representationists agree that such experiences possess the same nature as veridical ones and, consequently, involve the same qualitative aspect and present us with the same colours as their veridical counterparts. Accordingly, the restriction to veridical experiences may be dropped from (COR), and the thesis be extended to all colour experiences. By contrast, if the presentation of colours consists in the acquaintance with, or manifestation of, colour instances, non-veridical colour experiences do not present colours at all, given that they are not so related to some colour instances. This means, in particular, that they do not present us with qualitative features of colours. As a consequence for such views, the correlation thesis has no application to non-veridical colour experiences, but only to genuine perceptions of colour instances. See chapter 11 for a discussion of the two ways of understanding presentation. 9Incidentally, many of the variations can be found over the years in the writings of David Hilbert. See, for instance, the development fromHilbert (1987) to Byrne and Hilbert (1997a) and Byrne and Hilbert (2003). 40 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Colour science shows that the best candidates for the third-personally accessible properties, which are correlated with subjectively individuated types of experience of surface colour and may be identified with the latter, are certain reflectance properties.10 The basic spectral reflectance of a surface (i.e., its SSR) is identical with the disposition of that surface, relative to each wavelength of the visible spectrum, to reflect a certain proportion of the incident light and to absorb the rest (cf. Byrne and Hilbert (1997a, 2003), and Kalderon (2012)). One well-noted problem with identifying colours with SSRs, however, is that colour experiences of the same type can be elicited by different SSRs (cf. Byrne and Hilbert (2003): 10f.). That is, very different SSRs may elicit an experience of the object concerned as, say, yellow. Consequently, it cannot be the SSRs that are identical with the colours presented by our perceptions. This fact about SSRs has constituted the first challenge to shape the formulation of RNR, given that it has played a significant role in the identification of colours, not with SSRs, but with certain types of them.11 Such types of spectral surface reflectances (abbreviated as SSR-types) group together SSRs which elicit, under normal viewing conditions, experiences of the same colour. The colours are then identified, not with particular SSRs, but with SSR-types. Here is how Kalderon describes the resulting position to be found in the writings of Byrne and Hilbert: 'A surface spectral reflectance is an object's disposition to reflect a certain percentage of light at each of the wavelengths of the visible spectrum. While an object could only have a single determinate reflectance, perceived colors are not determinate reflectances, but determinable reflectances, or reflectance types, that can be represented by sets of determinate reflectances (see Hilbert, 1987).' (Kalderon (2012): 13) The description of SSR-types in terms of their extension has its limits, though. There is no restricton (apart from pragmatic ones) to the fine-grainedness of the scientific specification of SSRs, given that for any particular subdivision of the spectrum of relevant wavelengths or of the scale of percentages of reflected light at each of these wavelengths, there is a more detailed one to be had. This means that SSRs can be differentiated as minutely as desired (and given the 10Cf. Hardin (1988), Byrne and Hilbert (1997b) and Dorsch (2009). It should be noted that reference to these properties may help to account only for surface colours, but not for the colours of light or film. I address this issue and the problems that it raises for RNR in section VI. 11Cf. Byrne and Hilbert (1997a): 265f., and also Broackes 'ways of changing light' in Broackes (1992): 454ff. and 459. 41 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 required measurement tools). We cannot therefore list all the SSRs which form the extension of a given SSR-type: there are always some more to be listed. It is more useful to describe SSR-types in relation to their impact on the receptors in the human retina (cf. Hilbert (1987): 100; Tolliver (1994): 417). What the various SSRs grouped together in an SSR-type have in common is that they give rise, under normal conditions, to the same integrated sum of intensities in each of the three spectral bands - long-wave L, middlewave M and shortwave S - that correspond to each of the three types of receptors in the eye of normal human beings as they actually are. SSR-types are thus dispositions to bring about, under normal conditions, specific triples of retinal stimulation in actual human beings. What is important to note about SSR-types is that they can be fully described in third-personal terms, that is, without making any reference to subjective experience. Hence, although SSR-types are anthropocentric properties in that they are to be specified by reference to the human visual system, they can still count as mind-independent properties of actually existing objects.12 The proposed view should have no difficulties to account for the categorical features of colours and their presentation as part of our colour experiences. After all, SSR-types show the same categorical features which colours are given as having in our experiences of them. But problems seem to arise as soon as we move to the explanation of the qualitative aspects of colours and colour experience.13 As already mentioned above, one way of arguing against RNR is to question the truth of the correlation thesis. If it can be shown that there is no robust correlation between subjectively individuated types of colour experience and objectively investigated SSR-types even under normal conditions, the two perspectives on colours cannot be reconciled with each other. However, as long as the relationship between mind and brain is not satisfactorily elucidated, it is difficult to assess the truth of the correlation thesis. Notably, the (seeming) conceivability of cases where one and the same retinal stimulation leads to subjectively different colour experiences, or where different stimulations lead to one and the same experience, need not entail their logical possibility. And the absence of good reason to assume that such cases are impossible need not necessarily undermine the correlation thesis, either. It appears that the burden of proof lies with the opponents of RNR. 12Whether an account of colours as SSR-types should still count as a genuinely physicalist position is another matter (cf. Kalderon (2012): 13), which need not be resolved here, since the anthropentricity of SSR-types does not undermine their status as third-personally accessible properties. 13For more general discussion of, and possible physicalist answers to, problems related to the naturalisation of phenomenal consciousness in general, see, for instance, Dretske (1995), Tye (1995, 2000) and Lycan (1996). 42 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Moreover, it is easy for opponents of RNR to miss their target by not appreciating in sufficient detail the nature of those properties (i.e., the SSR-types) which RNR identifies colours with. As a result, many cases put forward as alleged counter-examples to the correlation thesis lack force (cf. Tye (1992, 1995) and Lycan (1996): ch. 6). This is in particular true of all thought experiments (including many cases of qualia inversion or absence) that hypothesise alterations in the viewing conditions, the nature of the human visual system, the physical laws governing the causal effect of surfaces on light and of light on our receptors, or the represented SSR-types. For in all these cases, changes in the qualitative aspect of colour experiences can, against the objectors opinions, be explained by reference to corresponding changes in their representationality. This point becomes particularly evident if the identification of colours with SSR-types is made explicit in the formulation of the correlation thesis: two veridical colour experiences differ in their qualitative aspect if and only if they represent SSR-types that differ in which specific triple of retinal stimulation they are dispositions to elicit under normal conditions in actual human beings. Any deviation from normal conditions or actual human cognition disqualifies the respective cases from being counterexamples to the correlation thesis. But granting that there is a strict correlation between types of veridical colour experiences and SSR-types does not mean accepting RNR. In addition to the correlation, RNR also assumes an explanatory link between the two elements. In particular, the qualitative aspects of colour experience are said to be determined solely by the representation of SSR-types (and perhaps related third-personal aspects of the world). But it may be doubted whether RNR is successful in explaining why differences in representationality give rise to differences in qualitative character. A central issue here is whether the SSRtypes can be said to possess the qualitative features - for instance, the secondorder properties of standing in the same resemblance relations and showing either a unique or a binary nature - which we experience colours as having.14 Proponents of RNR may arrange SSR-types in a way isomorphic to the circular order of hues. The close resemblance of yellow and orange is thus matched by a close resemblance between the two respective SSR-types, and the difference between unique and binary colours is paralleled by a corresponding difference among SSR-types (cf. Hilbert (1987)). This arrangement is possible because SSR-types can be ordered in relation to how much they affect the three kinds of cones in the human eye.15 Indeed, SSR-types - or the respective 14Another important issue is whether RNR can accommodate the variations in the subjective location of the four unique hues. See Allen (2010b), and references to selectionist approaches provided in footnote 16 below. 15Further below, I present a formula which can be used to measure the kind of 'physical distance' between different classes of SSRs, which corresponds to the 'hue distance' among the correlated colours. And although the formula does not make reference to total intensities 43 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 classes of SSRs - stand in many different resemblance relations concerning their impact on light-sensitive receptors of varying ranges of receptivity. This has led some proponents of RNR to a selectionist approach to colours (cf., e.g., Hilbert and Kalderon (2000)). The central thought is that there are many different ways in which SSRs can be grouped together into types standing in certain similarities relations. The human visual system has evolved in such a way as to be sensitive to one particular grouping of SSRs (i.e., the particular SSR-types discussed so far), while other actual or possible beings with light receptors of a different number and different sensitivity ranges track different groupings. This means, in accordance with RNR, that there are many colours in the world which humans are unable to recognise or discriminate. Our visual system is, so to speak, selective about which colours it lets us see.16 A complete reductionist account of colours and our experiences of them might therefore better be supplemented by ecological considerations concerning why the human visual system has evolved in the way that it has done - that is, why it tracks these specific SSR-types, as well as these particular similarities among them, and not others. But this is, arguably, the task of the cognitive and biological sciences, and not of philosophy. What proponents of RNR should, however, be expected to do is to identify the second-order properties of SSR-types which are to be identified with the qualitative features of colours, and the representation of which explains the corresponding qualitative aspects of colour experiences. My contention is that this constitutes a challenge for reductive naive realists, which they are unlikely to be able to meet. IV. In order to be able to account for the experienced similarity (and mixture) relations among colours in representational terms, Byrne and Hilbert assume that our colour experiences represent hue magnitudes in addition to SSRin the three wavelength bands L, M and S, a respective reformulation should be possible. 16It should not be seen as problematic that different species are sensitive to different sets of colours - especially in the light of the fact that there are great inter-species differences in the number and sensitivity of the relevant light receptors (cf. Allen (2009)). But some selectionists aim to extend their view to interand intrasubjective variations in how we experience the world as coloured - for instance, to account for differences in which objects are taken to be instances of unique colours (Kalderon (2012) for an application to interand Mizrahi (2006) for an application to intra-subjective variation). This is much more troublesome since it threatens to undermine our general assumption that there is one common set of colours that human beings talk about, refer to, and so on. A defense of the idea that different humans may be sensitive to different colours thus needs to show how it can be squared with the fact that we can successfully communicate about the colours of objects (cf. Allen (2009)). 44 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism types.17 More specifically, each particular colour experience represents objects as having colours with a certain proportion of the four hue magnitudes - R, G, Y and B. The represented values of the hue magnitudes are proportinal values or percentages, and their sum is for each colour instance 100 %. Moreover, each represented proportion involves two or three hue magnitudes with a value of 0 %, and only one or two with a positive percentage.18 Thus, a colour experience may represent an object as having a hue with an R-value of 100 %, or as having a hue with an R-value of 37 % and a Y -value of 63 % - but no positive proportion of three or all four hue magnitudes. This is due to the fact that the four hue magnitudes form two pairs of opposites, such that in each case only one of each pair can be represented as having a positive quotient. If some object's colour is represented as having an R-value, it cannot also be represented as having a G-value; and vice versa. The same is true of the Y and the B -magnitude. If we understand each pair of opposing hue magnitudes - that is, magnitudes of which only one can have a positive value - as forming together one axis of a coordinate system, we can give a simple graphical representation of the possible values that can be represented by our colour experiences (see Figure 1). Each point on the regular diamond stands for a combination of positive values of hue magnitudes that a colour experience can represent.19 The four 'superdeterminables' - which Byrne and Hilbert have introduced in an earlier text (Byrne and Hilbert (1997a)) - are identical with the property of having a positive percentage of one of the hue magnitudes. That is, each of them is a determinable of one of the four hue magnitudes. Byrne and Hilbert call the superdeterminables 'reddish', 'greenish', 'yellowish' and 'bluish', and I will follow them in this. But it should be kept in mind that these expressions may denote two different kinds of properties (which are, of course, identified by RNR): the respective first-personally accessible qualitative features of colours (e.g., their being experienced as reddish or bluish), and the third-personally accessible determinables of the individual hue magnitudes. But the context should always suffice to clarify in which way they are used. The relationship between hue magnitudes and colours - or, in this case, 17See Byrne and Hilbert (2003) and Byrne (2003) on which I rely in what follows). 18It is interesting to ask whether the other two or three magnitudes are represented as having the relative magnitude of 0 %, or whether there are not represented at all. The hue magnitudes may thus differ in this respect from, say, the three spatial dimensions which are always represented as having some value or another. Byrne and Hilbert seem to assume that only positive magnitudes are represented (cf. the quote given below), so they presumably thing the same about the representation of hue magnitudes. But this issue need not be settled here. 19That it is not a circle is due to the fact that the values of the hue magnitudes are assumed to denote relative percentages. 45 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 Figure 1. The space of hue magnitutes. SSR-types - is a bit more complex. Given the nature of human colour vision, each particular shade of colour that we may perceive objects as having corresponds actually one-to-one to a specific proportion of the hue magnitudes. For instance, pure red is correlated to an R-value of 100 %, while the shade of orange exactly in the middle between pure red and pure yellow is linked to the combination of an R-value of 50 % and a Y -value of 50 %. But this means that there is also a strict correlation between proportions of hue magnitudes and SSR-types, assuming that the latter are identical with colours. That is, according to RNR, the two anthropocentrically defined classes of properties stand actually in a bijective relation to each other. The proponents of RNR should furthermore expect that this fact can be accounted for in terms of the nature of the human visual system. As noted above, SSR-types are dispositions to elicit under normal conditions certain inputs in the human visual system, namely retinal stimulations specified in terms of the total intensities brought about within the three wavelength ranges L, M and S that humans are sensitive to. Having a hue with a certain proportions of the four hue magnitudes may then correspondingly be understood as 46 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism the disposition to produce under normal conditions a certain output of human visual processing describable in terms of the R-, G-, Y and B -values. This presupposes that the three-dimensional retinal inputs actually lead to respective four-dimensional outputs of relative hue magnitudes, and that this aspect of the human mind can be captured by empirical theories. A reductive naive realist should indeed assume that such an actual connection between the two kinds of dispositional properties of objects can be discovered.20 If not, the experienced resemblance relations, which are accounted for in terms of the represented proportions of hue magnitudes, cannot be linked to the SSR-types identified with colours. That is, colours could not be said any more to possess the qualitative features given in colour experience, and naive realism would have to be given up. Hence, proponents of RNR aiming to explain subjective aspects of experience by reference to proportions of hue magnitudes as well as SSR-types should accept, not only that there is a strict correlation between the two kinds of properties, but also that it is due to the actual way in which human visual processing works. The two kinds of dispositions are not identical, however - which is precisely why Byrne and Hilbert are able to introduce hue magnitudes and superdeterminables as additions to SSR-types. To some extent, the dispositions are the same since they possess the same sets of SSRs as their categorial bases.21 But they still differ in which parts of the human visual system they are relative to or depend on. While SSR-types are defined solely in terms of the human light receptors and their sensitivities, the specification of the proportions of hue magnitudes has also to make reference to later stages in human visual processing - notably to the fact that the three-dimensional retinal input is transformed into a four-dimensional hue output. Because of this difference in dependence on the nature of the human mind, the two kinds of disposition would be differently mapped to each other or even completely diverge if our visual processing would alter. In a similar way, the precise correlation between the disposition of an object to cause a sensor in a digital camera to register a certain distribution of photons and the different disposition of that very same object to produce a certain image on the screen of the camera depends on how the electronics in the camera are working. If the latter would be altered, the two dispositions would go apart, despite having the same categorial bases and 20One possible - though not uncontroversial - interpretation of the visual system, that - if adequate - would establish the desired connection, makes use of the idea of opponent processing applied to the case of colours. In fact, Byrne and Hilbert (2003) use it to illustrate the possibility of linking SSR-types and hue magnitudes, without endorsing opponent processing as the best interpretation of what is going on in our brains. 21Because of this, the property of having a hue with a certain proportion of the hue magnitudes may be understood as being a type of SSRs as well. But to avoid confusion, I reserve the label 'SSR-type' for the dispositions to produce certain L-,M and S -stimulations. 47 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 actually being co-extensional. Now, how are hue magnitudes supposed to help proponents of RNR to account for the subjective resemblance relations among colours? Here is what Byrne and Hilbert write about how to explain the fact that blue is subjectively more similar to purple than to green: 'Objects that appear blue are represented as having a high proportion of B (and a lower proportion of either G or R); objects that appear purple are represented as having a roughly equal proportion of B and R, and objects that appear green are represented as having a high proportion of G (and a lower proportion of either Y or B). There is therefore a perceptually obvious respect in which blue is more similar to purple than to green. Namely, there is a hue-magnitude (B) that all blue-appearing objects and purple-appearing objects, but not all green-appearing objects, are represented as having.' (Byrne and Hilbert (2003): 15) What is remarkable about this passage is that the explanatory work is in fact assigned to the property of having a positive percentage of the B -value - or, in other words, of exemplifying the superdeterminable of being bluish. This explanation therefore corresponds exactly to the one that Byrne and Hilbert's gave in their earlier text where they introduced just superdeterminables, but not yet the more quantitative hue magnitudes (cf. Byrne and Hilbert (1997a)). The introduction of the latter is therefore not warranted by explanations of this kind. This is not surprising if we have a look at the nature of what has in fact been explained: the similarities and differences among the hues in respect of whether they realise the same determinable property, namely that of being bluish. The situation is different if cases of distance resemblances are concerned. They normally are not to be accounted for in terms of some shared superdeterminable, but instead in terms of the values of the hue magnitudes in question. To get clearer about the distinction between the two kinds of resemblance, consider the ambiguity of the statement that blue is subjectively more like purple than green. It may mean that blue is experienced as being closer to purple than to green on the circle (or diamond) of hues; or it may mean that blue shares the property of being a reddish hue with purple, but not green. That these are two independent ways of resembling each other is indicated by the fact that the former can occur without the latter. A yellowish red (Y = 20 % and R = 80 %) is subjectively closer to a greenish yellow (Y = 80 % and G = 20 %) than to a yellowish green (Y = 20 % andG = 80 %), despite the fact that the first hue shares exactly the same superdeterminable with each of the latter two, namely that of being yellowish. Something similar is true of the case in 48 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism which we compare a pure red, say, with two different shades of slightly greenish blue. The independence of the two kinds of resemblance is also supported by the fact that a relative difference in shared superdeterminables can occur without a relative difference in hue distance. Purple is subjectively equally close to orange and to bluish-green (or greenish-blue) when their positions on the circle of hues are concerned. But it resembles only orange in being reddish. Compare the analogy of three player positioned on a football pitch. Their locations may be compared relative to their distance to one of the goallines, or relative to their distances from each other. Whether they are (experienced as) being more or less similar to each other in one respect is at least to some extent independent of whether they are (experienced as) being more or less similar in the other. For instance, they may be positioned on the same line parallel to the goalline, or their positions may form an equilateral triangle. In both cases, the possibility of two kinds of similarity relations is due to the fact that the respective magnitudes are more than one: the pitch possesses two spatial dimensions, while hues show four dimensions which effectively (i.e., geometrically) come down to two as well (i.e., the reddish/greenish dimension and the yellowish/bluish dimension). Consequently, the specific points in the resulting two-dimensional space may be compared relative to both dimensions taken together, or instead relative to only one of the dimensions. This is the reason why subjective resemblance in hue distance is a different phenomenon from subjective resemblance in the sharing of a superdeterminable. The first may be accounted for in terms of represented hue magnitudes. But the explanation of the latter requires instead reference to represented superdeterminables. Of course, closeness in hue can be construed as the property of sharing a relatively determinate colour determinable. But this does not undermine the distinctness of the two kinds of similarity. Sharing some determinable colour is not the same as sharing some superdeterminable, since the latter are not among the determinable colour properties: they are merely determinables of colours. One way of being coloured, for instance, might be to have a hue with an B -magnitude of 93 % and a G-magnitude of 7 % - or, alternatively, to be disposed to produce under normal conditions the respective output in the human visual system. But the distinct property of having a hue with a positive B -value, or with an B -value of 93 %, is not a colour property. It is not a full determination of the property of having a colour since there are two ways in which a particular shade of colour can realise this B -value: either by additionally having an R-value of 7 %, or by additionally having a G-value of 7 %. And this is in tension with the standard logic of determinables, which requires that maximally specific determinants can specify only one determinable on each level of determinacy (cf. Armstrong (1997): 48f.). Hence, while having one of the possible combinations of hue magnitudes may count as a colour 49 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 property, having a specific hue magnitude cannot. Consequently, the respective superdeterminables are not colour properties, either.22 They concern only one dimension of the hue space, while the experienced closeness or distance between two shades is measured along two dimensions. Now, the latter may be understood more precisely in terms of the hue distance of the respective combinations of hue magnitudes. According to the graphical representation above, the latter can again be understood as being proportional to the distance of the shorter of the two paths on the outline of the diamond between the two corresponding points. This distance can in fact be calculated by means of the following complex formula:23 D = 400−|R1+R2−G1−G2+B1+B2−Y1−Y2|−|R1+R2+G1+G2+B1+B2+Y1+Y2| With the help of this formula, the subjectively accessible distance relations between hues may be explained in terms of all four hue magnitudes. Consider again Byrne and Hilbert's own example - this time read as an example of distance similarity. Blue seems subjectively to be closer to purple than to green because the respective experiences represent, for each of the three colours, specific values of the four hue magnitudes such that the distance value D for the first two colours is smaller than that for the first and the third colour. Here is a list illustrating the mathematics involved: • Blue: B = 100; Y = R = G = 0 • Purple: B = R = 50; G = Y = 0 • Green: G = 100; R = Y = B = 0 • D (blue/purple) = 100 • D (blue/green) = 200 This example shows that certain particular shades of hues are ordered in the same way both relative to how they resemble each other in distance, and relative to whether they possess a common superdeterminable. The respective similarity statements may therefore be ambigious between the two kinds of 22But of course, colours - or SSR-types - may still be said to be determinations of each of the hue magnitudes taken individually. 23One way of arriving at this formula is to rotate the coordinate system (x = R G + B Y; y = R + G + B + Y) and then to use the formula for the distance between two points on a square (400 - -x1 + x2- - -y1 + y2-). The choice of 400 as the maximal value is due to the fact that each magnitude can take 100 as their maximum value. 50 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism resemblance. This may perhaps explain why Byrne and Hilbert did not pay attention to the fact that they used superdeterminables instead of hue magnitudes to account for the similarity relations that were meant to illustrate the applicability of the latter, and not the former. V. So far, so good. There are two kinds of subjective resemblance between hues. And while one can be explained in terms of represented combinations of hue magnitudes, the other can be accounted for in terms of represented superdeterminables. There is no principle difficulty attached to such a multitude of resemblances and their explanations. But both accounts are none the less problematic for their own reasons. The explanation of experienced similarities and differences in hue distance by reference to hue magnitudes is superfluous, even on RNR's terms. Given the actual correlation between SSR-types and proportions of hue magnitudes under normal conditions, the distance between two hues should also be calculable in terms of a formula mentioning the three wavelenght range dimensions S,M and L of the SSR-types instead of the proportions of the four hue magnitudes. That is, subjective resemblance in distance should already be explainable in terms of SSR-types (even though the mathematics might be more complex). Reference to represented proportions of hue magnitudes is not needed, especially given that the SSR-types are already assumed to be represented. There is thus no reason to think that proportions of hue magnitudes are represented as well. The proposed account of the experienced sameness or difference in superdeterminables, on the other hand, is bound to fail because there is no independent motivation to accept that superdeterminables are in fact represented by our colour experiences. The only reason given so far is that it promises to explain the qualitative aspects of colour experience in representational terms. But what is fundamentally at stake is precisely whether such an account of the subjective character of colour experience is in fact to be had. Hence, we still need to be given a good reason for assuming that our colour experiences represent superdeterminables. It cannot be the idea that there are no good alternative explanation of the subjective resemblance in shared hue superdeterminables. Both the rejection of naive realism and the rejection of reductionism (or the underlying physicalism) offer plenty of initially plausible possibilities to account for the qualitative character of our colour experience - whether, for instance, in terms of subjective modes of presentation of objective properties (cf. Shoemaker (1990) and Dorsch (2009), or indeed in terms of some projectivist account (cf. Boghossian and Velleman (1989, 1991)). 51 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 Nor does it seem possible to appeal to other aspects of our behaviour or our discriminatory abilities - over and above the already mentioned qualitative elements of our colour experiences - which cannot be explained other than by reference to the representation of superdeterminables. For instance, we do not in our daily lives individuate or classify objects according to their being either bluish or yellowish. Nor is there to be expected any biological or socio-cultural importance in distinguishing - or being able to distinguish - bluish from yellowish things. The reason for this is that the extension of the superdeterminables includes all hues located on one side of the circle between two opposite unique hues. Accordingly, nearly every other coloured object is experienced as, say, bluish. And, in contrast to hue magnitudes, superdeterminables do not come in grades: an object is either bluish or not. As a result, it is not surprising that coming to know about the instantiation of a certain superdeterminable has not any specific cognitive or behavioural significance for us: this piece of knowledge is just too indiscriminatory. Superdeterminables differ in this respect from more determinate properties - such as being vermilion - which are crucial, for instance, for the differentiation of objects (cf. Thompson (1995): 113). Finally, colours should not simply be identified with the dispositions to produce certain proportions of hue magnitudes, rather than with the different SSR-types. This identification might help to solve the problem of the representation of superdeterminables, since representing the property of having a hue with specific positive percentages of one or two hue magnitudes would involve representing the more general property of having some positive percentage or another of these magnitudes. But it would also render colours too dependent on the nature of the human visual system. Consider the possibility of a future change in which SSR-types give rise in the human mind to which proportions of hue magnitudes. The future humans would still discriminate objects in respect of their different SSR-types, but they might represent these objects as standing in different third-personally accessible similarity or mixture relations.24 For instance, which SSR-types would be correlated to a value of 100 % in a single magnitude might be changed. Following the spirit of the selectionist idea introduced above, the most natural interpretation of this case for a proponent of RNR is that the future subjects still perceive the same colours as we do, but pick up on different qualitative features of them than we do. The underlying selectionist thought is that - just as objects possess infinitely many colours only some of which subjects of a certain type are sensitive to - colours stand in many different similarity 24It is important to note that what is at issue here are not conditions on how colours are subjectively given to us in colour experience, but rather conditions on how colour processing in the brain works. 52 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism and mixture relations to each other only some which those subjects are able to recognise. For there is no good argument to the effect that, from the point of view of RNR, the physical properties identified with colours, which subjects of a certain type are perceptually sensitive to, resemble each other only in one way, or count as unique only in one sense. But in the absence of such an argument, colours should not be identified with the dispositions to produce proportions of hue magnitudes, since this would require without any good reason to understand the future humans as being sensitive to different colours than us, and not merely to different qualitative aspects of the same colours. This preference for SSR-types as colours is reflected by the fact that, while it is essential to colour perception that it involves and requires sensitivity to the intensity of light at different wavelengths, the same is not true of visual processing resulting in the representation of proportions of four hue magnitudes. If the detection of certain properties does not happen by means of sensitivity to light, the properties concerned should not count as colours. But if their recognition does not involve the specification of the relative values for four hue magnitudes (in the same way as in the human mind), this does not suffice to doubt their status as colour properties. Consequently, if colours are to be identified with certain reflectance properties at all, these should be SSR-types, rather than dispositions to produce certain proportions of hue magnitudes. But this also means that RNR cannot properly motivate its claim that our colour experiences represent the superdeterminables in addition to determinate and determinable colour properties. Hence, the experienced similarities and differences in superdeterminables cannot be properly accounted for by the reductive version of naive realism about colours. VI. But the proponents of RNR face a second difficulty in relation to the elucidation of colour resemblance. For similarities and differences between coloured surfaces are not the only instances of hue resemblance that we experience. We also see fluids or gases in glass bottles, volumes of transparent plastic or glass, films, foils and, of course, also light and its sources as coloured. And the respective colour experiences do not only show the same categorial and qualitative aspects as those of coloured surfaces, but also reveal subjective resemblance relations - in particular, cross-substance ones. The hue of Campari looks roughly the same as the hue of a red traffic light, or that of the shirt of Manchester United. And they are all experienced by us as standing in the same similarity and mixture relations with other colour hues, independently of whatever material or non-material substance instantiates them. 53 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 RNR needs to be able to explain subjective cross-substance resemblances as well, in order to count as providing an adequate theory of colours and our firstpersonal experience of them. The obvious problem is that transparent objects or light sources do not - or not merely - reflect light: the transmission and emission of light is of importance as well. Byrne and Hilbert (2003) tackle this issue by introducing productances, which are characterised in terms of how much light leaves a coloured object which is illuminated in a certain way. Accordingly, productances are dispositions of coloured entities to produce a certain proportion of light for each wavelength of the visible spectrum, and relative to the incident light. Different entities produce light in one or more of the three different ways already mentioned: by reflecting or transmitting incident light, or by emitting light themselves. SSRs are a special case of productances, given that they are identical with the productances of objects which do not transmit or emit light. Productances can then be grouped together in types of productances which are - analogously to SSR-types - specified in terms of the integrated sum of intensities in the three bands of the spectrum L, M and S. These types of productances may then be identified with colours, and it may be attempted to trace back the qualitative aspects of colour experience to the representation of productances types in the way suggested with respect to our experiences of surface colours. But apart from the problems already raised with respect to the more special case, the introduction of productances to account for crosssubstance resemblances faces a dilemma concerning the identification of the most determinate colour properties of entities. Surface spectral reflectances are determinations of productances. One way of having a certain productance is to possess a certain SSR. Similarly, SSRtypes are determinations of types of productances. But instantiating a certain SSR-type is not the only way of instantiating a specific type of productances. The latter can also be realised by a suitable combination of a reflectance and a transmission property (e.g., exemplified by a coloured window), or by a suitable combination of a reflectance and an emission property (e.g., exemplified by a working lamp). Types of productances are therefore less determinate than - and not identical to - SSR-types. This raises the issue of which of the two constitute most determinate shades of colour. If it is really the productances which are identified with colours, we get the desired result that the variety of different material or non-material entities listed above can indeed instantiate one and the same colour properties. But, in the case of experiences of surface colours, it remains still true that they are sensitive to and nomologically correlated to SSR-types. The colours that we are experiencing are given to us as surface, volume or illuminant colours. That is, 54 Chapter 1 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism we see the difference between them, despite their shared qualitative features.25 As a consequence, a proponent of RNR should say that our colour experiences represent, and discriminate between, not only the types of productances, but also the more determinate SSR-types. But it then becomes entirely ad hoc to exclude the latter from being colour properties as well: they do not seem to differ in any relevant respect from the former, apart from their determinacy and their restriction to non-transparent and non-emitting surfaces. If, on the other hand, the SSR-types are taken to be the most determinate colour properties of such surfaces, being of a particular hue becomes a disjunctive property. For in the case of volumes, films, light rays and light sources, very different determinants of types of productances - which also involve types or transmission or emission properties - are to be identified with their most specific colours. Moreover, this disjunctiveness of colours turns up again on levels of less determinacy. If having a certain SSR-type is already a way of being coloured, then less specific SSR-types - such as those shared by all vermilion or red objects - are ways of being coloured, too. And the same is true for the respective properties of volumes and illuminants, so that the properties of being, say, vermilion or red become disjunctive as well. That is, there is surface-vermilion, volume-vermilion and illuminant-vermilion. But this is not only in tension with the proposed explanation of cross-substance resemblance, given that one thing to be explained is the fact that different entities can possess exactly the same colour properties, independently of whether they are surfaces, volumes or illuminants. It also goes against our ordinary practice to not draw these distinctions when categorising objects in accordance with their colour properties.26 To conclude, the preceding considerations have suggested that reductive naive realism cannot accommodate two important aspects of our experiences of colours as similar to, or different from, each other. First, it has difficulties to account for subjective resemblances concerning the presence or absence of superdeterminables because it cannot satisfactorily motivate its assumption that our colour experiences represent such superdeterminables. And second, in its attempt to elucidate the cross-substance similarities in hue, it faces the dilemma of either accepting that the most basic properties, which our colour experiences allow us to discriminate, are not colours, or maintaining that, despite appearances, different substances instantiate different sets of colour properties. Both resemblance-related objections cast serious doubt on the truth of RNR. 25The property of being a surface, volume or illuminant colour is thus perhaps better understood as one of the categorical features of colours. 26There may also be more general problems with the assumption of disjunctive properties (cf., e.g., Armstrong (1997): 26ff.). 55 Colour Resemblance and Colour Realism Chapter 1 As a consequence, the two sides of colours and colour experiences turn out to be more separate than perhaps hoped for. On the one side, there is our first-personal access to experienced hue properties and to their categorical and qualitative features. And, on the other side, there is our third-personal access to the nomologically correlated reflectance properties with their types and second-order features. If the arguments presented in this essay are on the right track, then these two sides cannot be reconciled with each other by means of an identification of the two kinds of properties concerned. That is, the second ambition described at the beginning should be given up. This does not mean that the two perspectives have turned out to be incompatible with each other. It just means that they are not concerned with one and the same kind of property. Should we then identify colours with the first-personally or the thirdpersonally accessible properties? The first option amounts to a dismissal of reductionism and, presumably, also of the representational understanding of the link between colour experiences and colours. But what many find problematic about this is the refusal to see the need to identify a place for the qualitative aspects of experience within our scientific picture of the world. The second alternative, on the other hand, constitutes a rejection of naive realism and, therefore, also gives up any hope of being able to live up to the first ambition of taking colour experiences at face value. But this is often taken to be unattractive because it requires the adoption of an error theory about how things seem to us from our subjective perspective.27 Both choices are therefore rather stark. Which is to be preferred, however, needs to be addressed on another occasion.28 27Broackes (1992), Campbell (1993), McDowell (2004) and Allen (2007), for instance, argue for endorsing the first option, while Hardin (1988), Boghossian and Velleman (1989, 1991), Armstrong (1997) and Dorsch (2009) defend the second. I am now less convinced than I was in the past whether the second option is really preferable over the first. 28This paper has been written during a research stay at the University of Berkeley, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. PA00P1-126157). I would like to thank Keith Allen, Luca Angelone, Frank Hofmann, Mark Kalderon and M. G. F. Martin for very helpful discussions, and the anonymous referees of Estetica for their written comments. 56 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations I. It is common both in philosophy and in the cognitive sciences (broadly understood as ranging from, say, neuroscience to developmental or evolutionary psychology) to distinguish between two kinds of hallucinations.1 What differentiates them is whether they are subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions and therefore mistaken by us for the latter. While perceptual (or 'true') hallucinations cannot, from the subject's perspective, be told apart from perceptions, non-perceptual (or 'pseudo') hallucinations can and usually are. Sometimes, when subjects, say, auditorily hallucinate someone else calling their name or commenting on their behaviour, they are able to realise, on the basis of how they subjectively experience their episode of hallucination, that they are not perceiving real speech: their hallucination is non-perceptual. This happens, for instance, when subjects suffering from schizophrenia or other illnesses hear 'inner voices' speaking to them. But in other circumstances, the subjects concerned are even under conditions of proper mental health and rationality in no position to recognise the hallucinatory status of their experience without the help of some external evidence: their hallucination is perceptual. Wrongly hearing the phone ringing while taking a shower, say, is a good example of this kind of hallucination.2 1The expression 'hallucination' is sometimes used, especially in the psychological literature, to refer to what is hallucinated. In my usage, it denotes instead the mental episode of hallucinating. 2See Bentall and Slade (1988): 222, Bentall (1999), and Massoud et al. (2003). Note that, in the latter example, the presence of some auditory stimulus does not undermine the hallucinatory status of the experience of the ringing tone. Not only is this not a case of misperceiving the sound of the running water as the sound of a ringing phone, given that the former is correctly heard. But the existing stimulus is also not of the right kind to count as a relevant object of misperception even if it is actually part of what triggers the hallucinatory experience. Indeed, there are hardly ever situations in which auditory hallucinations are not accompanied by additional auditory perceptions (cf. Bentall and Slade (1988): 23f.), so the 57 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 When philosophers speak or write about hallucinations, they usually concentrate on perceptual hallucinations. One reason for this is the fact that philosophers tend to address the topic of hallucination, not for its own sake, but only in the context of some wider issues. Thus, when they are discussing hallucinations, they are primarily interested in other topics, such a how or whether we are able to acquire knowledge about the external world, in which sense our mental states are directed at objects and properties, how best to account for what our experiences are subjectively like, which features suffice for something to count as a conscious experience, and so on. Especially the epistemic question, but also the connected issues in the philosophy of mind, lead them first of all to the phenomenon of genuine perception. For perceptions are precisely those mental episodes which point us to, and bring us into contact with, the world; and they also constitute the paradigm examples of conscious episodes with a distinctive phenomenal character. Hallucinations, on the other hand, do neither. Instead, they become relevant for the epistemic and related considerations only in so far as they give rise to sceptical scenarios and cast doubt on the common-sense (or naive) conception of the nature of perceptual experiences. And, in both cases, only those hallucinations matter which are indistinguishable from genuine perceptions with respect to their content and character.3 In the cognitive sciences, by contrast, hallucinations are much more prominent objects of study, and moreover objects of study in their own right. From the perspective of empirical investigations of the brain and mind whether they utilise neuroimaging, observe behaviour, or examine verbal reports hallucinations simply form one class of mental phenomena among many. And all these phenomena are ultimately in the same need of being scientifically studied and accounted for as part of our attempt to come to a full understanding of how our psychology works and is neurally realised. Of course, scientists, too, are interested in learning how we manage to cognise reality, or why consciousness arises in the way that it does. And this may as well focus some of their research more on perceptions and perceptual hallucinations than on non-perceptual hallucinations. But scientists are equally interested in coming to understand and to enable the people concerned to cope with the errors, abnormalities and pathologies of our mental lives, to which all types of hallucination belong as different deviations from the norm of genuine perception. The study of hallucinations does not only help us to better grasp how perception normally functions. It also makes an independent contribution to a comprehensive picture of our minds, especially with respect to the psychologabsence of the latter cannot be a condition on the presence of the former. 3Cf., e.g., O'Shaughnessy (2003), Martin (2004, 2006), Siegel (2008), Fish (2009), and chapter 11. 58 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations ically more problematic or puzzling aspects of our mental lives. It is part of this that non-perceptual hallucinations are as much at the centre of scientific inquiry as are their perceptual counterparts.4 This raises the issue of the division of labour between philosophy and the cognitive sciences: what are their specific roles in the investigation of the nature and features of hallucinations? But it also leads to the question of what unifies the two broad kinds of hallucinations: why do we classify them both as hallucinations and distinguish them from other mental phenomena, such as perceptions, imaginings, or memories? This latter issue is especially pressing because of a simple fact about our cognition of the world. When we are trying to get into contact with reality, there is only one way of getting it right namely perception. But there are many ways in which our minds may fail to establish any such perceptual relation to the world.5 Hence, it cannot simply be assumed that all those failures that is, all hallucinations share a distinctive and unifying feature, over and above their lack of a provision of perceptual access to reality. And any characterisation in terms of the latter threatens to remain largely negative and, therefore, not very illuminating. One promising answer to this challenge, which has gained prominence in the recent philosophical debate on perceptual hallucinations and their relevance for a theory of perceptual experiences, is the epistemic conception of perceptual hallucinations.6 According to this view, nothing more can or need be said about perceptual hallucinations than that they are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions, without actually being perceptions. The epistemic and phenomenological element in this conception is the indistinguishability thesis, which concerns the phenomenal characters of the two kinds of episode and corresponds to the specification of perceptual hallucinations offered at the beginning. It is this element which provides the positive characterisation of perceptual hallucinations missing so far: they are precisely those mental episodes which, despite not being perceptions, seem to share their character with perceptions they are given to us in consciousness as if they were perceptions. But the epistemic conception of perceptual hallucination still leaves a lot of work to be done. One reason for this is that it concentrates on the firstpersonal or subjective side of the hallucinations (i.e., their conscious or expe4See, for instance, the references in footnote 7, or the introduction to Massoud et al. (2003). 5Many different sources of hallucinations are discussed in the works referred to in footnote 7. 6Cf. Martin (2004, 2006), Fish (2009), Siegel (2008). The label 'phenomenological conception' would be equally adequate, given that the relevant first-personal indistinguishability concerns our awareness of the phenomenal characters of the experiences concerned (cf. chapter 11). 59 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 riential nature), but largely ignores their third-personal or objective side (i.e., their physical or neurofunctional nature). This means that, even if philosophical theories of perceptual hallucinations are limited to a phenomenological description of our access to the conscious character of these hallucinations, their underlying structure below the level of consciousness is still open to discovery by the cognitive sciences. This structure includes the various ways in which hallucinations may come to be realised by the brain, which psychological abnormalities they are correlated with (if any), how many different types of hallucinations there are as a result, and so on.7 And, despite the modest (or pessimistic) outlook of the epistemic conception, there are also important tasks left for philosophy. On the one hand, there is still the need for a satisfactory phenomenology of the subjective character of perceptions and, relatedly, of the subjectively indistinguishable character of perceptual hallucinations.8 The resulting phenomenological descriptions should also be of interest to the cognitive sciences, especially if they manage to be more systematic, rigorous and detailed than those currently used in cognitive psychology and the related disciplines (cf. the discussion of the latter in section 4 below). On the other hand, philosophy needs to reassess its treatment or rather neglect of non-perceptual hallucinations. The epistemic conception, in particular, cannot be applied to them since they can be subjectively distinguished from perceptions. The existence of non-perceptual hallucinations thus poses a particular challenge to the formulation of a unified philosophical theory of hallucinations especially of a theory which manages to hold on to the phenomenological insights of the epistemic conception of perceptual hallucinations, while also being able to capture non-perceptual ones. My aim in this philosophical essay is to pursue both tasks. Assuming that the epistemic conception is largely right about perceptual hallucinations (cf. chapter 11), I intend, first of all, to provide a detailed description of the subjective character of perceptions and, relatedly, also of the character of perceptual hallucinations. Then, I aim to use this description to identify the distinctive phenomenal similarities between perceptual and non-perceptual hallucinations in order to show that we can positively characterise the latter 7Cf. Jaspers (1996): part III, Bentall and Slade (1988): especially chs. 2 and 5, Bentall (1999), and Sims (1995): ch. 7, for good overviews; and Manford and Andermann (1998), Kölmel (1993), Brasic (1998), Collerton et al. (2005) and ffytche (2008, 2009) for more recent investigations of various kinds of visual hallucinations. 8The term 'phenomenology' is ambiguously used in that it is sometimes meant to refer to the specific phenomenal characters of our mental episodes (e.g., when we speak of the 'phenomenology' of mental agency), and sometimes instead to the phenomenological study and description of those characters. I will follow the latter, more traditional usage (cf. Husserl (1970)). Note also that, although the methods of phenomenology are non-empirical, they should none the less be informed by the results of empirical investigations. 60 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations in mainly phenomenological terms, too. In this way, I hope to render plausible the view that the resulting account allows us to give a general and unified specification of the class of all hallucinations.9 This characterisation will not be entirely phenomenological in nature, since it will also include the negative third-personal specification of hallucinations as not establishing a perceptual relation to the world.10 However, this aspect stays completely silent about the positive characteristics of hallucinations and, moreover, is shared by other non-perceptual mental episodes (such as thoughts, feelings, and so on). So what is doing the main work in the proposed account of hallucinations are the phenomenological considerations about the distinctive way in which we experience them. Phenomenology therefore turns out to be the key element in the philosophical individuation of hallucinations. The task of saying more about their underlying nature should then fall to the cognitive sciences. In the following section, I intend to clarify what perceptual hallucinations are and, in particular, what it means for them to possess a character which is subjectively indistinguishable from that of genuine perceptions. To fill in the details of this characterisation of perceptual hallucinations, the third section presents a detailed (though still incomplete) phenomenological description of how perceptions are given to us in consciousness. The resulting list of phenomenal aspects essential to the character of perceptions is then used, in the fourth section, to specify which features non-perceptual hallucinations have in common with perceptual hallucinations, but not with any other kind of mental episode. These features permit, finally, the formulation of a unified theory of hallucinations, which keeps the spirit of the epistemic conception alive in that its positive characterisation of hallucinations makes reference solely to how we subjectively experience them in comparison to perceptions. 9Berrios and Dening (1996) come to the conclusion that historical, conceptual or behavioural analyses do not suffice to delineate a clear notion of non-perceptual (or pseudo) hallucinations, partly because it is difficult to specify what (perceptual) hallucinations are in the first place. My hope is that phenomenology will do better. And, even assuming that Berrios (1998) is right in that Jaspers is not engaged in Husserlian phenomenology, the observations and insights to be found in Jaspers (1989, 1996) and similar works may still serve as good starting-points for the formulation of adequate phenomenological descriptions of hallucinations (cf. also Cutting (1997)). 10Some proponents of the epistemic conception of perceptions hallucinations argue that the perceptual relation is one of acquaintance with, or manifestation of, parts of the world (cf. Martin (2010) and McDowell (1998a)). This allows them to understand the relationality of perceptions as one aspect or constituent of their phenomenal character (cf. chapter 11), and therefore to insist that their view is completely first-personal. However, it also means that they do not leave much room for science to contribute to an account of the nature of perception. 61 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 II. Perceptual hallucinations are minimally characterised by three basic facts. First of all, they are episodes in the stream of consciousness. This means, in particular, that they have a duration and possess a conscious or phenomenal character.11 The latter what the episodes are subjectively like is notoriously difficult to capture, but it may here suffice to say that it is the most determinate property of the episodes which is accessible from the inside, that is, by consciously experiencing or introspecting the episodes.12 Then, perceptual hallucinations are distinct from perceptions in that they do not establish a perceptual relation between the subject and the world. Views on perception differ on when such a perceptual relation obtains. It is not enough that the world appears to be or is presented as being a certain way. That it seems to us as if there is a green tree does not imply that there is in fact a green tree before us, which we have perceptual access to and which we are in the position to gain knowledge about. Thus, the relation of perceptual access needs to be spelled out differently. Some philosophers claim that it obtains if an object in the environment has caused an experience in the right way (cf., e.g., Searle (1983)). Others require perhaps in addition that the object stands in a certain non-causal relation to the subject (e.g., such that the object becomes a constituent of the perception; cf., e.g., Martin (2010)). This debate need not be settled here. Instead, it suffices to rely on our general grasp of the notion of a perceptual relation as a specific form of knowledgeenabling access to the world pertaining to sensory experience. Hence, what is important to register is that perceptual hallucinations differ from perceptions in not involving this access relation.13 Finally, perceptual hallucinations are as already mentioned subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions. To understand better what this means, it is worthwhile to consider the two very different (though not always easily separable) ways in which we can acquire knowledge about the episodes in our stream of consciousness. One the one hand, we may have access to them from the inside, or from our first-personal perspective. This form of access is restricted to our own mental 11Cf. Macpherson (2010) for approval, and for a critical discussion by reference to Anton's syndrome of the opposing view to be found in Fish (2009). 12Cf. Williamson (1990), Martin (2004) and chapter 11. 13Bentall and Slade (1988): 23 and O'Shaughnessy (2003): 350f. characterise the same difference in terms of the absence of an external stimulus or perceived object. As one referee pointed out to me, their lack of a perceptual relation to the world does not prevent hallucinations to involve other forms of recognition. When hallucinating a friend, for instance, we still correctly identify him or her as our friend and, in this sense, stand in some epistemic relation to him or her or, perhaps more accurately, to his or her appearance. 62 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations episodes. What we thereby acquire knowledge about is their phenomenal or qualitative character that is, what they are subjectively like. We consciously experience (i.e., 'erleben' in the sense of Husserl (1970)) this character during the occurrence of the respective episodes in our stream of consciousness. And we are able, by means of introspection, to notice points of similarity and difference among the phenomenal characters of our various mental episodes. Phenomenology is concerned with the description of these similarities and differences in what our episodes are subjectively like. This involves simply reporting the introspective registration of such similarities and differences (e.g., by just noting that some episodes 'feel' differently from others). But it also involves a detailed and reflective specification of the respects in which our episodes are similar to or different from each other a theoretical reflection which may have to take into account the conclusions of wider philosophical or empirical theories. On the other hand, we may gain knowledge about mental episodes from the outside, or from a third-personal perspective. We may come to learn something about mental episodes by observing and interpreting their expression in behaviour and language, as well as by studying their realisation in the brain and, more generally, in a naturalistically understood world. Apart from our largely unscientific understanding of other people which we show in daily life or in art, these investigations happen as part of the cognitive and related sciences and are typically informed by our wider picture of reality for instance, by metaphysical considerations concerning the relationship between mind and brain, or by evolutionary considerations about the development of either. Our resulting knowledge of mental episodes may concern a large variety of their features, among them their physical or chemical structure, their causal or functional role, and their significance and value for our (mental) lives. Our third-personal access to mental episodes is thereby not limited to the episodes of others (just as it is not restricted to conscious mental states). We can come to know something about our own mental episodes (e.g., that they are hallucinatory) by observing our own behaviour, studying images of our own brain, or simply relying on the reports of others about their observations and studies concerning our mental lives. Now, it is always possible at least in principle to discover the presence or absence of a perceptual relation to the world from a third-personal point of view. For instance, when in doubt about one of our own visual experiences, we may simply try to grasp the object appearing to be before us, or canvass other people whether they can see the same object. Or, in a more sophisticated setting, we may ask a scientist to study our visual system or the relevant environmental conditions. From our own subjective perspective, on the other hand, we are not always 63 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 able to recognise the hallucinatory status of one of our experiences and, as a result, will mistake it for a perception. Sometimes, this happens only because of contingent reasons. We may be too tired or distracted, lack the required sensitivities or concepts, suffer from some relevant impairment or pathological condition, and so on. But this is merely accidental in so far as others in an epistemically better situation - or ourselves in a more suitable moment - would be able to recognise from the inside that the hallucinatory experience in question is not a perception.14 Because of this fact, these experiences do not count as subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions, and therefore not as perceptual hallucinations (but instead as non-perceptual ones). In other cases, however, it is simply impossible for us, or anyone else, to come to know from the inside that a certain experience is distinct from a perception. This impossibility consists in the fact that no human being even the most sensitive, attentive and rational one could, when enjoying our experience, discover its non-perceptual status solely by introspection of, and reflection on, how it is given in consciousness. It is precisely in this sense that perceptual hallucinations are subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions. It is not that we are merely momentarily unable to tell the difference; but rather that we could not under any possible circumstances come to know, from the inside, the former to be distinct from the latter.15 That perceptual hallucinations are subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions in this strong sense entails that the former always have the same motivational and rational impact on our mental lives as the latter. In particular, the hallucinations lead to the same perceptual and introspective judgements and guide us in the same way in action as perceptions do (unless we become third-personally aware of their hallucinatory status). If the perceptual hallucinations were not doing this, we would, after all, be able to recognise this from the inside, and therefore also their distinctness from perceptions (cf. 14Good examples are hallucinations suffered due to specific pathological conditions, which impair the subjects concerned also in their ability to recognise their hallucinations as hallucinations and in such a way that people without these specific conditions would not lack this recognitional ability (cf., say, Victor (1983): 194 on delirium tremens). In section IV, I also briefly discuss the related possibility of subjects failing to identify their hallucinations as perceptual ones, but instead taking them to be non-perceptual hallucinations. 15See Martin (2004, 2006), Siegel (2008) and chapter 11. Note that this conception of subjective indistinguishability does not allow for degrees of insight contrary, say, to Hare's characterisation of the difference between the various kinds of hallucinations (cf. Hare (1973)). The observation that there are differences in the extent to which subjects are, or can become, aware of the hallucinatory status of their experiences, can still be accommodated by the account of hallucinations to be proposed below. The thought is that this awareness is possible only in the case non-perceptual hallucinations; and that its variations in degree can be elucidated in terms of the nature and number of aspects in which they can be distinguished from perceptions and perceptual hallucinations (cf. section IV below). 64 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations Martin (2004)). Moreover, since what is first-personally accessible constitutes the phenomenal character of the mental episodes concerned, the subjective indiscriminability of perceptual hallucinations from genuine perceptions consists in the fact that the former possess a character which we cannot first-personally tell apart from that of the latter.16 Hence, perceptual hallucinations are to be positively characterised in terms of the phenomenal character of perceptions. It is therefore time to consider what is distinctive of this character. III. The phenomenal character of perceptions is complex. It is best described in the light of its similarities and differences with respect to the characters of other mental episodes, notably other kinds of sensory episodes (e.g., of memory or imagining). During my discussion, I will also comment on various specifications of the 'reality characteristics' distinctive of perceptions and perceptual hallucinations, which have been proposed or endorsed by psychologists like Jaspers, Aggaernaes, Bentall and Slade, Sims, and others.17 First of all, perceptions are presentations. More specifically, they present us with concrete objects and their features. What we are perceiving may differ greatly from occasion to occasion, but that we are always perceiving something when we are perceiving is a given. In addition, perceptions present (some of) the objects and their features in a sensory manner. This does not mean that perceptions may not in addition involve, or be accompanied by, thoughts or other intellectual representations; but only that they primarily present things in a sensory manner. The phenomenologically salient fact that perceptions are sensory presentations distinguishes them from intellectual and other nonsensory episodes, such as judgemental thoughts or feelings of longing. And it corresponds to the first on Aggernaes' list of reality characteristics, namely that of showing a quality of 'sensation' rather than 'ideation'. Then, perceptions are characterised by what may be called a sense of reality. This means, very roughly, that their phenomenal character marks them as perceptions that is, as sensory presentations which establish a knowledgeenabling relation between us and specific parts of the world. This sense of reality is rather complex and involves at least eight different phenomenal aspects, the first five of which concern the status of the experienced object, and 16But it stays neutral on whether the two kinds of experience share some or all of their phenomenal aspects. I return to this issue in the last section. 17Cf. Jaspers (1989): especially 252ff., Jaspers (1996): especially part I, ch. 1, sect. 1, Aggernaes (1978), Bentall and Slade (1988): especially ch. 1., Sims (1995): ch. 7, Qarrett and Silva (2003), and Massoud et al. (2003). 65 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 the last three the relationship between the experiences and their objects. (i) Particularity. The experienced objects appear to possess particularity, that is, a determinate numerical identity. This means that each of them appears to be a particular concrete object namely this object rather than that one and not merely some concrete object or another. Without this aspect, perceptions would not enable us to demonstratively refer to specific objects in our environment. In contrast, when we are visualising an apple, it may be impossible to say or even may make no sense to ask which particular apple we are imagining (cf. Martin (2001)). In analogy to the difference between pictures of particular men (i.e., portraits) and pictures of types or kinds of men (cf. Wollheim (1998): sect. 7), this difference may perhaps also be described in terms of the distinction between the perceptual presentation of a token object and the imaginative presentation of a type of concrete object. (ii) Locatedness. The phenomenal aspect of particularity is in part grounded in an appearance of specific spatio-temporal location. When we are perceiving an object, it appears to be at a particular location in time and (if applicable) also in space.18 This already suffices to fix the numerical identity of the object and allow for demonstrative reference to it. When we are visualising an object, by contrast, we need not visualise it as being at a particular point in time or space, although we are visualising it as being a concrete object and thus as being located somewhere in some possibly non-real time and space (cf. Sartre (2004)). That is, our image may stay neutral on the specific spatio-temporal relations in which it stands to other imagined or perceived entities. If we are visualising a tree and a house, there may be no answer to the question of which of them is older, or how distant they are from each other. (iii) Existence. The experienced objects appear to exist as part of the actual or real world. In particular, they do not seem to be merely possible or fictional objects. And we consequently treat them in our interactions with them as parts of reality. Again, visualised objects do not show this quality of existence (cf. Sartre (2004)). (iv) Presence. This appearance of actual or real existence is closely related to the fact that the perceived objects appear to be temporally and, if applicable, also spatially present. For one way for a concrete object to appear to exist is for it to appear to be present in our spatio-temporal environment. When we 18Jaspers combines this phenomenal aspect with those of existence and mind-independence (cf. below) when taking seen objects to appear as located in objective outer space (cf. Jaspers (1996): 59f.). 66 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations are seeing or touching a table, it seems to be there before us. And when we are hearing a sound, it seems to occur at the same time as our experience of it, and perhaps also as being located or originating in our (close) spatial environment. In contrast, when we are sensorily remembering an event, it appears to be past. And when we are visualising a person, she does not appear to be present in our space and time at all (unless we are actually thinking of her as existing in the same space and at the same time as us). Japsers' description of the object appearing to be there substantially ('leibhaftig') before us picks out this appearance of presence. But it also points to the seeming existence of the object and at least in one possible reading to the apparent threedimensionality and therefore spatial locatedness of the object. (v) Mind-independence. The perceived objects appear to be mind-independent (or objective) that is, to exist independently of our current perception of them (cf. McDowell (1998d)). This is why we are not surprised to find out that the objects continue to be there even after we have turned our eyes away from them; or that others have access to them as well. After-images do not show this feature. When we are having them, the experienced patch of colour appears to be distinct from our experience, but it does not seem to exist independently of our particular experience of it. We cannot return to it and observe it further after our experience has ceased; and we cannot show it to other people. Aggernaes (1978) characterises this appearance of mind-independence in terms of an impression of 'existence'. This terminology suggests that he wants to stress the fact that, if an object appears to be independent of being experienced, it in fact appears to exist independently of being experienced. But the two phenomenal aspects involved should none the less be kept apart, given that a sense of existence can occur without an impression of mind-independence (e.g., when our feeling of love endows a certain person with a special beauty and value). 19 (vi) Determination. The experienced objects appear to be immediately given to us: we seem to be in direct contact with them. Less metaphorically, this means that the objects appear to determine or constitute the phenomenal character of our perceptions of them. In particular, they appear to determine 19Aggernaes also assumes that we take perceived objects to be 'public' in the sense that other people may share our kind of experience of them. Being 'public' in this sense is clearly a consequence of being mind-independent (given that human beings do not differ much in their perceptual capacities). And it is true that 'hallucinating patients may accept that their experiences are not shared by others around them in the same way as a normal sensory experience' (Semple et al. (2005): 51). But it is doubtful that this awareness of a lack of 'publicness' really pertains to the phenomenal character of our respective sensory experiences, rather than merely part of our 'accepting' thoughts about or attitudes towards those experiences. 67 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 which properties they are perceptually presented as having (cf. Martin (2010)). This appearance of determination presupposes the appearances of distinctness, particularity (as well as concreteness) and actual existence. And it explains why we are assuming certain conditions to hold of the respective experiences and their objects. In the case of perceptions, the assumed condition is that our perceptual experience would change or cease to exist, if the object were to change or cease to exist. And in the case of an episode of sensory memory, the assumed condition is that our mnemonic experience would have been different or not come into existence, if the object as well as our past perception of it would have been different or would not have existed. However, we do not make similar assumptions about our episodes of visualising and their objects. (vii) Relationality. The four phenomenal aspects of distinctness, particularity, existence and determination ensure that we also experience our perceptions as relating us directly to or as bringing us into immediate contact with aspects of the world. That is, they constitute an appearance of relationality which concerns our experience as much as its object. Our perceptions seem to relate us directly to the world in so far as they present us with distinct and particular objects which appear to exist and to determine our experience of them. This appearance of relationality can be further specified. It is part of the appearance of the determination link that we experience our perceptions as dependent for their character on their objects. The appearance of relationality is thus an appearance of object-dependence. And together with the appearance of mind-independence, we get the complex phenomenal fact that we experience our perceptions as establishing a relation to mind-independent aspects of reality.20 (viii) Epistemic commitment. The appearance of being related to a distinct, particular and actually existing mind-independent object is also at the heart of another complex phenomenal aspect, namely that of being epistemically committed to how things really are. The idea is that, if it seems to us that there is actually a mind-independent object which determines our experience of it and, notably, which perceivable features it appears to have as part of that experience, the experience becomes non-neutral with respect to the real world: it involves a claim about how things really are. The phenomenological salience of such an epistemic commitment regarding the world explains why we take perceptions as well as episodic memories who share this phenomenal aspect to provide us with support for respective perceptual or mnemonic beliefs. That 20Cf. Martin (2010) for a similar description, and the chapters 13 and 11 for an account of the experiential error involved in hallucinations which present themselves to be relational perceptions. 68 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations is, we rely on them when forming a view on the objects in our present or past environment because they present themselves as being about, as determined by and as relating us to our mind-indepenent surroundings, whether in the present or the past.21 By contrast, instances of visualising lack this appearance of commitment precisely because their objects are not given to us as actually existing and as being of this or that particular identity; and also because they hence do not appear to bring us into contact with reality. This is why we normally do not trust our episodes of visualising when forming beliefs. The phenomenologically salient relationality of perceptions is therefore not only a matter of object-dependence, but also of epistemic access. Finally, the phenomenal character of perceptions includes two fairly independent aspects which characterise the ontological status of these experiences. (ix) Persistence. Our perceptions appear to be in no need of sustainment, especially not active sustaintment on our own behalf. In Jaspers' terms, they are 'constant' and easily retained (cf. Jaspers (1996): 59f.). As a consequence, these experiences do not have a fleeting or unsteady character, but instead show a certain kind of stability. It is true that non-persistent episodes typically disappear or change rather quickly after their occurrence. None the less, the phenomenal aspect of persistence should not contrary to what seems to be suggested sometimes (cf., e.g., Semple et al. (2005): 93) be understood in terms of an extended temporal duration or a lack of alteration. For perceptual experiences can change rapidly or be very short-lived as well. Instead, what matters is the appearance of a continual sustainment during the whole occurrence of the experiences. The images involved in acts of visualising and milder forms of hypnagogic imagery differ in this respect. The phenomenal character of the first reflects the fact that they would disappear if we would stop actively keeping them in existence (cf Jaspers (1996): 59f.). And that of the second indicates that they are not upheld by a stable causal or psychological force (cf. Mavromatis (1986): ch. 3). (x) Involuntariness. The appearances of existence, mind-independence and 21Bentall and Slade describe this aspect as 'the full force or impact of [...] actual (real) perception' (Bentall and Slade (1988): 23). This comes also very close to Hume's characterisation of the vivacity of perceptions, memories and judgements in terms of their sense of reality and epistemic role: their vivacity 'renders realities more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. [...] It gives them more force and influence; makes them appear of greater importance; infixes them in the mind; and renders them the governing principles of all our actions' (Hume (2007): paragraph 1.3.7.7). 69 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 determination come with an appearance of involuntariness. Our perceptions appear to be determined by their objects. And these objects appear again to exist independently of our experiences of them. Hence, the latter appear to be determined by something which is independent of our respective state of mind, including our will. And such an impression of determination is an impression of involuntary determination. In contrast, acts of visualising lack the appearance of a determination by the experienced object. Instead, they seem to be the product of our concurrent intentions (or similar guiding episodes) and therefore involve an appearance of voluntary occurrence and determination (cf. chapter 5). Now, this appearance of voluntariness may come in several independent and complimentary guises.22 Basically, it may concern the origin of the experiences concerned, or their sustainment, or their extinction. That these three aspects can go apart is illustrated by spontaneously occurring images, that would disappear soon after their occurrence, if we had not begun to actively sustain and control them; or by unbidden images which we can deliberately alter or banish (cf. Mavromatis (1986): 71ff. for hypnagogic examples of both cases). The resulting sensory experiences involve an impression of an involuntariness (e.g., of origin and/or sustainment), but also a sense of active control (e.g., concerning sustainment and/or extinction). Perceptual experiences, on the other hand, seem to be involuntary through and through. Not all phenomenal aspects, which perceptions may show, are relevant for the characterisation of their distinctive character. In some cases, the reason for this is that they do not strictly distinguish these experiences from other kinds of sensory presentation. For example, although perceptions are typically clearer, more vivid and more determinate in outline than sensory memories, imaginings, non-perceptual hallucinations, and so on (cf. Jaspers (1996): 59f.), this need not always be so. Perceptions in the dark may be less vivid than instances of the latter.23 The same is perhaps true of Aggernaes' proposal to treat the behavioural impact of an experience as an indicator of its sense of reality (cf. Aggernaes (1978)) namely if it is understood as saying that perceptions determine our actions to a larger extent than non-perceptual hallucinations or sensory imaginings. For a very disturbing non-perceptual hallucination may move us much more strongly to act (e.g, to try do something to get rid of it) than the perception of, say, a book lying on the table. Perhaps the proposal is 22Jaspers (1996) and Aggernaes (1978) also note the phenomenologically salient involuntariness of perceptions and perceptual hallucinations, but do not explicitly distinguish its independent aspects. 23Good examples are the hallucinations involved in Charles Bonnet syndrome, as noted by Teunisse et al. (1996) and Macpherson (2010): 13); or the visual hallucination linked to histrionic personality disorder and described in Sims (1995): 110. 70 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations meant to be limited to our interactions with the experienced objects: while perceptions guide us when, say, picking up objects, non-perceptual hallucinations do not. However, in this case, the proposal simply reduces to a postulation of a difference in epistemic commitment and its practical consequences. Other aspects are irrelevant because they do not pertain to the phenomenal character of perceptions or similar episodes, but rather to our additional thoughts about or attitudes towards them (cf. Jaspers (1989): 198ff., and Bentall (1999)). Aggernaes (1978) provides again two good examples. One is what he calls 'independence' namely that it is a mark of their link to reality that we do not take perceptions and perception-like states to be the product of unusual states of mind; while we tend to take non-perceptual hallucinations to be induced by such abnormal states, such as drugs or some psychosis. However, this difference is a matter of our beliefs about the respective experiences and their context (e.g., our awareness of having taken a drug or suffering from a psychosis), rather than a matter of our subjective experience of the sensory episode concerned. Similarly, Aggernaes claims that it is a sign of reality if an object appears to be experiencable in more than one sense modality (i.e., if it appears to be 'objective' in his terminology). However, perceived sounds and colours do not appear to us to be less objective or real than shapes. It is true that features of objects, which are perceivable in more than one sense modality, can be characterised independently of our experiences of them (e.g., roundness consists in the equal distance of all parts of the surface from a given point). But that we take such features to be specifiable without reference to our experiences of them is not as part of the latter, but instead of our beliefs about these features and our experiences of them (cf. McDowell (1998d)). IV. According to the epistemic conception of perceptual hallucinations, they are positively characterised by their subjective indistinguishability from genuine perceptions. This means, in the light of the preceding considerations, that it is distinctive of them that they possess a phenomenal character which is, from the inside, indiscriminable from a character that shows the various aspects listed in the last section (plus any other aspects essential to perceptions) notably the sensory presentation of objects and features, the sense of reality and the impression of persistence and involuntariness. This subjective likeness is reflected in the fact that we treat our perceptual hallucinations in the same way in which we treat our perceptions. In particular, we rely on them in our interaction with the world, unless we acquire evidence about their hallucinatory status. None the less, it is also part of the epistemic conception that perceptual 71 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 hallucinations still differ from perceptions in their third-personally accessible lack of perceptual relationality. In fact, this lack of relationality, together with their subjective indistinguishability from perceptions, suffices to distinguish perceptual hallucinations from all other mental phenomena. Episodes of sensory memory, for instance, lack the appearance of presence involved in perceptions and instead show an impression of pastness; while episodes of sensory imagining lack the appearances of particularity, existence (as well as presence), determination and involuntariness, and hence also the appearance of relationality and the phenomenologically salient epistemic commitment. As a result, sensory memories and imaginings do not possess the property of being subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions and differ in this respect from perceptual hallucinations. But, as already mentioned at the beginning, the epistemic conception of perceptual hallucinations cannot be extended to non-perceptual hallucinations. For although the latter satisfy the condition of third-personal non-relationality, they do not fulfil the requirement of first-personal indiscriminability from perceptions: they are precisely those hallucinations which can be subjectively differentiated from perceptions. Non-perceptual hallucinations therefore pose a challenge to the attempt to account for the unity of hallucinations exclusively in terms of the absence of relationality and the presence of a certain kind of phenomenal character. But this challenge can be met if it is possible to identify aspects which are shared by the characters of the two kinds of hallucination, but not by the characters of memories, thoughts, imaginings and all other non-relational episodes. For it should then be possible to characterise hallucinations in terms of those phenomenal aspects, as well as the absence of a perceptual relation to the world. It might be asked, however, whether it is possible to simply deny that there can be any non-perceptual hallucinations. It is not implausible to argue that many or even all mental illnesses or pathologies, which give rise to hallucinations, also undermine our ability to correctly recognise them (as well as other mental episodes) from the inside for what they are. But this may open up the possibility of an alternative explanation of why subjects seem to notice a subjective difference between some of their hallucinations and perceptions. The idea is to say that this appearance is due, not to a difference in character, but instead to the subjects' inability to recognise a sameness in character. Accordingly, there is no need any more to assume in these cases the presence of non-perceptual hallucinations in order to explain why these subjects have the impression of having some. And perhaps, the reasoning goes, this explanation may be generalised such as to cover all situations in which someone seems to suffer a non-perceptual hallucination.24 24I am grateful to one of the referees for drawing my attention to this possibility of a 72 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations While there may very well be cases in which subjects mistake perceptual hallucinations for non-perceptual ones, the more general proposal faces the difficulty to completely rule out the possibility of non-perceptual hallucinations. This problem becomes particularly pressing with respect to mentally healthy and rational subjects who are capable of correctly individuating their mental episodes by attending to the subjective character of the latter. What needs to be shown is that such subjects cannot, for some systematic reason, enjoy experiences that subjectively seem to them to be non-perceptual hallucinations, rather than episodes of perception, memory or imagination. It appears that the only plausible way of arguing to this effect would be to back up the claim that none of our individual capacities to subjectively distinguish episodes in respect of one of the phenomenal aspects essential to perceptions could occur without the others. But there is no reason to asumme that this claim can be properly supported. For instance, the sensory presentation of a particular object does not require its presentation as determinately located or as existing mind-independently.25 Hence, some of the phenomenal aspects of perceptions are independent of each other and, therefore, need not all be present or absent in how we experience a persistent and involuntary episode of sensory presentation. But this means, precisely, that non-perceptual hallucinations may occur. So what are the subjective aspects which are distinctive of both perceptual and non-perceptual hallucinations? They have in common that they are given to us as sensory presentations of concrete objects and their features. But nonperceptual hallucinations differ first-personally from perceptions at least to some considerable extent in respect of the latter's appearance of relationality and phenomenologically salient epistemic commitment. This means that we do not experience the former as bringing us into contact with reality in the same direct and epistemically non-neutral way as perceptions. The qualification is needed to deal with cases in which the sense of reality seems to be diminished such as to give rise to doubts about the actual presence or mind-independence of what we are experiencing but not completely lacking (cf. Jaspers (1996): 60 and Fish (1967): 19). It is characteristic of such cases that the subjects metacognitive account of all non-perceptual hallucinations. Note that the following objection to this idea does not undermine its satisfactory application to some sub-set of the class of non-perceptual hallucinations, notably pathological ones (cf. Bentall (1999) for further discussion). 25Episodes of visualising, which remain vague about the exact location and dimension of a spatially extended object are not the only good examples. In the already mentioned case of histrionic personal disorder, the patient hallucinated, in a rather vivid manner, a person as seemingly standing at her bed, but was unable to spatially locate that person in a determinate fashion in relation to her perceived real environment: 'when she tried to relate the figure in space to the background of her field of vision, in this case the walls and curtains of the room, she realized that she could not do so, it had no definite location in outer space, that is outside of her' (Sims (1995): 110). 73 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 concerned are not sure to which extent their experience relates them to reality and commits them epistemically, although they have the impression that neither aspect is completely missing from their experience. Non-perceptual hallucinations may show a diminished sense of reality, say, if they differ from perceptions by appearing to lack some, but not all, of the phenomenal aspects involved in the complex impression of being in direct epistemic contact with the mind-independent world.26 In particular, while some of their phenomenal aspects may contribute to the establishment of an appearance of access to reality, others may again help to undermine this impression possibly resulting in uncertainty about the relationality and the epistemic significance of the experience. To the extent to which non-perceptual hallucinations are subjectively discriminable from perceptions, they can also be first-personally distinguished from perceptual hallucinations. These subjective differentiations may concern all or only some of the eight (or more) aspects that constitute the sense of reality involved in perceiving something. And which aspects are relevant may differ from case to case with the limitation that some aspects presuppose others (e.g., locatedness comes with particularity). One consequence of these considerations is that none of these aspects can figure in an account of the phenomenal commonalities between the two kinds of hallucination. For there can be non-perceptual hallucinations which subjectively seem to lack all of them. Another consequence is that non-perceptual hallucinations may differ from perceptual ones in various ways, and to a smaller or a larger extent. This allows for a categorisation of non-perceptual hallucinations into different groups. Some may seem, for instance, as if they present us with particular, but not determinately located objects; others may instead appear to relate us to existing, but mind-dependent entities; and so on (cf. the possibility of a diminished sense of reality discussed above). In addition to perceptual hallucinations, we may thus distinguish several types of non-perceptual ones. These considerations do not suffice yet to distinguish non-perceptual hallucinations from all other kinds of mental episodes. For there are some nonhallucinatory sensory episodes which present us with concrete objects, without thereby purporting to relate us to aspects of reality. Acts of visualising and other instances of sensory imagining are good examples. But they are examples of conscious mental agency and, as such, involve an experience of voluntariness (cf. chapter 5). That is, visualised objects appear to be determined by and responsive to what we want them to be like as part of visualising them. It is in this respect that acts of visualising differ first-personally from perceptions and from non-perceptual hallucinations (cf. Bentall and Slade (1988): 19). However, there are also many sensory presentations that both lack a sense 26See, again, the example in footnote 25. 74 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations of reality and are completely involuntary for instance, hypnagogic and other spontaneously occurring images. Some theorists show the tendency to treat most, if not all, of them as hallucinatory (cf., e.g., Cheyne (2009)). But many of these images are merely transitional and unstable in character that is, they lack the impression of persistence. This has moved other theorists to take solely the more steady and stable involuntary images to be hallucinations (cf. Mavromatis (1986): 77ff.). My proposal is to follow the second line and to understand non-perceptual hallucinations as precisely those sensory presentations which do not relate us to the world, and the phenomenal character of which is subjectively indistinguishable from a character that marks its bearers as unbidden, persistent and partly or fully lacking a sense of reality. One motivation for this choice is simply that it gives more unity to the class of hallucinations, since all its perception-like members involve an impression of persistence as well. But it also pays more justice to the basicness of the division between persistent and non-persistent mental episodes. Mental episodes involve an impression of persistence either because they are forced upon us by the world (including our body) or the epistemic or practical reasons available to us, or because we actively sustain them by means of imagining. In both cases, their occurrence is in line with their functional role in our mental lives. Only in unusual or pathological cases do they deviate from this role and stay in existence due to other, merely causal factors.27 By contrast, fleeting or unsteady episodes do not seem to have any specific function in our minds or to involve any comparable distinction between 'good' and 'bad' instances. This difference is reflected by the fact that we do not pay very much attention to them, while taking our persisting episodes very serious. We rely on the latter in belief and action when everything seems to work fine, and start to question or worry about them when something seems to have gone wrong. Neither is typically true in the case of the former.28 Since hallucinations are conceived of as unsuccessful counterparts to successful perceptions, this line of thought is reason enough to maintain that hallucinations occur only at the level of persistent episodes. Below that level, there is simply no comparable contrast to be drawn. It is in accordance with this that we do take our hallucinations serious. For instance, we do rely on them if we mistake them for perceptions, and we are concerned about their occurrence if not. The aspects of involuntariness and persistence, which hallucinations seem to share with each other and with perceptions, are therefore sufficient to distinguish the former from other non-perceptual sensory presen27See the respective discussion of the different ways in which judgemental thoughts may come into existence in (cf. chapter 5). 28It is interesting to ask whether episodes play an important role in our lives because they are persisting, or whether they instead are persisting because they are significant for us. 75 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 tations. Perhaps, this means that hallucinations always involve at least a minimal sense of reality. For it might turn out that an impression of persistence is possible only in connection with the seeming presence of some of the aspects constitutive of the full appearance of a link and commitment to reality. And this might already suffice for a minimal sense of reality. But this conjecture requires further phenomenological investigations. V. In the light of the preceding considerations, it is now possible to delineate the class of hallucinations. A mental episode is a hallucination just in case it satisifies three conditions: (a) it subjectively seems to be a sensory presentation of one or more concrete objects as being a certain way; (b) it involves a phenomenal impression both of both persistence and of involuntariness in origin and sustainment; and (c) it does not perceptually relate us to parts of the world, even if it may seem so (i.e., even if it may involve a sense of reality).29 The resulting characterisation of hallucinations is largely phenomenological in so far as the conditions (a) and (b) concern the phenomenal character of hallucinations and the non-phenomenological condition (c) is purely negative, that is, does not say anything positive about what hallucinations in fact are. Similarly, the sub-divisions among hallucinations can also be spelled out in primarily phenomenological terms. Perceptual hallucinations differ from non-percep-tual ones in their involvement of a full sense of reality, which makes them first-personally indistinguishable from perceptions. Perceptual hallucinations concerning the present state of reality differ from hallucinatory episodes of sensory memory in their impression of presence, rather than pastness. And there may be various types of non-perceptual hallucinations, depending on the identity and number of the aspects in which they are subjevtively like perceptions and perceptual hallucinations. It is interesting to note that perceptual hallucinations are phenomenologically closer to perceptions than to non-perceptual hallucinations (e.g., the latter do not belong to the class of perceptual experiences made up by the former). However, that it is distinctive of perceptual hallucinations that they possess a character which is subjectively indistinguishable from a perceptual character does not undermine their hallucinatory status. They still count as hallucinations because of their lack of third-personal relationality and their subjective similarities with 29What about mental episodes which satisfy all three conditions, but which despite appearances are not really persistent sensory presentations, or not really involuntary in their occurrence or their continuing existence? My suggestion is that they should still count as hallucinations, given that the first-personal character matters more for our categorisation of sensory episodes than their third-personal structure. 76 Chapter 2 The Unity of Hallucinations non-perceptual hallucinations. The suggestion has been that the character of hallucinations is subjectively indistinguishable from the character of perceptions in at least some respects namely sensory presentation, involuntariness, persistence, and possibly also sense of reality. Does this mean that the character of the former shares the respective phenomenal aspects with the latter? This is not necessary. In particular, the subjective indistinguishability of perceptual hallucinations need not be due to a sameness in character, but may instead stem from certain nonpathological limitations to our first-personal discriminatory abilities.30 But the respective debate has been silent on the aspects of involuntariness and persistence. And it seems difficult to deny that the fact that hallucinations subjectively seem to be involunantary and persistent that is, are first-personally indistinguishable in this respect from perceptions originates in the subjectively accessible fact that they are involuntary and persistent. After all, we cannot influence our hallucinations in the same deliberate way in which we can alter what we are imagining (cf. chapter 5); and our hallucinations enjoy continual sustainment without the need for active help on our behalf. So that we take hallucinations to be involuntary and persistent should be understood in terms of the phenomenological salience of the respective aspects of their nature. The situation is less clear with respect to the other phenomenal aspects in relation to which hallucinations may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Perhaps hallucinations are not really subjective presentations of mind-independent objects or of any objects at all, despite first-personally seeming to be so. But, on the other hand, perhaps they are subjectively similar to perceptions in the relevant respects precisely because their character does show the presentational aspects essential to the character of perceptions. What seems ultimately at issue here is whether the first-personal presentation of objects should be understood in relational or in intentional terms, and also whether two subjectively indistinguishable characters of distinct episodes can, under certain circumstances, be assumed to be the same, or at least to share all their first-personally discriminable aspects. These questions cannot be properly addressed here.31 But two things are worthwhile to note in relation to 30The constraints on our ability to individuate our own mental episodes from the inside may be due to simple factors such as the temporal distance between the experiences concerned, our unfamiliarity with them, or other contextual reasons (cf. Williamson (1990)). 31Martin (2004, 2006) and McDowell (1998a) argue that there is no good reason to assume a sameness in character, but good reasons against it. Hence, according to their views, perceptual hallucinations merely seem to sensorily present us with objects and to merely seem to provide us with access to reality, while in reality doing neither. In chapter 11, I argue in favour of the sameness of character between perceptions and perceptual hallucinations and, on this basis, put forward an account of perceptual hallucinations, that promises to 77 The Unity of Hallucinations Chapter 2 them. First, the argument above for the possibility of non-perceptual hallucinations in terms of the independence of some of the phenomenal aspects characteristic of perceptions may also be understood as an argument for their possession by non-perceptual hallucinations. After all, we have not yet found any reason to doubt that there can be experiences with only some of these aspects, and also that we can correctly recognise their character when attending to it from the inside. And second, the assumption that hallucinations may share some or even all of their phenomenal aspects with perceptions does not go against the central tenet of the epistemic approach to hallucinations. It is true that this assumption has the consequence that the subjective indistinguishability is to be further elucidated in terms of the possession of a certain phenomenal character. But it is also still the case that, once it is so spelled out how hallucinations are given in consciousness in comparison to perceptions, philosophy has nothing more to contribute to the issue of what defines and unifies hallucinations. I have not explicitly argued here for the idea that philosophy's contribution to the study of hallucinations is limited mainly to the discussed and similar phenomenological considerations.32 But it has hopefully become clear that the latter provide at least the ground for our first-personal categorisations of sensory episodes into perceptions, hallucinations, and so on, and bring us much closer to the discovery of their respective subjective (or phenomenal) natures. By contrast, it is the task of the cognitive sciences to distinguish the various third-personally individuated kinds of perceptual and non-perceptual hallucinations and to discover their different objective (or physical) natures.33 avoid many of the objections by distinguishing two kinds of first-personal access and by incorporating the disjunctivist idea that the two kinds of experience still differ in their third-personal natures. 32See chapter 11 for a defense of this idea. Martin (2004, 2006) goes even further in arguing that non-philosophical forms of inquiry cannot disclose anything (more) about the nature of perceptual hallucinations. But his underlying assumption is that the nature of experiences is exhausted by what they are subjectively like. That is, he does not allow for a distinction between their first-personal (or mental) and their third-personal (or physical) natures (cf. above and the discussion in chapter 11). 33I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their very good and constructive comments, and the editors of this volume for their help and support. Part of this material has been presented at a McDowell workshop at the University of Fribourg, and I am very grateful to the members of the audience - notably John McDowell and Gianfranco Soldati - for an encouraging and insightful discussion. 78 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation I. Introduction Engaging in philosophical aesthetics means, to a considerable extent, also engaging in other and, in some sense, more fundamental disciplines of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology or the philosophy of mind.1 Which ontological category paintings, novels or performances of music belong to should be influenced by considerations about their status as artworks and about our aesthetic experiences of them. But it is, ultimately, a metaphysical question, to be answered before the background of a well-developed metaphysical theory. The same is true of, say, pictorial experience or our emotional or imaginative responses to fiction. Without a proper theory of visual experience, emotion or imagination, it is not possible to fully account for the former. In so far as empirical investigations are relevant for certain issues in metaphysics, epistemology or the philosophy of mind, they are also relevant for the respective parts of aesthetics which contain those issues. The relevance is perhaps not the same since additional 'aesthetic considerations' - that is, considerations distinctive of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline - may heighten or weaken the importance of the empirical results concerned. But even if the latter turn out to be irrelevant in certain cases, this fact needs to be established by aesthetics. Hence, if (and this antecendent is by no means obviously satisfied) certain empirical studies or insights are indeed relevant for a satisfactory theory of a certain mental phenomenon, then aesthetics should take them into account when it is concerned with those mental phenomena. 1It is interesting to ask whether there is also a general philosophy of normativity (e.g., of norms, reasons and values), which should then be included in this list. I am inclinded to a positive answer, but such a general approach to normative phenomena has not really fully established itself yet - most debates focus on particular kinds of normative features, such epistemic or moral ones. 79 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 Accordingly, it is to be expected that philosophers interested, say, in pictorial experience should not only engage in philosophy of mind and, especially, philosophy of perception, but also have at least a serious look at what cognitive psychology has to say (or not to say) about this kind of experience. The question of whether empirical research is relevant for aesthetics, however, reduces in such cases largely to the question of whether it is relevant for the more basic philosophical discipline. The topic of aesthetic value and of aesthetic evaluation seems to be different. At least, there is no well-established philosophy of normativity - that is, of norms, reasons and values in general, independently of particular types of them - which the debate about this topic should or could refer to. Hence, even if the issue of whether empirical findings are relevant for aesthetic evaluation is in fact just a special case of the more general issue of whether such findings are relevant for evaluation (or at least objective evaluation), we may for the time being address it more directly, that is, from within aesthetics. Another, and perhaps related, difference is that, while phenomena like repeatable artefacts, pictorial experience or psychological engagement with stories are not distinctively aesthetic, aesthetic evaluation is. We may be confronted with abstract individuals, experience pictures or respond to stories in non-aesthetic contexts. Laws and sounds possess arguably the same ontological status as novels or pieces of music (Thomasson (1999)), but typically not the same aesthetic status. We experience traffic or emergency exit signs as depictions, without the resulting experience counting as an aesthetic experience. And something similar is perhaps also true of the emotional and imaginative engagement of members of a nation with some nation-defining myth (e.g., that of Wilhelm Tell). But the (seeming) recognition of the aesthetic value of something already suffices to establish an aesthetic context.2 In this essay, I intend to concentrate on the issue to which extent the results of empirical investigations may be relevant for aesthetic evaluation. The latter figures in aesthetics in at least two different ways. It may be the topic of investigation, or it may instead be the aim of investigation. In the first case, we are concerned with philosophical aesthetics and, more precisely, the philosophical debate about how best to account for aesthetic value and aesthetic appreciation. In the second case, we are concerned with critical aesthetics and, more precisely, the aesthetic assessment of a particular object or type of object. Philosophy and criticism do not differ merely in the generality of what they are about (e.g., all vs. some instances of aesthetic value). They also differ in how they approach the issue of aesthetic evaluation - in whether they investigate the nature of aesthetic value or, alternatively, the aesthetic 2This indicates that what ultimately delineates the subject area of aesthetics is aesthetic value - just as what delineates the subject area of moral philosophy is moral value. 80 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation nature of objects. Empirical findings may be relevant for one or both forms of aesthetics; and they may be relevant for them in different ways. Within criticism, they may influence how we assess particular objects, or types of objects; and whithin philosophy, they may influence which account of aesthetic value and evaluation we prefer. My concern is with their relevance for the respective goals of aesthetics - that is, to which extent (if any) they should influence which account of aesthetic value and evaluation we prefer, and which aesthetic values we ascribe to particular (types of) entities. That they sometimes do influence our philosophical or critical activities is probably a truism, and not a particularly interesting one, for that matter. But whether they should do so is controversial and, moreover, very important for the development of our philosophical and critical practices. Philosophers who ask whether empirical findings are relevant for the aesthetic assessment of objects are typically not concerned with the issue of whether our personal experiences of the works are relevant. Something similar is true, say, of art-historical or scientific studies limited to the particular artworks (like the dating of a painting, or X-ray pictures of it). Instead, the focus of attention is normally on more general and systematic scientific investigations - for instance, concerning the evolution of artistic practices or our psychological reactions to art. However - with the possible exception of our engagement with conceptual art or, more generally, ideas and theories - both our aesthetic experiences of artworks and our art-historical studies are clearly empirical in nature. That is, they are empirical - and not apriori - sources of knowledge. I briefly return to this aspect of aesthetic experience at the end of this essay. Until then, I partly follow tradition in restricting my discussion to empirical findings in a narrower sense, which excludes our own perceptionand sensation-based experiences, but includes concrete art-historical and scientific knowledge about particular artworks. II. Critical Aesthetics Critical aesthetics is concerned with the aesthetic assessment of particular objects or types of objects. The appreciation of a single artwork is not the only - and perhaps even not the standard - example of criticism. We also evaluate groups of artworks in respect of the fact, say, that they belong to the same artist, period, style or genre. In addition, the objects of assessment need not be artistic or even artefacts. But I limit my discussion here to aesthetic criticism of artworks. The latter may involve many different cognitive or active elements. First of all, its goal is not merely to identify the aesthetic value of the objects 81 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 concerned, but also to make sense of this value in terms of their other, less evaluative features. It is sometimes fairly easy to come to know whether something is an aesthetically good or bad work, but typically much more difficult to understand why this is so. This is reflected in a peculiar aspect of aesthetic evaluation - the fact that, in aesthetic matters, we should rely on our own experiences, rather than on the testimony of others.3 Of course, we can come to know about the value of an object through listening to the opinions of others: we can come to know that it has this or that value. But even the best descriptions can rarely - if ever - give us sufficient access to how the object in question realises its value. Masterpieces have in common their aesthetic excellence. But they manage to be masterpieces in very different ways, rendering them very particular - or 'unique' - artworks. Moreover, what interests us is not always, or merely, the positive or negative aesthetic value of an object, but its specific realisation of that value. We would spend far less time with artworks if they would all be beautiful, say, in the very same way. Aesthetic criticism may differ in this respect from moral criticism, given that the latter seems to focus more (though also not exclusively) on the morality of the actions or persons concerned. Another important element of criticism is that it involves the presentation and consideration of reasons for evaluation (e.g., reasons for admiring something, or for judging it to be a masterpiece). Part of our interest in the features which help to realise aesthetic value is that we can point to them in rational defense of our assessments. That we feel the need to do so, and demand of others to back up their evaluations as well, reflects the claim to objectivity inherent to aesthetic evaluation. We do not just let disagreements exist, we try to resolve them, partly because we assume in our own assessments that they are right, and all opposing ones wrong. Accordingly, the vindication of aesthetic evaluations has also the purpose to help others to recognise our perspective on the relevant features and their relationship to aesthetic worth. The understanding of why something has a certain aesthetic value is therefore not merely metaphysical, but also rational. Its object of knowledge are the properties of the object and their relations of realisation. But they are known in such a way that it becomes intelligible for us why it has the aesthetic value in question. The rational aspect explains, for instance, why we are not curious about all metaphysical facts about artworks when considering them from an aesthetic point of view. The nature and distribution of the molecules of a painting are presumably sufficient for its possession of a certain aesthetic value. But we are not interested in its molecular structure because it does not help us to make sense of the worth of the painting and, hence, to defend our 3See discussions about the principle of acquaintance (e.g., Budd (2003)) and the autonomy of aesthetic evaluations (e.g., Hopkins (2001)). 82 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation assessment when challenged to do so by others (cf. chapter 7). The normativity of aesthetic evaluation Although criticism may very well involve other elements over and above evaluation and metaphysical and rational understanding, the latter are central to it, and I intend to concentrate exclusively on them. Empirical findings can possibly contribute to evaluation and understanding by identifying: (i) the value of the objects concerned; (ii) their other features; (iii) the relation of realisation between the features and the value; and (iv) the relation of intelligibility between the features and the value.4 It seems indubitable that we have empirical access to the relevant other features of aesthetically valuable objects. We can see their colours and shapes, understand what they represent, come to learn about their history, or discover their hidden material features. But knowledge of them alone does not suffice for knowledge of the aesthetic values at issue. What is needed in addition is the recognition that the features realise a specific aesthetic value or, alternatively, that they provide good reason for the ascription of such a value. This explains why it is not enough, say, to investigate the aesthetic preferences of people, or their tendencies to form certain aesthetic judgements. What any corresponding studies track is what people value, and not what is valuable. The recognition of the true values of objects requires also the ability to tell which of the noted evaluations are adequate. We can tell whether an evaluation is adequate in two ways: by considering the reasons for preferring it over other evaluations and then forming a rational conclusion about whether it is best supported; or by investigating the relevant features of the object and checking whether the evaluation assigns to it the value which the features realise. For both options, it is necessary to recognise the features concerned. But while the first treats them as reasons, the second treats them as realisators. Consider the - rather loose - analogy with colours. Colour experience is not based on, or responsive to, reasons. But it still allows for a very similar dichotomy of methods. On the one hand, we may be able to tell whether a given colour experience is adequate by looking at the conditions under which it occurs - notably the illumination conditions and the state of mind of the person concerned. The thought is that sufficiently good conditions suggest adequacy. On the other hand, coming to know the reflectance profile of a surface enables us to predict its colour - assuming that the latter is relativised to normal human beings and may not be properly perceived under suboptimal conditions (cf. Byrne and Hilbert (2003)). It is true that reflectance profiles 4Perhaps it is not the features, but our experiences of them, which constitute the reasons. For the sake of simplicity, I assume here that the former is the case. Nothing in what follows should depend on this assumption. 83 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 may not be able to fix all qualitative aspects of colour, such as the location of unique hues (cf. Allen (2010b)) or the colour similarities across surface, volume and light colours (cf. chapter 1). But they suffice to determine the shade of colour to a very high degree. Hence, we can come to know about very (if not most) specific colours by means of carrying out relevant experiments in optical physics. So we have an independent route to the truth-value of a given colour experience. When applied to aesthetic evaluation, the equivalent of the first option is to discover the rational relations which the relevant features of the object bear to its value. This means that we recognise the features as speaking in favour of a certain evaluation, rather than others. So the identification of the aesthetic value would ultimately amount to the identification of other features as aesthetic reasons. I return to this option in a moment. Before that, it is helpful to see why the second option is not appicable to the aesthetic case. The main reason for this is that we normally do not possess knowledge about which aesthetic value a set of given features does, or is likely to, realise (see the relevant well-known essays in Sibley (2001c)). While we can deduce the colour of an object from its other features (e.g., its reflectance profile), we cannot do the same with the beauty of an artwork.5 That is, we cannot bridge the gap from knowledge of the other features of an object to knowledge of its aesthetic value. We simply lack the required principles of inference. What is important to note here is that the recognition of the features as reasons makes all the difference. Once we become aware of the fact that the features speak in favour of certain evaluations, we can balance the resulting reasons and endorse the assessment which they overall support. This is possible because of two differences between treating the features as realisators and treating them as reasons. First, the former focusses on the metaphysical relation between the features and the aesthetic values, hence requiring knowledge of the laws governing this kind of realisation in order to ascribe the realised property on the basis of recognising the realising features. We need to know, say, which reflectance profiles are nomologically linked to which hues if we want to tell the colour of an object on the basis of discovering its reflectance properties. By contrast, the latter treatment concentrates on the rational (and epistemic) connections among the experiences of the various features concerned. All we need to be able to come to a rational conclusion about the aesthetic value of an object is to be rational and to recognise the features as reasons. Noticing that the elegance of 5The only exception is perhaps that, if we know that a given artwork shares all its other features with another work, this suffices to conclude that it also possesses the same aesthetic value. But the corresponding principles are too concrete to be of any interesting practical use. And it is also not clear whether they should count as genuine principles in the first place (cf. Jackson et al. (2004)). 84 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation an outline drawing of a face speaks strongly in favour of a positive evaluation, while its overemphasized realism supports a slightly negative assessment, it may be reasonable to judge that the drawing is somewhat beautiful. Second, in contrast to following the route involving metaphysical knowledge, following the route involving rational balancing need not rely on principles involving the overall value of objects. It does not proceed deductively; and the forms of inference involved are typically not governed by principles - or at least not to a very large extent. When judging the number of participants in a demonstration, we may perhaps be able to start with the knowledge that it is higher than one hundred, and lower than one thousand. For a more precise informed guess, we have to rely on our various impressions of the mass of people in front of us (e.g., when we look at it from different angles), without the need for, or availability of, principles. Something very similar may happen when we experience an artwork and come to know its aesthetic worth by considering the rational force of its features. Our different impressions pull us in different directions. But reaching an equilibrium among them does not presuppose reliance on principles linking the features to the respective value. It is perhaps possible to formulate - possibly hedged - principles which describe the contribution of particular features to the aesthetic value of an object - such as the principle that, everything else being equal, something elegant is beautiful, or the principle that something symmetrical possesses a positive aesthetic value (e.g., that of being balanced or harmonious). But empirical studies have difficulties to help us to discover or apply such principles. One particular problem is that, even if it turns out that a certain aesthetic value is always coextensional with a specific set of other features, this does not suffice to show that the objects concerned possess the value in virtue of instantiating those features. For instance, the opposite may be true; or the two kinds of property may be due to some third aspect of the objects at issue. Whether the features indeed realise the aesthetic value is, again, a matter of whether we can make sense of the presence of the latter in terms of the presence of the former. And this is for criticism to decide, and not for science. Moreover, there is the problem that many aesthetic principles may only be valid in a hedged form - that is, relative to other things being equal. This raises the further question of when to apply these principles. Their adequate application presupposes the recognition of when things are in fact equal. This is, in particular, the case if the object does not possess any other aesthetically relevant features which outweigh or undermine the evaluative contribution of the features initially considered. But there is often no limit to the number of such potential competitors. An elegantly drawn line may none the less be ugly for very different reasons - for instance, because of its colour scheme, aspects of the drawn figures, its background, or indeed its format. Empirical 85 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 investigations can tell us that certain of these competitors are absent. But they cannot do so for all of them, assuming that the potentially defective colour schemes, drawn aspects, backgrounds or formats cannot easily be restricted to a finite number. Accordingly, empirical findings cannot contribute much to the identification of reasons (rather than what we take to be reasons), nor to the explanation of how these reasons render the attribution of specific aesthetic values intelligible, given that both tasks are essentially concerned with intelligibility (or normativity). At best, they may help us to notice features of objects which we then recognise as reasons. Hence, recognising which features are aesthetically relevant, and how they are relevant, requires more than empirical studies: it requires rational aesthetic experience.6 The concreteness of aesthetic evaluation But their normative dimension is not the only aspect of aesthetic evaluations which poses a serious problem for an empirical approach to aesthetic value. Another one is their concreteness, which becomes manifest in two facts. The first is that relatively small qualitative details may matter for the aesthetic value of an object. A slight dent in a line may undermine its elegance and, hence, the positive value of the respective simple line drawing. The second aspect of the concreteness of aesthetic evaluations is that not only the qualities, but also the particularity of objects may matter for their aesthetic worth. This may happen, for instance, in cases where the particularity of artistic expression becomes relevant. Artworks may be expressive of perspectives onto the world. That is, they may represent the values, emotions and opinions of (real or fictional) persons or characters. But, more fundamentally, they are expressions of the skills of the respective artist - of his or her insight, inventiveness, wit, sensibility, unoriginality or dilentatism. Part of why we value certain artworks may be that they are expressive of the specific skills of a certain artist. And appreciating artistic expression may require taking into account the particularity of the artist and his or her act of expression. For instance, it may matter whether a given Cubistic painting was made by Braque or Picasso. Empirical research, however, is typically not concerned with particularity. Moreover, it can capture specific details only in exchange for generality. Studying the nature and context of an individual painting, say, by means of specific material or art-historical investigations (the former, for instance, involving X-rays or chemical analyses) may indeed help us to notice relevant 6Whether the recognition of particular features as speaking for or against particular evaluations is underwritten by principles is an independent issue. 86 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation facts about the painting. We may, for instance, discover the gesture which the depicted heroine was originally painted as making, and this may help us to better understand the meaning of the ultimately depicted gestures. But taking the concreteness of the painting into account in this way has the consequence that the observed results cannot be (easily) generalised to other paintings or artworks. III. Philosophical Aesthetics When shifting attention from critical aesthetics to philosophical aesthetics, it is perhaps more plausible to expect that empirical findings do become relevant - not the least because philosophy - in contrast with criticism - is essentially concerned with general issues about aesthetic value. The following discussion concentrates on two particular attempts to establish the relevance of empirical aesthetics, namely by explaining our general aesthetic interests and sensibilities in evolutionary terms, and by showing that our aesthetic evaluations are heavily influenced by factors which more traditional theories of aesthetic value take to be irrelevant for - or even detrimental to - aesthetic appreciation. Such empirical insights and considerations may supplement our existing philosophical accounts of aesthetic evaluation; or they may require a substantial revision of them. In what follows, I aim to show that the latter is much more difficult to establish than the former. But before entering the details of the discussion, it is worthwhile to stress that any revisionary consequences of empirical research for philosophy may also have an impact on criticism. If we are to change our general conception of what aesthetic value amounts to and how aesthetic evaluation should work, we also are to change the way in which we approach particular objects of aesthetic evaluation and assess them aesthetically. If we were wrong, for instance, to take aesthetic evaluation to be a rational phenomenon, then we should stop to assign such an important role to reasons and reasoning when evaluating specific artworks. And if it turns out that our appreciation of aesthetic skills ultimately amounts to an appreciation of skills favourable for survival or procreation, then we should perhaps treat artistic creation as much more mundane than we usually do (e.g., as on a par with other human achievements, such as those in sport or economy). Evolutionary accounts of artistic practices Some evolutionary psychologists have indeed argued that our interest in creating and appreciating art derives from sexual selection (cf. Miller (2000); see also Dutton (2003) and Currie (2005)). While it is perhaps difficult to understand the creation and appreciation of art as an important factor for the survival of a species or particular members of it (with the possible exception 87 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 of monetary issues), it does not seem unreasonable to explain the occurrence of artistic practices in terms of their role in the selection of suitable mating partners. Art displays the skills of the artist, such as creativity, intelligence, insight, empathy or perseverance. Some - if not all - of these skills are important in a relationship aimed at the successful upbringing of offspring. Moreover, art is a reliable indicator of their presence, given that it is not easy to create (what looks like) good art. Finally, the creation of art is very resourceful, suggesting that the artist has more than enough energy and skill to support himself: he has time for leisure and for producing seemingly useless things.7 The tail of a peacock is an obstacle in its survival: it is difficult to carry around and attracts potential predators. So it is very impressive if a peacock with a large tail manages to survive and to parade (cf. Zahavi and Zahavi (1997)). Similarly, the appreciation of art - while taking up some resources on its own - is worthwhile since it increases the chance to find a mate of high quality with respect to procreation. Considerations like these may very well explain why early humanity started to engage in artistic practices. But empirical facts about the origin of our current practices, however, do not automatically render those practices intelligible.8 First of all, the origin of a practice may be completely extrinsic to its contemporary significance for our lives. In many cases, we start to engage in a practice for reasons which do not speak in favour of pursuing the practice itself, but instead are concerned with some contingent consequences that this pursuit is likely to have. We want to be near and impress people (e.g., when we love them), please them or follow their role-model (e.g., when they are our parents), or present ourselves in a favourable light (e.g., when they are our boss, or some other figure with authority). Such motivations may lead us to go to the opera, attend all football games of a certain team, visit church regularly, or join others for a drink after work, without us taking enjoyment in those activities as such. But over time, it may happen that those practices become valuable for us in themselves, and we would continue to engage in them, even if our original motivations disappear. Some such practices did not start with us, but with our ancestors. They changed religion, for instance, because of outside pressure. And this may explain, in a historical (or causal) sense, why we have been attending mass from our early childhood onwards. It may indeed also shed light on why this 7The situation changes, of course, once the creation of art becomes itself a means for survival - for instance, as a source of income. But this just strengthens the claim that what matters in our engagement with art is that it helps us to reach our evolutionarily determined goals. 8What becomes crucial here is perhaps the difference between history and genealogy (cf. Williams (2002)). 88 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation ritual is important for us nowadays - for instance, when we continue to adhere to it as a manifestation of our sense of tradition or cultural conservatism. But this is not necessarily so. In fact, it may actually be the case that the practice is significant for us despite its history. Perhaps, for us, religion should never be a matter of tradition, but only of personal decision and faith. Of course, the case of the evolutionary origin is different in that it concerns, at least to a large extent, factors beyond our own control or the control of cultural groups. But this does not prevent them from possibly becoming relatively irrelevant for our current practices. Indeed, it may render them even more removed from the latter. It is not easy to conceive of a way of making sense of the many different aspects of our evaluative engagement with art in terms of sexual selection, say. We have a fairly good understanding of the various reasons why people devote their lives to the creation of artworks - the need for self-expression, the challenge and satisfaction coming with creation, the simultaneity of the playfulness and the seriousness of art, the search for fame and wealth, and so on. Similarly, people spend time on experiencing art for very different reasons - such as curiosity about the human condition, more specific historical and art-historical interests, the search for real value and intellectual companionship, the need for entertainment or distraction, considerations about social status, and so on. Many of these motivations for actively or passively engaging with art are not easily linked to, or explained by, sexual selection. Moreover, the motivations also differ greatly from case to case. Artists have very personal and particular reasons for producing art, and part of the value of their works may precisely be due to the fact that this specificity is reflected in them. Something similar is true of spectators who are sensitive of the concreteness of art and the artists, but typically not before the background of a personal interest in the artist as a potential candidate for mating (especially if the artist lived in the past). Of course, such an interest may still always be effective in some unconscious or subpersonal manner - as, perhaps, some psychoanalytic theories might claim. But to establish such a claim would require the collection of much more empirical data about what actually moves us to engage with art and would therefore go far beyond evolutionary psychology. And which data is relevant depends on whether it helps us to make sense of our current practices, or at least sheds new light on them - but from an aesthetic, and not merely from a biological point of view. Besides, the insights of evolutionary psychology about our artistic practices cannot easily be transferred to aesthetic criticism. It is one thing to explain why people want to play football, but a completely different thing to judge when they play football well. Similarly, even if we have convincing explanation of why we engage in our current artistic practices, it is far from clear why this 89 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 explanation should have any bearing on how we assess the aesthetic worth of the artworks involved in those practices. Even if we admire a certain painting because it reveals the painter as a very skilled person who would be ideal for procreation, this does not suffice to establish that the artwork is of high aesthetic value - many other activities and their products can manifest skill and expertise to a similar extent.9 The rationality of aesthetic appreciation One of the main problems with the conclusions of evolutionary psychologists has been that accounts of past developments cannot be easily applied to the present. Many other - and typically more confined - empirical studies avoid this difficulty by focussing on our current engagement with artworks or similar objects of aesthetic experience. For instance, some findings suggest that we tend to like wine more if we take it to be relatively expensive - even if we can claim some considerable expertise in matters of wine (cf. Plassmann et al. (2008)). Others indicate that our experience of a wine is heavily influenced by whether we take the wine (rightly or wrongly) to be white or red (cf. Brochet (2001)). And, again, others illustrate that we prefer certain Impressionist paintings over others relative to our - possibly unknown - familiarity with them (cf. Cutting (2006)).10 To start with the last example, it cannot be so easily concluded that familiarity tends to lead only to positive aesthetic evaluations. As far as I can tell, the studies were done with relatively unknown, but aesthetically valuable Impressionist paintings. Thus, it still has to be seen whether the experiments would have the same results if other genres and, especially, really bad paintings would be used. It is less obvious whether the studies about the impact of beliefs about the price of wine face the same problem. But it is at least imaginable that a seemingly high price may have the opposite effect - for instance, the critic in question may judge the wine to be not very good and, hence, to be heavily overpriced, perhaps further strengthening his negative attitude towards the wine. Besides, it is also not clear how, say, well-informed art-historians would respond to knowledge about the price of paintings when aiming to carefully determine the aesthetic worth of the latter. Then, that our assessments of Impressionist paintings tend to be more positive if we are more familiar with them should not be surprising. After all, 9Interestingly, contemporary artists rarely have the image of being potentially successful parents, even assuming that they are rich and that what matters is solely the number of healthy offspring they and the following generations are likely to produce. Several explanations suggest themselves, such as changes towards an individualistic way of living, or the felt need to concetrate all time and energy on the art itself. 10I am largely following the description of these studies in Kieran (2010). 90 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation familiarity is a condition on proper aesthetic evaluation and, in particular, on the recognition of aesthetic worth. It often takes time to be able to see the real value of an artwork. And this is not less true of genres or kinds of artworks which people are generally more exposed to - say, for reasons of fashion, or due to the fact that the art concerned is (presumably wrongly) now perceived as having lost its revolutionary or provocative status. It may be pointed out that the subjects concerned (i.e., students listening to introductory lectures in psychology, with the paintings serving as backgrounds for the presented slides) did not look at the paintings - and did not familiarise themselves with them - with the aim to appreciate them as artworks. Hence, their familiarity with the paintings may be of a rather different kind than the one presupposed by proper aesthetic assessment. But then, their resulting preferences should count as defective from an aesthetic point of view - either because they are not aesthetic at all due to a lack of claim to objectivity, or because they fail to live up to that claim inherent in aesthetic evaluation. The same seems true of cases in which beliefs about the financial value of objects influence our aesthetic assessments of them - the latter should minimally count as defective. This is actually one reason why, even if it is indeed the case that price or familiarity influence our preferences in a biased manner, this does not undermine accounts of aesthetic value which stress the objectivity and rationality of aesthetic criticism. Another reason is that some of the studies test our emotional preferences, rather than our rational assessments of objects. Pleasure or preference - that is, what we like - is surely open to irrational factors. But, as I argue in chapter 6, this is precisely why we should be rather wary when relying on our emotional feelings for the evaluation of objects.11 There is no problem in ascribing values on the basis of emotions (or similar states, such as desires) - as long as we clearly acknowledge that the ascribed values are subjective and do not necessarily reflect how the objects should be assessed from a more objective point of view. If we are instead concerned with the discovery of the objective value of an object, emotions are not our best guides and, in fact, may often mislead us. They may be very successful in drawing our attention to the positive or negative values of objects, as well as to their other features which help to realise those values. But due to their openness to irrational factors, we need to rely on reason to check their reliability. Of course, we are very good at coming up with invented rationalisations of our aesthetic judgements. And whether we recognise certain features of an artwork as a reason to ascribe to them a certain aesthetic value may also be open to influence from aesthetically irrelevant factors, such as familiarity or 11Compare also Goldie (2004)'s view that emotions do not ground evaluations, but instead are themselves partly grounded by reasons for evaluation. 91 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation Chapter 3 price. But we can, at least to a considerable extent, overcome these obstacles, say, by listening to the assessments and justifications of others. We should perhaps not simply take over their opinions. But we should at least use them to question the epistemic standing of our own views and to reconsider our reasons for endorsing the latter. Empirical studies - like the one's mentioned - may in fact play a similar role to such testimony. While they cannot tell us what aesthetic value is or how we should ascribe it to particular objects, they may help us to recognise that our aesthetic judgements are easily influenced by factors that ideally should have had no bearing. In other words, empirical evidence may show us that certain of our aesthetic evaluations are not of good aesthetic standing (or even not aesthetic in the first place). But it cannot weaken those standards, or replace them with new ones. It might be suggested that such investigations actually show that we are never really able to live up to this ideal and form proper aesthetic judgements. But this form of scepticism seems to be too strong. First, the studies are typically concerned with situations in which the subjects are ignorant about some very important facts about the objects concerned. That people get misled when assessing a white wine which they take to be red does not show that they get misled in the same way when assessing a red wine which they take to be red. In the first case, they go wrong precisely because they miscategorise the object concerned. But they do so in good faith and are not to be blamed for their mistake. After all, the perceptual evidence is striking, and the experimentators seem to be trustworthy to them. Hence, in the second case in which they categorise the wine correctly, it is not to be expected that their categorisation will give rise to any error in their aesthetic appreciation. And second, criticism does not differ in this respect from physics, say. Truth in the sciences (with the possible exception of mathematics) is typically only approximate (cf. Oddie (1986)). It may be easy to falsify a theory, but perhaps impossible to verify it. So we should not expect criticism to fare better in this respect, especially since aesthetic truths seem to be more elusive than scientific ones - partly because they are so closely linked to our first-personal perspective onto the world (as illustrated, for instance, by the principle of acquaintance). What the empirical studies at best illustrate is that it is difficult and time-consuming to come to a proper aesthetic assessment of a particular object. IV. Conclusion The preceding considerations were meant to show that - and also begin to explain why - the relevance of the results of empirical studies of various kinds for both the criticism of artworks and the philosophy of aesthetic value is limited. Concerning criticism, the normativity of aesthetic evaluations has the 92 Chapter 3 The Relevance of Empirical Findings for Aesthetic Evaluation consequence that scientific investigations can at best help us to notice features of artworks, which we can then independently recognise as aesthetically relevant; while the concreteness of aesthetic evaluations has the consequence that empirical studies either miss their particular target completely, or shed light on it only in a very specific way, without the possibility for meaningful generalisations. Moreover, making sense of the aesthetic worth of objects in terms of their other features requires non-empirical rational considerations. Concerning philosophy, on the other hand, empirical findings may perhaps bring us to reconsider our accounts of aesthetic value and its application to particular artworks. But neither considerations about the evolution of artistic practices, nor facts about our emotional and evaluative responses to artworks require us to develop more empiricist views on what aesthetic value is and how we should go about ascribing it. Again, the rationality of aesthetic evaluations and the concreteness of our motivations for engaging with art are partly responsible for this facts: neither can be easily tested or illuminated by empirical means. Returning to the issue of aesthetic criticism, the same limitations do not pertain to our first-hand and first-personal experiences of artworks, despite their empirical character. They concern particular objects and provide us with reasons; and they enable us to make sense of the aesthetic value of objects. This appears to suggest that there is a fundamental divide among our empirical ways of accessing artworks. One hypothesis is that any more indirect or third-personal evidence becomes relevant for the aesthetic evaluation of specific works only if it is integrated with our more basic aesthetic experiences of them - for instance, when art-historical facts concern the particular object in question, or psychological evidence is focussed on our specific response. That is, the third-personally gained empirical results may supplement our aesthetic experiences in that they point us to features which make it intelligible why the objects concern possess their aesthetic values. By contrast, other, more general kinds of third-personal findings may just bring us to question our considered views about the values of objects or the nature of those values. The so-called 'test of time' may perhaps serve as an illustration of this condition on the relevance of empirical evidence. Part of the explanation of why objects survive this test is that people (whether they are experienced critics or ordinary lay people) continue over the centuries and cultures to care about their preservation for aesthetic reasons (and not merely for financial or other reasons). So the survival of a given artwork provides us with empirical evidence - though, it seems, not (as Hume may have hoped) about its aesthetic value, but instead about the more general quality of our own evaluation of it. Having previously failed to appreciate Homer's Ulyssess, realising what it means for it to have survived the centuries may still bring us to reconsider its aesthetic quality and perhaps to recognise its proper worth.

Part II In Defense of Experiential Rationalism

Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons One influential focus in the recent debates on the non-sensory phenomenal aspects of our mental episodes has been on the intellectual elements of phenomenal character. More specifically, it has been on what it is subjectively like to think a proposition (in opposition to experiencing objects and their features), as well as on the extent to which how our thoughts and judgements are phenomenally given to us depends on how they present the world as being. Other non-sensory aspects of character, by contrast, have been largely neglected, despite two important truths about them. The first is that they pertain not only to judgements and similar thoughts, but also to perceptions and other sensory episodes - thus not raising general worries about whether the episodes concerned possess a phenomenal character in the first place. Second, they are, in several respects, more significicant and fundamental than the sensory and the intellectual aspects usually discussed. For this third kind of aspect reflects the general nature of the type of episode concerned, rather than the specific presentational differences among its instances. In particular, it renders the rational dimension of the mental episodes first-personally salient. My aim in this essay is to describe these non-sensory and non-intellectual phenomenal aspects of perceptions and other episodes and to highlight their link to the rational role of those episodes. Pursuing this aim will involve, among other things, attempting to characterise the three kinds of phenomenal aspects at issue. More specifically, it is part of my proposal that the difference between the sensory and the intellectual aspects can be spelled out in terms of the non-neutrality and the reason-insensitivity of the presentational elements concerned. The phenomenal aspects of the third type - which I will call rational aspects - may then be distinguished from the other two as those aspects which determine the type of non-neutrality involved in the respective episodes, rather than what these episodes are non-neutral about or which specific kind of non-neutrality they involve. This fits well with the already noted suggestion that the rational phenomenal aspects reflect the general type and role of the episodes in question - notably, that they provide us with and/or are based 97 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 on epistemic reasons. In short, while the rational aspects of character reflect the rational role of the episodes, the sensory and the intellectual aspects are instead connected to the specific realisation of this rational role - such as to the specification of which particular beliefs the episodes provide us with epistemic reasons for. The resulting view of the rational dimension of phenomenal character is an instance of Experiential Rationalism, which is the view that our mental episodes are phenomenally given to us as having a certain rational nature (assuming that they possess any). This means that their reason-giving power and their responsiveness to reasons form part of their phenomenal character.1 If this would not be the case, the reasons concerned would not count as our reasons. They become reasons for us only in so far as their presence and rational impact is phenomenally accessible to us from our first-personal perspective. The considerations in this paper are therefore centred around the idea of consciousness being shot through and through with rationality. After a detailed phenomenological description of the various aspects of the phenomenal character of perceptions and related episodes (sections I and II), I will conclude the first part of this article by making my case for Experiential Rationalism (section III). In the second half of the paper, I will identify non-neutrality as a central element in the experience of rational role (section IV) and use it to divide the phenomenal aspects introduced at the beginning into three categories (section V), before finally arguing that this grouping corresponds to the division of the phenomenal aspects into the sensory, the intellectual and the rational (section VI). I. Many of the important features of perceptions are reflected in their phenomenal character - that is, in their most determinate introspectible property which constitutes what they are subjectively like. Although the following list does not aim to provide a complete description of the character of perceptions, it is still meant to highlight most of those aspects of perceptual character which are central to the role played by perceptions in our mental lives.2 One very straightforward and fundamental phenomenological observation about perceptions is that they present us with - or are about - objects.3 1See chapter 5 for a defence of Experiential Rationalism about the reason-sensitivity of judgemental thoughts and mental actions. 2The phenomenological descriptions in this section follow closely those presented in chapter 2. 3This section draws partly on chapter 2. Further below, I will contrast the mere presentation of objects and features with non-neutral presentations, that involve the additional claim that things indeed are as they are presented. 98 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons That mental episodes are presentational means, minimally, that they involve the appearance of objects as being distinct from them. If such an appearance were lacking, the episodes would possess an entirely intrinsic character with no link to something external to them (cf. Kant (1990): B38) - as, arguably, in the case of feelings of boredom or depression. That the objects are (or seem to be) distinct from the episodes is compatible, however, with the idea that they are (or seem to be) part of, or dependent on, them. Some disjunctivists, for instance, claim that our genuine perceptions are constituted by the perceived objects (cf. Martin (2002b)). But the latter should not be identified with the former, or they would cease to count as objects of perception. The phenomenal aspect coming with being a presentation of objects is - at least in the case of perceptions - subject to further qualification by other aspects. One such qualification concerns the fact that the presentation of objects includes the presentation of some of their material features (cf. Husserl (1970), Searle (1983) and Crane (2001)). We do not simply see objects. We also see their colour, size, shape, and so on. That is, the perceived objects appear to be a certain way in our perception.4 Similarly, we do not recall, imagine or think just of objects, but also of some of their features. And another qualification is that perceptual presentations enjoy some kind of transparency, meaning two things. First, when we are attending to the phenomenal character of our perceptions - to what they are like - the objects and features that they present us with continue to be in the focus of our attentive awareness. That is, attending to our perceptions means, at least in part, attending to the world. And second, when we are introspecting our perceptions, we do not become aware of entities or features - such as sense-data or presentational vehicles or properties over and above the property of being a presentation of certain objects - in virtue of which our perceptions are presentational. Our experiences of depicted or photographed objects are different in that they involve an awareness of a medium of presentation and of its respective features responsible for its presentational nature.5 It is also distinctive of perceptions that they present objects and their features at least partially in a sensory manner. In thoughts and other conscious intellectual episodes, objects are also presented as having certain features. But their presentation concerned is not sensory. Which properties objects 4This does not require, however, that the subject identifies or categorises the perceived objects in respect of the features that they appear to have. Seeing a blue book need not involve the recognition that the book is blue (cf. Dretske (2000b): 99f.). 5Martin discusses both aspects in Martin (2002b): section 1, and the former also in Martin (2000b). As Martin notes in Martin (2002b): 11, both observations are compatible with the possibility that, when we are attending to our perceptions, we become aware of more than the presented objects and features - namely, for instance, also of intrinsic aspects of the phenomenal character of perceptions. 99 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 may appear to have in perception is restricted by the particular sensory mode involved in their presentation.6 Furthermore, while some features are accessible in several modes (e.g., shapes), others are accessible only in one mode (e.g., colours or sounds). It is notoriously difficult to spell out the difference between sensory and intellectual presentation - say, between the ways in which the redness of an object is given to us in our perception of its redness and in our judgemental thought that it is red.7 And it is equally difficult to draw the distinction between perceivable and unperceivable features. I will return to both issues further below and offer there a way of making sense of both contrasts. Then, perceptions present us with concrete objects. That is, their objects appear to be extended in time and - at least in the visual and the tactile case - also in space.8 It is important to note that objects that are presented as concrete entities need not be presented with a specific identity. And this is closely related to the fact that they also need not appear to possess a determinate location, duration or size, or to be located in real time or space. The respective aspects of the character of presentations should therefore be clearly distinguished. When we are perceiving an object, it is presented as having a determinate spatio-temporal extension and location. When we are visualising an object, by contrast, the resulting image need not present it as having a specific size and duration, or as being at a particular point in time or space. Indeed, imagined object need not possess any determinate spatio-temporal features. What is crucial here is that sensorily imagined objects are not related to each other or to our own location in real time and space, independently of our intentions or thoughts about them. The duration of a real sound is independent of how long we want or take it to be. And since it normally determines the length of our perception of it, we have access to its duration in virtue of the duration of the latter. But the same need not be true of an imagined sound. It is up to us whether the real duration of our imaginative experience of it corresponds to the imagined duration of the sound. In particular, an auditory 6This is true even of the non-sensorily presented features. For instance, we may perhaps see the sadness of a friend; but we cannot touch it. 7The expression 'judgemental thought' is meant to make clear that what I have in mind are temporally extended episodes of thought, rather than the instantaneous onsets of such episodes. In particular, I do not want to refer to acts of judging, but instead to the thoughts resulting from such acts and possibly remaining occurrent for a long while. Just consider the contrast between realising that a person is very attractive and then constantly having this thought in mind and letting it influence what one says and does while spending the evening with him or her. 8In what follows, I will, somewhat loosely, speak generally of spatio-temporal extension and location. Also, I will use the notion of an object in a wide sense such as to include events and property instances. 100 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons imagination, which is ten seconds long in real time, may be taken by us to be an imagination of the whole duration of an imagined sound, which is ten hour long in the imagined time.9 However, our act of imagining need not be specific on the relation between the real length of the experience and the imagined length of the sound. Hence, the question of how long the sound is, that we imagine with the help of a ten seconds long act of imagining, may fail to have an answer. Similar considerations apply to size and location. Given that the distance and the presence or absence of simultaneity between us and sensorily imagined objects or between the imagined objects themselves may remain indeterminate, it may not always be possible to settle the issue of the specific location or size of the imagined entities. In other words, our sensory imaginings may stay neutral on the particular spatio-temporal relations in which their objects stands to other imagined or perceived entities. Indeed, the imagined objects may actually appear to be part of separate and non-real 'times' or 'spaces'.10 That perceived objects appear to be determinate in their extension and location is closely linked to the fact that they are presentated as being particulars with determinate identities. When we are visualising a landscape, we need not visualise any particular landscape, and the question of which specific landscape we are visualising may be inappropriate.12 But when we are perceiving a landscape, we perceive a particular landscape, and this specificity of what we are perceiving is first-personally salient, even though we might not always be able to subjectively notice differences in particularity (cf. Martin (2002a)). If it were not, we would not (be able to) rely on our perceptions when aiming to demonstratively refer to concrete entities in our environment.13 The phenomenological salience of the particularity of the perceived objects is partly grounded in the impression that they are at specific points in time and space. Perhaps the latter already suffices to generate the former. 9Compare the idea of re-experiencing one's whole life during the last moments before one's death. 10Cf. Wittgenstein (1984c) sections 622 and 628, Sartre (2004): 8ff., and McGinn (2004): 58f.. Of course, acts of imagining can specify the extension and location of the imagined objects by including some conscious intentions or thoughts concerning that matter.11 And perhaps each act of imagining must include some minimal spatio-temporal specification of this kind - for instance, if we are visualising two objects, there may have to be always an answer to the question of whether one is to the left of the other. 12Something similar is true of paintings of landscapes and other things (cf. Wollheim (1998); Martin (2001): 276). 13See Siegel (2002). Compare also the arguments in Martin (2002a) and Soteriou (2000) for the involvement of particularity in perceptions. The phenomenological salience of the particularity of the perceived objects has the consequence that accounts, which assume that perceptions possess only a general content (e.g., Dretske (1995)), are unable to capture this phenomenal aspects. 101 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 Next, perceived objects are presented as existing - which means that they and their features appear to be actually or really there (rather than, say, merely possible or fictional). If we are seeing a blue book, it seems to us as if there really is a blue book before us.14 Again, this impression is needed for us to rely on perceptions in the demonstration of objects. But it also adds something to the presentation of concrete objects with determinate identities and locations. We may visualise a particular object (e.g., Napoléon) as being in a particular place (e.g., the middle seat of the front row of the Opéra Garnier in Paris), without taking the visualised object to actually exist.15 But we could not perceive the same situation without such an appearance of existence. Consequently, there is a difference in how we interact with perceived and with imagined entities: we treat only the former as actual parts of reality (cf. Walton (1990)). This impression of existence is further qualified. For example, it involves a sense of mind-independence or objectivity : the perceived objects are presented as existing, and their features are presented as being instantiated, independently of our current experiences of them (cf. McDowell (1998d), Siegel (2006) and Martin (2010)). This explains why we expect perceived objects and their features to be accessible by others as well, and to stay in existence even if they are unperceived. One interesting issue here is whether some non-perceptual experiences might present their objects as existing, without presenting them as existing mind-independently. After-images are perhaps possible candidates for such experiences. It may be argued that, when we are experiencing a yellow after-image, say, it appears to us as if there is really something yellow there. But the experienced yellow spot clearly does not seem to be part of our actual environment (e.g., it 'moves around' in accordance with our eye movements) and does not appear to exist independently of our experience of it, nor as a public entity open to further scrutiny. Experiences of subjective values are perhaps other examples. For us, the people whom we love possess a special value for us (in addition to any value which they posses simply in virtue of being alive, or of being human or sentient beings). But this exemplification of value does not strike us as being objective - for instance, we do not expect or demand others to value them in the same way as we do. Another important qualification of the perceptual presentation of an existing object is that it and its features are given as existing in the present. This means that perceptions present their objects as existing simultaneously with 14This is part of what Martin (2010) tries to capture with the actuality thesis. Besides, it is not clear whether the actuality concerned is metaphysical or epistemic in nature. When we are seeing a tree, do we take it and its features to be part of the actual world, simpliciter; or do we rather take them to be part of the actual world, for all that we know? 15Cf. Sartre's idea that some acts of visualising may posit their objects as 'non-existing' (cf. Sartre (2004): 12). 102 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons their own occurrence, and as being a certain way right at that very moment.16 Episodes of sensory memory, on the other hand, present their objects as having existed and being a certain way in the past (cf. Martin (2001)). A similar contrast may be drawn with respect to spatial closeness. Visual perceptions present their objects as existing presently right there before our eyes (even if in some considerable distance), and visual memories do the same with respect to the past. But recollections, or acts of visualising which take their objects to exist, say, are bound to present them as absent from our actual spatial surroundings.17 One further significant phenomenal aspect of perceptions is that they present their objects as their determinants. When we are perceiving a blue book, it seems to us as if our experience would change or would have been different, if the object would change or would have been different. More specifically, this means two things. First, it seems to us as if we would not perceive the object to be a blue book, if it were not a blue book. It is in this sense that the perceived object is presented as determining which features it appears to have as part of the perception. And second, it seems to us as if our perception would not have occurred, if the book did not exist. It is in this sense that our perceptions seem to be dependent on, and to relate us to, particular objects in the world. Taking into account the sense of the presence of the object, the resulting impression may also be described as an impression of a direct or immediate determination by the perceived objects.18 Besides, the impression of a determination by mind-independent entities comes also with an impression of involuntariness in origin and persistence - something which is lacking, for instance, in the case of acts of visualising. We experience perceptions - in contrast, say, to actively produced and sustained 16Interestingly, this might actually be systematically misleading. Given that the speed of light is finite, our experiences always lag a bit behind the emission of light by the perceived objects. And this makes it possible that we continue to experience objects (e.g., distant stars) which have already gone out of existence. Besides, note that Martin describes the 'presence' of the perceived object in two different ways: in terms of spatio-temporal closeness, and in terms of constitution or counterfactual determination (cf. Martin (2001): 272f.). I would like to keep these two aspects apart, given that I do not want to rule out the possibility that sensory memories are also constituted or determined by their past objects, and that this fact is subjectively salient. 17Cf. Sartre (2004): 12f., for a subtle discussion of different ways in which an object may appear to be absent from our environment). 18Cf. Martin (2002b) and (Martin, 2001, especially 273ff.). Note also that Martin understands immediacy as an aspect of the transparency of experience (cf. (Martin, 2002b, 413)) and that the transparency of memories and imaginings involves only an 'analogue of immedicay', linked to their non-neutrality towards the past or the imagined, rather than towards the present (cf. (Martin, 2002b, 413f.) and Martin (2001)). This is related to his idea that immediacy and transparency are the mark of sensory experience (cf. the first approach to the sensory discussed below). 103 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 images - as occurring and as staying in existence in an unbidden manner. However, since this complex phenomenal aspect of perceptions is not of importance for what follows, I will not further discuss it here.19 II. This extensive and detailed description of the phenomenal character of perceptions can be used to shed more light on the character of other mental episodes. With one notable exception, episodes of sensory memory, too, possess all the mentioned phenomenal aspects distinctive of perceptions. The exception in question is that, while perceived objects appear to be present and, in particular, simultaneous with our experience of them, recalled objects are presented as being past - or, if one prefers, as having being a certain way in the past.20 This phenomenal difference has the consequence that the two kinds of experience also differ with respect to how they present themselves as being linked to their objects. Sensory memories appear to be determined by - and thus appear to relate us to - objects from (or perceived in) the past, and not the present. When we recall the visual appearance of a blue book, it seems to us as if we would not remember the book to be blue, if it had not been blue in the past when we perceived it to be so. And it also seems to us as if our memory would not have occurred, if the book had not existed in the past and if we therefore had not perceived it in the first place. It is in this - slightly different - sense that episodic memories present their past objects as their determinants.21 Both perceptual and mnemonic presentations seem to us to be dependent on the apprehended objects and their material features and, in this sense, seem to provide us with access to the latter. But only the perceptions appear to directly relate us to entities which seem to be actually present before us at the time of our experience of them. Episodic memories, by contrast, seem to be determined indirectly by their objects in so far as these determining objects appear to belong to (or to have been perceived in) the past. 19See chapter 2 for a more detailed description of this complex phenomenal aspect, as well as considerations about less central elements, such as the vivacity or clarity of sensory presentations. 20Perceptions and sensory memories may also differ in other phenomenal aspects, such as their vividness or clarity. But I take it that such differences are at best typical. For instance, there may be vivid memories and unclear perceptions (cf. Budd (1991):104, on seeing and visualising). 21It is still an open question whether we experience our episodic memories also as being determined by our past perceptions of the objects concerned; and if so, whether there is anything more to our experience of our memories as being determined by their objects. But given that perceptions are (experienced as being) determined by their objects, any impression of a determination by a past perception is likely to involve the impression of a determination by the respective perceived object. 104 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Now, judgemental thoughts (as well as possibly other thoughts) may show many of the aspects of the phenomenal character of perceptions as well. When we are thinking of a book as being blue, the book is presented to us as being distinct and independent of our thought, and also as concrete. For conceiving of it as a book (or, say, instead as that thing over there) means, in part, conceiving of it as a certain kind of concrete and independent entity outside of our mind. The same is true of the appearances of particularity, locatedness, existence and presence. If we are thinking of the book as that book actually on the table in front of us, we thereby take the book to exist with a particular identity and to be present in our actual environment at a specific spatio-temporal location. This is simply part of the concepts that we employ in our thought. Of course, not all ways of conceiving of objects involve all or even some of these elements. If we are thinking of the book as fictional, for instance, at least the latter four aspects are missing. And when we are judging that a certain card game is intelligent, the resulting thought does not present its object as concrete, present or having a determinate location. But all that is important for current purposes, however, is to note that objects of thoughts may be presented as possessing all of the features just mentioned.22 None the less, judgemental thoughts - just like episodic memories - differ from perceptions with respect to the sense of determination they involve. And this time, the difference is more radical since judgemental thoughts do not present their objects as their determinants at all. Instead, we experience judgemental thoughts as determined by epistemic reasons - even in cases in which we are unable to identify those reasons, or in which the occurrence of the thoughts is in fact due to some merely causal factors. For - as I argue at length in chapter 5 - this best explains why we trust our judgements in belief and action, and why we take our judgements by default to be reasonable and not in need of revision. Spontaneous and similarly non-judgemental thoughts, on the other hand, do not come with such an impression of reasonableness and of determination by reasons; and we consequently do not trust them when extending or altering our picture of reality. Episodes of imagining show a third kind of subjectively salient determination: we experience them as being determined by practical reasons.23 This means that they present themselves as responsive to and guided by reasons for acting, which we are provided with by our conscious and concurrent intentions, desires, and so on. 22For the plausibility of talking of objects of thought, see, for instance, Husserl (1970) and Martin (2000b). And for the plausibility of taking thoughts to possess a character, and to take intellectual presentations to be forms of appearance, see chapters 12 and 5. 23At least if they constitute mental actions (cf. Dorsch (2011b) and chapter 5). But it is very plausible to assume that many - if not all - episodes of imagining are intrinsically active (cf. ibid. 105 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 Imaginative thoughts may still share most, if not all, other phenomenal aspects with the cognitive episodes (i.e., perceptions, memories and judgements). Since they may involve the same concepts and referential elements as judgemental thoughts, they can present their objects as existing, mind-independent, particular and present in roughly the same way as the latter can do this (e.g., when we imagine that that book on the table before us is red). And we also may experience some imaginative thoughts as being determined by quasi-epistemic reasons - that is, by reasons for supposition, rather than reasons for genuine belief. This may happen, for instance, when we employ them in hypothetical reasoning, or in the creation or appreciation of fictional stories. Consider the example of dreaming up a world exclusively filled with transparent objects and wondering about which theories of the world its inhabitants might come up with. This will involve imagining the visual experiences of the inhabitants as well as their resulting beliefs. And it will require altering the imagined beliefs in response to the imagined experiences. In fact, failing to take the imagined experiences to be reasons for the imagined beliefs would either mean failure in our imaginative project, or reveal some degree of irrationality on our behalf. Now, if our imaginative thoughts are rationally responsive to our sensory imaginings, this may have the effect that we experience the former as being based on reasons provided by the latter. But although the reasons in question function very similarly to our real-life epistemic reasons, they are not of the same kind, given that they are not reasons for beliefs about reality.24 Epsiodes of sensory imagining, on the other hand, are phenomenally more removed from their cognitive counterparts than imaginative thoughts are from judgemental ones. The main reason for this is that their objects are presented as particular, existing, and so on, only if they are accompanied by additional thoughts or intentions to this effect (cf. Dorsch (2011b)).25 As already noted, sensory imaginings are by default unspecific about the particular identities, locations and extensions of their concrete objects and do not present them as existing or as mind-independent. And any determination of their particularity or their other ontological features demands the involvement of some additional intellectual elements. The same requirement is not in place in the case of perceptions or sensory memories, since they present their objects always as determinate, existing, and so on. 24Cf. also Currie & Ravenscroft for the observation that the rational relations in which imaginative thoughts stand parallel those in which judgemental thoughts stand (cf. Currie and Ravenscroft (2003): e.g., 49, 81, 93f. and 100). 25I stay neutral here on the question of whether these additional intellectual elements are (always) part of the sensory imaginings; and if so, whether they by default qualify the imagined objects as perceived within the imagined world. See Peacocke (1985) and Martin (2002b) for considerations in favour of a positive answer. 106 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons III. My next aim is to provide some support for Experiential Rationalism by arguing that the phenomenal character of the various cognitive episodes reveals their reason-giving power. As already suggested, the character of perceptions adequately reflects important aspects of their respective nature.26 It is indeed distinctive of perceptions that they relate us to particular and present objects in the actual world. Moreover, how they present these objects as being is determined directly by how the latter are. Accordingly, perceptions provide us with immediate access to mind-independent objects and their material features. This gives rise to the fact that we are entitled to rely on them when forming beliefs about the world. Perceptions provide warrant for our beliefs precisely because they directly relate us to reality. The situation is very similar for episodic memories - with the qualification that they are concerned with the past, rather than the present. Episodes of the sensory imagination, however, do not relate us to the actual world and therefore by themselves lack the power to justify our beliefs about reality.27 And, just as in the case of perceptions and memories, this aspect of their nature is reflected in their phenomenal character - or so I would like to argue. The idea is that we experience perceptions and sensory memories, but not sensory imaginings, as providing us with reasons for belief. And the main consideration in favour of this claim is that the postulated phenomenal difference best explains why we are motivated and justified to trust our perceptions and memories, but not our imaginings, when forming our views on reality. Consider for a moment the case of hallucinations. Trusting them in belief formation can never lead to knowledge about reality, given that they do not relate us to the world.28 But it may still be rational to rely on them; and whether it is depends largely on their phenomenal character. If a hallucination is subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions and thus wrongly seems to be a perception, it would be irrational for the subject concerned not to endorse it in belief - unless she becomes aware of its hallucinatory status by other means, such as observation or testimony (cf. chapter 11). If, on the other hand, it is first-personally discriminable and thus marked as something distinct from 26Notable exceptions may be states which are defective in one way or another. Some hallucinations, for instance, are experienced by us as if they were perceptions and did relate us to the world, despite of this not being so. I discuss the nature of the resulting error, which occurs already on the first-order experiential level, in chapters 11 and 13. 27Though, they may acquire such a power due to their embedding in a suitable mental project (cf. Dorsch (2011b)). 28And it is arguable that this is due, not merely to a lack of truth, but also to a lack of justification (cf. McDowell (1998a)). I would like to stay neutral here on the issue of how epistemic justification and rationality are actually linked to each other. 107 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 a perception, it would be irrational for the subject in question to actually rely on it in belief formation. However, from a third-personal perspective, both kinds of hallucinations do not differ significantly. Hence, that we do trust hallucinations of the first, but not of the second kind and are rational in doing so is to be accounted for in part by reference to their phenomenal character.29 This explanation presupposes that the character of perceptions involves certain phenomenal aspects, which are partly responsible for our epistemic reliance on them and on all other episodes with a first-personally indistinguishable character. Moreover, it suggests that the very same aspects are missing in the case of those sensory episodes which we do not put trust in when acquiring beliefs about the world - notably subjectively recognisable hallucinations and sensory imaginings. There are basically two kinds of candidates for these phenomenal aspects. On the one hand, there is the impression of the determination by an actually and mind-independently existing object - an impression which is present in perceptions (as well as perception-like hallucinations) and episodic memories, but absent in their openly hallucinatory or imaginative counterparts (cf. chapter 2). And, on the other hand, there is the impression of the provision of a certain epistemic reason which, again, pertains to the former, but not to the latter types of sensory episode. The two options are compatible with each other. In fact, it is plausible to maintain that one way of experiencing an episode as providing us with an epistemic reason is just to experience it as being determined by - and thus also as relating us to - specific parts of reality. But, more importantly, that the phenomenal character of our sensory episodes is central to our rational reliance on them and, in particular, that the relevant experience is one of reason-provision (and not merely one of determination by reality) should become clear once we focus on the distinction between epistemic entitlement and epistemic trust. Whether sensory episodes entitle us to form beliefs about reality and thus put us into the position to acquire knowledge depends on whether they relate us to the actual world. But epistemic trust is not a matter of the presence of entitlement. We may fail to rely on experiences, despite being entitled to endorse them in belief - for instance, when we take them to be hallucinatory or imaginative. And we may trust experiences which do not provide us with epistemic warrant - such as, arguably, hallucinations which are first-personally 29This is true even if subjective indistinguishability does not mean here sameness of phenomenal character. If the character of the first kind of hallucination is different - though first-personally indistinguishable - from that of perceptions, our reliance on it has to be accounted for in terms of its character (wrongly) seeming to us to be perceptual in nature. Hence, it is still their possession of a certain kind of phenomenal character - namely one subjectively indiscriminable from the character of perceptions - which accounts for our rational trust in it. Besides, I argue in chapters 11 and 13 that perception-like hallucinations do possess the same phenomenal character as the corresponding perceptions. 108 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons indistinguishable from perceptions. Moreover, we need not count as irrational in either case. In fact, rationality may very well require us to act contrary to the (unknown) presence or absence of entitlement. This shows that epistemic reliance is, rather, a matter of taking entitlement to be present and to be ours. That is, it is a matter of taking the respective episodes to provide epistemic reasons, and of taking these reasons to be reasons for us. The relationality of perceptions and sensory memories plays a central role in explaining why they entitle us to believe, or provide us with epistemic reasons. But it cannot account for the subjective element involved in epistemic reliance - that we take ourselves to be entitled to form the respective beliefs. Only the latter makes it rational from our perspective to trust our perceptions and episodic memories. Now, taking these sensory episodes to warrant beliefs does not require having any mental states over and above them - such as higher-order beliefs about their perceptual or mnemonic nature. It suffices to consciously enjoy the perceptions and memories and to experience them as providing us with epistemic reasons - which means, in this case, to experience them as providing us with access to the world. Furthermore, as already suggested, we do the latter precisely because they present their objects as enjoying actual and mind-independent existence and as being their actual determinants. Discriminable hallucinations and sensory imaginings, on the other hand, lack these phenomenal aspects - which is why we do not experience them as providing us with epistemic reasons and, hence, do not rely on them when forming beliefs about reality. Moreover, this difference in character explains why it would be irrational for us, say, to endorse sensory imaginings, or to fail to endorse perceptions: we experience the latter, but not the former, as providing us with epistemic reasons. The resulting picture treats epistemic reliance still as noninferential. For it claims that we rely on perceptions and memories simply because we experience them as providing us with epistemic reasons while consciously enjoying them - and not because we form any additional judgements or beliefs about their nature or epistemic status.30 A very similar line of reasoning leads to the conclusion that we experience judgemental thoughts, but no other thoughts, as providing us with reasons for belief. Again, what needs to be accounted for is that it is rational for us to trust our judgements, but not our spontaneous or imaginative thoughts, as premisses in reasoning about reality. Any answer to this explanatory challenge should make reference to the fact that we experience only the judgemental thoughts as being determined by epistemic reasons and, therefore, as being epistemically reasonable. Indeed, if their phenomenal character were different, we would not 30Besides, the account is neutral on whether epistemic reasons are facts in the world, or the experiences concerned, or something else, such as propositions. 109 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 rely on them, but instead give them up or revise them - assuming that we are rational. Moreover, in the light of the difference between epistemic entitlement and epistemic rationality (cf. chapter 11), the respective experience needs to be a way of taking the thoughts concerned to provide epistemic reasons for us. That is, it needs to be an experience of reason-provision. Consequently, we experience perceptions, memories and jugdements (but none of their cognitive counterparts) as providing us with epistemic reasons, and the latter also as being determined by epistemic reasons. The resulting account of the phenomenal character of our cognitive episodes therefore conforms to the main tenet of Experiential Rationalism, according to which the rational role of our mental episodes is subjectively salient as part of their character. In addition, perhaps the most crucial element in the generation of this experience of rationality is the the impression of determination - whether by objects or by reasons. For we experience our cognitive episodes as reason-giving either by experiencing them as relating us to the world, or by experiencing them as being supported by reasons for beliefs about reality. And both experiences arise out of the respective impressions of determination by objects or by reasons. IV. So far, I have identified various phenomenal aspects of perceptions and other mental episodes. And I have argued that most of them are linked, in one way or another, to the rational role of the episodes concerned. If my argument has been successful, it has established the existence of a rational dimension of the phenomenal character of perceptions, sensory memories and judgemental thoughts. In the remainder of this article, I would like to say a bit more about this rational dimension. More specifically, I would like to characterise further the different ways in which phenomenal aspects may be connected to the proposed experience of rationality and to use this characterisation in an attempt to group the aspects into three kinds - the sensory, the intellectual, and the rational aspects. I will start with the issue of what is the common phenomenal element in our experiences of perceptions, memories and judgements as reasonproviding, given that the underlying impressions of determination involved in them differ fundamentally from each other. Not only does this question arise straight from the observation of the intimate link between the first-personally salient rationality and determination of our cognitive episodes. But answering it will also shed more light on what it means to experience episodes as reasongiving and help us later on with the specification of the three categories of phenomenal aspects. My proposal is that the common element in our experiences of episodes as reason-providing is some form of first-personally salient non-neutrality or 110 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons commitment. In the case of perceptions and episodic memories, this nonneutrality arises, again, out of the presentation of the perceived or remembered objects as determinants of how they are experienced. When we are perceiving or sensorily membering an object, the latter is presented as determining how it is perceived or remembered as being. Accordingly, we get the impression that the object indeed possesses the features that it appears to have as part of our perception or memory. The respective episodes are therefore non-neutral about the presentation of their objects as having certain features: they involve a subjectively salient endorsement of this presentation, which means that they take their objects to be the way which they present them as being. More generally, perceptions are non-neutral towards the material features of concrete and particular parts of the mind-independent and present reality. Episodes of sensory memory, on the other hand, take a stance on how specific parts of the actual world have been in the past. That is, they make a claim about how things actually were, and not about how they actually are (cf. Martin (2001)). What both types of episode have in common, however, is that their commitment is concerned with reality: they are non-neutral about particular real objects being a certain way, whether in the present or the past. This aspect of their character is part of why we epistemically rely on them when forming beliefs about the world. Indeed, it is part of why we experience them as providers of epistemic reasons. Their non-neutrality is therefore epistemic in nature. There is a sense in which perceptions and memories may also be said to be 'non-neutral' towards the more fundamental ontological properties of their objects, such as their particularity and mind-independent existence. But there is at least one significant difference between the already discussed non-neutrality towards material features and any additional 'non-neutrality' towards more basic ontological properties. For while the former figure in our perceptual or mnemonic beliefs, the latter do not. Consider the mind-independent existence of the perceived objects and their features. Although it is true that we take them to exist mind-independently in our interaction with them, the judgement that they enjoy mind-independent existence is not of the same type as the judgement that the book is blue, say. In particular, while the latter is perceptually warranted, the former is not. Instead, judging the mind-independent existence of what we are perceiving requires reflection on the nature of our experience of it. One way of doing this is to attend to one particular aspect of the phenomenal character of perceptions, namely that they present themselves as relations to mind-independently existing entities. Unless we are aware of a reason to doubt the adequacy of this impression, we are entitled to take it at face value and judge our experience to be a perception of mind-independent reality. The presentation of the ontological properties of the perceived objects 111 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 is therefore part of the (self-)presentation of the perceptual nature of the perception concerned. And this presentation - just as the resulting justification - is experiential, which means that it pertains to our first-personal experience of what perceptions and other mental episodes are like.31 By contrast, our perceptual beliefs are concerned solely with how the world is like, and not with the nature of our relevant perceptions of the world. This difference in how our perceptions may ground beliefs about their objects is reflected by the fact that the presentation of the ontological properties is the same for all perceptions and in fact essential to their perceptual nature, while the presentation of material features is specific to each particular situation and object. Now, judgemental thoughts are non-neutral in exactly the same sense in which perceptions and sensory memories are non-neutral: they make a claim about how reality is like, that is, are commited to reality being a certain way, namely how they present it to be. The only difference is that judgemental thoughts are epistemically non-neutral because they present themselves as being determined, not by real objects, but by reasons for beliefs about real objects - such as those reasons provided by presentations which appear to relate to the world (i.e., perceptions or episodic memories). But the distinct kinds of cognitive episode still share their first-personally disclosed epistemic commitment. And it is, minimally, this phenomenal aspect which constitutes the substantial common element in their impressions of being providers of epistemic reasons. Mere thoughts and non-cognitive episodes are not commital in this sense. The simple thought that the book is blue presents the books as being blue, but does not endorse it as being blue. Wondering whether the book is blue or desiring it to be blue also do not take a stance on whether the book is blue, despite being about the exemplification of blueness by the book. By contrast, seeing a blue book and judging a book to be blue involve the claim that it is as it is presented, namely blue.32 31I discuss this token-reflexive presentation and our self-knowledge based on it in more detail in chapters 11 and 13. Especially the latter work also addresses the difference between the perceptual presentation of the material features instantiated in the world and the experiential presentation of the relational features bridging the gap between mind and world. 32The distinction between neutral and non-neutral presentation parallels that between semantic and stative representation to be found in Martin (2002b). Compare also the example of entering a classroom and finding the sentence 'the book is blue' written on the blackboard: it is clear that the sentence presents something to be a certain way, but it is yet undecided whether it is also meant as an endorsement of what is presented. 112 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons V. The conclusion that the phenomenal character of our cognitive episodes reflects their rational role and, as a central part of this reflection, includes an epistemic commitment enables us now to divide the phenomenal aspects involved into three groups. The basic division concerns the nature of their contribution to the non-neutrality of the episodes in question. Some of the aspects are responsible for the general occurrence and type of the non-neutrality at issue - notably, that it comes with an epistemic commitment towards the real world and that it is either perceptual, or mnemonic or judgemental in nature. Other aspects contribute instead to the more specific determination of what the respective presentations are non-neutral about and epistemically commited to. Consider the case of a perception of a blue book. The book appears to be blue; and it appears to exist independently of our experience of it. If the book were not to appear to exist, or were to appear to depend for its existence on our experience of it, our perception would not come with an epistemic commitment concerning the blueness of the book. This is exactly what happens when we are visualising a blue book: the book does not appear to exist independently of our experience of it, and our experience does not incline or warrant us to form a judgement about how the world is like. The corresponding phenomenal aspects are therefore crucial to the type of non-neutrality involved (if any). By contrast, if the perceived book were not to appear to be blue, it would still appear to have some other property instead (e.g., another colour) and would thus still commit us to a judgement about what the book is like. Accordingly, while the appearance of blueness is irrelevant for the fact that our perception of the book involves an epistemic endorsement, the appearance of existence and mind-independence is essential to this involvement. None the less, the appearance of blueness still contributes something to the epistemic non-neutrality of our perception of the book. For it identifies the specific nature of this epistemic commitment - namely that it is a commitment to the ascription of blueness to the book, rather than that of another property. The line of thought concerning other phenomenal aspects is similar. As already suggested, the first-personal non-neutrality of perceptions is largely due to the fact that they seem to be determined by their objects.33 If the perceived book were not to appear to determine our experience of it and, especially, which material properties it appears to have as part of this experience, the latter would not commit us to the ascription of those properties to the book. For if our experience were not phenomenally marked as being 33In the case of imaginings, what gives rise to the non-neutrality is the determination by the active intentions (cf. chapter 8). 113 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 responsive to and influenced by the actual properties of the book, it would not purport to provide us with access to the latter and therefore involve no claim about its actual properties. Furthermore, the impression of objects as determinants of experience presupposes a sense of their concreteness and particularity, including a determinate extension and location. There could not be an appearance of determination by and dependence on an unspecified object, that is, an object which fails to be presented as having a particular identity and determinate spatio-temporal features. Episodes of visualising do not appear to be determined by their objects partly because they do not as such present us with particular and specifically located objects. Correspondingly, they do not make a claim about how concrete parts of the real world are like.34 Finally, the non-neutrality of perceptions is marked as perceptual - rather than as mnemonic - due to their presentation of objects as presently being a certain way. The phenomenal aspects distinctive of perceptions can therefore be grouped into those which are responsible for their general possession of an epistemic and, in particular, perceptual non-neutrality; and into those which instead determine what the perceptions are epistemically commited to, namely the ascription of certain material features to objects in the world. While the presentations of material features belong to the second group, the presentations of (many of35) the more basic ontological properties belong to the first. It hopefully becomes clear - even without spelling this out in any more detail - that exactly the same division is present in the cases of sensory memories and of judgemental thoughts. However, the phenomenal aspects of cognitive episodes may di?er in their relation to epistemic rationality in another way, which is orthogonal to the distinction just described. More specifically, they may be sensitive to epistemic reasons or not. That a phenomenal aspect is sensitive to epistemic reasons means that - on the assumption of full rationality - our coming to be aware of the latter brings about a change in the former. Some examples may help to illustrate this. If we perceive a slender person with long hair from behind and take her to be a woman, how the person appears to us will change if we come to learn that she is actually a man. Again, if we see what looks to you as a bunch of flowers, but then touch them and feel that they are actually 34Episodes of sensory imagining may still commit us to the acceptance of certain facts about types of objects (e.g., that book covers are rectangular in shape). But the respective pieces of knowledge are not delivered by the imaginative episodes. Instead, the occurrence of the latter depends on the exploitation of this knowledge (cf. Dorsch (2011b)). Similarly, visualising a blue book may incline and entitle us to judge that the experienced book does not exist. But this would not be a perceptual commitment. 35Unclear cases are, perhaps, the presentation of objects as being concrete, or as having determinate spatio-temporal locations and extentions. 114 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons made out of plastic, their appearance will change, and thus the character of our experience. Similarly, what we take to be the façade of a voluminuous building looks different to us from what we take to be a mere façade with no building behind it. And switching from seeing a depiction of a duck to seeing a depiction of a rabbit involves a change in phenomenal character. Or, finally, if we overhear very few fragments of a conversation, namely repeated utterances of the sounds 'gift', and think that the speaker is talking about a present, our experience will change, once we have realised that he is actually speaking German and talking about poison instead. As a matter of fact, the phenomenal aspects responsible for the occurrence of a perceptual commitment - that is, the aspects concerned with the presentation of the more basic ontological properties of the perceived objects - are insensitive to epistemic reasons. When we are perceiving something, it is presented as a concrete, particular, determinately located, existing, mindindependent and present determinant of our perception of it. None of these phenomenal aspects will change if we come to doubt or believe - perhaps on justified grounds - that there is in fact no such object that we are perceiving, say.36 A prominent example is the impression of objectivity. Even people, who believe that colours and other secondary qualities are projections of our minds onto the world, accept that they continue to experience them as mindindependently instantiated features.37 More sweeping examples are sceptical scenarios, which question our claim to knowledge about the external world precisely by casting general doubt on the adequacy of the (acknowledged) complex impression of a perceptual access to reality.38 Which material features perceived objects appear to have, on the other hand, may be dependent on which epistemic reasons we recognise as such. The scope of perceivability and of perceptual knowledge are difficult to determine (cf. Millar (2000)). And it has been controversial whether (some types of) perceptions are cognitively penetrable or impenetrable in the way described. But assuming that we can see more complex properties, such as being a woman or being a flower, the respective perceptual presentations will be sensitive to reasons - as illustrated by the examples given above. That the hair of the person appears to be long or that the flowers appear to be red, however, do not constitute reason-sensitive aspects of phenomenal character. They stay the 36This is the case even if one denies that hallucinations share any of these phenomenal aspects (cf. Martin (2006)). For this denial stil leaves room for perceptions which we wrongly (but justifiedly) believe to be hallucinatory. 37Which is why they endorse some kind of error theory (cf. Mackie (1985) and Boghossian and Velleman (1989)). 38Compare the various forms of Cartesian and Humean scepticism (cf. Wright (2004)). For a discussion of what it may mean for a phenomenal aspect to be misleading, see chapters 11 and 13. 115 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 same, even if we find out that - contrary to our experiences - the person has short hair, or the flowers a yellowish tone. Each of the perceptions' phenomenal aspects discussed in this article therefore belongs to one - and only one - of the following three categories: (i) reason-insensitive aspects determining what the episodes concerned are non-neutral about; (ii) reason-sensitive aspects determining what the episodes concerned are non-neutral about; and (iii) aspects which are responsible for the general occurrence and type of the non-neutrality in question. The issue of whether episodic memories involve not only aspects of the first and the third, but also aspects of the second kind corresponds to the issue raised above with respect to perceptions. And again, I do not want to rule out this possibility here. If we learn that what we visually recall is not the façade of a building, but instead just a mere façade, how it appears to us may very well change accordingly (e.g., it may stop to appear to be voluminous). Similarly, how things are presented to us in judgemental thoughts is sensitive to reasons as well. Indeed, it is responsive to reasons in a more radical way. In the case of perceptions or memories, there are always some presentational aspects concerning the material features of the perceived objects which stay constant. Accordingly, a perception does not disappear, but merely changes in response to the impact of epistemic reasons. By contrast, no aspect of the judgemental presentation of material features is resistant to the rational influence of epistemic reasons. This explains why judgemental thoughts may cease to exist altogether, once they are epistemically challenged. But it also means that judgemental thoughts do not involve phenomenal aspects of kind (i). Besides, the reason-sensitivity extends to the aspects of kind (iii) in the case of judgemental thoughts. When we realise that there is in fact no object on the table before us, we should and normally will give up our judgement that there is an (existing and mind-independent) book on the table. The two main phenomenal aspects, which distinguish judgemental thoughts from perceptions and episodic memories, are intimately linked to each other. It is part of the nature of judgemental thoughts that they are fully responsive to epistemic reasons and, at least in rational subjects, are based on epistemic reasons.39 This fact is reflected by their phenomenal character in that we always experience them as responses to epistemic reasons (even if they are not such responses). But it is also partly constituted by the fact that their presentation of material properties is, in its entirety, sensitive to epistemic reasons.40 Accordingly, we would not experience judgemental thoughts as based on reasons, 39Cf. chapter 5 for a discussion of how to deal with self-evident judgements (if there are any). 40Perceptions and emotions, in contrast, are only partially rational in that how they present objects to be changes only to some extent in the face of opposing epistemic reasons (cf. above for perceptions, and chapter 6 for emotions). 116 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons if how they present objects to be were not sensitive to reasons. The experience of judgements as reason-based thus reflects the more fundamental fact of their reason-sensitivity.41 VI. The preceding considerations suggest that, at least among the cognitive episodes, the contrast between the sensory presentations (i.e., perceptions and episodic memories) and the non-sensory presentations (i.e., judgemental thoughts) is co-extensional with the contrast between at least partly reasoninsensitive and fully reason-sensitive presentations of material features of objects. And this promises, again, an account of the distinction between the sensory and the non-sensory in rationalist terms. In this final section, I would like to assess this view. It will turn out that, in order to be able to capture sensory imaginings as well, the condition of reason-insensitivity has to be supplemented by the condition of non-neutrality. My hope is then to make plausible the idea that the three categories of phenomenal aspects identified in the last section indeed capture the sensory, the intellectual and the rational elements of phenomenal character. But to start off, it is necessary to say a bit more about the scope of the sensory. For there are two legitimate views on this issue, which can be brought to the fore by the following examples. Actual experiences of pain, on the one hand, and episodic memories or imaginings of pain, on the other, are at the same time similar and different with respect to their character of painfulness. That they are phenomenally similar is reflected by the fact that we group them together under the heading of experiences of pain. They both show, as part of their phenomenal character, an aspect of painfulness. But they also differ in how they involve such a phenomenal aspect.42 In particular, their involvement of painfulness has, in each case, a very different impact on our behaviour. For instance, we do not take an aspirin in order to get rid of a recalled or imagined pain. However, this and similar differences cannot be accounted for in terms of degrees of painfulness. Instead, they require the assumption of a difference in kind of aspect: actual pain experiences involve a different quality of painfulness than episodic memories or imaginings of pain. Similarly, seeing a red object 41It is interesting to note that perceptions - to the extent to which their presentational aspects are sensitive to epistemic reasons - will also be determined by epistemic reasons and will accordingly present not only their objects, but also epistemic reasons, as their determinants. When we are seeing the façade of a building as the façade of a building, how it appears to us seems to be determined, not only by how it in fact is, but also by whatever brings us to take it to be part of a building in the first place. 42Cf. chapter 8. One issue is whether they involve the same aspect in different ways, or different, but similar aspects in the same way. 117 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 and recalling or visualising one have something subjectively salient in common: they are appearances of something red. But they also differ first-personally: they do not involve the same quality of reddishness. That is, on some level of specification, perceptions, memories and imaginings of a red object involve the same phenomenal aspect; but on another, more fine-grained level, they involve different, but still very similar aspects - at least much similar to each other than to those involved in thoughts about red objects. Examples like these have motivated some to limit the scope of the sensory to actual perceptions (and sensations), and to treat episodic memories or imaginings as mere copies or echoes of the sensory. Accordingly, the former and the latter do not share a common sensory core, but show a qualitative difference in respect of how they present even the most basic features (such as colours or textures) of their objects (cf. Martin (2001)). But the very same examples also give support to the idea that all three types of episode - and in contrast to all thought - are sensory in a broader sense, and that the differences among them concern their different ways of realising this more comprehensive form of sensoriness. In what follows, I will be mainly concerned with the latter and broader notion of sensoriness. The former is comparatively easy to capture. A straightforward proposal is to take an episode to be sensory in the narrower sense - that is, to take it to be a perception - just in case it possesses the described phenomenal aspects and, in particular, the impression of an immediate determination by a present object. Martin (2002b, 2001), for instance, accepts this narrower notion of sensoriness and provides an account of the corresponding resemblances among perceptions, memories and imaginings in terms of the idea that the latter two are representations of the former and therefore show an analogue of immediacy, namely represented immediacy. But this treatment does not address the applicability of the wider notion of sensoriness, given that it does not identify a phenomenal feature common to all three kinds of episode. For an impression of immediate determination is different from a presentation of an experience involving such an impression.43 My own interest lies in the possibility of identifying such a common element, and I will therefore turn my attention to the question of the sense (if any) in which perceptual, mnemonic and imaginative presentations share their sensoriness and differ from non-sensory presentations, such as thoughts or conative episodes. My starting point is the idea that the partial44 reasonsensitivity of the presentation of material features - that is, of precisely those features which non-neutral episodes are non-neutral about - is an indicator 43Besides, there is the further issue of how to deal with perception-like hallucinations - that is, the issue of whether the presence (and not merely the impression of the presence) of a perceptual relation to the world is required for being a perception as well (cf. chapter 2). 44Or the full one, if it is denied that how we perceive or recall things as being is responsive to epistemic reasons at all. 118 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons of sensoriness. The resulting view can indeed capture the sensoriness not only of perceptions and episodic memories, but also of the respective imaginings, given that the latter are at least partially unresponsive to epistemic reasons with respect to which material properties they ascribe to their objects. But the same is true of non-judgemental thoughts and conative episodes, and the proposal thus faces the immediate difficulty of not being able to characterise the latter as non-sensory. It is here that non-neutrality becomes important. Both mere or spontaneous thoughts and conative presentations are neutral towards their presentational aspects. Neither merely entertaining the possibility that a (certain) book is blue, nor having a longing feeling for a blue book take some object or another to be a blue book. They both stay neutral on their presentation of a blue book.45 This leaves sensory and intellectual imaginings.46 Neither of them is epistemically non-neutral, at least not by themselves.47 But instead of being non-neutral towards reality, they can still be understood as being non-neutral towards an imagined world - that is, as involving an imaginative commitment. Here is how Martin puts it with respect to visualising: 'When one visualises an ocean like the Pacific, one imagines a blue expanse. [...] Visualising the water puts you into a position of not being neutral with respect to the imagined situation. In visualising the expanse of water, one is not non-commital whether the imagined situation contains a blue expanse of water. Furthermore, visualising in this way can have consequences for what one accepts about the imagined situation and hence what one comes to believe is possible.' (Martin (2002b): 413f.) The episode of visualising the ocean does not merely present us with a blue ocean - as, for instance, the conscious desire to see a blue ocean does. It also takes this blue ocean to be part of the imagined world. If the latter were not the case, the episode of visualing could have no rational impact on what we intellectually imagine about the imagined situation - say, as part of an imaginative project similar to the one described above. In the last sentence of the quote above, Martin suggests that what is crucial here is, rather, the rational impact that episodes of visualing may have on our beliefs about the imagined situation, as well as on our belief of what is possible. But it is not 45Note that entertaining the possibility that a (certain) book is blue is different from judging that a (certain) book can be blue: the proposition entertained during the former does not involve any modal concept. 46Unbidden images may be treated in the same way as sensory imaginings, independently of whether the former should be counted among the instances of imagining. 47Though we may visualise something in such a way that it may justify a corresponding perceptual belief about an actual (i.e., non-modal) fact in the world (cf. Dorsch (2011b)). 119 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 clear how this could distinguish episodes of visualising from conscious desires, given that the latter may have a rational impact on our beliefs about what we desire and, possibly, also on our beliefs of what is possible (e.g., if it turns out that we cannot genuinely desire the impossible, such as possessing a round square). However, in the case of conative episodes, there is no equivalent to the possibility of a quasi-epistemic link between sensory and intellectual imaginings - not the least, presumably, because there are no conative mental projects. Correspondingly, our judgements about what we long for make a claim about our state of mind, not about any situation or world distinct from our mind. Similar considerations can be put forward in support of the claim that imaginative thoughts, too, involve a commitment concerning how the imagined world is like. For intellectual imaginings could not be responsive to quasiepistemic reasons (i.e., to reasons for imaginative endorsement), if they were not non-neutral towards the imagined situation. Hence, they are non-neutral, minimally, to the extent to which they are reason-sensitive in this specific way.48 The respective commitment is of course also imaginative in nature. That is, it pertains to the presentation of objects as belonging to an imagined world, rather than the real one. Furthermore, the presentation of material features involved in imaginative thoughts is fully sensitive to quasi-epistemic reasons. In contrast, sensory imaginative presentations of material features are, at least to some extent, resistant to such rational impact (though they are, as instances of mental agency, certainly open to the influence of practical considerations). For example, theoretical rationality does not demand of us to avoid visualising a person as blonde if we also suppose, as part of the same imaginative project, that her hair is dark. If there is any such rational pressure, it will be concerned with the reconsideration of what we intellectually imagine 48Velleman may have had something similar in mind when proposing that intellectual imaginings share with judgemental thoughts the attitude of regarding propositions as true (cf. Velleman (2000): 248ff.). One problem with his proposal is, however, that he does not further specify what it means for an episode to regard a proposition as true, apart from noting that it does not amount to the stronger commitment of taking reality to be a certain way. And another difficulty is that he uses this idea also to specifiy the direction of fit of judgemental and imaginative thoughts - which appears to force him to accept that merely thinking something involves some form of non-neutrality as well. Besides, my proposal is weaker than Velleman's in that it does not put forward a claim about all instances of intellectual imaginings. Instead, it leaves room for non-neutral imaginative thoughts. For instance, if it is true that a thought is already imaginative if it is formed in direct response to the intention to produce a mental presentation of certain objects and features, then simple imaginative thoughts need not be commital (cf. Dorsch (2011b)). The underlying idea is that intellectual imaginings come with an imaginative commitment or 'attitude' only if they are embedded in a wider mental project - precisely because they acquire a sensitivity to quasi-epistemic reasons only in the context of such a project. 120 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons - requiring us, for instance, to give up the assumption that the person is dark-haired, or alternatively to imagine in addition that the visual image is part if an illusory experience within the imagined world. It is true that the manifestation of the rational sensitivity of our imaginative thoughts requires mental agency on our behalf, while it is not clear whether our revision of our judgements is similarly active (cf. Harman (1986), and chapter 5). And it is also true that we do not always care, as part of a certain imaginative project, about the consistency or coherence of what we are imagining; and that this need not even be a sign of irrationality. But both observations are compatible with imaginative thoughts being sensitive to quasi-epistemic reasons. For the latter does not require that they do always change in response to such reasons, but only that this may happen and does happen under suitable conditions. In the case of judgemental thoughts, the latter comprise perhaps not much more than sufficient theoretical rationality. But in the case of imaginative thoughts, they may also include the absence of overriding practical concerns, given that the existence and effectiveness of the latter need not render the resulting thoughts to be irrational in any sense - contrary to what would be the case in judging. Consider again the example of visualising a person as being blonde, while also supposing her to have dark hair. Within the project of imagining how a friend of this imagined person sees her, we will come under rational pressure to revise or supplement our imaginative thought. But within the project of imagining different possible directions in which the life of the imagined person might develop, no such pressure arises - perhaps because what we end up imagining are two distinct and independent worlds. If we now read the characterisations of the three categories of phenomenal aspects in terms of theoretical reasons, rather than merely epistemic ones, we get an improvement on the simple account of the sensory introduced above. The modified proposal is that a presentational aspect is sensory just in case it is insensitive to theoretical reasons and contributes to the determination of what the respective episode is non-neutral about. Accordingly, the sensory aspects of phenomenal character are identical with the phenomenal aspects of kind (i). And presentational episodes are sensory just in case they involve such sensory aspects - possibly in addition to reason-insensitive aspects of kind (ii). The requirement of non-neutrality towards the material properties of objects rules out mere or spontaneous thoughts and conative presentations. Adding the partial or full reason-insensitivity of the presentation of such properties enables us then to exclude judgemental and imaginative thoughts as well. Does this imply that sensoriness is constituted by non-neutrality and reason-insensitivity? Perhaps not, for there is still the possibility that one or several more fundamental features are constitute of sensoriness and responsi121 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons Chapter 4 ble for the non-neutrality and unresponsiveness of theoretical reasons. Initially plausible candidate for such features are the common transparency or perspectivalness of perceptions, episodic memories and sensory imaginings (cf. Martin (2002b)), or the determination by objects rather than reasons (cf. the Kantian notion of receptivity or object-provision). But a discussion of this issue has to wait for another occasion. Another question that remains to be addressed is whether all non-sensory phenomenal aspects are intellectual (or conceptual) in nature. The aspects of kind (ii) - that is, the reason-sensitive presentations of material features - clearly pertain to our understanding and should therefore be treated as intellectual. But the situation is less obvious with respect to the phenomenal aspects of kind (iii) - that is, the presentations of objects as particular, existing mind-independent, and so on. These aspects may be labelled rational phenomenal aspects in so far as they are central to the occurrence of an experience of rational role. Moreover, their presence is a precondition for the non-neutral and reality-concerned presentation of objects and their material features. For it is the aspects of kind (iii) that establish the non-neutrality and concern for reality in question. In this function, they resemble very much the Kantian categories which, ideally, should have included all the concepts corresponding to the relevant aspects in my list in the first section of this chapter. So there is some plausibility to taking the latter to be intellectual as well. But there are also some reasons speaking against this conclusion. Most importantly, they are not responsive to theoretical reasons when occurring as part of the character of sensory episodes. Perhaps part of this - namely their insensitivity to empirical evidence - may be explained by reference to their status as preconditions for the presentation of material (or empirical) features. But this solution can still not account for the fact that, say, what subjectively seems to be a perception does not change or disappear once we come to believe with respect to it that there is really no perceived object. This fits well with the observation already made above that perceptual judgements and beliefs involve only the ascription of material features, but not that of the more basic ontological properties under discussion here. And it is also related to the further idea that the perception of real objects may not require the possession or employment of the respective ontological concepts. Besides, the underlying Kantian picture, that has motivated the characterisation of the aspects of kind (iii) as intellectual, is too radical in that it takes the presentation of existence, mind-independence, and so on, as a precondition for the presentation of objects in general, and not merely for the presentation of real objects. This raises the challenge to account for the apparent fact that sensory imaginings present us with objects. It is particularly pressing with respect to unbidden non-perceptual and non-mnemonic images, where it is not possible to point 122 Chapter 4 The Phenomenal Presence of Reasons to an act of imagining or make-believe as the source of the impression of the provision of an object.49 Hence, the non-sensory and rational phenomenal aspects of kind (iii) are perhaps better not taken to be intellectual in the same sense as the aspects of kind (ii). To sum up, there are three different kinds of presentational phenomenal aspects, as the example of perceptions illustrates. First, the character of the latter involves sensory elements of kind (i). A perception of a blue book takes the latter to be blue; and that the book appears to be blue both contributes to the character of the perception and is insensitive to, say, evidence that it in fact has a different colour. Second, the phenomenal character of perceptions may also involve intellectual elements of kind (ii). The perception of the blue book may take the latter to be a book; and that the book appears to be a book may both contribute to the character of the perception and be sensitive to, say, new evidence that it is in fact just a fake book. And third, the character of perceptions involves rational aspects of the kind (iii) - namely presentational aspects that are concerned with the more fundamental ontological properties of the objects, as well as with the resulting epistemic features of our perceptions. What is significant to note with respect to the debate about non-sensory phenomenal aspects is that aspects of the last kind are much more difficult to deny than intellectual elements concerned with the presentation of material features. It may be plausible to argue that properties like being a book or being a man are, strictly speaking, not really perceivable. But that perceptions present us with objects which appear to be concrete, in existence, particular, mind-independent or present, say, is very difficult to ignore. Of course, some of these aspects might be more controversial than others. But it is very hard to plausibly reject all of them. Part of the explanation of this difficulty is surely their centrality to conscious experience: they do not only render subjectively salient the type of the episodes concerned, but also reflect the latter's rational roles in our mental lives. 49Such a manouvre for the Kantian was proposed to me by John McDowell in personal conversation.

Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency I. Divisions in the Mind Try to conjure up a visual image of a sunny forest, or to suppose that Goethe once visited Stoos in the centre of Switzerland. Presumably, you will be able to comply immediately and easily, without having to do something else first, and without having to invest too much effort. But then, try to conjure up a visual perception of a sunny forest, or to form the judgement that Goethe once visited Stoos, just like that that is, without resorting to additional actions, such as travelling outside of the city, consulting a biography of Goethe, or taking a perception-or judgement-inducing drug. Presumably, you will fail. What these examples suggest is that there is a fundamental - though perhaps not necessarily strict - divide among the phenomena making up our mental lives. On the one side, there are our deliberate and straightforward mental actions and the mental episodes which they produce (and sustain). Conjuring up an image or supposing that something is the case should count - if anything should - as paradigm instances of deliberate mental agency, namely as instances of the activity of imagining something.1 Very roughly, they are examples of agency because they rationally respond to and are guided and possibly justified by certain practical reasons (i.e., those provided to us by our desires or intentions to picture or suppose something); they constitute mental actions because they are aimed at the production of some mental phenomena (i.e., an image or a supposition), and because their performance does not involve bodily movements, but occurs exclusively within the mind; they are deliberate because they are done in full, attentive consciousness of the means, ends and intended results involved; and they are straightforward - or 'lightfingered' (O'Shaughnessy, 2008, 21f.) - in that they are not done by perform1I defend the view that imagining is indeed a special form of deliberate and straightforward mental agency in Dorsch (2011b). 125 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 ing another action which deliberately exploits certain passive effects (such as those of emotional dispositions, hypnosis, or judgement-inducing drugs). Indeed, our ability to imagine seems to reveal the extreme freedom which we may enjoy in our conscious mental lives. It is difficult to think of a domain of our agency with fewer restrictions or obstacles. On the other side of the divide, there are the more passive mental phenomena, notably those of our mental episodes, the formation (and sustainment) of which is either not at all influenced by our mental agency, or only in a mediated - though usually still deliberate - way. Many episodes occur and disappear without any active involvement on our behalf. We are often overcome by feelings or sensations, surprised or annoyed by perceived smells or sounds, or find ourselves suddenly confronted with images, memories or thoughts. Other mental episodes, however, are located in between deliberately formed images or suppositions and passively occurring feelings or perceptions in that their occurrence or nature is somehow influenced by deliberate activity, but in a less straightforward or encompassing way than in the typical case of imagining. You may intentionally calm down yourself or improve your mood by actively imagining something relaxing or cheerful, such as walking through a quiet and sunny forest and attending to the pleasant and soothing sounds and smells of the environment. Or you may be able to decide when to judge an issue or to remember an appearance, and which issue to judge or whose appearance to remember. But despite the intended impact of mental or bodily agency on such episodes, they do not seem to allow for the straightforward control that we often, if not always, enjoy over what we imagine. In this respect, they are closer to episodes which occur completely passively. My primary interest in this chapter is to get clearer about how, and where, best to draw the line between the straightforwardly active and the more passive aspects of our conscious minds. My main focus will thereby be on the question of whether judging can be as active as imagining: that is, whether we can form judgements in a deliberate and straightforward manner, or (as I will also say) voluntarily, or at will. The example above suggests that the answer should be negative, and that we cannot freely decide which particular proposition to endorse in a judgement concerning a certain issue. Indeed, this opinion has been widely endorsed.2 But it has not often been explicitly argued for. And if it has, the arguments have typically made use of the controversial idea that judgements (or beliefs) are intrinsically and norma2See, e.g., Williams (1973), Winters (1979), O'Shaughnessy (2008), Bennett (1990), Noordhof (2001), Engel (2002), Owens (2000), and Shah and Velleman (2005). Even thinkers, who are more sympathetic to the idea of voluntary formations of judgements or belief, often defend this possibility without accepting (or at least arguing for) the possibility of judgements or beliefs formed directly in response to the intention to do so (cf. Weatherson (2008)'s discussion, and especially his contrast between voluntary and volitional agency). 126 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency tively linked to truth. I am very sympathetic to the view that there is no real need to take up, but good reason to try to avoid, any commitment to such a norm for judgements (cf. Papineau (1999) and Dretske (2000a). And I will in addition illustrate, though only briefly, that the normative approach to the involuntariness of judgements faces a serious and not always noted problem. As an alternative, I will present an argument which refers to the ways in which we consciously experience judgements and instances of deliberate mental agency. What is important about this argument for the involuntariness of judgements is not so much its perhaps uncontroversial conclusion, but rather the particular way in which it tries to support it. For it highlights the impact which conscious experience has on - as well as what this form of awareness can tell us about - the formation of judgements and the scope of deliberate mental agency. The resulting account is thus meant to be a promising competitor for theories which account for judgements and mental agency primarily in normative or functionalist terms. The issue of whether we can form judgements at will can, as already suggested, be framed in terms of the question of whether the deliberate formation of a judgement can sometimes be as active as the conjuring up of an image or the making of a supposition, or whether instead it belongs always to the group of less active mental phenomena, which includes not only the passive cases of perceiving, sensing or feeling something, but also the somewhat active cases of changing one's mood or bringing about the occurrence of an episodic memory. What distinguishes in particular the two ways, in which we can deliberately influence the occurrence or nature of some of our mental episodes, is that one is (as I have called it) more straightforward, or less mediated, than the other. Before I discuss both the normative and the experiential approach to the involuntariness of our judgements, it is perhaps helpful to say a bit more about what judgements are, and what characterizes straightforward deliberate agency. Judgements - including occurrent beliefs - are mental episodes. As such, they are part of the stream of consciousness and of the same general kind of mental state as feelings, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and so on.3 More specifically, judgements consist in the conscious taking of a propositional and conceptual content to be true, which means that they do not - like suppositions merely represent things as being a certain way, but also make the claim that this is how things are.4 This is one important respect in which 3What I label 'mental episodes', Wollheim calls 'mental states' (Wollheim, 1984, 33f.). And I will use the latter expression to cover not only mental episodes or events, but also dispositional or standing states, such as beliefs, desires, and so on. Accordingly, my talk of 'states' is not intended here as involving any commitment to a certain ontological category - such as to their being states of affairs, rather than events, activities, or processes. 4This does not suffice to distinguish judgements from guesses. What is needed in addition 127 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 judgements differ from the events which constitute their formation (e.g., acts of judging): only the former, but not the latter, are instances of episodic and committal thought. Another is that, while events of forming a judgement are often, or perhaps even always, instantaneous, the formed judgements may remain in continuous existence for a considerable amount of time. Our judgement that the person opposite of us is very attractive, for example, may stay in the background of our conscious mind during our evening-long conversation and constantly influence what we say to, and how we treat, her or him.5 And the same is true of many of our judgemental endorsements of the propositions which we use as premisses in more complex instances of reasoning. The contrast between straightforward and mediated deliberate agency, on the other hand, is best drawn - at least for the current purposes - in terms of the fact that, while the latter involves the instrumental reliance on certain epistemic or merely causal processes and their passive effects, the former does not. The relevant processes are thereby characterized by the fact that, once they are triggered by us and progress normally, they lead by themselves - that is, without further help or involvement of agency or other factors external to them to the desired or intended outcome. And to instrumentally rely on such processes means here to employ them as means in relation to their sufficiency, once triggered and progressing normally, to bring about the desired or intended outcome. What this involves, more specifically, is that we take the respective processes to be instrumental in achieving our goal; that we take them to be so partly by recognizing their capacity to lead by themselves to the is that it is constitutive of a guess, but not of a judgement, that it originates in the conscious practical or arbitrary choice of one or another from a certain range of propositions, none of which are sufficiently supported or forced upon us by the evidence available to us, but which may none the less be among the acceptable options of choice only because they all enjoy at least some evidential backing. Consequently, we may still rationally endorse a proposition in a guess - but presumably not in a judgement - even when the proposition lacks sufficient epistemic support (cf. Owens (2003)). The offered characterization of judgements is also meant to focus the current discussion exclusively on kinds of judgement which are truth-apt and to be formed and assessed in relation to epistemic reasons. Whether this includes normative judgements (e.g., about what one ought to do, how things ought to be, or what is good) or judgements linked to or identified with intentions (e.g., about what one will do) depends on whether the correct account of these judgements will understand them as truth-apt and epistemic, or rather as expressive or as practical. However, my hope is that our experience of them as being formed in response to reasons - whether these are epistemic or practical - is also incompatible with any experience of them as being formed in a straightforward manner; and that this provides us again with an argument for their involuntariness. See Pink (1996) for an excellent discussion of, as well as a slightly different argument for, the involuntariness of decisions, desires and normative judgements which are formed - or at least meant to be formed - in response to practical reasons. 5Thanks to Kevin Mulligan for suggesting this example. 128 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency desired outcome; and that we try to act on our relevant desires or intentions by means of trying to trigger the processes in question. Accordingly, an instance of deliberate agency aiming at the production of a mental phenomenon is mediated - and not straightforward - just in case the agent attempts to achieve this aim by trying to employ an epistemic or merely causal process as a sufficient means for bringing about the desired mental phenomenon. Any other involvement of epistemic or merely causal factors is compatible with both kinds of deliberate mental agency. For example, when we deliberately attempt to recall the appearance of a certain person, we thereby set in motion certain epistemic mechanisms because we expect them to force a specific image onto us that is likely to be accurate. If we lacked this expectation, we would probably often not bother engaging our memory, but instead opt for our ability to imagine appearances. And something very similar happens when we decide to judge an issue on the basis of the evidence available to us: we thereby assume that the proposition, which the evidence will compel us to endorse due to some underlying epistemic processes, will probably be true.6 Similarly, we can reasonably decide and try to cause a change in our mood by imagining a certain scenario only if we believe that performing the latter action is likely to be instrumental in bringing about the desired alteration of how we feel. Otherwise, there would be no reason for us to engage in the imaginative activity in response to our wish to alter our mood. And when we deliberately take a drug in order to cause in us certain hallucinations, we do this precisely because of our reasonable expectation that the respective causal mechanisms, thereby triggered by us, are very likely to lead to the occurrence of such hallucinations. In the absence of this expectation, we normally would not take the drug, or at least not with the aim of hallucinating. Imagining something, in contrast, does not involve similar instrumental 6What happens in these cases is perhaps that our sole reason to rely on epistemic processes is that we are interested in producing true representations, and that we take epistemic processes (and nothing else) to be truth-conducive. But instead, it might also be a fact that basic cases of reliance on epistemic mechanisms within mediated mental agency do not actually involve the instrumental understanding and employment of the respective epistemic mechanisms. When we, say, begin to act on our decision to recall the appearance of a friend, we perhaps might not have to possess or use the instrumental belief that a good way of achieving this goal is to actively trigger the respective underlying mnemonic mechanisms. If this should turn out to be true, the characterization of the difference between straightforward and mediated agency would have to be refined accordingly - for instance, by weakening the respective condition to the effect that only the possibility, but not the actuality, of instrumental employment of the processes is to be taken into account; or by supplementing it with the condition that, if epistemic factors are concerned, it is alone decisive whether these are in fact triggered by our active engagement and furthermore by themselves sufficient to bring about the desired outcome, once started and progressing normally. 129 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 beliefs about and exploitations of epistemic or merely causal mechanisms. Although straightforward agency may allow for the influence of, or even conscious reliance on, epistemic factors, this kind of influence appears never to be mediated by an epistemic process which is or, at least, which we instrumentally believe to be - sufficient on its own to lead to the occurrence of whichever mental phenomenon has been wished for. Our successful attempt at visualizing a sunny forest, say, may very well be informed by our knowledge of how sunny forests look like, or of what it would be like to see a sunny forest. But the influence of this kind of knowledge on the resulting visual image is not mediated by (an instrumental belief about) a rational process pertaining to epistemic rationality which, once actively triggered, is alone responsible for the occurrence of the image. In particular, we do not form the visual image in response to our current recognition of some epistemic reasons (as in the case of the formation of judgements on perceptual or inferential grounds). And the occurrence of the visual image is not the direct result of a mechanism meant to preserve a rational link to epistemic reasons recognized in the past (as in the case of episodic memories based on past perceptions). Similarly, it may be true that, when we successfully visualize a sunny forest, our employment of our capacity to visualize sunny forests is causally responsible for the occurrence of the respective visual image. And this again may involve, or be grounded in, more fundamental causal chains. But in order to successfully act on our intention to visualize a sunny forest, we need not, and do not, conceive of the causal processes concerned as sufficient means. We may take the employment of our capacity to visualize sunny forests to be a necessary part of visualizing a sunny forest, and we may even understand what we are then doing as the action of visualizing a sunny forest by means of actively making use of the respective capacity. But we do not thereby think of the link between our employment of this capacity (or similar capacities, such as the capacity to visualize trees) and the occurrence of the visual image in both causal and instrumental terms (if we think of the link or its potential causal nature at all). In particular, we do not form the intention to use our capacity to visualize sunny forests in rational response to our intention to visualize a sunny forest and an instrumental belief that making active use of this capacity is likely to cause the occurrence of the desired visual image. In fact, we would not know what it would mean to act on the intention to use our capacity to visualize sunny forests, if not to act on the intention to visualize one or more sunny forests.7 7Note also that the case of visualizing someone by means of visualizing a portrait of this person still counts as an instance of straightforward agency, given that visualizing the portrait is neither epistemic, nor merely causal in nature, but instead itself a straightforward action. As a result, not all instances of straightforward agency need to be basis in the sense 130 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency II. The Normative Approach In the light of the preceding considerations, the main task in the formulation of an argument for the claim that judgements can be formed at will is the identification of a constraint on all possible judgements, which puts them beyond our deliberate and straightforward control: that is, which prevents them from being consciously formed by us in direct response to our desire or intention to form them, without any instrumental exploitation of passive processes. If the constraint would not apply to all possible judgements, it could not completely account for the fact (assuming that it is one) that none of them can be formed by us at will, including the unconstrained ones. Furthermore, the constraint has to concern the ways in which judgements can be actively formed: it has to limit these ways in such a manner as to rule out the possibility of a deliberate and straightforward formation of judgements. The most prominent strategy has been to derive such a constraint from the assumed fact that judgements are normatively linked to, or aim at, truth in such a way that they are subject to the following truth norm:8 (TN) Judgements ought always to be true, and to be formed only if they are true. This truth norm is usually introduced for very different purposes, such as to capture the essence of judgements (or beliefs), or to account for their representationality and their link to truth (cf. Papineau (1999) and Dretske (2000a) for a detailed discussion). That it may also figure in an account of the involuntariness of judgements is often only noted as an aside - if it is noted at all. But the truth norm is none the less predestined for playing this particular role because, when formulated in terms of (TN), it purports to achieve two things: to govern all possible judgements; and to put a restriction on the ways in which we can deliberately form them. But not just any understanding of the truth norm and its impact on judgements can help in explaining the involuntariness of judgements. In particular, it does not suffice to identify the constraint on judgements and their deliberate formation, as it arises out of their assumed subjection to (TN), with of not being performed by doing something else. 8See, for instance, Williams (1973) and Shah and Velleman (2005) for defences of this strategy and the kind of normativity involved, and Winters (1979), Bennett (1990) and Engel (2002) for critical discussions. See also Burge's writings, Peacocke (2003b), Wedgwood (2002) and Shah (2003) for endorsements or explications of the idea that beliefs are subject to a truth norm, and that conformity to this norm requires us to believe something only if it is true. It is not unlikely that they will be sympathetic with the normative approach to the involuntariness of judgements. 131 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 the demand that, when deliberately forming a judgement (in contrast to another kind of mental episode), we should act on the aim to form the respective mental episode only if it is true. According to this demand, it is better or more appropriate to pursue truth as one's goal when deliberately forming a judgement. But it is not necessary, given that the possibility of violating the demand is not ruled out. Although one would be somehow at fault or irrational when ignoring or not following the demand, whether one satisfies it has no influence on whether one counts as deliberately forming a judgement. As a consequence, the demand does not really limit the ways in which judgements may be deliberately formed, it puts a restriction solely on when such an intentional formation may count as proper. It is, accordingly, not strong enough to prevent the occurrence of judgements which are formed entirely at will. Therefore, the constraint on judgements derived from (TN) has to be understood in stronger terms. The most natural way of strengthening the condition on how we can deliberately form judgements seems to be to modify it in such a way that its satisfaction becomes constitutive of the deliberate formation of a judgement, instead of merely rendering examples of it appropriate.9 The result will be something like the following requirement: (C) Deliberately forming a judgement necessarily requires acting on the aim to form it only if it is true. Thus, if we do not have this goal in mind and do not actively and consciously try to achieve it, we cannot be engaged in the deliberate formation of a judgement - although we still might be engaged in the intentional or active formation of a mental episode of another kind (e.g., a supposition), or experience the passive occurrence of a judgement. Understanding the constraint in this way does indeed promise to establish its incompatibility with any potential straightforward voluntariness of judgements. It seems plausible to say that deliberately acting on the aim to form a mental episode only if it is true requires making use of truth-conducive means. And, it may be further argued, reliance on truth-conducive means renders the respective mental agency mediated in the sense specified above. The idea is that only the reliance on epistemic reasons is likely to result in the formation of a true mental state. For, the assumption goes, there do not appear to be truth-conducive means other than epistemic considerations. Hence, the requirement (C) comes down to the demand that the deliberate formation of judgements has to happen by means of passive - namely epistemic - processes: judgements have to be deliberately formed on the basis of epistemic reasons (if they are to be deliberately formed at all). It follows from this that 9Williams (1973) can plausibly be read as adopting this strategy (cf. also Winters (1979)). 132 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency we cannot deliberately form judgements in a straightforward manner.10 But the constraint (C) does not apply to all possible or even all actual judgements. Paradigm examples of judgements, which are successfully formed in deliberate response to the desire or intention to form them, but without the aim in mind to form them only if they are true, are manipulative or induced judgements. Manipulated judgements are based on evidence, the collection of which involves ignoring evidence of a certain kind, or unproportionally or exclusively seeking evidence of another kind. Here are some good examples:11 Consider people who aim deliberatively to mislead themselves. Suppose an elderly man realises that he is likely to be upset if he learns about the real probability of his developing cancer, and so arranges to avoid any evidence that might undermine his sanguine belief that this probability is low. Or suppose an adolescent youth learns that people with an inflated view of their own worth are generally happier and more successful, and so deliberately seeks out evidence which will make him think overly well of himself. Of course, there are familiar psychological difficulties about deliberately arranging to have false beliefs, but examples like this suggest they are not insuperable. (Papineau, 1999, 24) There are probably many other, and possibly more radical, ways in which we can manipulate our evidence, other than by being unduly selective. For instance, we may ignore the lack of quality of some pieces of evidence (e.g., by relying on untrustworthy sources), or may invent or misread some of them (e.g., by misinterpreting emotional feelings as evidence). By contrast, induced judgements are formed in much simpler ways: they are not evidentially based, but instead occur as the product of some causal process which is intentionally triggered by some action of the subject in question. Examples of induced judgements would be those which would occur as the effect of the intake of a suitable drug, or of the visit to a hypnotist. They have in common with manipulated judgements that, often, they are deliberately formed without the aim of truth in mind. And although they may, as a consequence, end up being epistemically inappropriate, this does not undermine their possibility. 10This argument is very similar to one of the arguments for the same conclusion in Williams (1973), only transposed from the conceptual level to the level of constitution (cf. my discussion in the last section). Proust (2008) presents a slightly different argument, the central idea of which seems to be that the aim of truth does not allow for the freedom of choice essential to deliberate agency. 11See O'Shaughnessy (2008), Owens (2000), Shah (2003) and Shah and Velleman (2005) for further examples of manipulated judgements, or 'wishful thinking'. Wedgwood (2002) also mentions the possibility of acting on one's intention to cease or avoid having a certain belief. As O'Shaughnessy and Papineau observe, the intentional manipulation of one's judgements may require a certain amount of self-deception. 133 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 One might wish to insist that cases of manipulated or induced judgements do not really constitute counter-examples to (C), either because the mental episodes involved are not really judgements, or because they are not really actively or deliberately formed, so that their formation does not have to meet the necessary condition on the deliberate formation of judgements established by the constraint.12 But it seems entirely ad hoc to claim that the examples do not concern judgements, given that the mental episodes in question endorse a proposition as true and are phenomenologically indistinguishable from more typically formed judgements (cf. Winters (1979) and Engel (2002)). And the view that manipulated or induced judgements are not formed in an active and deliberate manner appears equally implausible. It is true that the agency involved leads to the occurrence of the judgement only in a mediated way. But something very similar is true of many other cases which we are normally happy to classify as deliberate actions. If bringing about the occurrence of a specific judgement by intentionally taking a drug in the full knowledge and reasonable expectation that this intake is likely to lead to the desired occurrence of the judgement is indeed not taken to constitute an action, then bringing about the death of a person by pulling a trigger or bringing about the arrival of a letter by posting it should not count as deliberate actions either. Of course, the occurrence of the judgement is itself not an action. But neither is the occurrence of the death of the person, nor the arrival of the letter (at least not regarding the person who has sent it). Instead, what is actively done by the subject in question is the intended and expected bringing about of the occurrence of these passive events. And the subject performs this complex action - which may reasonably be described as the forming of a judgement, the killing of a person or the sending of a letter - by performing a much simpler action, namely the taking of the drug, the pulling of the trigger or the posting of the letter. It might still be attempted to maintain that, in general, there are no complex, but only simple actions; and that the latter do not allow for individuation and description in terms of their intended and expected causal consequences. But then, the formation of the judgement, the killing of the person and the sending of the letter would still be on a par, since they all would equally not count as actions. And this result would fatally clash with our ordinary treatment of events of shooting someone or sending a letter - and not only of events of pulling a trigger or posting a letter - as instances 12In personal conversation, Shah mentioned that he is inclined to the view that the formation of manipulated or induced judgement should not count as an instance of (deliberate) agency. Indeed, he and Velleman seem to have to adopt this line of response, since they acknowledge the possibility of these types of judgements, but also believe that judgements cannot be formed at will because of their special normative nature described by (TN) (cf. Shah (2003) and Shah and Velleman 2005). 134 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency of agency.13 The only significant difference between the two kinds of cases is that the occurrence of the judgement, but presumably not the occurrence of the death or the arrival of the letter, presents itself phenomenally to the agent as passive.14 However, this is not the result of the judgement perhaps being brought about non-intentionally, or less actively than the two external events, but instead due to the fact that the judgement is part of the conscious mind of the subject and thus accessible to him in a different way than the external events. If he were able to become aware of the latter in the same way, he probably would experience them as passive as well. Moreover, the fact that the judgement is part of the subject's own mind, and not of another's, seems irrelevant for whether knowingly and expectantly bringing about of a judgement by, say, the administering of a drug should count as an action. None the less, this difference in how we are aware of judgements and external events may still ultimately explain why we may have the intuition that murdering a person or sending a letter have more right to count as actions than forming a judgement in one of the mediated ways mentioned. It is conceivable that the truth-related normativity of judgements may give rise to requirements other than (C). But it is doubtful that any of them can be both weak enough to apply to all possible judgements, and strong enough to be incompatible with the deliberate and straightforward formation of judgements. In addition, the strategy of taking some constraint like (C) to be responsible for the involuntariness of judgements faces other difficulties, some of which I want to briefly mention. A first challenge is to provide independent support for the claim that judgements are normative in the sense described. Critics of this idea have pointed out that it suffices for a satisfactory account of judgements (or beliefs) - which can explain, for instance, what differentiates judgements from other mental episodes, or how they represent the world - to assume that they have certain 13Even proponents of the view, that only tryings are actions, often enough permit that action descriptions can apply to complex events consisting in tryings and their causal results, as long as there is a suitable or non-deviant causal link between the two (cf. Hornsby (1980, 122f.); cf. also O'Shaughnessy (2008)). 14Another difference - though probably cutting across the cases - is that we do not always have established action terms available to directly pick out the more complex actions. We call the action of deliberately bringing about the death of a person by doing something simply a 'killing'. But there is no such action term for the action of deliberately bringing about the sleep of a person (e.g., oneself) by administering a drug to her. And the expression 'forming a judgement', as used for the action of deliberately bringing about the occurrence of a judgement by taking a respective drug, is probably not commonly understood as an action term. Note, however, that the last term, as well as the related expression 'the formation of the judgement', is meant here to pick out the event of doing something in order to cause the occurrence of a certain judgement, and not merely the event of this judgement occurring. 135 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 (evolutionary evolved) functions, notably the function to be true. This picture treats truth as a value for judgements, but as a value among many, which may be outweighed or undermined by the other values and thus need not always bind judges. That is, the latter need not always, when deliberately forming a judgement, be under the obligation to form it only if it is true. Accordingly, if the formation of a judgement is subject to such a truth-related obligation, this cannot be due to the general, intrinsic nature of judgements, but has to derive from something else, such as the wider practical purposes which are linked to the occurrence of the particular judgements in question, and which may differ greatly from case to case (cf. Dretske (2000a) and Papineau (1999)). Another difficulty for the normative approach is to show how the requirement (C) can actually be derived from the truth norm (TN) - and if this fails, how it might be established on other grounds. And a third challenge is to demonstrate that intentionally grounding judgements in epistemic reasons is indeed a - and, moreover, the only - truth-conducive means available to us. In fact, it has been be doubted that deliberate reliance on epistemic reasons can function as an instrumental means to truth - at least, if the latter is to be understood as one of our purposes among many others (cf. Owens (2003)). III. The Experiential Approach That the normative approach arguably fails in its attempt to establish a constraint on our deliberate formation of judgements, which prevents it from being straightforward in all possible cases, provides a good reason to look for an alternative account. But the search for such an account is also, and independently, motivated by the reasonable expectation and hope that theories, which deny (TN) on other grounds, should be able to account for the involuntariness of judgements as well as their norm-orientated competitors. My aim is therefore to pave the way for an argument showing why we cannot form judgements at will, which refers to the phenomenal character of judgements instead of their normativity. This argument can be summarized as follows. Its starting-point is the idea that we consciously experience our judgements always as epistemically motivated, while we consciously experience the straightforward results of our deliberate mental agency always as practically motivated. But, the reasoning continues, experiencing a mental episode as practically motivated rules out experiencing it as epistemically motivated - at least, if the episode concerned has been formed in a deliberate and straightforward manner. For experiencing such an episode as practically motivated means in fact experiencing it as immediately responding to the practical motives in question. And the phenomenal aspect reflecting this immediacy is incompatible with another potential aspect 136 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency of experience, namely that aspect which reflects epistemic motivation. Hence, our judgements cannot result in a straightforward manner from our deliberate mental agency - which means that we cannot form them at will. It will become much clearer in due course, I hope, how precisely each of the premisses involved in this argument should be understood, and also how they may be defended. But the core idea of this argument is that we experience certain conscious mental phenomena - such as judgements or mental actions - as rationally motivated. This means, first of all, that these phenomena possess a phenomenal or experiential character: they present themselves in phenomenal consciousness, or are experienced by us, in a specific way; or, as I will also say, they are phenomenally marked or revealed as being a certain way.15 The core idea implies furthermore that the phenomenal characters of the phenomena in question are of a particular kind: they involve a rational dimension or aspect which reflects their rational nature. More specifically, the conscious mental phenomena concerned are phenomenally marked as standing in a certain kind of rational relation: we experience them as motivated by - that is, as rationally based on and occurring (or having occurred) in response to - reasons.16 In what follows, I will simply assume that judgements, mental actions and the mental episodes, which are the straightforward results of the latter, are phe15My use of the term 'experience' is perhaps unusual in that it refers to phenomenal consciousness rather than sensory experience. But it is akin to the German 'Erlebnis' or 'erleben' (especially as used by phenomenologists, such as Husserl) and will much simplify the presentation of the experiential approach. Other attempts at the notoriously difficult task of describing phenomenal consciousness have characterized it in terms of how it is or feels like to undergo, or be in, the respective events or states. Besides, I will leave it open whether the phenomenal character of episodes can remain unnoticed, or whether phenomenal consciousness always involves or requires some form of attention. This is unproblematic because forming a judgement deliberately, or 'in full consciousness' (cf. Williams (1973)), will include attending to the judgement and the agency involved (cf. Peacocke (2003b) and O'Brien (2003) for a discussion of this kind of attention). 16As I understand motivation here, it is equivalent to actual responsiveness to reasons, in the sense that a mental episode or event is rationally motivated if it is initiated, guided or otherwise rationally determined by certain reasons. By contrast, in many meta-ethical discussions, the notion of 'motivation' is used in a more narrow and perhaps more technical sense, being limited to what I call 'practical motivation'. Furthermore, I am not concerned with 'motivation' in the sense of having a certain desire or intention which has not (yet) become motivationally effective. And I also take it that there are important and phenomenally salient differences between epistemic and practical motivation - if only due to important differences between the respective kinds of reasons or rationality. One such difference is, for instance, that while practical ends may often be achieved in many different ways, reaching epistemic ends (i.e., truth or epistemic appropriateness) seems to always require the reliance on evidence. And while our various practical ends interact with each other (e.g., by outweighing or supporting each other), the epistemic ends appear to be completely independent and isolated from them (cf. Owens (2003)). 137 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 nomenally conscious, or part of the stream of consciousness, and thus possess an experiential character. I will have to leave the defence of this assumption for another occasion.17 Here, I will merely try to soften related doubts by making clear that assuming the experiential form of awareness at issue is less demanding than might be thought. First, enjoying this kind of awareness need not require any specific conceptual capacities, even if describing it in terms of experiencing an episode as being a certain way might be taken to suggest just this. Saying that we experience certain mental episodes as responding to reasons does not mean more than saying that their phenomenal character shows a specific aspect, that the phenomenal character of other episodes lacks this aspect, and that this phenomenal difference somehow reflects the corresponding difference in origin and determination. In a similar way, we experience red-perceptions as representing a different colour than green-perceptions, or certain feelings as more pleasant than others. And although it should usually be possible for us to conceptualize such phenomenal differences in introspective higher-order judgements, such a conceptualization does not necessarily already happen on the phenomenal level. Second, the form of awareness in question is minimal in the sense that we can experience a mental episode or event as rationally motivated without being aware of, or otherwise able to identify, the respective reasons. For instance, when asked what the capital of Ecuador is, we may form and rely on the judgement that it is Quito - say, as a manifestation of some previously acquired belief - without being able to remember when or how we learnt this fact (e.g., whether from listening to a teacher, from reading a book, or from looking at a map; cf. Wedgwood (2002, 20)). And it commonly happens to us that we perform an action, such as entering a certain room, and recognize it as been done deliberately by us, although we have forgotten why we did it. Moreover, even when we are aware of the motivationally effective reasons and their specific nature, this awareness need not be experiential. Third, experiential awareness may be fallible in at least two respects. In both cases, the phenomenal character of the episode or event concerned fails to adequately reflect its nature. But the reasons for this are different. On the one hand, this failure may be due to the fact that the episode or event in question does not live up to how instances of the mental type, to which it belongs, phenomenally purport to be. We may, for example, experience a judgement as a judgement and, hence, as responding to epistemic reasons, although it has 17The assumption has been doubted, in particular, with respect to judgements. But most of the related debate has concentrated on whether judgements possess a distinctive phenomenal character, or whether differences in conceptual contents are phenomenally salient (cf. the discussions in Siewert (1998) andCarruthers (2000)), neither of which I assume here (cf. below) - though I defend, together with Gianfranco Soldati, both claims in chapter 12. 138 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency been purely causally induced (e.g., by a drug, or by an emotion). On the other hand, the failure may stem from the fact that we erroneously experience an episode or event, not as an instance of the mental type to which it belongs, but as an instance of another type. We may, for example, experience a judgement as being a supposition - that is, we may experientially mistake a judgement for a supposition - and thus fail to experience the judgement as epistemically motivated.18 Correctly speaking, my main claim should therefore rather be that, if we experience a judgement as a judgement, or an instance or product of straightforward and deliberate mental agency as such an instance or product, then we always experience it as purporting to be rationally motivated. In other words, it is essential to how we experience episodes as being judgements, or alternatively as being part of straightforward and deliberate mental agency, that they present themselves phenomenally as occurring in response to reasons. But out of simplicity, I will continue to say that we always experience judgements, deliberate mental actions and their straightforward results as rationally motivated. And fourth, the conscious phenomena in question need not possess distinctive phenomenal characters, in terms of which they can be individuated and differentiated from other phenomena. Judgements, for example, need not phenomenally differ from other mental episodes which may also be experienced as epistemically motivated (e.g., perhaps, episodic memories); and they need not phenomenally differ among themselves, even if they differ, say, in content, origin, or motivation. All that is claimed is that judgements are experienced as supported by epistemic reasons. And similar considerations apply to our experience of deliberate mental actions and the mental episodes which they produce. 18The many examples of mainly pathological dissociations between our agency and our awareness of it (e.g., those mentioned in Wegner (2004) and discussed in his book) will also fall into one or the other category. The latter possibility of error would probably require, however, that episodes could be recognized and identified as judgements by reference to features other than their being actually experience by us in a certain way - for instance, in terms of their role in the acquisition of relevant beliefs or the performance of certain actions. And this might very well mean again that it is not essential to judgements that our actual experience of them shows some specific and distinctive aspects (though it may still be essential to them that they are consciously experienced in some way or another). More on the fallibility of experience and its relevance for the issue of involuntary judgements can be found at the end of section VI. 139 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 IV. Our Experience of Judgements What I want to try to defend first is the idea that the experiential character of our judgements always possesses a certain epistemic dimension: we experience our judgements as occurring in response to epistemic reasons. My defence makes essential use of an argument for the further claim that we experience judgements as epistemically reasonable, that is, as sufficiently supported by epistemic reasons.19 This round-about strategy is possible because the two aspects of the experiential character of judgements concerned correspond to two intimately connected aspects of the epistemic status of judgements. Being reasonable is, for a judgement, partly a matter of being motivated by reasons, given that only (or at least primarily) motivating reasons contribute to the rational standing of a judgement. If I judge that something is coloured on the basis of my unjustified belief that it is green, my judgement will not be justified either, even if there is a motivationally ineffective, but good reason for forming this judgement available to me (e.g., the object may indeed be green, and I may generally be in the position to recall one of my correct past perceptions of it or simply to look at it again). Hence, if judgements turn out to be marked in phenomenal consciousness as reasonable, it is to be expected that they will also be phenomenally marked as rationally motivated. If it therefore can be made plausible that we are, in some way or another, aware of judgements as reasonable, this should provide substantial support for the claim that we are, in the same way, aware of them as being motivated by reasons. In particular, experiencing a judgement as rationally motivated would seem to be part of experiencing it as reasonable. My argument begins with the observation that we take our judgements to be epistemically reasonable, at least as long as we are not aware of defeaters or do not otherwise begin to doubt the epistemic standing of the judgements in question. If we would not take our judgements to enjoy such reasonableness, we probably would not rely on them as a provider of reasons for belief or action, in the sense that we would not let them rationally contribute to our acquisition of the corresponding non-occurrent beliefs or, by means of further theoretical or practical deliberation, to our acquisition or revision of other judgements, beliefs or intentions. Instead, we would be inclined to revise them or give them up, or indeed would have refrained from forming them in the first place. That we - at least initially - take our judgements to be reasonable becomes also apparent in cases in which we come to doubt the epistemic reasonableness of one of our already existing judgements - say, because we begin to question the quality 19In fact, these two phenomenal aspects seem to be part of an even richer epistemic dimension of the experiential character of judgements, consisting in our phenomenal awareness of them as providing reasons for belief or action. 140 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency of the supporting evidence, recognize some fault in the cognitive processes originally involved, or simply encounter an opposing view. The occurrence of such a doubt presupposes that we are already aware of an initial claim to reasonableness, which then becomes the subject of the doubt. In particular, doubting a judgement on the grounds, say, that the perceptual conditions are inadequate requires being aware of the fact that the judgement in question has enjoyed rational support by a perception had under those inappropriate conditions. The observation that we take our judgements to be reasonable and, as part of this, to be rationally motivated fits well with two other observations, namely that we take our judgements to have occurred passively, and that we take them to amount to knowledge (or at least to purport to do so) and treat them accordingly - for instance, when we rely on them in the acquisition of beliefs or the formation of intentions - even if they do not constitute knowledge (cf. Williamson (2000), Wedgwood (2002) and Hornsby (2007). It seems that we are aware of our judgements as passive precisely because of - and perhaps even by - being aware of them as based on epistemic reasons, that is, as determined by passive epistemic processes. And assuming that knowledge requires both truth and epistemic appropriateness, taking our judgements to be instances of knowledge appears to involve taking them to be both true and reasonable. Indeed, if it is furthermore accepted that the fact, that judgements endorse a proposition as true and thus make a claim about how things are, is phenomenally salient and distinguishes them experientially from, say, suppositions (cf. Dorsch (2011b)), it seems very plausible that the other aspect of the epistemic status of judgements - that is, their reasonableness - should also be perspicuous in this way. The idea is that, by presenting themselves in phenomenal consciousness as instances of knowledge (independently of whether they in fact amount to knowledge), judgements make two salient and interrelated claims to rationality: that they represent adequately how things are; and that they are thereby sufficiently rationally supported. But a sceptic concerning the experiential awareness of the prima facie reasonableness of judgements is probably also a sceptic concerning the experiential awareness of their claim to truth and knowledge. Therefore, I would like to put forward another line of reasoning, according to which our primary awareness of the reasonableness of our judgements should be best understood as a form of experiential awareness, given that all plausible alternatives appear to be untenable. There seem to be two plausible competitors to this view: the inference model and the prompting model.20 Both these models have in common that 20Other candidates seem to be even less attractive (cf. O'Brien (2003)), in particular the idea that the awareness in question is a matter of some internal form of perception or observation (cf. Shoemaker (1994b), Burge (1996) and Martin (1997b)). 141 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 they take the awareness at issue to be the higher-order judgement that the respective lower-order judgement is epistemically reasonable. But they differ in their account of how we come to form that judgement. The inference model maintains that the higher-order judgement under discussion is the result of a complex cognitive process. More specifically, it states that we infer the prima facie reasonableness of our judgements. For instance, we may believe that our judgements are generally reasonable as long as there are no relevant defeaters or doubts, and we may introspectively recognize that the mental episode in question is a judgement and that we have not been aware of any relevant defeaters previous to our doubts. Or, alternatively, we may remember how we have formed a judgement on the basis of certain pieces of evidence, and we may recognize that we have taken this formation to be epistemically appropriate, or at least have remained unaware of any inappropriateness, at the time of its occurrence. In both cases, we can then conclude that the judgement concerned has some claim to reasonableness. However, that our primary awareness of the reasonableness of judgements is often not the result of such inferences is illustrated by cases in which we are ignorant about the general reasonableness of judgements, or about the particular epistemic origin of the judgement at issue. The view that our judgements are generally reasonable, as long as there are no defeating factors or circumstances present, seems to be sufficiently complex and non-obvious for many subjects (such as children) to lack it in particular, since it requires a substantial amount of theorizing (assuming that it is not based on how we consciously experience judgements) and the possession of certain more technical concepts (such that of a defeater). But this does not seem to prevent those subjects from taking their individual judgements to be reasonable and to rely on them as providers of reasons for belief or action. Similarly, as already illustrated above, we may not remember what has ultimately provided support for our judgements and the beliefs which they may manifest. But we may still take them to be reasonable and trust them in our reasoning. And finally, our awareness of the reasonableness of our judgements often occurs too immediately to involve, or be preceded by, inferences of the kind described - for instance, when we enjoy such an awareness as part of coming to doubt the epistemic standing of a given judgement in direct reaction to, say, hearing a contradicting opinion or realizing that circumstances have been rather non-standard. The prompting model, in contrast, claims that the higher-order judgement at issue (or a corresponding intuitive seeming21) occurs spontaneously, once we 21The prompting model invites characterization in terms of intuitions. Depending on one's understanding of them, either the higher-order judgement itself, or some spontaneously occurring rational seeming, on which the higher-order judgement is directly based, may be said to be intuitive (cf. the essays in Bodrozic (2004)). In the latter case, my arguments 142 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency begin to wonder whether the lower-order judgement is reasonable. According to this view, the higher-order judgement is neither based on some inference or observation, nor simply the manifestation of a prior belief. Moreover, it is not based on the conscious experience of the reasonableness of the lower-order judgement. Otherwise, the experience would enjoy primacy over the higherorder judgement, and we would have the experience, rather than the prompting, model. Instead, the higher-order judgement is automatically prompted by our wondering about the epistemic status of the lower-order judgement in virtue of some reliable internal mechanism. This internal mechanism cannot plausibly be due to some constitutive link between the lowerand the higher-order state. It does not seem to be true, for instance, that - assuming that we are rational and possess the required concepts - the presence of the lower-order judgement entails (and is perhaps entailed by) the possession of the higher-order belief that it is epistemically reasonable, or at least the willingness to form the corresponding higher-order judgement when considering the issue. The two mental phenomena in question seem to be of such kinds as to be much more distinct than that. We can be rational, have a well-functioning mind and possess the concept of reasonableness (or even prima facie reasonableness); but, when asking which epistemic standing one of our judgements enjoys, still fail to apply the concept to the judgement. In particular, no aspect of this concept, or of our possession of it, tells us that it correctly applies to at least certain judgements. Recognizing that they enjoy such reasonableness amounts to a more substantial piece of knowledge.22 Hence, the lower-order judgement, together with our consideration of its epistemic status, is perhaps better taken to reliably give rise to the higher-order judgement via some contingent and merely causal or informational relation.23 against the prompting model will concern the spontaneously occurring seemings, rather than the higher-order judgements grounded in them. 22The assumption of a constitutive link is perhaps plausible with respect to higher-order ascriptions of propositional contents or attitudes (cf. Shoemaker (1994b), Burge (1996) and Wright (1998)). But judgements about the reasonableness of other judgements are clearly of neither kind. And see Peacocke (2003b), Martin (2000b) and O'Brien (2003) for more general objections to the constitutive account and its central claim that higherand lower-order states are not distinct entities. One particular worry is, for instance, that the postulated constitutive link between the lowerand higher-order states does not seem to provide the resources to explain how the latter can be epistemically grounded on, and constitute genuine instances of knowledge of, the former. 23Peacocke's account of self-knowledge seems to open up a third possibility: to take the link to be rational, but non-constitutive. However, the considerations presented above against the applicability of constitutivist accounts also rule out the applicability of Peacocke's view, given that the latter, too, implies that the occurrence of the conscious lower-order states, together with our conceptual capacities and a rational and well-functioning mind, ensures that we are willing to form the higher-order judgements in the relevant circumstances (cf. 143 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 But apart from the general difficulties linked to causal reliabilism or informationalist semantics, this view faces the challenge to satisfactorily motivate the postulation of the respective internal mechanism. This mechanism would seem very odd and difficult to explain if such higher-order judgements spontaneously occurred solely in response to wondering about the epistemic standing of lower-order judgements, and not in response to wondering about some other feature or some other mental episode. But to widen the scope of the prompting model to other kinds of higher-order judgements seems to be plausible only in the context of endorsing an account of introspection, or self-knowledge, in terms of contingently, but reliably prompted higher-order judgements. And such an account seems to be highly implausible, especially if applied to the kind of awareness under discussion.24 One specific problem is that the reasonableness of judgements seems to be among their features to which we can have direct introspective access only if they are indeed marked in phenomenal consciousness. The epistemic standing of judgements is at least in most cases a matter of their rational relations to reason-providing states or facts extrinsic to them. Therefore, if it is not reflected by an introspectible aspect of the experiential character of judgements, it can be recognized only by means of a cognitive process which encompasses more than the mere introspection of the judgement and its intrinsic features - a cognitive process which, for instance, combines introspection with inference and perhaps memory, as described above during the discussion of the inferential model.25 However, if our primary awareness of the reasonableness of judgements is in at least many cases neither based on inferences, nor a matter of causally prompted higher-order judgements, then it should be taken to be experiential. No other plausible alternative suggests itself. Hence, taking our judgements to be epistemically appropriate should be best understood as experiencing Peacocke (1996)). Besides, it is also interesting to note that Peacocke's account goes beyond the prompting model, and has some affinities to the experiential model, in that it assigns to consciousness an essential function in the epistemology of self-knowledge (cf. n. 28 below). 24Among the more general objections to this account of introspection - which is endorsed, for instance, by Armstrong (1993) and Lycan (1996) - are: that it has to assume some form of causal reliabilism (cf. O'Brien (2003)); that it cannot capture the transparency of mental content (cf. Dretske (1999)); or that it does not link the lowerand higher-order states intimately enough to be able to account for the immediate rational impact of the latter on our revision of the former, for our related epistemic responsibility, and for the impossibility of brute error (i.e., error not due to the irrationality or malfunctioning of the subject) in the acquisition of self-knowledge (cf. Burge (1996); cf. also Shoemaker (1994b) and Siewert (1998)). 25The same problem need not arise with respect to the introspection of externally determined contents, given that the contents of the higher-order states may embed the contents of the lower-order states and thus can inform us about them without having to tell us something about their extrinsic relations (cf. Burge (1996) 1996 and Peacocke (1996, 2003b)). 144 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency them as enjoying the support of epistemic reasons - which again involves experiencing the judgements as being motivated by such reasons. Our higherorder judgements about the reasonableness of our lower-judgements may then be the result of introspecting this epistemic aspect of the phenomenal character of the latter. As I have already mentioned, that judgements are always marked in phenomenal consciousness as occurring in response to reasons is compatible with the possibility that they are actually not so motivated, and that correspondingly our experiential awareness has failed us. We presumably react to such cases of error by taking ourselves to have forgotten about the specific rational origins of the judgements in question, or by coming to identify or construct new ones (e.g., by interpreting the mental causes of the judgements - say, certain desires or emotions - as their grounds). But our phenomenal awareness of judgements as rationally motivated is also compatible with the possibility of self-justifying judgements (if they are indeed a possibility). Such judgements provide epistemic support for themselves in virtue of some feature which they possess (e.g., their necessity, infallibility, certainty, etc.). And when we experience them as rationally motivated, we are aware of this rational relation in which they stand to themselves (e.g., by experiencing them as certain or self-evident). Nothing in what has been said so far suggests or even requires that we experience judgements as motivated by epistemic reasons distinct from themselves. Much more problematic would be if some class of our judgements would allow for epistemic appropriateness despite not permitting any support by epistemic reasons, whether provided by the judgements themselves or by other states or facts. However, none of our judgements seem to be of such a kind.26 From an epistemic point of view, such states would be much more similar to perceptions than to normal judgements. Maybe intuitions, or intellectual seemings, may be of this type. Just like perceptions, they can perhaps be reliable or otherwise epistemically appropriate, without standing in rational relations supporting them. And just like perceptions, they are perhaps also immune to any rational influence of reasons. But judgements seem to be very different. Their epistemic appropriateness appears to be partly a matter of how well they cohere with our already existing beliefs (as well as other judgements). And this seems to mean, among other things, that the latter may provide us with (access to) reasons for, or against, the formation or revision of judgements. Moreover, our judgements appear to be sensitive to such reasons and react accordingly say, by disappearing when they are in too great a tension with 26I take it that even perceptual judgements are not of this type, given that they are normally rationally supported by perceptions. See, e.g., Martin (1992) and Pollock and Cruz (1999) for defences of this view. 145 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 what else we believe. V. Our Experience of Agency What is left to be shown is how their feature of being experienced as epistemically motivated prevents judgements from being formed at will. In the remaining sections, I will argue for this incompatibility in three steps. First, I will try to make plausible that deliberate and straightforward mental agency (if successful) results in mental episodes which are always experienced by us as actively formed. Second, I will argue that this actually means that the respective episodes present themselves as occurring in immediate response to practical reasons. And third, I will show that no mental episode can be experienced by us both as being epistemically motivated and as being immediately practically motivated. From this incompatibility between the two ways in which we may consciously experience mental episodes, it follows that our conscious judgements cannot result in a straightforward manner from our deliberate mental agency: for us, there cannot be any judgements formed at will. I take it that our instances of deliberate mental agency (and presumably of deliberate agency in general) normally involve at least three elements (cf., e.g., Pink (1996)). First of all, there are certain practical reasons which are potential motives for action, and which we are put in contact with by some of our mental states - say, intentions, desires, or other states with the capacity to move us to act. Then, there are the mental actions themselves which occur when we begin to act on some of the provided reasons. Examples are the straightforward acts of conjuring up an image or of making an explicit assumption. The mental actions may thereby be partly or wholly successful in bringing about the respective mental phenomena; or they may amount to something like mere attempts or tryings. And finally, there is the motivational link between the two other elements. The mental actions come into being once our practical reasons actually begin to move us. And these reasons continue to guide as throughout our performance of the resulting actions (cf. O'Brien (2003)). According to this picture, practical motivation is - just like epistemic motivation a rational (and presumably causal) relation; and it obtains precisely as long as the practical reasons stay effective in initiating and guiding the mental actions concerned. Often, however, our mental actions involve, or at least give rise, to a fourth element: they bring about certain desired or intended mental phenomena as their results. Trying to conjure up an image of a sunny forest may actually produce such an image; while attempting to improve one's mood by conjuring up such an image may result in one's becoming happier. Furthermore, some of these results may be due to deliberate and straightforward mental agency. 146 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency The representational episodes produced by, or as part of, acts of successful visualizing or supposing - such as the image of the sunny forest - are good examples. Now, we typically can tell whether one of our mental episodes has been the result of our mental agency - at least, if it has been produced in a deliberate and straightforward way. When you pictured to yourself the sunny forest, or supposed that Goethe went to Stoos, you were presumably aware of the fact that you actively formed the respective representational episodes. And your awareness of them would presumably differ in this respect from the awareness you would have when perceiving a sunny forest, or judging that Goethe visited Stoos, or being confronted with the spontaneous and unbidden occurrence of an image or thought with a corresponding content. The main issue with which I will be concerned in the remainder of this section is how we can come to acquire this kind of awareness. And the plausible options seem to be the same as in the case of our awareness of the epistemic reasonableness of judgements: the inference, the prompting and the experience model.27 As above, the inference model maintains that we inferentially arrive at our knowledge of the active origin of the respective mental episodes on the basis of introspection, and perhaps also memory or other forms of knowledge. A person successfully visualizing a sunny forest may, for instance, be introspectively aware of her intention - or of her attempt to act on her intention - to picture such a scenery, as well as of the occurrence of the resulting image. Moreover, she may notice that these phenomena are temporally ordered, and that there is a match between the content of the intention or attempt at action and the nature of the subsequent visual episode. And she may possess general knowledge of the fact that such a combination of agreement and temporal order, which furthermore involves an intention or attempt to do something, is usually not accidental, but rather the consequence of the rational forces involved in practical motivation. Hence, the person may be able to draw the conclusion that the image of the forest has occurred, not spontaneously, but as the result of her own deliberate mental agency initiated by her intention. However, the demands put by the inference model on the knowing subject are again too high. In order to come to know that some, but not others, of our mental episodes have been actively formed, we do not seem to have to possess knowledge of the non-accidental character and origin of the temporal order and match of the mental phenomena involved in mental agency. Nor do we seem to have to possess some of the concepts needed to entertain such knowledge or 27An observational model can again be ruled out straight away (cf. O'Brien (2003)). Although it has been argued that our primary knowledge of our own bodily actions is mediated by proprioception (cf. Dokic (2003)), this idea obviously cannot be applied to mental agency. For the same reason, outer perception could not play a role. 147 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 draw the inferences required (e.g., the concept of the kind of match described). In addition, our acquisition of the knowledge about the origin of our mental episodes appears, from a subjective point of view, to be more immediate than described by the inference model. It may be true that we infer the active or passive origin of a given episode in very special circumstances (e.g., when we are unsure about whether our primary way of acquiring this knowledge is working properly). But it seems that we typically do not need to engage in such elaborate reasoning in order to tell whether an episode is due to our own mental agency (cf. Peacocke (2003b) and O'Brien (2003)). According to the prompting model, the higher-order judgements about the active or passive origin of our mental episodes are not based on observation, inference or experience, but instead reliably prompted by simply paying attention to the issue, or asking oneself the question, of how a certain present mental episode has been formed. Their occurrence is thus the product of some underlying causal or informational mechanism, which is set in motion by consciously addressing the topic of the origin of a given mental episode. And they reliably track the presence, or absence, of the special link obtaining between successful mental actions and the mental episodes which they have produced in a straightforward manner. But this application of the prompting model is not very appealing, and mainly for the same reason as above, namely its difficulty in motivating the acceptance of the postulated internal mechanism. Again, it seems to make sense to speak of reliably prompted higher-order judgements only if they are taken to be introspective, or instances of self-knowledge. This idea is maybe more plausible this time, given that the straightforward results of our successful mental actions are perhaps constitutive parts of these actions (cf. Audi (1993)), and introspecting the results and their active nature may therefore happen as part of introspecting the respective mental actions and their active nature. But it still seems valid that theories of introspection in line with the prompting model are much more plausible if they take the link between the lowerand the higher-order states to be constitutive rather than causal or informational (cf. n. 24 above). However, the possibility of a constitutive account does not arise, since we can satisfy all the relevant conditions concerning rationality, possession of concepts, and so on, without being inclined to judge a given lower-order mental episode to be actively or passively formed when asking ourselves the respective question.28 28See O'Brien (2003) for more general criticism of the constitutivist approach to our selfknowledge of our conscious actions. Her own account of such self-knowledge is formulated along the lines of Peacocke's account of our self-knowledge of conscious states. Accordingly, it assumes a rational, but non-constitutive link between our actions and our self-knowledge of them, as well as an essential role for the way in which we are conscious of our own actions, namely by means of a '[conscious] sense of guiding our action, ... a sense of control' (ibid. 148 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Peacocke's own view on our self-knowledge of (bodily) agency also assigns an essential epistemic role to our non-observational conscious experience (or 'awareness from the inside') in the formation of the higher-order judgement or belief that we are, or have been, successfully trying to do something, at least in the case of basic or straightforward agency. Moreover, he takes the respective experience to be an awareness of successfully trying (cf. Peacocke (2003a, 103 and 105) and Peacocke (2009)). Hence, the awareness may very well extend (as proposed by the experiential model) to that mental episode, the occurrence of which renders the respective attempt at mental action successful. It is, however, unclear whether what he has in mind here is the way we phenomenally experience actions – i.e., a phenomenal property of the episodes of acting themselves; or instead independent and non-judgemental conscious states representing our mental actions (cf. Peacocke (2009)). What remains also to be clarified is which justificatory role experiential awareness plays for self-knowledge (if any). Although I have sympathies with the idea that our phenomenal awareness of the lower-order states provides us with prima facie reason for forming the corresponding higher-order judgements, I need not commit myself to this view here. The justification of the higherorder judgements about reasonableness or active origin may also be a matter of entitlement (e.g., of the kind proposed in Peacocke (2003a)), or perhaps also of coherence and other factors. The experiential model seems, again, to be the best remaining alternative. It claims that we become aware of the active or passive origin of our mental episodes simply by having and experiencing them. In particular, we experience the mental episodes resulting straightforwardly from our deliberate mental agency as actively formed; while we presumably experience most or all other mental episodes as having occurred in a passive manner. This is one reason why we experience a deliberately formed image of a sunny forest differently from a perception or a spontaneous or remembered image of such a scene. This picture fits very well with (but does not entail) the view that our primary awareness of the active character of our deliberate mental actions is experiential, too. And the truth of this further view would suggest (but, again, not imply) that the straightforward results of our deliberate mental actions, given that they are experienced in the same way as the mental actions itself, are constitutive parts of the latter. The fact that we experience certain mental phenomenon as active may thus perhaps serve as a guide to agency: if we experience something as active, then it normally is an instance of agency. However, the opposite does not seem to be true: we do not appear to expe378). The latter aspect of her theory seems to be very close to my idea that we experience our mental actions as motivated and guided by practical reasons and renders her view more akin to the experiential than to the prompting model. 149 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 rience all instances or parts of action as active. Most, if not all, examples of non-deliberate agency seem to lack the kind of attentive conscious awareness of activity characteristic of deliberate agency (cf. O'Shaughnessy (2008) and Pink (1996)). And when we intentionally improve our mood by imagining something cheerful, we do not seem to experience the resulting change in mood as actively produced, but only the images and thoughts involved in bringing about that change. Given that the deliberate improvement of one's mood is none the less an instance of mediated agency, this suggests that our experience of passivity does not always reveal all aspects of the origin of the respective mental episodes. It discloses the direct passive origination in, say, some epistemic or merely causal processes. But it does not also reveal the prior deliberate mental activity which has started these processes. Therefore, this ultimately suggests that our experience of activity is solely or primarily a guide to deliberate and straightforward agency. VI. The Incompatibility of the Two Kinds of Experience This leads directly to the question of what it means to experience a mental phenomenon as active. My answer to this question is that the respective experience reveals at least two aspects of the mental agency concerned: that it is practically motivated; and that it is so motivated in an immediate manner. This may explain, among other things, why our experience of activity may very well be a guide to straightforward agency, assuming that, normally, the phenomenal character of our conscious mental states and events adequately reflects their nature. It appears very natural to say that our mental phenomena, which are marked in phenomenal consciousness as active, present themselves thereby as practically motivated. Experiencing some action or episode as practically motivated means experiencing it as rationally responding to certain practical reasons. And our deliberate mental actions (including our not entirely unsuccessful attempts at them) are indeed sensitive to reasons in this way: they are initiated and guided throughout their performance by practical reasons provided to us by our desires, intentions, or similar states. In fact, if our experience of our deliberate mental actions did not reflect this sensitivity to reasons, it would not make much sense to call it an experience of activity at all: practical motivation seems to be at the heart of agency. Not surprisingly, when theorists talk about how actions present themselves to us in phenomenal consciousness, they often resort to characterizations very similar to mine.29 And 29In addition to O'Brien (cf. n. 28 above), Audi speaks of a 'phenomenal sense of acting in response' to some reason (Audi, 1993, 154), Wegner of a 'feeling of voluntariness or doing a thing on purpose' or of an 'experience of consciously willing an action' (Wegner, 2004, 650), 150 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency of course, our experiential awareness of practical motivation is - just like our experience of epistemic motivation possibly non-conceptual, minimal, fallible and non-distinctive in the senses specified above. However, my claim has been not only that we experience the results of our deliberate and straightforward mental agency as practically motivated; but also that we experience the straightforwardness of their motivation, meaning that we experience them as immediately responding to the respective practical reasons. To understand and support this thesis, it is helpful to consider first what it could mean to experience some mental episode as responding to practical reasons in a mediated way. As already mentioned, mediated mental agency is characterized by the fact that it - often deliberately - relies on certain passive processes in order to bring about certain mental phenomena. For instance, when we act on the intention to finally force a conclusion on a certain matter in the light of the epistemic reasons already available to us, we usually do so with the expectation that the respective epistemic processes or mechanisms triggered by us are likely to compel us to endorse the proposition which best reflects our epistemic reasons. Now, our experience of successfully forming a judgement in this way shows two aspects, which correspond to two elements involved in such a formation. First, our initial attempt to come to a conclusion by setting in motion certain epistemic processes presents itself in phenomenal consciousness as active: we are aware of it as a rational response to our underlying desire or intention to force the issue. But second, the subsequently occurring impact of the triggered epistemic mechanisms presents itself to us as passive: we are aware of the compelling force of the epistemic reasons on our formation of the judgement and, more precisely, on our actually drawing one particular conclusion, rather than another. Accordingly, our complex experience of intentionally forming a judgement on the basis of evidence has a double character: it involves both an experience of the support provided by practical reasons and an experience of the influence of the epistemic mechanisms. And something similar will be true for other examples of mediated mental agency, whether they rely on epistemic processes (as when we deliberately try to remember something) or on merely causal ones (as when we deliberately try to influence our mood by imagining something). Because the effects of the passive processes deliberately triggered by us occur often almost immediately after we have begun (and finished) to perform the respective action, it might seem as if we experience a single mental phenomenon as both active and passive. But cases in which we fail to form a judgement despite all our attempts - say, because our evidence does not and Siegel of a 'special sense or experience of carrying out an intentional action' (Siegel, 2005). 151 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 favour one conclusion over another and thus lets the epistemic mechanisms run idle - indicate that there are in fact two distinct phenomena with two distinct experiential characters. The mental action of setting in motion the epistemic processes (i.e., the attempt to judge the issue) is experienced as active, while the subsequent output of those processes (i.e., the judgement) is experienced as passive. Other cases, in which there is much more delay between the trigger and the product of the passive processes involved, or in which the triggering action is bodily, make this even clearer (cf. the example of inducing a judgement by deliberately taking a slow-acting drug). Our experience of successfully forming a mental episode in a more straightforward way, on the other hand, does not show such a double character. Deliberately conjuring up an image will involve the awareness of the impact of practical motivation on the resulting image, but not the awareness of the impact of some epistemic or causal processes. Of course, we may sometimes become aware of some obstacles beyond our influence when attempting to perform a certain straightforward mental action. And we may experience their impact on us in a very similar way to how we experience the force of the epistemic or causal processes in the examples of deliberate mediated agency. For instance, when trying to visualize an object with twenty equal sides, we may realize that we cannot do this, and our attempt and recognition of failure may be accompanied by a strong feeling of the imposition of respective limits on our capacities involved. But if we succeed in forming the image, no such awareness of an obstacle or an external force will occur. Similarly, our choice of what to visualize may be influenced by epistemic considerations, and we may be consciously aware of this fact (e.g., when we decide to visualize a sunny forest partly because of concluding that this will calm us down). But this awareness of an epistemic impact will be part of our formation of the respective desire or intention to visualize. And it will therefore precede our straightforward agency of visualizing, as well as our experience of our engagement in this activity.30 These considerations about the various ways, in which we can deliberately influence what happens in our minds, illustrate that our experiential awareness of mental agency seems indeed to be restricted to deliberate and straightfor30The case of guessing is equally unproblematic, but slightly more complicated, given that any potential impact of the evidence available to us need not precede our active choice of which proposition to accept, but instead may restrict it during our active engagement with it (cf. the experience of external objects as restricting our active bodily movement). In the light of what has been said above (cf. esp. n. 4 above), the agency constitutive of guessing counts as straightforward, despite the potential involvement of epistemic factors. For what we guess (in contrast to what we judge) is ultimately a matter of our choice. Moreover, the related experience of straightforward agency is compatible with the potential simultaneous awareness of epistemic influence and limitation, given that the latter is never experienced as fully determining what is guessed (in contrast to what is judged), but as leaving room for the experience of the immediate impact of the practical reasons concerned. 152 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency ward agency and its mental products. But they equally link up to the observation that this kind of experience reflects especially the straightforwardness of the kind of agency concerned. For we experience the (not necessarily temporal) immediacy of determination, with which the direct results of deliberate mental agency occur in response to the respective practical reasons. The idea is that we experience the mental episodes, which we intentionally produce without exploiting certain passive processes, as directly determined by and flowing from our motives and our attempts to act on them. And it is an essential part of this experience of immediacy that we are not aware of any determining factors other than practical motivation. In other words, we experience the immediacy of the practical motivation partly by not being conscious of any other determining factors as intervening between our desire or intention and the formed images, apart from our mental agency. When we visualize a sunny forest, we experience the resulting visual image as a direct response to our attempt to visualize a sunny forest and, given that this attempt flows immediately from our respective desire or intention, also as a direct response to the latter. By contrast, the mental episodes produced in a mediated way by our deliberate mental activity do not present themselves as immediately responding to our practical motives, given that they are experienced as determined by epistemic or causal processes. When we intentionally form a judgement on the basis of the evidence available to us, we are aware of the compelling impact of the epistemic considerations determining which particular proposition we end up endorsing. And this aspect of our experience of the judgement is responsible for the fact that it cannot count as an experience of immediate practical motivation, given that this experience of immediacy requires the absence of any awareness of determining elements other than practical motives. This is precisely the reason why the phenomenal character of our judgements is incompatible with the phenomenal character of mental episodes resulting from our deliberate mental agency in a straightforward way. For independently of whether our judgements are actually motivated by epistemic reasons, they always phenomenally present themselves to us as such. And this experiential awareness of an epistemic rational influence would undermine - for the reason just mentioned - any awareness of an immediate motivational impact of practical reasons. But such an awareness of immediacy is always part of how we experience straightforwardly formed episodes. Hence, none of our mental episodes can be phenomenally marked for us both as a judgement and as a product of deliberate and straightforward mental agency. And this explains why we cannot form judgements at will: we would have to consciously experience the resulting episodes in a way which is not open to us. The fact that our experience of the immediacy of the practical motivation of a given mental episode is incompatible with our simultaneous experience of the 153 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 same episode as occurring in response to epistemic motivation is perhaps more fundamentally due to the fact that the respective two phenomenal aspects reflect incompatible features of our episodes. Since no episode can be both epistemically and straightforwardly practically motivated, it seems that, if one aspect of the experiential character of one of our episodes adequately reflects its epistemic motivation, another aspect cannot simultaneously adequately reflect the straightforward practical motivation of the episode. Similarly, that we cannot properly experience a perception both as representing red and as representing green is maybe primarily due, not to how such perceptions actually present themselves to us in phenomenal consciousness, but to the underlying fact that a red-perception cannot simultaneously (and with respect to the same part of an object) be a green-perception. Consequently, the incompatibility at issue may be located only derivatively in how we experience the respective mental episodes, and ultimately in which role these experiences play in our mental lives, namely to reveal the nature of the episodes concerned.31 Given that - as already noted before - our experiential awareness is fallible, it might however still be possible that we can actively form a judgement in direct and conscious response to some of our desires or intentions, as long as we do not experience the resulting judgement as a judgement, that is, as epistemically motivated.32 But such a case would not count as an instance of deliberately forming a judgement in a straightforward manner. We might have performed the described action on the basis of a desire or intention to form a supposition; and a mistake might then have led to the occurrence of a 31The preceding considerations apply equally well to the many mental phenomena, which mix imaginative or otherwise straightforwardly active elements with more passive - and often cognitive - elements. Deliberately trying to visualize a particular friend as sitting in the chair opposite to me will involve seeing the chair, actively recalling his appearance and imaginatively combining and manipulating the 'sensory material' thereby provided to conjure up the image of him sitting in the chair. And while the perceptual element occurs in a purely passive way, both the mnemonic and the imaginative element involve conscious agency, albeit the former in a mediated and the latter in a straightforward manner. What we thereby experience as active is precisely what we do straightforwardly: namely, whatever needs to be done to trigger the respective mnemonic process, as well as our conjuring up the image by using the provided 'sensory material'. And the same seems true of other more complex forms of mental agency. Calculating a sum in one's head, for instance, consists in actively triggering a series of epistemic processes (e.g., those providing us with the result of adding or multiplying two numbers). But although the impact of these processes is experienced as passive, we actively trigger them in a mediated way by means of performing a more basic straightforward action, coming with the respective experience of agency. And last examples are cases of visualizing where some of the details of the resulting image are passively 'filled in' by the mind (e.g., due to our knowledge or memory of generic appearances) and experienced as such, although the other aspects of the image are experienced as immediately determined by our imaginative agency. 32Thanks to Lucy O'Brien for pointing out this possibility. 154 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency judgement experienced as a supposition. But then, we would have tried to form a supposition, and not a judgement. Alternatively, we might have intentionally set out to form a judgement in such a way that it is not experienced by us as a judgement. But then, we would have had to exploit some passive processes bringing about this phenomenal illusion and, hence, would not have formed the judgement in a straightforward manner. There is perhaps also the possibility that we might come up with and might act on the intention to form a judgement at will in such a way as to fail to experience it as the straightforward product of mental agency (i.e., as immediately practically motivated). But our action could not be successful, given that the satisfaction of the two intended goals - the straightforward formation of the judgement and the creation of the phenomenal illusion - dictates incompatible means. Since we cannot bring about phenomenal illusions at will, the achievement of the second goal requires the reliance on certain causal processes. But it is precisely such a form of mediated agency which is ruled out by the successful straightforward formation of the judgement. It has also been argued that our phenomenal experience is systematically misleading with respect to the nature of our minds: either because there are no instances of judging, imagining or deliberate mental agency, despite it seeming to us that way; or because there are such instances, but they are not as they seem to us to be (cf. the eliminativist approaches to phenomenal consciousness). Here is not the place to assess the respective arguments, but let me briefly note the consequences their soundness would have for the experiential approach to the involuntariness of judgements. If none of the mental phenomena at issue existed, the question of whether we can form judgements at will would not arise, but instead only the question of why it none the less seems to us as if there is a difference between judging and imagining in respect to (what merely appears to us to be) deliberateness and straightforwardness. The normative approach could not hope to answer this question about our phenomenology: if there were no judgements, then there would also be no norms for judgements. The experiential approach, on the other hand, would still have something to say about the difference between judging and imagining and would also have good chances to be compatible with the - presumably causal and subpersonal - account of why things erroneously seem to us a certain way in the first place. On the other hand, that our phenomenal experience might turn out to generally misrepresent certain aspects of the nature of our mental phenomena would not pose any problem for the experiential approach, as long as the latter remains true of how we actually do experience judgements and mental actions. If the phenomenal illusion concerned the seeming rational motivation of judgements or deliberate mental actions, this would in fact mean, again, that there are no judgements or deliberate mental actions, 155 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 given that it is essential to these mental phenomena that they are rational and normally rationally motivated. And if the phenomenal illusion concerned some other aspect of the nature of judgements or deliberate mental actions, this error would be irrelevant for the question of whether judgements can be formed at will. For instance, it might indeed be the case that our actions are caused by certain sub-personal factors in our minds, although we experience them as originating in our tryings or volitions, or in us as conscious agents (cf. Wegner (2004)). But our awareness of deliberate and straightforward activity would still be correlated to the respective instances of mental agency; and it would still be incompatible with our awareness of judgements. VII. Conclusion and Outlook What I have been trying to show is that the experiential approach succeeds in establishing two things: the psychological and non-normative constraint on all our possible judgements that they are always experienced by us as epistemically motivated; and the incompatibility of this constraint with their deliberate and straightforward formation and, in particular, with experiencing them as formed in such a way. My main conclusion is therefore indeed that, for us, judging cannot be active and deliberate in the same straightforward way in which imagining can be active and deliberate. But the preceding considerations have also further substantiated the idea that our conscious experience of agency is a guide to - and only to - deliberate and straightforward agency, at least if mental activity is concerned. If something mental is experienced as active, it is normally part of deliberate mental agency. Our awareness of mental passivity, on the other hand, seems less revelatory, given that it is still compatible with more mediated forms of deliberate agency, such as in the example of intentionally changing one's mood and, indeed, in cases of deliberately forming judgements on the basis of evidence. The experiential approach is compatible with the idea that it is possible to conceive of judgements as being formed at will, and to desire or intend to form a particular judgement in this way. All it claims is that we are bound to fail if we consciously try to act on such a desire or intention. In this respect, it is likely to contradict the version of the normative approach which assumes that the truth norm (TN), and presumably also something like the constraint (C), are part of our concept of judgements, and that we have to employ this concept when aiming to form a judgement or classifying a mental episode as a judgement. Given the presupposition of certain further conceptual links (e.g., between truth and evidence), this assumption may be said following an argument similar to the one presented during the discussion of (C) - to entail that we cannot conceive of judgements as formed at will. And this again 156 Chapter 5 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency seems to imply that we cannot deliberately produce them in a straightforward manner: either because we cannot form the required desires or intentions in the first place; or because our necessary failure to conceive of judgements as judgements after their deliberate and straightforward formation would prevent us from acquiring the knowledge that we can perform this kind of action, while such knowledge appears to be necessary for deliberate agency.33 But apart from the fact, that the objections against the normative approach mentioned above also apply to this more complex version of it, the latter faces its own specific difficulties. Notably, it seems very doubtful that it can establish all the conceptual truths required; or, indeed, the claim that we (including children) have to possess and employ such a rich concept of judgements in order, say, to decide to make up our minds about a certain issue, or to desire forming a particular judgement (e.g., by some manipulative means) because it would make us happier if we did. But the experiential approach has other advantages over the normative approach, in all its facets. Not only can it easily accommodate the deliberate formation of manipulated or induced judgements, it also promises to be extendable to non-normative involuntary mental episodes. The normative approach has nothing to say about why we cannot form, say, perceptions, sensations or feelings at will, given that these phenomena are not subject to norms or requirements similar to (TN) or (C). By contrast, all kinds of involuntary mental episodes are phenomenally conscious and thus permit, at least in principle, the application of an argument which concentrates on this feature of them. It may be argued, for instance, that the causal determination of perceptions or sensations by those aspects of the world or our bodies, which they inform us about, becomes salient in their phenomenal character; and that this aspect of how we experience them is, again, incompatible with experiencing the immediacy involved in deliberate and straightforward mental agency. The experiential approach may therefore allow for a much more unified account of the involuntariness to be found in our conscious mental lives than the normative approach. If the experiential approach indeed turns out to be the right one, then the involuntariness of our judgements is a matter of our psychology, and not of our concepts: it depends first of all on how we, as a matter of fact, experience judgements and mental actions. This leaves room for the possibility that the involuntariness of our judgements is merely contingent, and that there might be other creatures who experience these mental phenomena in very different ways and, hence, may still be able to form judgements at will. So far, the experiential approach has said nothing about this possibility. But it might 33This seems to come very close to the first argument against voluntary beliefs to be found in Williams (1973). 157 Judging and the Scope of Mental Agency Chapter 5 perhaps be supplemented in such a way as to rule it out and thus to ensure the necessity of our inability to form judgements at will. The idea would be that the rational aspect of the actual phenomenal character of our judgements and mental actions is essential not only to how we in fact experience these conscious mental phenomena, but also to how any potential being having them would experience them. And this might perhaps be traced back to the idea that the underlying rational nature of the respective phenomena can be phenomenally revealed to subjects experiencing them solely in the way in which it is actually disclosed to us - say, because how we experience these phenomena is constitutive of, or constituted by, or otherwise inseparably linked to, how they really are. This would still allow for experiential differences among subjects both of the same and of distinct species, as long as they do not concern the phenomenal disclosure of their rational nature (or of the respective aspects thereof). But the latter would necessarily be salient to all subjects in the same way and, hence, give rise to the same phenomenal incompatibilities. This would explain why we experience judgements and mental actions the way we experience them: as of necessity, to experience some mental phenomenon as a judgement or as a mental action would just mean, partly, to experience it as occurring in response to reasons. However, it would perhaps also imply that our experiential awareness of the rational aspects of our conscious minds is not primitive, and that a more fundamental account of it and of why we cannot form judgements at will can be formulated - namely in terms of those of their features, which are constitutively linked to their phenomenal character and ultimately make up their nature.34 34Various versions of this chapter have been presented at a one-day conference on mental agency in Senate House, London, the research colloquium at the University of Fribourg, the SOPHAmeeting 2006 in Aix-en-Provence, and a conference on the phenomenology of agency, again at the University of Fribourg. For very helpful comments on these occasions, I would like to thank Julien Deonna, Julien Dutant, Pascal Engel, Guy Longworth, Martine NidaRümelin, Chris Peacocke, Joelle Proust, Nishi Shah, Joel Smith, Gianfranco Soldati, Juan Suarez, Fabrice Terroni, Stephen White, and Ann Whittle. For reading previous drafts and providing extensive comments, I am extremely grateful to Davor Bodrozic, Adrian Haddock, Lucy O'Brien, Matthew Soteriou, Gian-Andri Toendury, and an anonymous referee. I would also like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for funding part of the work on this chapter. 158 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Introduction 1. Emotions can possibly stand in two kinds of rational relations: they can be supported by reasons, such as judgements or facts concerned with the nonevaluative nature of objects; and they can themselves provide reasons, for instance for belief or action. My main concern in this essay is with a certain aspect of the latter, namely the capacity (or lack thereof) of emotions or sentiments to epistemically justify aesthetic evaluations, that is, ascriptions of aesthetic values to objects. That is, I will be concerned with epistemological issues concerning the idea of emotion-based aesthetic evaluations. Only in passing will I say also something about the rational underpinning of our emotional responses themselves. The view that certain of our emotional responses indeed possess the capacity to justify aesthetic evaluations, and that our aesthetic assessments are primarily, if not always, epistemically based on or constituted by these responses, has become almost orthodoxy in aesthetics, or at least the predominant approach to the epistemology of aesthetic evaluations.1 Moreover, this view is very often combined with the further view that all our aesthetic evaluations are intersubjective, in the rough sense that at least neither their truth-values, 1Cf., for instance, the sentimentalist theories put forward in Hume (2008), Kant (2009, sections 1ff.), Budd (1996, 11ff. and 38f.), Goldman (1995, 22), and the semi-sentimentalist view proposed in Levinson (1996). One notable exception is Bender (1995) who construes aesthetic evaluations instead as inferentially based. As it has been suggested to me by an anonymous referee, adopting a sentimentalist outlook may perhaps be plausible only with respect to certain kinds of aesthetic value (e.g., concerning the funny, or the disgusting). If so, my discussion may have to be similarly restricted in its scope (and my notion of an 'overall aesthetic merit' of a work to be understood as denoting the most comprehensive and non-descriptive aesthetic value said to be accessible by means of emotions). 159 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 nor the exemplifications of the ascribed values are relativised to specific human subjects or groups.2 I will label the first of these two views about aesthetic evaluations sentimentalism, and the second intersubjectivism.3 Contrary to the still strong and influential tendency in aesthetics to combine sentimentalism and intersubjectivism, I aim to show that the two views should not be endorsed simultaneously. That is, in my view, sentimentalism should be upheld only if intersubjectivism is rejected; and intersubjectivism should be upheld only if sentimentalism is rejected. Given that I furthermore take the denial of intersubjectivism to be highly implausible (although I do not intend to argue for this here4), I believe that, ultimately, it is sentimentalism concerning aesthetic evaluations which should give way.5 Here is how I will proceed. First of all, I will spell out the main elements of the sentimentalist and the intersubjectivist approaches to aesthetic appreciation (cf. sections 2-7). Then, I will formulate a challenge to this approach, which arises out of what is usually described as the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among our emotional responses and the related aesthetic evaluations (cf. section 8). After this, I will discuss and reject the various strategies which a sentimentalist may adopt in order to be able to accept and accommodate this possibility (cf. sections 9-17). And finally, I will try to undermine any plausible sentimentalist attempt to deny it (cf. sections 18-20). As a result, I will conclude that sentimentalism is forced to give up intersubjectivism. 2Cf. Hume (2008), Kant (2009), McDowell (1983), Budd (1996, ch. 1), Budd (1999), and presumably Levinson, who believes that 'pleasure that testifies to artistic value must go beyond a single encounter, must be experiencable by others, and at other times' (Levinson (1996, 13; see also 16)). 3Of course, both notions may be understood in many other ways. In particular, a wider notion of sentimentalism may be used to characterize the dependence of our evaluations or evaluative concepts on our emotional capacities in more general terms (cf. D'Arms and Jacobson (2003, 127f.)); while a narrower notion may be limited to the view that aesthetic judgements are about or express sentiments, rather than facts, and are not (genuinely) cognitive or truth-apt (cf. Zangwill (2001, 149ff.)). By contrast, my notion focusses on the epistemic link between emotions and evaluations (i.e., on the idea that the former can justify the latter by either grounding or constituting them) and is meant to include also positions which take aesthetic judgements to be truth-apt despite their being epistemically based on emotional responses. 4Cf. e.g., Hume (2008), Kant (2009) andWollheim (1980, essay IV) for powerful criticisms of more subjectivist approaches to aesthetic epistemology. 5Despite my exclusive focus on the aesthetic case, I hope that the following considerations on the possible epistemic relationship between emotions and evaluations do not depend on idiosyncrasies of the aesthetic debate or its subject matter and are therefore also applicable to other kinds of value. In particular, I hope that the arguments presented here put pressure on the views of the few moral epistemologists - Wiggins (1987) and Döring (2007) prominently among them - who take emotions or sentiments to be justifying grounds or constituents of evaluations. 160 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Sentimentalism 2. Sentimentalism, as understood here, is the epistemological view that certain of our sentiments or emotional responses can - and, indeed, often do - justify our aesthetic evaluations. The underlying idea is that our aesthetic assessments are typically based on, or constituted by, the relevant emotions, and that the appropriateness of the latter transfers to the former. This implies that there are strict correspondances between (sets of) emotional responses and aesthetic values (or ascriptions thereof), which means at least that each kind of aesthetic value is uniquely linked to a certain type of emotional response. For instance, the particular aesthetic merit of being exciting may be said to correspond to feelings of excitement; or, more generally, the value of being aesthetically good to feelings of pleasure. But it may also mean that differences in degree among the values parallel differences in intensity among the emotional responses. Sentimentalism is compatible with a wide variety of more concrete views about the nature of aesthetic appreciation. For instance, sentimentalist may take aesthetic evaluations to consist in, or to express, emotional responses.6 But they may equally take them to be based on emotions in a similar way, in which perceptual judgements are based on perceptions, or introspective judgements on the respective first-order states.7 3. Among the main motivations for sentimentalism is the observation that our respective emotional responses are rationally sensitive to evidence for aesthetic (or other kinds of) worth. When we try to explain why we value certain artworks, or try to convince someone else of our appraisal, we usually point to certain non-evaluative facts about the object - for instance, how it looks or sounds, which story it tells, and how, who created it, and when, and so on (cf. Goldman (1995, 12ff.) and Zangwill (2001, 20ff. and 37ff.)). But these and similar facts are also among those which are relevant for the occurrence and nature of our emotional responses. When we hear that the painting, which we took to be rather original for the Romantic period in its dispassionate objectiveness stems in fact from the late Nineteenth Century, our excitement about it will wane. And our admiration for a piece of music may well be heightened by the recognition of its intricate and original structure. The impact of the respective non-evaluative facts on our emotional responses is thereby evidently 6Examples are Goldman (1995, e.g., 22), and the aesthetic theories - such as those discussed by Hopkins (2001) and Todd (2004) - which are in the spirit of Blackburn's or Gibbard's versions of moral expressivism. The account put forward by Hume (2008), and perhaps also that of Kant (2009), appear to involve similar ideas. 7The theory defended by McDowell (1983, 1998d), as well as aesthetic positions in the wake of the moral accounts of Wiggins (1987) and Wright (1988), are of this kind. Note that also Kant stresses that aesthetic judgements are primarily about the subject's own emotions, and only then about the experienced objects (Kant, 2009, 3f.). 161 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 rational in nature. For both the occurrence and the adequacy of our emotions is at least partly a matter of the contents of our mental representations of these facts (cf. Goldie (2004)). For example, feeling awed when confronted with a certain poem, despite taking it to be unoriginal, bland, uninteresting in its content and stylistically flawed in many ways, would not be the right kind of emotional response to that piece of writing, at least not within the context of an aesthetic experience of the poem. This provides support for the sentimentalist view that emotions mediate rationally between our non-evaluative experiences of objects and our aesthetic evaluations of them. For it can elucidate why and how our assessments are responsive to and based on relevant reasons, that is, on relevant non-evaluative facts about the objects to be evaluated.8 The Idea of Reflection 4. Sentimentalism is often combined with two other ideas: that (some of) our aesthetic evaluations (as well as any corresponding emotional responses) have the capacity to reflect the aesthetic worth of objects; and that our aesthetic evaluations are either appropriate or inappropriate, and possibly in more than one way. An evaluation reflects a certain value of an object just in case the object exemplifies the value which the evaluation ascribes to him. Perhaps all our aesthetic evaluations reflect actual instances of aesthetic value; or perhaps only those which are appropriate or fitting (as I will say). The idea of reflection is not very strong and should be uncontroversial. It is rather weak because 8Other important motivations for sentimentalism are: (i): the particularist insight that aesthetic assessment is typically not the matter of deductive inference on the basis of judgements about non-aesthetic features (cf. Kant 1985, section 56, Sibley (2001a), Budd (1999), Goldman (1995, 132ff.), and Bender (1995)); (ii) the fact that sentimentalism promises to explain certain aspects of the central role and importance of emotions in aesthetic evaluation, such as the intimate link between aesthetic values and emotional terms (e.g., 'exciting', 'wonderful', 'stimulating', 'awesome', 'moving', 'disgusting', 'appalling' or 'outrageous'; cf. Williams (1993, 218f.) and McNaughton (1988, 8)), or the function of the emotional responses to draw our attention to reasons for aesthetic assessment; and (iii) perhaps also the seeming subjectivity of our aesthetic assessments. However, none of these points compel one to accept sentimentalism. Although they may provide considerable support for this approach to aesthetic appreciation, there is still room for alternative theories fitting or explaining the noted facts as well as sentimentalism. In particular, a more rationalist view can hope to be on equal standing with sentimentalism with respect to the considerations commonly put forward in favour of the latter. According to such a view, aesthetic assessment is a matter of true or false judgements about the aesthetic merit of objects, made on the basis of inductive considerations and inferences to the best explanation concerning the non-aesthetic features of those objects (cf. Bender (1995)). And it can assign to emotional responses the role of merely drawing our attention to (already independently recognized) reasons for aesthetic assessment, rather than that of grounding or constituting such evaluations. 162 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations the notion of having a value which it invokes is used in such a way as not to entail any strong metaphysical or other commitments, apart from the presupposition that talking of the values of objects is legitimate in some sense or another. Indeed, it should be compatible even with eliminativist positions or error theories which deny that there actually are any exemplifications of aesthetic values, but which nonetheless accept that it makes sense to speak of the aesthetic worth of objects and provide a satisfactory theory of such talk. Furthermore, the idea of reflection is rather weak also because the notions of reflecting and, if applicable, of fitting evaluations may likewise be understood in a very non-committal way. While it may be proposed that aesthetic responses reflect instances of aesthetic worth by cognizing them, it may also be proposed that they reflect exemplifications of aesthetic values simply by projecting them onto their bearers. All that the idea of reflection presupposes is that objects have values, and that there is some kind of correspondance between these values and those evaluations (and, perhaps, those emotional responses) which ascribe or assign them - again perhaps in a rather loose sense which does not require, say, the involvement of respective concepts - to the objects. It is therefore not very demanding or costly to endorse the idea of reflection. On the contrary, it would seem to be highly implausible to reject it, given that this would mean having to to stop talking of objects as bearers of values, and of evaluations as representing and potentially reflecting these values. Epistemic Appropriateness and Fittingness 5. According to the idea of appropriateness, on the other hand, some evaluations are better than others; and the former are to be preferred over the latter - say, in respect to the issue of which we should endorse. For example, the claim that Hamlet is a masterpiece is said to be more adequate than the claim that it is a mediocre play. And we should thus hold on to the former and give up the latter. Evaluations may be taken to be better or worse than others in basically two ways: in relation to their epistemic standing, that is, their justification; and in relation to their reflecting the values of their objects. To return to the example, the first claim about Hamlet may be better than the second because it has been made in the right way, or because it reflects better the actual worth of the play. To distinguish the two senses in which evaluations may differ in appropriateness, I will differentiate between the epistemic appropriateness and the fittingness of assessments. The idea of an epistemic appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations expresses the view that such assessments are either justified or unjustified, namely in the light of the relevant reasons available to us and, in particular, with respect to the aim of getting access to the aesthetic values of objects. The idea is 163 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 often linked to the postulation of suitable conditions which suffice to ensure such an adequacy in appreciation (cf. Hume (2008), Levinson (1996, 15ff), and Goldman (1995, 21f.); cf. also, more generally, Wright (1988, 1994)). Which conditions are suitable in this respect may perhaps differ from case to case, depending on, say, the particular subjects, objects or aesthetic values concerned. But the conditions will surely put certain demands on the evaluating subjects, and perhaps also on the environmental circumstances. Accordingly, it is often required that subjects are fully and correctly aware of all the relevant features or acts concerning the object to be evaluated, which again presupposes that they are sufficiently attentive, sensitive and experienced in these matters; and that their further consideration of these features or facts happens in a rational and impartial way, and with no cognitive fault involved (cf. Hume (2008), Kant (2009, sections 2ff.), Goldman (1995, 21f.) and Zangwill (2001, 152ff.)). And the satisfaction of such conditions may furthermore require, say, that the right kinds of interaction with the object are possible or permitted, or that the right kinds of observational conditions obtain. In the context of sentimentalism, any assumed epistemic justification of evaluations will be a matter of the standing of the relevant emotional responses and of their relationship to the assessments. Hence, if the emotional responses occur under suitable conditions, they acquire the power to justify corresponding evaluations; and if they then indeed lead to such assessments, they actually render them justified. The idea of fittingness, on the other hand, becomes relevant for the identification of those evaluations which actually reflect the aesthetic worth of objects. Assuming that there is this form of appropriateness in aesthetic evaluation amounts to maintaining that not all assessments are equal in their reflection of aesthetic merit, and that, more precisely, only fitting evaluations correspond to instances of aesthetic values.9 Fittingness may then be spelled out in terms of truth; but it may also be spelled out in terms of some other kind of appropriateness, such as some form of emotional adequacy which does not amount to truth, while perhaps being very similar to truth.10 6. Proponents of sentimentalism, who accept that our aesthetic evaluations can be appropriate or inappropriate in one or more ways, may differ on how they conceive of the relevant kinds of appropriateness (i.e., epistemic appropriateness and fittingness), as well as their relationship. But there is much agreement on the idea that epistemic appropriateness is either conducive to or constitutive of fittingness. 9D'Arms and Jacobson (2000) make a very similar use of the notion of fittingness with respect to emotions and their accurate presentation of some of their target's evaluative features. 10See the discussions in De Sousa (2002, 2007), and in Morton (2002); and see also the notion of appropriate expressions in Gibbard (1990)). 164 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Many theories accept the truth-aptness of evaluations and, correspondingly, understand fittingness in terms of truth. And although they may differ in their interpretation of the nature of the truth involved and of its link to epistemic appropriateness, they all assume that the latter is likely to, or even does, ensure the former.11 Indeed, it would be highly implausible to endorse an epistemological theory which takes truth and epistemic appropriateness to be more independent of each other. On such a view, the acquisition of true - rather than false - evaluations would be an arbitrary matter beyond our control. Given that striving for justified assessments would not be more likely to guarantee truth than striving for unjustified assessments, the respective criteria for epistemic appropriateness (e.g., full information, unbiasedness, attentiveness, etc.) could not guide us any more in the aim to discover the true aesthetic values of objects. And the resulting cognitive irrelevance of these criteria would raise the question of why we should care at all about epistemic appropriateness and about the related justificatory potential of our respective emotional responses. However, there are also theories which deny the truth-aptness of aesthetic verdicts and instead assume only a single kind of aesthetic appropriateness - for instance, the emotional adequacy mentioned above - which fulfils the role of both epistemic appropriateness and fittingness by ensuring single-handedly that the resulting assessments count as justified and as reflecting the aesthetic worth of the objects concerned.12 For such theories, epistemic appropriateness 11Some accounts of this kind assume that evaluations are (substantially) true when and because they successfully track instances of values which are there, as genuine parts of the world, to be recognized by us (cf. McDowell (1983, 1998d) and Wiggins (1987)). Other accounts take evaluations to be (presumably less substantially) true when and because they determine, rather than recognize, which objects have which values (cf. Wright (1988) and Goldman (1995)). The idea is that it is our epistemically best opinions which reflect the aesthetic worth of objects and, hence, should count as true (cf. Wright (1988, 1994)). Besides, both kinds of view may vary in whether they take our epistemically appropriate evaluations to partly constitute the aesthetic values of the objects in question, or merely to pick them - or the respective underlying features of the objects constituting them - out (cf. McFarland and Miller (1998) for the difference). McDowell, Wiggins and perhaps also Wright seem to favour the constitutionist alternative, while Goldman may be read as opting for the more reductionist view. 12The resulting non-truth-apt evaluations are probably best understood in expressivist terms (cf. Gibbard (1990)). Some expressivists have tried to establish some (nonsubstantial) notion of truth for evaluations (cf. Blackburn (1984) and Todd (2004)) and hence align their accounts closer to the non-expressivist theories just mentioned which involve a similar notion of truth. However, this project has come under criticism (cf. Hopkins (2001)), in part because a notion of truth may not be so easily had (cf. McDowell (1998c)). Expressivist accounts are often combined with the endorsement of some form of projectivism, according to which values are not real aspects of the world, but merely figments of our minds which we project onto the world (cf. Hume (2008), Blackburn (1984) and, presumably, Kant (2009)). Besides, they may differ in respect to whether they accept that there are actually 165 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 simply amounts to fittingness. Hence, combining sentimentalism with the idea of appropriateness should involve the affirmation of the claim that epistemic appropriateness is conducive to or constitutive of fittingness. Intersubjectivism 7. As already noted, it is very common in aesthetics to combine sentimentalism with intersubjectivism. As I understand intersubjectivism, it implies at least two important ideas (although it may not simply reduce to them). First, it entails that whether an object in fact exemplifies a particular aesthetic value or not is not relativised to certain subjects or groups of subjects among humanity, but equal for all actual or possible human beings. This means that objects are beautiful or disgusting for all humans (or none), but not, say, beautiful-for-me and disgusting-for-you. And second, intersubjectivism entails that whether aesthetic assessments reflect the aesthetic merit of an object or not is not relativised to certain subjects or groups of subjects among humanity, but equal for all actual or possible human beings. This means - for instance, if reflection and fittingness are spelled out in terms of truth - that aesthetic evaluations are true or false for all humans (or none), but not, say, true-for-me and false-for-you. By contrast, intersubjectivism does not say anything about non-human subjects - for instance, whether they have or know of aesthetic values, and if so, whether they share ours.13 Similarly, intersubjectivism is compatible with the idea that which aesthetic values objects exemplify is determined by, or otherwise depends on, the responses of only certain humans (e.g., experts, ideal judges, or subjects assessing objects under normal or optimal conditions). And it permits that only particular humans may have access to certain exemplifications of aesthetic worth. Intersubjectivism is attractive because it explains in an easy and straightforward way why we take differing evaluations to be in conflict, ask ourselves and others involved for reasons for our assessments, enter discussions with them in order to come to agreement, either by trying to convince the others of our opinion, or by revising our own verdict, and so on. We do not treat our ascriptions of aesthetic values differently in these respects than, say, our ascriptions of shapes, wealth, talent in basketball, and other evaluative or or exemplifications of aesthetic values, or whether they prefer an eliminativist approach or some form of error theory concerning these values. 13Cf. Budd (1996, 39f.). The choice of humanity as the hallmark of intersubjectivity is to some extent arbitrary. Perhaps it would be better to understand intersubjectivity in terms of (sufficiently large) cultures or communities - but only if these are specified in terms of linguistic, geographical and similarly evaluatively neutral factors, and not in terms of shared aesthetic sensitivities, tastes or emotional dispositions, given that this strategy would otherwise lead to some form of relativisation. Similarly, if the relevant class of subjects becomes too small, talk of 'intersubjectivity' would have lost most of its significance. 166 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations non-evaluative properties. Hence, the denial of intersubjectivism appears to imply admitting that there is some systematic error, or some misplaced demand on others to agree with us, involved in our aesthetic assessments. Of course, this is far from sufficient to settle the debate between intersubjectivists and their opponents. But what it illustrates is that giving up intersubjectivism should not be more than a last resort.14 And in response to this fact, many sentimentalists - not the least Hume and Kant - have tried to hold on to the intersubjectivity of aesthetic evaluations, at least as much as possible.15 In what follows, I would like to consider whether they can hope to succeed in this ambition. The Challenge to Sentimentalism 8. As has often been observed (e.g., by Kant (2009, sections 36ff. and 56ff.), and by Goldman (1995, 28f.)), a particular challenge which they are facing is to show how it is possible to combine the idea of intersubjective aesthetic evaluations with the possibility of faultless disagreement, all the while assuming a sentimentalist approach to aesthetic appreciation. This challenge may be developed in three steps. The first step is the observation that our emotional responses to artworks and similar objects may differ - whether in quality or intensity, or whether intraor interpersonally - even under conditions held to be suitable for epistemically adequate aesthetic appreciation. In particular, critics may come up with very different emotional reactions to objects, despite being of equally highly attentive and sensitive to the relevant marks of aesthetic merit, of similarly sufficient impartiality, expertise and training, and so on. For example, while one critic may feel excited by Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, another may respond with uneasiness, or awe, or nothing of the sort. And it appears that there need be no violation of any conditions on the epistemic appropriateness pertaining to aesthetic evaluations16 and, hence, no epistemic fault in either 14Even sentimentalists, who, at least to some extent, give up intersubjectivism in the face of the possibility of faultless disagreement, note how problematic this move is - for instance, because it contradicts our common intersubjectivist intuitions (cf. Goldman (1995, 37f.)), or because 'it may not be possible to establish any sufficient difference in the 'value-focus' of those who appear to be in disagreement' (Wiggins, 1987, 209; see also 181) for his idea to reject intersubjectivism in certain moral cases). 15For instance, although Hume and Budd seem to allow for relativisation in certain cases - in Hume's case to age and culture, and in Budd's to ways of experiencing or understanding artworks (or to the underlying sensitivities and dispositions) - they nonetheless hold on to the idea that aesthetic evaluations are generally intersubjective (cf. Hume (2008) and Budd (1996, 42)). 16I assume here that, if aesthetic evaluations are grounded on or constituted by emotional responses, the appropriateness conditions for the former include the aesthetically relevant 167 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 emotional response.17 According to the second step, the sentimentalist assumption that aesthetic evaluations are grounded on or constituted by the emotional responses at issue entails that, if these responses may differ in quality or intensity under the conditions ensuring epistemic adequacy in aesthetic assessment, our aesthetic evaluations may, too, differ under such conditions, whether in valence or in degree. The idea is that, if there are two distinct emotional reactions to a certain object under given circumstances, and if these responses lead to an aesthetic appraisal of the object, there will, as a result, also be two distinct aesthetic evaluations, one for each of the corresponding emotional responses. And given that this applies, in particular, to cases in which the appropriateness conditions for aesthetic assessments are satisfied, it follows also that there may be differing, but equally epistemically appropriate aesthetic evaluations of one and the same object. The challenge arises now from adding the third step that such differing evaluations may very well be in conflict with each other. Two evaluations stand in conflict with each other just in case they assign incompatible values to the same object (considered at a specific moment in time). And two values are incompatible just in case a single object cannot exemplify both at the same time. Accordingly, assuming that something cannot be both boring and exciting at the same time, the two respective assessments are in conflict with each other.18 But as it seems, they may not have to differ in their epistemic appropriateness. Similarly, in the example about Picasso's painting, it may be appropriateness conditions for the latter. That is, according to sentimentalism, an evaluation is adequate from an aesthetic point of view only if the respective emotional response is as well. It thus is impossible to undermine the possibility of faultless emotions by introducing (allegedly) aesthetically relevant suitable conditions for emotions which are not part of the suitable conditions for aesthetic evaluations. Of course, the emotional responses involved may still be subject to appropriateness conditions which are aesthetically irrelevant (e.g., because they are impractical). But their inadequacy in this respect could not undermine the aesthetic appropriateness of the related evaluations. 17Once it is accepted that there can be different emotional reactions to the same artwork (whether under the most suitable conditions or not), another important challenge arises. For it is conceivable that the respective critics may come, after extensive discussion and further scrutiny, to converge in their aesthetic opinions, without their diverging emotional responses disappearing. For instance, the judges of Picasso's painting may very well end up agreeing on its status as a masterpiece, despite continuing to emotionally react in different ways - say, with feelings of excitement, awe or uneasiness - to their experience of the work. Hence, it seems that there is a problem for sentimentalism not only with cases of disagreement, but also with cases of agreement: convergence in aesthetic assessment does not appear to be always due to convergence in emotional disposition or response. However, the pursuit of this second challenge to sentimentalism has to await another occasion. 18Of course, there may be many other and independent ways in which evaluations or the underlying emotions may be in conflict (cf., e.g., De Sousa (2003, 2007). 168 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations possible that the diverging emotional responses give rise to conflicting aesthetic assessments of the work. For instance, it seems plausible to maintain that awe is linked to a different aesthetic value - if not in valence, at least in degree - than uneasiness. And the absence of any relevant emotion in one of the critics is presumably related to an altogether different value, or perhaps even to the absence of any. The challenge to sentimentalism can then be formulated in terms of the demand to show how it can satisfactorily handle the possibility of such cases of faultless disagreement - that is, of such cases of conflicting aesthetic evaluations, none of which needs to be at fault from an epistemic perspective. If intersubjectivism is given up, this challenge can presumably be met with ease - which is one reason why the denial of intersubjectivism may become quite attractive for a sentimentalist (cf. Goldman (1995, 26ff.)). If objects would really be of different aesthetic merit for different people - because, say, the fittingness of aesthetic assessments, or the exemplification of aesthetic values, would be relativised to distinct groups of human beings - then there would cease to be any genuine conflict among differing assessments, since there would be no incompatibility any more between the aesthetic values ascribed by the various critics (and at various times, and so on). One and the same work could without a problem be boring-for-me and exciting-for-you, or graceful-forme and insipid-for-you, or a masterpiece-for-me and no masterpiece-for-you; and one and the same aesthetic assessment (e.g., that a given work is beautiful) could equally unproblematically be true-for-me and false-for-you (assuming that it makes sense to speak of relativised values, exemplifications or truthvalues). There might thus be no conflict between aesthetic evaluations, once intersubjectivism is given up. But of course, the question remains whether sentimentalist can hold on to intersubjectivism and still satisfactorily answer the raised challenge. I will argue that they cannot; and I will do so by looking in turn at two different strategies: to accept the possibility of faultless disagreement and to try to show that it is harmless (cf. sections 9-17 below); or, alternatively, to argue that there is no such possibility (cf. sections 18-20 below).19 19The denial of the idea of appropriateness would not help to answer the challenge to sentimentalism. All evaluations would then equally reflect the aesthetic merit of objects (i.e., would, in some sense, be equally justified). And since many of them would stand in conflict with each other, giving up either intersubjectivism or sentimentalism would be the only options available. Indeed, the only hope to rule out the possibility of faultless disagreement is to hold on to the appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations and to try to show that appropriate assessments converge (cf. the discussion below). 169 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 Accepting the Possibility of Faultless Disagreement 9. While Hume, Kant and other sentimentalists have tried to rescue intersubjectivism by making plausible that our aesthetic evaluations and the related emotional responses would - at least under suitable conditions - converge (cf. the discussion below), it has recently become much more common to accept the possibility of faultless disagreement, both in conjunction with and independent of sentimentalism, and regarding both aesthetic and other values. A sentimentalist (and, incidentally, also a denier of intersubjectivism) in aesthetic matters, who endorses the possibility of conflicting appropriate assessments, is Alan Goldman. He claims that even the satisfaction of the most ideal conditions for aesthetic appreciation cannot ensure sameness in evaluative dispositions and opinions: [One] cannot explain all disagreement as resulting from deviance from ideal critics or from borderline areas of vague terms. Instead, some disagreement reflects the fact that differences in taste persist through training and exposure to various art forms. (By 'taste' here I refer not only to different preferences but also to different judgements of aesthetic worth...). Even ideal critics will disagree in their ascription of evaluative aesthetic properties... (Goldman, 1995, 36f.) And assuming that non-evaluative features figure as supervenience bases for aesthetic values, he continues to argue that different critics of equally high standard may respond to the same set of non-evaluative features of an object by ascribing different aesthetic values to the object: A painting with gently curving lines may be graceful to one critic and insipid to another. (Goldman, 1995, 138) Likewise, Wiggins, who considers and seems to tentatively defend a version of sentimentalism concerning moral - and presumably also aesthetic (cf. Wiggins (1987, 199)) - values, accepts the possibility of disagreements which cannot be resolved on the grounds that all but one verdict are inappropriate in some way or another: In truth, whatever difficulties there are in the possibility of irresoluble substantive disagreement, no position in moral philosophy can render itself simply immune from them. We should not tumble over ourselves to assert that there is irresoluble substantive disagreement. We should simply respect the possibility of such disagreement, I think, and in respecting it register the case for a measure of cognitive underdetermination. (Wiggins, 1987, 210) 170 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations And finally, Hopkins argues that, if one accepts (as he seems to do himself) a broadly sentimentalist approach to aesthetic evaluation, as well as that testimony does not provide us with (much) reason to keep or change our own aesthetic assessments, then one should also endorse a position which combines the sentimentalist view with an embrace of the possibility of conflict among epistemically adequate evaluations. For, according to Hopkins, only such a position can hope to explain the assumed fact about the relation between testimony and aesthetic appreciation.20 Hence: So we must abandon Kantian orthodoxy and allow that two subjects can be warranted in holding different, but genuinely conflicting, beliefs about something's beauty. [...] This is made tolerable by the separateness of the rational subjects in question. [...] The crucial notion, I suggest, will be that of a sensibility, a set of dispositions determining one's response, pleasure or otherwise, to the aesthetic object. Different subjects may be equally warranted in their conflicting judgements of a thing's beauty because the pleasure of each is in part determined by her sensibility, and sensibilities differ. (Hopkins, 2000, 233) These different quotations all illustrate a recent tendency to acknowledge, or at least to consider very seriously, the possibility of faultless disagreement in aesthetic matters. And although they do not prove that this possibility really obtains, they add at least to the initial plausibility of its assumption. The Impact of the Possibility of Faultless Disagreement 10. But how should or could an intersubjectivist sentimentalist react if he indeed accepts that faultless disagreement in aesthetic matters is - at least sometimes - possible? Given that he wants to hold on to the intersubjectivity of aesthetic evaluations, the most plausible option - as suggested by Budd and others21 - is for him to accept that we should refrain from aesthetic assessment if confronted with concrete cases of conflict among epistemically appropriate evaluations: If there can be faultless differences in taste, both of two opposed faultless aesthetic judgements will be false - in which case someone who is aware 20But Hopkins is also inclined to hold on to the intersubjectivity of aesthetic evaluations. Accordingly, his considerations about the view, which accepts the possibility of faultless disagreement in aesthetic matters are not without doubts about its tenability. In particular, he notes - but does not give up the hope of finally being able to avoid - the problem that the acceptance of this possibility might lead to an account which is in tension with the common assumption of the intersubjectivity of aesthetic evaluations (Hopkins (2000, 233 and 235f.)). 21Wiggins, for instance, suggests even '[giving] up on the predicate' in this case (Wiggins, 1987, 209). 171 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 of the possibility of an opposed faultless response might be wise not to express her own response in the corresponding aesthetic judgement. (Budd, 1999, 308) The underlying reasoning is the following. Two conflicting evaluations assign different values to the same object of which it can exemplify at best one (at the particular time in question). Hence, at best one of the two evaluations can be fitting (e.g., true) in the sense of actually reflecting the aesthetic worth which the object has. Applying this result to epistemically adequate evaluations, it follows that at least one of two epistemically appropriate, but conflicting evaluations has to be non-fitting (e.g., false). Furthermore, we cannot tell which of the two assessments is non-fitting, and which fitting (if not both are non-fitting). Their epistemic appropriateness cannot any more be our guide to their fittingness, given that both are equally sufficiently appropriate from an epistemic point of view. And there could not be some additional and so far unnoticed evidence for the fittingness of one evaluation or the non-fittingness of the other, for this would mean that neither assessment would be epistemically adequate due to their violation of the requirement to take into account all relevant evidence. Hence, we should refrain from forcing a conclusion about which evaluation is fitting, that is, reflects the actual aesthetic merit of the object in question and, therefore, endorse neither of the two assessments. Of course, we might not be aware of the possibility of a faultlessly conflicting evaluation with respect to one of our concrete actual assessments and, hence, might fail to refrain from judgement in such a case. But we would still be rationally required to do so. Besides, as Budd notes in the quote, the mere possibility of an appropriate alternative verdict is already sufficient to undermine the epistemic standing of a given actual evaluation. No one needs to actually come up with the conflicting opinion for it to have an impact on the epistemic appropriateness of the already existing assessment. That is, it is the possibility of faultless disagreement, which functions as a defeater, and not its actuality. Wiggins proposes another strategy to deal with concrete instances of faultless disagreement, namely to 'remain undeterred' and to 'persevere as best as we can in the familiar processes of reasoning, conversion, and criticism - without guarantees of success, which are almost as needless as they are unobtainable' (Wiggins, 1987, 209f.). But it is not clear what this could mean, apart from ignoring the problem and continuing in one's evaluative practices as if there were no possibility of faultless disagreement. Success would not only not be guaranteed, it would be impossible. For even if some of us were to end up with fitting assessments reflecting the aesthetic values of the objects concerned, we would not be able to know this, since we would still not be able to identify the fitting and the non-fitting evaluations among all epistem172 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations ically adequate ones. Also, Wiggins' hope cannot be that, in the end, there will be agreement, given that he maintains - in the longer passage quoted further above - that we should take the possibility of 'irresoluble substantive disagreement' serious. Wiggins' proposal might still amount to good practical advice. But it does not tell us anything about how to theoretically handle specific cases in which there is the possibility of two conflicting appropriate evaluations. The Problem of the Ubiquity of Possible Faultless Disagreement 11. Now, if the possibility of faultless disagreement would be widespread (i.e., arises in many relevant cases) or even universal (i.e., arises in all relevant cases), this would have serious consequences for the epistemic standing of both the aesthetic evaluations and the emotional responses which ground or constitute them.22 Hence, a intersubjectivist sentimentalist faces the difficult task to limit this possibility only to a few cases, that is, to a few actual instances of aesthetic merit. If the possibility of faultless disagreement would turn out to be universal - that is, if there is the possibility of the occurrence of a conflicting adequate opinion in the case of at least all actual occurrences of appropriate verdicts (whether they occur in the past, present, or future) - then we should always refrain from aesthetic judgement, given that we could not distinguish any more the fitting evaluations from the non-fitting ones among the set of epistemically appropriate responses. But this would have the (absurd) consequence that we actually would not have any adequate or reliable access to instances of intersubjective aesthetic values - presumably, either because there were none, or because our emotional responses meant to ground or constitute our aesthetic evaluations would not put us in proper contact with them. The first would mean that sentimentalism is pointless; the second, that it is false. Hence, the intersubjectivist sentimentalist should deny that the possibility of a conflict among epistemically appropriate evaluations holds universally. But he should also resist the assumption of a widespread possibility - that is, of the possibility of a faultlessly disagreeing response with respect to at least many of all the actual past, present or future occurrences of adequate aesthetic assessments. As I have illustrated further above, it is common for sentimentalists to maintain that, once our relevant emotional responses occur under conditions ensuring the epistemically appropriate appreciation of objects, they do - or at least are likely to - ground or constitute aesthetic evaluations which are fitting, that is, indeed reflect the aesthetic worth of the object concerned. But if the possibility of faultless disagreement would be 22Cf. Hopkins (2000, 233 and 235) for similar, though less pessimistic worries. 173 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 widespread, there would be many justified aesthetic assessments which are nonfitting, given that at best one of several conflicting adequate evaluations could be fitting. And this would undermine the postulated link between epistemic appropriateness and fittingness (e.g., the truth-conduciveness of the former): if many emotional responses would give rise to non-fitting aesthetic evaluations, despite being epistemically adequate and thus possessing the required justificatory potential, they would loose their general capacity to render aesthetic assessments (likely to be) fitting - and, hence, their related capacity to ground or constitute evaluations which potentially reflect actual instances of aesthetic worth. The intersubjectivist sentimentalist should therefore argue also against the widespread possibility of faultless disagreement concerning aesthetic merit - at least if he is assuming that epistemic appropriateness is either constitutive of or conducive to fittingness. However, such sentimentalists may still choose to accept the possibility of a conflicting justified opinion with regard to only some actual instances of epistemically adequate aesthetic evaluations. Indeed, many intersubjectivist sentimentalists have opted for this route (cf., e.g., Hume (2008) and Budd (1999)). But, in order to avoid the problems outlined above, they should then also reject the further thesis that, given that faultless disagreement in aesthetic matters is possible in some actual cases of aesthetic assessment, it is also possible in many or even all such cases. The sentimentalist in question can try to resist this further thesis in two ways. First, he can claim - with respect to the first step of the challenge outlined above - that the possibility of diverging emotional responses even under conditions suitable for epistemic appropriateness is limited to only a few actual instances. And second, he can claim - with respect to the third step - that the possibility of a conflict among diverging, but epistemically appropriate evaluations is limited to only a few actual instances.23 I will discuss each option in turn (cf. sections 12-13 and sections 14-16, respectively). 23A third strategy would be to accept the widespread or universal possibility of faultless disagreement relative to our actual aesthetic evaluations, but to discount its epistemic significance for the latter - for instance, because this possibility is not 'real' enough, that is, is too remote from how things actually are and therefore seldomly or never actually realized. However, the relevant possibility of a difference in the intervening causal factors concerns typically the personalities, moods or habits of the subjects in question (cf. section 12f. below) and should thus not count as too remote or 'unrealistic'. And moreover, even if the possibility would be only remote, there would presumably be the need to relativise the exemplifications of aesthetic values, or the truth-values of aesthetic assessments, at least in the distant worlds involved. But relativisation is, if at all, an essential feature of the entities concerned. Thus, if they would be relativised in some possible world, then they would be relativised in all worlds, including the actual. 174 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations The Ubiquity of Possible Faultless Divergence among Emotional Responses 12. The first alternative turns out to be untenable, once a closer look is taken at what is responsible for the possibility of a divergence among our emotional responses to aesthetic objects. A diagnosis of this form is not often provided, even by sentimentalists who accept the possibility of differing emotional responses under conditions which ensure the justification of the related evaluations. What is crucial here is the middle position with respect to rational responsiveness and determination, which emotions and emotional responses take up in relation to other mental episodes and states, at least if fully rational subjects (which moreover are competent in their use of concepts, and so on) are concerned. Sensations, perceptions and basic desires (such as hunger), for instance, are not responsive to reasons at all, even in fully rational subjects. They occur and disappear merely due to causal mechanisms, and independently of any reasons of which we may be aware. In contrast, judgements, beliefs and instrumental desires are sensitive to reasons, at least in fully rational subjects. More specifically, in such subjects, they are formed solely in response to reasons; and no merely causal factors are involved in the determination of their occurrence and content.24 Emotional dispositions and responses seem to be located somewhere between these two extremes, some perhaps closer to perceptions and the like, and others maybe closer to judgements or beliefs and the like. As I have already discussed, our emotional responses are often responding to rational forces. We become aware of the danger of walking near the edge of a cliff and start to feel frightened; and we discover that (certain) dogs are agressive and dangerous and begin to develop the disposition to fear them.25 But our emotional responses are in many cases only partly determined by reasons. Merely causal factors are also often involved, both in the acquisition of emotional dispositions and in their manifestation in the form of occurrences of emotional 24I assume here that it is part of being a rational person that one forms a judgement, belief or desire just in case one has reason to do so, and no undercutting or overriding contrary reasons. The intimate links between the formation of judgements, beliefs or desires in rational subjects and their reasons for forming them have been noted and described by Peacocke (1992) and Smith 1994, among others. Of course, we may still come to form judgements, beliefs or desires in irrational ways - for instance, when forming them partly or entirely due to causal factors (e.g., certain feelings, moods, or drugs). And similarly, fully rational subjects may still differ in their judgements, beliefs or desires, despite being aware of the same reasons. Such differences may concern the degree of credence, the intensity of longing, the threshold of when reasons become compelling, and so on. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pointing this out to me. 25I assume here that the sentimentalist will accept that the facts providing us with reasons for emotional responses provide us at the same time with reasons for the corresponding evaluations (cf. Goldie (2004, 2007)). 175 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 responses - and even, as it seems, in fully rational people. For instance, character traits seem to be important. A generally timid person is more likely to develop a disposition to fear dogs than a nervy one. Habits may also become relevant. Having to regularly work at great heights may decrease one's tendency to become frightened, even though one still believes it to be dangerous each time one goes up. Similarly, other factors - such as associations, moods or other emotions (cf. Goldie (2000, 75f.)) - may have such a merely causal impact on our emotional disposition and responses. But due to its non-rational nature, such an impact is compatible with the emotions in question satisfying the constraints on their rationality. Hence, the many emotions, which are only partially responsive to reasons, may count as rational even if they are influenced by non-rational factors. Wiggins seems to make a very similar point with respect to the possibility of two differing and conflicting moral verdicts, with which we may come up despite being 'not distinguishable in any of the relevant respects such as the capacities, obligations, commitments, etc., that deliberation can treat as fixed' (Wiggins, 1987, 181, n. 43), and which can survive 'scrutiny of everything in the circumstances and scrutiny of all other deliberatively admissible facts' (ibid., 181). As he suggests, even if some (say, causal) difference between the two cases is assumed (as seems plausible), these underlying (causal) factors need not have any rational impact on our diverging verdicts: Surely there must be something about case C1 that made that turn out the other way and differently from C2. Perhaps. Let me not quarrel here with this well-worn dogma. But that which explains the difference in outcome [...] need not impinge upon our grounds for endorsing one verdict in C1 and the other verdict in C2. (Wiggins, 1987, 181f.) In short, the epistemic appropriateness of our evaluations is a matter of reasons alone, but our relevant emotional responses are often not. In many cases, the reasons underdetermine the emotional responses. And in these cases, even if there is no difference in rational impact and hence in epistemic standing, non-rational factors can - and are perhaps even likely to - lead to diverging emotional responses. 13. The sentimentalist might still insist that cases of emotional responses, which involve some non-rational influence, should count as inappropriate, at least according to the requirements for justification in aesthetic assessment. The idea would be that epistemic appropriateness excludes such non-rational forces and, hence, ensures - as in the case of judgements, beliefs or instrumental desires - convergence in rational response. However, it is doubtful that all possible kinds of merely causal influences on our relevant emotional responses should count as undermining the justifica176 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations tion of the related aesthetic assessments. In the example of Picasso's painting, the difference between the various emotional responses is due to a difference in such non-rational forces. But it seems equally appropriate, from an aesthetic point of view, to react to this particular artwork with excitement, awe, or uneasiness.26 Similarly, we do not take all non-aesthetic emotions to be inadequate solely on the ground that they have been influenced by our personalities, habits, and so on. It seems that the sentimentalist rejoinder would simply render too many emotional responses and corresponding evaluations - whether in aesthetic or other matters - to be inappropriate. Then, it is doubtful that non-rational factors have any significant bearing on aesthetic appropriateness in the first place. As it seems, the epistemic appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations is - just like the epistemic standing of judgements, beliefs or instrumental desires, but unlike the epistemic adequacy of sensations, perceptions or basic desires - exclusively rational in nature, that is, solely a matter of reasons and rational considerations. This strict focus on reasons is reflected in the fact that, when asked to justify our aesthetic verdicts, we exclusively refer to features of the objects concerned which are (or which we take to be) aesthetically relevant reasons. And it is also illustrated by the fact that the conditions ensuring the epistemic appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations are traditionally unconcerned with the exclusion of non-rational influences, and instead merely demand the correct assessment of all aesthetically relevant reasons, as well as the disregard of all other kinds of reasons (e.g., purely sentimental ones).27 However, if the epistemic appropriateness of aesthetic assessments is solely a matter of reasons, the presence of merely causal factors cannot undermine it, as long as it is true that all the rational requirements are fulfilled. A final difficulty arises out of the phenomenon of the relative cognitive impenetrability of our emotional responses (cf. Goldie (2000)). Emotional responses are relatively cognitively impenetrable (or inert) in the sense that they often tend to resist the immediate pressures of rational considerations. Although our emotional responses are in general responsive to reasons, this responsiveness is not always effective, or at least not directly. Belief in the irrationality of a certain emotional responses may cause it to vanish straight away. But it is more often the case that emotional responses remain existent and manifest, at least for a while, even if one is aware of there being no good reason for their manifestation. For instance, that my lover has succeeded in 26This seems to be an instance of the more general problem - as it has been noted by Levinson (2002) with respect to Hume's account - to justify, from an aesthetic point of view, the selection of a particular set of conditions (and not another one) as those which ensure epistemic appropriateness in aesthetic appreciation. 27This is true even of impartiality requirements, such as Kant's disinterestedness (cf. Kant 1985, sections 2ff.)). 177 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 convincing me of the fact that she is not having an affair may well have no (immediate) influence on my feeling jealous of the suspected competitor. Or my knowledge of the harmlessness of spiders need not prevent me from feeling fear when I am confronted with one. Again, this appears to place emotional responses between perceptions, sensations or basic desires, on the one hand, and judgements, beliefs or instrumental desires, on the other. The relative cognitive impenetrability of emotional responses raises two particular problems for the sentimentalist reply under discussion. The first is to explain why it is possible, and common, with respect to emotions (and impossible or at least very rare with respect to judgements, beliefs or instrumental desires, even in subjects who are not fully rational). The best explanation of this fact seems to be that there can - and often do - exist non-rational forces, which compete with and overcome the rational ones at work. When we know that something is not dangerous and still fear it, what happens is that the rational force of our knowledge is trumped by some causal factors which sustain or continue to bring about our feeling of fear. The second problem is to make plausible that all occurrences of cognitive impenetrability are inappropriate or irrational, at least from an aesthetic perspective. For if they are not, such occurrences will constitute further cases of faultlessly disagreeing emotional responses. Consider the cognitive impenetrability of perceptions. If we experience the Mller-Lyer illusion, but are aware of the underlying mechanisms and of the fact that the lines are nonetheless of the same length, it would be odd to describe us as irrational. Of course, our perceptual experience is mistaken. But this mistake is not of a rational sort. Likewise, if we are afraid of something that we know to be completely harmless, and if we perhaps also know why our fear persists, our response does not seem to be irrational either.28 In particular, even our best attempts at education or training need not lead to the desired responsiveness (cf. Goldie (2000, 110)). Hence, it still needs to be motivated that emotional cases of cognitive impenetrability are always inappropriate - and, in the relevant cases, especially from an aesthetic point of view. The conclusion should therefore be that the conditions on the justification of aesthetic evaluations cannot guarantee a sameness in emotional responses or dispositions. There is always the possibility of differing responses, given that there is a great variety of causal factors which may become effective in the establishment of emotional dispositions or in their manifestation in concrete cases. Hence, in the context of adequate aesthetic assessment, there is likewise 28At least, we appear to be far less in the wrong than in the case in which we fear something harmless while taking it to be dangerous, or in the case in which we fear something harmless without being aware of our tendency to fear things of this kind despite their harmlessness (cf. Goldie (2000, 75f.)). 178 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations always, or at least in many cases, the possibility of a divergence among our emotional responses. The Ubiquity of Possible Faultless Disagreement in Aesthetic Appreciation 14. But, as I mentioned above, there is a second option of resisting the further thesis that the possibility of faultless disagreement in some actual cases of aesthetic assessment implies its widespread or even universal possibility. The aim is now to limit this possibility on the level of aesthetic evaluations, rather than on the level of emotional responses. The idea is that, even if it is accepted that for many or even all actual and epistemically appropriate aesthetic assessments of an object there can be diverging evaluations, and also that for some of these cases there is the possibility of a genuine conflict in assessment, it does not automatically follow that there can be conflicts in more than a few of the cases of divergence. And simply assuming the ubiquitous possibility of conflict among epistemically adequate evaluations seems to beg the question with respect to the sentimentalist.29 As Budd puts it: [One can] make the exceptionally strong claim that with respect to any object and any aesthetic property ideal critics might faultlessly disagree, or merely that, for each aesthetic property, it is possible for there to be cases in which there is no consensus among ideal critics as to whether a certain object possesses that property. This weaker claim might well be true. But to establish in the case of a particular [aesthetic value] that it is possible for there to be a set of nonevaluative properties suitable to be the basis of that [value] which is such that there can be faultless disagreements of taste among ideal critics, it would be necessary to show that the constraints imposed on the base properties by the nature of the aesthetic [value] and the criteria for qualifying as an ideal critic do not guarantee a consensus in aesthetic judgements. (Budd, 1999, 307) 29Indeed, as has been pointed out to me by an anonymous referee, a sentimentalist might more generally object that what we are concerned with here is establishing merely the epistemic possibility of faultless disagreement, but that, for all that we know, convergence under optimal conditions seems as epistemically possible as divergence. But even if the first half of this objection is true, the burden of proof lies still with the sentimentalists, and for two reasons. First, they aim at positively establishing the claim that emotions can justify evaluations. And, as I try to argue in this essay, they can achieve this aim only if they either accommodate or positively rule out the metaphysical possibility of faultless disagreement, and not by merely casting some doubt on it. And second, in the light of our actual evidence about how emotions get influenced by very differing causal factors and, as a result, actually differ a lot, it seems much more likely that they will diverge than converge, even under the most optimal conditions. For the criteria for optimality concern primarily, or even solely, rational factors, and not causal ones (cf. section 13 above). 179 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 Budd's point applies even if the proponent of the ubiquity of possible conflicts among justified assessments of aesthetic merit limits his claim merely to the widespread possibility of faultlessly disagreeing opinions with respect to actual evaluations. Accordingly, the defender of the challenge to sentimentalism has to demonstrate, or at least to render very plausible, that a conflict among differing appropriate assessments is possible in more than a few cases. And this can indeed be achieved. If the diverging evaluations are concerned with the overall aesthetic merit of the object in question (e.g., its being, or not being, a masterpiece), they have to be in conflict, simply because an object can possess only a single intersubjective overall aesthetic value at a given time. An object cannot truly and simultaneously be both a masterpiece and no masterpiece. At best, it can simultaneously be both a masterpiece-for-me and no masterpiece-for-you, or its possession of the property of being a masterpiece may be true-for-me and false-for-you. Accordingly, intersubjective aesthetic assessments - in fact, whether they are justified or not - are in conflict with each other whenever they ascribe different overall values to the same object. 15. The intersubjectivist sentimentalist can therefore claim merely that the possibility of a conflict among differing, but justified evaluative responses occurs on more specific levels of aesthetic appreciation (and even there only rarely, for that matter). These levels are concerned with the recognition of (often partially descriptive) aesthetic values which, although they contribute to the overall merit of their bearers, are either local by pertaining solely to certain parts of the objects (e.g., the beautiful left panel), or aspectual by concerning only certain aspects of the worth of the objects (e.g., the elegance or inventiveness of its drawing).30 But due to this limitation of the acceptance of possible cases of faultless disagreement, sentimentalism runs into some serious difficulties. First, the challenge to sentimentalism still undermines the epistemic standing of our aesthetic evaluations and related emotional responses if these are concerned with the overall assessment of objects. Given that many, if not all, of our respective responses occurring under epistemically faultless conditions permit differing reactions, and given that diverging overall evaluations have to be in conflict, there is indeed the widespread or even universal possibility of conflicting, but adequate assessments of overall aesthetic merit. Hence, the sentimentalist view at issue has the untenable consequence that we should refrain from making overall aesthetic assessments. 30Perhaps the more specific values differ from the overall ones also in that the former, but not the latter, are merely prima facie and open to be overridden or undermined by other more specific values of their bearer (cf. Goldie (2007) for a very similar distinction). 180 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Second, the number of cases, in which faultless disagreement about the overall worth of an object is possible, is presumably large enough to threaten to undermine also the epistemic standing of our aesthetic evaluations and emotional responses in general, that is, independent of the specificity of value involved. This presupposes that we do not distinguish between overall and more specific assessments when we consider the epistemic status of our evaluations. That is, if we should refrain from making the one kind, we should also refrain from making the other kind of assessment. Any disjunctive approach to this problem, on the other hand, would call into question our epistemic practice of deriving overall values from more specific ones, possibly rendering the former unknowable. And it would cast doubt on the classification of both as values of broadly the same kind (i.e., as aesthetic). Third, the claim that most diverging (appropriate) aesthetic assessments on a more specific level are not in conflict seems implausible. Considering again Goldman's example, the aesthetic values of being graceful and insipid do not merely seem to differ, but also to be incompatible with each other (if only in the descriptive aspects of these evaluative properties). As it appears, a painting - or some part of it - cannot be graceful and insipid at the same time. And many other more specific aesthetic values - such as being gaudy and calm, or balanced and unsteady - seem to stand in similar conflicts with each other. Hence, it appears likely that many (adequate) aesthetic evaluations are incompatible, despite not concerning the overall merit of an object. And fourth, the sentimentalist would still have to provide an account of the fact that we so often take our evaluations to be in conflict with each other, even at the level of local or aspectual values. We do think that many of our respective assessments are in conflict, and that there is a genuine need to settle the dispute. For instance, if someone takes a painting to be insipid which we take to be graceful, we tend to answer back and try to convince him of our opinion, or at least to bring him to disclose the reasons for his assessment. And if we cannot find any fault with any of the diverging responses, even after long and detailed scrutiny and discussion, and therefore eventually stop arguing, this happens usually simply because we do not know what to say any more, and not because we cease to think that there is something to argue about. 16. One interesting reply to this, as well as to the more general issue of how to deal with the seemingly possible conflicts among justified aesthetic evaluations, is to maintain that all what the possibility of differing evaluative responses shows is that we may not all have the same access to aesthetic values. The lack of intersubjectivity would thus turn out to be merely epistemological. This might perhaps be how Hume understands the seemingly subjective elements 181 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 which he (perhaps a bit surprisingly) introduces into in his account:31 A young man, whose passions are warm, will be more sensibly touched with amorous and tender images, than a man more advanced in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philosophical reflections concerning the conduct of life and moderation of the passions. At twenty, Ovid may be the favourite author; Horace at forty; and perhaps Tacitus at fifty. Vainly would we, in such cases, endeavour to enter into the sentiments of others, and divest ourselves of those propensities, which are natural to us. (Hume, 2008, 150) Perhaps there are indeed certain limits on which aesthetic value we can recognize at various stages of our life or development; and perhaps these limits are connected to the fact that our emotional dispositions are partly determined by factors, which uniquely pertain to each of those stages, and which inevitably change over time in conjunction with the related dispositions. This would mean that we would not always have, nor could acquire, the emotional dispositions required for the recognition of the overall aesthetic merit of certain objects, or of the more specific values contributing to this overall worth. For instance, the young may yet not be able to appreciate Tacitus, because the latter's writings leave him generally cold, or because he cannot grasp all the relevant specific merits of these writings. But this epistemological approach to the divergence among our evaluative responses faces at least two serious problems. The first difficulty is that it does not seem to apply easily to cases in which there are two competing responses, rather than one response and an absence of one. What if the young is not left indifferent by reading Tacitus, but is bored by him, or even annoyed? If this would mean that he has access to a different overall aesthetic value than the old who enjoys the writings, then one of the two would have to be in the wrong, given that the works can posses only a single overall value. But there would be no epistemic reason to prefer one response over the other. If, on the other hand, the young's assessment would concern merely a different more specific value than that of the old, at least one of the two - presumably the young - would not have access to the overall value of Tacitus' writings. For he would 31Thanks to Mike Martin for making me aware of this way of understanding Hume. According to a different reading, suggested to me by an anonymous referee, Hume may not intend to say here that differences in age and culture influence the aesthetic values of works (or our responses which determine these values), but instead that they influence only our - presumably more personal practical - subjective preferences among the works with high aesthetic merit (e.g., whether we prefer masterpieces of romantic or of didactic poetry). If this alternative interpretation is right, Hume's position does not involve any kind of relativisation to age or culture, but still faces the challenge to sentimentalism outlined in this essay. 182 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations not have access to the more specific values which are only seen by the old, but which nonetheless contribute to the overall merit. And we would perhaps be happy to say that the young gets the overall value of Tacitus' works wrong; but not that he cannot even assess it. The second problem is that, to cover all cases of possible faultless disagreement, it would presumably have to be assumed that there are many aesthetic values (whether more specific or not) to which we do not have access at a given time in our life or development. But this would again, and again absurdly, mean that we would not have access to the overall merit of many works. 17. Besides, there is a further and independent problem for any sentimentalist position which assumes the possibility of faultless disagreement in certain, but not all cases: namely to answer the difficult question of which feature of us, or of the respective situations, or of the aesthetic values involved, is responsible for this restriction to certain cases. As it stands, it seems arbitrary that the possibility of faultless disagreement arises in certain cases - in which we should then refrain from aesthetic judgement - but not in others. As long as no satisfactory explanation of this postulated fact is provided, it seems more appropriate to allow for this possibility in all cases, if in any at all. As a consequence, a sentimentalist should admit that, if faultless disagreement is possible in some actual cases of aesthetic assessments, than it is also possible in many or even all actual cases. Hence, to avoid the ubiquity of the need to refrain from aesthetic assessment, he should either give up intersubjectivism, or deny the possibility of faultless disagreement altogether. Denying the Possibility of Faultless Disagreement 18. Sentimentalist can deny the possibility of faultless disagreement and thereby reject the raised challenge as misguided in various ways. The traditional approach has been to undermine the first step of this challenge by arguing that there is no emotional divergence under suitable conditions. This postulated sameness in response may again be defended and explained in several ways. The Kantian strategy (cf. Kant (1990): sections 20ff. and 36ff.) is to maintain that we all possess - presumably from birth on and as part of our common human nature - the same affective dispositions to react with pleasure or displeasure, at least with respect to those responses which are relevant for aesthetic appreciation (i.e., we all possess the same 'taste').32 Indeed, this 32Kant distinguishes the aesthetically relevant 'feelings' of pleasure or displeasure (i.e., 'Gefühle') from an 'emotional' condition (i.e., 'Rührung') which should have no impact on our aesthetic assessments (cf. Kant (1990): 43). For this reason, I speak of 'affective' rather than 'emotional' dispositions, although the respective feelings of pleasure or displeasure are 183 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 means that we can never differ in our aesthetic assessments: our aesthetic responses will always be the same. This idea is often supplemented with the claim that our shared affective dispositions can and do become manifest only under suitable conditions. That is, we can have aesthetic responses to objects only under special circumstances (even if it may seem to us that we have aesthetic responses also under other circumstances). If these conditions do not obtain, other affective dispositions not related to aesthetic appreciation come into play and bring about non-aesthetic affective responses - notably those linked to merely personal preferences or likings (i.e., to what is 'agreeable'; cf. Kant (1990): 7ff.). The Humean strategy (cf. Hume (1998)), on the other hand, is to maintain that we may and usually do possess different relevant emotional dispositions, but that, under suitable conditions, the same dispositions will develop in and become effective for all of us. The idea (or hope) is that raising the standards for the appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations will lead to a convergence among those emotional responses and verdicts living up to these standards. If critics improve themselves and become sophisticated enough - say, by exposing themselves to many artworks, by fully and correctly informing themselves about the relevant features of these objects, by learning how to ignore or overturn their own prejudices, and so on - they will ultimately end up in emotional and evaluative agreement with each other. Hence, while Hume allows for differences in the emotional dispositions underlying our aesthetic evaluations and demands of us to continually improve and change our own dispositions in order to acquire one of the limited number of appropriate ones, Kant argues for the existence of a single and unchanging emotional disposition which alone is capable of grounding aesthetic appreciation and which we all possess and just have to learn to make proper use of. clearly very similar to emotional feelings. In addition, Kant's notion of 'taste' - and his understanding of it as a 'common sense' - seems to comprise two different abilities which are both necessary for the formation of genuine aesthetic judgements, that is, 'judgements of taste' (cf. Kant (1990): footnote on page 4): (i) the ability to respond with a disinterested and universal (or universally communicable) feeling of pleasure or displeasure to the form of objects (Kant (1990): 16 and 60f.); and (ii) the ability to recognize instances of pleasure or displeasure as disinterested and universal (or universally communicable) and to form the respective aesthetic judgements (ibid.: 160f.) - which are thus really more about our own states of mind than about the objects in question (Kant (1990): 4 and 18). The latter ability seems to be of special importance for Kant since, for him, the affective responses involved in aesthetic appreciation do not appear to differ phenomenologically from those involved in our responses to the good or the agreeable (at least not in the relevant aspects). Instead, Kant seems to take the three kinds of pleasure or displeasure to be distinct mainly in their origin and in their related (lack of) disinterestedness and universality (Kant (1990): 4 and 14f.). 184 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations 19. However, both approaches are bound to fail, as seems nowadays widely accepted (cf., e.g., Budd (1995): ch. 1, Levinson (2002) or Zangwill (2001, ch. 9)). Although here is not the space to properly present and assess either position, a short discussion of their main weaknesses may perhaps suffice to render them implausible. Kant argued, very roughly, that we all share and can make use of the same relevant affective dispositions because of our specific nature as cognizing and rational human beings and, in particular, because of our common cognitive faculties and our ability to use them in such a way as to succeed in acquiring knowledge about objects. But this argument has been often, and convincingly, critized (cf. especially Budd (1995): 26ff.). For instance, it appears simply implausible to deduce, solely on the basis of the assumption that we possess the sensory (or imaginative) and intellectual capacities required for the cognition of non-evaluative aspects of the world, that we also possess certain affective capacities capable of grounding or constituting evaluative responses. And it seems even more difficult to infer, from the same assumption, that we all possess only a single, and one and the same, set of affective dispositions pertaining to aesthetic matters. Hume's strategy is not much more promising, although it avoids Kant's futile and counter-intuitive attempt to find a common core in all the emotional or affective dispositions possibly relevant for aesthetic appreciation. One of the main difficulties for Hume is that no addition or strengthening of conditions on epistemic appropriateness could hope to render impossible cases of faultless disagreement. Even if critics of art would become more and more receptive to evidence for aesthetic merit and indeed would end up with noticing all relevant facts about a given, and even if they would have most thoroughly studied all of art history and all existing artworks and compared them with each other and the object under their scrutiny, and even if they would assess the relevant evidence with the utmost care and unprejudiced rationality, there would still be no guarantee, and probably not even the likelihood, that they would react emotionally in the same way to the artwork in question (cf., for instance, Goldman (1995): 26ff.). Besides, there is the deep issue of how to justify, from an aesthetic point of view, the specific choice of these particular conditions on epistemic appropriateness, and not of others (cf. Levinson (2002) and Zangwill (2001, ch. 9)). In fact, this might be a more general problem for all sentimentalist positions, given that we do not have a clear idea of when emotional responses should count as epistemically adequate in the sense of being able to justify the corresponding evaluations. Both the Kantian and the Humean approach seem to be misguided in a similar manner, namely by focussing primarily on the level of our emotional responses and trying to show that they cannot diverge under suitable condi185 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 tions. And their failure is, again, due to the fact that our emotional responses are partly beyond rational influence, while the epistemic standards governing our aesthetic assessments do not concern non-rational, that is, merely causal factors (cf. the discussion above in section 13). 20. A different and more recent attempt to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement has been to question the second step of the challenge to sentimentalism by denying that the possibility of diverging emotional responses even under conditions suitable for epistemic appropriateness transfers to the related evaluations.33 This amounts in fact to a denial of the possibility of differing aesthetic evaluations under those conditions. Budd suggests two ways in which this may be achieved. He describes the first in the following manner, treating evaluative properties here as dispositional: If [...] crediting an object with the dispositional property only if it is such as to elicit the response from all the qualified viewers, [...] the absence of uniformity of response will imply that the object does not possess the aesthetic property in question.(Budd, 1999, 306) The central idea is to add a further condition necessary for epistemic appropriateness, in addition to the more substantial requirements already noted (i.e., the demands for full information, attentiveness, sensitivity, impartiality, experience, and so on). And this further condition states that an aesthetic evaluation is appropriate only if there is - or, alternatively, can be - no differing assessment when the more substantial conditions are satisfied. Budd seems to prefer the reading according to which only the actual occurrence of a second and faultlessly disagreeing evaluation would undermine the justification of the originally given assessment. But this does not help to undermine the possibility of faultless disagreement in cases in which a given adequate opinion is not actually confronted with a faultlessly conflicting verdict. For the fact that the latter does not actually occur does not undermine its possibility. Hence, in this reading, the additional condition, together with the initial, more substantial set, does not suffice to rule out the possibility of faultless disagreement. But the other reading, according to which already the possible occurrence of another faultless, but conflicting evaluation would undermine 33If the emotional responses are taken to be constituents, and the sole constituents, of the evaluations, the second approach becomes very similar to the first. Besides, another way of undermining the possibility of faultless conflict among various aesthetic evaluations is to reject the third step of the challenge to sentimentalism by denying that such assessments are ever in conflict with each other. But for the reasons already rehearsed in sections 14-16 above, this strategy is bound to fail with respect to ascriptions of both overall aesthetic values and more specific ones. See also footnote 27 for the discussion of a fourth way of trying to undermine the possibility of faultless disagreement. 186 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations the epistemic standing of the original assessment, does not fare better. For it would lead to a needlessly sceptical view on our ability to gain justified access to instances of aesthetic values, unless the possibility of faultless disagreement under the initial, more substantial conditions (without the newly added one) can be limited to a few cases. For if this possibility would be widespread, the additional condition would classify all the respective (and otherwise possibly adequate) aesthetic assessments as unjustified. 21. Now, Budd presents a second way in which the possibility of faultless disagreement among aesthetic assessments can be denied: The second is to understand a judgement that ascribes [an aesthetic value] to a work as making no reference to ideal viewers but rather as claiming that the work uniquely merits a certain response, so that the response is the right response. [...] In fact, the second of the two strategies would appear to be more plausible. [...] Accordingly, a responsedependent account of judgements that ascribe [aesthetic values] should represent the content of such a judgement as being that the item to which the property is ascribed is such that the evaluative response integral to the property is the appropriate response to the item, the judgement being true if and only if any competing response is indicative of a defect in a person who responds to the item in that manner or an inadequacy in the person's engagement with the item. (Budd, 1999, 307f.) What Budd proposes is that certain evaluative responses are appropriate, but others not, because only the former are rendered adequate by the actual values of the objects concerned. And aesthetic values render appropriate precisely those evaluations which stand in a correspondance relation to them - where the correspondance presumably consists in the fact that the values have to be elucidated in terms of the responses in question, and that the responses assign these values to the objects at which they are directed. This suggests that evaluative responses are appropriate only if their objects actually exemplify the corresponding values, and that what is at issue is therefore the fittingness of aesthetic assessments. Hence, the actual presence of the value is a condition on fittingness, but not necessarily on epistemic appropriateness. On the other hand, Budd's proposal involves also the claim that the exemplified values merit or justify the corresponding evaluative responses. And this suggests that what is at issue is the epistemic appropriateness of aesthetic assessments. This duality in the proposal remains unproblematic only if an account of aesthetic appreciation is endorsed which claims that epistemic appropriateness coincides with fittingness. Hence, Budd probably has (or should have) such a position 187 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations Chapter 6 in mind.34 But in any case, his second proposal turns out to be very similar to the first in that it likewise involves the key claim that the satisfaction of the conditions on epistemic appropriateness by more than one conflicting evaluation renders all of them unjustified. The difference between the two proposals concerns the issue of which factors are relevant for epistemic adequacy - the satisfaction of the original, more substantial conditions in the first case, or the presence of a justifying link between the exemplified value and the response in the second. But this means also that the second proposal faces, basically, the same difficulties as the first. Conclusion 22. What the preceding considerations have been intended to illustrate is that intersubjectivist sentimentalists can neither hope to be able to accommodate the possibility of faultless disagreement, nor hope to be able to undermine this possibility. The conclusion is that sentimentalists, in response to the challenge to their position, should simply reject intersubjectivism (and thereby reject the second step of this challenge). However, in the light of the potential unattractiveness of giving up intersubjectivism, it is perhaps better to understand this conclusion as a motivation to reject the view that sentimentalism may provide a satisfactory account of the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, and to 34Budd's second proposal has also some affinities to accounts which do not take epistemic appropriateness to be always sufficient for fittingness. The proposal appears to replace the verdicts of ideal judges (i.e., our epistemically best opinions) with the actually exemplified values as determinants of the standard for the appropriateness of aesthetic evaluations. This suggests a shift from projected values to ones which are cognizable as proper parts of reality. Indeed, Budd may seem to have adopted the talk of 'objects meriting responses' straight from defenders of a substantial notion of truth which is not reducible to epistemic appropriateness (cf. McDowell (1983, 1998d) and Wiggins (1987)). But perhaps this ambiguity in how to understand Budd's second proposal just illustrates that both it and McDowell's and Wiggins' positions resist the usual classifications - or, more pessimistically and uncharitably, involve an unavoidable incoherence. 188 Chapter 6 Sentimentalism and the Intersubjectivity of Aesthetic Evaluations begin to search for a more promising alternative.3536 35One possibility is that such a theory may take evaluative judgements to be perceptual or intuitive. Goldie (2007), for instance, argues that we can literally perceive instances of (moral) merit, even if only with respect to partly descriptive, and thus more specific, values. However, most of what Goldie says while elucidating and defending his view seems entirely compatible with an intuitionist approach - as appears to be true of much of McDowell's writings (cf. the talk of 'perception' in his 1983 and 1985), which have partly inspired Goldie's work. In my view, it seems more plausible to take genuine intersubjective evaluations - in contrast to merely subjective preferences - to be the result of reasoning (cf. Bender (1995)). But, as Goldie (2007) suggests, the two outlooks may perhaps be combined: it may be the case that, while the justification of intersubjective assessments is primarily a matter of reasons, these evaluations can nonetheless be psychologically based on - or 'motivated' by - perceptions or intuitions alone. It seems to me, however, that this makes sense only if it is in addition assumed that reasoning is still not only epistemologically, but also psychologically prior to perception or intuition - notably in that we can ultimately acquire the ability to see or intuit instantiations of value only on the basis of a prior recognition and assessment of reasons for evaluation (cf. the case of a chess-player who, by reasoning about positions of a certain kind, learns how to immediately tell which move is best in positions of that type; cf. Goldie (2007) for this example and related discussion). 36Part of this paper has been presented at the Emotions and Rationality in Practical Philosophy conference at the Universities of Neuchatel and Bern, as well as at a workshop at the University of Fribourg. I would like to thank the respective audiences for their helpful comments, especially Davor Bodrozic, Julien Deonna, Peter Goldie, Kevin Mulligan, Gianfranco Soldati, and Ronnie de Sousa. For extended discussions of the issues raised in, or detailed comments on previous drafts of, this essay I am very grateful to Malcolm Budd, Mike Martin, Elisabeth Schellekens, Nick Zangwill, the editors of this volume and of dialectica, and their anonymous referees. I would also like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for sponsoring me during my work on this paper.

Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement 1. Much of our knowledge of the features of objects is based on perception. This is true not only of the basic shapes, sizes, distances, weights or colours of objects, but also of many of their more complex properties that depend on their more basic ones. Good examples for such higher-level features are the sadness or intelligence of a friend, the kindness of an action, the elegance of a gait, the climbability of a wall, the fragility of a glass, the quality of a proof or of a move in chess, the content of a painting, the bikehood of a bike, or the cathood of a cat. We notice that a friend is sad, for instance, in response to perceiving the tone of his voice or the dynamics his gestures; and we notice that a chess move is bad on the basis of perceiving the specific distribution of the pieces on the board. Our awareness of these and similar higher-level features involves or is grounded in the – typically perceptual – recognition of relevant lower-level features that contribute to the realisation or determination of the higher-level features in question. Some of our recognitions of such higher-level features have two important aspects in common. First, they are phenomenologically (or psychologically) immediate. We need not engage in a conscious inference or another form of reasoning in order to notice that someone is sad, or that a certain chess move is bad. Second, we have an intelligible and reasonable practice of backing up our ascriptions of the higher-level features by highlighting the respective lowerlevel properties which realise them, and the perception of which helped us to recognise them. When someone challenges our judgement that our friend is sad, or the move bad, we support our opinion by referring to the tone of his voice, or the concrete situation on the board. Indeed, being able to provide this kind of support is something that is required from us. If we fail to satisfy this demand, the standing of our judgements – and possibly also our status as judges – will suffer. Now, there is a certain tension between these two aspects, which becomes 191 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 apparent once we consider their relation to the justification of our judgements and beliefs about higher-order properties. For it is a difficult task for any account of this justification to accommodate the fact that our recognition of higher-level features is both phenomenologically immediate and open to support through additional considerations. If we take our ascriptions of the features to be justified inferentially (as, say, in deductive or inductive reasoning), we owe an explanation of how our recognition can still be phenomenologically immediate – perhaps in terms of habituation or internalisation, or some subpersonal or implicit inferences. But if, on the other hand, we assume that our justification is non-inferential (as, say, in the case of perception or intuition), the availability of – and need for – additional backing in the shape of reference to relevant lower-level features becomes problematic. When we judge something to be red on the basis of our visual perception of it, it is unreasonable to demand from us to support our judgement by pointing to some lower-level features of the object, such as its surface reflectances or other physical properties. In fact, no reason may be available to us for our colour judgements other than the fact that the object concerned perceptually strikes us as having a certain colour (and perhaps also the fact that nothing is unusual or wrong with our mind or the environment during our experience of the object). By contrast, it is normally appropriate to ask us to support our ascriptions of higher-level features by reference to some relevant lower-level features. 2. In this essay, I aim to explore and question the prospects of the noninferential strategy. This approach has no difficulties to capture the phenomenological immediacy of our ascriptions of higher-order properties: we simply form our judgements or beliefs in a non-inferential way. But, as I aim to highlight, it has problems to accommodate our practice of pointing to lower-level features in support of our opinions. Its best strategy seems to be to interpret this support in non-evidential terms. However, important aspects of this practice – notably the limits of our aesthetic curiosity – resist this interpretation. My contention is therefore that the second noted aspect of our recognition of higher-level features – that it may be backed up by picking out suitable lower-level properties – cannot be properly explained if our justification in such matters is understood as being non-inferential in nature. Whether, and how, phenomenological immediacy can be squared with inferential justification is another issue, and to be addressed elsewhere. Although my focus in what follows is exclusively on aesthetic qualities, I surmise that much of what I have to say applies equally to the epistemology of other kinds of higher-level features, such as moral or other values, affordances, natural or artifical kinds, dispositions, meanings, or moods and character traits. The idea that the justification of our opinions about them is 192 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement non-inferential should, too, be problematic to the extent to which we are in need to find a satisfactory interpretation of our practice to point to lower-level features in support of our respective judgements and beliefs. Now, one of the most sophisticated and influential defenders of non-inferentialism with respect to aesthetic qualities has been Frank Sibley. Because of this, and because of the comprehensiveness and detailedness of his defense which exhausts the main options available to a proponent of non-inferential justification, I let my discussion be largely guided by his writings. But my concern is none the less with the prospects of non-inferentialism about aesthetic judgements in general, and not only with Sibley's particular version of it. In the first section of this essay, I spell out in a bit more detail what the commitments of the non-inferentialist strategy are and contrast experientially based judgements with testimonially and inferentially based ones. The second section discusses the tension between non-inferentialism and an evidential understanding of the support for our ascriptions of aesthetic qualities provided by our reference to the underlying lower-level features. It also introduces four different suggestions – made by Sibley – of how to understand this element of support instead in non-evidential terms. The third section contains the two main arguments of this paper. First of all, I argue that none of Sibley's four proposals can account for the supportive and normative character of our practice of backing up our aesthetic judgements in terms of the objects' lower-level features. In addition, I introduce a further objection against non-inferentialism, according to which this view cannot explain why our curiosity in aesthetic matters is limited to certain metaphysical facts about the aesthetic qualities of the objects concerned. In the final section, I discuss a more recent attempt to improve on Sibley's four proposals by taking the reference to lower-level features to support aesthetic experiences, rather than aesthetic judgements. As I aim to show, this view – put forward by Elisabeth Schellekens – tries, but fails to combine non-inferentialism with an epistemic understanding of our supportive practice. My conclusion is that inferentialism can explain neither the limitations to our aesthetic curiosity, nor the expectation to be able to bolster our aesthetic judgements by pointing to certain lower-level features of artworks or similar objects. By contrast, an evidential understanding of the supportive practice at issue has the resources to account for both aspects of aesthetic appreciation. I. 3. One important element of non-inferentialism about aesthetic judgements is the claim that what Sibley has called aesthetic perception is essential to our aesthetic engagement with artworks and other aesthetic objects. In particular, 193 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 it is maintained that – with some possible exceptions (see further below) – this aesthetic kind of experience is central to the formation and justification of judgements or beliefs about the aesthetic qualities of objects. Our opinions about aesthetic qualities are thus the result of experience, rather than the result of reasoning. Here is how Sibley characterises this aspect of non-inferentialism: 'It is of importance to note first that, broadly speaking, aesthetics deals with a kind of perception. People have to see the grace or unity of a work, hear the plaintiveness or frenzy in the music, notice the gaudiness of colour scheme, feel the power of a novel, its mood, or its uncertainty of tone.' [...] To suppose indeed that one can make aesthetic judgements without aesthetic perception, say, by following rules of some kind, is to misunderstand aesthetic judgement.' (Sibley (2001a): 34) '[...] [A]esthetic perception [...] is essential to aesthetic judgement; one could not therefore be brought to make an aesthetic judgement simply as the outcome of considering reasons, however good.' (Sibley (2001a): 40) '[...] [U]nless [people] do perceive [aesthetic qualities] for themselves, aesthetic enjoyment, appreciation, and judgement are beyond them.' (Sibley (2001a): 34) Indeed, as the last sentence of the quote illustrates, Sibley assumes aesthetic perception to be essential to the occurrence not only of the judgemental, but also of the emotional and evaluative elements involved in aesthetic appreciation. This is a direct consequence of the fact that all aesthetic appreciation seems to start with the recognition of aesthetic qualities, before it can then develop into some richer form of aesthetic engagement. Sibley takes aesthetic perception to be a kind of experiential awareness of the aesthetic qualities of objects, which provides us with non-inferential justification for aesthetic judgement. But he rightly does not assume aesthetic perception to be an instance of ordinary perception and is very clear on the fact that our ability to recognise aesthetic qualities goes beyond our normal perceptual and recognitional capacities (cf. Sibley (2001a): 135ff.). What is instead central to, and distinctive of, aesthetic perception is that it involves the exercise of 'aesthetic sensitivity, perceptiveness, or taste' (Sibley (2001a): 135). Sibley does not really say anything more about this special kind of sensitivity (cf. Budd (1999)). But it seems fair to assume that he understands aesthetic sensitivity as a largely acquired ability that is open to further training and education – perhaps, again, in contrast to our basic perceptual capacities. In fact, it may very well be questioned whether aesthetic perception in Sibley's sense 194 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement is really closer to ordinary perception than, say, to what others have identified as intellectual feelings or seemings (cf. Mulligan (2010) and Bodrozic (2004)). 4. Endorsing non-inferentialism by treating our recognition of aesthetic qualities as experiential has the advantage of providing us with a simple explanation of the phenomenological immediacy of our aesthetic judgements. As already suggested, it does not seem to require any conscious reasoning on our side to recognise the elegance of a gait, or the expression of sadness in a piece of music. We do not start off with certain premisses about the gait or the music and infer from there that they are elegant or expressive of sadness. Instead, we just form the respective judgement in direct response to our experience of the movement or the piece of music. Assuming that our access to elegance or expressed sadness is experiential is capable of explaining this psychological immediacy in judgement. But it is important to keep in mind that there may be alternative ways of accounting for it, notably in terms of implicit or internalised reasoning. Consider the example of a good chess-player or mathematician. She may be able to immediately spot the quality of a move, or how to proceed in a proof. But she had to engage in extensive reasoning in order to acquire and develop this skill. She had to get used to make the right rational connections within her field between a certain type of position or problem and the best response to it. She may now be able to form some of her judgements without the reliance on any explicit inferences. But she was not able to do so in the past; and some other of her current judgements about which steps to pursue in a game of chess or a mathematical proof are still likely to require extensive conscious calculation. However, what is important to note is that her immediate judgements are not just mere causal responses, like a feeling of pain or hunger. They are still rational responses to the situation before her, and to be justified by reference to an argument which may be rehearsed by her in an explicit way. That is, they are grounded in some implicit line of reasoning, which is the result of some process of internalisation or habituation during her conscious engagement in similar inferences in the past. Despite their common phenomenological immediacy, judgements grounded in implicit inferences differ from experientially grounded judgements in at least two respects. First, our capacity to form them depends on our past engagement in explicit inferences of a closely related kind. By contrast, we do not learn to experientially recognise something through the internalisation of patterns of inferential reasoning. Second, the justification of implicitly inferred judgements is, of course, inferential: it stays the same independently of whether the inferences involved are rendered explicit or not. By contrast, experience provides us with non-inferential justification, which cannot be stated by refer195 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 ence to some inferential pattern (cf., e.g., Martin (1992)). Inferentialism and non-inferentialism about some type of judgements therefore typically differ not only in whether they take the judgements' justification to be non-inferential, but also in whether acquiring the capacity to form them requires engagement in some related form of explicit reasoning. Now, can non-inferentialism accept that an experientially grounded judgement may also be open to inferential justification? The answer – at least in the case of basic perceptual judgements – should be both yes and no. It should be yes in so far as we can form legitimate perceptual judgements on the basis of reasoning. But it should be no in so far as the justification involved is, ultimately, non-inferential in nature. We can infer that something is red, for instance, once we know the wavelength spectrum of the light emitted by its surface in broad daylight (cf. Dorsch (2009): ch. 2.6). Hence, if challenged, we can support our perceptually based colour judgement in an inferential manner, namely by pointing to the underlying reflectance properties of the red object. But this presupposes that we have knowledge of the correlation between colours – or, more directly, colour experiences – and wavelength spectra. And discovering the correlation requires, ultimately, consciously experiencing colours and matching them up with reflectance properties (cf. Dorsch (2009, ch. 4) and chapter 1). What this illustrates is that the justification of a colour judgement by reference to the light reflected by the object concerned is, in the end, non-inferential. So, while colour judgements may to some extent be inferentially justified, the inferential justification involved has to derive its force from some prior non-inferential justification. This is part of what it means that perceptual experience is our canonical access to colours: any other form of access depends on it. The situation does not seem to be different in the case of aesthetic qualities, assuming that they are open to experiential access in the first place. Sibley has convincingly argued that we cannot deduce, or infer by means of aesthetic principles, the presence of aesthetic qualities on the basis of knowledge about the object's lower-level features, even though the former metaphysically depend in one way or another on the latter (cf. Sibley (2001b)). There is only one general exception to his conclusion: if we have full knowledge of the most determinate non-aesthetic properties and all the aesthetic qualities of an object, we can reason that the same qualities are present in another object simply on the basis of learning that it possesses exactly the same lower-level properties.1 Any more specific knowledge – say, just of the less determinate non-aesthetic 1Sibley acknowledges also the existence of particular exceptions, namely (quasi-)aesthetic properties the presence of which we infer rather than experience. For instance, we may reason from the bright colours of a painting to its gayness, or conclude that a painting in reddish and yellowish tones is warm (cf. Sibley (2001b): n. 6). Budd also mentions the direct inference from symmetry to balance (cf. Budd (1999): 302). 196 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement properties, or of the fact that only some of the most determinate non-aesthetic properties are responsible for the realisation of a particular aesthetic quality – does not allow for a similar kind of inference. For non-aesthetic properties matter for the instantiation of aesthetic qualities on the level of their highest specifity, and relative to their wider context. A slight change in the shape of a vase, or the addition of a certain pattern of colours, may undermine its initially elegant appearance (cf. Budd (1999): 301f.). Now, for a non-inferentialist like Sibley, the inference from the non-aesthetic to the aesthetic features of an object is justified only to the extent to which it is based on a prior experience of the object's aesthetic qualities, combined with the recognition that they occur in correlation with the object's non-aesthetic properties. That is, any inferential support for experientially grounded aesthetic judgements is, ultimately, dependent on some prior experience. We first have to discover experientially which lower-level properties are responsible for which aesthetic qualities before we can infer the presence of the latter by recognising the presence of the former. 5. That non-inferentialism about aesthetic judgements takes experience to be our canonical way of recognising aesthetic qualities, on which all other forms of access ultimately depend, becomes also manifest in its treatment of testimony as not being on a par with experience in aesthetic matters. Sibley, for example, acknowledges (cf. Sibley (2001a): 34, 40) that we sometimes ascribe aesthetic qualities to objects just on the basis of testimony. But he also stresses that such ascriptions have to rely on the experiences of others. 'Thus, rather as a colour-blind man may infer that something is green without seeing that it is, and rather as a man, without seeing a joke himself, may say that something is funny because others laugh, so someone may attribute balance or gaudiness to a painting, or say that it is too pale, without himself having judged it so.' (Sibley (2001a): 35) In this comparison, Sibley highlights – even if only somewhat implicitly – the difference between people possessing the required sensitivity or expertise to recognise certain properties at first hand and people lacking this capacity. The blind are not acquainted with colours, and the humourless not with funniness. Instead, they have to rely on testimony to come to know about the presence of these features. If no one could see the colour of an object, the blind would be unable to come to know about it. Similarly, if no one could experience the funniness of a joke, the humourless would not be able to recognise it either. Now, non-inferentialism assumes that something very similar is true of aesthetic qualities. It maintains that experience is our canonical access to such qualities; and that other forms of access – such as testimony or inference – are dependent on it. People, who ascribe aesthetic qualities without 197 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 having experienced their instantiation themselves, have ultimately to rely on the experiences of others. Indeed, Sibley makes the even stronger claim that only experientially grounded judgements or beliefs can lead to a genuine and valuable aesthetic engagement with artworks and similar objects. '[...] [U]nless [people] do perceive [aesthetic qualities] for themselves, aesthetic enjoyment, appreciation, and judgement are beyond them. Merely to learn from others, on good authority, that the music is serene, the play moving, or the picture unbalanced is of little aesthetic value; the crucial thing is to see, hear, or feel.' (Sibley (2001a): 34) But this raises the question of which feature of experience may distinguish it from testimony and be responsible for the difference in canonical status and impact on aesthetic emotion and evaluation. Both experience and testimony may lead to knowledge. Sibley is right in that we can 'learn from others' and, moreover, 'on good authority' (Sibley (2001a): 34) which objects possess which aesthetic qualities. If you tell me about a smooth and relaxed piece of music, and if also I know that you are trustworthy in such matters, then there is no good reason to deny that my resulting belief concerning those aesthetic qualities may count as justified and, possibly, also as constituting knowledge.2 Moreover, both experience and testimony may provide us with non-inferential justification – at least if the latter directly communicates to us the experience of someone else. If we judge that something is red because someone else, who is looking at the object, tells us that it is red, our judgement is ultimately justified in an experiential and, hence, non-inferential way. So, the non-inferentialist needs to identify another difference between experience and testimony which can ensure that, while testimonially based ascriptions of aesthetic qualities play no significant role in aesthetic appreciation, experientially grounded opinions are central to the latter. The most promising suggestion is perhaps one made by Malcolm Budd (cf. Budd (2003)). His proposal is that what matters for aesthetic appreciation is not merely that we recognise which aesthetic qualities are realised in a given object, but also how they are realised by the respective underlying features. What is interesting about Hamlet is not so much that it is a masterpiece (we learn this very quickly and early on), but the unique and complex way in which it acquires this high status – and in which it differs, say, from Faust. Now, testimony may inform us about the exemplification of aesthetic qualities and non-aesthetic properties. But it cannot (or at least not normally) give us a sufficient idea of how the two sets of features are linked. In order to identify the particular way 2See Budd (2003) for further discussion of this issue and a defense of the possibility of testimonial aesthetic knowledge. 198 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement in which some aesthetic quality is realised in an object, we need to experience the object and its various higherand lower-level features; or so the line of reasoning may go. The so-called Principle of Acquaintance – which requires us to experience artworks and aesthetic objects ourselves, rather than to rely on the experiences of others – is therefore perhaps best understood as specifying a condition on full aesthetic assessment and enjoyment, rather than on the acquisition of mere knowledge about aesthetic qualities. II. 6. As already noted at the beginning, aesthetic qualities depend for their instantiation on certain lower-level features of the objects concerned. This means that the latter are responsible for the exemplification of the former and determine which particular aesthetic qualities are instantiated.3 Moreover, we should be able to supplement our aesthetic judgements by reference to these lower-level features. It is an important aspect of our critical engagement with bearers of aesthetic qualities that we can identify the relevant underlying properties and their significance for the exemplification of the aesthetic qualities in question (cf. Sibley (2001a): 37ff.). Here is how Sibley summarises this point: '[...] we saw that there must be some (ultimately non-aesthetic) features responsible for any aesthetic quality. Another way of putting this is that there always is, and must be, some reason why a thing has that quality. We also saw that critics largely occupy themselves in discovering the reasons why a work is, say, graceful or unbalanced; that someone who has seen that it is graceful must in some degree have noticed these responsible features; and that a good critic should be able to point out these reasons.' (Sibley (2001a): 41f.) It is indeed difficult to deny that it is standard and legitimate to expect critics to add to our aesthetic judgements by pointing to the underlying features responsible for the ascribed aesthetic qualities. We do not simply tell others, say, that we find a given painting balanced or pale, but draw their attention to the underlying symmetry of the design or the unsaturatedness of the colours in support of our opinion. If we are unable to follow the request of others to back up our judgements in this way, the quality of our judgements and, more generally, our status as a judge of aesthetic matters are diminished. Again, 3See Sibley (2001a): 35f. There, he also notes two specific aspects of this determination relation: the aesthetic qualities depend on a whole set of lower-level features (if not on all lower-level features of the object in question); and some members of this set are 'notably or especially responsible' for the aesthetic quality in question. 199 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 Budd's idea that what matters is not merely the presence of aesthetic qualities, but also the particular way in which they are realised by the lower-level features of the objects concerned can explain why it is important and required to be able to identify the latter and their link to the aesthetic qualities. This highlights an important difference between aesthetic cognition (as well as other forms of higher-level cognition) and our basic perception of colours, smells, sounds, and so on. For it is unreasonable to demand of us to supplement our colour or similar judgements by referring to more fundamental features of the objects at issue. At best, we may be asked to elucidate why we take our respective perceptual experiences to be in order. This difference is perhaps best explained by reference to the fact that colours and similar properties – in contrast to aesthetic qualities – are not dependent on more basic perceivable (or otherwise easily accessible) features of their bearers. Given that seeing the redness of an object does not require noticing any of the unperceivable features responsible for that instance of redness, it is unreasonable to demand that the perceiver is able to identify those unperceivable features. By contrast – as Sibley has noted in the quoted passage above and elsewhere (cf. Sibley (2001a): 38) – we recognise aesthetic qualities by recognising the accessible underlying features on which they depend. 7. The question is now what kind of support – and therefore also what kind of quality or value of aesthetic judgement – is at issue here. It may seem natural to maintain that our awareness of the lower-level features provides us with evidence for aesthetic judgements – that is, with epistemic reasons for judging or believing that the object concerned possesses certain aesthetic qualities.4 But it is unclear how a non-inferentialist could accommodate this interpretation of our practice. In the last section, I noted cases in which an experientially grounded judgement may actually receive further epistemic support. But, with respect to aesthetic cognition, these cases are rather rare and exceptional, while our practice of providing further support for our opinions applies to all instances of aesthetic judgement. So, the justificatory power of recognising relevant lower-level features cannot derive from some prior experiential engagement with objects very similar to the one at issue. Instead, the 4For the current purposes, it is not necessary to distinguish between epistemic reasons and evidence; and I treat them here as if they were the same. It should be uncontroversial that whether we have epistemic reasons to form a certain judgement or belief is at least partly a function of the existence and strength of evidence indicating the truth or falsity of the propositions at issue. But the presence or availability of epistemic reasons – for instance, when evidence counts as epistemically sufficient for rational belief, or when we have reason to form a belief in response to evidence in the first place – may also depend on pragmatic factors (cf. Kolodny (2007): n. 10), so that perhaps not all pieces of evidence should count as providing us with some epistemic reason. 200 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement non-inferentialist has to assume the evidential force in question to be independent of experience. But, now, the problem for the non-inferentialist is to avoid the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the exemplification of aesthetic qualities simply in response to the evidence provided by the recognition of the lower-level features, and without any experience of the aesthetic qualities in question. If the presence of some lower-level features speaks in favour of the presence of some aesthetic quality, the recognition of the former should – everything else being equal – be sufficient for the recognition of the latter.5 Not surprisingly, Sibley maintains that reference to the underlying properties cannot supplement the epistemic justification of our aesthetic judgments. Instead of treating the lower-level features as reasons for ascribing aesthetic qualities, he proposes to identify them as reasons for why something possesses certain aesthetic qualities: 'There is a familiar and important form of reason-giving, at least for the aesthetic judgements under discussion, which does not consist in citing properties of the work in propositions which logically support – that is, make certain or likely – the truth of the critic's judgement.' (Sibley (2001a): 44) '[...] these are reasons why the work is graceful, and to be distinguished from reasons – good or bad, a critic's or anyone else's – for concluding or inferring that the work is graceful.' (Sibley (2001a): 41f.) 'It is, then, a quite unwarranted assumption that, if a critic has noticed or discovered the reasons why something has a certain aesthetic quality and in that sense can cite reasons which support his judgement, he thereby has reasons the citing of which provide rational support for his judgement or show it to be reasonable.' A may in fact be the reason why something is B, and yet the knowledge that that thing has A may provide no reason or justification for supposing that it has B.' (Sibley (2001a): 43) The distinction appealed to in these passages is that between epistemic reasons and what Sibley sometimes identifies as explanatory reasons (cf. Sibley (2001b): 12; and Sibley (2001a): 38). The first are reasons for forming a judgement or belief and are cited in the justification of the latter. The second, by contrast, are reasons (or facts) that are responsible for something being a certain way and thus may be used to explain why it is that way – in this case, 5Perhaps it is possible to treat the justificatory power of our awareness of the lower-level features to be independent of experience, while denying that it is by itself sufficient to justify (or motivate) an aesthetic judgement. I return to this possibility in section IV. 201 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 why something possesses certain aesthetic qualities, and possibly also why it causes us to have certain responses. Now, the non-inferentialist proposal is that pointing to the lower-level features has no evidential, but just explanatory force: it helps us to understand how the aesthetic qualities are realised in the object concerned, and perhaps also what is causally responsible for our awareness of those qualities. It is important to note that the explanation concerned is not of a rational – and epistemic – nature: it does not answer the question of why – that is, for which epistemic reasons – we have formed our judgement. Rather, he insists that it is an answer to the question of why – that is, because of which features – the object possesses the aesthetic qualities ascribed in the judgement (cf. Sibley (2001a): 36, 43). What we are concerned with here are therefore metaphysical explanations that single out the lower-level features responsible for the presence of aesthetic qualities, as well as possibly for our recognition of the latter. To use some of Sibley's examples, the concentration of the blues and greys of a painting gives rise to and determines its unity of tone; and the sombre or indecisive character of a musical passage is due to a prominent change in key (cf. Sibley (2001a): 36). Moreover, the lower-level features are part of what causes us to recognise them and, subsequently, the aesthetic qualities which they determine or realise. The corresponding explanations do not rationalise our aesthetic responses, but instead highlight certain constitutional, causal or otherwise metaphysical connections in the world. That is, they cite (what may be called) metaphysical – instead of epistemic – explanatory reasons.6 6With this interpretation of Sibley's position, I seem to be in disagreement with Elisabeth Schellekens, who appears to read his distinction as being one between justifying and rationalising epistemic reasons. For, according to her, recognising the lower-level features '[explains] why one might think that some thing has a certain property' or 'why one has made the judgement' (Schellekens (2006): 174, 170); and the resulting 'process of rational reection about features of the object of appreciation plays a part in the process by which the aesthetic judgements are held to be explained' (Schellekens (2006): 175). Only one passage suggests that she may mean metaphysical explanation, rather than psychological rationalisation. There, she says that '[t]he features responsible for a thing's aesthetic character can only be viewed as explaining reasons for the phenomenal impression produced' (Schellekens (2006): 175). Assuming that 'impression' stands in for 'experience', what she takes to be explained here is the – presumably non-rational – causal occurrence of our experiential awareness of aesthetic qualities. In any case, the quoted passages of Sibley's text should make it clear that his own contrast is one between epistemic and metaphysical reasons, and not between two kinds of epistemic reasons. For him, reference to the lower-level features does not provide any form of rational support for aesthetic judgements, not even one that is capable of explaining the formation of the latter – or rendering it reasonable – from the subject's perspective. Instead, Sibley is concerned with the realisation of aesthetic qualities by some underlying non-aesthetic properties: the latter are the reasons why the former are present – and possibly also the reasons why the objects cause us to recognise the aesthetic qualities. 202 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement 8. The main task for the non-inferentialist is therefore to elucidate how reference to metaphysical connections or reasons really adds something to our aesthetic judgements; and moreover does so in such a way that we can reasonably demand such an addition from good critics. If the non-inferential approach fails to come up with a satisfactory answer, our practice of asking for additional support in aesthetic matters would remain completely unexplained. But how can highlighting metaphysical facts and formulating corresponding metaphysical explanations be aesthetically relevant? Again, it is worthwhile to pay closer attention to what Sibley has to say on this issue: 'Even when we have remarked the grace, unity, or ungainliness of something, we may yet be unable to say why it has these qualities. But a good critic should be able to point out what makes it so. Such explanations satisfy an interest and curiosity we often have about the aesthetic qualities of things (especially when the artist has achieved new effects or achieved something in an unusual way). But they may do more than this. When we see in detail how and why the work has its character, we may find our initial judgement strengthened and trust it more confidently. Moreover, as we come to realize how boldly or subtly, with what skill, economy, and exactness, the effect is achieved, how each detail is judged to a nicety and all work together with a fine precision, our appreciation is deepened and enriched and becomes more intelligent in being articulate.' (Sibley (2001a): 37) 'The second [critical] activity I have in mind is less limited and more important than that of providing explanations for the aesthetic qualities one has already seen; it consists instead in helping people to see and judge for themselves that things have those qualities. [...] a major occupation of critics is the task of bringing people to see things for what, aesthetically, they are, as well as why they are.' (Sibley (2001a): 38) In these passages, Sibley singles out four different ways in which the reference to the realisation of aesthetic qualities by lower-level features may add something to our judgemental ascriptions of the former qualities in a non-evidential manner: (i) it may enable or help us – and others – to actually experience the aesthetic qualities; (ii) it may increase our confidence – and the confidence of others – in our aesthetic judgements; (iii) it may enrich our aesthetic appreciation and render it more intelligible; and (iv) it may satisfy a curiosity of ours which is distinctive of our aesthetic engagement with objects. The challenge for non-inferentialism is hence to make sense of how one (or more) of these four 203 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 potential effects of noting the metaphysical connection between the two sets of properties can count as supporting or supplementing aesthetic judgement in a non-evidential manner. More concretely, the non-inferential approach needs to elucidate the aesthetic relevance of these factors independently of any evidential considerations. And it needs to account for the normative dimension of the reference to the lower-level features – namely that good critics should be able, when challenged, to identify these features and their impact on the aesthetic qualities. Whether the non-inferentialist can satisfactorily address these issues is the topic of the next section. III. 9. Let me begin with (i), Sibley's observation that pointing out the relevant lower-level features and their aesthetic significance may help people to recognise for themselves the aesthetic qualities realised by the former. As far as it goes, this observation seems to be accurate. But it is compatible with a denial of the experientiality of the recognition of aesthetic qualities, as well as with the postulation of an inferential link between our awareness of the lower-level features and our judgemental ascriptions of the aesthetic qualities. Indeed, recognising the lower-level features and their contribution to the realisation of the aesthetic qualities may help us to notice the latter precisely because it provides us with further evidence for ascribing the latter. Furthermore, the observation cannot elucidate why we take the identification of the features realising the aesthetic qualities to add something of aesthetic relevance to the ascription of the latter. It has been explained how this identification may lead to the formation of aesthetic judgements (namely of others), but not how it may support or supplement them. In particular, our demand of good critics to be able to back up their own judgements by pointing to the responsible lower-level features when challenged is distinct from our expectation of good critics to be able to make other people recognise aesthetic properties. The former concerns the task of convincing a sceptic about the aesthetic qualities ascribed, while the latter concerns the task of educating people and of improving their aesthetic sensibility. It is true that one efficient way of convincing a sceptic is to get him to recognise the disputed aesthetic quality for himself. But it is not the only way and can neither be required, nor hoped for in response to a challenge to an aesthetic judgement. This is reflected by the fact that the educational function of the reference to the lower-level features is of no interest to someone who is already able to recognise the aesthetic quality concerned. By contrast, the explanatory and supportive function of that reference may still be very important for that person. For instance, she may be unsure about her own 204 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement aesthetic judgement and may therefore feel the need to supplement it further by identifying the relevant lower-level features. Or she may disagree with the other person about which such underlying features in fact realise the aesthetic quality and support its ascription. 10. Perhaps Sibley's idea (ii) – that pointing to certain lower-level features in order to explain the presence of a particular aesthetic quality may increase our trust or confidence in our corresponding aesthetic judgement – can better account for this supportive role. The situation envisaged is like this: we experience, and judge, a passage of music to have a sombre character; we independently notice a change in key in the passage and link its presence to the presence of the sombre character; and noticing this link leads us – as well as others – to feel more confident about our judgement, and perhaps also more inclined to rely on our experience. But why does our recognition of the lowerlevel features and their contribution to the realisation of the aesthetic qualities render our aesthetic judgement more trustworthy in our own eyes and the eyes of others? One possible answer is to maintain that the increase in confidence does not consist in a strengthening of epistemic trust, but rather in something like a merely causal influence on some non-rational feeling of confidence or certainty, or some non-rational disposition to rely on our aesthetic experience and judgement. Accordingly, the increase in trust reflects no positive contribution from an epistemic point of view. To the contrary, it is actually in danger of rendering our aesthetic judgements epistemically inadequate. For it may decrease its epistemic standing (e.g., its likelihood of being true) by making us less critical and less responsive to opposing reasons. That is, we run the risk to hold on to our judgement for non-epistemic causes, namely an increased feeling of confidence or a strengthened disposition to trust. Although the gain of confidence need not necessarily have these negative consequences, it also has no positive effects because of which it could count as adding something valuable to our aesthetic judgements. So, perhaps the kind of confidence involved amounts rather to some kind of epistemic credence or trust. But, as noted above, the non-inferentialist wants to deny that our knowledge of the metaphysical underpinnings of aesthetic qualities supplies us with evidence for believing in the exemplification of the latter. Hence, the non-inferentialist should rather say that what we are concerned with here is not the evidential justification of the aesthetic judgements, but but instead our trustworthiness as critics in aesthetic matters. In other words, the suggestion should be that our manifestation of the ability to recognise the lower-level features and their realisation of the aesthetic qualities is an indicator of the quality of our aesthetic sensitivity – at least on this partic205 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 ular occasion. It reveals that we are good judges of aesthetic qualities and, in this sense, adds further support to our aesthetic judgements. Similarly, if we discover that someone is very good in visually differentiating and identifying objects far away, we may trust his respective judgements more than those of less discerning people. But this proposal is flawed. Part of the reason for this is that the comparison with visual discrimination actually reveals a significant difference. We find out whether someone is good at recognising objects in the distance by looking at whether his past discriminations and judgements have been accurate. That is, we trust him because, in the past, he was mostly right about the distinctness and identity of distant objects. The parallel suggestion in the aesthetic case would be that we have confidence in someone (who may actually be identical with ourselves) because, in the past, he was mostly successful in recognising aesthetic qualities. The proposal at hand, however, locates the reason for the increase in trust, not in the quality of (past) recognitions of aesthetic qualities, but instead in the quality of (present) recognitions of the underling realisators of such qualities. Accordingly, the suggestion is that we should trust someone's aesthetic judgements because he has shown himself to be able to identify the lower-level features and their contribution to the aesthetic qualities. Now, this proposal can be made to work only if it is true that someone, who is good at the identification of aesthetically relevant lower-level features, is also good at recognising aesthetic qualities. This would be the case if the awareness of the lower-level features would actually enable or help him to discover the relevant aesthetic qualities – either along the lines of proposal (i), or because this awareness would provide him with evidence for the ascription of the qualities. But both options are not open to the non-inferentialist: the first for the reasons outlined at the beginning of this section; and the second due to the view's commitment to the non-evidential character of the support provided by our awareness of the lower-level features. However, if proposal (i) fails and the abilitity to recognise lower-level properties as realisators of aesthetic qualities does not reveal a sensitivity to epistemic reasons for aesthetic judgements, then it becomes mysterious why the possession of this ability should have any bearing on the epistemic standing of someone as a judge in aesthetic matters. There is no reason to assume that someone, who possesses knowledge of how aesthetic qualities are realised, should count as a better judge of aesthetic qualities than someone, who lacks that kind of knowledge.7 A blind person may know everything about how colours are realised by their bearers. 7If it is indeed true to say that aesthetic sensitivity is concerned both with aesthetic qualities and with what realises them, the present challenge for the non-inferentialist is to show how these two aspects of discernment are linked to each other – if they are not linked by means of an evidential connection between the lower-level features and the aesthetic qualities. 206 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement But this does not render him good at experientially (rather than inferentially) recognising the colours of objects. 11. As already noted in section I, understanding how aesthetic qualities are realised by the lower-level features of specific objects may very well add something to our aesthetic experience of those objects. More specifically, it may enrich the latter by enabling us to fully appreciate the aesthetic value of the objects or to respond with adequate aesthetic emotions to them – thus offering the possibility of accepting Sibley's proposal (iii). However, as important as this enrichment might be, it does not affect the standing of our aesthetic judgements. At best, it bestows some value on our related, but independently acquired knowledge of the realisation of the aesthetic qualities by the lowerlevel features. For, as outlined in section I, it is this kind of knowledge – rather than the mere ascription of aesthetic qualities – which is crucial for the occurrence of aesthetic evaluations and emotions. So, there is no obvious sense in which the possible enrichment of aesthetic appreciation that comes with aesthetic perception adds something positive to the status of any experientially based aesthetic judgements involved in the same instance of appreciation. 12. This leaves us with element (iv) in Sibley's account of the impact of metaphysical reasons on aesthetic judgements: the satisfaction of a distinctively aesthetic kind of curiosity. Sibley's idea appears to be that we have a specifically aesthetic interest in coming to know which lower-level features are responsible for the aesthetic qualities of an object, and how the former contribute to the determination of the latter. Satisfying this kind of curiosity is then taken to support or supplement our aesthetic judgement, albeit not by adding to the latter's evidential justification. It seems undeniable that our desire to understand artworks and similar objects includes that we care about knowing how aesthetic qualities are realised by relevant lower-level features – and not seldomly more than about knowing that the aesthetic qualities are instantiated in the first place. When considering artworks with a high degree of originality, say, our critical activity typically focusses less on the relatively unspecific and obvious fact that they are original, and more on the precise and partially hidden ways in which they manage to be so. Correspondingly, there is likely to be much more disagreement about the latter than about the former. Once we compare this aesthetic type of curiosity with its scientific counterpart, however, the proposal turns out to be problematic. The main difficulty is to delineate the kind of interest distinctively linked to aesthetic judgement and appreciation, and to get clear in which sense its satisfaction might add something to our aesthetic judgements. 207 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 When we engage with artworks on our own or talk about them with others, we may refer to the lower-level features of the works for various reasons, not all of which are concerned with the appreciation of their aesthetic value, or with the explanation of why they possess their aesthetic qualities. Painters may be curious about the kind of paint used because they are impressed by its durability and want to try it out for themselves. Historians may be interested in the type of wood of a painting's frame in order to get clearer about why people at that time used different kinds of wood for different purposes. Biologists may have a similar interest in the wood because they study the distribution of types of tree in the region where the painting was made. However, these are not cases of aesthetic curiosity, but rather examples of a practical, historical or similar form of interest. Even when we are aiming to understand the metaphysically explanatory link between lower-level features and aesthetic properties, this need not happen because of any aesthetic interest in the object in question. A metaphysician worrying about the ontological status of aesthetic properties or artworks may concern himself with the relation of determination holding between the non-aesthetic and the aesthetic in the hope that this will shed light on some of his philosophical problems. But even if our interest in an object and its features is clearly aesthetic in nature, we do not care about all possible metaphysical explanations of the presence of aesthetic qualities. When we notice that the harmony of a painting is partly due to the fact that the gestures and postures of the depicted characters are roughly mirrored in the spatial orientation of elements of the landscape, such as trees or roads, we do not care about how much the respective lines in fact diverge from being straight lines or true parallels. Or when we recognise that the dramatic nature of a piece of music is partly a matter of a continuous and rhythmic low pitch sound, we are not really captivated by the additional knowledge of the specific length of the sound waves, or of the precise intervals of the rhythm specified in milliseconds. None the less, these latter facts about the piece of music, just as the actual angle between the lines on the painting, may very well be used, from a metaphysical perspective, to account for the harmonious or dramatic characters of the works. To take an even more radical example, the harmony of the painting – and most of its other aesthetic qualities – depends on the specific nature and distribution of the molecules making up the paint on the canvas. But we do not pay attention to that molecular structure while experiencing and appreciating the painting. It is true that, when we are aiming to fully appreciate a painting, we may be interested in physical facts about the wooden panel or the paint used, which tell us something about the age of the work; or in the results of an X-ray investigation, which reveal something about the development of the artist's ideas during the process of painting. But we normally do not care about the precise 208 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement length of the light waves reflected by the coloured canvas, or about the molecular structure of the oil used in mixing the paint. The respective facts strike us as aesthetically irrelevant, as not in any way enriching our understanding of the work. Similarly, there may be future artworks, the recognition of the aesthetic properties of which requires us to study the reflectance properties of their surfaces, or their atomic composition. But even then, there will be metaphysical facts – for instance, about the subatomic particles – which we do not care about from an aesthetic perspective. A scientist or metaphysician, on the other hand, has any interest to keep on investigating, given that his goal is to fully comprehend the nature and origin of the objects concerned. It is here that we find a central difference between aesthetic and scientific curiosity. The latter is not restricted to certain metaphysical truths and explanations. From a scientific point of view, it is interesting to find out as much as possible about the constitution and causal powers of things. In contrast, our aesthetic curiosity is rather limited, once it comes to metaphysical matters. This fact is in need of explanation: why are we aesthetically curious only about some facts about the realisation of aesthetic qualities, and not others? However, when we address this question, the problematic status of Sibley's fourth proposal – and indeed of the noninferential approach as a whole – becomes apparent: they simply do not have the resources to provide a satisfactory explanation of the limits of our aesthetic interest. As a first possible answer, the non-inferentialist might suggest that our aesthetic curiosity stops at the level of perceivability: that we do not care about explanations which trace aesthetic qualities back to imperceivable lowerlevel features. This may be true in some cases, but not in all. Many aesthetic qualities depend directly on imperceivable features of their bearers, and we are aesthetically interested in the respective metaphysical knowledge. We do care, for instance, about the usually imperceivable age of a painting because it tells us something about its originality. In addition, many aesthetic qualities of novels depend on non-aesthetic features – such as the meaning of its words, or the elements of its story-line – which we cannot experience and have to grasp intellectually. Similarly, it is imaginable that there may be forms of art which we are supposed to appreciate by means of oscillographs which render otherwise imperceivable sound or light waves accessible in the shape of changing curves on the screen. But it is not clear whether this kind of access to the waves – in contrast to our access to the marks on the screen – should still count as perceptual. One simple way of dealing with these last cases might be to treat the mentioned tools and their effects literally as part of the artwork. Thus, the perceivable parts of the piece would be the images of the waves produced 209 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 on the screens. But this might be in tension with the artist's intentions, or the curatorial conventions, which do not take the oscillographs to be part of the work. It is also doubtful whether we could establish a satisfactory theory of which elements belong to certain artworks of certain types, that could rule out the possibility of artworks which are accessible only via oscillographs and the like, but do not contain the latter or their perceivable effects as their parts. Most importantly, however, noting that our aesthetic interest is, in certain cases, restricted to perceivable lower-level features and their contribution to aesthetic qualities would not amount to a very illuminating characterisation of the limitation of aesthetic curiosity. For it would still be in need of explanation why our interest does in fact not extend to imperceivable lower-level features. For the same reason, the limitation of aesthetic curiosity cannot be accounted for in terms of the idea that it is concerned merely with what enables and enriches more complex and emotional aesthetic experiences. For, again, this would just shift the explanatory burden since we would then need to say why this limited concern might be in place, without simply falling back on option (iii) discussed above. A second possible non-inferentialist answer is that we are interested only in those metaphysical facts which we actually manage to explanatorily link up with the aesthetic qualities. Knowing the precise angles of the nearly parallel lines or the molecular structure of the paint may not mean much to us because we do not recognise their contribution to the harmonious or garish character of the painting. And learning something about the wavelengths and temporal intervals may remain aesthetically uninteresting for us if it does not help us to make sense of the dramatic nature of the music. But the problem with this proposal is that the acquisition of the missing understanding normally does not undermine our impression that reference to features like the molecular structure is aesthetically beside the point. Coming to know the exact angles of the lines in the painting may tell us why they are approximately parallel. And, from a purely scientific point of view, this additional information is interesting and illuminating, at least to some extent. But it does not add anything to our aesthetic understanding of why the painting is harmonious. Knowing that the lines are approximately parallel suffices here already. Similarly, that the garishness of the painting is ultimately due to the molecules of paint on its surface is aesthetically irrelevant, even if we know how the latter contribute to the brightness and purity of the colours responsible for the former. Importantly, the limitation of aesthetic curiosity concerns not merely our (rather trivial) knowledge that the precise angles of the lines or the molecular structure of the paint determine the aesthetic qualities of the painting, but also our (very substantial) knowledge of how the former realise the latter – or at least how they realise the approximate parallelity of the lines 210 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement or the brightness and purity of the colours, which again realise the latter. A third and final option for the non-inferentialist is to maintain that our aesthetic curiosity is limited to those lower-level features, noticing which helps us to recognise the respective aesthetic qualities – of course without providing us with further evidence for our aesthetic judgements. However, this would mean that we would loose or fail to develop this interest in the underlying properties, if we came or were already able to recognise the aesthetic qualities in question. For instance, once we got the other party to recognise the aesthetic qualities at issue by pointing them to suitable lower-level features, the latter would stop being of any help for us and would therefore cease to be relevant for our aesthetic experiences. But this is obviously not the case in real aesthetic disputes. Even if there is agreement on the presence of a certain aesthetic quality, we may still refer to some lower-level features in support of our aesthetic judgement – in fact, we may still disagree about reference to which lower-level features is of justificatory importance. The problem is thus that the proposal under consideration treats our curiosity as purely pragmatic. In particular, it ignores the fact that there is a link between the aesthetic qualities and the underlying lower-level features, and that this link is of significance for why identifying the latter may provide support for ascribing the former. 13. So the current challenge for the adherent of the non-inferential view – namely to provide us with a satisfactory specification of our distinctively aesthetic interest in certain, but not all, of the lower-level features which help to realise aesthetic qualities – is still unanswered. As a result, non-inferentialism is subject to two serious objections, and not only one. First, it cannot make sense of how identifying the metaphysical connection between the two sets of properties can provide some form of non-evidential support for our aesthetic judgements. That is, it cannot make sense of why it is expected of good critics that they can point to lower-level features in support of their aesthetic judgements. At least, none of Sibley's four proposals has been resourceful enough to resolve this issue; and it is not clear whether there are any other, more promising options available to the non-inferentialist. Second, as just argued, non-inferentialism cannot account for the limitation of our aesthetic curiosity. In the light of both objections, non-inferentialism in the form advocated by Sibley is better to be given up. IV. 14. There is, of course, a relatively simple solution to the two problems mentioned at the end of last section. It consists in adopting an evidential understanding of the support provided by the recognition of the lower-level fea211 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 tures. The first problem disappears immediately: pointing to relevant evidence clearly bolsters our aesthetic judgements. But also the second problem can be dealt with in a straightforward manner. The key idea is to say that, when referring to the lower-level features in aesthetic debates, we are interested in proper justification – namely in the evidential impact of our recognition of the lower-level features on the occurrence and epistemic standing of our aesthetic judgements. This interpretation of our practice of demanding and providing support for our aesthetic judgements in terms of lower-level features explains the limits of our aesthetic curiosity in terms of the fact that only those lowerlevel features matter for us, the awareness of which provides us with evidence for (or against) our ascription of the aesthetic qualities concerned. We are aesthetically interested in these – but not other – lower-level features precisely because identifying them may help us to improve and solidify our aesthetic judgements and, as a consequence, also to advance the emotional, evaluative and other elements of aesthetic appreciation. But this, of course, requires giving up non-inferentialism and endorsing inferentialism. Once we reject the idea that we experience (or feel, intuit, etc.) aesthetic qualities, the two problems raised can be resolved. The inferential account, however, faces its own difficulties. One has already been mentioned, namely the problem of accounting for the phenomenological immediacy of our aesthetic judgements. Especially the idea of implicit inferences needs further elucidation and support. Another problem is how to accommodate Sibley's convincing arguments against the existence of aesthetic principles. The best idea seems to be to understand aesthetic reasoning as a special form of abduction or informed guessing, which does not require to be guided by principles. But much more needs to be said to make proper sense of this idea. 15. These and similar difficulties may motivate one to hold on to the idea that aesthetic judgements are non-inferentially grounded in experience, but to combine it with the idea that our awareness of suitable lower-level features may give us some extra epistemic – and possibly evidential – support for our experientially based recognitions of aesthetic qualities. In a recent essay, Elisabeth Schellekens has argued that this is indeed how we should conceive of our access to aesthetic qualities and interpret our practice of providing further support for our resulting aesthetic judgements. According to her hybrid account, our aesthetic judgements are responses not only to experiences of aesthetic qualities, but also to considerations about the relevant lower-level features which realise or determine those qualities. 'Whereas our perception of [a] building's elegance seems unmediated or instantaneous rather like the perception of redness – we 212 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement 'see' the elegance – our judgement to the effect that the building is indeed elegant may be understood to follow from the perception that it is so and also from our reflection on various salient features of that building.' (Schellekens (2006):175f.) 'Such an account relies on the possibility of appealing to an object's salient features in order to check [...] whether our aesthetic judgement is well founded. [...] The idea of such a justication playing a more prominent part in our account of aesthetic epistemology, then, is not intended to suggest that aesthetic perception should be discarded, but merely that a reasonable objectivism for aesthetic judgements stands little chance of getting off the ground if the perceptual model is taken as our chief and only guide.' (Schellekens (2006): 177) This raises, however, the question of the nature of the specific epistemic support that the recognition of the lower-level features and their metaphysical connections to the aesthetic qualities is meant to provide. Schellekens is adamant that it is not inferential, at least not to such an extent that noting the presence of the lower-level features is already sufficient to infer the presence of the aesthetic qualities. For she follows Sibley in insisting on experience as our canonical access to aesthetic qualities and, relatedly, in rejecting the idea of the possibility of an independent inferential justification of aesthetic judgements (cf. Schellekens (2006): 176). 'I may form the judgement 'x is graceful', and my judgement may involve my scrutinizing x in an attempt to isolate some explaining reasons, but that is not to say that the presence of the features serving that role are in themselves sufficient for me to infer that x is indeed graceful now or at any other time. This is so because the aesthetic perception prompting the judgement forms a necessary part of its grounding. And for the reason that this perception still retains its non-inferential and purely aesthetic character, there is no genuine inference from non-aesthetic to aesthetic to be found.' (Schellekens (2006): 176) 'To use Sibley's scheme whereby 'A' refers to a non-aesthetic feature and 'B' an aesthetic quality, it is not because we know A that we perceive B; but we can say that because we perceive B and know, or come to know A, we can judge that 'x is B'.' (Schellekens (2006): 176) Accordingly, what puts us into the position to acquire knowledge about aesthetic qualities are both our experiences of these qualities and our awareness 213 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 of the relevant underlying features. It would be a misreading of Schellekens' proposal to interpret it as meaning that our aesthetic judgements are the result of a more complex kind of inference – namely an inference, not just from our recognition of the lower-level features alone, but from both this recognition and our experience of the aesthetic qualities together. Schellekens is right in not promoting such an interpretation of her view. For it would lead to the problematic treatment of experiential evidence in aesthetic matters as insufficient for the rational motivation and justification of corresponding judgements and, hence, as in need of supplementation by some further epistemic considerations. There is no reason to assume that aesthetic experience should differ from normal perception in not providing us with sufficient evidence for judgement (everything else being equal). But if experiencing an aesthetic quality is already enough for us to be moved and entitled to ascribe it to the object concerned, it becomes unclear why there is any need to substitute it with a richer form of reasoning. Schellekens conception of the epistemic role of the reference to the lower-level features is, accordingly, different: 'Perhaps, then, it would be better to understand an aesthetic perception as that which provides the experiential grounding of an aesthetic judgement, and an aesthetic judgement as that which reports on a perception. Thus a judgement may be allowed to involve a set of reflections – reflections most probably prompted by the perception but not, strictly speaking, part of that aesthetic perception itself – concerning features of the object of aesthetic appreciation. Some of those features may be considered relevant to the thing's aesthetic character, and can thus lead us to confirm our perception in the form of a judgement.' (Schellekens (2006): 175f.) 'Such an account relies on the possibility of appealing to an object's salient features in order to check whether our aesthetic perception is well grounded [...].' (Schellekens (2006): 177) So the formation of aesthetic judgements may be a process with three stages. First, we experience a certain aesthetic quality. Second, this experience gets confirmed by the recognition of suitable lower-level features that explain the presence of that aesthetic quality. Third, we report on our confirmed experience in the shape of an aesthetic judgement. Schellekens does not seem to take the second step to be necessary for the ascription of aesthetic qualities – in contrast to the other two steps without which we would not end up with a justified, experientially based aesthetic judgement. Moreover, she insists that the second step has to happen epistemically – if not also temporally – after the first one and, in some sense, as a response to the experience involved in the first step. For otherwise, some kind of inference – such as the one central 214 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement to the rich inferential model just sketched above – would, after all, enter the picture. '[...] the account I am exploring need not involve picking up on a handful of non-aesthetic features, and from there inferring the presence of an aesthetic one. The direction of this exercise is rather the reverse, namely one of going from the aesthetic to the nonaesthetic.' (Schellekens (2006): 176) 'The account would have to ensure that the distinctively aesthetic element always comes into play before we look for any salient non-aesthetic features. That way, Sibley's keenly felt and entirely proper worry about inference may be avoided without giving up the possibility of some kind of rational justication.' (Schellekens (2006): 177) To summarise, four aspects of the assumed kind of confirmation are of particular importance for Schellekens: (a) it provides epistemic support for experiences of aesthetic qualities; (b) it does not on its own – and independently of experience – suffice to ground aesthetic judgements; (c) it is not needed for the formation of justified aesthetic judgements; but (d) it still provides some epistemic support for aesthetic judgements – namely by confirming the aesthetic experiences on which the judgements are based. What is perhaps most striking – and most puzzling – about this view is the idea that the identification of the relevant lower-level features has the primary purpose to support the experience of the aesthetic qualities – and not their judgemental ascription. But it is likewise problematic to assume that something can provide epistemic support for experientially based judgements by bolstering the underlying experiences, but not by supporting the judgements in a more direct manner. Each idea gives rise to a serious worry. 16. The first is that it is doubtful whether experience is at all open to epistemic support and criticism in the proposed way. When the perception of colours and shapes is concerned, our practice of challenging and defending an instance of it may focus on two different kinds of factors. On the one hand, it may be concerned with the general suitability of the viewing conditions or the viewing subjects (e.g., whether their minds work properly or whether they possess the required concepts). The corresponding considerations do not point to the lower-level features of the experienced object and can therefore be ignored here.8 On the other hand, what may be at the centre of the debate is the comparison of different agreeing or opposing opinions about one and the same 8See also the similar point made in response to Sibley's proposal (ii) in section III. 215 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 object and its colour or shape properties. For example, we may question or bolster the standing of a given perceptual experience by considering the perceptual experiences of other subjects, or of the same subject at different times. But again, this has no bearing on the current discussion, since reference to the lower-level features still plays no role. This is different in cases where the comparative colour or shape judgements are formed inferentially, and not in response to experiences (or feelings, intuitions, etc.) of the specific property instances under consideration. As already noted, we may, for instance, know that the presence of certain surface reflectance properties or certain geometrical features is generally a good indicator for the presence of certain colours or shapes. And this piece of knowledge may enable us to infer the colour or shape of the object in question on the basis of recognising that it possesses the corresponding lower-level features. Moreover, in cases where we lack such connecting knowledge, reference to the reflectance or geometrical properties remains entirely irrelevant for the assessment of the epistemic status of our colour or shape experience. If we perceive something as being red, saying that it also shows a certain reflectance property does not tell us anything about the standing of our red experience and the resulting judgement, unless we know whether this particular reflectance property is linked to the colour red or to some other colour. This indicates that any confirmation of our respective experiences in terms of the lower-level features presupposes that we can infer the presence of the experienced properties from the presence of the underlying features. But, according to the view under discussion, this is not the case in the recognition of aesthetic qualities, given that the possibility of such an inference is rejected by Schellekens (as well as Sibley). Consequently, the proposed kind of confirmation cannot be modelled upon any of the various forms of confirmation present in the case of the perception of colours, shapes and similar properties. This should already suffice to cast serious doubt on the confirmation's availability in the case of aesthetic experience, given that it is unclear on what it could be modelled instead, or whether we have any independent reason to assume the existence of such a special and unusual kind of confirmation. But the preceding considerations highlight another strange fact about the kind of epistemic support put forward by Schellekens: while we can acquire inferential knowledge about the colour or shape of a given object, we are said to be unable to do the same with respect to aesthetic qualities. However, if at all, it should be the other way round. Colours and shapes are among the most basic perceivable properties, both in the sense that we do not perceive them by perceiving some other features, and in the sense that backing them up by reference to lower-level features is a highly unusual practice. Normally, pointing to the fact that we ascribe a certain colour or shape to an object because of 216 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement how we perceptually experience it suffices to answer the demands of reasonable challenges. By contrast, aesthetic qualities are not basic in these two senses. In particular, it is normally not enough to silence a challenge simply by claiming to have experienced the aesthetic quality in question. This difference suggests that the inferential model applies more naturally to aesthetic qualities than to colours and shapes. 17. The second worry is that no awareness of lower-level features, that is insufficient to ground certain judgements by itself, can provide epistemic support for experiences which are themselves capable of grounding those judgements. Noninferentialism maintains that experiences are sufficient to justify the relevant judgements. But this sufficiency may be questioned in particular situations. The identification of the respective lower-level features is meant to counter such doubts and confirm the sufficiency of the experiences to justify the judgements. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the confirmation of the experiences could otherwise extend its support to the experientially based judgements, if not by reaffirming the sufficiency of the experiential support in question. However, if something is able to confirm that a given experience is enough to justify a certain judgement, then it should also be able to justify the judgement on its own. Another way of making the same point is to highlight the fact that the kind of epistemic support for experiences in question should be understood in evidential terms. There is no way in which a reference to lower-level features could confirm the suitability of the viewing conditions, or the quality of the discriminatory capacities of the experiencing subject (see the discussion in section III). Instead, such a reference should be taken to speak in favour of the experiential presentation of the specific higher-level qualities concerned. But if it is able to ensure the well-groundedness of experiences, then it should also ensure the well-groundedness of judgemental endorsements of such experiences (everything else being equal). The judgemental element does not add anything to the experience, which would be beyond the evidential support provided by the identification of the relevant lower-level features. In particular, both experiential and judgemental presentations of higher-level qualities involve the same kind of commitment towards the actual instantiation of those qualities (in contrast, say, to sensory or intellectual imaginings). In other words, it does not matter for evidential support whether the non-neutral presentation concerned is experiential or judgemental in nature. In addition, there are two further problems with Schelleken's proposal. First, it threatens to undermine the rational difference at the heart of the contrast between experiences and judgements. What is distinctive of the two kinds of 217 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement Chapter 7 mental episode is that the latter are responsive to epistemic reasons and thus open to rational revision, while the former are not. But if both are indeed subject to the same kind of epistemic – and, presumably, evidential – support, we need an account of how this shared support is compatible with the difference in rational responsiveness. It seems that this would be possible only if the link between evidence and epistemic reasons would be cut. Second, it is also left unexplained why the – limited or partial – justificatory power of the recognition of the lower-level features cannot be supplemented by some further epistemic considerations or pieces of evidence, such that it becomes possible to form justified judgements about higher-level qualities on these grounds. Schellekens' view is incompatible with this possibility. As noted above, adding the experience of an aesthetic quality – or any other kind of awareness or thought – to the recognition of the relevant lower-level features does not lead to a sufficient inference base for a judgemental ascription of the quality. Similarly, no additional experience can turn the recognition of the lower-level features into an experiential ground for an aesthetic judgement. The only plausible candidate would be an experience of the aesthetic quality at issue; and this experience would suffice on its own to ground the judgement. But, given this incompatibility, we are still in need of a satisfactory explanation of it: that is, ow what is what is so special about the limited or partial epistemic support provided by the identification of the lower-level features that it cannot be rendered sufficient for aesthetic judgements by some extra elements. 18. To conclude, Schellekens' non-inferentialist view does not seem to be better equipped than Sibley's to avoid the tension between the claim about the experiencability of higher-level aesthetic qualities and the idea of supporting the corresponding judgements in terms of relevant lower-level features. It is also not easy to see how some other non-inferential theory of our canonical access to aesthetic or other higher-level properties could do better than the two discussed in this essay. Perhaps we should therefore start to look for an alternative account of the phenomenological immediacy of our ascriptions of higher-level features to experienced objects – possibly in terms of some inductive and non-principled form of reasoning.9 9This paper has been presented at one of the eidos meetings at the University of Geneva, as well as at the University of Fribourg and at University College London. I would like to thank all participants at those occasions for their comments, notably Philipp Keller, Vincent Lam, Stephan Leuenberger, Mike Martin, Andrew McGonigal, Kevin Mulligan, Gianfranco Soldati, Gian-Andri Toendury, Jonathan Wolff and Christian Wüthrich. Special thanks go to Malcolm Budd for his detailed and very instructive comments on an earlier version. I am also grateful for the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation who funded the research for this paper as part of a project on 'Properties and Relations' at the 218 Chapter 7 Non-Inferentialism about Aesthetic Judgement University of Geneva (SNF project 113688).

Part III In Defense of Experiential Intentionalism

Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing One of the most powerful arguments against intentionalism and in favour of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences has been formulated by M. G. F. Martin in his paper The Transparency of Experience. The overall structure of this argument may be stated in the form of a triad of claims which are jointly inconsistent:1 (i) As reflection on the phenomenal character of visualising an external thing reveals, it is not neutral about the presence of the visualised thing in the imagined situation. (ii) At least in some cases, visualising an external thing consists in imagining a visual perception of it. (iii) But imagining a visual perception of an external thing is neutral about the latter's presence in the imagined situation. Given that visualising cannot be non-neutral and identical with a neutral form of imagining at the same time, one of the three claims has to go. Martin presents detailed arguments in favour of (i) and (ii) and concludes that we should give up (iii). Intentionalists, on the other hand, typically attack (i) or (ii), while holding on to (iii). In this paper, I would like to suggest that the intentionalist response gets its target wrong: instead of trying to undermine one of the first two claims, it should instead raise doubts about the last. In particular, I argue that intentionalism has the resources to ensure and explain the non-neutrality involved in imagining perceiving something. Much of the paper will be concerned with a reconstruction of Martin's 1See especially Martin (2002b): 417ff.. McDowell (1998a) and Fish (2009) defend versions of disjunctivism which in many relevant respects come close to that defended by Martin and discussed here. 223 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 complex argument. Intentionalists have been misunderstanding key steps in his line of reasoning, so that it is worthwhile to explore where they went wrong, and why the challenge raised by Martin is real. The resulting formulation of the argument against intentionalism may very well be more mine than Martin's. My goal is not to provide a scholarly introduction to Martin's writings, but instead to make his case against intentionalism as strong as possible. Having a detailed look at the problems which visualising poses for theories of perceptual experience makes it possible to find a satisfactory response on the behalf of intentionalism. Indeed, it will turn out that some aspects of visualising thereby discovered actually favour intentionalism over disjunctivism. The version of intentionalism to be defended here differs significantly from those currently en vogue - most notably in linking intentionality essentially to consciousness, and in assuming a self-presentational (i.e., experiential and selfreflexive) element as part of perceptual (and other kinds of) intentionality.2 It may therefore be aptly labelled experiential intentionalism. Much of the paper will be devoted to showing that, while many current versions of intentionalism cannot provide a satisfactory answer to Martin's challenge, experiential intentionalism can do so. Experiential intentionalism is thus to be preferred, not only over disjunctivism, but also over other versions of intentionalism. In the first section, I introduce the intentionalist and the disjunctivist approaches to perceptual experience and contrast their distinct accounts of the transparency and non-neutrality of perceptions.3 The next three sections elaborate on why we should accept the claims (i) and (ii), respectively, and why intentionalists have been misguided in rejecting them. In particular, the nature of experiential imagination - that is, imagining an experience - and that of imaginative projects involving the former are considered in detail. The fifth section is intended to illustrate why current forms of intentionalism cannot avoid the challenge posed by Martin's argument for thesis (iii). It also aims to illustrate how both disjunctivism and experiential intentionalism can do better, especially with respect to an explanation of the transparency and nonneutrality of visualising. In the final section, I use the previous discussions about what it means to imagine having a perceptual experience in order to 2See chapters 11 and 13 for more detailed discussions of these differences. Among the current proponents of intentionalism, which have written explicitly on visualising and experiential imagination, are Hopkins (1998), Noordhof (2002), Currie and Ravenscroft (2003) and Burge (2005). Others are Dretske (1995), Tye (1995) and Speaks (2009). 3I use the term 'experience' to denote not only sense experiences, but all instances of conscious object awareness, including episodes of visualising and of experiential imagination. The expression 'perceptual experience' is meant to cover both (veridical) perceptions and hallucinations, and I distinguish between the latter two independently of whether they differ in nature or not. Besides, when I speak of 'hallucinations', I mean to refer, if not stated otherwise, to perception-like hallucinations - that is, hallucinations which are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions (cf. chapter 13). 224 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing formulate an objection against disjunctivism. I conclude with some remarks about the fact that experiential imagination seems to involve two different objects of awareness, namely the imagined experience and the latter's own object. I. Intentionalism and disjunctivism disagree about the nature of perceptual experience. That is, they put forward different accounts of the first-personal side of our perceptual awareness of external things and their features. But they do so before a background of common assumptions and observations. One is that perceptual awareness differs from propositional thought in showing us objects, rather than describing, naming or indexing them. This contrast is not restricted to the realm of the mental. It also characterises the difference between, say, pictures and sentences. Another, closely related shared observation is that perceptions are not merely about objects, but take them to be a certain way: they are non-neutral about how things are. This aspect distinguishes perceptions, for instance, from desires which may also be directed at objects, but do not involve a claim about how they are.4 And finally, both parties agree that perceptions are immediate in that they present their objects as part of our actual environment. That is, their non-neutrality concerns the actual presence of things before our senses. This perceptual commitment about how things actually are is reflected in the fact that perceptions enjoy epistemic authority over our beliefs about our actual environment. Furthermore, the non-neutrality of perceptions is salient from the first-person perspective, as part of their transparency. Perceptions are transparent in so far as introspective attention to them reveals the external things and features of which they make us aware, and no other canidate objects of awareness (such as sense-data or mental pictures). The positive element of this aspect of the phenomenal character of perceptions - of what perceptions are like for the subject - consists in their non-neutrality: when attending to our perceptions, we find objects that are given to us as part of our actual environment. However, intentionalism and disjunctivism provide different theories of how perceptions relate us to external things, and of why they are non-neutral and immediate. Intentionalism about perceptual experiences does not distinguish between perceptions and hallucinations when adressing these issues. It maintains that perceptual experiences - whether they are veridical or not - make us intentionally aware of those entities. Accordingly, they are understood as presenting us with external objects without requiring their existence. They are 4See Martin's distinction between the semantic and the stative conception of representation in Martin (2002b). 225 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 non-relational appearances of things which do not involve the latter as their constituents. Moreover, intentionalism characterises the form of intentionality common to both perceptions and hallucinations as distinctively perceptual. This means that they involve a specific intentional attitude towards their objects which takes the latter to be actually present before us. This explains why they are committal to aspects of our actual environment, and why they have authority over our respective beliefs.5 Given that perceptions and hallucinations are said not to differ in respect of how they make us subjectively aware of things, intentionalism concludes that they share the same phenomenal character and are therefore of the same fundamental kind of experience.6 By contrast, disjunctivism about perceptual experiences (as it is defended by Martin) maintains that there is an essential difference between the character of perceptions and the character of hallucinations, to the effect that they belong to different fundamental kinds of experience. The difference in question is that, while perceptions make us relationally aware of objects, hallucinations do not.7 That perceptual awareness is relational means that the character of perceptions - and thus the perceptions themselves - are constituted by the external objects of which they make us aware. This explains why we find those objects when reflecting on our perceptions, and also why the latter are non-neutral about the presence of the former in the situation before our senses. Intentionalism and disjunctivism, so defined, are incompatible with each other. They provide rival accounts of how perceptual experiences make us aware of objects and which character(s) they show. And they give different 5The resulting characterisation of intentionalism is meant to be neutral between its various versions, including both naturalistic and non-naturalistic conceptions of its nature. That is, the first-personal presentational and attitudinal aspects of perceptions may - but need not be - further elucidated in terms of mental representation and functional role. In chapter 11, I argue that at least reference to representation is not very helpful, since it ignores the essential connection between intentionality and consciousness or subjectivity. A similar issue with functional role is whether it is the same as rational role, or whether it is nonnormative in nature. If the latter, I again contend that intentionality cannot be separated from normativity. 6This conclusion is not necessitated, since perceptions and hallucinations might possibly differ in aspects of character that are not linked to how they make us aware of objects and features. But it is not clear what aspects that could be, or why it should be plausible to assume their existence. 7This difference is sometimes also spelled out in terms of perceptions 'acquaintaining' us with things, or making them 'manifest' to us (though intentionalists can presumably adopt at least the first manner of talking). Besides, it can be ignored here what disjunctivists do, or should, say about hallucinations and their subjective indistinguishability from perceptions. It is perhaps defensible to argue that they still make us intentionally aware of objects (cf. the respective discussion in Smith (2002)). But it seems more natural for disjunctivism to conclude that hallucinations do not make us aware of objects at all - they just seem to do so. 226 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing answers to the question of whether perceptions and hallucinations belong to the same fundamental kind of experience. None the less, it will become important in the last two sections that intentionalism can endorse - if not in fact, then at least in spirit - some of the central ideas of disjunctivism, such as the priority of perceptions over hallucinations. In particular, it may be argued that perceptual experiences do not only have a first-personal side to them, but also a third-personal side. The disjunctivist position considered so far has been concerned with how to conceive of perceptual object awareness - that is, of how it is for the conscious mind to be presented with objects. But when we are perceiving something, we also stand in interesting causal or similar relations to the world, which are missing in the case of hallucination and which can be investigated from the perspective of the natural and cognitive sciences. It is surely not uncontroversial whether these third-personally accessible, structural features of our cognition of objects should really figure in an account of the nature of our predominantly first-personal experience of objects. But the two phenomena are clearly related (e.g., we can influence our perceptual awareness of things by influencing our structural relation to the world). In particular, if there is indeed a difference in character between perceptions and hallucinations, it is very likely to be due to some structural difference between cases in which we perceive something and cases in which we hallucinate something. That is, it should be expected that any constitutional difference between the two kinds of perceptual experience is accompanied by - and perhaps also partly derivable from - a difference in some causal or similar element. This leaves room for a version of intentionalism which, despite claiming that perceptions and hallucinations possess the same character, accepts that the two differ structurally - perhaps even essentially so. In this way, intentionalism can accommodate the (fairly) uncontroversial idea that, while some intentional experiences (i.e., perceptions) relate us to the world, others (i.e., hallucinations) do not. It just takes the relation in question to be, not a relation of awareness, but some other kind of relation that is accessible to empirical investigation. If we label the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ also in character phenomenal (or naive realist) disjunctivism, and the view that they differ merely in structure structural disjunctivism, then we can say that intentionalism is compatible with the structural variant of disjunctivism, but not with the phenomenal one. Intentionalism can accordingly even assume that perceptions and hallucinations differ in nature - namely in their third-personal side. However, if not stated otherwise, my focus in what follows will be on the phenomenal version of disjunctivism. And I will understand intentionalism as being neutral on the issue of whether the structural difference between perceptions and hallucinations amounts to a difference in nature. 227 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 II. Perceptual awareness is not the only form of object awareness which is transparent and commital. Imaginative experiences - and, notably, visualising - possess both features as well (cf. Martin (2002b): 413ff.).8 Most of all, episodes of visualising, too, enjoy some kind of epistemic authority over our beliefs - this time only over our beliefs about what is part of the imagined situations. It makes sense to ask which entities are part of the possible situation that we are visualising at a given moment. And our answer should be influenced by what we are visualising, given that the latter typically determines what is contained in the imagined world. Other things equal, if it is a green tree that we are visualising, then there is a green tree in the situation that we are imagining. Hence, picking up on what we are visualising should guide us in forming beliefs about what is part of the respective imagined situation. This authority of visualising over our beliefs about the imagined world may be countered, or perhaps need not always be present. For instance, we may visualise a green tree simply as part of imagining having a hallucination of a green tree, in which case we should not believe that there is a 'hallucinated' green tree in the imagined world, but at best that there is a hallucinatory experience as of such a tree. The epistemic dimension of visualising becomes important in cases where we are using visualising to acquire knowledge - say, about possibilities or conditional truths.9 In his most recent book, Timothy Williamson argues that visualising is one of the many empirical capacities that we may employ in order to acquire modal knowledge - or, in his concrete example, knowledge of some conditional, which forms the first step to modal knowledge. Considering a situation in the mountains, he describes the largely non-inferential process involved in coming to know that a certain rock would have landed in a lake, if its path had not been blocked by a bush: 'You notice one rock slide into a bush. You wonder where it would have ended if the bush had not been there. A natural way to answer the question is by visualizing the rock sliding without the bush there, then bouncing down the slope. You thereby come to 8Indeed, it may very well be that the transparency at issue is, in fact, inseparably linked to the presentation of objects, rather than the entertainment of propositions. When introspecting experiences, the external things that we find are shown to us; and no internal objects are given to us in this way. The issue of whether a given thought is transparent in this sense does not arise then, since thinking is not an instance of object awareness. 9Martin (2002b): 37 and 39, mentions the example of mentally rotating a piece of furniture in a shop in order to see whether it is possible to get it through one's front door at home. 228 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing know this counterfactual: [...] If the bush had not been there, the rock would have ended in the lake.' (Williamson (2008): 142) Acquiring knowledge in this way is possible only if, by visualising the rock, the slope and the lake, we take them all to be part of the same possible situation. And this requires that our episode of imagining is commited to their existence in that situation. Two things need to be noted about this commitment. The first has already been hinted at: it is not trivial to claim that the visualised object is part of the imagined situation. The example of a desire for something (e.g., an ice-cream) shows that there can be mental states which are objectdirected, but do not take a stance on how things are in a certain world.10 The second point to consider is that the non-neutrality linked to visualising cannot be external to it, that is, derive from its further intellectual context rather than from the basic episode of visualising itself. The distinction between the episode and its context is not meant to deny that simple instances of visualising - or 'images', if one prefers - may include intellectual or other non-sensory elements (e.g., the presentation of objects as mind-dependent or independent). An episode of visualising differs from the additional thoughts in two other respects, namely that the former is an instance of object awareness, and that it may occur without the latter - although it may also form a more complex imaginative project with them. Now, that we end up being committed to the presence of what is visualised in the imagined situation is due to the fact that visualising itself is commital in this way. That visualising presents us with, say, a green tree is not neutral on whether there is such a green tree in the imagined world (rather than, say, a yellow flower, or no such object at all). We may cancel out this commitment by adding the thought that, within the imagined world, the green tree is merely hallucinated and therefore not really part of that world. But, as a default, visualising takes the visualised object to be part of the imagined situation. If it were instead neutral on this issue, the commitment would have to come from some additional thought specifying that the imagined situation indeed contains whatever is visualised. The green tree would become part of the imagined world, not by being visualised, but instead by being thought to be part of that world. This is in fact, roughly, the view suggested by Burge as an alternative to the disjunctivist's take on visual experience. For him, the commitment to the presence of the visualised object - or, in the case of visualising an external thing by imagining a perception of it, the veridicality of the latter - in the imagined world comes not with the basic episode of visualising, but instead with a suppositional thought accompanying the first. 10The claim may become trivial, if it can be established that object awareness is, by its very presentational nature, transparent and commital (cf. footnote 8). But to establish this is not a trivial task. 229 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 Note, however, that Burge uses the term 'visualizing' to denote the complex and commital imaginative project which contains not only the simple visual presentation or image, but also the additional supposition: '[One begins] with the supposition of veridicality. One simply takes the content of the imagined experience to be veridical. [...] I hold that the imagery does not by itself guarantee the presence of the imagined scene [...]. What gives us the imagined scene is the fact that we are visualizing the scene. [...] The imagined veridicality is not derivative from the imagery itself. Visualizing something with a given imagery has do to with how the imagery is used.' (Burge (2005): 65f.) But this alternative picture would not be able to pay justice to the character of visualising (cf. Martin (2002b): 416ff.). To get clearer about this, consider the issue of what a neutral visual presentation of an object would have to be like. When we are looking from a distance at a perfect wax replica of a friend of ours and are completely in the grip of its illusionary effect, it seems to us as if there really is our friend before us. That is, our visual experience is commited to the presence of our friend in our environment, and we are bound to form the respective belief. However, when we move closer to the figure and come to recognise it as being just a wax replica, how things appear to us alters substantially. Now, it seems to us as if there is a wax figure in front of us, and our experience commits us to accept its actual existence before our eyes. Relatedly, although we continue to enjoy some kind of awareness of our friend, our experience has stopped being non-neutral about his presence. So here we have a case of visual object awareness, which in some sense is still about a particular object, but which does not commit us to its presence in our actual environment. This neutrality, however, has been gained by a change in the object of awareness. We are now presented with a three-dimensional depiction of our friend, rather than with our friend himself. Indeed, when introspecting our experience, we find the wax figure and its pictorial properties, but no human being. This explains why we are commital with respect to the former, but not with respect to the latter. In line with these considerations, if visualising were neutral about the presence of the visualised object in the imagined situation, we should expect not to find that object, but instead some substitute - such as an internal picture - when reflecting on our imaginative experience. But this does not seem to be the case. When we introspect an episode of visualising, what is revealed to us is the visualised object, and no other candidate object of awareness. In other words, visualising is transparent, just like seeing is. The two kinds of visual experience differ in their immediacy: while an episode of seeing presents 230 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing its object as actually being there before us, visualising does not do this, but instead locates the object in the imagined situation. There is, hence, good reason to accept the first claim in the triad introduced at the beginning. As part of its transparent nature, visualising an external thing is by default commited to the latter's presence in the imagined situation. And this commitment remains intact, as long as it is not cancelled out by some additional intellectual stipulations about what is in fact imagined. III. The second claim of the triad maintains that some instances of visualising an external thing amount to instances of imagining a perception of such a thing. It is a special case of Martin's Dependency Thesis :11 '[T]o imagine sensorily a φ is to imagine experiencing a φ[.]' (Martin (2002b): 404) Imagining a perception - or, more generally, experiential imagination - is a case of object awareness, just as much as seeing or visualising an external thing is. What we are aware of when imagining an experience is just that, some experience. More specifically, we are aware of the first-personal side of an experience, that is, of its phenomenal character. We imagine some experience by imagining some instantiation of its character. Its third-personal side (if experiences have any) is, so to speak, 'invisible' to object-directed imagining. Of course, we can have additional thoughts about it. But it is not presented as part of a case of imagining with an experience as its object. The reason for this is that this form of imagining is experiential, in the same sense in which seeing and visualising are visual. Just as the latter are limited to the presentation of visible entities, experiential imagining is restricted to the presentation of phenomenal aspects of mental episodes. The latter's structural features lack an 'experiential appearance', so to speak. Again, experiential awareness does not differ in this respect from, say, visual awareness. When we see or visualise a lemon, we see or visualise its visual appearance, but not its biological nature, for example. Intentionalists typically select the Dependency Thesis - and therefore also claim (ii) - as the main target of their criticism of Martin's argument against intentionalism. Indeed, if imaginative experience is to be understood in the same intentional terms as perceptual experience, it is difficult to understand why, say, seeing and visualising should not make us aware of the same objects, 11Note that Martin uses 'experience' here as short for 'sense experience', such as perception or bodily sensation. As already mentioned, my own use is less narrow in also including, say, visualising or other imaginative instances of object awareness. 231 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 namely external things. If perception does not involve an awareness of an experience, why should imagination do so, if both are assumed to involve the same kind of object awareness? This doubt should be taken serious - not the least because it simply confirms that there is in fact a tension between the intentionalist thesis and the claim (ii). While Martin draws the conclusion that the former should be given up, it is also very plausible to question the latter. Some of the intentionalist objections, however, seem to have misunderstood the intended scope or nature of the claim at issue.12 A first point to be noted is that that thesis (ii) need not have universal application for the argument against intentionalism to go through. For this purpose, it is meant to be the claim that some cases are instances of experiential imagining - and not the claim that this is true of all. More is not required for the argument against intentionalism under consideration issue here. And more is also not intended by Martin, or supported by his line of reasoning in favour of (ii).13 Another important issue is that this argument concentrates on, and exploits the special features of, cases in which our episodes of visualising involve certain subjective properties. Subjective properties are characterised by the fact that they are experience-dependent: their instantiation is dependent on the occurrence of a specific experience.Martin's focus is on cases in which instances of visualising involve a certain kind of perspectivalness; and thesis (ii) should be understood as being restricted to those cases (or to similar cases, such as imaginative experiences involving aspects of painfulness or itchiness).14 What (ii) therefore claims is that visualising is identical with imagining perceiving when it involves the subjective perspectival element at issue. By perceiving an object, we may acquire knowledge about the latter's specific spatial location. But our perception does not thereby place the object in objective space. When we look at a building that is located roughly to the South-East of the bench on which we are currently sitting, we do not see it 12A further possible locus of misunderstanding is perhaps that (ii) understands both visualising and imagining a perception as instances of object awareness, given that some intentionalists tend to construe visual experience in terms of thought-like contents (cf., e.g., Dretske (1995) and Tye (1995). 13See Martin (2002b): 404f.. It is true, though, that others - such as Peacocke (1985) and O'Shaughnessy (2003) - have put forward stronger versions of the claim, extending even to all kinds of sensory imagining. And Martin is clearly sympathetic with this more general conclusion, as can be witnessed in Martin (2002b): 404f., and Martin (2001). 14See Martin (2002b): section 3, which is mostly occupied with the development of his argument in favour of thesis (ii), the restricted version of the Dependency Thesis. In what follows, I draw heavily on this section of Martin's paper. I am also very grateful to the challenging questions about this section raised by one of the referees, which helped me greatly to get clearer about certain deatails of Martin's argument, as well as about my own addition to it at the end of this section. 232 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing as being to the South-East of that bench. In particular, we do not perceive objects as being orientated in accordance with the cardinal directions. Instead, we see them as being orientated towards ourselves - for instance, we see the building as being to our left. What this means is that we perceive objects as part of egocentric space, and not as part of objective (or 'absolute') space.15 One manifestation of this fact is that our perception of the building inclines and entitles us to judge that it is to our actual left, but not that it is to the South-East of the bench. Coming to know the latter requires additional information - notably about our own location and orientation in objective space (cf. Campbell (1995)). None the less, our perceptions of egocentric locations are still as much concerned with actual space as is our knowledge of objective locations. We see the building as being to our actual left, as part of our actual environment. If this were not so, our experience would not be able to provide us with all the information necessary to properly interact with what we see - for example, to succeed in walking over to the actual building. But that perception does provide us with this information is illustrated by the fact that such interaction does not require inferring the presence of the building to our actual left from perceiving it as being to our left and believing that such experiences are (typically) concerned with the actual world. The issue of which world our perceptions are concerned with simply does not arise - it is our world, the world in which we perceive. Something similar is true of the temporal relevance of our perceptions: they concern our present environment. We see the building as presently being to our left, and not as having been there in the past, or as going to be there in the future.16 Part of our perception of the building as being to our actual left is implicit, however. We do not explicitly experience ourselves and our spatial relation to the building when perceiving the latter. We are not among the entities presented to us by our experience. Of course, we can see other perceivers - and even ourselves, say, by utilising a mirror or some similar apparatus which turns us into the object of our own perceptions. But normally, when we are 15It does not really matter for Martin's main argument whether we are concerned here with two different sets of spatial properties of objects (e.g., one objective, and the other subjective), or instead with two modes of presentation of one and the same set. What is relevant here is primarily the fact that our perceptual access to spatially located objects is perspectival and, in particular, presents them as orientated towards us, rather than in more objective terms. But many of the points involved in the argument can be described more easily by reference to egocentric properties. Besides, the postulation of subjective orientations is not much different from the postulation of subjective modes of presentation (cf. the similar issue raised below with respect to the aspect of leftishness and similar phenomenal aspects). 16In what follows, I concentrate on the fact that perceptions present objects in actual space and mention the temporal dimension only when it becomes relevant. 233 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 simply subjects of perception and perceive the orientation of objects relative to us, we do not see us, but only the objects. Our own perspective is only implicitly reflected in our perceptual experiences, namely as the point of view orientated to which objects are presented to us. As a consequence, what figures explicitly in our experience is not the relational property of being to the left of us, but the monadic quality of being leftish. It seems that such a quality can figure in perception in two different ways. The perceptual experience may instantiate the quality; or it may instead present an external object as having that quality. In both cases, this has consequences for the phenomenal character of the experience concerned. In the first case, the quality constitutes one of the non-presentational aspects of that character. In the second case, it is a constituent of one of the character's presentational aspects.17 That the quality of leftishness figures in our perception of the building therefore means that the latter instantiates a certain character aspect - either a non-presentational aspect, or the presentational aspect of presenting the building as being the monadic property of being to the left.18 Which view is to be preferred in the end does not matter here. Indeed, it is not so clear whether they actually differ in any substantial way - which might explain why Martin appears to switch between both views in some of his formulations (e.g., when talking about the quality of itchiness). The step from acknowledging the presence of a non-presentational aspect of the character of a perception to projecting this aspect onto the perceived object is indeed small - as discussions about blur or similar phenomena illustrate (cf. Peacocke (1983) and chapter 13). Moreover, any presentation of something as being leftish would lack the status and force of the presentation of it as being to our actual and present left. In particular, we do not see the building as having the monadic property of being to the left; and we are not inclined or entitled to believe it to genuinely instantiate this property. Of course, we may say 'the building is to the left'. But when prompted, we will happily clarify that what we really meant was that it is to the left of us. In any case, that the character of our perception of the building include this phenomenal aspect - let us call it the aspect of leftishness - should not be doubted. We can attend to it; and we can exploit it when drawing a picture of how the building looks like when seen from our current point of view. That 17It should become clear very shortly that there is a third possibility: the experience may represent another experience as instantiating or presenting the quality. 18Using the expression 'being to the left' to denote a monadic property is not ideal, since this expression clearly has some connotations of relationality. But it is not easy to come up with another formulation, without altogether loosing the connection to the perceived property of being to our actual left. I am grateful to one of the referees for making me aware of this issue. 234 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing is, we can depict an object as being to our actual left by drawing it on the left side of the canvas - instead of, say, by drawing both ourselves and the object.19 But how is the instantiation of the aspect of leftishness linked to the perception of the property of something as being at some specific location to our actual left? More generally, how does the perspectivalness of an experience relate to the determination of what is experienced? Martin's insightful observation is that the former suffices for the latter (cf. Martin (2002b): 410). If an experience of an object exemplifies leftishness - that is, shows a respective non-presentational phenomenal aspect or, alternatively, presents the object as being to the left - then it is an experience of the object as being to our actual left. More specifically, the presence of the perspectival aspect of leftishness is sufficient to ensure, first, that the experience concerned is an experience of something as being to our left (rather than to our right) and, second, that it is an experience of something as being to our actual left (rather than to our left in a merely possible situation). Indeed, Martin claims even more, namely that it also suffices for having a perceptual experience of something as being to our actual left. This makes sense since the other two kinds of visual experience, which may involve the aspect of leftishness, are not - or at least not in their simplest forms - concerned with our current environment. Episodes of visualising present objects as part of imagined situations (cf. below), while episodes of visual memory present objects as part of past situations. I return below to the issue of how important this additional claim is for Martin's argument. That the instantiation of the aspect of leftishness turns the respective experience into an experience of something to our actual left is a direct consequence of the implicitness involved in our perception of the spatial relations that objects bear to us in egocentric space. As noted above, we see objects as being to our actual left (and not, say, as being at an egocentric location in some merely possible space). But this relational property is typically not explicitly given to us. Instead, what figures in our experience is solely the monadic quality of leftishness. Hence, we perceive the instantiation of the property of being to our actual left simply by being aware of the quality of leftishness. When we see the building as being to our actual left, no aspect of our perception but its aspect of leftishness plays a role in determining that we experience 19Very similar issues arise, for instance, with respect to the status of the quality of ovalness - another perspectival aspect of perception - which figures in our experience when we are looking at objects from an angle and perceive them as round. Again, we typically draw round objects by tracing elliptical shapes on the canvas. But it is debatable whether our experiences present round objects as elliptical in addition to presenting them as round (cf., for instance, Peacocke's discussion of what he calls sensational properties in Peacocke (1983)). One significant difference from egocentric orientation is, however, that, while roundness is an objective property, being to the left of us is not. 235 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 the building at that specific location in our actual environment. If the aspect of leftishness is taken to be presentational, this thought becomes even more straightforward: our perception presents the building as being to our actual left just by presenting it as being to the left; no other presentational element is needed or involved. What we are confronted with here is the particular subjectivity of the aspect of leftishness. Its actual instantiation is both necessary and sufficient for the experience of something as being to our actual left.20 However, as Martin notes, these considerations about perception give rise to a puzzle in the case of visualising (cf. Martin (2002b): 410). On the one hand, our episodes of visualising involve the same kind of perspectivalness as our episodes of seeing (cf. also Hopkins (1998): chapter 7). We visualise buildings as being to the left of certain subjective points of view. And we normally do so without explicitly presenting those points of view or any subjects occupying them. What figures in our respective imaginative experiences is therefore, again, the monadic quality of leftishness, and not the relational property of being to the left of some subject in the subject's environment. But this means that our episodes of visualising may involve the same phenomenal aspect of leftishness as our episodes of seeing. Indeed, this is partly due to the relative simplicity of our visual presentation of the egocentric orientations of objects. It is devoid of any explicit reference to the subject of experience and, therefore, allows us to visualise something as being to the left without thereby visualising it as being to the left of any particular subject. On the other hand, when visualising buildings as being to the left of subjective points of views, we need not - and typically do not - imagine them as being to our actual left. At least in the simplest cases, our episodes of visualising do not locate their objects in our actual environment, but instead in some imagined space.21 Of course, we can project our image onto our actual environment by taking what we imagine to be part of actual space. But even then, there is no real competition between what we see and what we visualise. For example, when looking at a certain picture on our kitchen wall, we may visualise with open eyes how things would look if there were a different picture at the same spot on the wall. But such a complex and mixed presentation does 20Of course, Martin cannot assume in his argument that an experience's instantiation of the aspect of leftishness is also sufficient for the existence of something to our actual left. This would follow only if the experience is a perception, and if perceptions are always factive - something that intentionalists deny. 21See Sartre (2004): 8ff., and Wittgenstein (1984c): 622 and 628. There is also the issue of whether visualising always locates objects relative to us, rather than to some imagined subject. The default case seems to be that we visualise objects as orientated towards ourselves, and that imaginative projects involving subjects different from us require the additional identification of our imagined point of view with that of those other subjects (cf. Wollheim (1984), and Martin (2002b): 411). 236 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing not amount to a presentation of the impossible state of affairs of two pictures occupying the same part of space. So, episodes of visualising may involve the aspect of leftishness without presenting something as being to our actual left. But due to the subjectivity of the aspect of leftishness noted above, its instantiation is inseparably linked to the presentation of something as possessing the relational property of being to our actual left. Hence, the instances of visualising concerned cannot exemplify the aspect of leftishness. This raises the question of how it is involved in visualising instead. Martin's proposal is that, in visualising, we imagine an experience as instantiating the aspect of leftishness - that is, we imagine a perspectival experience of something as being to the left in the imagined situation. When we visualise a building as being to the left, our imaginative episode does not instantiate the aspect of leftishness. But it still involves the latter by representing another experience as instantiating it. The proposal captures the specific subjectivity of the aspect of leftishness. For it takes the instantiation of that aspect in a certain world to be sufficient for the occurrence of an experience of something as being located to the experiencing subject's left in that very same world. Actual perspectival experiences concern actual space, while imagined perspectival experiences concern imagined space. Moreover, what needs to be imagined is a perceptual experience. As noted above, other perspectival experiences are not concerned with the current state of the world in which they themselves occur. Instead, they are concerned with the past of that world (as in the case of visual recall), or with an entirely different possible world (as in the case of visualising). Hence, neither episodic memories, nor imaginative episodes can instantiate the subjective aspect of leftishness. If we want to imagine an experience with that aspect, we therefore have to imagine a perspectival perception. This conclusion can also be inferred more directly from Martin's additional claim mentioned above, namely that the presence of leftishness suffices for the presence of perception. Indeed, the reasoning put forward in support of that claim has been very similar to the one rehearsed in the second half of this paragraph. But, strictly speaking, the additional claim does not seem to be necessary for Martin's argument. Martin further illustrates this argument by comparing the subjective perspectivalness of perceptions to the subjective aspects involved in some bodily sensations. His example are experiences of itchiness; but experiences of pain are equally good candidates. Experiences of pain instantiate the phenomenal aspect of painfulness: they are feelings of pain. Moreover, having a feeling of pain is sufficient for there actually being a pain and, hence, for experiencing an actual pain. If we feel pain in a certain part of our leg, then that part of our lef does indeed hurt independently of whether its skin tissue is damaged, 237 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 say.22 By contrast, merely imagining our leg as hurting does not involve the presentation of an actual pain in our leg. But this raises, again, the question of how imagining a pain can still involve the aspect of painfulness - which it clearly does, albeit possibly to a lesser degree of intensity and determinacy than real feelings of pain. As above, the solution is to understand imagining a pain as imagining a sensation of pain - that is, as imagining an experience which instantiates the phenomenal aspect of painfulness. This concludes what are, in essence, Martin's considerations in favour of thesis (ii). However, the analogy with pain suggests in fact a second route to the conclusion that visualising the orientation of objects in egocentric space requires imagining perceiving that orientation. Feeling a pain is not only sufficient for the existence of pain, it is also necessary for the latter. Our leg does not really hurt if we do not feel pain. Of course, other things may distract us so that we do not always notice the pain. But if we do not feel any pain in our leg, despite being sufficiently attentive to the latter, it does not seem true to say that our leg in fact hurt. In particular, by-standers cannot insist that we are in pain by pointing to some bodily damage to our leg. Such evidence cannot trump our failure to feel pain. Accordingly, the instantiation of pain requires an experience of that pain - and, presumably, as part of the same world. Hence, imagining a pain has to involve imagining feeling that pain. Now, egocentric orientational properties seem to be similarly subjective - opening up the possibility of formulating a similar argument in favour of the Dependency Thesis. Martin does not discuss this second route to the conclusion; and it is not clear whether he would accept the subjectivity of egocentric orientations, or the argument exploiting it. But even if not, it is still worthwhile to discuss both. When we see a building as being to our left, it does not possess this orientation independently of being perceived by us as having it. Certainly, the objective location of the building comes with the disposition of giving rise to a perception of leftishness when viewed from a position to its North-West by a normal human being with a normal orientation in objective space (e.g., standing on his feet, etc.) who faces South. But its perceived property of being to our left cannot simply be reduced to this objective disposition. Instead, the instantiation of this egocentric orientation seems to depend on our actual perceptual awareness of it. For one thing, which dispositional property is correlated to the property of being to the left of us varies with changes in our location in objective space. Once we being to move or turn around, the building may very well cease to be 22The possibility of experiencing a phantom limbs as hurting is no exception. The only difference is that, in this case, the existence of the hurting body part is subjective as well. But, in any case, nothing here depends on whether the presented view on pains and pain experiences is correct. The analogy is merely meant to further illustrate Martin's treatment of the involvement of subjective elements in imaginative experience. 238 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing to our left - though it may also begin to be to the left of another person who steps in and takes our previous spot. The disposition may therefore constitute the property of being to the left of whoever occupies the objectively specified location to its North-West with the respective objectively specified orientation. But it does not amount to the property of being to the left of us (understood in first-personal terms). This is reflected in the more general fact that egocentric space cannot be fully specified in objective terms - which is why the two are to be distinguished in the first place. In particular, what we describe with the expression 'to our left' is not a cardinal direction in objective space.23 Without this lack of strict correlation between egocentric and objective spatial features, it would also seem impossible to exlain why we cannot suffer an illusion with respect to perceiving something as being to our actual left. Of course, when facing South, we may perceive a building as being to our actual left while, in fact, it is located to the South-West of our current location in objective space. But, as the previous considerations have indicated, the objective orientational properties of the building are neither sufficient, nor necessary for its instantiation of any subjective orientational property. What happens in cases like this is just that we fail to track the former by perceiving the latter - an error which is due to some breakdown in our relation to our environment.24 But the subjectivity of egocentric orientations has consequences for our attempts to visualise objects as having them. Objects can possess these subjective features only when they are perceived as having them. Furthermore, this is true as much of imagined or other possible situations, as it is true of actual ones - assuming that they all contain the same ontological kind of objects and properties. Finally, the dependence in question does not range over different possible worlds, but is confined to a single one: the perceived object and the perception are always part of the same world. Hence, visualising an object as having such an experience-dependent property requires imagining a suitable perception of that object. Visualising a building as being to the left, for instance, has to involve imagining a perception of a building as being to the left. 23See Campbell (1995), and also the famous example of two incongruent hands with different orientations in Kant (1992). 24The property of being to our left shares both discussed aspects with the property of being here if ascribed to ourselves. The latter, too, cannot be specified in purely objective terms. And we cannot go wrong in being aware of ourselves as being here. One difference between our awareness of us as being here and our awareness of other objects as being to our left is, however, that the latter may concern hallucinated objects. But, as already suggested in note 22, this does not necessarily undermine the claim that the kind of property concerned is subjective. 239 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 IV. It should now be easier to understand why some of the objections raised against Martin's considerations in support of thesis (ii) have in fact been missing their target. In many cases, this is due to the fact that the critics have overlooked or underappreciated the importance of subjectivity in Martin's line of thought. A good example for this is Tyler Burge's discussion of Martin's argument for (ii). Burge seems to have no problem to accept that visualising an object as being to the left requires the presence of a respective point of view in the imagined situation. But he rejects the claim that there also has to be a perception which occupies this location. '[Martin] begins by rightly noting that visualizing an object involves taking an imagined visual perspective on the object - for example, visualizing it from a perspective according to which the object is to the left. [...] Martin assumes that since the perspective is from some position in the imagined scene, it must be the perspective of an imagined experience in the imagined scene, or of an experience imagined to be in the imagined scene. This seems tantamount to begging the question in an argument for the Dependency Thesis.' (Burge (2005): 63f.) But it is not clear whether Burge's charge really is one of begging the question. For he still seems to briefly discuss - and dismiss - Martin's argument involving the subjective perspectivalness of our presentation of orientational features. Here is how the first part of the passage just quoted continues: 'It is quite true that one could have such a perspective on the object only if one were to have an experience of the object. It does not follow that if one imagines something from a perspective that one could have only if such and such were the case (only if one were experiencing the object from that perspective), then in imagining something from that perspective one must imagine such and such to be the case.' (Burge (2005): 63) One problem with this passage is to understand the difference between 'having a perspective on an object' and 'imagining something from that perspective'. That Burge takes the two to be different becomes evident in his claim that only the first requires having a perceptual experience of the object. So what does 'having such a perspective on an object' mean? If what is meant is simply visually presenting an object as being to the left, without further specifying whether this presentation is perceptual or imaginative, then the intended 240 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing contrast collapses. For visualising an object to the left involves such a presentation, too. Furthermore, since Burge wants to deny that visualising requires imagining a perception, his claim that 'having such a perspective' requires having a perceptual experience turns out to be false. So this cannot be the right interpretation of his words. If, on the other hand, what is meant by 'having such a perspective' is visually perceiving an object as being to the left, then we get the desired contrast, given that visualising something does not involve perceiving it. But then, the noted dependence claim becomes trivial and has nothing to do with subjectivity. Perceiving an object as being to the left obviously requires having a perception of it. And it does so independently of the subjective status of the perspectivalness or the perceived properties involved. So, if this reading is correct, Burge does not really engage with Martin's focus on the subjective element in our perceptions of egocentric orientations. Something similar seems to happen in Paul Noordhof's direct reply to Martin's paper.25 For example, he acknowledges that the Dependency Thesis is plausible - if not true - in the case of subjective properties. But he does not recognise that this is how the egocentric properties figuring in Martin's examples should probably be understood. Moreover, he does not properly address the fact that what really matters in Martin's main argument is not the ontological status of the perceived properties, but instead that of our perspective onto them. This has, for instance, the result that he underestimates the resources of proponents of the universal truth of the Dependency Thesis (among whom he seems to count Martin) for explaining the apparent fact that we find this thesis more plausible in some cases than in others: 'As I have already noted, the Dependency Thesis varies in plausibility depending upon the sensory modality we consider. It is more plausible when we consider what is involved in imagining the feel of somebody's skin or the taste of bacon. Our capacity to imagine these things seems to rest upon our capacity to imagine our experiences of these things. The proponent of the Dependency Thesis needs to explain why it is more plausible in these cases given that the Dependency Thesis holds across the board. My guess is that the proponent of the Dependency Thesis might try to argue that the variation in plausibility depends upon contingent psychological facts about what we find easier to consider independent of experience. The issue is whether we should search for an explanation there rather than in the objects and properties imagined. If the feel 25Currie and Ravenscroft also do not address the issue of subjectivity when they briefly sketch Martin's motivation for endorsing thesis (ii) (cf. Currie and Ravenscroft (2003): 28). 241 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 of someone's skin or the taste of bacon imply the existence of corresponding perceptual experiences in contrast with other objects of imagination, then the Dependency Thesis cannot be true for all sensory imaginings.' (Noordhof (2002): 446) Here, Noordhof insists that the perceived difference in plausibility should be explained in terms of a difference in the objects and properties imagined. His suggestion is that we find it plausible with respect to certain things, but not others, to conceive of imagining them as an instance of experiential imagination because we understand that they, but not the other things, involve some experience-dependent element. So Noordhof, too, proposes a limitation of the Dependency Thesis to cases pertaining to subjectivity. But he fails to acknowledge that this is exactly Martin's non-universalist take on the issue. Besides, Martin can explain the difference between instances of imagining which require experiential imagination and instances which do not without having to refer to contingent facts about what we find easy to conceive of as being experience-independent. For he can simply refer to the involvement of subjective aspects of character - such as the perspectivalness involved in the perception of egocentric orientation. A very similar oversight becomes apparent in Noordhof's discussion of the factors which determine what is imagined when we are visualising something. Although he does not draw this connection, it will be helpful to briefly consider the elements involved in fixing what is part of the situation depicted by a painting. The marks on the surface (plus perhaps our general recognitional abilities) determine whether the painting depicts a blonde man or a brunette woman. But assuming that it is a blonde man, extra-pictorial factors - such as the stipulation of a title or the exploitation of iconographic conventions - decide whether it is a portrait of, say, Saint John or Hercules. The pictorial element puts certain constraints on the extra-pictorial take on the nature of the depicted entities, which cannot be overridden by the latter. An artist may turn his painting of a man into a portrait of Jean of Arc by labelling it as such. But it will then be a painting of Jean of Arc in the disguise of a man. Noordhof's observation is that very similar factors are responsible for determining the nature of the objects of visualising. On the one hand, there is the basic visual presentation and, on the other hand, the accompanying intentions or suppositions which put a certain conceptual gloss on that visual presentation. To take an example from Peacocke (1985), when we are visualising a suitcase, we may think of it as a suitcase with a cat hidden behind it, or as a suitcase which is merely hallucinated by some brain in a vat. The visual presentation is limited to the presentation of the suitcase, while the wider imaginative project concerns also other aspects of the imagined situation. And again, how we conceive of the visualisied entities as part of such a 242 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing project is constrained by how these entities are visually given to us. We may use the visual presentation of the suitcase in order to imagine a car, but only by imagining a car with the visual appearance of a suitcase.26 According to Noordhof, this constraint on what is imagined as part of the wider imaginative project is problematic for a proponent of the Dependency Thesis. His starting point is the idea that it is possible to pursue the project of imagining a certain object, and nothing else. The subject engaged in this project conceives of it in terms of the object, but not in terms of any experience of that object. Hence, if the project is also taken to involve imagining an experience of the object, this cannot be due to any of the accompanying intentions or suppositions of the subject. So a proponent of the Dependency Thesis has to assume that the imagining of the experience is part of the visual presentation of the object. But this seems to violate the constraint of the visual presentation on the extra-visual interpretation of it. For we cannot pursue the project of imagining nothing but an object by means of an episode of visualising which involves imagining more than that object. The only way out appears to be to consider the extra-visual gloss on the visual presentation to be irrelevant or, even worse, misleading: 'When we consider what characterises an imaginative project, it is clear that there are cases where the project is to imagine merely an F. Proponents of the Dependency Thesis don't have to resist this but, if they don't, they must insist that certain facts about the mental image override a subject's own characterisation of his or her imaginative project so that, in fact, what is imagined is a perceptual experience of an F. This is quite a strong claim to have to establish.' (Noordhof (2002): 430) The questionable assumption in Noordhof's line of reasoning, however, is that imagining an object as having a certain feature is always distinct from, and more basic than, imagining perceiving such an object. For this is not true if that feature is the egocentric orientation of an object. Visualising such an orientation requires the involvement, but not the instantiation, of a perceptiondependent phenomenal aspect (e.g., that of leftishness); and what is thereby visualised is, presumably, a subjective state of affairs. Imagining the instantiation of an egocentric orientation therefore involves imagining a perception of that instantiation. As a consequence, it is a misconception to think that it is possible to imagine 'merely' such a feature, if this is meant to exclude imagining an experience of it. Notably, when we describe an episode of ours simply as one of imagining an object as being to the left, our characterisation 26See also the discussion of Wittgenstein's example of King's College on fire in Peacocke (1985). 243 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 is at best incomplete. It may refer to the episode of imagining a perception of an object as being to the left. Or it may denote the episode of imagining an object as being to the left of a specific perceiver - which has to include explicitly imagining that perceiving subject in addition to the object. But contrary to what Noordhof suggests, there is no simpler episode of imagining to be picked out by that description. Much the same response should be given to Burge's insistence that it is natural and not incoherent to say that we can visualise something without imagining experiencing it:27 'It seems to me that in a certain clear and natural sense, one can visualize an object and not imagine visually experiencing the object. One imagines the object from the perspective of a visual experience, but no experiencing of the object (either by oneself or by anyone else) is imagined to be included in the imagined scene. [...] Prima facie, there seems to be nothing contradictory in this claim, as there would be if (DT') [i.e., (ii)] were (constitutively) true.' (Burge (2005): 63) Again, the problems start once we focus on visualising orientational features that locate objects in egocentric space. Their imagination requires the imagination of a perceptual perspective onto them. That it is still natural for us to say that what we are imagining is just the object and its orientation may suggest that we either make use of an elliptical characterisation, or have no full grasp of the nature of our episode of imagining and, in particular, of the subjectivity involved in the perspectival presentation of egocentric orientations. Indeed, it is to be expected that not all of our conceptions of subjective properties characterise them as subjective. For example, we can discover that the phenomenal aspect of leftishness and the property of being to our actual left are in fact experience-dependent. So we should be able to conceive of those properties without conceiving of them as subjective. But this means that we can engage in imagining without fully grasping what we are thereby engaging in. In particular, we may imagine an instance of a specific egocentric orientation without realising that we are thereby imagining a perception of it. This helps to resolve another of Noordhof's worries. Granting his opponent, for the sake of argument, that imagining perceiving something constitutes sometimes the most basic episode of imagining available to us, he still insists that it has to involve an - explicit or implicit - thought which conceives of what one is imagining in terms of an experience. But that visualising is therefore supposed to require the possession of the concept of an experience casts 27See also the similar point against the Dependency Thesis made by Currie and Ravenscroft (2003): 27f.. 244 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing doubt on whether, say, children under the age of four can visualise something, given that they may lack the notion of an experience. 'If the Dependency Thesis rests on the claim that imaginers, at least tacitly, suppose that they are imagining a perceptual experience, then it links the capacity to imagine with possession of the concept of perceptual experience. In which case, the attribution of imaginings to the autistic, young children, and animals, becomes as doubtful as their possession of the concept of perceptual experience.' (Noordhof (2002): 436) While acknowledging that the evidence seems undecided on this last issue, Noordhof is right in pointing out that this connection to the empirical question of when children acquire the concept of experience threatens to undermine the Dependency Thesis. For not only does it seem empirically far less controversial whether young children can visualise something than whether they can conceive of perceptions. But the issue of when children become able to conceive of experiences should not be expected to have such a strong bearing on the issue addressed by the Dependency Thesis - namely the constitution (if not the concept) of imaginative experience. These problems related to an over-intellectualisation of visualising arise, however, only if the Dependency Thesis indeed implies that imagining perceiving something requires the possession or application of the concept of perception. Noordhof assumes that it does. But the proponent of the Dependency Thesis need not - and should not - follow him in this. As already noted, we need not fully grasp the nature of our imagining when being engaged in it. And this includes the fact that it may involve imagining an experience. But, more importantly, this partial ignorance is possible because we imagine an experience, not by thinking of it as part of the imagined situation, but by experientially imagining the instantiation of its character. That is, imagining an experience is a form of object awareness, and not of thinking. What the Dependence Thesis - in the form of thesis (ii) - claims is that the visual presentation involved in relevant cases of visualising consists in the experiential presentation of the character of a visual perception. And this kind of object awareness does not involve the employment of the concept of a visual perception. At best, it relies on some discriminatory or recognitional capacities with respect to experiences, as well as perhaps some basic demonstrative ways of referring to the respective experiences as 'this' or 'that'. It is of course still possible for us to add some additional thoughts to our episode of experiential imagination. For instance, we can take the imagined experience to be a hallucination, or one of the perceptions that Napoleon had when looking at the battle of Jena. But the basic form of imagining a perception does not involve such conceptualisations, but instead constrains them. 245 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 The final intentionalist criticism that I would like to address is the charge that understanding visualising in terms of imagining perceiving raises more questions than that it answers. It is worthwhile to note that, if this charge is adequate, it poses a general difficulty for all views, assuming that the argument concerning the visualisation of egocentric orientations goes through. But it is true that more needs to be said about the nature of experiential imagination and, in particular, how it can accommodate certain important features of visualising - notably its involvement of a visual, perspectival and non-neutral presentation of external things. Part of this explanatory challenge can be restated by the distiction between the exemplification and the representation of a subjective aspect of character. Episodes of seeing exemplify a perceptual character, while episodes of visualising - if they amount to experiential imagination - involve the imaginative representation of such a character. What then needs explaining is how the proposed kind of representation can ensure that the character of representing (i.e., that of visualising) is very similar to the represented character (i.e., that of seeing) in the mentioned respects (i.e., visual presentation, perspectivalness and non-neutrality), without being identical to it. 'In addition to the problems just mentioned, there is obscurity in the explanation provided by the Dependency Thesis. It rests upon the idea that the experience is represented in imagination. But it is unclear how to cash this out. [...] It is hard not to think that all the explanatory work is being done by the nature of imagination and the kind of representation which serves it.' (Noordhof (2002): 447) Noordhof is absolutely right about the last point. But the proposed kind of representation is perhaps less mysterious than it might seem to him and others. Consider the reproduction of a painting - for instance, a postcard hanging at your wall. This image does not itself amount to a painting and differs substantially from one (e.g., it does not involve paint and has no perceivable texture). But it none the less inherits important aspects of the reproduced painting. Most of all, it depicts the same objects and features, and from the same perspective, as the painting. Indeed, if the reproduction is done well, its perspectivalness derives from that of the reproduced painting, and not from the perspectivalness of the photographic process involved in the reproduction. That is, the impact of the point of view occupied by the lens directed at the painting is typically negligible in comparison to the impact of the point of view inherent to the photographed depiction.28 Much more can surely be said 28The process of photo-copying, which does not involve any such perspective onto the reproduced piece of paper, is perhaps an even better illustration of the kind of representation 246 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing about how the reproduction does end up presenting the same situation from the same perspective as the painting. But the absence of such further elucidations does not render the kind of representation involved in photographic reproduction mysterious or completely unilluminating. We accept that this kind of representation exists. And the description given above gives us some grasp of what it amounts to. In fact, we know at least that the reproduction represents the painting partly by representing the visual perspective of the painting; and that it represents the latter's perspective by presenting the same objects and features as they are presented to the point of view of the painting. Imagining a perception involves the same kind of representation. It represents a perception partly by representing the latter's perspective. And it does this by presenting the same external objects and features as they are presented to the point of view of such a perception. In imagining a perception, we thus imagine a possible perceptual perspective onto the world.29 And, as in the case of the reproduction of a painting, the resulting episode of visualising ends up with a character very similar in its visual, perspectival and non-neutral character to that of an episode of seeing. Besides, we also know that this imaginative representation of a perceptual perspective constitutes an experiential form of object awareness, which may be spelled out in intentional terms - an idea which, incidentally, disjunctivists agree with. Although it leaves many issues open, this characterisation of what experiential imagining amounts to, and how it can inherit some of the features of the imagined experiences, should be illuminating enough to rebut the charge of obscurity. The proposed kind of representation is involved in other phenomena as well. And we have some understanding of how it can explain the presence of the important features of reproductions and episodes of visualising noted. To illustrate that explanatory power, it is worthwhile to have a brief look at how this account of experiential imagination can answer a challenge raised by Currie and Ravenscroft.30 They ask for an account of why it is possible that we may mistake an instance of seeing for an instance of visualising (e.g., as in Perky's experiments), and that we may recall something as seen that we pertaining to experiential imagination (as proposed by Martin in a personal discussion about how best to understand Hume's Copy Principle). 29This idea is not new: Hume's Copy Principle may be read as claiming pretty much the same if applied to the case of imagining. 30See Currie and Ravenscroft (2003): 28. Reference to the kind of representation at issue promises also to illuminate why episodes of visualising often possess a lesser degree of repleteness, determinacy or intensity than episodes of seeing. Just as the reproduction of a painting may lead to the loss of some of these qualities, imagining perceiving something may have this effect. Martin's employment - in Martin (2001) - of the Dependency Thesis in his account of the phenomenological differences between seeing, visually remembering and visualising provides another example of the explanatory force of treating at least some instances of visualising as an instance of experiential imagination. 247 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 have merely visualised in the past (e.g., as in the case of fabricated memories). Their suspicion is that the defenders of the Dependency Thesis do not have the resources to identify the underlying similarities, assuming that they have to accept a difference between what we see and what we visualise as part of the respective experiences. 'How could we explain, on this hypothesis, why people are prone to misrecall visualizing as seeing, and in some circumstances will mistake perception for visualization? According to the hypothesis, visualizing an F has the representational content, not F, but seeing an F. Thus the seeing and visualizing have quite different contents. Why would states with such different contents seem to us to be so similar? Content is just one dimension of similarity; perhaps states could differ in content and be similar in other ways. But the hypothesis offers us no account of what these other similarities might be and how they could, in the face of content-dissimilarity, sustain the overall phenomenological similarity that seeing and visualizing enjoy.' (Currie and Ravenscroft (2003): 28) One part of the answer to this challenge is to stress that, for a proponent of the Dependency Thesis, there is - contrary to what Currie and Ravenscroft suggest - a substantial overlap in content between seeing and visualising. For imagining a perception of an external object involves the visual presentation of that object as part of the imagined situation - just as the reproduction depicts whatever is depicted by the reproduced painting. In other words, experiential imagination has two objects: the imagined experience and the external thing presented by the latter. We have already seen how disjunctivism can accommodate this fact by taking the imagination of a perception to consist in the imagination of the instantiation of a relational character with two relata. I will address the issue of how experiential intentionalism can allow for more than one object of experiential imagination at the end of the next and final section of this paper. The other part of the reply to Currie's and Ravenscroft's challenge is that, as already illustrated by reference to the analogy with the reproduction of paintings, the presentation of external things involved in imaginatively adopting the subjective perspective of a perception shares many important aspects with the presentation of those things involved in perceiving them from such a perspective. Accordingly, seeing and imagining seeing resemble each other, not only in what they make us aware of, but also in how they present it to us. 248 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing V. There are good reasons to accept the first two members of the inconsistent triad introduced at the beginning. So why should - and typically do - intentionalists accept the third? What forces them to assume that imagining a visual perception of an external thing is neutral about the latter's presence in the imagined situation? To answer this question, it will actually be helpful to have a look at why disjunctivists reject this thesis. What we are concerned with are cases in which we visualise an external object by imagining a perception of it. And we imagine a perception by experientially imagining the instantiation of the character of a perception. According to disjunctivism, the character of a perception - and therefore the perception itself - is partly constituted by the perceived object. So what we are doing when we are imagining a perception is that we are imagining a relational character. And this involves imagining the two relata: a subjective perspective and the external things and features presented to that perspective.31 In other words, by experientially imagining a perception, we imagine all its experiential constituents - which include the perceived object, since the latter constitutes part of the character of the perception. So, in some sense, such instances of experiential imagination take two objects: the perception and the perceived object. But since the former is relational in character by containing the latter, we in fact imagine a single, but complex object, namely the perception. This account can easily explain the transparency and non-neutrality of visualising. Visualising consists, partly, in the representation of external things and their features, given that it consists in the representation of a character constituted by those entities. And in line with the intentionalist nature of that representation, the character of visualising is partly determined by what it represents. Hence, when we reflect on the character of an episode of visualising, we are bound to find the represented objects and features as part of what is visualised. Moreover, we do not find any other candidate objects of awareness. There are no internal pictures or similar entities involved in visualising. And the subjective perspective, which constitutes the imagined perception as its second relatum, is not given as an object of awareness, but rather as part of the subject of awareness. This means, of course, that introspection reveals not only what we are aware of, but also the way in which we are aware of it. So a strong representationalist interpretation of transparency and the character of visual experience (cf. Dretske (1995), Tye (1995) and Speaks (2009)) is not compatible with the resulting picture. But strong representationalism is 31It is interesting to ask to which extent imagining a subjective perspective involves imagining a subject. It seems that we need not be in any way specific about the identity of such a subject when visualising - although we may also be very specific in the form of additional suppositions (cf. Martin (2002b): 411). 249 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 undermined, in any case, by the fact that seeing and visualising can have the same external things and features as objects, so that their difference in character has to be due to some other element, namely the kind of object awareness involved. The intentionalist treatment of imagining perceiving differs from the one just presented because intentionalism does not assume that the perceived object constitutes the character of the perception. But, as Martin has noted, this fact gives rise to a problem (cf. Martin (2002b): section 4). Both parties in the debate agree that, when we are imagining an object, we are non-neutral about the presence in the imagined situation of what we are imagining. Hence, in imagining a perception, we are commited to the presence of a perception - or, more specifically, the instantiation of a perceptual character - in the imagined world. However, according to intentionalism, the presence of a perception does not entail the presence of a perceived object. For a perception is, from an experiential point of view, an experience of exactly the same kind as a hallucination: they both possess the same intentional character. But this means that there is no difference between imagining a perception and imagining a hallucination. In both cases, we imagine the same perceptual character. And since the instantiation of this character does not involve any external things, we imagine it without imagining such things. However, if we do not imagine an external thing as part of imagining a perception, there is no reason to assume that the latter is non-neutral about the presence of an external thing in the imagined situation. After all, this kind of non-neutrality comes with imagining something and seems to extend just to what is imagined. This argument of Martin's may be summarised as follows (cf. especially Martin (2002b): 415f.): (iii.1) Imagining an object is non-neutral about the presence of that object - including its constitutive parts - in the imagined situation; and about no other object's presence. (iii.2) The object of awareness in the case of imagining a perception of an external thing is the perception. (iii.3) Perceptions do not involve any external things as constituents. (iii) Hence, imagining a perception of an external thing is neutral about the latter's presence in the imagined situation. The disjunctivist can block this argument by rejecting (iii.3), but it is far less obvious how the intentionalist could avoid having to accept its conclusion. The premisses (iii.1) and (iii.3) seem to be simply part of the intentionalist 250 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing outlook on things. That perceiving is intentional just means that it does not involve the perceived object as its element. And, more generally, intentional presentations are committal in so far as they involve a respective attitude towards the presented. Accordingly, the non-neutrality of imagining should extend just to what is imagined. Premiss (iii.2), on the other hand, simply states a definitional truth about part of what the imaginative object awareness of a perception amounts to. However, if the intentionalists have to accept (iii), they have to reject (i) or (ii). And, as the previous sections were meant to show, neither is a feasible option. So what has to go, it seems, is intentionalism itself - and at least (iii.3) with it. It does not help to highlight the fact that, according to intentionalism, imagining a perception involves imagining a commitment towards the presence of an external thing in the imagined world. As described in the first section, intentionalists claim that perceptions involve an intentional attitude towards their objects which takes the latter to be present in the situation before the perceiving subject. In the case of an imagined perception, this non-neutrality concerns of course the presence of the object in the imagined world, which also contains that perception and the related imagined subjective perspective. Imagining a perception therefore involves imagining taking an external thing to be part of the respective situation. But imagining such a commitment is compatible with actually staying neutral on the issue. Hence, this aspect of experiential imagination does not suffice to establish the non-neutrality of actual instances of visualising (cf. Martin (2002b): 415). Now, that intentionalists indeed endorse the problematic claim (iii), and roughly for the reasons sketched, may be illustrated by reference to Burge's discussion of Martin's paper. Once it is assumed that it is sometimes possible (if not even necessary) to visualise an object by imagining perceiving it - an assumption which he is happy to grant - Burge seems to have no problem with any of the three premisses needed to derive thesis (iii).32 In particular, he is clear about the fact that the intentionalist view takes perceptions not to involve their objects (cf. (iii.3)). And he also assumes that imagining a perception does not itself involve imagining an external thing to be present in the imagined situation (cf. (iii.1) and its discussion in the second section). Instead, this presence is merely supposed as part of a thought accompanying or even preceding the imagining of the perceptual experience. Burge's complaint is, in fact, that Martin is wrong in demanding that the commitment about the presence of the visualised object in the imagined situation should be part of the experiential imagination. 'The 'intentional theory' is not required to explain how by merely 32He does not explicitly comment on how to characterise experiential imagination. But there is no reason to suspect that he would reject premiss (iii.2). 251 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 imagining an experience with a certain representational content one thereby supposes that the content is veridical. I deny that this supposed explanandum is even true. In the imagined experience which, according to the Dependency Thesis, is involved in visualizing, one does not take the representational content of the imagined experience itself to involve or entail the presence of the visualized object. Rather one has begun with the supposition of veridicality. One simply takes the content of the imagined experience to be veridical. The content itself might not have been veridical. That is the position of the 'intentionalist theory'. Certainly, it is my position.' (Burge (2005): 65) As discussed in the second section, what Burge is rejecting here is thesis (i). But he is happy, as an intentionalist, to embrace thesis (iii) - and thereby opens up his position to Martin's criticism. For the non-neutrality involved in visualising cannot simply be moved from the episode of visualising to the additional supposition. The transparency and non-neutrality of visualising are aspects of the kind of object awareness involved in visualising (cf. claim (i)). And this kind of object awareness is, according to the Dependency Thesis, identical with an instance of experientially imagining a perception (cf. (ii)). Hence, it is already part of the experiential imagination that an external thing is given as part of the imagined situation. And, together with thesis (iii), this leads to an inconsistent position. However, as I would like to suggest in the remainder of this paper, intentionalism need not endorse thesis (iii) and thus may answer the challenge put forward in Martin's paper. The key thought is that intentionalists need not endorse premiss (iii.1) in its current form. They should agree that imagining something is non-neutral towards what is imagined. But they should also point out that there are other ways in which imagining - or at least imagining a perception - can be commital. A closer look at the intentionalist understanding of the commitment involved in visual experience will show how this is possible. According to intentionalism, the commitment to the presence of some visually perceived or imagined object in the respective situation is compatible with there being no such object. For instance, when we hallucinate a green tree, we are non-neutral about the existence of a green tree in our actual environment, despite there being no such tree there before us. The commital aspect of perceptual experiences is therefore independent of the presence or absence of a perceived object.33 33Again, this is false for disjunctivism, according to which perception-like hallucinations are non-commital because of their lack of any presentational elements. This means, among 252 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing The same is true of the non-neutrality involved in visualising. It is plausible to maintain that, as the default case (i.e., in the absence of intentions or suppositions to the opposite effect), visualising an object suffices for the presence of that object in the imagined world. After all, specific imagined situations are populated by those possible (and perhaps impossible) entities which we imagine to be part of them. But this is a fact about the nature of imagined worlds, and not about the nature of imaginative commitment. The principle at work here is something like that imagined worlds are such that they contain whichever entities our imaginings are non-neutral about. This principles assumes that imaginings are commital. But it does not exploit any aspect of the nature of that commitment. That is, its truth does not depend on what it means for imaginative experiences or thoughts to be non-neutral. Hence, nothing speaks against this non-neutrality being independent of the presence or absence of an imagined object. This object-independence, however, leaves room for the possibility of an imaginative commitment which is not due to the constitution of the imagined perception by its object. But what else could be the source for such a commitment? The answer can - perhaps a bit surprisingly - in fact be found in the disjunctivist rejection of premiss (iii.3). One factor that is central in this rebuttal is that disjunctivism distinguishes sharply between imagining a perception and imagining a perception-like hallucination. They are two different imaginative projects. Imagining a perception consists in imagining the instantiation of a perceptual character. The problem with imagining a hallucination is that, according to disjunctivism, we do not know anything positive about the character of such an experience. We know merely that its character is subjectively indistinguishable from that of a perception. Hence, the only way for us to imagine a hallucination is to imagine the instantiation of a perceptual character and then simply to stipulate that the resulting imagined experience is a hallucination which only seems to exemplify a perceptual character, but in fact exemplifies a character which is indistinguishable from a perceptual one. One thing that is very important to note about this is that the two imaginative projects do not differ in which character is imagined as being instantiated. They differ only in that one is the most basic - or default - case of imagining a perceptual experience, while the other requires some additional suppositions. The other thing not to be missed is that this already suffices to ensure that imagining a perception is non-neutral about the presence of an external thing other things, that the intentionalist proposal of an object-independent non-neutrality of perceptions cannot be used to argue against the disjunctivist view that the non-neutrality of perceptions is due to their being constituted by their objects (and, indeed, vice versa). What we have here are two rival accounts of perceptual commitment, which are so far diactically on a par. The last section of the paper is meant to change the balance concerning this issue in favour of intentionalism. 253 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 in the imagined situation - reference to the constitution of perceptions is not needed. That imagining a perception is the default case when we are trying to imagine a perceptual experience means, among other things, that imagining a hallucination requires explicitly denouncing the perceptual status of the imagined experience. But this is possible only if imagining a perception is non-neutral about its being a perception (whatever that means for its constitution). Hence, visualising an external thing - that is, imagining a perception of such a thing - comes, by default, with a commitment to the presence of a visual perception (rather than a hallucination) in the imagined situation. But perceptions differ from hallucinations in being factive (again, independently of the constitution of either). Accordingly, the presence of a perception implies the presence of a perceived object. So the commitment involved in visualising extends to the presence of an external thing in the imagined world. And its double source is the factivity of perceptions and the default status of imagining a perception. What is crucial now is that an intentionalist can adopt more or less the same account of the two different projects. The only difference is that the character to be imagined in both imaginative projects counts as perceptual for a different reason. Disjunctivism maintains that this character is perceptual because only perceptions, but not hallucinations, possess it. By contrast, intentionalists accept that this character is shared by perceptions and perception-like hallucinations. None the less, intentionalists can still count it as perceptual, and not as hallucinatory, because it is characteristic of perceptions, and not of hallucinations. This has the consequence that imagining the instantiation of this character amounts, by default, to imagining a perception (rather than a hallucination). Nothing more is needed, especially no intention or thought concerning the perceptual status of the imagined experience. Imagining a hallucination, on the other hand, involves not only the experiential imagination of that character, but also a supposition to the effect that the imagined experience is hallucinatory, despite first appearances. The rest of the intentionalist story is the same as the disjunctivist one. That imagining a perception is the default case means, partly, that imagining the character in question comes with a commitment to the presence of a perception in the imagined situation. And this non-neutrality extends again to the visualised external things and features because of the factivity of perception. It still has been left open, of course, why - and in which sense - the character shared by perceptions and some hallucinations is characteristic of the former, but not of the latter. One aspect of this is that being a perception implies having this character, while being a hallucination does not. For not all hallucinations are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions and therefore do not share the same character (cf. chapter 2). But the more important 254 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing (and related) element is that the character in question involves a self-reflexive form of intentionality which is concerned with the presentation of the respective experiences as perceptions (and not as hallucinations). As already noted in the first section, perceptions and first-personally indistinguishable hallucinations differ in their third-personally accessible structure which may or may not relate them to the world. The thought is now that it is part of their common intentionality that perceptions and hallucinations present not only the world, but also themselves as being a certain way. More specifically, both kinds of perceptual experience present themselves as relating us to external things in the manner distinctive of perceptions. This presentational aspect forms part of their shared character. But only perceptions do actually relate us in the relevant way to external things and therefore present themselves adequately. By contrast, hallucinations are not relational and thus mislead us about their own third-personal structure (cf. chapters 11 and 13). The character of perceptual experiences is thus characteristic of perceptions, and not hallucinations, because it subjectively marks both of them as perceptions, and not hallucinations. Their shared character is characteristic of perceptions, and not hallucinations, because it adequately reflects the structure of the former, but not of the latter. The character of perceptual experiences is not unlike the appearance of real and fake lemons. The latter two are (ideally) visually indistinguishable because they share the same appearance. But this appearance is characteristic of real lemons, and not of fake lemons. When we see an object with that appearance, we take it, by default, to be a real lemon. And visualising an object with that appearance amounts, by default, to visualising a real lemon. In this case, the priority of real lemons over fake lemons is, of course, grounded in very different factors - such as their value for us, their natural or artificial status or perhaps even their sheer number. But the basic phenomenon is the same: we have some form of object awareness (experiential vs. visual), and the respective presentational element or appearance is, by default, non-neutral about what is presented. Besides, in both cases, the difference between the default experience and its non-default counterpart is that the latter involves an additional thought concerned with the further specification or re-characterisation of what is presented. We do not, say, first see an object with a lemon-like appearance and then judge it to be that of a real lemon, rather than a fake one; we simply see a lemon. Similarly, imagining the instantiation of a character characteristic of a perception suffices to count as imagining a perception; no additional stipulation that the imagined experience is a perception, and not a hallucination, is needed. The proposed version of intentionalism- experiential intentionalism -departs significantly from those which are currently more orthodox (cf. footnote 255 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 2 for references). In particular, it differs from them in agreeing with disjunctivism that the priority of perceptions over perceptual-like hallucinations is not exhausted by the fact that both kinds of perceptual experience involve a perceptual attitude, that is, take their objects to actually exist and to be as they present them as being. It is also said to include the fact that hallucinations possess a perceptual character and present themselves as perceptions; and not vice versa. As a result, hallucinations and their features (e.g., their motivational and rational powers) have to be elucidated in terms of perceptions and their characteristic character; while the latter can be discussed without any reference to hallucinations.34 The claim that the self-presentational character of perceptual experiences adequately reflects the structure of perceptions and therefore counts as characteristic of perceptions may perhaps require the assumption that the underlying structural difference between seeing and hallucinating is one in nature. That is, experiential intentionalism should perhaps be combined with structural disjunctivism (as defined in the first section). This would, for instance, more be in line with phenomenal disjunctivism in so far as then both this view and experiential intentionalism would account for the difference between imagining a perception and imagining a hallucination - which obtains despite both projects involving imagining the instantiation of one and the same character - partly in terms of a difference in nature in what is imagined. But either way is fine: experiential intentionalism is compatible with structural disjunctivism, but does not require it.35 VI. There are independent reasons for preferring the intentionalism put forward here over its intentionalist rivals - and, indeed, over disjunctivism. For instance, the proposed view promises to be able to capture both externalist and internalist epistemological ideas: it can identify the third-personal, relational structure of perceptions as their knowledge-relevant and reason-giving features, while also ensuring some first-personal, experiential access to them which does not suffer the problem over-intellectualisation (cf. chapters 11 and 13). Here is, however, not the space to elaborate on this and other advantages of the view; or to discuss how it may respond to some of the other challenges directed at intentionalism (e.g., those raised in Martin (2004)). Instead, I would like, in closing, to formulate an objection to the disjunctivist account of the transparency and non-neutrality of visualising. 34See Martin (2002b, 2004) and chapter 11. Similar ideas can be found in the intentionalist views inspired by the phenomenological tradition, such as that put forward in Smith (2002). 35But see the end of chapter 11 for a line of reasoning which supports the supplementation of experiential intentionalism with structural disjunctivism. 256 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Disjunctivism has objected to intentionalism that the latter cannot properly account for the commitment involved in experientially imagining a perception. In the preceding section, I have argued that this objection can be met by intentionalism in the form of experiential intentionalism. My contention now is that disjunctivism cannot properly account for the commitment involved in experientially imagining a hallucination. Disjunctivism assumes that we experientially imagine a perception-like hallucination by experientially imagining the instantiation of a perceptual character and by additionally supposing that what is indeed is imagined is an experience which possesses a different, but subjectively indistinguishable character. '[W]hen one takes on the project of sensorily imagining visual hallucination as opposed to visual perception, what one has to do is imagine the situation as for the perceptual situation. One's appreciation of its hallucinatory status will not come from some phenomenologically distinctive element of what one has imagined, but rather the further cognitive gloss one puts on it all. That is, when one sensorily imagines a visual hallucination, one puts oneself in a position where one takes the imagined situation to contain the objects presented, and then uses that image as the basis of imagining a situation just like it in which it appears to one as if there is such an object, although none is present.' (Martin (2002b): 417) The main problem with this proposal is that the presence in the imagined situation of an external thing, which is a consequence of the presence of the imagined relational perception, cannot be properly cancelled out by the additional supposition that there is no such thing present in the imagined situation, after all. As a result, it - wrongly - turns out to be impossible to experientially imagine a perception-like hallucination. For the disjunctivist, a perception and its character is constituted by its object; and imagining the former involves imagining the latter. Hence, imagining a perceptual character includes imagining a perceived object as part of the imagined world. Now, once the suggested supposition is added, the question arises of whether this basic episode of experiential imagination still suffices for the presence of the external object in the imagined situation. If the answer is yes - and assuming that the presence of this object is a determinate matter - the opposing supposition can, in this respect, have no impact on what the imagined world contains. This means, however, that we continue to imagine a perception and thus have not really succeeded in imagining a hallucination. But it is surely possible for us to succeed in pursuing the latter project. So the answer to the question has to be no: the experiential imagination of the perception does not any more determine that the imagined situation 257 Transparency and Imagining Seeing Chapter 8 contains an external thing. But this has the consequence that it also cannot any more determine that this situation contains a perceptual experience. It cannot posit a perception as part of the imagined world because this would, after all, require positing an external thing. And it cannot posit a hallucination because this would require imagining the character of hallucination, and not that of a perception. Hence, the experiential imagination stops altogether to determine what the imagined world contains, once the supposition is added. And the hallucination is therefore only intellectually imagined to be part of the imagined situation, but not experientially. Again, we have failed in our project, which was to experientially imagine a hallucination. In short, disjunctivism entails the impossibility of experientially imagining a perception-like hallucination. The underlying reason for this is, of course, that disjunctivists should deny that we have any access to the positive nature of the character of such a hallucination (cf. Martin (2004) and chapter 11). We merely know that it is indistinguishable from the character of a perception. But this knowledge does not suffice to imagine the instantiation of the character of a perceptionlike hallucination. The difficulty with this is that we seem none the less to be able to experientially imagine having such a hallucination. The disjunctivist cannot account for this possibility. Experiential intentionalism, as well as other versions of intentionalism, do not face the same problem. The character of a perception-like hallucination is, after all, identical with that of a perception. And we can experientially imagine its instantiation because we have positive knowledge of its nature - especially its intentional nature. The same is true of visualising fake lemons. We know positively what they look like, namely that they have the same appearance as real lemons. And we can therefore visualise them, even if this requires some additional stipulation that we are not confronted with the default case. This cancelling out is not problematic in the case of imagining a hallucination, since the experiential imagination of the respective character can loose its power to ensure the presence of an external thing, without loosing its power to ensure the presence of a perceptual experience. For no constitutive link is assumed to hold between the character of perceptions and their objects. It seems therefore better to give up this constitutive claim - and thus disjunctivism - and to locate the source of the transparency and non-neutrality of both seeing and visualising in the factivity of perceptions and their priority over hallucinations. Does this mean that visualising an external thing - in cases where it is identical with imagining a perception - does not really involve visually imagining such a thing? Is the imagined perception the only object of the experiential imagination potentially involved in visualising? The answer should, of course, be no: visualising an external thing makes us visually aware of it and is not neutral towards its presence in the imagined situation. This 258 Chapter 8 Transparency and Imagining Seeing is possible because experiential imagination takes two objects. These objects are of different kinds (experiences vs. external things). They are presented in different ways (experientially or phenomenally vs. visually, auditorily, etc.). And they may or may not be independent of each other (e.g., in the case of an imagined pain, they are not). So what intentionalists should do is to add a clause about the other object of experiential imagination to premiss (iii.2): (iii.2*) The objects of awareness in the case of imagining a perception of an external thing are the perception and the external thing. That the two objects are given to us in a different way is also apparent in the fact that we are aware of one of them (i.e., the external thing) solely by being aware of the other (i.e., the perception of it). This is also exactly what happens in the case of a reproduction of a painting: the former represents what the latter depicts by representing the latter. And both in the case of experiential imagination and the case of the reproduction of an artwork, what is represented - the character of a perception and a painting, respectively - are not relational, that is, not constituted by the objects that they themselves present. This doubling of objects does not undermine the transparency of visualising or, more generally, experiential imagination. For while the imagined experiences are objects of awareness, they are not given to us as objects of awareness. Instead, we are aware of them by imaginatively adopting the subjective perspective inherent to them. None the less, they still count as genuine objects of awareness because our episodes of experiential imagination are non-neutral about their presence in the imagined world.36 36I would like to thank Malcolm Budd, Peter Goldie, Rob Hopkins, Mike Martin, Kevin Mulligan, Matt Nudds, Gianfranco Soldati, Matt Soteriou, Juan Suarez and the members of the philosophy research colloquium at the University of Fribourg for many beneficial discussions about intentionalism and disjunctivism. In addition, I am very grateful to two anonymous referees and the editor of this symposium, Marcus Willaschek. My work on this article was generously supported - in the form of a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers - by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. PA00P1-126157).

Chapter 9 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining Two of the main contemporary approaches to the nature of episodes of imagining – such as visualising an Arcadian landscape or imagining that the Earth is flat – are the Agency Account and the Representational Account. While the former tries to understand imaginings as instances of a special kind of mental agency, the latter attempts to characterise them as representations of episodes of cognition, such as perceptions, episodic memories or judgemental thoughts.1 The various contemporary versions of the Representational Account differ both in how they conceive of the kind of representation in question and in which forms of imagining they restrict their claim to.2 But many of them have in common that they have – more or less explicitly – been inspired and influenced by Hume's approach to imagining, as it can be found in his Treatise of Human Nature.3 An assessment of Hume's view on imagining is therefore worthwhile not only in its own rights, but also in respect of issues concerning the motivation for, and the prospects of, endorsing the Representational Account. It is of interest to ask how best to formulate this view on imaginings and what to preserve from Hume's own position; and also to investigate to which extent the views of more recent proponents of the Representational Account may be understood as responses to or modifications of Hume's original approach. In this essay, I confine myself to a presentation and criticism of Hume's claims about imagining (sections I and II), as well as to suggestions of how to improve his view when aiming to formulate a promising version of the Representational 1See Dorsch (2011b) for a critical discussion of both views. Note, however, that I there treat what I call here the 'Representational Account' as a version of the 'Epistemic Account' of imagining – namely the one which describe the dependency (or 'echoing' relation) of imaginings on cognitions in representational terms. 2See (Dorsch, 2011b, chs. 5 and 6) for a detailed presentation of the main differences. 3If not stated otherwise, all references in this chapter are to Hume (2007) and given in a notation picking out the book, part, chapter and section of the respective passages. 261 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 Account (section III). I. For Hume, episodes of imagining belong to the class of 'ideas'. And as such, they are taken to be dependent on the corresponding 'impressions' in the sense that they are 'copies' of these impressions. To understand this claim, it is necessary to take a closer look at some of the details of Hume's account of the mind. He divides the class of mental episodes (or 'perceptions' in his terminology) into impressions and ideas – or, as he also says, into 'feelings' and 'thoughts'. The former comprise 'sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul' (1.1.1.1) – that is, perceptual experiences, bodily sensations, and basic feelings of desire and emotion. By contrast, the latter include 'the faint images of [impressions] in thinking and reasoning', such as imaginings and occurrent beliefs or judgemental thoughts.4 Hume characterises the difference between both kinds of mental episode in two different, though related ways. According to the first, impressions and ideas differ in vivacity: the former are said to be generally more vivid than the latter. Vivacity comes in degrees, however. And some impressions and ideas may be of almost equal vividness, so that we may sometimes be unable to distinguish them. 'Those perceptions, which enter with most force and violence, we may name impressions [...]. [...] The common degrees of [impressions and ideas] are easily distinguish'd; tho' it is not impossible but in particular instances they may very nearly approach to each other. Thus in sleep, in a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas may approach to our impressions: As on the other hand it sometimes happens, that our impressions are so faint and low, that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas. But notwithstanding this near resemblance in a few instances, they are in general so very different, that no one can make a scruple to rank them under distinct heads, and assign to each a peculiar name to mark the difference.' (1.1.1.1) The 'near resemblance' of instances of the two types of mental episode and our subsequent problems to tell them apart are still not meant to imply that some ideas might be more vivid than some impressions – they only 'approach' each 4See 1.1.1.1, and also some of the passages quoted further below. Memories are a special case and will be discussed separately further below. 262 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining other very closely.5 Another point is that Hume takes the vivacity of our mental episodes to be an aspect of their subjective characters which enables us to tell apart, from the inside, instances of the various kinds of mental episode. For he acknowledges that the vividness of mental episodes is part of how they appear to us in consciousness and of what lets us distinguish them from our first-personal perspective. This becomes apparent in the passages where Hume describe the subjectively accessible differences among ideas of three kinds, namely those of judgement, memory and imagination. 'For tho' it be a peculiar property of the memory to preserve the original order and position of its ideas, while the imagination transposes and changes them, as it pleases; yet this difference is not sufficient to distinguish them in their operatio, or make us know the one from the other; it being impossible to recal the past impressions, in order to compare them with our present ideas, and see whether their arrangement be exactly similar. Since therefore the memory is known, neither by the order of its complex ideas, nor the nature of its simple ones; it follows, that the difference betwixt it and the imagination lies in its superior force and vivacity.' (1.3.5.3) 'An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: And this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness. [...] [I]t is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of the judgement from the fictions of the imagination.' (1.3.7.7) One may wonder whether the enumeration of different terms really already helps to 'explain' what vivacity amounts to. But Hume offers more, namely the claim that a higher degree of vivacity comes with two other important aspects: (i) an increased sense of presence or reality with respect to the objects and features presented6 to us by the episodes at issue; and (ii) a higher motivational 5In 1.3.5.7, the focus is also on the effect a deor increase in vivacity has on what we take a given episode to be. Hume also notes there the possibility that an imaginative episode may change into a cognitive one – that an often enough repeated idea of the imagination may become an idea of judgement or memory. But again, this makes clear that a sufficient deor increase in vivacity leads to a different kind of episode. 6My use of the term 'presentation' is meant to be neutral enough to allow for both intentional or relational forms of presentation of objects, as well as for the sensory or intellectual presentations of objects that may be given as past, present, actual, non-actual, and so on. The presentation of an object is, however, always taken to be a conscious presentation. The 263 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 (or rational, as one would feel inclined to say today) impact on our beliefs, emotions and actions. 'This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of mind, which renders realities more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.' (1.3.7.7) In the case of judgemental thoughts, their high degree of vivacity also ensures that they lead to the formation of a more stable and enduring belief. 'It gives them more force and influence; makes them appear of greater importance; infixes them in the mind; and renders them the governing principles of all our actions.' (1.3.7.7) Accordingly, the subjective vivacity of a mental episodes reflects the closeness of its connection to perception and its impact on belief – which is, of course, in line with Hume's thought that perceptions are the most vivid episodes that we enjoy, and that imaginings are characterised by the least degree of vivacity. His second and less explicit characterisation of the difference between impressions and ideas introduces both the idea of a resemblance between the two and the notion of a causal dependence of the latter on the former. 'Thus we find, that all simple ideas and impressions resemble each other; and as the complex are form'd from them, we may affirm in general, that these two species of perception are exactly correspondent. [...] Let us consider how they stand with regard to their existence, and which of the impressions and ideas are causes, and which effects. The full examination of this question is the subject of the present treatise; and therefore we shall here content ourselves with establishing one general proposition, that all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent.' (1.1.1.6f.) Since Hume describes this multi-faceted relationship between impressions and ideas also in terms of the latter being 'copies' of the former (cf., e.g., 1.1.1.5, 1.1.3.4, 1.3.7.5 and 1.3.14.15), it has come to be known as his copy princple. expression 'representation', on the other hand, is intended to highlight the fact that the represented perceptions or judgements are thereby not themselves present in the stream of consciousness, but instead merely re-presented by the respective episodes. 264 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining Simple 'perceptions' are thereby understood as 'perceptions' which cannot be further divided or analysed into smaller 'perceptions' (cf. 1.1.1.2). And since complex ideas are composed of simple ones, the former inherit their resemblance with and dependence on simple impressions from the latter. Hume thus maintains that we cannot think of, imagine or remember something, the various parts and aspects of which (e.g., their colours, shapes, etc.) we have not previously perceived. This does not require that complex ideas have to be actually caused by corresponding complex impressions. It is sufficient if they are constructed out of simpler ideas which are causally dependent on precedent simple impressions (cf. 1.1.1.4f.). This entails that complex ideas – despite being possibly caused by corresponding complex impressions – causally depend for their occurence only on the respective simple impressions. Now, the causal derivation of ideas from impressions is not the only aspect of their relationship highlighted by the copy principle. One further aspect is that Hume also understands ideas as corresponding to the respective impressions by resembling them in all respects but their degree of vivacity (cf. 1.1.1.3). In particular, they resemble each other in which objects and features they present us with, albeit presenting them in differently vivid manners (cf. 1.3.7.5). Moreover, there is a third aspect which, like the causal dependence but unlike the resemblance, is asymmetric in nature: ideas are 'images' or 'representations' of impressions (cf. 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.4 and 1.1.1.7). That a given complex idea may be caused merely by several simple impressions, rather than also by a corresponding complex one, raises the issue of which impression(s) it is said to resemble. It seems plausible to maintain that the complex idea resembles each of the simple impressions in so far as it possesses parts (i.e., simple ideas) which resemble the latter. On the other hand, and as already noted, the resemblance at issue here concerns primarily the (non-mental) objects and features presented by the ideas and impressions compared. And this similarity is unlikely to hold between complex ideas and simple impressions, at least with respect to the presentation of objects and of higher-level properties. For Hume understands simple impressions as presentations of basic features, such as colours, tastes or smells (cf. 1.1.1.2). Hence, although complex ideas may resemble each of the respective simple impressions, this is not the kind of similarity referred to in the copy principle. Instead, what is meant is the resemblance of ideas on those impressions that present the same objects and features as the former – in this case, the resemblance of complex ideas on similarly complex impressions. However, it remains unclear which complex impression could be relevant in cases where a complex idea is not preceded by any corresponding complex impression. It is true that such ideas would resemble a complex combination of the relevant simple impressions, if any would actually come into existence. But this is not the same 265 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 as saying that the complex idea resembles an already given impression. The same set of issues does not arise with respect to the proposed representational link between ideas and impressions. On the one hand, in contrast with resemblance, representation need not be genuinely relational in the sense of requiring an actually given second relatum. And, on the other hand, a complex idea represents not simply individual simple impressions, but also their complex structure. Imagining a blue book on a brown table corresponds to seeing a blue book on a brown table, and not to seeing a brown book on a blue table, despite both complex impressions involving the same simple ones. Accordingly, what complex ideas represent are complex impressions, though not necessarily particular ones (e.g., the one I had yesterday when looking at my friend's house).7 This suggests perhaps also some solution to the resemblance issue. The key thought is that ideas present certain (non-mental) objects and features precisely because they are representations of impressions which present those objects and features. Hence, it is not surprising that ideas resemble the impressions that they represent in so far as they present the same (non-mental) objects and features as the latter (albeit in a less vivid way). For they represent an impression with a certain property and thereby acquire themselves this property, or at least something very similar to it. A complex idea therefore resembles the complex impression that it represents. And although the latter need not enjoy actual existence in the past or present, it is clear which complex impression is relevant. Moreover, we do not generally find claims about the resemblance between actual and merely represented entities problematic. We may recognise similarities between friends of ours and characters in a film; or between a real person and our mental image of her which we have formed prior to meeting her or knowing anything about her appearance. These considerations allow now for a more precise reading of Hume's copy principle. Since the symmetric resemblance between ideas and impressions is probably best understood as a consequence of their asymmetric representational link, we need not any more mention the former separately.8 According 7The preceding considerations liken Hume's complex ideas to pictures, given that both allow for the presentation of some kind of object, without the need to present a particular and actual instance of that kind; and given that both may perhaps still give rise to an experience of resemblance. A painting may depict a man with a certain appearance, without depicting a particular man (e.g., Socrates or Napoleon); and it may perhaps still look like such a man (see chapter 8). This analogy may provide further support for the suggested interpretation of copies as reproductions similar to photocopies or photographs. 8At one point, Hume writes that 'impressions and ideas [...] are exact copies of each other' (1.1.1.5). This seems to equate the relation of copying with the relation of resembling. My different usage follows instead that to be found in the contemporary literature on Hume, as well as presumably in other passages in Hume's text (e.g., cf. 1.3.7.5). My aim is, in any case, a reconstruction, not of Hume's use of the word 'copy', but of his conception of the 266 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining to the resulting interpretation, the principle maintains that particular ideas are copies of particular impressions in that they (i) causally depend on the later, and (ii) are representations of the latter in such a way as to end up presenting the same (non-mental) objects and features. In the case of simple ideas, both relations hold between them and simple impressions. And they always represent a particular simple impression. Complex ideas, on the other hand, causally depend on each member of a certain set of particular simple impressions, while representing and resembling a complex impression – though not necessarily a particular one. Hume's conception of the relationship between simple ideas and simple impressions seems thus to be that the former are causal reproductions of the latter – perhaps not dissimilar to photocopies or photographs.9 For such reproductions combine the same three elements of causal dependence, representation and resemblance. It is constitutive of photocopies of sheets of paper that they are causally dependent on the respective original sheets, and also that they are photographic representations of the latter and resemble them in respect of what is written or drawn on them. Complex ideas deriving from complex impressions may equally count as causal reproductions of the latter – with the exception that they are not causally dependent on them, given that they might have come into existence without the involvement of the complex impressions. For those cases, the analogy of a collage of photocopies seems more fitting. If we glue together several photocopies, the resulting collage of copies is causally dependent on the initial sheets of paper, while representing and resembling a corresponding potential collage of the originals, though no particular one. Drawing the analogy with photocopies may perhaps also offer an explanation of why ideas are less vivid than impressions – and therefore also of how the two distinct characterisations of the difference between the two types of mental episode fit together. In the case of photocopies, the contrast and saturation of the marks on their surface tend to be less than those of the marks on the original sheets of paper. Similarly, the vivacity of episodes might be understood as an aspect of their subjective character which is bound to decrease when mentally reproduced. That is, this reproduction might be of such a nature that it results not only in the episodes' inheritance of the presentation of certain objects and features, but also in a diminishing of their sense of reality or presence and of their impact on beliefs, emotions and actions. We have finally reached the point where we are in a position to become more concrete about Hume's account of imagining. Both his examples of imagining and his discussion of the difference between imagining and remembering relationship between ideas and impressions. 9I follow here the interpretation of Mike Martin, presented in a research seminar on the Treatise at University College London in the academic year 2002/03. 267 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 something suggest that he takes imaginings to be complex ideas. Imagining 'the New Jerusalem, whose pavement is gold and walls are rubies' (1.1.1.4), or 'winged horses, fiery dragons, and monstrous giants' (1.1.3.4), means combining simpler ideas – whether the latter are still somewhat complex (such as the ideas of horses, wings, and so on) or indeed among the simplest (such as the ideas of colours, tastes, smells, and so on). Correspondingly, ideas of the imagination differ from ideas of memory in whether they preserve the order in which the relevant impressions occurred before (1.1.3.2).10 And this, again, presupposes that both are complex ideas possessing an internal structure. According to the proposed reading of the copy principle, Hume therefore maintains that it is constitutive of imaginings that they represent complex perceptions and causally depend on the prior perceptual occurrence of the simple aspects of those perceptions.11 II. Hume's account faces many challenges, some of which concern his theory of mental episodes in general. One of these has already been acknowledged by Hume himself, namely that it seems possible to have simple ideas (e.g., the one of 'the missing shade of blue') without having had before the correspoding simple impression (cf. 1.1.1.10). The universality of his copy principle becomes therefore questionable, even in its restriction to simple ideas and impressions. Another objection targets the fact that the differences in vivacity – and hence the resulting differences between mental episodes – are taken by Hume to be quantitative, and not qualitative. This contradicts the observation that perceptions, judgements, memories, imaginings, and so on, differ in kind, and not merely in degree. They differ, for instance, in whether they are sensory or intellectual, in whether they involve a cognitive attitude (i.e., whether they involve the claim that things are as they present them to be), or in whether they provide us with reasons for belief, or are responsive to them (see (Dorsch, 2011b, ch. 3) and chapter 5). And these differences are not only subjectively salient (see chapters 2 and 4, but also distinguish the episodes concerned qualitatively, and not merely quantitatively. 10Note that this fact is not directly subjectively accessible (cf. the passage from 1.3.5.3 quoted above). It is interesting to ask whether the also postulated and subjectively salient difference in vivacity between memories and imaginings might be said to indirectly reflect this difference of how the two kinds of episodes are taken to relate back to the original perceptions. 11I assume here that our perceptions are simple – that is, for instance, of a single colour and no other sensible quality – only in rare and artificial circumstances. Perhaps there may also be simple instances of imagining, in which case Hume's account would have to be slightly modified as to allow for simple ideas of the imagination as well. 268 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining Furthermore, it should be explained why some ideas (i.e., judgemental thoughts and conscious memories) are more vivid than others (i.e., imaginings) to such an extent that the former, but not the latter, have an impact on what we believe about the world in a way very similar to that of impressions. Especially Hume's discussion of episodic memories reveals that he himself struggled more or less explicitly with this problem. While generally assuming them to be ideas (cf., e.g., 1.1.1.4 and 1.1.3.1), he then moves them sometimes closer to impressions to account for the perception-like impact on belief. Thus, when trying to distinguish them from imaginings, Hume locates memories 'betwixt an impression and an idea', to reflect the fact that their vivacity is in between those of perceptions and imaginings (1.1.3.1). And when trying to specify why memories have the same power as perceptions to give rise to beliefs, Hume even speaks of them as 'impression[s] of the memory' (1.3.5.1) – though not without seemingly relativising this statement shortly afterwards by apparently reintroducing the contrast between perceptions and memories: 'To believe is [...] to feel an immediate impression of the senses, or a repetition of that impression in the memory.' (1.3.5.8) If 'repetition of an impression' is understood here as meaning the literal reoccurrence of the original impression, the explanation of the memories' impact on beliefs has the price of rendering them indistinguishable from perceptions. But if it is instead taken to denote, in accordance to the copy principle, the less vivid representation of a perception, the initial problem of accounting for the memories' perception-like link to belief reoccurs. This illustrates that Hume has difficulties to accommodate the fact that memories are very similar to perceptions in their epistemic role, while also holding on to their differences in vivacity and immediacy – that is, their differences in how they present us with objects. And finally, the first characterisation of the difference between impressions and ideas is in tension with the second one precisely because of this aspect of Hume's conception of vivacity (and despite the explanatory link between the two mentioned above). For treating ideas as copies of impressions in the sense just specified means treating the two as being different in kind. Hence, it clashes with the claim that the only difference between the copies and what they are copies of is one of vivacity (cf. 1.1.1.3). In fact, this inconsistency seems already to be inherent to the copy principle itself, given that its second clause postulates a resemblance in all repects except vivacity (i.e., a difference in degree), while the third clause puts forward the idea of a representational link (i.e., a difference in kind). Now, Hume's account is subject not only to general challenges to his theory of mental episodes. Some objections are also more specifically related 269 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 to the particular incorporation of imaginings in his overall view of the mind. Hume claims that episodes of imagining are causal reproductions and therefore representations of their cognitive counterparts. In addition to the difficulties already mentioned, this thesis is problematic for at least two reasons. The first is that it is unclear how to avoid the conclusion that all imaginings (just like all thoughts or judgements) involve some sensory or affective element, given that they are or include copies of perceptions with sensory or affective qualities. This idea makes sense in the case of affectively imagining a pain or of sensorily imagining something red: the character of the first episode contains some element of painfulness, and the second some quality of reddishness.12 But we can suppose (or, more generally, think) that an object is a certain way without any sensory or affective element involved. The underlying problem is that Hume's account cannot properly accommodate the distinction between sensory, affective and intellectual episodes, especially given that this distinction is one in kind. The second motivation for being uneasy about the proposed claim about imaginings is that it can at best play only a minor role in an account of imagining. That imaginings are dependent on perceptions in the way described is not distinctive of them within Hume's theory. For the same is said to be true of episodes of memory, thought and judgement. This leads back to the worry that, ultimately, reference to degrees in vivacity is his only means to establish differences among mental episodes, while the more fundamental or significant ones of these are in fact differences in kind. In particular, a high degree of vivacity is implausibly meant to be the sole feature which is distinctive of all cognitive episodes (whether they are impressions or ideas) and distinguishes them strictly from imaginings. III. Hume's account can be improved, however, without having to give up on the general idea that imaginative episodes are representations of cognitive ones. The two most important modifications are, first, the introduction of the qualitative distinction between sensory and intellectual presentations; and second, the substitution of the qualitative differences in attitude and epistemic role for the quantitative difference in vivacity. Hume's contrast between impressions and ideas is thus replaced by the opposition of cognitions and imaginings, as well as the orthogonal opposition between sensory and intellectual episodes. As a result, not only perceptions, but also episodic memories and 12Though neither suffices to qualifiy the episode as a genuine experience of pain or redness, given that they do not present these qualities as actually being instantiated (see chapters 2, 8 and 10). 270 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining judgemental thoughts are taken to be episodes that do not represent others in the relevant way, but instead can figure as the objects of such a representation. And only imaginings – plus possibly memories (cf. below) and spontaneous images – continue to count as representations of cognitions. These two modifcations suffice already to solve several of the difficulties facing Hume's theory of the mind. The resulting version of the Representational Account can accommodate the fact that the various kinds of cognition and imagining differ in kind from each other, and along the dimensions outlined above. It also avoids any of the problems linked to the introduction of vivacity as an important element in an account of imaginings. Intellectual imaginings need not involve any sensory elements any more, since they can now be construed as representations of intellectual cognitions, such as judgemental thoughts or occurrent beliefs. And the modified theory comes closer to the identification of a distinctive feature of imaginings which separates them strictly from cognitions and other non-imaginative mental episodes. For while it is said to be constitutive of imaginings that they are representations of cognitions, the same is not true of perceptions, judgemental thoughts, bodily sensations. feelings of emotion or desire, and so on. The application to episodic memories may remain problematic, however. They still seem to fall in between perceptions and instances of sensory imagining. While they share their cognitive attitude and epistemic role with the former, they do not present their objects as being there before us in our environment and, in this respect at least, resemble the latter. This raises again the issue of how they can actually share their attitude and impact on belief with perceptions, despite their lack of the latter's direct connection to reality. And it also generates the question of which set of features is distinctive of imaginings, if it turns out that episodic memories, too, are best treated as representations of perceptions. But the Representational Account may have the resources to deal with episodic memories (see Martin (2001)). If episodic memories are indeed representations of past perceptions, they may inherit the particular content of the latter. That is, they may also be presentation of the specific objects and features then perceived and, moreover, present these objects and features as they were once presented by one's past perception. In this way, episodic memories may provide us with access to particular aspects of the past. And this fact may very well explain why they involve a subjectively salient commitment to how things actually were, and why they influence our beliefs in roughly the same way as the original or other perceptions. They would still differ from the latter in that they do not present their objects as being there before us, but locate them in the past. The contrast with sensory imaginings may then be established by arguing 271 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 that they – although representing some perceptions – do not represent particular perceptions, let alone with objects from the present or the past. This would ensure that they do not bring us into contact with the actual world – something which is reflected by the fact that their objects are not given to us as actual, and that they do not show the cognitive attitude and impact on belief of cognitions. The Representational Account may therefore identify the representation of non-particular cognitions as the distinctive feature of imaginings. And this would not only suffice to distinguish them from episodic memories and other non-imaginative episodes, but would also promise an account of their lack of epistemic features. Now, another difficulty for the modified view is that it is unclear whether the distinction between sensory and intellectual episodes is already sufficient to render the Representational Account applicable to intellectual imaginings (see (Dorsch, 2011b, ch. 7)). It is at least questionable whether all instances of imagining that something is the case can or should be modelled on imagining judging or imagining believing that it is the case. But if the answer to this question is negative, the Representational Account cannot hope to provide a unified theory of imagining, which should include intellectual instances as well. It may still be able to elucidate the nature of sensory imaginings – but presumably only by giving up on the idea that sensory and intellectual instances of imagining share a common nature. Properly answering the question of whether the Representational Account is indeed bound to fail to accommodate intellectual imaginings, however, requires a more extensive and thorough investigation than can be offered here. In addition to the two modifications already mentioned, proponents of the Representational Account may also interpret the significance of the causal dependence of imaginings on cognitions in a slightly different way than Hume and, as a result, separate it more from the idea that imaginings are representations of cognitions. It may very well be true that we cannot visualise something blue without having seen something blue, or that we cannot imagine that water is blue without having formed judgements or beliefs about water (rather than, say, twater). But it seems that the dependence in question is not merely a causal one, it also – and primarily – concerns semantic aspects of the respective kinds of episode. The thought is, more specifically, that our capacities to imagine something depend on our perceptual and conceptual capacities. And since episodes of imagining involve the employment of the former, while we acquire the latter by cognitively interacting with aspects of the world (including, say, the abstraction from sensory input, or conceptual analysis and construction), it follows that imaginings depend on our cognitions for their presentational power. And it is also to be expected that this dependence is underwritten by some complex 272 Chapter 9The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of Imagining causal chain leading from the initial cognitions, by means of which we learned to see and conceptualise certain things, to the final imaginings. But what is really of interest here is the semantic dependence. This is supported by the fact that reference to the latter can explain why we are in many ways limited in what we can imagine – notably in that we can sensorily imagine only perceivable items and features, and in that we can imaginatively refer to real individuals or natural kinds only if we stand in the right cognitive relation to them.13 Besides, it fits well with what has been said above about understanding imaginings as complex presentations of objects and their features. However, since presumably many more presentational mental episodes rely in this or a similar way on our prior perceptual and conceptual capacities, the claim that imaginings are correspondingly dependent on cognitions becomes relatively uninteresting for a theory of the distinctive features of imaginings. The thesis may still help to elucidate the presentational side of the nature of imaginings, but it cannot contribute to an account of what distinguishes imaginings from other kinds of mental episode. As a result, the representational clause from Hume's original copy principle becomes separated from its causal counterpart, and only the former remains properly at the heart of the Representational Account of imagining. This separation is reflected in the fact that, while imaginings are semantically dependent on relatively simple aspects of perception or conception, their representational element is said to concern more complete or complex cognitions. And it also highlights that the problem of the missing shade of blue is not a specific problem for the Representational Account. Imaginings may none the less continue to count as causal reproductions or collages of reproductions, given that the assumption of a causal dependence need not be rejected. So none of the objections to Hume's theory of imaginings provides a good reason to give up on its key idea: namely that episodes of imagining are mental representations of episodes of cognition. Whether more recent versions of the Representational Account fare better as accounts of imaginings than Hume's remains still to be seen, though. I argue for the idea that visualising or emotionally imagining something means representing corresponding experiences of seeing or feeling in chapters 8 and 10, respectively. But I also think that imaginings have this feature in common with other sensory or affective presentations, such as episodic memories or spontaneous images. What is distinctive of the imaginative episodes and distinguishes them from the non-imaginative ones is, in my opinion, that they 13See also the idea that people, who are blind, cannot visualise (e.g., (Scruton, 1974, 104)). But note also that there is some empirical evidence in favour of the idea that even congenitally blind people enjoy mental imagery, or at least something very similar to it (see Thomas (2010)). 273 The Humean Origins of the Representational Account of ImaginingChapter 9 are instances of a special kind of mental agency aimed at the (partial) control of what is presented (see Dorsch (2011b) and chapter 5. Accordingly, I endorse the Agency Account about imagining. While I think that the Representational Account is right about the nature of the sensory presentation involved in sensory forms of imagining, it is wrong about what renders them imaginative.14 14I am very grateful to Mike Martin for comments on an early version of this chapter. 274 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Discussions about imagining normally concentrate on the imaginative counterparts of perception and judgemental thought (or occurrent belief). Other forms of imagining - such as daydreaming, or the imaginative counterparts of bodily sensations and episodes of emotion or desire - are less often considered.1 In this article, I aim to develop an account of emotional imagining as a specific instance of object imagining and, more specifically, experiential imagining. According to this view, emotional imagining consists in non-propositionally imagining the instantiation of the phenomenal character of an episode of emotion. I motivate this account in response to the theories of Kendall Walton and Richard Moran. Walton's view stays too unspecific about the nature of emotional imagining when it matters; and my own account may be understood as supplementing Walton's by rendering it more specific. Moran's theory, on the other hand, is in conflict with both my own view and that of Walton's; and I argue that it should be given up in favour of the latter. Both Walton and Moran discuss the connection between imagination and emotion in the context of our responses to representational media. Both pictures and texts, and possibly also pieces of music and other artefacts, portray fictional or - in the case of didactic stories or thought experiments - hypothetical worlds. One thing that is particularly interesting about our engagement with such works is that it need not be concerned with real persons, situations or events to help us to acquire knowledge about reality. Reading about the adventures of a fictional character, being confronted with a potential dilemma or envisaging a new possibility may enable us to gain theoretical or practical insights into the actual nature of ourselves and of aspects of the world. In the aesthetic and the moral cases, these types of engagement with representations of fictional or hypothetical worlds and the resulting instances 1White (1990), O'Shaughnessy (2003), McGinn (2004) and Currie and Ravenscroft (2003) are recent examples of this kind of limited focus. 275 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 of knowledge acquisition are often accompanied or facilitated by emotional responses. Some of these responses constitute episodes of real emotion, while others amount to instances of the affective imagination. The latter are therefore relevant for both aesthetics and ethics.2 Although the subsequent considerations are focussed exclusively on our aesthetic engagement with representations of fictional worlds, they should equally apply to our moral assessment of hypothetical situations.3 The central disagreement between Walton and Moran is about whether instances of the affective imagination involve emotional elements as part of their content or as part of their manner (or mode) of representation. I side with Walton on this issue and argue that what is characteristic of emotional imagining is that it consists in the imagination of an emotional feeling. The main challenge to this view is that this does not obviously suffice for the respective imaginative episodes to count as affective (rather than, say, cognitive or dispassionate).4 While Walton remains silent on this issue, I propose a way of how it may be successfully adressed - whether as an integral part of his view, or entirely independently of it. The article is divided into five sections. In the first, I outline the puzzle of fiction, in response to which Walton and Moran have developed their views of 2The consideration of hypothetical scenarios is also central to science and theoretical philosophy and, to some extent, also to theology and religion. We invent or use stories and models, say, when attempting to make sense of the structure of atoms, or the nature of the universe. In the case of faith, this is likely to involve emotional episodes as well; in the case of scientific or metaphysical investigation, on the other hand, probably less so. 3Indeed, the affective imagination may be relevant for ethics in several respects. First, as just described, we may come to determine what is morally required of us (or someone else) to do in a given situation by imagining performing the different available actions and considering our emotional responses to those instances of imagining - assuming here that emotional responses provide some indication of the presence of values (but see chapter 6 for the restriction of this idea to subjective values). Second, in order to assess (or even understand) the actions of another person, it may be necessary to empathise with them which, again, may require imagining having some of their emotional feelings. Third, how we and others are inclined to emotionally react - whether in reality or in the imagination - to a given situation (including imagined ones) may reveal something about our character and, especially, our moral character. And there are probably more scenarios in which imaginationbased emotions become morally relevant. 4Affective episodes comprise both feelings of genuine emotion and merely emotion-like experiences. What both have in common is an affective phenomenal character. I assume here that the difference between affective and non-affective mental episodes (e.g., between episodes of felt jealousy or joy and episodes of perception and belief) is subjectively salient; but not necessarily that we have any detailed grasp of the nature of this difference. It does not seem implausible to describe the phenomenal character of emotional episodes by reference to values and, in particular, the feature of having a valence (i.e., being either a positive or a negative experience). But nothing in what follows depends on this or any other specific claim about what it means for an episode to count as affective. 276 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction the affective imagination. The second section is devoted to Walton's theory of our emotional engagement with representational art, and to the already noted challenge which this theory faces. In the third and the fourth section, I critically discuss Moran's alternative view and, especially, his distinction of emotional imagining from other forms of imagining in terms of an affective manner of representation. The fifth and last section presents my own account of emotional imagining. I aim to show that it is capable of answering the challenge raised by proposing that occurrences of emotional imagining count as affective precisely because they are representations of emotions - namely non-propositional and experiential representations of the affective character of emotions. I. The Puzzle of Fiction It is an uncontroversial - and as such unproblematic - fact that, when we watch movies or read novels, we often become emotionally involved. Part of these emotional responses are centred on the works themselves. The latter captivate, excite or bore us and thereby move us to continue or, alternatively, stop our engagement with them. These reactions, which form part of our aesthetic experience of the works concerned, are clearly genuine instance of emotion.5 Moreover, they also occur in the case of non-representational artworks or aesthetic objects in nature and are therefore not directly concerned with the fictional story told by the movies or novels in question (though of course the story still has an influence on whether, and how, we enjoy the artworks concerned). In particular, the question whether these responses are directed at aspects of the fictional world portrayed does not arise: they are clearly focussed on the artworks themselves. Hence, they are not of interest for our current discussion.6 However, our emotional involvement with representational art may in addition involve elements that are more directly related to the fact that the works are representational and present us with a specific fictional world. Indeed, we do not find it inadequate to describe affective experiences of this second kind in terms of the fictional content of the artworks. For instance, we say that we 'rejoice or suffer with the characters' or 'hope or regret the occurrence of 5As I use the terms, if an emotion is 'genuine' or 'real', it is actually true of that it is an emotion. By contrast, merely emotion-like experiences do not actually belong to the mental kind of emotions - although this may still be fictionally the case. 6In chapter 6, I discuss in more detail the role of emotions in aesthetic evaluation, which is one central aspect of aesthetic experience. My conclusion there is that they cannot justify objective judgemental ascriptions of aesthetic value, but may none the less point us to the presence of subjectively important values, which may very well include certain instances of aesthetic worth. 277 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 certain events' within the story. The debate about the nature of our emotional responses to representational art focusses on these reactions and asks whether they indeed amount to genuine emotions directed at fictional entities. What is at issue is thus whether our descriptions of these responses are to be understood literally true, or instead in a different manner - say, as statements about what it is fictionally true about ourselves and our engagement with the fictional worlds (cf. Walton (1990)). But both sides accept that our appreciation of representational art involves emotional elements that are concerned with - and cannot be understood without reference to particular aspects that characterise the represented fictional worlds (cf. Walton (1990, 1997) and Moran (1994)). This close connection to the representationality of art ensures that our fiction-directed affective responses differ in one or more crucial respects from work-directed emotional responses. The most notable is perhaps that the former - but not the latter - are imagination-based in the sense that they are triggered by what we imagine about their objects. Our evaluative emotional responses towards artworks are concerned with what we take to be actual facts about those artworks, while our affective responses to fictional characters or situations are concerned with what we take to be fictional about them - that is, what we imagine about them. The two types of responses therefore have different targets in that they deal with different worlds - the actual or real world or a fictional one, respectively. And while we access the actual world by means of perception, belief, and so on, we access fictional worlds by means of the imagination.7 Our evaluations of representational artworks may, of course, be 'imagination-based' in a different, and weaker, sense: they are based on our experience and understanding of the work which may very well involve imagining the represented characters, locations, events, and so on. But this does not count as imagination-based in the sense just introduced above, since the instances of imagining concerned are not about the object of evaluation, that is, the artwork itself. What we imagine to be imbalanced is Hamlet, the fictional character - and not Hamlet, the piece written by Shakespeare. One recurring theme in this essay is that this central difference between the two types of affective reponses gives rise to a second difference: namely that only our work-directed reactions are genuine instances of emotion, while our fiction-directed responses are instances of a different - though still emotionlike - kind of mental phenomenon. Walton, for instance, insists on this difference in mental kind, while Moran argues that both types of responses belong to the same kind (i.e., the kind of emotions). Their disagreement is related to the issue of whether being a genuine emotion is compatible with being imaginationbased in the sense described. Accordingly, while both sides accept that our 7See Walton (1990) for a discussion of the link between imagination and fictionality. 278 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction engagement with fiction is imagination-based and involves affective responses, they are at odds with respect to whether these imagination-based responses constitute real emotions, or merely emotion-like experiences. Here is a nice quote from Walton describing an example of the central element of the kind of reaction at issue (denying, in the process, that it constitutes a genuine emotion directed at fictional entities): 'Charles is watching a horror movie about a terrible green slime. He cringes in his seat as the slime oozes slowly but relentlessly over the earth, destroying everything in its path. Soon a greasy head emerges from the undulating mass, and two beady eyes fix on the camera. The slime, picking up speed, oozes on a new course straight toward the viewers. Charles emits a shriek and clutches desperately at his chair. [...] Charles's condition is similar in certain obvious respects to that of a person frightened of a pending real-world disaster. His muscles are tensed, he clutches his chair, his pulse quickens, his adrenaline flows. Let us call this physiological -psychological state quasi-fear. [...] Afterwards, still shaken, he confesses that he was 'terrified' of the slime.' (Walton (1990): 196) Quasi-emotions like these are real episodes in our mental lives. Moreover, they are affective episodes which is reflected in the fact that they resemble genuine emotions (e.g., fear) in various significant respects. First of all, they are similar to genuine emotions in their involvement of actual emotional feelings and emotion-related physiological events. Charles's experience is, from his subjective point of view, very similar to an experience of genuine fear - notably in that it involves a similar kind of unpleasantness and makes him aware of similar bodily changes.8 But quasi-emotions resemble genuine emotions also in being triggered by the same mechanisms. Both types of emotional response are partly due to dispositions to react affectively and physiologically to certain mental representations - whether they are perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, or imaginings. Just as the recognition of the real danger presented by an approaching lion is crucial to the occurrence of genuine fear, the recognition of the fictional danger presented by an approaching slime is crucial to the occurrence of a fear-like quasi-emotion. This explains why it matters for our emotional responses to artworks whether they are representational and, if so, what it prompts us to imagine to be part of the represented fictional world. However, what is controversial is whether quasi-emotions (perhaps together with the imaginings on which they are based) constitute genuine emotions, or 8Of course, his overall experience of the movie is pleasurable. Otherwise, he would stop watching the movie in order to get rid of it. But his overall pleasure is compatible with - and surely partly due to - the fact that there is something unpleasant and discomforting about seeing the slime on the screen seemingly moving towards him. 279 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 whether they are merely emotion-like experiences. There is a long tradition of taking responses involving quasi-emotions to be puzzling. At the heart of the respective discussions has been the so-called 'paradox of fiction' which can be formulated in the form of a triad of jointly inconsistent claims:9 (a) We have real emotions towards what we take to be fictional characters or situations. (b) At least in some cases, real emotions are constitutionally dependent on belief in the reality of the relevant entities. (c) We do not believe in the reality of what we take to be fictional entities. This paradox possesses considerable initial force. When watching a horror movie or reading a tragedy, we undergo emotional experiences and physiological changes which are very similar to those involved in real life cases of fear or pity. Moreover, we are inclined to say that we 'fear the monster' or 'pity the heroine'. So there seems to be good reason to take our statements literally and ascribe to us emotions towards fictional characters, situations, events, and so on. However, genuine fear or pity also appear to require us to believe that the respective objects exist as part of reality. When we think that there is really no lion in the room, it seems impossible for us to genuinely fear one. But when we watch movies or read tragedies, we usually do not take the represented characters and events to be real (unless we are concerned with some historical or biographical works). Hence, we typically lack the belief that they exist as part of reality. And it therefore becomes puzzling why we none the less seem to react with something like an emotion of fear or pity to these fictional entities. The described problem of emotions towards fiction has been widely debated, and many different solutions to it have been proposed. The claims (a), 9See the chapters in Hjort and Laver (1997), and especially Levinson (1997). Walton allows for the possibility of emotions which do not presuppose any kind of belief, but still stresses we cannot have emotions towards something that is merely imagined (cf. Walton (1990): 245). The puzzle may also be formulated in terms of belief in certain relevant propositions, or in terms of belief in the existence of the entities in question. The first condition is more specific than the other two (i.e., it implies, but is not implied, by the latter) and is not required in all cases. Fearing something may presuppose believing it to be dangerous, but hoping for something does not presuppose any belief (in particular, we may be agnostic about whether the hoped-for state of affairs has already been realised). The second condition can allow for emotions directed at the past or the future only if 'existence' is understood as denoting reality, that is, actuality. Besides, emotions may be said to be dependent, not on what we believe to be real or existent, but what in fact is real or existent (cf. externalism about thought contents). 280 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction (b) and (c) are jointly inconsistent. Similarly, (c) should be accepted as a fact about our normal psychology - if not even as a claim about our ordinary conception of what fictional entities are. Of course, there may be cases of people who believe in the reality of fictional entities and develop real emotional feelings towards them (e.g., when they fall in love with a character of a telenovela). But it is doubtful that they then conceive of the objects of their emotions as fictional - and if they do, their response becomes even more problematic. In any case, it suffices for the presence of a paradox if (c) is true of our normal engagement with fiction. This leaves two broad strategies of how to deal with the puzzle. The first is to deny (a). This means insisting that no genuine emotion involved in our engagement with fiction can be directed at fictional characters or events; and that no response to the latter - including those involving quasi-emotions - can constitute an emotion, even if it may resemble one in certain important aspects. The main reason for such a view is to stress the cognitive element present in emotion: they are concerned with how reality is like and therefore require a specific take on the latter (cf., e.g., Walton (1990)). Perhaps proponents of this answer are also prepared - or forced - to accept the additional claim that we are in some sense wrong or irrational to treat our emotion-like responses to fictional entities as if they were genuine emotions. The second option is to reject (b). This may be done for several reasons. For instance, it may be claimed that imagining the reality or existence of objects - rather than believing in it - may already suffice for having emotions towards those objects (cf. Moran (1994)). Or it may be assumed that there are two fundamentally different kinds of emotion, one exclusively directed at real entities and the other exclusively at fictional ones; and that (b) applies only to the first, but not the second kind. Or, finally, it may be maintained that (b) does not express a constitutional dependence, but merely a rational requirement, so that it is still possible - albeit irrational - to have emotions without belief (cf. Radford (1975)). Again, the denial of (b) may (have to) be accompanied by the postulation of a systematic form of irrationality inherent to our responses to fiction, in this case concerning the fact that it is in some sense unreasonable to feel emotions towards entities which we do not take to be real. At least, to respond with fear seems to be more suitable when one perceives or believes a lion to be in the room than when one merely visualises or imagines it to be there - just as there is something irrational about fearing real spiders which one takes to be completely harmless (cf. Goldie (2000) and chapter 6). This is not the place to settle the debate between the two approaches. Our concern is with the nature of affective imagining, and not with the nature of our emotional responses towards representational artworks and the fictional 281 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 worlds that they portray. But since both Walton and Moran - the first of whom rejects (a), and the second (b) - develop their views on affective imagining in the context of this debate, it is worthwhile to a look a bit closer on their views on how we react emotionally to representational art. II. Walton's Account of the Affective Imagination Walton maintains that Charles's real and affective experience of quasi-fear alone does not suffice for genuine fear (cf. Walton (1990): 196). What is missing, according to him, are the right kind of accompanying beliefs and action tendencies.10 Charles does not believe in the existence or danger of the slime, and he does not run away or shout for help. Instead, he merely imagines the presence of the slime and desires to stay where he currently is. Some of his more basic, instinctive inclinations (e.g., to freeze or to grab hold of the person next to him) may still be the same as in a case of genuine fear. But on the level of intentional agency, the two experiences involve with very different motivational profiles. Walton therefore concludes that Charles is not really frightened by the fictional slime, given that his reaction lacks certain characteristic aspects of such a fear. This does not necessarily prevent quasi-emotions from sometimes constitute real emotions, together with some respective beliefs and action tendencies. For instance, when watching a battle scene in a war movie, our quasi-fear may combine with - or even be partly brought about or intensified by - our belief that a friend of us is actually in a very similar situation right now. Our quasi-fear then becomes part of our real fear for our real friend. This is possible because quasi-emotions are relatively unspecific. The feelings and bodily events involved are compatible with many different emotions - whether of the same kind or even of different kinds - and in need of determination by the accompanying representations and motivations which specify, among other things, the objects of the responses. More importantly, however, if quasi-emotions are triggered by, and part of, our imaginative experience of representational art, they may - and typically do - lead to affective imagining. According to Walton, our basic and non-emotional engagement with representational art involves three distinct elements (cf. Walton (1990, 1997)). First, we experience the material qualities of the work. For instance, we perceive the printed marks in a book, or the configurations of colours and shapes on a canvas. These marks and configurations - together with genrerelated conventions - determine what the works represent and, hence, what is 10At least in this case; Walton allows that, in other cases, something else might be missing (cf. Walton (1990): 245. 282 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction true within the respective fictional world. One of the central ideas of Walton's account of representational artworks is that the fictional truths related to such works are not only concerned with the represented objects and their features, but also with us and our access to those objects and features. The worlds of paintings and novels include landscapes and battles. But they also include our fictional perspectives on those landscapes and battles - for instance, our seeing or thinking about them. According to Walton, this is part of our conventional rules of engagement with representational art. Second, and on the basis of the first experience, we intellectually imagine whatever is part of the represented fictional world. Indeed, the demand to imagine the fictional truths created by a representational artwork in accordance with the relevant conventions is an integral part of our engagement with such art. Walton is adamant that, without this element, our experience would not really amount to an experience of something as representational art. But imagining the fictional truths in question requires that we recognise the representational content of the work.11 We thereby exploit explicitly or implicitly known principles or conventions which link the perceived material configurations to the represented entities. This enables us to recognise words and their meanings, or the three-dimensional arrangement of objects in a scenery, by perceiving the specific nature of the marks on the respective surfaces. And, third, we imagine, again on the basis of the preceding elements of our engagement with the work, having a certain epistemic access - or standing in a certain epistemic relation - to the imagined world of the work. For instance, we may imagine seeing the landscape depicted by the painting before us, or believing the propositions expressed by the sentences in the novel. Again, this is an essential part of our imaginative engagement with representational artworks and required by the fictional truths determined by the latter. Since, for Walton, affective imagining works very similar to pictorial experience, it is worthwhile to dwell a bit longer on the latter (cf. Walton (1990)). First of all, it is important to note that it is distinct from sensory imagination, such as visualising or auditorily imagining it. Looking at a picture and imagining seeing what it depicts does not involve visualising the depicted scenery - at least not in the same sense in which we can visualise something with closed eyes, say. None the less, imagining seeing that scenery - which is part of our pictorial experience - is distinctively visual in character and cannot be reduced to intellectual imagination. Walton's proposal is that imagining seeing the depicted scenery amounts to imagining of our actual visual per11It is interesting to ask whether the recognition precedes the intellectual imagining, or whether the latter is identical with - or, alternatively, part of - the former. What speaks in favour of the distinctiness of the two phenomena is that imagination normally does not play a role in knowledge acquisition, while the recognition of what a painting depicts or what sentences mean is a form of knowledge. 283 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 ception of the picture (i.e., the first kind of experience) that it is a fictional visual perception of what is depicted. If a painting depicts trees, we imagine seeing those trees by imagining of our perception of the material qualities of the painting (which is part of the actual world) that it is a perception of trees (which is part of the fictional world depicted by the painting). The kind of imagining at issue amounts to what Walton calls imagining 'from the inside', meaning that we imagine things from our first-personal perspective - rather than imagining our point of view from a third-personal perspective (e.g., when we imagine how we look like from the perspective of our friend sitting opposite of us). In the case of pictorial experience, this means that we imagine seeing the depicted scenery from the perspective of our perception of the picture: we imagine an identity between our real and our fictional point of view.12 The issue of whether pictorial experience really involves such a complex kind of imagining, and whether this form of imagining is indeed visual, has been subject of much debate (cf., e.g., Hopkins (1998) for a nice summary), but need not be settled here. What is important to note is that the first two elements alone do not suffice for becoming aware of a picture as a picture. Simply perceiving its material properties and, in addition, intellectually imagining that there is a landscape does not give rise to experiencing it as depicting such a landscape. Perception and imagination have to be more intimately linked to each other to constitute pictorial experience. Perhaps Walton is wrong about the details of this close connection. But he is right that, if pictorial experience is indeed partly imaginative, the imaginative element has to be integrated with the perceptual one in a single visual experience.13 What matters here is the twofoldness of pictorial experience. Seeing something as a picture of something else involves two instances of object awareness: our awareness of the picture and our awareness of what is depicted. And although they are distinct, they are also inseparable from each other. We can, at least to some extent, shift our attention from one object to the other. But we cannot stop being aware of one of them without ceasing to have a pictorial experience. Moreover, we are aware of both objects as part of a single and unified experience.14 According to Walton, our affective imaginative engagement with fiction is similar to pictorial experience in that it involves the same kind of elements as the latter. 12It is in this sense that we - or, more precisely, our subjective perspectives - 'enter' the fictional world. This fits well with Walton's characterisation of imagining from the inside as one (but not the only) form of imagining de se. 13See Hopkins (1998) and Dorsch (2011b). This also explains why O'Shaughnessy (2003) talks about 'imaginative perception' when describing pictorial experience and its relationship to the imagination. 14See Hopkins (1998), following the writings by Richard Wollheim. 284 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction First, we experience some quasi-emotion concerned with some aspects of what the respective work represents. This real emotional reaction is thereby triggered by our more basic non-emotional and imaginative engagement with the work - for instance, our recognition of the portrayal of an approaching slime or lion, and our imagination of the danger posed by the latter. For Walton, the occurrence of quasi-emotions brought about in this way - in conjunction with the conventions of our engagement with representational art - makes it fictional that we feel the respective genuine emotion towards the fictional entities concerned. The quasi-fear triggered by imagining a dangerous lion approaching does not amount to real fear of the fictional lion. But it determines that it is fictionally the case that we are frightened of that lion. Second, in response to the general demand to imagine what is part of the fictional world related to some representational artwork, we intellectually imagine that we have a certain genuine emotion - namely that corresponding to the quasi-emotion - towards the fictional entities in question. In our example, we imagine that we fear the approaching lion. And, third, we imagine some corresponding form of access to the fictional world, this time an affective kind of access. More precisely, we imagine feeling the genuine emotion towards the fictional entities at issue. We do so by imagining of our quasi-emotion that it is a real emotional response towards what is represented by the work. That is, we imagine being frightened by the lion by imaginatively identifying our quasi-fear with an instance of genuine fear of the lion. Again, the kind of imagining in question is imagining from the inside: the imaginative identification in question involves an identification of two subjective emotional perspectives, one real and the other fictional. Our emotional responses towards fictional entities are not twofold: we are not emotionally aware of two different objects. In particular, the quasiemotions concerned are not directed at the respective artworks. Indeed, they do not have any (clear) object. They are triggered by the imagination of some fictional entities or situations, but are not about them (at least according to Walton). Hence, the problem of guaranteeing that our imaginative response forms a unified experience is less pressing than in the case of pictorial experience. Feeling the quasi-emotion and imagining it to be a genuine emotion towards fictional entities need not form a single and unified experience. Instead, the main reason for assuming the third element over and above the other two seems to be that the intellectual imagination does not involve any affective elements. Imagining that one is feeling an emotion does not suffice for having an affective reaction towards it. But just as our awareness of what is depicted possesses a visual character, our response to fictional entities possesses an emotional character. Assuming that we also imagine feeling an emotion promises to introduce the required affective element into the experience. 285 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 However, it is not clear how this supposed to work - how imagining feeling an emotion can really possess an affective character. As Moran notes, the problem arises because the emotion is assumed to be merely part of what is imagined.15 In the case of intellectual imagining, this is precisely what prevents the episode of imagining from being affective. So why should the situation be different in the case of the kind of imagining Walton proposes? He maintains that imagining, from the inside, having an emotion is more affective in character than intellectual imagining and, hence, not an instance of the latter (cf. Walton (1990): 247). But he does not say much to help us to better understand imagining feeling an emotion, apart from the fact that it is imagining experiencing an emotion from the first-person perspective. What still needs to be explained is why - or in which sense - this kind of imagining should count as affective. III. Moran on the Various Types of Imagining Moran tries to provide an answer to this question of how we can have responses towards fictional entities that count as genuinely emotional. His theory consists mainly of two claims (cf. Moran (1994)). The first is that the affective character of our responses is due to their manner or attitude, and not their content. Just representing having an emotion does not lead to an affective experience, since we can represent having an emotion in a dispassionate way - for instance, when we suppose, for the sake of an argument, that we are angry. Therefore, affective representations have to amount to representing something in an affective manner - just as visual representations amount to representing something in a visual manner. The second claim central to Moran's view is that the quasi-emotions triggered by our engagement with representational art are in fact constituents of our emotional responses to fiction - that is, for Moran, of our experiences of imagining something in an emotional manner. He combines these two claims with a third, namely that the resulting emotional experiences towards fictional entities should count as genuine emotions. Accordingly, he chooses the second strategy in dealing with the paradox of fiction. That is, he rejects (b) by insisting that imagining something is already enough to give rise to full-blown emotions. Two elements have motivated his 15See Moran (1994). Note, however, that Moran seems to misunderstand Walton's position by ascribing to him the view that what is central to affective imagining is intellectually imagining that one has the emotion concerned. The reason for this misunderstanding appears to be the failure to see what is responsible, according for Walton, for the fictional truth that we are feeling an emotion towards the fictional entities in question. Moran seems to assume that this is due to intellectually imagining that proposition - hence the view which he ascribe to Walton; while the latter insists that the occurrence of a relevant quasi-emotion is the effective factor (cf. the discussion in Walton (1997)). 286 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction choice: the observation that our engagement with fiction involves real affective elements; and the hypothesis that, partly for this reason, our emotional responses to fictional entities are very similar to, and as unproblematic as, our more ordinary affective reactions to certain real objects, situations or events - such as those which are in the past or the future, or which constitute unrealised, but 'real' possibilities (e.g., missed opportunities or alternative courses of action). As discussed in the previous section, Walton rejects all three claims. He thinks that emotional feelings are part of what we imagine, not of how we imagine it. He also maintains that our imaginative emotional engagement with fictional worlds is only prompted by, and about, the relevant quasi-emotions, but does not include them as one of its constituents. And finally, neither the quasi-emotions, nor our imagining feeling an emotion are, for him, instances of emotion - which is reflected by his acceptance of (b). Again, the aim here is not to settle the debate about the third claim - that is, about how best to reply to the seeming paradox of fiction. But the first two claims are relevant for the nature of affective imagining. We have already considered Walton's position. It it now time to look into the details of Moran's view. Moran understands our affective responses to fiction as instances of what he calls 'emotional imagining'. This label fits very well with the fact that the form of imagining concerned is treated by Moran as being genuinely emotional. Episodes of emotional imagining are taken by him to be instances of real emotion and, hence, on a par in this respect with normal emotional feelings, in the same way in which episodes of visual imagining are sometimes taken to be instances of visual experience and, hence, on a par in this respect with visual perceptions.16 In the course of his paper, Moran distinguishes emotional imagining from three other imaginative phenomena: propositional (or intellectual) imagining, dramatic imagining, and imaginativeness. While propositional, emotional and dramatic imagining have in common that they occur in the form of mental episodes or activities, imaginativeness constitutes a mental ability or disposition. He does not explicitly talk about a fifth form imagining, namely sensory imagining. But there is no reason to assume that he would not acknowledge its existence, which is why I have added it to the list. Propositional or hypothetical imagining amounts to the simple imaginative entertaining of a proposition - for instance, when we imagine or suppose that it rains, or that the Earth is flat (perhaps as part of some daydream, thought experiement or hypothetical reasoning; cf. Moran (1994): 104). Propositional 16I will follow Moran in reserving the expression 'emotional imagining' for affective responses to fiction which are genuinely emotional. The debate between Moran and Walton is therefore about the possibility (or at least actual occurence) of such responses. 287 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 imaginings are thus instances of conceptual or intellectual thought and as such differ from sensory forms of representation, such as visual perceptions or memories, or bodily sensations. Moran leaves it open whether all nonendorsing or non-judgemental entertainings of a proposition are imaginative, or whether instead there is a difference, say, between merely having the thought that it rains and imagining or supposing the same proposition. But he is clear about the fact that mere propositional imagining is dispassionate, that is, does not involve any real emotional feelings or affective elements - though of course it is possible to propositionally and dispassionately imagine that one has certain emotional feelings (cf. Moran (1994): 89f.). In contrast to propositional imagining, sensory imagining does not have a propositional content and is therefore not an instance of thought. Instead, what we sensorily imagine are objects or events and their perceivable features. While thoughts merely describe or name objects or events, sensory episodes (including perceptions or episodic memories) show them (cf. chapter 8). Examples of instances of the sensory imagination are visual, tactile or auditory imaginings. Like propositional imagining, sensory imagining is dispassionate and does not possess an affective character. But again, it is possible to sensorily and dispassionately imagine someone having - or perhaps rather expressing - specific emotions (e.g., when we visualise someone crying). Emotional imagining - or imagining 'with respect to emotional attitudes' - consists in imagining something with feeling or emotion, in contrast to imagining it dispassionately (cf. Moran (1994): 90 and 105). Moran concentrates on propositions as candidates for what we can imagine with feeling. But just as with the existence of sensory imaginings, it is fair to suppose that he would also allow for the emotional imagining of objects or events. Moran's examples for emotional imagining are imagining something with loathing, anticipation, apprehension or regret (cf. Moran (1994): 86, 90 and 93). The affective aspect of the imaginative episode consists thereby in a real - and not merely in an imagined - feeling. Accordingly, imagining something with regret involves really having a feeling of regret. As a consequence, emotional imagining cannot - or not exclusively - be a matter of propositional imagining. In particular, imagining something with, say, sadness cannot be reduced to imagining that one feels sad. While the former involves a real feeling of sadness, the latter does not. Now, given that the affective aspect of emotional imagining is real, and not merely imagined, it should - as Moran maintains - be located in the manner (or mode), and not in the content, of the imagining (cf. Moran (1994): 90 and 93). The statement that something is imagined with feeling or emotion thus qualifies how it is imagined, and not what is imagined. It is therefore likened by Moran to the statement, say, that something is imagined visually or auditorily (cf. Moran (1994): 93). 288 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Both propositional and emotional imagining occur in the form of single mental episodes. By contrast, dramatic or empathetic imagining is typically more complex by involving several distinct episodes (cf. Moran (1994): 104). More specifically, dramatic imagining consists in the imaginative adoption of, and identification with, a certain point of view different from one's own. The adopted perspectives in question are typically characterized partly by a set of evaluative attitudes and the related emotional or conative dispositions. Thus, imaginatively adopting such a point of view usually involves imagining having the respective evaluative and affective responses to given situations, in addition to more neutral propositional and sensory imaginings about those situations. Moran's description of dramatic imagination renders it very similar to - if not identical with - the phenomenon of empathy, or the closely related phenomenon of imagining being in the place or shoes of someone else (cf. Goldie (2000) for an extensive discussion of imaginative projects of this kind). Moran does not always clearly distinguish between emotional imagining and dramatic imagining. In fact, he notes certain close links between the two. Empathetic identification with a certain point of view different from one's own often involves the 'dramatic rehearsal of emotions'; while emotional imagining 'may require such things as dramatic rehearsal', it 'involves something ... like a point of view, a total perspective on the situation' (Moran (1994): 105). However, the two are none the less quite different phenomena. Not only is dramatic imagining typically more complex than emotional imagining (i.e., results in extensive mental projects rather than in single mental episodes), but the two phenomena are also independent from each other. On the one hand, we can empathize with or enter the mind of another person without actually having any real feelings, but instead only imagining them (cf. the proposal put forward in the last section). And, on the other hand, we can respond with fear to imagining the scenario of being pursued by a lion without thereby imaginatively adopting a particular point of view different from one's own.17 Besides, Moran introduces the notion of imaginativeness which denotes for him a complex ability covering, in particular: the ability to recognize and link to each other the features of artworks which are responsible for their emotional tone (i.e., their 'expressive features'; the ability to emotionally and otherwise respond to these features and their links; and the ability to empathize with or put oneself in the place of someone else (cf. Moran (1994): 86f.). It thus includes or combines both the capacity to imagine emotionally and the capacity to imagine dramatically. But it also involves certain non-imaginative, cognitive 17This is true even if, say, what is involved is imagining having certain sensory and affective experiences. For our act of imagining need not further specify the perspectivalness of the imagined experiences, or assume by default that it is our own (cf. Martin (2002b) and chapter 8). 289 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 abilities, such as recognitional capacities or sensitivities. IV. Moran's Account of the Affective Imagination According to Moran's picture, what is central to the affective imagination and, in particular, our emotional responses to fictional entities, is what he has labelled emotional imagining. By contrast, dramatic imagining is linked to the affective imagination only in so far as it may include what he calls emotional imagining; and imaginativeness is linked to the affective imagination only in so far as it includes the capacity to engage in emotional imagining (as well as in dramatic imagining that includes emotional imagining). What he calls emotional imagining fits Moran's two claims about the nature of affective imagining. It involves both the imagining of certain aspects of the fictional world in question (e.g., that a character suffers unjust treatment) and a really felt response towards these or related aspects (e.g., real feelings of sympathy towards the character and of anger towards the unjust perpetrators). In accordance with Moran's second claim, the latter is taken to consist in a quasi-emotion triggered by the former. That is, imagining something with feeling or emotion consists in imagining something with some quasi-emotion directed at it. The resulting episode is, for Moran, an instance of genuine emotion. In accordance with this, what is responsible for the affective character of the resulting imaginative experience is not the imagined content, but instead the really felt quasi-emotion - as Moran's first claim maintains. His main reason for taking emotional imagining to be central to affective imagining - notably in the context of our experience of representational art - is his claim that imagining having an emotion is no exception to the rule that it is always possible to imagine something in a dispassionate way (just as it is always possible to imagine it with feeling).18 We can imagine that we feel sad or visualise ourselves as expressing our sadness through cyring, say, without thereby being in any affective state. That is, both propositional and sensory imagining can occur in a dispassionate manner, even if they have a felt emotion as their object of imagining. As already indicated in the last section, 18Moran presents another motivation for assuming that our responses to fiction and the involved affective imaginings are really - and not merely imaginatively - emotional: namely that we are often held responsible for having - or failing to have - them. He notes that we may be praised or blamed (morally or otherwise) in relation to whether we react to fictional situations, say, with laughter or lust; and that how we react often reveals something important about our personality (cf. Moran (1994): 93f. and 105). Laughing at a racist joke, for instance, may reveal racist tendencies or beliefs. However, as Walton has correctly pointed out (cf. Walton (1997), what manifests our convictions and is subject to assessment can equally well be our dispositions to imaginatively engage with fiction in certain ways rather than others. 290 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Moran's explanation of this fact is that having an emotion as part of its content does not suffice for a representation to be emotional. That is, real affectivity cannot simply derive from imagining of an emotion. But if what we imagine has no impact on the affective dimension of imagining, the thought continues, it has to be due to how we imagine it. Hence, Moran concludes that affective imagining consists in, or involves, emotional imagining. This line of reasoning has three weaknesses, though. The first is that Moran has not done enough to establish the claim that what is imagined is always neutral on emotionality of the imaginative episode concerned. This may be true of intellectual and sensory imagining. But there are perhaps other ways of imagining feeling an emotion which are, by their very nature, always affective in character. I return to this possibility in the next - and last - section. A second problematic aspect is that the passivity of the occurrence of quasi-emotions casts serious doubts on the imaginativeness of any episodes involving them as one of their constituents. The various forms of imagining may perhaps allow for passive instances - such as spontaneously arising images and thoughts in the case of sensory and intellectual imagining, or aimlessly floating daydreams in the case of more complex imaginative projects.19 But they all have still in common that they also allow for voluntary instances and, moreover, permit us to take deliberate control of their passive instances. We can actively sustain the fleating spontaneous images and thoughts, and we can decide to give our freely wandering daydreams direction (cf. Dorsch (2011b) and chapter 2). But what Moran takes to be emotional imagining can never be subject to our direct voluntary control, given that the occurrence of quasi-emotions is not up to us. Of course, we may be able to bring about quasi-emotions by exploiting our knowledge about our emotional dispositions that representations of a certain kind give rise to those quasi-emotions (e.g., we can induce quasi-fear in us by imagining something that we know to scare us). But this does not render quasi-emotions subject to our will - at least not in the same direct way as imagining is (cf. chapter 5). Hence, the emotional reactions that Moran focusses on and, in particular, the choice of representing whatever is imagined in an emotional manner (rather than, say, in a visual manner) is never voluntary. So the challenge is to explain why we should count them as instances of imagining in the first place - assuming that imagining is at least in principle always subject to the will.20 19See, for instance, the discussion of imaginings in O'Shaughnessy (2003). For the opposing view that all imagining is voluntary, see, for example, Scruton (1974) and McGinn (2004). I discuss the different positions and considerations and side with the latter in Dorsch (2011b). 20See Scruton (1974), McGinn (2004) and Dorsch (2011b). A similar argument may be formulated against the idea that our awareness of what a picture represents is imaginative, given that it is usually not up to us what we experience a picture as depicting (with the ex291 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 The third weakness in Moran's proposal is that it is not clear how to make sense of his idea of emotional imagining. His talk of 'imagining with feeling' invites a certain ambiguity. If this form of imagining is meant to consist just in the complex of an episode of propositional or sensory imagining and an additional episode of quasi-emotion triggered by the first, then it is doubtful that it constitutes an instance of affective imagining at all. Nothing ensures that the two episodes are more closely linked to each other than by a causal connection, given that the very same quasi-emotion can also occur in response to perceiving or believing something. Hence, the overall complex is imaginative only in so far its dispassionate component is imaginative; while it is affective only in so far its non-imaginative element is emotional. The emotional and imaginative elements in affective imagining should be expected to be more unified. This suggests taking Moran's comparison of emotional imagining with visual imagining more seriously. There is good reason to assume that the content and the manner of representation are inseparable. Hence, if emotional imagining literally involves an affective way of representing something - just as visualising involves a visual way of representing something - then the unity of the affective and the imaginative elements can be guaranteed. According to this interpretation, emotional imagining is more than the mere conjunction of some imaginative episode and some subsequent emotional response. Like in the case of visualising, the content and the manner of emotional imagining are understood as aspects of a single and unified experience. However, the postulation of an imaginative episode with an emotional manner is problematic for its own reasons. First of all, how something is represented puts a characteristic restriction on what can be represented. At least, this is the case with all the widely accepted ways of representing something. Visual representations are limited to visible entities: we can see or visualise only objects and features which are visible. Something similar is true of other sensory modes, such as representing something in an auditory or tactile manner. Intellectual representations come with conceptual restrictions: we can believe in or suppose the truth of only those propositions, which we possess the required concepts for (and, perhaps, also only those propositions that are not logically inconsistent); and we can desire the realisation of only those states of affairs that we can conceive of. Finally, representation in a conative or motivational manner is limited to possible courses of action: all our intentions, strivings and impulses are concerned with something to do.21 By contrast, there are ception, perhaps, of ambiguous pictures), or whether we experience it as depicting something in the first place. None the less, Walton (1990) is not the only one who defends an account of pictorial experience in terms of imagining (cf., e.g., Scruton (1974) and O'Shaughnessy (2003)). 21Not all desires are conative. We may perhaps desire the occurrence of peace, or that it will rain (in contrast to desiring to actively bring about peace or rain). But such desires are 292 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction no distinctive restrictions on what we can imagine with emotion, or with specific emotional feelings. If at all, such imagining inherits its limitations from the underlying dispassionate imagining, such as visualising or propositional imagining. Moreover, the traditionally assumed manners of representation exclude each other. Thus, we cannot represent something, in a single instance of representation, visual-auditorily, or tactile-propositionally. Of course, our episodes can involve two distinct representational elements which involve different manners of representation - for instance, when we see and hear a theatre production, or have thoughts about what we feel. But each of the representational elements is still confined to a single manner of representation. However, as Moran acknowledges, it is possible to visualise or, indeed, propositionally imagine something with feeling. Again, this provides a good reason to doubt that there is an emotional mode of imagining, in addition to - and of the same kind as - sensory and intellectual modes. Moran therefore faces a dilemma in relation to his insistence on the existence of emotional imagining. If he conceives of the emotional element as something in addition to sensory or intellectual imagining, he cannot ensure that the two components are unified in a single instance of affective imagining. But if he understands the emotional element as a substitute for the sensory or intellectual component in other instances of imagining, he cannot accommodate the fact that the affective element behaves in a different way and, indeed, combines well with sensory or intellectual elements. The conclusion should be that what Moran calls emotional imagining - that is, imagining something with emotion - does not constitute a distinctive form of imagining. At best, it captures the fact that some of our imaginative representations give rise to quasi-emotions. V. Affective Imagining as Experiential Imagining The discussion of Moran's proposal has shown that locating the emotionality of affective imagining in the manner of representation is not a plausible option. If there is such a thing as emotional imagining, its affectivity should be due to what is imagined, and not how it is imagined. However, the challenge for Walton has been precisely to say more about how it can be possible that instances of imagining are affective episodes just in virtue of their content - that is, more specifically, just in virtue of being representations of having an emotion. Moreover, the affective element of emotional imagining cannot not motivational states. Whether they are like emotions or preferences, and whether they involve a distinctive manner of representation, are interesting questions which, however, need not concern us here. 293 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 derive from any underlying quasi-emotions - as, again, the considerations about Moran's view have illustrated. And there are no obvious candidates for some other real emotional feelings that might be involved in instances of the affective imagination, such as our emotional responses towards representational art. Therefore, the challenge for Walton can be formulated in a more refined way: how can emotional imagining possess an affective character in virtue of representing an emotion, without actually including any real emotional feeling? Moran has proposed two types of imagining concerned with emotion: propositional imagining about emotions; and imagining someting with emotion. The first is characterized by the fact that the emotions form part of the propositional content of the imagining - for instance, when we imagine that we have or feel fear directed at an imagined lion in the room. By contrast, Moran takes the latter to be an episode of imagining something in an emotional manner. Propositional imagining is dispassionate and therefore no good candidate for affective imagining; while imagining something in an emotional manner can be ruled out since there are good reasons to doubt the existence of such a mode of representation. But independently of what one thinks about the plausibility of imagining something emotionally, there is at least a third alternative in which emotions may enter imagination: they may be the direct objects of non-propositional imagining. Consider the case of imagining a pain (or a similarly subjective bodily phenomenon). This imaginative episode differs subjectively from real instances of pain. Most notably, we do not come to find the former unbearable in the same way as the latter - for instance, we do not cry or faint as a consequence of experiencing it. In this respect, imagined and remembered pains are much closer to each other than to really felt ones. Moreover, this difference between imagined (or remembered) and really felt pains is not simply a matter of degree in determinancy or intensity. We sometimes have real pains which are not very intense or determinate, but which we still experience as real pains, and not merely as imagined ones. And we also can imagine having rather strong and specific pains, without thereby beginning to really feel pain. None the less, imagined (and remembered) pains still involve the quality of pain. This is reflected by the fact that we describe their subjective character in terms of pain (e.g., that they feel similar to genuine pain) and group them, from our first-personal perspective, together with real feelings of pain, rather than with thoughts about pain. In short, imagining a pain is an experience, but not a real pain experience. That is, it involves the quality of painfulness, but does not instantiate it. The best explanation of this situation is to assume that imagining (and perhaps also remembering) a pain is an instance of non-propositional object awareness (or acquaintance) which takes the feeling of pain - rather than the 294 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction felt pain - as its direct object.22 The idea is that, while a feeling of pain involves painfulness by instantiating it, the imaginative (or mnemonic) awareness of such a feeling involves painfulness by representing it as instantiated. As a result, feeling pain and imagining it are subjectively similar in that both their phenomenal characters involve the quality of painfulness. But they differ from our first-person perspective in that they involve this qualitative aspect in different ways: the former is really an experience of pain, while the latter is an episode of representing pain. The involvement of painfulness in the case of imagining pain is thereby not a matter of the non-propositional manner of representation. Rather, it is a matter of what is imagined, namely a feeling of pain which instantiates the quality of painfulness. The proposed treatment of imagining pain therefore satisfies all the conditions on affective imagining: it is non-propositional; it does not involve an emotional manner of imagining, but instead is a representation of emotion, and its affectivity does not amount to the real thing, that is, to a genuine instance of emotion. Emotional imagining may - and should - thus be understood as an instance of experiential imagining, namely as imagining an episode with an affective phenomenal character (i.e., an episode of emotion). This guarantees that the affectivity of emotional imagining arises from what is imagined, and not from how it is imagined. But it also ensures that there is an affective element involved in emotional imagining, but no real emotional feeling, only a represented one. The proposed imaginative and non-propositional manner of representation does not face the same problems as Moran's emotional manner. First of all, it puts a restriction on what can be imagined, namely particulars and their experienceable features - in this case, mental episodes and aspects of their phenomenal characters. And then, it excludes other manners of representation. This is true independently of how the precise nature and role of the non-propositional manner involved in emotional imagining is specified. There are basically three options. First, it may be held that all instances of object awareness involve the same basic non-propositional way of representing something. Perception and imagination then differ in whether the represented objects are external objects or mental episodes (i.e., representations of external objects). Second, it may be thought that, while perception does not involve representation at all (but instead some relational form of awareness, such as acquaintance), imaginative object awareness always consists in the non-propositional representation of some episode with a sensory, affective or similar character. This means taking visualising, say, to be the imaginative representation of a visual perception. And third, it may simply be claimed that 22See the comparable claims about itchiness and perspectivalness in Martin (2002b), which I also defend in chapter 8. 295 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction Chapter 10 the non-propositional manner of representation is distinctive to the (imaginative, mnemonic or otherwise) representation of mental episodes and their phenomenal characters - we may call it an experiential manner of representation (cf. chapter 8). This option leaves it open whether visualising is directed at external objects or perceptions of them, as well as whether perception is representational or relational. But in all cases, the various manners of representation - including that taken to be involved in emotional imagining - remain mutually exclusive. In addition to meeting the conditions on affective imagining which have emerged during the discussion of Walton's and Moran's views, the account in terms of the non-propositional representation of emotions fits well with Walton's approach to our engagement with representational art. The demand imposed on us by the occurrence of quasi-emotions may very well be understood as involving the demand to imagine oneself as feeling the emotion concerned (cf. the third element). For this imagining is not only non-propositional, it also happens from the first-person perspective: we imagine the instantiation of the phenomenal character of an emotion, and this character is identical with what the emotion is subjectively like (cf. chapter 8). This also clarifies the relation to the underlying quasi-emotions: they are not constituents of affective imagining, but indirectly give rise to the latter in so far as they establish the fictional truth that we feel an emotion towards the fictional entities in question and, hence, require us to engage in affective imagining as part our engagement with the representational artwork in question. This proposal may then be used to explain why the resulting affective states do not motivate us in the same way as the real emotions, namely to interact with the respective entities at which they are directed. The idea is that the emotional aspect looses its motivational power, once it is experienced, not in an immediate way, but instead only mediated by a non-propositional representation of it. Thus, while the experience of fear felt towards a real lion has the power to move us to run away, the imaginative representation of such an experience of fear directed at a fictional lion does not possess this power anymore. Similarly, the intensity and determinacy of the feeling usually decreases when we move from a real experience to a represented one. Thus our imaginations (and memories) of fear are typically - though not necessarily always - less vivid than the comparable experiences of fear in real life situations. The claim that our emotional responses towards fictional entities amount to the non-propositional imagination of having emotions towards those entities may thus help to explain some important characteristics of our engagement with representational art. Finally, the provided account of emotional imagining is compatible with the idea that it is distinctive of imagining that it allows for voluntary control. The 296 Chapter 10 Emotional Imagining and Our Responses to Fiction occurrence of quasi-emotions and the subsequent establishment of a fictional truth to be imagined by us may be beyond the direct influence of our will. But whether we follow this demand and imagine feeling the respective emotion is at least in principle up to us.23 23I would like to thank Malcolm Budd, Josep Corbi, Mike Martin, Richard Moran, Lucy O'Brien, Gianfranco Soldati, two anonymous referees and the audiences at the Senior Seminar, University College London, and at the 16th Phrónesis Inter-University Workshop on Philosophy and Cognitive Science, University of Valencia, for their valuable comments on former versions of this paper. I am also very grateful to the editors of this volume, Remei Capdevila Werning and Gerard Vilar Roca, for their help and support. During the various phases of working on this paper, I was genereously supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection 'If I stand here, I saw him.' (The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act III, Scene 4) I. The Epistemic Conception of Hallucinations 1. One of the main issues in the recent debates about the nature of perception is whether it should be understood in relational or in intentional terms. While relationalist positions are arguably more promising with respect to the elucidation of the phenomenology of perceptions and their close links to knowledge and demonstrative thought, intentionalist views are plausibly better equipped to accommodate the contentfulness of perceptions and their rational force. The two approaches compete with each other, however, only if they are concerned with the same aspect of the nature of perceptions. And, contrary to the received opinion, this need not necessarily be so. In particular, while the thirdpersonally accessible structure of perceptions may be taken to be relational, their first-personally accessible character may be thought of as intentional. Such a view - which I aim to develop and defend here - can perhaps combine the strengths of the two more austere alternatives, while avoiding the weaknesses of either.1 2. There is a long and fruitful tradition in philosophy to try to get clearer about the nature of perceptions by shifting one's attention to the nature of hallucinations. In particular, the epistemic conception of hallucinations is very helpful to understand better what is distinctive of perceptions and, more generally, of perceptual experiences.2 Hallucinations differ from perceptions 1Schellenberg (2010) also puts forward a mixed position. But her conception of the intentional element of perception is different from the one suggested here. While she promotes a Fregean picture, my proposal is more Husserlian in spirit. 2I use the term 'perceptions' exclusively to denote veridical perceptual experiences. The expression 'perceptual experiences' is intended to cover both perceptions and perception-like 299 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 in that they do not put us into contact with the world in such a way as to enable us to refer to mind-independent objects and acquire knowledge about them. In addition, certain hallucinations are special in so far as they are, in a significant sense, subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions. According to the epistemic conception of hallucinations, these two claims - one being negative and metaphysical, the other positive and epistemic - capture all that can, and need to, be said about what these perception-like hallucinations have in common. In other words, the main tenet of this conception of such hallucinations is that their common makeup - if they share any at all - can be positively characterised only in epistemic, but not in metaphysical terms. Proponents of the epistemic conception typically put forward an even stronger claim, namely that there is nothing more to having a perception-like hallucination than having an experience which is indistinguishable from that of perceiving. That is, the positive characterisation of such hallucinations is taken to be exhausted by reference to their indiscriminability from perceptions. This conclusion is stronger in that it concerns not only the issue of what all perception-like hallucinations have in common, but also the issue of whether there is something that differentiates them. The claim that their common makeup cannot be positively characterised in non-epistemological terms does not imply that their different individual makeups do not allow for such a description. Objects, that share nothing but the feature of being perceptually indiscriminable from lemons, without being lemons, can still differ greatly in their natures. The epistemic conception (as introduced above) is compatible with something similar being true of perception-like hallucinations: while they do not share among each other anything but their subjective indiscriminability from perceptions, they may still have distinct individual natures which can be positively characterised in metaphysical terms (e.g., in terms of their causes or neuronal bases). By contrast, an endorsement of the stronger claim rules out this possibility: the hallucinatory experiences at issue do not possess any other positively describable feature, over and above their subjective indistinguishability.3 3. The subjective (or first-personal) indiscriminability referred to by the epistemic conception is understood as indiscriminability from the inside, that is, indiscriminability relative to some form of access other than outer perception, (or 'perfect') hallucinations - but not hallucinations which are, from the inside, discriminable from perceptions. The class of 'experiences', finally, is meant to include not only perceptual experiences, but also other sensory episodes, such as episodic memories, imaginings and subjectively discriminable hallucinations. 3This strengthening of the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations has been defended in Martin (2004, 2006) and Fish (2009), and criticised in Sturgeon (2000) and Siegel (2008), among others. 300 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection testimony, or inference on the basis of either. There is a different and wider sense in which all kinds of access may be said to be 'subjective', given that they all involve a knowing subject with a particular perspective onto what is known. But what matters for the distinction between perception-like and other hallucinations is the narrower notion of subjective indistinguishability defined in terms of non-perceptual and non-testimonial access. It becomes clear later on that this includes not only introspection, but also experiential awareness - the kind of awareness that comes with conscious mental episodes and their possession of a subjective character.4 A closely related issue is which aspects of mental episodes are accessible from the inside. The object of our knowledge from the inside is the subjective (or phenomenal) character of mental episodes - that is, what the episodes are like from our conscious perspective. So whichever aspects of episodes are accessible from the inside, they have to be intimately linked to their character. The closest link possible is that of constitution. If it is assumed, for instance, that the character of perceptions is partly constituted by their relational connection to objects in the world, it follows that we have access from the inside to their relationality. But the same conclusion may be available even if the link between character and relationality is understood as something weaker than constitution - namely as an intentional connection. As I aim to illustrate in this chapter (cf. especially section 47), an account along these lines can hold on to the idea that the relationality of perceptions is accessible from the inside, despite being a constituent of their third-personal structure (e.g., their causal origin, representationality, functional role or reason-giving power), and not their first-personal character. The kind of access to their structure in question counts as access from the inside in so far as the intentionality involved is not perceptual or testimonial. But the accessed structure is still third-personal in so far as our canonical access to it is from the outside (e.g., a matter of empirical or metaphysical investigations). 4. These considerations have the consequence that the epistemic conception (in the sense introduced above) may be understood in two ways. On the one hand, it may be taken to maintain that we cannot positively characterise perceptionlike hallucinations in terms of a common character which they share with each other and possibly also with perceptions (cf. Martin (2004, 2006)). On the other hand, it may instead be understood as claiming the impossibility of positively describing perception-like hallucinations by reference to a structure 4Just like other proponents of the epistemic conception, I do not have much to say in this chapter about hallucinations which are subjectively discriminable from perceptions. I address the issue of what they have in common with perception-like hallucinations in chapter 2. 301 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 common to all of them, as well as perhaps also to perceptions. The main underlying issue is thereby whether the relationality of perceptions should be understood as an aspect of their character or an aspect of their structure.5 My conclusion towards the end of this chapter is that the second way of specifying the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations is to be preferred over the first (cf. especially section VIII). One important motivation for the epistemic conception of hallucinations - independently of whether it is concerned with the character or the structure of perceptual experiences is the observation that, while there is only one way in which perception can go right, there are many ways in which it can go wrong. Perception goes right just in case it relates us to the external world in the way just mentioned. In all other cases, it goes wrong; and it may fail to establish the required relation on different occasions for very different reasons. This observation allows us to characterise perceptions - that is, those perceptual experiences involved in successful cognition - in positive metaphysical terms. But it also suggests that we may be unable to provide more than a merely negative metaphysical description of what unifies defective perceptual experiences, given that they may vary significantly in why they fail to relate us to the world. We may therefore be able to further categorise perception-like hallucinations only by reference to the extent to which we can subjectively tell them apart from perceptions and other mental episodes. Further below, I say a bit more about the motivation to treat the subjective indiscriminability from perceptions as the mark of being a perceptual experiences (cf. also Martin (2006)). There is still the possibility of perceptions and hallucinations sharing some other, non-epistemic feature - thus permitting a positive non-epistemic characterisation of hallucinations, after all. But, as should become clearer later on, it is not easy to support the postulation of such a feature. 5. Experiential disjunctivism about perceptual experiences endorses the epistemic conception of hallucinations and is traditionally linked to the latter.6 5There is one notable difference between the two readings. If we cannot discriminate the character of a given experience first-personally, we cannot discriminate it at all. Even reductionist physicalism has to assume that our canonical access to what is to be reduced is first-personal. Otherwise, it would be impossible to decide which brain states are to be identified with pain, say, and which with pleasure. So, if the character of a given hallucination is distinct from that of perceptions, but cannot subjectively be known to be distinct from the latter, we cannot say anything positive about it at all. By contrast, the structure of experiences is open to third-personal investigation. Indeed, identifying the subjectively accessible aspects of the structure may be impossible without reliance on such a thirdpersonal access (cf., for instance, the external determination of content). Hence, even if we cannot tell from the inside that a given hallucination differs structurally from perceptions, the sciences or metaphysics can still reveal their structure (cf. chapter 2). 6See the writings of Martin, especially Martin (2004, 2006). In sections 13f. and 22 below, 302 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection The core claim of this version of disjunctivism is that the essence of perceptions includes - and, presumably, is also exhausted by - their introspectible property of bringing us into conscious contact with mind-independent entities. That is, perceptions are essentially instances of relational awareness or acquaintance. As a consequence, the view maintains that perceptions and hallucinations differ completely in their essences, given that the latter lack this kind of relationality. It also claims that, although we have introspective access to these different essences, we need not always be able to tell them apart in introspection. Together with the above observation about the variety of ways in which perceptual experience may go wrong, this leads naturally to a merely epistemic characterisation of perception-like hallucinations: they are introspectively indiscriminable from perceptions, while lacking the link to the world which is distinctive of perceptions. Many of the central elements of experiential disjunctivism have been well argued for (cf., e.g., Martin (2000a), Martin (2002b), Nudds (2010) and chapter 8). Notably, the following three insights should not be readily given up: (i) that perceptions, but not hallucinations, are essentially relational; (ii) that the relationality of perceptions is accessible in introspection; and (iii) that perception-like hallucinations may differ in their natures from each other and need not have more than their subjective indiscriminability from perceptions in common. Instead, my intention is to argue that experiential disjunctivism is problematic for other reasons. In particular, it has difficulties to account for the nature of our error involved in taking our perception-like hallucinations to be perceptions. Moreover, I aim to show that there is an alternative account of perceptual experiences which can avoid the problems for experiential disjunctivism, while still holding on to - or at least being compatible with - the three central claims just identified. The view in question does not fall victim to the problems because it takes perceptual experiences to be intentional. And, as illustrated towards the end of this chapter, it can accommodate the three insights by understanding the subjective indiscriminability of hallucinations from perceptions primarily in terms of experiential, rather than introspective, awareness. Accordingly, what I aim to put forward and defend is an intentionalist account of perceptual experiences, that combines well both with (non-experiential) disjunctivism about these experiences and with the epistemic conception of hallucinations. My underlying suggestion is that the error I characterise in more detail both this version of disjunctivism - which is sometimes also called 'näıve realist disjunctivism' (cf. Martin (2002b) and Nudds (2010)) or 'phenomenal disjunctivism' (cf. Macpherson and Haddock (2008)) - and its understanding of subjective indiscriminability in terms of introspection. The term 'disjunctivism' and its counterpart 'conjunctivism' are, if taken literally, perhaps not particularly apt, but I follow the tradition in using them for the positions at issue. 303 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 in mistaking hallucinations for perceptions should be located already at the level of experiential awareness. 6. Apart from the nature of the subjective indiscriminability of hallucinations and the distinction between introspective and experiential awareness, two other important themes - which have sometimes been neglected in the recent literature on the nature of perceptual experiences - figure prominently in what follows. One is the idea that - following the phenomenological tradition in which much of the talk of intentional phenomena originated - intentionality should be understood as a normative aspect of consciousness (cf. chapter 13). The other central theme is the importance for any adequate account of perceptual experiences of a satisfactory theory of our access from the inside to our own mental episodes.7 Our subjective access is our canonical way of becoming aware of, and acquiring knowledge about, our conscious experiences. It informs our ordinary opinions about them. And it enables us to notice similarities and differences among their conscious characters. Given that conscious experiences should - precisely because of their conscious status - be characterised in terms of how they are given to us in consciousness, any theory of them has to investigate our first-personal access to them. 7. As already mentioned, the epistemic conception of hallucinations makes reference to two important facts about hallucinations and their relationship to perceptions. The first is that the two types of experience differ from each other in their relationship to the world: perceptions relate us in a certain manner to some particular mind-independent objects and their features, while hallucinations do not. Accordingly, there is a distinctively perceptual way of being related to the world which is not realised when we are hallucinating. It may not be easy to specify the precise nature of this perceptual link. But for the current purposes, it suffices to note that it exists, and that it differentiates perceptions from hallucinations. In particular, it explains the fact that perceptions - but not hallucinations - inform us about, and enable us to demonstratively refer to, objects in our environment. The second important fact is that there can be hallucinations which are subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions. In order to understand better what this amounts to, it is perhaps helpful to say a bit more about the general idea of indiscriminability.8 7Martin (2004, 2006) and Nudds (2010) are notable exceptions, though they limit their discussion to introspection. 8The following considerations draw heavily on Williamson (1990) and, to some extent, also Martin (2006). 304 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection II. The Subjective Indiscriminability of Hallucinations 8. Indiscriminability is an epistemic phenomenon. That two distinct entities - whether they are objects, events, properties, and so on - are indiscriminable means that they cannot be told apart, that is, known to be distinct. Claims about indiscriminability differ in generality relative to the extent to which they put limitations on relevant contextual features, such as the subjects, times and sources of knowledge concerned. Inuits can tell apart more kinds of snow and ice than most of us. We may be able to visually recognise differences in shape or colour if looking at the respective objects from a close range, but not if looking at them from a great distance. We may better in discriminating certain differences in shape by vision than by touch (or vice versa). And sometimes, we may able to discriminate two entities only by comparing each of them to a third entity - for instance, in cases where discriminability turns out to fail to be transitive. In addition, there may be variations in the scope of indiscriminability claims. Most basically, indiscriminability is a relation between two distinct entities. And, at this basic level, it is also arguably symmetric: if one thing is indiscriminable from another, the latter is also indiscriminable from the former.9 But indiscriminability claims may concern more than two entities. They may proclaim the indiscriminability of each possible pair of entities belonging to a certain group (e.g., 'all people from that country look the same to me'). Or they may assert that a certain entity is indiscriminable from each member of a certain group (e.g., 'I cannot tell from his looks whether he belongs to that community'). In both cases, indiscriminability turns out to be a relation between more than two entities. And in the latter case, it stops being symmetrical in any meaningful sense. For it is not necessary that any member of 9This should be obvious for cases in which both entities are accessible to us at the same time and in the same way (e.g., when we can simultaneously see them). In other cases, however, it is less clear whether indiscriminability is symmetric (e.g., when we see one entity, while merely remembering the visual appearance of the other). Consider the example of my coming across a certain twin earlier today and being unable to tell which of the two he is, although I was able to recognise the identity of the other (or the same) twin when meeting him yesterday. This case would not pose any problem for the symmetry claim if it were true that, if I would have met today the other twin instead, I would not have been able to tell him apart from his twin as well; or if it were true that a change in the identity of the twin met earlier today would have led to a significant change in the epistemic situation (e.g., if I would have noticed a distinctive feature of the second twin - such as a mole - when seeing him, which I did not notice when remembering his visual appearance; or if I would not have remembered a distinctive feature of the first twin, which I did see). However, it is unclear whether the truth of the idea that the actually seen twin is indiscriminable for me at the time of seeing him from the merely remembered twin requires that also at least one of these counterfactuals is true. 305 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 the comparison group is itself indiscriminable from anything other than the entity originally compared with the group. In particular, the members of the group need not be indiscriminable from each other. 9. It may help to consider a concrete example to get clearer about the possibility of hallucinations being indiscriminable from perceptions. It is normally - and perhaps even always - possible to come to know that one is hallucinating, and not perceiving. Macbeth, for example, need not have been so convinced that the perceptual character of his vision of Banquo sitting at the table was as obvious as his own presence in the room. He might just have listened properly to what the other lords present at the banquet told him. He might have inferred the hallucinatory character of his experience from his previously acquired knowledge of the murder of Banquo. Or, in a more contemporary setting, cognitive scientists might have informed him that they subjected him to a treatment meant to induce guilt-related hallucinations. However, if any such relevant evidence coming from the outside - that is, delivered by outer perception, testimony, inference, or any combination thereof - is lacking, it can be impossible for the subject concerned to notice the hallucinatory character of a current experience. This is well illustrated by the initial reaction of Macbeth, during which he seemed to be ignoring the lords' assertions, and to have forgotten about the murder of Banquo. More clearly, if he would have been uninformed about the absence or death of Banquo - that is, if he would have had no perceptual, testimonial or related inferential evidence available to him suggesting that he was hallucinating, rather than perceiving - he might have been unable to tell that his experience was indeed hallucinatory. In addition, perhaps no other human being in his position would have been able to come to know about the hallucinatory character of the experience. For the fact that Macbeth might have been unable to discriminate his hallucination from comparable perceptions in the absence of perceptual or testimonial evidence to their distinctness need not have been due to features which distinguish him from other actual or possible human beings - such as his general cognitive or moral shortcomings, or his particular situation (e.g., the stressful guilt and anxiety that he was suffering, or the specific spatial point of view which he occupied in the hall where the banquet was held). Finally, what is at issue is not simply whether Macbeth could have distinguished his hallucination from one or more of his other actual experiences, such as his particular perceptions of Banquo which he had had at some time before the banquet, or underwent at the same time as his hallucinatory experience, or could have experienced at some time after the banquet (assuming that Banquo would then still be alive). Macbeth could have had the very same 306 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection hallucination, and been unable to identify it as such, even if he would have never encountered and seen Banquo in his whole life. It would just have been for him an experience of some unknown lord. The indiscriminability under consideration is therefore not merely a relation between the hallucination and one or more actual perceptions. What matter as well are possible perceptions of Banquo. In particular, that Macbeth - or anyone else in his position - could not have told apart his hallucination from a perception implies that, from the inside, he could not have noticed a difference if he would have instead perceived Banquo. Similarly, it also implies that he could not have noticed a difference if he would have seen Banquo at some point or another before starting to hallucinate him. That is, the indiscriminability claim about Macbeth's hallucination compares it with the members of a larger class of actual and possible perceptions of Banquo. And it is in this - and only in this - sense that, for all that Macbeth knew from the inside, his experience could have been a perception. Not all possible perceptions are relevant, however. Macbeth would presumably have been able to distinguish his hallucination from a possible perception of his wife or, for that matter, from a possible perception of Banquo at a different location, or under a different spatial perspective, or under different lighting conditions. But this fact need not undermine the indiscriminability claim about his hallucination. The reason for this is that Macbeth would still have been able, from the inside, to tell apart these possible perceptions from those other possible perceptions just mentioned, that he could not have distinguished from his hallucination. Hence, what should be said about Macbeth's hallucination is, more precisely, that it is individually indiscriminable only from each member of a certain class of possible perceptions, that are themselves mutually indiscriminable from each other.10 10. From these considerations about Macbeth's hallucination and its indiscriminability from certain perceptions, we can glean a more precise characterisation of the subjective indistinguishability from perceptions, the possibility of which I took to be the second important fact about hallucinations. Let 'us' include all possible subjects which are just like human beings as they actually are; and let a class of 'corresponding' perceptions be a class of perceptions which, from the inside, are mutually indiscriminable from each other. A given 10The relevant comparison class of perceptions might perhaps be demarcated more precisely by reference to a certain shared content of some sort - assuming that this would also take into account parameters like spatial point of view, lighting conditions, and so on. One difficulty with this approach is that it might not be able to capture all factors which have an influence on whether perceptions are mutually indiscriminable from the inside or not. And another problem is that it would not be compatible with views on perception that deny their having a content of that kind (cf. Travis (2004)). 307 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 hallucination is then subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions just in case it satisfies the following condition: (S) None of us could, from the inside, come to know it to be distinct from each member of some class of possible corresponding perceptions.11 The subjective indiscriminability of hallucinations is sometimes spelled out in terms of the fact that we cannot, from the inside, come to know that it does not instantiate the property of being a perception (cf., e.g., Siegel (2008)). One problem with this formulation is that it remains unclear what the relata of the relation of indiscriminability are supposed to be. For instance, they cannot be the general properties of being a hallucination and of being a perception, given that even Macbeth can distinguish instances of the two. And referring instead to the more concrete properties of being a perception or hallucination with a certain content is problematic precisely because of the unclear and controversial notion of a content of perceptual experiences. It therefore seems more reasonable to take this ignorance about property instantiation to derive from the more fundamental subjective indiscriminability, as it is specified by means of (S). This also fits much better Martin's insistence to understand (S) as having a plural form (cf. Martin (2006)). Besides, the formulation proposed here stays neutral on which aspects of experiences can be introspected. It presupposes only that we can introspectively note similarities and differences among such episodes. 11. The second feature of hallucinations - their subjective indistinguishability from perceptions - gives rise to a third important fact about them and their relationship to perceptions: the priority of perceptions over hallucinations. In general, when two of our mental episodes are subjectively indistinguishable, we treat them in the same way. In particular, we take them to possess the same features and to belong to the same mental kind; and we rely on the them to the same extent when forming beliefs or intentions. This is precisely what happens in the case of indistinguishable hallucinations and perceptions. We take both to be perceptions and to relate us to the mind-independent world. We endorse both in the shape of perceptual judgements and corresponding actions. And, on the basis of introspection, we judge both to be perceptions. In short, we treat both as if they were perceptions - and not, as if they were hallucinations. It is in this sense that perceptions enjoy priority over their indistinguishable hallucinatory counterparts. And this fact becomes manifest in the formal structure of the indiscriminability relation concerned: while some particular hallucinations are subjectively indiscriminable from all members of 11Note that the thesis labelled '(S)' in Martin (1997a) is a completely different claim from the one discussed here. 308 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection a group of perception, no particular perception is subjectively indiscriminable from each member of a class of hallucinations. 12. The priority of perceptions has the consequence that we end up being doubly misled when hallucinating, namely not only about the world, but also about the hallucinations themselves. When Macbeth is hallucinating Banquo sitting at the table and does not suspect the hallucinatory character of his experience, it is rational for him to come to believe that there is such a scene before him. But the resulting belief is surely false: Macbeth is mislead about how a certain part of the world is. Similarly, when he cannot tell apart his hallucinatory experience from perceptions, it is rational for him to come to believe that he is perceiving - and not, say, merely hallucinating or visualising - Banquo at the table. And again, the resulting belief is false: this time, Macbeth is misled about how a certain part of his mind is. Hence, those hallucinations, which are subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions, may lead us to form rational, but erroneous judgements or beliefs about their experiential type. And this fact is due to the priority of the perceptions over such hallucinations. The first kind of error has already been discussed in much detail in the literature. The challenge is rather to identify the best account of the nature and source of the second kind of error linked to hallucinating. What is clear so far is that it becomes manifest in false self-ascriptions of the form 'I am now perceiving'. But what still needs to be determined is what kind of judgements or beliefs give rise to these self-ascriptions, and at which stage in the epistemic process of their formation the error occurs first. III. The Introspective Indiscriminability of Hallucinations 13. So far, our access from the inside to our perceptual experiences has been characterised in purely negative terms, namely as a form of access different from outer perception, testimony, inference based on either, or any combination thereof. A natural way of being more positive is to identify the kind of access mentioned in (S) with introspective access. We can introspectively distinguish sensory experiences only by distinguishing some of their introspectible features (just as we can visually tell part objects solely by recognising a difference in their visible properties). Since the object of our knowledge from the inside is the subjective or conscious character of mental episodes, the introspectible properties of experiences - which constitute their introspective 'appearance' - are all aspects of their character. Hence, we can discriminate experiences introspectively only if they possess distinct characters, and only by introspectively discriminating their characters. And we can introspectively 309 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 discriminate distinct characters only by recognising a difference in one or more of the determinables which they realise. Accordingly, a given hallucination is taken to be subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions in the sense of satisfying the following specification of (S): (I) None of us could introspectively know its character to be distinct from the character shared by each member of some class of corresponding perceptions. 14. Since it becomes important later on to distinguish introspective indiscriminability from another aspect of subjective indistinguishability, namely experiential indiscriminability, it is necessary to say a bit more about the nature of introspection assumed here. In the context of (I), introspection is meant to include more than the mechanisms and products involved in the non-inferential formation of judgements of the form 'I am Φ-ing X, or that p', where 'Φ' denotes some type of mental episode or state. Indeed, any form of access from the inside to the character of mental episodes counts as introspective, as long as our access is distinct from what is accessed. When we perceive something, our perceptual access to it and the resulting episode of perceiving are distinct from what is perceived. Similarly, when we introspect a given mental episode, our introspective access to it and any resulting episodes (such as higher-order thoughts) are distinct from the episode. Introspecting an episode is therefore distinct from its subject matter - that is, from being in, or having, that episode. But otherwise, the exclusion of access from the outside is the only further condition on introspection. Hence, any form of reflection on the character of our mental episodes, which is not based on outer perception or testimony, counts as introspective. For instance, introspection might still involve some kind of 'inner perceptions' (i.e., non-intellectual higher-order episodes). Although more needs to be said about this issue, the idea that experiences and other mental episodes possess introspectible properties - that is, properties which we can come to know to be present by means of introspection - is not necessarily incompatible with the idea that we come to know about the presence of such properties by attending to the experienced external objects and features (cf. Martin (2000b)). It is plausible to treat experiences, not as objects of our focal attention, but rather as determinations of our conscious focal attention to such objects. Furthermore, what kind of attentive awareness experiences constitute is partly determined by what external objects and features they present us with. Hence, acquiring knowledge about the former may require attending to the latter. The intentionalist view to be put forward in the second half of this chapter takes exactly this line of response. 15. Understanding subjective indiscriminability in terms of the introspection of characters permits a simple and natural explanation of why certain per310 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection ceptions are mutually indiscriminable from each other in introspection and therefore form a class of corresponding perceptions: they do so because they possess the same character and character determinables. The question is now whether the same, or a different, account should be given of why (I) is true of certain hallucinations. Conjunctivism about character claims that those hallucinations satisfy (I) because they possess the same character as - that is, share all character determinables with - the corresponding perceptions. Disjunctivism about character, on the other hand, maintains that the hallucinations do not share any of their character determinables with the perceptions and therefore differ in character from the latter; but that this difference is for us inaccessible through introspection.12 16. Introspective indiscriminability and disjunctivism about character are typically spelled out in slightly different terms than (I). Instead of maintaining that the hallucinations are indistinguishable from perceptions relative to their character (i.e., that the character of the hallucinations is indistinguishable from that of the perceptions), it is claimed that the indistinguishability of the hallucinations from perceptions is a constituent of their character (cf. Martin (2004, 2006), Siegel (2008) and Sturgeon (2008)). Accordingly, perceptions and hallucinations are taken to share a character determinable, namely their subjective indiscriminability from perceptions. But this alternative characterisation still presupposes that the hallucinations differ in character from the perceptions, and that this difference cannot be noticed by us from the inside. Hence, it comes with an endorsement of (I), too. Indeed, this should be expected since being indiscriminable from the inside just means being indiscriminable relative to those features accessible from the inside - that is, relative to the subjective character. The main reason for adopting the different characterisation is that it can provide an account of the character of perception-like hallucinations solely by reference to their subjective indiscriminability from corresponding perceptions. Assuming (contrary to Fish (2009)) that hallucinations do possess a character, the claim that it is indistinguishable from that of perceptions, but does not share any aspects with the latter, leaves its positive identity completely 12In what follows, I ignore two possible mixed views. The first claims that conjunctivism is true of some cases, and disjunctivism of others. My objections to the general form of disjunctivism have the same force against the disjunctivist part of this view. The second mixed theory adopts a middle way between conjunctivism and disjunctivism about character by maintaining that the hallucinations share some, but not all character determinables with the corresponding perceptions. Although I think that this position merits more detailed discussion, I would surmise that it, too, faces problems similar to those for disjunctivism about character in its pure form. Besides, it is not clear what could plausibly motivate us to endorse it, rather than one of its more radical two rivals. 311 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 open. This issue becomes particularly pressing in the case of causally matching hallucinations - that is, hallucinations which satisfy (S) because they have exactly the same proximal causes as the corresponding perceptions. The positive aspects of character of such hallucinations cannot be due to their proximal causes, since then the character of the perceptions would involve these aspects as well - which would contradict the claim put forward. Hence, the character of the hallucinations should be understood as being a matter of distal causes or certain contextual features. However, it is not clear whether, for instance, the absence of a perceived object among the causes can constitute part of the character of hallucinations. And there do not seem to be other obvious candidates for the role of relevant factor (cf. Martin (2004, 2006) and Nudds (2010)). Identifying the character of perception-like hallucinations with the latter's property of being subjectively indistinguishable from corresponding perceptions - and with nothing else - solves this problem by providing a positive characterisation of the character of those hallucinations. Moreover, it leads to the strengthening of the epistemic conception introduced at the beginning (cf. section 2), since it denies that the character of perception-like hallucinations involves other aspects than their subjective indistinguishability from perceptions. But now, the difficulty is that this character turns out to lack determinacy. According to disjunctivism about character, mental episodes can be subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions in at least two ways: by being a perception, or by being a perception-like hallucination. The view can assume that, in the case of perceptions, this determinable aspect of character is realised by some more determinate aspect (e.g., their special relationality), which is furthermore responsible for the difference in character between the perceptions and the hallucinations. But since the character of the latter is taken to be exhausted by the determinable aspect of subjective indistinguishability, it remains indeterminate. However, it is doubtful that genuine entities could instantiate determinable features without instantiating determinations of them. And there is no reason to assume that mental episodes are an exception to this rule. Hence, perception-like hallucinations (in contrast to perceptions) cannot any more count as genuine entities - that is, in this case, as episodes in the stream of consciousness. Instead, they should be treated as situations or states of mind in which subjects can be (cf. the talk of 'situations' in Martin (2004, 2006)). But this is in tension with our subjective impression that we are actually undergoing an episodic experience when unknowingly hallucinating something. For what follows, it does not matter to settle the issue of which of the two versions of disjunctivism about character is to be preferred. The subsequent 312 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection considerations and objections apply equally to both. Hence, I continue to assume that the subjective indiscriminability of hallucinations from corresponding perceptions is not a constituent of the character of those hallucinations, but rather an indiscriminability in - or relative to - their character. I therefore also do not assume that the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations should give rise to the stronger view discussed. In accordance with this, it is compatible with that conception that such hallucinations may still possess positively describable individual natures, even though their experiential kind as a whole can be positively characterised only in epistemic terms. IV. Three Challenges for Conjunctivism about Character The Challenge of Introspective Error 17. There is an important explanatory difference between disjunctivism and conjunctivism about character: while the former has the resources to elucidate the nature of the error involved in judging perception-like hallucinations to be perceptions, the latter does not - or at least not yet. According to disjunctivism about character, the hallucinations satisfying (S) and the corresponding perceptions do not share any character determinables; but we are, in introspection, ignorant about the distinctness of the latter. The error in taking the hallucinations to be perceptions is therefore introspective in nature. By contrast, conjunctivism assumes that the hallucinations are subjectively indiscriminable from corresponding perceptions because both possess the same introspectible properties, that is, the same character. The error can therefore not be located at the level of introspection, but has to arise either at an earlier or at a later stage in the epistemic process. But there are also other reasons why disjunctivism about character should perhaps be preferred over its conjunctivist counterpart. The Challenge of Subjective Impact 18. Perceptual experiences are essentially conscious phenomena, that is, phenomena with a subjective character. This means that a theory, which tries to capture their nature, has to characterise and individuate them in terms of what they are like from, or how they are given to, the subjective perspective. This has the consequence that features - such as structure, functional role or representationality - matter for such a characterisation only if they, in one way or another, make a difference for the subject. If their presence or absence has no subjective resonance, they do not have a bearing on which fundamental kind the experiences concerned belong to. This does not necessarily rule out reductionist accounts of experience. If experiences turn out to be identical 313 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 with, say, certain brain states, the latter arguably make a difference for the subject because the former do. They are just not given to the subject as the brain states that they essentially are. From the inside, they are simply identifiable as conscious experiences. 19. However, if the property of making a difference for the subject is understood in introspective terms, conjunctivism about character is left with a problem. What is central to this view is the claim that all perceptual experiences - that is, both perceptions and perception-like hallucinations (and illusions) - share the same perceptual character. In addition, and independently of one's stance on the character(s) of perceptual experiences, it is natural to assume that non-perceptual experiences - such as episodes of imagining or recalling, or hallucinations which are, from the inside, easily recognisable as non-perceptual - differ in character from perceptual experiences. Conjunctivism about character, together with this further assumption, entails that experiences count as perceptual in virtue of their character: sharing a character with perceptions is both sufficient and necessary for being a perceptual experiences. Mental episodes, which do not possess a perceptual character, are not perceptual experiences, but belong to some other kind of experience. Hence, to be able to claim that their view captures the nature of perceptual experiences, conjuntivists about character have to assume that the presence or absence of a distinctively perceptual character makes a difference for the subject. The problem is now that there seems to be no good reason to rule out the possibility of cases in which the absence of a perceptual character does not make a difference in introspection (cf. Martin (2004, 2006)). In such cases, an experience lacks the character distinctive of perceptions, but cannot be introspectively discriminated from the latter. But this gives rise to a dilemma for conjunctivism about character. On the one hand, the fact that the character of the experience concerned is distinct from that of perceptions is taken to be relevant for its characterisation as a non-perceptual experience. But, on the other hand, this difference in character does not have any impact on how the experience is given to the subject in introspection, so it should not matter for our identification of the fundamental kind to which the experience belongs to. The only way out for the conjunctivists seems to be to deny that there can be such experiences which satisfy (I), despite not sharing a character with perceptions and, hence, with perceptual experiences. What therefore needs to be shown is that introspection is infallible with respect to the detection of the absence of a perceptual character. That is, it has to be argued that, each time an experience without a perceptual character occurs, we are in principle able to subjectively recognise this aspect of their 314 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection character in which they differ from perceptual experiences. But why should it be assumed that introspection is infallible in this specific manner? Perception, for instance, does not show a comparable infabillibity. There are distinct shapes or shades of colour, for instance, which we - that is, any possible subject with the apparatus distinctive of humans as they actually are - cannot perceptually discriminate under suitable circumstances, even though we might be able to distinguish them in different settings. So conjunctivism about character seems to be forced to present an argument of why introspection differs from perception in not allowing for a certain kind of ignorance. 20. Disjunctivism about character does not have the same problem since it identifies the satisfaction of (I), rather than the possession of a perceptual character, as the distinctive mark of perceptual experiences.13 Accordingly, an experience which is introspectively indiscriminable from a perception counts as a perceptual experience, independently of whether it has a character in common with perceptions or not. In contrast to the possession of a perceptual character, the introspective indistinguishability from perceptions is always recognisable from the inside. This is not in conflict with the idea that the nonperceptual character of perception-like hallucinations is still to some extent introspectively accessible - if only with respect to its introspective indiscriminability from the character of perceptions. But it has the consequence that perceptual experiences do not form a natural, but rather only an epistemic kind. This fits well with the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations: they are all perceptual experiences (i.e., are subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions), but each possibly for very different reasons. By contrast, perceptions are all perceptual experiences for the very same reason, namely because of their distinctive relationality. Hence, they still can be said to form a natural kind due to this shared essential feature. The Phenomenological Challenge 21. Another motivation for adopting disjunctivism about character is the acceptance of a certain disjunctivist view about the nature of perceptual experiences. In general, disjunctivism about perceptual experiences combines two claims: (i) perceptions and hallucinations have different essences (or belong to different fundamental mental kinds); and (ii) it is essential to perceptions - but not to hallucinations - that they relate us, in the specified manner, to 13It is perhaps more precise to say that disjunctivism about character takes the satisfaction of (S) to be the distinctive mark of perceptual experiences, but then understands (S) in terms of introspective indiscriminability. In sections 44ff., I return to this issue and argue that a conjunctivist about character should reject this focus on introspection and replace it with a focus on experience. 315 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 some mind-independent object and its features. In other words, disjunctivism treats the difference in relationality noted at the beginning as an essential difference. Importantly, disjunctivism about perceptual experiences is distinct from disjunctivism about character; and the same is true for their conjunctivist counterparts. One difference to note is that, while the two approaches to perceptual experiences make claims about the essence(s) of these experiences, the two approaches to character do not - although it is plausible to further assume, for independent reasons, that the character of an experience is essential to it. Another relevant point is that, so far, disjunctivism about perceptual experiences stays neutral on whether perceptions and hallucinations share all, some, or none, of their character determinables. As the view to be defended later on illustrates, it is, for instance, possible to combine conjunctivism about character with disjunctivism about perceptual experiences. 22. None the less, there are more concrete versions of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences, which further specify or back up (ii) in such a way that they come to adopt a stance on the issue of character as well. Experiential disjunctivism about perceptual experiences is a good example of this. This version of disjunctivism understands (ii) in the following manner: (ii*) it is essential to perceptions that their establish a relation of awareness to some mind-independent object and its perceivable properties, and that each of their character determinables is determined by, or otherwise constitutively linked to, this relation of awareness. That is, the nature of perceptions consists in their establishment of a conscious contact with external entities and is accessible to introspection.14 Disjunctivism about character is a direct consequence of experiential disjunctivism. For if all character determinables of perceptions are constitutively linked to their special relationality, the characters of the non-relational hallucinations cannot realise any of these determinables. Accordingly, experiential disjunctivism denies that hallucinations can share any character determinables with perceptions. However, the two types of experience still have some other property in common, namely their satisfaction of (I), a relational epistemic property. Perceptions satisfy (I) trivially, namely simply by being perceptions. And perception-like hallucinations satisfy (I) because of one of the factors mentioned above - notably the fact that introspection is insensitive to the relational nature of characters. Given that perception-like hallucinations also 14See Martin (2004, 2006). Again, I ignore the possibility of weaker variants of experiential disjunctivism, such as the view that only certain, but not all, character determinables of perceptions are relational properties - which would be compatible with, but not necessitated by, the view that hallucinations may share some of their character determinables with perceptions. 316 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection do not share any structural aspects with perceptions, but are instead characterised by their lack of the relationality distinctive of perceptions, experiential disjunctivism embraces the epistemic conception of hallucinations. Moreover, it includes the idea that what unifies the class of perceptual experiences is precisely the property of satisfying (I). There is no room here to properly discuss and evaluate the arguments in favour of experiential disjunctivism. But one of its advantages is that it can preserve well our ordinary conception of perceptions, according to which it is part of their nature that they bring us into contact with the external world, that is, genuinely relate us in a distinctive manner to mind-independent objects or facts (cf. Martin (2002b) and chapter 8). By contrast, other prominent views about the nature of perceptual experiences have to adopt an error theory concerning some aspect or another of our ordinary opinions about perceptions. This is the case, for instance, if perceptions are construed as relations to minddependent or non-physical entities (i.e., to some form of sense-data); or if they are construed as involving an intentional and, hence, non-relational form of awareness of the external objects (cf. Martin (2000a)). 23. Conjunctivism about character has to address the challenges outlined in the last few sections. Since intentionalists about perceptual experiences are typically also conjunctivists about character, they have to confront these challenges as well. I return below (cf. sections VI and 45ff.) to the issue of how experiential intentionalism - the unorthodox intentionalist version of conjunctivism to be defended here - is able to do this, namely: (i) to explain the error involved in taking perception-like hallucinations to be perceptions; (ii) to ensure that the absence of a perceptual character always makes a difference for the subject; and (iii) to accommodate our ordinary opinions about perceptions. For the time being, however, it is worthwhile to understand why disjunctivism about character and, more specifically, experiential disjunctivism are at least as problematic as conjunctivism about character. V. Three Challenges for Disjunctivism about Character 24. That this task is perhaps less easy than might be thought is illustrated by the fact that conjunctivists about character cannot simply appeal to the satisfaction of (I) when arguing for the claim that the perceptual experiences concerned possess some common character determinables (cf. Martin (2006)). More needs to be said to establish the claim that introspective indiscriminability should count as tracking a sameness in character. To see this more clearly, it may be helpful to compare introspection with perception. When we are trying to determine the visible features of objects, we have 317 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 a fairly good grasp of which viewing conditions are optimal for this task, and which not. Moreover, this distinction between optimal and non-optimal viewing conditions enables us to draw a distinction between how objects seem in visual experience and how they really are. That is, it allows us to conceive of the visible features of objects as mind-independent in the sense of being instantiated independently of any particular of our visual experiences. The visible features should count as mind-independent because brute error is possible in vision: we may misperceive or otherwise err about such features, despite being epistemically not at fault (e.g., despite being completely rational and possessing a well-functioning mind and brain). And brute error is possible in vision because we may view things under non-optimal conditions (e.g., in unusual light, or when immersed in water), which need not guarantee that there is no gap between how objects seem in visual experience and how they really are. Now, the distinction between optimal and non-optimal viewing conditions and the resulting mind-independence of the features of things accessible through vision ensure also that, if we cannot tell apart two things by vision alone when viewing them under optimal conditions, then they possess the same mind-independent visible features. This means that we are entitled to take visual indiscriminability under optimal conditions as an indication of a commonality on the level of mind-independent visible features. This line of reasoning cannot, however, be easily applied to the introspective indiscriminability of hallucinations. For we do not have a similar grasp of a distinction between optimal and non-optimal conditions in the case of introspection (cf. Burge (2003) and Martin (2000b, 2006)). This need not mean that introspection does not allow for brute error, or that what is introspected is mind-dependent. But in the absence of such a distinction, we have yet no good reason to assume that introspective indiscriminability indicates some underlying sameness in character, which occurs independently of our introspective awareness of it. Conjunctivists could maintain that all conditions are optimal for introspection, and that the latter is consequently infallible. But this would give rise to the difficult challenge of identifying those mechanisms, which underlie introspection and guarantee that we always correctly notice the similarities and differences among the characters of our experiences. Therefore, it is better to look for other reasons to prefer the conjunctivist view over its disjunctivist counterpart. The Challenge of Rational Sameness 25. One of the main challenges for disjunctivism about character is to explain the fact that hallucinations possess the same rational force as corresponding perceptions when they are subjectively indiscriminable from the latter. That two experiences share the same rational force means that they make it rea318 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection sonable for the subject to form the same judgements, beliefs, intentions, and so on. What thus needs explaining is that perception-like hallucinations do not only move us to form the same judgements about the world and about themselves as the perceptions, but that it is also reasonable for us to form these judgements - such as the judgement that our current experience is a perception. Returning to our example, if Macbeth had been rational and completely unaware of the absence and death of Banquo, as well as of his own agitated and traumatic state of mind, he would have come to believe that he really saw Banquo there before him. And, moreover, it would have been reasonable for him to develop this belief. Similarly, if he had seen Banquo after having been erroneously assured by everyone else that the latter had died, a rational Macbeth would not have formed the belief that he actually saw Banquo (but perhaps instead the belief that he 'saw a ghost', meaning that he hallucinated Banquo). And, in fact, it would have been unreasonable for him to believe in a perceptual encounter with Banquo, assuming that the people around him had been trustworthy. In short, it is reasonable for us to trust our hallucinations, unless we become aware of evidence about their hallucinatory character - just as it is reasonable for us to trust our perceptions, unless we believe them to be hallucinatory. 26. To get clearer about its impact and avoid potential misunderstandings, it is worthwhile to qualify the challenge raised here against disjunctivism about character in several respects. First, that perception-like hallucinations render certain judgements and beliefs reasonable need not imply that they provide us with (access to) some epistemic reasons for the latter. Accordingly, the challenge stays neutral on whether the subject has epistemic reasons solely when he is perceiving, or also when he is hallucinating (assuming the absence of defeaters). None the less, the rational force of our perceptual experiences - whether they are perceptual or hallucinatory - remains closely linked to our subjective take on the presence of epistemic reasons for us. When we are rational, we form our judgements and beliefs in response to what we take our reasons to be. Accordingly, whether it is reasonable for us to rely on a given experience depends on whether we take the experience to be reason-providing. Second, the challenge does not impose the requirement that the rational powers of perceptions and perception-like hallucinations should receive exactly the same explanation. For the sake of argument, it is assumed here that perceptions render certain judgements and beliefs reasonable in virtue of the reason-providing power of their relational to the world; while the rational force of perception-like hallucinations is to be understood as deriving from the 319 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 rational force of the perceptions and their priority over the perception-like hallucinations, which is part of the subjective indiscriminability of the latter from the former (cf. Williamson (1990): 60ff., for such an explanatory approach). The present challenge thus does not presume that sameness of rational power implies sameness in the features responsible for that power. It simply asks for some satisfactory explanation of why subjectively indiscriminable hallucinations share their rational force with the relevant perceptions. Third, it is also important to note that the rational force common to perceptions and hallucinations is accessible from the inside - perhaps not always by the subject concerned, but at least in principle by some possible human subject in the same situation (just as in the case of subjective indiscriminability). Had his judgement about the presence of Banquo been challenged by the people surrounding him, a rational Macbeth's initial reaction might have been surprise or disbelief, since he would have taken his judgement to be perfectly reasonable until the moment of the challenge. Indeed, it would have needed very convincing external evidence for him to change his assessment of his judgement and its grounding in his experience. The situation would have been very different, if Macbeth had merely visualised Banquo and been able to distinguish this experience from a perception. He would have recognised that it would not be reasonable for him to believe that Banquo was there before him. Perceptual and imaginative experiences differ in whether they make it reasonable for the subject to form perceptual judgements and judgements about perceiving. And this difference is accessible from the inside, even if imaginative experiences are compared with perception-like hallucinations. Fourth, this is one reason why reasonableness is not the same as entitlement (i.e., whatever is third-personally distinctive of knowledge, in addition to truth). If a given hallucination is subjectively indiscriminable from corresponding perceptions, we cannot tell from our subjective perspective that forming a judgment on its basis does not lead to knowledge (or even just true belief). For if we could, this would, after all, means that we do have access from the inside to a feature which distinguishes this hallucination from perceptions. Rational force and the power to put us into a position to know may also differ in that the latter may actually contribute to a difference in nature between perceptions and hallucinations. It may, for instance, be argued that the two kinds of perceptual experience differ essentially in whether they can be grounds for knowledge - or be veridical, for that matter (cf. McDowell (1998a)). If this is true, hallucinations cannot entitle us to form judgements (other than the judgement that we are hallucinating). In particular, it would be false to assume that, if a given hallucinatory experience had been veridical, it would have put us in a position to acquire knowledge (or, indeed, it would be false to assume that a given hallucination could have been veridical in the 320 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection first place). This perhaps suggests that hallucinations do not provide us with epistemic reasons, even if they sometimes seem to do so. But it does not prevent hallucinations from making the formation of certain judgements reasonable when the former are subjectively indiscriminable from corresponding perceptions. Judgements based on perception-like hallucinations cease to be reasonable relative to the subject's perspective only if the subject (rightly or wrongly) takes them to be false or lacking proper grounding - for instance, in response to recognising the underlying experiences as hallucinatory. The mere lack of truth and entitlement, on the other hand, does not yet suffice to undermine the reasonableness of such judgements. Macbeth's experience might have failed to put him in a position to acquire knowledge about the world or about his experience and, in this sense, might have been epistemically defective (e.g., by violating truthor knowledge-related epistemic norms). But it still rendered it reasonable for him to judge that he was seeing Banquo before him, as long as he lacked evidence from the outside for the hallucinatory status of his experience. And it still enabled him to make a claim to the reasonableness of his judgement. Indeed, he would have been at fault and blameworthy (e.g., for being rationally insensitive or akratic) if he would have failed to take his experience at face value and to form the belief about Banquo's presence in response to it.15 27. How can disjunctivism about character - or experiential disjunctivism, for that matter - explain that hallucinating something makes it reasonable for the subject concerned to judge that we are perceiving when the hallucination in question is subjectively indiscriminable from a comparable perception? One natural answer is to say that this rational force just comes already with being perception-like. That one of our experiences is subjectively indistinguishable from a perception means in part that, if we lack any opposing evidence from the outside, we are inclined to take this experience to be reasonproviding (assuming that we are rational). Were we lacking this incliniation, we would be able to subjectively tell the experience apart from a perception. One fact in support of this conclusion is that the presence or absence of such 15See section 42 for a sketch of an intentionalist explanation of how hallucinations render certain beliefs reasonable in situations in which we are unaware of their hallucinatory status, even if they do not enable us to satisfy truthor knowledge-related norms (though the explanation does not, for instance, address the problem of bootstrapping discussed in Kolodny (2005)). If one - like McDowell (1998a) - prefers to count judgements and beliefs as reasonable only if they conform to all epistemic norms (in addition to being formed in the light of the evidence available), my subsequent considerations should be read as being exclusively concerned with the partial reasonableness coming with the blameless formation of a judgement in response to a perceptual experience, the perceptual status of which is not under doubt. For the sake of simplicity, I do not mention any more in what follows this potential partiality of the reasonableness of our reliance on perception-like hallucinations. 321 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 an inclination is accessible from the inside, since we can discover by introspection which judgements our experiences move us to form (e.g., in response to asking ourselves whether our experience provides us with a reason to believe). The other fact in support is that perceptions do compel us to take them to be reason-providing, as long as we are not aware of defeaters. That is, when we perceive something, we are inclined to judge, not only that our experience is a perception, but also that it provides us with certain epistemic reasons. We can therefore discover that an experience is not a perception by introspecting that it does not incline us to judge that it is reason-giving, despite of the lack of any evidence from the outside concerning its non-perceptual status. Now, in the light of the close link between rational force and our subjective take on reason-provision spelled out above, it might be assumed that being inclined to take an experience to be a reason-giving perception suffices for it being reasonable for us to rely on it in the formation of respective judgements and beliefs. This assumption promises a direct route from subjective indistinguishability to sameness in rational force. The subjective indiscriminability of a hallucination comes with the inclination to take it to be reason-giving, which again is assumed to ensure the reasonableness of our reliance on the hallucination when forming our beliefs.16 The assumption under consideration should, however, be rejected since the reasonableness of relying on an experience cannot simply be a matter of what that experience inclines us to do. One reason for this is that reasonableness is a normative feature, while inclination is not. In particular, it is no option to introduce the idea of realiability or conduciveness to truth, in the hope that this might be able to bridge the gap between the descriptive and the normative. Granted, our judgements in response to our perceptual experiences generally tend to be true because the latter are normally perceptions. But disjunctivists about character maintain that perceptions and hallucinations form two distinct fundamental kinds of experience, which do not share any relevant aspects of their essential character or structure. This means that the inclinations coming with hallucinating something in a perception-like manner are completely independent from the inclinations coming with perceiving something. Hence, the latter's connection to truth does not extend to the former. But while the reliability or truth-conduciveness of perceptual experience is limited to perception, the reasonableness of relying on experience pertains also to perception-like hallucinations. 16See Martin (2004): 66ff., for a similar proposal. Again, this line of thought is compatible with the idea that perception-like hallucinations cannot figure as grounds of knowledge (McDowell (1998a)). Rendering the formation of a certain perceptual or introspective judgement reasonable relative to the subjective take on reasons is distinct from putting the subject into the position to acquire the related piece of perceptual or introspective knowledge. 322 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection The other reason for rejecting the assumption that inclination is sufficient for reasonableness is that being inclined to form a certain belief if prompted does not amount to forming or having that belief. More specifically, that an experience inclines us to take it to be a reason-giving perception does not imply that we actually take it to be so. Part of the explanation of this is that the kind of inclinations at issue depend solely on the occurrence of the experiences in question and our possession of the relevant concepts; and no belief is required or involved. As a consequence, the impossibility to distinguish a hallucination from reason-giving perceptions does not amount to the positive recognition of the hallucination as reason-giving. Our unavoidable ignorance cannot so easily be turned into knowledge.17 But this is problematic since - as observed above - it is reasonable for us to rely on a given experience just in case we take the experience to be reason-providing. Accordingly, the rational force of experiences is linked to our actual take on them - and not on the take on them which we would develop if prompted in a suitable way. 28. So, perhaps, the reasonableness of our reliance on our perception-like hallucinations is not due to their subjective indiscriminability from perceptions, but instead to the fact that we actually take them to be reason-providing. The suggestion cannot be that what makes it reasonable for us to trust a given hallucination is our judgement (or belief) that it is a reason-giving perception. There is no need for us to gather respective evidence from the outside to come to judge in a reasonable manner that one of our experiences is a perception and, hence, provides us with epistemic reasons. Forming this judgement from the inside, however, is precisely what is at issue. We are concerned with the question of what renders our introspective judgement that our experience is a reason-giving perception reasonable. Hence, this judgement cannot contribute to the rational force of perception-like hallucinations. Hence, the thought should rather be that we take perception-like hallucinations to be reason-giving by recognising their subjective indiscriminability from corresponding perceptions. Experiential disjunctivism maintains that perceptions provide us with reasons for belief mainly because they acquaint us with aspects of the world, or make them manifest to us.18 Since this relational aspect of perceptions constitutes part of their character, it is subjectively ac17A similar general thought is central to Siegel's observation that some instance of unknowability - namely the subjective indistinguishability of a hallucination from a perception of, say, a sausage - does not suffice to ground some instance of knowability - namely the fact that we can come to know, from the inside, that the hallucination in question is not a perception of something else, say, a pyramid (cf. Siegel (2008): 218ff.). 18See Martin (2002b) and Nudds (2010). See also McDowellMind for a very similar epistemic claim in the context of a slightly different form of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences. 323 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 cessible to us. So we may perhaps be said to recognise the reason-giving power of our perceptions by becoming aware of their distinctive relationality and, hence, of their perceptual status. Perception-like hallucinations - the thought continues - possess the same rational force because they are subjectively indistinguishable from corresponding reason-giving perceptions (and because the latter enjoy priority over the former). Accordingly, it may be claimed that we take such hallucinations to be reason-proiding because we recognise them to be indiscriminable from perceptions. However, it is doubtful that this type of ignorance is very often subjectively accessible to us (if at all). For acquiring knowledge of it requires taking into account the possible cases of other - and more rational and attentive - human subjects being in our current mental situation. Moreover, even if we could in principle come to know about our own necessary ignorance, this would presumably involve a considerable amount of theoretical reflection (such as engaging with Martin's writings on the subjective indistinguishability of hallucinations). But relying on hallucinations satisfying (S) - just as relying on perceptions - is far from being intellectually demanding in this way. 29. This leaves experiential disjunctivism perhaps with the option to identify a more basic feature of perception-like hallucinations, which is responsible both for their satisfaction of (S) and their possession of the same rational force as the corresponding perceptions. But such a feature is difficult to find. The hallucinations in question are not in any interesting way linked to the external world. They need not share among each other, or with the corresponding perceptions, any relevant aspect of their causal origins. And neither their links to the world, nor their causal origins are accessible from the inside; so our awareness of them cannot ground our subjective knowledge of the rational force of the hallucinations concerned. The best candidate for the third feature would probably be a character determinable shared by all hallucinations which satisfy (S). But experiential disjunctivists remain silent about the character determinables of those hallucinations - and for good reasons. One motivation for - and advantage of - their view has been to assume that there need not be such a common character determinable, and that nothing more can be said about the hallucinations at issue, other than that they are subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions, but lack the relationality of the latter (cf. Martin (2004, 2006)). However, if no third feature can be identified, experiential disjunctivism cannot explain why hallucinations, which are subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions, share their rational force with the latter. The view might outweigh this shortcoming by its power to account for other aspects of perceptual experiences. But it may be equally beneficial to look for an alternative theory which can elucidate the 324 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection sameness of rational force, while perhaps not being less explanatorily powerful in other respects (cf. chapters 8 and 13 for more discussion). The Challenges of Consciousness and of Rational Force 30. Before moving on to the presentation and discussion of such an alternative view, I would like to outline two other challenges to experiential disjunctivism and, thus, indirectly also to disjunctivism about character. So far, the objection has been primarily that experiential disjunctivism cannot account for a certain fact about perception-like hallucinations. But there are also some doubts about whether it can satisfactorily illuminate two central features of perceptions, namely their conscious status and their rational force (as well as, relatedly, their power to provide epistemic reasons). According to experiential disjunctivism, the essence of perceptions consists primarily in their property of relating us to mind-independent objects or facts. However, there are many relations between subjects and the world which do not give rise to conscious states with rational powers. This is why experiential disjunctivism takes the relation in question to be a special kind of relation - a relation of awareness, or of acquaintance, by means of which aspects of the world become manifest to us. But even if it is granted that there is such a relation, and that its power to give us awareness of aspects of the world is a primitive feature of our conscious minds, two questions remain.19 The first concerns the issue of how the relation of awareness can have both the power to make us aware of the world and the power of make us aware of our mind. When seeing a green tree, we are not only conscious of the tree, but also of our experience of it - notably of how we are of the tree (e.g., whether we see, remember or imagine it). Indeed, this is part of what it means that our experience of the tree is a conscious experience with a subjective character. The question is how these two types or aspects of awareness are linked to each other, and why they occur together. Perhaps the fact that our experiences of the world are conscious is a primitive aspect of our minds, too. But even so, it can be no accident that awareness of the world and awareness of the mind come together. In other words, it can be no accident that the two capacities of the relation of acquaintance are compatible with each other and, indeed, co-exist. And this fact needs explaining, even if it is accepted that each of the powers on its own need - or can - not be elucidated much further.20 19One question here is whether conscious presentation can be such as not to allow for error, as proponents of the idea of relational awareness are claiming. In particular, it is unclear how a presentation can get it 'right' (e.g., count as 'veridical' or a 'good case' (cf. Martin (2006)), if it could not go 'wrong' in any way (cf. Dretske (1986). 20This challenge does not arise for views which maintain that we are aware only of external objects, but not of how we are aware of them, or of any other aspect of our experiences 325 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 The second question problematises the fact that experiential disjunctivism has to identify the obtaining relation of awareness as the source of perceptual reasons and the resulting rational force of perceptions. It asks how this is compatible with the fact that it is not intellectually demanding to come to recognise perceptions - say, when comparing them with their imaginative counterparts - as reason-giving and, hence, as having the power to render certain judgements and beliefs reasonable (in the absence of relevant defeaters). For the experiential disjunctivist, what gives perceptions their rational force is, ultimately, the fact that they put us into conscious contact with the world. Hence, becoming aware of the rational force of perceptions requires becoming aware of their property of establishing a relation of awareness between us and the world. The question is then how the disjunctivist position can ensure that we are able to recognise the relationality of our perceptions and its rational relevance with relative ease. It is not obvious how being acquainted with objects or facts in the world can account for the easy availability of our knowledge that perceptions provide us with reasons and therefore have the power to render certain judgements and beliefs reasonable.21 VI. Meeting the Challenge of Introspective Error 31. In the light of the difficulties and questions which disjunctivism about character - and, notably, experiential disjunctivism about perceptual experiences - face, it seems worthwhile to look at conjunctivism about character as a viable alternative. Of course, any account of perceptual experiences and their character - whether disjunctivist or conjunctivist - should be able to satisfactorily address the three challenges raised in the last sections. But while it is indeed unclear how disjunctivism about character might be able to achieve this, I aim to show that conjunctivism about characters has no problems with this task - as well as with meeting the other three challenges described even earlier. Conjunctivism about character states that the hallucinations satisfying (S) share their character with the corresponding perceptions. Perhaps it is possible to identify a character determinable common to both kinds of experience which explains their shared rational force. And perhaps reference to this character (cf., e.g., Tye (1995) and Dretske (1995)). But these views are perhaps to be rejected on indepenent grounds. 21One issue here is, of course, how our recognition of the relationality of perceptions fits together with the observation that attending to our experience just leads to attending to their external objects (cf. Evans (1982) and Martin (2000b)). I propose a solution to this problem, which is compatible with experiential intentionalism, in chapter 2. The central thought is that perceptual experiences are given to us as relational by means of our awareness of the external objects involved as the determinants of our experiences. 326 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection determinable can also help us to elucidate in which sense perceptual experiences count as conscious, and how they are able to provide us with reasons.22 According to conjunctivism about character, the hallucination and the corresponding perceptions satisfy (I) because they share their character. As already noted above, this means that, in finding the two introspectively indiscriminable, we correctly recognise their sameness in character; and the error in judging the hallucinations to be perceptions cannot be an error due to a specifically introspective failure or limitation. Instead, the error has to occur either before or after introspection. 32. One way to spell out the latter option is to say that the error is inferential in nature. The idea may be that we inferentially judge perceptual experiences (whether they are perceptual or hallucinatory) to be perceptions on the basis of introspectively judging them to be perceptual experiences, plus some ancillary belief - such as the belief that perceptual experiences are normally perceptions, or that we have good reason to take them to be perceptions in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Or, alternatively, the introspective judgement may be that it seems that we are perceiving; and, from that, we conclude that we are perceiving on the basis of the belief that what is introspectively judged as seeming to be the case is typically the case. Both views fit very well with the fact that, once we become aware of evidence for its hallucinatory status, we stop taking a given experience to be perceptual.23 But their main problem is that they cannot easily accommodate the immediacy with which we often come to judge that we are perceiving. When challenged about his unusual words and behaviour, Macbeth did not have to engage in any form of reasoning in order to be able to reply that he had seen Banquo. It might be suggested that Macbeth had learned to automatise or internalise such inferences in some way or another. The thought is that, while the justification for his judgements about the perceptual character of his experience was still inferential, he was able to form that warranted judgement without having to engage in any conscious inference. However, if further pressed, 22Again, I ignore any middle position according to which hallucinations share such a character determinable with the corresponding perceptions, without thereby sharing the whole character of the latter. 23The second view, which assumes that we introspectively judge that it seems as if we are perceiving, naturally combines with the idea of a preceding experiential or intellectual seeming (e.g., an intuition) that we are perceiving. However, this latter idea introduces the error involved in taking perception-like hallucinations to be perceptions already at a pre-introspective level and therefore cannot be adopted by someone trying to capture this error in purely inferential terms. It is therefore more plausible to prefer talk of introspective judgements about having a perceptual experience over talk of introspective judgements about it seeming that one has a perception. 327 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 Macbeth would not have provided such an inferential justification, but instead continued to simply point to the perceptual status of his experience. Indeed, Macbeth's conduct would have looked strange (or, rather, even stranger than it already did) if he would have answered that he had a visual experience as if of Banquo, and that his experiences are normally perceptions. He very well realised that the others were believing that there was no Banquo to be seen. And this deeply worried and unsettled him and let him question his own sanity. None the less, he kept on insisting that he had seen Banquo (as illustrated, say, by the piece of dialogue quoted at the beginning). If his judgement would have been inferentially justified, he would probably have dismissed it in the light of the testimony of the others. But this was not what was happening. 33. If the error in taking perception-like hallucinations to be perceptions is neither introspective, nor inferential, it has to be non-judgemental and occur at a prior level of awareness. It is natural to identify this prior level of awareness with conscious awareness which comes with having conscious experiences and occurs prior to, and independently of, introspective awareness of those experiences. Consciousness comes with subjectivity. When we are conscious, things are given to us as conscious subjects. That is, we are consciously aware of them from our subjective perspective. But things can be consciously given in two different ways. Certain things - namely episodes in the stream of consciousness - are present in (or to) consciousness. That is, they are determinations of consciousness, and we consciously experience them while being in them. By contrast, other things - such as aspects of the external world or, indeed, our mental episodes - are presented to us as being a certain way. A rose may appear to be long and red; and the respective mental image of the rose may seem to be actively produced, or instead to have occurred unbidden. We are conscious of these entities and experience them as being a certain way.24 Many mental episodes involve both forms of conscious awareness. But there are perhaps some which are only present in consciousness and do not come with the presentation of something as being a certain way. This may be, for instance, what is happening when we are consciously enjoying a feeling of ennui or anxiety, or are undergoing an experience of vertigo. The character of mental episodes is in fact identical with how they are present in, or determines, consciousness. To be present in consciousness just 24See chapter 5 for a discussion of our experience of mental images and thoughts as active or passive. The distinction between the two ways in which things may be given to consciousness may also be cashed out in terms of 'experiencing something' versus 'experiencing something as being a certain way' - whereby 'experiencing' is equivalent to the German 'erleben', and to be distinguished from the more narrow notion of 'experiencing something perceptually or sensorily'. 328 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection means to be conscious and to have a character. It is perhaps worthwhile to point out here that talk of what a mental episode 'is like' may be understood in at least two different ways. On the one hand, it can be interpreted metaphysically, as denoting the nature of the episode (leaving it open whether this nature is firstor third-personally accessible). On the other hand, the phrase can be understood epistemically, as denoting how we consciously experience the episode. The character of mental episodes combines both elements: it is part of their nature and consists in how they seem to the subject in the sense of being present in, or a determination of, consciousness. As a result, there is no distinction between how the character of a mental episode is and how it experientially seems (cf. Husserl (1996)). By contrast, it is certainly possible that how an episode is intentionally presented to us as being - whether in experience or in introspection - does not match how it really is. 34. The suggestion is now that hallucinatory experiences are presented to consciousness as being a certain way. More precisely, they are given to us as being perceptions, that is, as relating us to some mind-independent objects and their features in the manner characteristic of perceptions. And given that they are not perceptions, our conscious awareness of them involves some kind of error: there is a mismatch between how the experiences really are and how they are presented to consciousness. The error concerned is one about the underlying objective structure of the hallucinations: namely their lack - rather than their possession - of the property of relating us to some mind-independent entities. And the wrongness of the resulting introspective judgement is merely a consequence of the error which occurs at the prior level of conscious awareness. It is perhaps worthwhile to stress that the proposed type of error is not an error about the character of the hallucinations concerned. Indeed, this would be impossible since it would mean that how these hallucinations are given to us in consciousness is wrong about itself. For the character of experiences - what we have so far specified as their most determinate introspectible feature - is identical with their presence in consciousness, that is, with what it is like to consciously experience them. Having a character just means being conscious, that is, being given to consciousness. And the character of an experience cannot present itself, let alone in a mistaken manner. The only types of error possible are introspective error about the character of an experience, and experiential (or first-personal) error about its objective (or third-personal) structure (cf. chapter 13). The proposal here is that the former is a result of the latter. This presupposes that we form the introspective judgement about the perceptuality of the hallucinatory experiences in direct response to our conscious 329 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 awareness of them: we judge them to be perceptions because they are given to us in consciousness as perceptions, and because we introspect this feature of theirs. In accordance with this, the property of being presented to consciousness as relating us to mind-independent things or facts is to be understood as a character determinable which is common to all hallucinations that satisfy (S). But it is also shared by the corresponding perceptions, thus ensuring that the two kinds of perceptual experience end up possessing the same character. For perceptions are equally given to us as relations to mind-independent entities. In this introspectibly accessible respect, perceptions and perception-like hallucinations differ from sensory (or episodic) memories and sensory imaginings: the latter are not given to consciousness as perceptions. If Macbeth would have recalled or visualised Banquo as being at the banquet, instead of hallucinating him to be there, he would not have had the conscious impression of his experience bringing him into direct contact with something that was present before him independently of his actual experience of it. VII. Experiential Intentionalism 35. So far, it remains unclear whether, or how, the new proposal can meet the challenges to disjunctivism about character and experiential disjunctivism. And it is also left open why the fact that hallucinations are given to us as perceptions should count as involving an error, given that some kind of mismatch between two facts does not automatically manifest a genuine mistake. Both sets of issues can be resolved by understanding consciousness partly in intentional terms. More specifically, the presence of something to consciousness as being a certain way - or its appearance to the conscious subject as being a certain way - should be interpreted as a form of intentional awareness. The resulting view is experiential intentionalism - the view that we are intentionally aware, not only of the world, but also of our own conscious experiences.25 36. The intentionality of conscious mental states consists minimally, and centrally, in their subjection to some norm which requires the states to occur just in case the world is in a certain state, or meets a certain condition.26 The intentional content of the states - if one wants to introduce this notion at all - can then be understood as being determined by the nature of the relevant 25See chapter 13 for a detailed discussion of the motivation and nature of the resulting experiential intentionalism about perceptual experiences and their subjective character. 26Of course, there is more to intentionality - notably subjectivity. Intentional presentation is always presentation to a subject, or a subjective perspective, and therefore to a waking or dreaming conscious mind. The normative element then distinguishes intentional from non-intentional consciousness, that is, something being presented to consciousness as being a certain way from something merely being present in consciousness. 330 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection truths about the world. The judgement that it rains, for instance, should occur only if it rains (and this is thinkable); and it should occur if the fact that it rains is evident to the subject (e.g., when he sees that it rains). The norm for perceptual experiences, on the other hand, consists in the requirement that they should occur just in case they actually relate us - in the manner characteristic of perceptions - to particular mind-independent objects with certain perceivable features. Accordingly, the visual experience of a green tree is adequate just in case it relates us in the right way to a certain visible green tree before us.27 The intentionality of perceptual experiences is therefore directed both at the world and at the experiences themselves. In particular, the specific condition on the world, which is characteristic of the norm governing perceptual experiences (and which determines their intentional content), concerns not only how certain external entities are like independently of the particular subject and experience concerned, but also how these entities are linked to that subject and experience. This is further reflected in the fact that consciously enjoying a perceptual experience enables us to demonstratively refer, not only to aspects of the mind-independent world, but also to the mental experience itself. And it is in this sense that the intentionality of perceptual experiences may be said to be self-presentational or token-reflexive (despite, perhaps, not necessarily involving or requiring any conceptual capacities). Indeed, their self-directed intentionality is identical with their property of being given to us - and, indeed, to themselves - as perceptions. The resulting error in the case of hallucinations is therefore intentional and self-presentational in nature. It consists in their violation of the norm constitutive of their intentionality - and intentionality which is self-directed and shared with the corresponding perceptions. 37. This raises the question of why perceptual experiences - and, especially, perception-like hallucinations - are given to consciousness as perceptions. I discuss this issue in more detail further below (as well as in chapter 8), but it may already be helpful to provide a sketch of the answer to be presented later on (cf. section 42). One of its central claims is that perceptions are intentionally given to consciousness as relations because they are relations, and because it is of epistemic - and, ultimately, also practical - importance for us to become aware of their relationality. Similarly, it is of value for us that hallucinations are consciously marked as hallucinatory. Perception-like hallu27Perhaps not all attitudinal and presentational differences among intentional states can be captured in terms of normative differences. But this approach may promise to go a long way. For example, it may be plausible to say that desires should occur only if something is valuable, instances of visualising only if something is visible, and imaginative thoughts only if something is possible or, perhaps more generally, thinkable. 331 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 cinations - which may occur for a variety of reasons - are worse than their non-perceptual counterparts because they disguise themselves as perceptions. They should not occur because their misleading character is counter-productive with respect to our epistemic and practical aims. Indeed, they are accidents; and not much of interest can be said about why it is possible for experiences, which satisfy (S) despite not being perceptions, to occur. This is part of what it means that perceptions enjoy priority over their hallucinatory counterparts. 38. Two further qualifications may help to forestall potential objections. First, the normativity at issue need not be very strong. That is, it need not put any demands on the subject and his rationality. Accordingly, that certain mental states should occur just in case certain things are true of the world need not mean more than that it is better for the states to occur under those condition than to occur under all other conditions. This allows for the possibility, for instance, that the intentionality of perceptual experiences may be partially accounted for in terms of some more basic cognitive function which they have in our mental lives. However, second, intentionality is not the same as - and may not be reducible to - representationality, if the latter is understood as the possession of some teleological function concerning, or the presence of some nomological correlation with, the world. Representational states need not be conscious. By contrast, intentionality is inseparably linked to consciousness and subjectivity. This is the main point behind taking the presence of something to consciousness as being a certain way to consist in intentional awareness of it as being that way. Meeting the Challenge of Consciousness 39. One of the challenges raised above against experiential disjunctivism was that assuming a relation of awareness does not shed enough light on how experiences makes us aware, not only of the world, but also of itself, and on why the two are so intimately linked. Treating perceptual experiences as token-reflexively intentional states may do a bit better on this count. The twofold character of the intentionality of perceptual experiences corresponds to two ways in which we can become consciously aware of - and pay attention to - something while enjoying such an experience. On the one hand, we can become perceptually aware of something - typically some physical entities in the external world. Such awareness is not only sensory in character, but it also allows for the possibility of focal attention to the mind-independent objects of awareness. On the other hand, we can become experientially (or phenomenally) aware of something - this time of our mental episodes themselves. This kind of awareness is not sensory and does not involve the episodes as objects of awareness and of focal attention. Indeed, any attempts to attend 332 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection to conscious experiences as objects inevitably give way to attempts to attend to the perceptually conscious external entities (cf. Martin (2000b)). 40. What we are concerned with here is the special transparency of perceptual experiences. Having them consists in occupying a certain subjective and conscious perspective on external objects and features. But this perspective is not itself presented to us as being a certain way. We do not see our own point of view. Rather, this perspective is present to consciousness only in so far as it is the perspective from which other entities are presented to us as being a certain way. This is reflected, for instance, in the fact that perceptions inform us about one object being to the left of another relative to our point of view without explicitly presenting that point of view and its location in space. Instead, they simply present the one object as being left to the other, while our perspective on them enters consciousness just implicitly, as part of how the spatial relationship between the two objects is given to us.28 Similarly, perceptual experiences as a whole are not objects of awareness and attention, but rather determinations of both. We experience them as relating us to external objects, but we do not experience both relata in the same way. While the external object of awareness are given to us as being a certain way, the experiences are given to us as determinate aspects of our subjective perspective onto such objects. The intentionality of perceptual experiences is characterised by the fact that it combines the two noted ways of becoming consciously aware of things. Given that the self-presentational part of this intentionality consists in the experiential awareness of the episodes themselves, the intentional error under discussion is experiential - and not perceptual, inferential or introspective - in nature. But the two ways of becoming aware of things have also something important in common, namely their intentional nature. Assuming that we have a fairly good grasp of how intentionality works, we are able to provide an answer to the question of how - or in which sense - we become conscious of our own perceptual experiences: they are intentionally directed at themselves and, in this way, present themselves to us. 41. Does this mean that the conscious status of experiences is a matter of their being the object of some intentional awareness? This would come dangerously close to higher-order accounts of consciousness and would in addition render the view vulnerable to objections against the thesis that mental states are conscious by being objects of awareness (cf. Martin (1997b) for such an objection). But experiential intentionalists need not accept this conclusion. On the one hand, intentional presentation - just as the relational presentation put 28I discuss this feature of perceptual experiences in more detail in chapter 8. 333 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 forward by experiential disjunctivism - may simply be taken to presuppose a conscious subject or mind to which things are presented. So while the introduction of intentionality - or acquaintance - is meant to explain how we are linked to the objects of our awareness, it is not intended to shed light on what it means for a subject, or one of its mental episodes, to count as conscious. On the other hand, experiential intentionalism assumes that, in experiential awareness, the mental episodes do not become objects of awareness, but instead are determinations of awareness. That is, while they help us to become aware of external objects as objects, they do not present themselves as objects, but are instead given as subjective parts or aspects of consciousness (see the two previous sections). Accordingly, intentional awareness need not always, or not entirely, be object awareness - even in the case of visual experiences. Meeting the Challenge of Rational Force 42. The second challenge was to account for the capacity of perceptions to render certain judgements and beliefs reasonable. The intentionalist approach explains this power in terms of the normative intentionality pertaining to perceptual experiences. Its account applies therefore not only to perceptions, but also to perception-like hallucinations. The rational force of the latter is accounted for in the same way, and at the same time, as that of the former. There is no need - as with disjunctivism about character - to make the detour of referring to the priority of the perceptions and the subjective indiscriminability of the hallucinations to account for the rational force of the latter. But, as will become clear shortly, the power of perception-like hallucinations to render certain judgements reasonable is still in some sense derivative from the power of the corresponding perceptions to render those judgements reasonable. Perceptual experiences are intentional in so far as they are subject to the requirement to occur only if they relate us, in the right way, to some perceivable and mind-independent aspects of the world. The normative status of this requirement is due - or at least inseparably linked - to the fact that it is of value for perceptual experiences to establish the required relations between us and the world, and of disvalue for them to fail to do so. The value of those perceptual relations derives from the fact that they put us into the position to acquire knowledge about the world, as well as about the respective experiences themselves (cf. Burge (2003) and Haddock et al. (2009) for similar ideas). When we are having perceptual experiences, both the world and the experiences appear to be certain ways. And when we are actually perceiving, taking these appearances at face value will lead to knowledge about the world and the experiences. Now, perceptual experiences are presented to consciousness as being relational (cf. endnote 21). That is, they are given to us as possessing precisely 334 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection that feature which renders them valuable with respect to the attainment of knowledge. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is therefore reasonable for us to trust them and to form the respective firstand higher-order judgements or beliefs - even if the result will not be knowledge. Hence, what is responsible for the rational force of perceptual experiences is the fact that they are intentional - that is, appear to satisfy a certain norm. And which judgements or beliefs they render reasonable is determined by which particular norm they purport to satisfy (or, if one prefers, which specific intentional content they possess).29 The rational force of our reliance on perceptual experiences is thus a matter of their intentionality; while their status as grounds of knowledge depends on their actual structure. The two epistemic aspects are intimately linked in so far as their intentionality partly concerns their structure. But only in the case of perceptions does the rational force correspond to their power to put us into a position to acquire knowledge. Hallucinations, by contrast, lack the latter power since they are not relational in the required manner; and their rational force is not matched by a capacity to ground knowledge. So there is still a sense in which perception-like hallucinations derive their rational force from perceptions. Perceptions possess their intentional character and, hence, their rational force (and reason-giving power) because this reflects their intimate link to knowledge and renders it subjectively accessible to us. Hallucinations that satisfy (S), on the other hand, are mere accidents deviating from the perceptual norm: they loose the value of being grounds for knowledge, but keep the rational force of perceptions by remaining subject to the relevant intentional norm.30 Meeting the Challenge of Rational Sameness 43. The third and main challenge for disjunctivism about character was to account for the fact that perception-like hallucinations share their rational force with the corresponding perceptions. What is to be explained is thus that, in situations in which we lack relevant evidence from the outside, a hallucination makes the same judgements reasonable as the respective corresponding perceptions when it satisfies (S). The intentionalist strategy for answering this challenge should be clear by now. Again, the central thought is that the ratio29Again, these considerations stay neutral on the issue of whether hallucinations may provide us with reasons, or merely seem to do so. Correspondingly, they stay neutral on whether perceptual reasons consist in the relevant aspects of the world and our relation to them or, alternatively, in our fallible awareness of those aspects and our relation to them. 30In chapter 8, I discuss another sense in which perceptions enjoy priority over perceptionlike hallucinations: the latter possess a specifically perceptual character, that is, a character which is characteristic of the former; and not vice versa. 335 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 nal force of perceptual experiences derives from their intentionality. Accordingly, two such experiences share their rational force just in case, and because, they share the same specific intentionality - that is, are subject to the same specific norm. In short, sameness in rational power comes with sameness in intentionality. Given that their shared intentionality is independent of whether we have any evidence from the outside about their perceptual or hallucinatory status, we can safely ignore what happens if such evidence becomes available. Now, according to conjunctivism about character, a hallucination is indiscriminable from the inside from corresponding perceptions just in case, and because, it possesses the same character as the latter. Given that sameness in character presupposes sameness in intentionality, it follows that, if a hallucination is subjectively like certain perceptions, then it also possesses the same rational force as the latter. On the other hand, a hallucination possesses the same rational force as certain corresponding perceptions only if it also shares the latter's intentionality - including the appearance of relating us perceptually to the world. And there is no other character determinable in respect of which the hallucination might differ from the perceptions at issue. For instance, if the hallucination involves blur, and blur is not a matter of intentionality, there will be a comparison class of possible corresponding perceptions which equally involve blur; and so for any other potential character differences between hallucinations and perceptions, that share the same intentionality. Accordingly, for such experiences, sameness in intentionality comes with sameness in character and, hence, with indiscriminability from the inside. VIII. The Experiential Indiscriminability of Hallucinations 44. The kind of subjective indistinguishability at issue is not merely introspective in nature: it occurs already at the level of experiential awareness. That is, access from the inside is characterised by the fact that it does not involve perception, testimony, inference based on either, or any combination thereof. But introspective awareness is not the only form of access which satisfies this condition. Experiential awareness - how mental episodes are given to consciousness - is another one. While the former provides us with access to the character of independently occurring mental episodes, the latter is already inherent to having such episodes. Now, perceptual experiences are given to us as relations to the world, that is, as possessing a certain third-personal structure. However, this awareness is misleading in the case of the hallucinatory experiences, given that they do not actually possess this structure. Accordingly, each of the hallucinations can be taken to be subjectively indiscriminable from perceptions in the sense of satisfying the following specification of (S): 336 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection (E) None of us could, in experiential awareness, recognise its structure to be distinct from the structure shared by each member of some class of corresponding perceptions. All perceptions satisfy (E) trivially because there is no distinct structure to be noticed in their case. And hallucinations satisfy (E) just in case, and because, they possess the same intentionality and therefore - as has been argued above - the same character as the perceptions concerned. Mental episodes, which satisfy (E), also satisfy (I). For if an experience possesses the same character as a perception, it is introspectively indistinguishable from it. Assuming that experiential and introspective awareness exhaust the possibilities in which we can access something from the inside, experiential indiscriminability implies not only introspective, but also subjective indiscriminability. Moreover, given that subjective indiscriminability requires both experiential and introspective indiscriminability, it turns out that an experience satisfies (E) just in case it satisfies (S). But, importantly, the same does not hold with respect to (I) and (S). The reason for this is that the relationship between the introspective and the experiential indiscriminability of hallucinations (as well as of other experiences) may be asymmetric. For while experiential indistinguishability entails introspective indistinguishability, the opposite is not necessarily true. Following disjunctivists about character in their assumption that we cannot always tell apart two distinct characters when introspecting them, it is possible that an experience conforms to (I) without sharing its character with perceptions and, hence, without conforming to (E). There is a difference in how the episodes concerned are given to consciousness, and we consciously experience this difference, even though we cannot pick up on it in introspection - for instance, because we lack the required conceptual capacities. A similar gap between experience and introspection is present in other cases, too. We may, for example, start to be in and consciously experience pain, while continuing to judge or believe that we do not feel any pain. Such a case may indicate some psychological problem or pathology, but there does not seem to be any good reason to deny its possibility (cf. chapter 13 for a more detailed discussion). Meeting the Challenge of Subjective Impact 45. This raises again the question of whether experiences, which satisfy (I), but not (E) and (S), should count as perceptual or not - a question which relates back to the first challenge against conjunctivism about character presented above. Disjunctivists about perceptual experiences answer positively since they take the introspective indiscriminability from perceptions to be necessary and sufficient for being a perceptual experience. Indeed, they are likely 337 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 to equate subjective indistinguishability with introspective indiscriminability, and thus to deny - or, rather, ignore - the distinct existence of experiential indiscriminability. Experiential intentionalists, on the other hand, give a negative answer since they take the possession of a perceptual character to be the distinctive mark of a perceptual experience, which is lacking in the example case. As a consequence, they accept that there are in fact two ways in which experiences can be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions; and that these two ways need not necessarily coincide. The challenge raised against views of the latter kind has been to ensure that the features responsible for counting as a perceptual experience make a difference for the subject. And its prospects of success have been doubted in response to the possible case under consideration, which shows that the absence of a perceptual character cannot always be introspectively detected from the inside. But the shift of focus from introspective to experiential awareness enables experiential intentionalism to answer this challenges, without having to deny the noted fallibility of introspection. Remember the distinction between something being present in consciousness and something being presented to consciousness as being a certain way (cf. section 33). As I have argued, the latter is best understood in intentional terms. And there are different ways in which something can be intentionally given to us as being a certain way - notably in a perceptual or in an experiential way. But perceptual (and other) experiences do not simply present us with themselves or external objects as being a certain way (e.g., as having a relational structure, or as being red). They are also present in consciousness as one of its episodic determinations and, in this sense, make a difference for the subject and his or her stream of consciousness. Experiential intentionalism can therefore respond to the challenge by pointing out that a difference in character between two experiences constitutes a difference in how they determine consciousness, that is, in how we experience them. And this remains true even if we cannot tell them apart in introspection. If the difference in character is not open to introspection, its discovery requires substantial theoretical reflection which may very well go beyond introspective reflection. But this just illustrates that phenomenology, although being concerned with our subjective perspective and with how things are given to it, cannot always be pursued exclusively from the inside (cf. Husserl (1984)). Moreover, presence in consciousness - that is, our conscious experience of mental episodes - may be understood as a non-intentional instance of experiential awareness. For both are characterised by the fact that they are not instances of object awareness. They consist in the awareness of mental episodes, but do not present them as objects and do not allow us to focally attend to them (in contrast to any external entities that they present us with). 338 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection 46. Apart from saving conjunctivism about character from the objection raised by their disjunctivist opponents, there is some independent reason to accept the distinction between experiential and introspective awareness and to prefer the former over the latter when considering the issue of why an experience counts as perceptual. The subjective perspective matters only because experiences are essentially conscious. Capturing their nature therefore means capturing how they are linked to consciousness. However, on the assumption that higherorder accounts of consciousness are to be rejected, there is no good reason to posit any significant connection between consciousness and introspection - or introspectability, for that matter. It is true that what introspection provides us with direct access to is the character of an experience. But if higher-order accounts of consciousness are indeed inadequate, the presence of an experience in consciousness cannot be a matter of how it is, or can be, introspected. In particular, it should not be doubted that there may be beings which enjoy conscious experiences, but lack introspective capacities.31 Consequently, perceptual (and other) experiences should be characterised in terms of how they determine consciousness - that is, of how they are given to the subject in non-intentional and non-introspective experiential awareness. This is why mental episodes which satisfy (I), but not (P), should not count as perceptual experiences. Meeting the Phenomenological Challenge 47. Another important point is that the proposed intentionalist version of conjunctivism about character - in contrast to many other instances of that view - can save some of the central elements and advantages of experiential disjunctivism.32 Among the main elements preserved is the idea that we have introspective access to the relationality of perceptions. According to experiential intentionalism, we can introspect the character of perceptions. But part of that character is constituted by the token-reflexive intentionality directed at the specific relationality of perceptions. Hence, we can introspect the fact that perceptions present themselves as relations to the world. And this suffices to come to know that they indeed are such relations. It is true that this access to their relationality is less direct than has been thought by experiential disjunctivists. But introspective access mediated by intentional awareness on the 31See Siegel (2008) who takes this to be another problem for experiential disjunctivism. But see also Martin's reply to this objection in Martin (2006). Martin none the less accepts the falsity of higher-order accounts of consciousness. 32See also chapter 8 for the related discussion of how experiential intentionalism can provide an account of the transparency and non-neutrality of episodes of visualising, which is very similar to that put forward by experiential disjunctivism. 339 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 experiential level is still introspective access. The fact that intentionalism can preserve this element of experiential disjunctivism allows it also to uphold our ordinary conception of perceptions as genuinely and distinctively relating us to mind-independent entities. First of all, it can explain why we are of this opinion by reference to the fact that perceptions are given to us in consciousness as relational. In fact, given that experiential disjunctivism has difficulties to account for our conscious awareness of the relationality of our perceptions (cf. section 30), experiential intentionalism seems to fare better than its disjunctivist counterpart with respect to the elucidation of why we have this specific conception of perceptions, and not another. Then, the former can also match the latter's ability to avoid an error theory about our ordinary views. The more straightforward option is simply to adopt structural disjunctivism about perceptual experiences - the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their third-personal structures (cf. chapter 8). This permits the experiential intentionalist to embrace the ordinary opinion that perceptions are essentially relational. A slightly revisionary alternative is to argue that this opinion does not concern how perceptions are, but how they are given to us in consciousness. Accordingly, what we ordinarily assume to be essential to perceptions is that they present themselves as relational, and not that they are relational. IX. The Nature of Perceptual Experiences 48. In order to accommodate our common views about perceptual experiences, both options take a certain stance on the nature of those experiences. The specific commitments of experiential intentionalism on this issue depend on the underlying conception of the relationship between the first-personally accessible character of experiences and their (also) third-personally accessible structure. To get clearer about why this conception matters, consider the contrast with experiential disjunctivism. The latter's postulation of a relation of awareness can be interpreted as an attempt to combine or reconcile the relationality of perceptions with their character by identifying the former as the main (or even sole) constituent of the latter. Furthermore, experiential disjunctivism maintains that their relational character is essential to perceptions. But their structure plays no role in the provided account of their nature, and the issue of how character relates to structure does not become pressing. This is neatly captured by Martin's focus on the 'phenomenal nature' of perceptions (Martin (2006): 14). In comparison, experiential intentionalism takes the relationality of perceptions to be part of their non-experiential structure - along with, say, their 340 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection representationality or their functional role. The relation in question may be understood in causal, informational or rational terms, for instance; and natural candidates for it are the relations of nomological dependence, reference, object-dependence or reason-constitution. In particular, it is natural to assume that perceptions but not hallucinations are relational in so far as their power to provide us with reason for belief and put us into a position to acquire knowledge constitutively depends on the perceived external facts. That is, those facts and our perceptions of them instantiate the property of constituting an epistemic reason; and this property is relational in so far as neither the facts, nor the perceptions could constitute a reason for us to believe on their own. It is this relational aspect of the structure of perceptions which is adequately reflected by their character, and which hallucinations merely seem to possess. But the distinction between the character and the relationality of perceptions raises the issue of which of the two forms part of the nature of perceptions. Part of this question is how character and relationality - or, more generally, structure - are related to each other, given that the latter is not said to be a constituent of the former. It is not easy to come up with a plausible and illuminating view about the relationship between the first-personal and the third-personal aspects of our minds. And this difficulty becomes manifest when considering the possibilities for experiential intentionalists concerning the identification of the nature of perceptual experiences. 49. A natural explanation of the fact that the satisfaction of (E) is both necessary and sufficient for being a perceptual experience is that the character of such experiences - that is, what is responsible for their satisfaction of (E) - either constitutes (and exhausts) their essence, or is entirely determined by whatever constitutes their essence. This fits well with the more general idea that consciousness is central to the nature of particular mental episodes: they are not merely essentially conscious, but the specific ways in which they are present in consciousness are also part of, or determined by, their nature. However, there is still room for several different views about the nature of perceptual experiences, each of which is compatible with experiential intentionalism and with the idea that the character of an experience is essential to it. First, it is possible - as already suggested - to adopt structural disjunctivism about perceptual experiences. Contrary to what might be thought, this view can be combined with intentionalism. The resulting position claims that perceptions and perception-like hallucinations possess different essences, despite having the same character (cf. chapter 8). One way of spelling this out is to maintain that the shared character of the two kinds of perceptual expe341 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 rience is to be understood as being realised by different underlying structural essences. The essence common to all perceptions is thereby identified with their specific relationality. By contrast, it is left open which essence(s) hallucinations possess, as well as whether they all possess the same nature - apart from the restriction that their essence(s) should imply that they necessarily lack the relationality distinctive of perceptions. One of the main problems of this view is to explain how different relational and non-relational structures can give rise to the same intentional character. Second, it may instead be suggested that perceptions and perception-like hallucinations possess the same nature, and that the latter consists in some aspects of their common third-personal structure - such as their representationality or functional role. This view denies that the relationality of perceptions is essential to them. As a consequence, it has the advantage that it is probably easier to elucidate intentionality in terms of representation or function, rather than in terms of a relational link to the world. But the close link between intentionality and consciousness still remains largely unexplained, given that representationality or functional role are not tied to consciousness in the same way. And the view is also at odds with our ordinary conception of perceptions as relational and therefore has to adopt an error theory in this respect. Third, it might be assumed that the common nature of all perceptual experiences is exhausted by their character and does not extend to the lower structural level. This position could then be further supplemented with the idea that, in the case of perceptions, their character is in some sense realised by their relational structure; while leaving it to further investigations to discover the structural realiser(s) in the case of hallucinations. The resulting view differs from the first one only in so far as it limits the essence of perceptual experiences to the level of character and does not include the underlying structural differences. As a result, it still faces the difficulty of having to make sense of how both a relational and some non-relational structures can give rise to (the same) intentionality. And, in addition, since the view does not take the relationality of perceptions to be essential to them, it seems forced to embrace a respective error theory about our ordinary opinions. The second option may seem to be the least problematic. In particular, it is arguable that all theories about perceptual experiences - including disjunctivism - have to take our common view about perception-like hallucinations to be erroneous, given that we judge them to be perceptions from our subjective perspective. But perhaps, we should instead renounce the need - or even the possibility - of being able to account for our first-personal perspective on mental episodes in terms of our third-personal perspective on them. There is, after all, a sense in which experiences are not accessible from the outside: we can acquire knowledge about their character - what they are like 342 Chapter 11 Experience and Introspection as conscious episodes - only by experiencing or introspecting them. Indeed, the main source of the problems for the first and the third view outlined above is our expectation of being able to explain the first-personal character of perceptual experiences in terms of their third-personal structure. Giving up this expectation may perhaps lead to a more promising picture.33 In accordance with this, a fourth possible view claims that the essence of perceptions contains two relatively independent elements: their intentional character and their relational structure. This is not meant to deny that there is some link between the two. For instance, the latter may still determine part of the former by determining part of the intentionality involved. More precisely, that perceptions relate us to the world, as well as which aspects of the world they relate us to, may fix the conditions on the world relative to the satisfaction of which the perceptions should, or should not, occur. However, that perceptions are conscious and intentional in the first place need not be a matter of their relationality. The connection between their character and their relational structure may be intentional, and nothing more. If this is the case, a complete and general account of the intentionality of perceptions should make reference to more than their relationality. Perhaps it is possible to identify other aspects of their common structure - and aspects which they share with other types of mental episode - that are responsible for their conscious and intentional status. But maybe the latter should instead be taken to be primitive aspects of subjectivity - at least in the sense that they evade explanation in terms of structural aspects and hence, explanation from a third-personal point of view. 50. The first and the fourth option have in common that they combine experiential intentionalism with structural disjunctivism, and that they take both the character and the structure of perceptual experiences to be essential to them. They just differ in how they conceive of the relationship between character and structure - whether it is one of mere intentionality or also one of realisation. The two proposed elements of the essence of perceptual experiences correspond to our two perspectives onto them: while their third-personal essence concerns how they are in objective reality, their first-personal essence concerns how they determine consciousness, that is, are given to the subjective perspective. To say, from the first-personal point of view, that an experience possesses a certain character is therefore not to say, from the third-personal point of view, that it possesses a certain structure. One advantage of this separation of perspectives is that experiential intentionalism - when combined with structural disjunctivism - can hold on to the epistemic conception of hallucinations (cf. also chapter 2). From the third33See chapter 1 for a similar conclusion in the case of our experiences of colour similarities. 343 Experience and Introspection Chapter 11 personal stance, perception-like hallucinations lack the relationality distinctive of perceptions, but may otherwise differ greatly in their structural essences. From the first-personal stance, they possess the same conscious character as corresponding perceptions, that is, are experientially indiscriminable from the latter. And nothing more positive may perhaps be said about what these hallucinations have in common with each other, or with perceptions but not with other mental episodes. None the less, the subjective perspective can still count as being concerned with the metaphysics of perceptual experiences. Indeed, the proposed view does not differ in this respect from experiential disjunctivism, which, as noted above, focusses primarily - or even exclusively - on the first-personal nature of experiences.34 34Part of this material was presented in 2008 at the University of Crete in Rethymno during the 'Hallucination on Crete' conference, in 2009 at the University of Fribourg as part of their research colloquium, and in 2009 at the University of Bremen during the seventh conference of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy. I would like to thank the respective audiences for their comments, in particular David Bain, Johannes Brandl, Paul Coates, Tim Crane, Katalin Farkas, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Matthew Nudds, Howard Robinson and Susanna Schellenberg. Special thanks are due to the two editors of this volume, Fiona Macpherson and Dimitris Platchias, for all their work; to Mike Martin and Matthew Soteriou for the many discussions; and finally to Gianfranco Soldati with whom together I developed many of the ideas - and probably also introduced some of the errors - present in this chapter and in chapter 13. Part of the research for this work was generously funded - in the form of a Fellowship for Advanced Researchers - by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. PA00P1-126157). 344 Appendix Co-Authored Essays

Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Written together with Gianfranco Soldati The claim that consciousness is propositional has be widely debated in the past. For instance, it has been discussed whether consciousness is always propositional, whether all propositional consciousness is linguistic, whether propositional consciousness is always articulated, or whether there can be nonarticulated propositions. In contrast, the question of whether propositions are conscious has not very often been the focus of attention. In this paper, we would like to render two ideas plausible and defend them against certain objections that have been raised against them. The first, perhaps less controversial idea is that at least certain propositional mental states - such as judgements, thoughts or felt desires - involve a particular kind of consciousness, which has often been called phenomenal or qualitative consciousness. The second and more important, since far more controversial, idea is that propositions - and concepts as their constituents - possess distinct and specific phenomenal characters, or qualia, in virtue of which they are experienced differently when entertained or held in thought. Both claims, we shall see, have immediate consequences on our conception of understanding and communication. Contrary to a widespread view, a view which has its roots in the linguistic turn, we maintain that phenomenal quality is constitutive of the understanding and grasping of meanings. Phenomenal Consciousness and Propositional States Franz Brentano (1924), and many authors after him (e.g., Block (1995); Rosenthal (1986, 1997); Carruthers (2000)), have noted that the notion of consciousness is ambiguous. One particular contrast which they have drawn is that between the intentionality of mental states - our being conscious of and directed 347 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 at objects (understood in a wide sense) - and their phenomenology - their being phenomenally conscious to, or experienced by, us in a certain way.1 Assume that I judge that p: in which sense am I then conscious of p? To judge that p is an intentional state: it is a mental state which is directed at some object or another. If my judgement is directed at the proposition p, then I am conscious of that proposition in the sense that I am intentionally directed at it, by means of my judgement. But is this the only, or even the main way, in which judgements or other mental states are conscious? What does it really mean to be intentionally conscious of something? After all, it seems possible to be unconsciously directed at something: we seem to be able to unconsciously fear, or desire, something; and there may be beings with primitive intentional states to which we might not want to ascribe consciousness. It therefore appears that fears and desires involve something else than mere intentionality when we consciously experience them, and it seems at least possible that, likewise, judgements may possess this further form of consciousness, in addition to their directedness at propositions. To understand what kind of consciousness this additional feature of mental states may be, consider the case of sensations, such as pain experiences. It is usually (though not universally) accepted to speak of the phenomenal character of such mental states; whereby the phenomenal character is typically taken to consist in the way in which the respective states are experienced. For instance, a person who is in a state of pain, has a certain feeling or experience: there is a specific way of how it is, or feels like for her to be in pain.2 Experiences of pain are phenomenally conscious in this particular sense. Sensory perceptions, on the other hand, are phenomenally conscious in virtue of something being presented to us in a specific way: when we see something, it appears to us in a certain way.3 Thus, the letter M may be presented to the subject either as an 'M', or as a sigma turned onto its side; a certain depiction may seem at one time to be of a duck, and at another to be of a rabbit; and the glass to my left is experienced by me to be a certain way, while a patient with blindsight may 1Brentano, for instance, distinguishes between "primary" and "secondary" consciousness. The former consists in the intentional directedness towards some object (understood in a wide sense) and presupposes - but does not itself generate - the latter, which in contrast is responsible for the mental act being conscious of itself in a particular way (cf. Brentano (1924, 141ff.); Brentano (1968, 1-21)). It is a matter of debate how exactly Brentano describes and explains the "secondary" form of consciousness (cf. Bell (1990, 9ff.); Brandl (9923)); but here, it suffices to focus on the phenomenon he was getting at - that is, phenomenal consciousness. 2Compare the common talk, introduced by Thomas Nagel, of "something it is like to be..." (Nagel, 1974). Even a naturalist such as Carruthers adopts this way of speaking (Carruthers, 2000, 13ff.). 3Again, this manner of speaking is accepted by philosophers of fundamentally different opinions (cf. Carruthers (2000, 241ff); Siewert (1998, 86)). 348 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication experience it very differently, or not at all. There are philosophers who are sceptical of the idea of phenomenal consciousness (cf. Dennett (1988)). Much more common seems to be the attempt to reduce phenomenal consciousness to other kind of consciousness (cf. Tye (1995); Dretske (1995)). Here we will, however, not be concerned with the project of reducing or eliminating phenomenal consciousness to other forms of consciousness, but only with the following, more specific issues. First, assuming that phenomenal consciousness exists, is it reasonable to ascribe it to mental states that have propositions as their content? And second, if this turns out to be reasonable, do these states possess qualitative aspects that are specific enough to distinguish them from other states that involve different concepts and propositions? It is thereby important to note that a positive answer to the first question does not imply a positive one to the second. That is, while one can remain sceptical with respect to the existence of very specific phenomenal characters of judgements and other propositional states, one may nevertheless allow for them to be phenomenally conscious in virtue of a broader qualitative character (e.g., one that all judgements share because of their common attutide towards their respective propositions). These questions arise since the scope of phenomenal consciousness is usually restricted to a certain group of mental phenomena, mainly those of a sensory nature, as discussed above. For, in contrast to sensations and perceptions, many intentional states do not seem to involve phenomenal consciousness: in particular mental dispositions or standing conditions, such as prejudices, beliefs or desires. These states may manifest themselves in the shape of phenomenally conscious experiences, feelings or thoughts. But it appears that they need not do so (at least not during the whole, or even most of the, period of their existence); and they do not seem to involve any phenomenal qualities on their own, that is, in their non-manifest state, without the mediation of phenomenally conscious experiences, feelings or thoughts.4 The first question may be answered very briefly. It concerns the issue of whether judgements, manifest beliefs and similar occurrent thoughts are phenomenally conscious, or whether they are rather more like mental dispositions or unconscious states. To answer this question it should suffice to take a look at two of the features of the propositional states under consideration. First, just like experiences and feelings, they seem to be part of what has been called the "stream of consciousness": they occur in our minds and disappear again, 4This has led philosophers (e.g., Wittgenstein) to distinguish between mental episodes - that is, mental states which are phenomenally conscious, such as perceptions, sensations, feelings and, presumably, judgements or thoughts - and mental dispositions, or standing conditions - that is, mental states which are not phenomenally conscious, such as beliefs, desires, prejudices or emotions. According to this distinction, the latter become phenomenally consious only if they manifest themselves by means of the former. 349 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 and they alternate with, or accompany, sensations, perceptions and feelings. Second, they can be introspected; in particular, we can tell when they occur in our mind and of what kind they are. In respect to both features judgements and similar propositional states differ strictly from mental dispositions; and both features strongly suggest that the former are phenomenally conscious. On the one hand, "stream of consciousness" appears to be only a different name for what people have in mind when they speak of "phenomenal consciousness": for a mental state to occur in the mind simply means for it to be phenomenally conscious. And on the other hand, it seems widely accepted that the features of mental states that we can introspect are - if not exclusively, then at least primarily - their phenomenal ones. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the propositional states in question are themselves experienced: there is something it is, or feels, like to be in or have them; or they present things as appearing in a certain way. Indeed, it seems plausible to maintain that judgements and other occurrent thoughts play a role in the manifestation of mental dispositions, rather than that they are dispositional themselves. It appears, for instance, that we sometimes acquire, entertain and revise our beliefs by means of judgements. But there is a further source of support for the idea that at least some propositional states are phenomenally conscious. Imagine two people listening to the news on a French radio programme. One of them- let's call him Jack - speaks only English, while the other - Jacques - speaks only French. Galen Strawson, in whose writings this particular example can be found, asks whether Jacques, who understands what the newsspeaker is saying, has an experience of a different kind than Jack, who merely hears the French-sounding words without grasping their meaning (Strawson, 1994, 5f.). If so - and it indeed seems intuitively plausible -, there are experiences of understanding which are significantly different from the mere auditory perceptions of the sounds produced by a voice (or from mere visual perceptions of signs while reading). As Strawson writes: "There is [...] something it is like for you to read and understand these words" (ibid., 10). This insight alone, he points out, does not force us to accept that understanding is a deliberate, goal-directed action; nor does it imply that each experience of understanding is characterised by a distinct qualitative nature. But his fundamental conclusion - that we have phenomenally conscious experiences of understanding - suggests that there are propositional states which possess some qualitative aspects. For grasping the meaning of what someone has said surely involves some states which are directed at propositions - namely states which have propositions, that correspond to the expressed meaning, as their intentional objects. Hence, experiences of understanding seem to be both propositional and consciously experienced. 350 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication It therefore remains to answer the second question: whether judgements and similar states possess specific phenomenal characters that distinguish them from each other and are at least as fine-grained as their propositional contents. And in what follows, we would like to argue that this question is best answered positively. As a matter of fact, most proponents of the existence of phenomenal consciousness would in contrast provide a negative answer. But they could not easily avoid giving an answer at all because of their own positive stance towards phenomenal consciousness in general: the issue of whether propositional states possess specific qualitative characters, and which role these characters play, arises once one has generally grown sympathetic towards the idea of phenomenal consciousness.5 This question becomes relevant also in the light of two other discussions. Some philosophers believe that the intentional content of phenomenally conscious experiences is partly, or even fully, determined by their phenomenal character. Since judgements (and similar states) possess an intentional content, it becomes interesting for these philosophers to know whether judgements show a specific phenomenal character, and if so, whether their claim about experiences is also true of judgements (i.e., that the content of the latter is likewise determined by their qualitative character). As mentioned at the beginning there has also been a debate about whether all conscious states - including sensations and perceptions - are propositional . If this were true, and it would turn out that propositional states do not possess a specific phenomenal character, the result would be a rather untenable position, according to which experiences of pain and colours would not show any distinctive qualitative character. Hence, proponents of both the claim, that the intentional content of mental states is somehow determined by their phenomenal character, and the claim, that all conscious states are propositional, should focus their attention on the issue raised in this paper. The First Consideration: the Phenomenal Differences between Thoughts The first source of support for the idea that there is a specific qualitative character of propositional states is the idea that we can tell apart our judgements, manifest beliefs, desires, and so on, by means of introspection. We can tell, say, whether our current thoughts are about the fog in Ivrea, or about some features of the Himalaya; and we can tell whether they involve the endorse5Only a few philosophers have recently discussed the issue of the phenomenal character of propositional states, among them Brian Loar (2003), John Searle (1992), Owen Flanagan (1992), Galen Strawson (1994), Horgan and Tienson (2002) and, especially, Charles Siewert (1998). 351 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 ment of the respective states of affairs as really obtaining, or as to be brought about, or whether we instead consider the relevant propositions neutrally, that is, without any evaluation or commitment. Furthermore, it is widely accepted that we do not have to observe our behaviour or ask other people in order to discover what we are currently thinking, judging or longing for; it simply suffices to introspect our actual state of mind to find out. But it seems equally plausible to assume that what we introspect of mental states are their phenomenal features. First of all, both how it is like to be in a certain mental state or to undergo a certain experience, and how things appear or present themselves to us, seem to be accessible to us in introspection. For, again, we do not need to observe ourselves in other ways (e.g., by means of our senses), or to talk to other people, in order to come to know such facts. And then, the qualitative features appear to constitute the bulk, if not the totality, of those features of mental states that we actually can access by means of introspection. Both these considerations path the way for the conclusion that the introspectible differences between the propositional states in question have to be manifest in their respective phenomenal characters; and hence that these states possess such characters which are at least as specific as their intentional contents. Of course, one could challenge this line of reasoning by arguing that there are other, non-phenomenal features that are given in introspection and can distinguish the different propositional states from each other. But it is not clear at all what kind of features these could be. Since it also seems untenable to deny the fact that we can introspect such differences, the conclusion put forward appears to be difficult to avoid. The Second Consideration: the Role of Phenomenal Consciousness in Linguistic Understanding But even if one is not convinced by the initial force of this argument, there is another, more complex reasoning that supports the same conclusion and is founded on perhaps less controversial premises. It does not concern the introspection of our own mental states, but instead the experience of understanding the linguistic expressions of other people. Its main ingredient is thus a theory of verbal expression, understanding and communication. This theory, we should emphasise, was first put forward by Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology (for more on this see Soldati (1994, 2000)). If we want to speak, that is, express ourselves verbally, we have to produce complex sounds with our voice. Now, according to the theory under consideration, the difference between an articulated utterance of words or sentences and the mere generation of meaningless sounds is that only the former is produced 352 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication by the speaker as the expression of one of her mental states, such as one of her thoughts or judgements. It is this particular relation to an underlying mental state which provides verbally produced sounds with a meaning and thus turns them into speech that expresses the mental state in question. Conventions, it is true, play a crucial role in fixing the meaning of a word in public language over a certain period of time. But most linguistic conventions are far from explicit; they are rather the product of an equilibrium reached by the interaction of different agents with different goals, beliefs and behaviours, linguistic and other. But even if explicit, without mental states to start from, conventions, normatively binding linguistic rules, would hardly get off the ground. To understand the meaning of an utterance we hear or read we have to have some kind of access to the mental state it expresses. Of course, this access can go wrong and we can misunderstand each other. But, as the theory claims, any attempt to understand someone else's speech nevertheless presupposes that one somehow represents certain mental states of the speaker as those which are expressed by his speech and hence render his utterances meaningful. Grasping the meaning of a linguistic expression therefore simply means to have an access to the expressed mental state. And since understanding someone does not only require to recognize that he has meant something by his utterance, but also what he has meant, understanding the meaning of a linguistic expression has to involve an access to the particular nature of the expressed mental state and, in particular, of its intentional content. Now, as the example above of Jack and Jacques has already made plausible, linguistic understanding is (at least in most cases) a consciously experienced process. There is a subjective, qualitative difference between merely hearing certain sounds and understanding them as having a specific meaning, that is, as expressing a certain thought. But if understanding is generally speaking a consciously experienced process, the question arises whether it involves a specific phenomenal character: that is, whether our experiences of understanding differ phenomenally in respect to which particular meanings are grasped. We grasp distinct expressed meanings by recognizing distinct underlying intentional states. Hence, what is really at issue is whether we consciously experience the differences that characterize the specific ways in which we recognize different mental states as being expressed by certain utterances. That there has to be a difference between our different recognitions should be obvious since we can, with their help, understand different linguistic meanings; the question is rather whether these differences among our recognitional states are phenomenally conscious. We think that the best way of explaining these differences - and how we come to grasp what other people mean by their linguistic utterances - is in353 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 deed by postulating such a form of phenomenal consciousness. And a positive answer to this question entails the acceptance of the existence of conceptual qualia - that is, of specific phenomenal characters of states with propositional content. Qualia are concerned in so far as consciously experienced, phenomenal aspects of mental states are concerned. And they are conceptual since the intentional contents of these states possess a propositional and hence conceptual content. The latter observation has already been made above: we have to be in some kind of propositional state in order to be able to grasp a linguistic meaning, since this kind of meaning shows itself a propositional, and conceptual, structure. In the remainder of the paper, we would like to show the plausibility of this idea - that specific conceptual qualia play an important role in linguistic understanding - and defend it against certain common objections. But before that, it is necessary to formulate some qualifications about the thesis under consideration in order to clarify the scope of the argument and to prevent possible misunderstandings. First, it is important to note that the example of Jack and Jacques alone is not sufficient to shed more light on the phenomenal nature of the experience of understanding; it merely supports the claim that there is a qualitative difference between understanding and not understanding something. The idea that understanding involves specific conceptual qualia requires more support than the idea that experiences of understanding have some qualitative character. Second, it is not at issue whether all propositional states possess a specific phenomenal character. Rather, we try to argue only that some mental states with propositional content possess a specific phenomenal character. In particular, we do not intend to extent our claim to dispositional states; after all, we are concerned with occurring experiences of understanding. Third, we also do not want to claim that all understanding must be phenomenally conscious. Angels - if they exist - may perhaps understand each other in a different way. We do not argue that phenomenal consciousness is necessary for understanding, but only that it is specifically relevant for the manner in which we human beings usually come to understand each other's utterances. Analogously, it is one thing to maintain that sensations of pain are consciously experienced by us humans; but it is a much stronger claim to say that there could not be pain without such a form of consciousness. And fourth, the qualitative character of experiences is introspectively accessible. We usually know very well how it is like for us if someone drills a hole into one of our teeth, or how the rails appear to us in the distance, and we typically do not let us be influenced by our additional knowledge or by what other people have to say about these issues. The dentist can keep on insisting that our root is dead, but this does not make our pain disappear. 354 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication And although I know that the rails run parallel, they still continue to seem meet in the distance. This does not mean, however, that introspection cannot go wrong. And our considerations are also neutral with respect to particular theories of introspection; in particular, they do not commit us to the idea that introspection is a form of inner perception or observation. We only assume that we have introspective access to some aspects of some propositional states. A First Objection: Fallacious Inferences by Analogy The picture of communication, with which we have so far operated, has been criticized as naive and as facing many difficulties. Here, we have space to rebut only one of the objections often put forward against it. We have suggested that, in order to grasp the meaning of a linguistic expression, it is necessary to recognize the underlying expressed mental state and its intentional content. But we yet have to say a bit more about how this recognition may come about. And precisely here, the following problem arises. I know, from the first person perspective, what pain is since I have had pain experiences. But when I see you showing the same behaviour that I normally show when I am in pain, how can I come to know, now from the third person perspective, that you undergo an experience that is of the same kind as mine? As far as I am concerned, you may have a completely different kind of experience (e.g., you may phenomenally experience it very differently). On the other hand, we usually seem to be able, after all, to come to know whether someone else is in pain solely on the basis of observing his behaviour. So how can we make the step from our own experiences to those of others? It has often been stressed that the problem is not so much whether we are justified in our assumption that our experiences are very similar to those of others, but rather whether our own concept of pain, acquired on the basis of our own experiences, could also apply to the experiences of others. In my case, I have acquired a concept of pain that I have good reason to apply to my own sensations of pain because of the way in which I experience them. But since I cannot experience the sensations that occur in your mind, when you show the same behaviour that I show when I am in pain, I do not have a good reason to assume that my concept of pain likewise applies to your sensations. In other words, as Wittgenstein has once written, what is at issue is "that I am expected to imagine experiences of pain, which I do not have, on the basis of experiences of pain, that I do have" (Wittgenstein, 1984a, § 302). One idea that has been suggested to close the gap between knowing one's own and knowing other's mental states is that we come to know the nature of the mental states, and in particular the experiences, of other people by means of an inference by analogy. According to this "simple theory" (Peacocke, 1984, 355 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 97f.), we assume that other people are exactly like us: if they show the same behaviour that we show when we feel pain, then they must feel pain as well - that is, they must have the same experience as us. In other words, it is said that we use our own case as an analogy for the case of the other person in question and infer accordingly from our own experiences to those of the other. For instance, if I know what it means for me to have toothache and observe you expressing yourself in the way in which I would express myself when feeling tooth-ache, I could simply conclude that you have the same kind of toothache and hence would come to know what it means for you to feel this kind of pain. For I would, according to the "simple theory", be able to assume that you and me are similar in that we have the same kind of experiences and express them in similar ways - that we are analogous to each other. As Peacocke stresses, however, such a theory would be circular. It presupposes precisely that what it tries to prove, namely that there are concepts of mental states (such as pain) that apply to both my own and other peoples' experiences. It simply assumes that this is the case. That is, it does not really answer the problem identified by Wittgenstein, but ignores altogether its existence. Now, it might be suspected that the account of linguistic communication put forward by us is circular in a similar way. To see the possible force of this challenge, it is necessary to look a bit closer at how we come to recognize the mental states that others express linguistically. In order for the interpreter to understand the speaker's expression, the expressed sentence must be one that the interpreter might have uttered himself. Furthermore, if he would have uttered it, he would have himself expressed a certain mental state. The idea is now that the interpreter can come to know which mental state the speaker has expressed by coming to know which mental state he himself would have expressed if he would have made the same kind of utterance. The interpreter thus recognizes the expressed mental state of the speaker by putting himself in the position of the speaker, that is, in the position of using the utterance in question in order to express one of his own mental states. But even if one accepts that linguistic behaviour can serve us as prima facie evidence for the belief that the speaker intends to express a certain meaning, there still seems to be the problem - the objection goes - that we cannot so easily infer from our own mental states to those of other people, again because we cannot be sure whether our concepts of the former can likewise apply to the latter. That is, to know that you use an utterance, that I would use to express a belief which I can conceptualize myself as a belief about, say, the current weather, does not guantaree that I have a good reason to conceptualize the mental state underlying your expression in the same way. After all, there may not be a concept that applies to both; and I cannot simply assume the existence of such a concept. 356 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Using inferences from oneself to others and applying the concepts that capture one's own mental states to the states of the others is not the only way by means of which the hearer can put himself in the position of the speaker and recognize what he has expressed by his utterance. Instead, a theory of our knowledge of other minds can be formulated in terms of empathy, according to which a person grasps what is going on in someone else's mind, not by means of the application of mental concepts on the basis of observations, but by means of imagining herself to be in the position of the other person and grasping what is happening in her own mind as a result.6 According to this proposal, if I hear you making a certain utterance and try to understand it, I imagine what it would take to make that utterance myself. And in order to do so, I have to imaginatively entertain a corresponding propositional state that could be expressed by the utterance in question. I come to understand what you have meant with your utterance simply by imaginatively entertaining that propositional state. Of course, I can be wrong since I may fail to appropriately imagine being in your position of making that utterance. But what is more important is that this account of how we come to recognize the mental states that other people express does not require that we conceptualize the other's mental states in any way. For the proposal suggests that we grasp them simply by imaginatively entertaining them ourselves. To put it briefly, it conceives of communication as a very straightforward and direct way of putting one's own thoughts into the listener's mind. Hence, it can avoid the problem that the inference-by-analogy model faces. A Second Objection: the Sensory Aspects of Thought When people speak of phenomenal character, they usually refer to an aspect of sensory experiences, such as sensations of pain or perceptions of colour. This might suggest the idea that thinking, understanding and judging possess a qualitative character only in the sense that they involve, or are accompanied by, some related sensory state. The idea is that my experience of understanding or judging that p is experiential only in so far as I sensorily hear or read or imagine the utterance "p". Some philosophers have indeed believed that the propositional states in question occur only in conjunction with the perception or imagination of signs or symbols. However, even if this were true, the phenomenal character of these sensory states would be only contingently linked to the content of the respective propositional state. For instance, that fact that we express in English a thought about a house by means of the symbol "house", and not by means of another one, is not essential to what the thought actually means. Therefore, the spe6See Husserl (1950, § 50) and Husserl (1954, § 67). 357 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 cific phenomenal character of thoughts and judgements - if it exists - could not be of a sensory kind.7 Nevertheless, this kind of reasoning leaves some room for an objection against the thesis that propositional states possess a specific phenomenal character. For one could insist that the qualitative character of these experiences belongs exclusively to the accompanying sensory representations and that it is, in this sense, independent of their conceptual content. We often entertain symbolic, acoustic or diagrammatic representations, while we think, understand or judge something. Hence, it seems plausible to maintain that, since the sensory representations of such signs occur usually in conjunction with particular thoughts, we have the tendency to take the phenomenal character of the sensory representations to be a feature of the non-sensory thoughts. But this objection can be dealt with by making it plausible that the propositional states in question can, and often do, occur without the simultaneous presence of sensory representations of symbols or signs. Already Karl Bühler (1907) has argued, on the basis of an empirical investigation of the mental states to which we have introspective access while thinking, that visual, acoustic or motoric representations are not necessary components of thought. And Charles Siewert (1998, 264; 277) has, to the same effect, put forward examples of thoughts (e.g., one that occured in his mind while he was walking from his table to the till of a restaurant) that are too complex and appear and disappear in such an immediate way and in a brief period of time, that it would seem to be impossible for us to sensorily represent the respective sentences at the same time. Finally, there are features of sensory representations that do not seem to occur in pure thought. For instance, acoustic perceptions and imaginations must have at least some acoustic characteristics: the represented sentence or symbol must possess, say, a certain volume, a certain pitch and a certain duration or speed. In the case of an acoustic imagination, it might not be necessary that all such acoustic features be present or determined, but it would be strange to speak of an acoustic representation, if none of them would occur. By contrast, it seems perfectly possible to think something without being conscious of any sensory feature - whether visual or acoustic - at all. Hence, the phenomenal character of the propositional states in question cannot be analysed in terms of the phenomenal character of possibly accompanying 7Wittgenstein writes in the Philosophical Investigations: "In the sense that/in so far as there are no characteristic processes/experiences (even mental processes/experiences) of understanding, understanding is no mental process/experience. (The increase and decrease of a sensation of pain, the hearing of a melody, of a sentence: mental processes/experiences)." (Wittgenstein, 1984a, § 154). Wittgenstein seems here to reject that understanding is a mental process/experience on the basis of the argument that it is not a sensory process/experience. But the argument does not address the possibility of there being nonsensory processes/experiences. 358 Chapter 12 Conceptual Qualia and Communication sensory representations of symbols or signs. A Third Objection: the Vagueness of Phenomenal Characters One more thing remains to be made plausible, namely that the phenomenal character of the recognition is indeed specific enough to individuate the expressed mental state. It might be suspected that the qualitative character of thoughts or judgements is too imprecise in order to determine a particular intentional content. For it seems that we may not always be able, on the basis of our introspective access to our phenomenal consciousness, to tell for sure which thought we are currently having. Consider the following example put forward by Charles Siewert (1998, 287f.). I am driving to work and suddenly realize that I have left my briefcase at home. This realization happens by means of a conscious thought. But which one exactly? The thought that I have forgotten my briefcase? Or the thought that it still lies on my desk at home? Have I been thinking that I have unintentionally moved myself away from my briefcase? Or that I have moved while my briefcase stayed where it were? Has my thought involved the idea that I have left the briefcase where I and my family live? Or the idea that I left the thing with which I usually transport my books, papers and pens? When I wonder about the precise nature of my thought and begin to concentrate on how I have phenomenally experienced the thought in question, I may for some while consider these and similar options and accept them as appropriate descriptions of my thought. But when and where exactly will my acceptance stop? Will there be a point during my considerations at which I will begin to say to myself: "no, I haven't thought that"? As Siewert has concluded, the argument suggests that there is good reason to assume that there is no such clear and precise border (cf. Siewert (1998, 290)).However, he has also argued that the qualitative characters are not more vague than the corresponding intentional contents (cf. Siewert (1998, 284ff.)). Accordingly, the potential vagueness of the former does not seem to prevent them from being able to determine the latter. In order to see how this claim is supported, it is not necessary to concern oneself with our more or less successful transformation of thoughts into language. For it is not at issue whether, for instance, a particular utterance is the most appropriate one to express a certain thought. Instead, we are confronted with the question as to whether our mental concepts are vague with respect to the mental states they are supposed to pick out. Is the concept "thinking that p", for instance, capable of precisely determining which thought I have been thinking on a certain occasion? It seems not. 359 Conceptual Qualia and Communication Chapter 12 The problem is due neither to my inability to find the right concept to express my thought, nor to the possibility that my thought has no specific intentional content (we take it that we can assume that in many, if not most cases, our thoughts have determined contents). Rather, it is due to the nature of our concepts of intentional states and to the general criteria for their application. Althought the thought that I have forgotten the briefcase at home and the thought that I have left it where my family lives differ in their content, it is normally not possible to determine, neither by means of concepts of intentional states, nor by means of concepts of phenomenal characters, which of the two thoughts I have actually experienced and expressed. Consequently, there does not seem to be any difference with respect to vagueness between the two kinds of concepts. The objection that the phenomenal character is too vague to determine the intentional content is hence untenable. Conclusion To sum up, we have suggested that we can understand the way in which we understand linguistic expressions of other people in terms of empathy: we imaginatively entertain a propositional state that we would have expressed if we were in the position of the speaker, and thereby experience the content of the mental state that he actually has expressed. Furthermore, we have tried to show that, in order to be able to individuate the expressed mental state in this way, we have to fall back on a characteristic and easily accessible aspect of our own imaginative state, namely its specific phenomenal character. And our theory has also included the claim that we refer to this very same character, too, when we try in general to distinguish and individuate our own conscious mental states. One main source for the plausibility of our account of the role of phenomenal consciousness in thought and understanding has been its explanatory power: it can explain how we come to recognize or grasp the mental states of ourselves and others. The other source has been the possibility to rebut the challenges and objections that have been raised against accounts like the one that we have put forward. 360 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Written together with Gianfranco Soldati I. Introduction Is the claim that perceptual experiences are by nature relational incompatible with the view that they are intentional? In this article we shall argue that it is not. As we shall see, much depends on the way one understands the possibility for one to be wrong about the phenomenal nature of one's own experience. We shall describe and distinguish a variety of errors that can occur in our firstpersonal access to our perceptual experiences. We shall argue that once the nature of these different kinds of error is properly understood, the metaphysical claim that perceptual experiences are relational can be made compatible with the view that they are intentional. Before presenting the argument, we shall articulate some elements of an intentionalist approach concerning the role of experience in our relation to ourselves and to our environment. The picture should offer a motivation for the argument that follows. To offer an intentionalist motivation for an argument is not to offer an argument in favour of intentionalism. Our concern is not with the truth of intentionalism, or of relationalism. Our main claim concerning the divide between intentionalism and its relationalist opponent may however block at least those arguments against intentionalism that depend on the incompatibility claim mentioned above.1 Sections 2 and 3 describe the version of intentionalism we are presupposing in our argument. The position is described in broad terms, in order to remain as neutral as possible on further options one may wish to take. If we are 1We have provided independent arguments in favour of intentionalism elsewhere: see, for instance, Soldati (1994), as well as chapters 8 and 11. 361 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 right, the result of our analysis will not depend on any decision with respect to those options. The central assumption in the version of intentionalism we are presupposing is that there is an intimate relation between the claim that perceptual experiences have motivational force, for instance with respect to our activity of judging, and the common claim that they possess correctness conditions. There are various qualms a relationalist may express against this assumption. Since we do not intend to present a defence of intentionalism, we shall not discuss them here. Doubts that depend on the claim that perceptual experiences are by nature relational should however be deflated by our argument. Our main argument is presented in the remaining four sections. Two ideas are central to this argument. The first is that an intentionalist understanding of the phenomenal nature of perceptions is compatible with a relationalist understanding of their non-phenomenal nature. A tension arises only if it is attempted to account for one and the same aspect of experiences in either way. The second crucial thought is that the non-phenomenal status of the relationality of perceptions does not prevent it from being manifest in consciousness. For it may be part of how things intentionally appear to us in perception that the experiences themselves are presented as relating us to the world. In section 4, we first clarify what a claim about the nature of an experience involves. It is a claim about the essential properties of experiences, properties that determine, for instance, the identity conditions of experiences over time. The common idea that experiences have a phenomenal nature thus implies that at least some of their phenomenal properties are essential to them. We then elucidate the notion of appearance and distinguish between properties that may be said to appear in an experience and properties by virtue of which an experience may be said to be an appearance. In section 5, we specify how the way we understand the distinction between pure phenomenal properties and phenomenal properties which are determined by the way how something appears in a perceptual experience. We then consider the hypothesis that experiences may have properties that are not manifest in consciousness. We explain what this means and we show that if those properties are essential to the experience then the nature of the experience is not (entirely) manifest in consciousness. We then consider the idea that an experience may possess a relational nature and show under what conditions that nature may be manifest in consciousness. We show that one way for the relational nature to be manifest in consciousness would be for the experience to be an appearance of itself as standing in relation to something. This very possibility makes room for a kind of error what we call experiential error - that is, a special kind of error a subject may fall prey to with respect to the nature of his own experience: it may appear to be relational while it is not. 362 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error In section 6, we look more carefully at this kind of error and distinguish it from two other errors one can apparently make about one's own experiences. There is first doxastic error, an error attributable to a higher order introspective belief concerning the properties, and possibly even the nature, of one's own experience. We ask whether the experience itself, by virtue of the way it occurs in consciousness, can be the source of this kind of error. In our discussion, we compare introspective with perceptual beliefs and come to the conclusion that doxastic error is possible when the experience occurs in consciousness in a way that misleads about its own non-phenomenal nature. We show that this kind of situation involves an experiential error and conclude that a doxastic error can originate from an experiential error. A further question is whether an experience can occur in consciousness in a way that deceives us about its own phenomenal nature. We distinguish several cases and come to the conclusion that such a phenomenal error is not possible: it is not possible that the phenomenal nature of an experience is not manifest in consciousness. We suggest that this is the sense one should give to the traditional claim that in the realm of experience there is no difference between appearance and being. In section 7, we apply the results obtained so far to a prominent version of the relational view, as it has recently been advocated by M. G. F. Martin. One important point speaking in favour of the relational view is the fact that it seems best suited to account for an obvious asymmetry between perception and hallucination: there is nothing wrong with the first, and much wrong with the latter, although they are introspectively indistinguishable. We argue that the relationalist should not appeal to phenomenal error in order to account for this intuitive asymmetry. Explaining it in terms of experiential error permits the combination of relationalism with intententionalism. We conclude that a relational view that does not assume the possibility of phenomenal error is compatible with the kind of intentionalism presented at the beginning of the paper. II. The Role of Experience Experiences, occurrences in the flow of consciousness, play a central role in our engagement with the world. The way things and people appear to us in experience is intimately connected to the way we think about them and to the way we interact with them. The way we experience the world matters to us. There are experiences we enjoy and we are glad to expect. Other experiences are painful and we would rather avoid having them. Sometimes, however, we accept undergoing a painful experience because we value the understanding we obtain through it. And we can learn to distance ourselves from experiences we find superficial although quite pleasurable. So experiences do not simply 363 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 impose themselves on our life. With time and with the help of others, we get to know more about their nature and we learn to let them play a sensible role in our life. Moreover, we discover that experiences can lead us astray and we thus learn not to fall prey to them. We can come to understand a person's reaction to a certain situation by getting a grasp on the way she experiences it. We sometimes manage to predict a person's behaviour by putting ourselves in her shoes and thus experiencing her situation as if it were our own. Appreciation of the fact that experiences can lead us astray is crucial in our understanding of other persons and their behaviour. When experiences matter to us, this is sometimes due to the fact that their simple presence commands a certain kind of response on our part. This is not a mere process, taking place in us, with us playing the role of a detached observer. When we are engaged in responding to an experience, the experience may indeed provide us with a reason for our response. In fact, the experience and our reaction are often part of a unity that may constitute a project we aim to realise. If one aims to understand better a friend's behaviour in a certain kind of circumstance, one may wish that one's own beliefs about that person and her motives are properly responsive to one's experiential, e.g. empathic, take of her situation. And if one wishes to learn something about the quality of wine, one wants one's judgement to be properly responsive to one's complex olfactory and taste sensations. Advances in such epistemic projects are not just a matter of collecting evidence for the corroboration of a hypothesis. It is rather a matter of getting one's own cognitive behaviour to be increasingly guided by the relevant experiences. The more one advances in this direction, the more one senses the cognitive obligation that stems from the presence of the experience. This is not a question of one having lost one's freedom to believe in front of the tribunal of experience. It is rather a manifestation of the fact that one comes to feel the responsibility one would have to carry if one were not to trust one's own experience. As such, this is the situation where believing one thing rather than another starts to become something we really care about. Beliefs one cares about are beliefs that impinge on one's web of experience. Much of what is true of experiences in general is also true of perceptual experiences in particular.2 When it comes to our knowledge concerning the 2In using the expression perceptual experience we mean the most fundamental kind of conscious experience involved in perception. As it should become obvious in the light of our later discussion, we take conjunctivists to claim that perception and hallucination involve the same fundamental kind of experience, and disjunctivists to deny this very claim. Unfortunately the terminology in this domain is not settled and one sometimes finds authors using the expression perceptual experience in order to refer to the kind of experience, whether fundamental or not, involved both in hallucinations and perceptions. As a consequence of this terminological choice, these authors find themselves obliged to describe the disjunctivist as 364 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error external world, perceptual experiences play a central role. Typically, we come to know that the there is a red sphere in front of us by having an experience of something appearing red and spherical in front of us. Such a simple way of gaining knowledge presupposes that our experience is sensitive to shape, colour and orientation in egocentric space. There would not be much point in our experience possessing that kind of sensitivity if our beliefs were not responsive to the fact that they do possess it. Indeed, when one experiences a red sphere appearing in front of one, one is strongly inclined, in fact, one is motivated to judge that there is a red sphere in front of one. Philosophers have not always agreed that this rational relation between perceptual experience and belief is constitutive of our knowledge about the external world. A subject may fulfil all the responsibilities that flow from her perceptual experiences and yet fail to be a reliable source of information about her environment. Establishing criteria for the satisfaction of the sort of rational requirement at issue, then, would fall short of providing genuine criteria for knowledge. One may be tempted to react to such a line of argument by questioning the very notion of perceptual experience it appears to rely on. Indeed, it has been argued that once it is allowed that our experience does not put us into direct contact with the world, once it is allowed that the experience could occur without establishing such a contact to the world, the relation between perceptual experience and knowledge breaks down.3 One should thus rather conceive of perceptual experiences in a way which makes it essential to them to put us in direct contact with the world. In this sense, perceptual experiences, as such, could not be faulty. Hallucinations and illusions would have to be experiences of a different kind.4 claiming not that perceptual experience as such, but that veridical perceptual experience is of a different fundamental kind than hallucination. This can easily lead to a trivialising interpretation following which perception, on the disjunctivist account, would be of a different fundamental kind simply because it is veridical. If that were the argument, then one would expect it to apply by analogy to the domain of belief, thus yielding the result that true beliefs belong to a different fundamental kind than false beliefs simply by virtue of their veridicality. But, as we shall see, this is precisely not the argument the disjunctivist is relying on in the case of perception. 3Hilary Putnam has famously written: "I agree with James, as well as with McDowell, that the false belief that perception must be so analyzed is at the root of all the problems with the view of perception that, in one form or another, has dominated Western philosophy since the seventeenth century. James's idea is that the traditional claim that we must conceive of our sensory experiences as intermediaries between us and the world has no sound arguments to support it, and, worse, makes it impossible to see how persons can be in genuine cognitive contact with a world at all" (Putnam, 1994, 454). 4This, of course, does not imply that those different kinds of experiences cannot have, at least on some occasions, if not always, a common feature, such as the property of being indistinguishable from a perception. The point would rather be that such a shared feature 365 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 Perceptual experiences, it is generally admitted, are intentional; they are directed to something. But for an experience to be intentional, it needs to possess correctness conditions. This, at least, seems to be suggested by Brentano's famous idea that an intentional 'relation' does not presuppose the existence of its object.5 Should we thus consider the claim that perceptual experiences put us into direct contact with the world as relying on the idea that perceptions are not intentional? Or should we abandon the idea of a connection between intentionality and correctness conditions and accept a modified notion of intentionality as referring simply to an asymmetrical relation between the experience and its object, such that the experience is directed onto its object while the object is not directed onto the experience? One of the central problems with the relational view sketched above concerns the way perceptual experiences can guide us in the formation of beliefs. In order to rationally ground our beliefs, perceptions should provide reasons. Reasons for beliefs, it used to be said, need to be inferential. And so, it was concluded, not perceptual experiences as such, but the beliefs caused by them, provide reasons. In spite of its well-known weaknesses, this argument relies on a strong intuitive basis. It is the idea that a fact or event as such cannot provide any rational guidance for one's beliefs. For something to rationally guide one's cognitive activity there must be something normative about its very nature. Intentional content conceived as the possession of correctness conditions is one way of fulfilling this requirement. Let us explain. III. Intentionality, Correctness Conditions, and the Phenomenology of Experience Consider experiences such as a pain in one's foot and the visual experience of two parallel lines that appear to converge.6 There is an ordinary sense in which there can be something misleading about experiences of this kind. A pain in the foot is misleading when there is no ailment in the foot.7 The perception of would not count as the sort of property that characterises both perceptual experiences and hallucinations at their most fundamental level (see Martin (2004), Siegel (2004), and chapter 11). 5See Brentano (1995, Book 2, Chapter 1). An interpretation that questions the claim made above can be found in Crane (2006). 6Examples of such cases are provided in the Zöllner Illusion. 7We shall suppose, in what follows, that the experience of pain possesses correctness conditions just as much as the visual experience of two converging lines does. We shall not argue here for this intentional analysis of pain. As a matter of fact, nothing in our argument depends on the specific claim that pain is an intentional state. The present paper should be compatible with, but does not depend on, the view that the phenomenal properties of experiences are entirely determined by their intentional content. 366 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error the two lines as converging is misleading when the lines are actually parallel. How should one account for the very possibility of experiences being faulty, or leading us astray, in the way described above? One prominent line of thought suggests that the mistakes under consideration are related to the fact that those experiences are essentially intentional in the following sense: they possess correctness conditions, and the possession of those conditions is constitutive for their identity. The experiences would not be what they are if they did not have the correctness conditions they have. One's experience of pain would not be the pain it is if it did not present the foot as having an ailment, and one's visual experience of two lines appearing to join each other would not be the visual experience it is if it did not present the lines as joining each other. Correctness conditions are conditions an experience typically imposes on something else, on something external to the experience, something that transcends the experience.8 The ailment in the foot is external to the experience of pain, and the convergence of the lines is external to the visual experience of them appearing to converge. The externality under consideration can be captured with the notion of ontological independence: the experience does not depend for its existence on the satisfaction of its correctness conditions.9 One can experience a pain in the foot although there is no ailment there and the lines can appear to converge although they do not. Externality of experience as such does not yield mind-independence. It is required that the experience be independent of the satisfaction of its correctness conditions, not that whatever satisfies those conditions be mindindependent. Cases where the correctness conditions are obviously satisfied by mind-dependent states, properties or events are readily available. One's second order belief that one is in pain is correct if and only if one is in pain, a plain mental state. The intentional character of those second order states would however be questionable if it could be shown that one's thought that one is in pain depends for its very existence on one's being in pain. We can now see how experiences can be misleading. Experiences, one may surmise, are misleading when their correctness conditions are not satisfied. This is fine, but one must be fully aware of what one is thereby putting into the notion of correctness conditions. The simple fact that an experience has correctness conditions that are not satisfied does not make it faulty. We fur8This notion of 'transcendence' is common in Husserl and in the phenomenological tradition. 9The converse relation requires more articulation. Properties an object can have only in so far as it is perceived by a subject yield correctness conditions that depend on the experience. It may still be true that the satisfaction of those conditions does not depend only on perceptual experiences. An object may be red only in so far as subjects can experience it, but this does not imply that any subject?s particular experience makes it red. 367 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 ther need the requirement that the experience's occurrence should be related to those conditions being satisfied. Since we saw that externality prevents the existence of the experience from depending on the satisfaction of those conditions, the relation cannot be one of existential dependence. We should rather say that in order to be correct the experience ought to occur only when its correctness conditions are satisfied, which of course does not mean that it can occur only under such circumstances. Correctness conditions of experiences thus generate a twofold constraint: an external constraint on whatever might satisfy those conditions, and an internal constraint on the very occurrence of the experience.10 The possibility for the experiences to be faulty depends on the intertwining of these two constraints. For an experience to be intentional - for it to have intentional content, as it is slightly misleadingly said - means, then, for it to be subject to the intertwining of those two constraints.11 We can now see how the intentionality of perceptual experience is related to its guiding role. It is because perceptual experiences ought to occur only if their correctness conditions are satisfied, that their occurrence provides one with a reason to believe that the world is as it perceptually appears to be. The mere occurrence of the perceptual state, void of the norm that applies to it, would not provide such a reason.12 On one prominent view, a view we share, the claim that perceptual expe10The external constraint of the perception of a red circle is that the circle should be red. The internal constraint is that the experience should occur only if the circle is red. In none of those cases does the presence of the constraint imply that there is something somebody can and should do in order for it to be satisfied. 11The distinction under consideration is sometimes expressed by opposing the content to the mode of an experience, to the effect that experiences of a different mode are sometimes said to possess the same content. One may submit that a scene can be visualised in the same way as it can appear in vision, but that only the perceptual experience stands under the constraint that it should not occur if the scene were not as it appears. Would this show that perception and imagination can have the same correctness conditions? We do not think so. On the contrary: if imaginings posses any correctness conditions at all then those ought to be different from the correctness conditions of the corresponding perceptual experiences (in some cases, for instance, the imagining might be correct by providing access to a possibility, rather then an actuality). 12One may wonder whether the constraint described above applies in the same way to all kinds of intentional states. If desires provide reasons for action, for instance, one may expect this to hold by virtue of a constraint of a different nature. This may indeed be related to the common metaphor about the desire's direction of fit (see, for instance, Smith (1994, 111ff.), Humberstone (1992) and Tenenbaum (2006) for a discussion of the idea). For the desire that p to rationally motivate an action, for instance, the occurrence of the desire should precisely not depend on the obtaining of p. Independently of the merits of this proposal with respect to the distinction between the way perceptions provide reasons for beliefs and the way desires provide reasons for action, it might be useful to note that even in the case of the desire that p, if not p itself, then at least the desirability of p might indeed constitute a normative constraint on the occurrence of the desire. 368 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error riences are intentional is part of their descriptive phenomenology. By saying this one means that the property of having certain correctness conditions is constitutive of how the experience is consciously presented to the subject. It is part of what it is like for someone to have that experience. We shall not argue in favour of this view in the present paper, but some elements of the relation between intentionality and the phenomenology of experience will be set out in what follows. A terminological clarification may help at this point. Suppose that in perception the lines appear to a subject S as converging. The perception is veridical only if the lines converge. Call this condition F.13 A possible world w, or something in a possible world (a situation), can satisfy this condition. A world w may thus have the property of being a world where the lines converge. Condition F would be a property of w, w would be an F -world, w would be a member of the set of worlds where the lines converge. The phenomenological claim under consideration is that F determines a conscious feature of S 's perceptual experience. Contrary to w, the experience does not possess the property F, the experience is not an element of the extension of F. Rather: having F as an intentional content is part of how the experience is given in consciousness. Since we said that an object perceptually appears to the subject as F, we might classify the subject's experience as an F -appearance. Obviously, being an F -world and being an F -appearance are properties of very different kinds.14 It is one thing to determine the intentional content of an experience. It is another thing to determine whether that content correlates de facto with conditions external to the experience. Take the example of colours. It is one thing to say that the visual experience of a red tomato presents the tomato as being red independently of one's experience of it. It is another thing to claim that redness is a property something can instantiate without the subject experiencing it. The first claim concerns the phenomenology of the experience; the second claim concerns the metaphysical constraints on the correctness conditions of the experience. The intentional content of an experience may be constituted by correctness conditions that cannot, or can only partially be satisfied. Even under such conditions, it may still be true that those correct13The condition might be described by the proposition that the lines converge. This should not be taken to imply that perceptions have propositional content. As a matter of fact, the correctness conditions of one and the same perception may be represented by an indeterminate set of propositions. Or one may opt to specify the correctness condition demonstratively: the condition would then be that the lines are in this way, where the demonstrative refers to the perceptual appearance involved in the experience. 14The distinction may sound trivial. Yet one finds Martin complaining that Dennett and Dretske indulge in formulations that suggest precisely the kind of confusion the distinction is meant to avoid (see Martin (1998). 369 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 ness conditions stand in a significant relation to conditions that do possibly obtain in the world. There may not be, as some think, any colour properties in the world, but it may still be true that there is an interesting set of properties that are instantiated in the external world whenever an object looks red. Elaborating on such connections and constraints is no part of descriptive phenomenology. It is part of the metaphysics of colour and of the epistemology of colour perception (see 1). IV. Phenomenal Properties and the Metaphysics of Experience Experiences possess various properties. They are likely to possess properties that do not constitute the way it is like to have them. They may possess properties that are sometimes, or maybe even typically, unconscious (i.e. not conscious). For instance, perceptions of a certain kind may cause modifications in our body we are not aware of, modifications nobody knows about. Having that sort of causal power is a property of the experience that does not belong to its phenomenology. Properties that belong to its phenomenology are properties that characterise the way the experience presents itself in the stream of consciousness. They constitute what it is like to have those experiences. Let us call these properties phenomenal properties. Among the phenomenal properties there are properties an experience has by virtue of things appearing to one in the experience. They are phenomenal properties constituted by the intentional content of the experience. There is a philosophical position, pure intentionalism, as we should call it, which claims that all phenomenal properties are constituted by the intentional content of the experience. That means that every property which influences how an experience is given when it occurs in the stream of consciousness is determined by a property the object presented in the experience appears to have. The determination is the one we specified above: if the experience represents something as F, then the experience has the property of representing something to be F, in short of being an F -appearance.15 Let us now look for a moment at the identity conditions of experiences. Consider identity over time. Suppose there is a strong pain in the leg.16 As 15The expression 'appearance' is notoriously ambiguous (see for instance Husserl's famous complaints in Husserl (1984, B 233) or Husserl (1970, 341), respectively. We use it in order to characterise experiences. When something appears F to the subject, then the subject has an F -appearance. The property F is the way the object appears, but the way the object appears is not an appearance. 16When we use the expression 'pain' we mean the pain experience. So assertions such as 'the pain is in the leg' ought to be interpreted not as meaning that the experience is in the leg, but that the experience presents the ailment as being in the leg. The case is not specific 370 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error time goes by it decreases and eventually disappears. Being strong, then, was not an essential property of the pain. The very same pain could have been less strong. Or consider the power a certain pain has to cause one's heart to beat quicker. Again, the heart may beat slower and the pain remain just the same. A pain sometimes moves: it started in the knee, now it is in the thigh. So, location too is no essential property of the pain. The point is not to establish these specific claims. We rather aim at understanding what is at issue when one inquires into them. If some properties are not essential to the experience, then this may be expressed by saying that some properties do not constitute the nature of the experience.17 Are there properties that constitute the nature of an experience? Are there essential properties of an experience? Many philosophers have submitted that at least some, if not all the phenomenal properties of an experience are essential to it. It would then be essential for a pain, for instance, to be painful, to hurt. An experience cannot be a pain, it is said, if it does not hurt. What does this mean? Should we say that the experience appears as hurting, that hurting is the way the experience appears? Although philosophers sometimes talk like that, this way of speaking can be seriously misleading. It is misleading when it suggests that a pain experience appears hurting in the sense in which an apple appears red in perception. For to be hurting would then be the property the pain experience appears to have, instead of being a property it simply possesses. For the former to be the case there should be something, some further experience, in which the pain experience appears as hurting, just as much as we need a perception for the apple to have the property of appearing red. There are many serious philosophical problems with this picture of introspecto pains. When I say that my thoughts are with you, I do not intend to say that you are thinking my thoughts. 17In what follows we shall assume that the essential properties of an entity determine the nature of the entity and that the nature of the entity determines the fundamental kind to which it belongs. Thus if Socrates is essentially human, then his nature is to be a human being and he belongs fundamentally to the human kind. Socrates is also Greek, but if he is not essentially Greek, then he is not Greek by nature; and although he belongs to the kind of Greek things, he is fundamentally not a Greek thing. Greek salads are of the same kind as Socrates, but not of the same fundamental kind. Twin Socrates, who is as wise, clever and virtuous as Socrates, but who is not human, does not have the same nature as Socrates and does not belong to the same fundamental kind as Socrates. This view has its limits when it comes to essential relational properties, such as being the son of a and b. If Socrates has that property essentially, and if he is the only son of a and b, then he has a nature no other object has and he is the only member of that fundamental kind. This prompts the need to make a distinction between essential properties that determine an individual nature and essential properties that determine a fundamental kind. This is not the place to dwell on this issue, but we shall have to come back to some aspect of it when it comes to the role particularity plays in perception (see footnote 20). 371 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 tion. But apart from those problems, the issue at stake here is simply that there is a difference between the claim that the pain possesses the property of hurting and the claim that the pain appears to possess that property. When we say that a pain experience has the essential feature of hurting, we are not saying that it has the essential feature of appearing to hurt.18 Remember the difference we made above. An experience in which something appears F is an F -appearance. But: an F -appearance does not appear F. Thus: a red-appearance is an experience of something appearing red. The experience itself, however, does not appear red. Being a red-appearance is one of the experience's phenomenal properties: the experience represents something as being red and this intentional content constitutes one of the features the experience presents itself as having when occurring in the stream of consciousness. Similar considerations apply in the case of pain. Hurting is one of the ways in which a certain region of the body appears in the experience of pain: the foot hurts. The experience has the property of presenting the foot as hurting, just as much as the visual perception presents the lines as converging. To be an appearance of something as hurting, then, is a phenomenal property of the experience of pain. Strictly speaking, we should not say that the pain hurts. We should rather say that the pain has the property of representing something as hurting and that this property constitutes part of what it is like to have a pain. The essentialist claim under consideration is that this phenomenal property is a necessary property of the pain: it constitutes the nature of the experience of pain. Is this true for all phenomenal properties of an experience? Some of the examples mentioned above seem to suggest that it is not. The object of a pain appears to be located at a certain place in one's body, but it is not immediately clear that the location it appears to have could not change without the pain experience stopping to be the very same experience (i.e., that very same pain could 'move' or could 'be' somewhere else in the body). Does the essentialist claim apply only to phenomenal properties? Could it not be essential for a pain to cause a certain kind of behaviour? These are all genuine questions, but we shall not address them in what follows. As mentioned above, we do not intend to propose a theory about pain experiences; we rather want to suggest an understanding of the philosophical claims at issue. 18The argument does not involve the rejection of the claim that the properties an object appears to possess can be identical to properties the object possess simpliciter. But it does presuppose that for a property to qualify as a property an object appears to have, it needs to constitute a way the object appears in experience. 372 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error V. The Nature of Experience Suppose that there are phenomenal properties that are not determined by an intentional content and thus are not appearances. It is not easy to find clear examples of such phenomenal properties. Blurredness is sometimes given as an example in point.19 But maybe even painfulness is such a case. In fact, it may be submitted that there are two distinct phenomenal properties: the painfulness-appearance on the one side, and the pure painfulness on the other. To claim that there is a sense in which painfulness is a property an experience has by virtue of there being something that appears painful, is not to deny that a pain may also have a pure phenomenal property of painfulness. All we need, for our purpose, is to be clear about the fact that these are different properties. Some would submit that only phenomenal properties, whether appearances or not, can count as determining the nature of a conscious experience. But our argument need not depend on such an assumption. Suppose thus that an experience has an unconscious property G that is essential to it. It belongs to the nature of the experience to be a G. G is not experienced in the flow of consciousness. Although being essentially a G, the experience does not possess any phenomenal G-ish property. In that case, the nature of the experience, or part of it, is not manifest in consciousness. This does not imply that one cannot come to judge, by some other means, that one's own experience is G. Now, take a relational property of standing in relation R to an object of a certain kind.20 Suppose that the relational property is essential to the experience: it corresponds to part of its nature. Suppose further that the property is in fact given in experience. When a subject has an experience that possesses that relational property, then the experience is an appearance of itself 19See Boghossian and Velleman (1989, 94), Crane (2001, 143), TyeBlurry and Pace (2007). More considerations about blurredness as a non-intentional phenomenal property follow below. 20Two relations are particularly salient for perceptual experiences: causality and acquaintance. We shall come back later to the precise status of those relations with respect to the nature of perceptual experiences. More should also be said, but can't be said here, about particularity. In perception, typically, we perceive particular objects. Is it essential for a perceptual experience to be an experience of a rather then b? If all essential properties constitute the nature of the experience and if the nature of the experience determines the most fundamental kind to which the experience belongs (see footnote 17), than this would yield the result that the perception of a and the perception of b belong to different fundamental kinds, even when a and b are perceptually indistinguishable. Whatever the merits of this answer, and the assumptions it relies on, it would not be fitting for the view that perceptions in general belong to a different fundamental kind than hallucinations. A further issue concerns the question of how the particularity can manifest itself in the phenomenology of experience, if perceptions of qualitatively identical objects are supposed to be experientially and introspectively indistinguishable. 373 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 as standing in the relevant relation to an object of a certain kind. We may say that the experience is a reflexive R-appearance. This is a token-reflexive phenomenal property of the experience. It is not a case of the experience appearing in a certain way to another experience, it is instead the case of the experience appearing to itself in a certain way.21 In such a case, then, the experience possesses a phenomenal property that corresponds to an essential correctness condition satisfied by the experience itself. The very nature of the experience (or part of it) is consciously manifest through a phenomenal feature of the experience. Consider at present another experience with the same intentional content and the same phenomenal properties as the experience above, with the notable difference, however, that it does not satisfy the condition set by its intentional content. If R is taken to be a casual relation, then the case under consideration would be one where the experience is not caused by an external object. Now, if being caused by an external object is an essential property of any experience that has it, then representing an experience as being caused by an external object when it is not is to represent the experience has having a nature it does not have. When the intentional content determines the phenomenal property of the experience, that is, when the experience has the phenomenal property of being a reflexive R-appearance, then the experience appears to itself as having a nature it does not have. One of the experience's phenomenal properties misleads the subject of the experience about the very nature of the experience. This, of course, leaves the possibility open for the phenomenal property to be essential to the experience. Thus, an experience may possess an essential phenomenal property that misleads the subject about the nature of the experience. This happens precisely when standing in relation to an object of a certain kind is an essential condition on experiences, the experience is essen21The proposal has obvious similarities with Searle's idea that "perceptual experience is causally self-referential" (Searle, 1983, 49). Searle's view has been widely criticised, i.a. because it appears to make the content of perceptual experiences too sophisticated, and because it underestimates the role the demonstrative, non descriptive relation to the world plays in perception (see Burge (1991)). A proper discussion of Searle's proposal, and of the role demonstration plays in perception, will have to take place elsewhere (some elements deriving from a Husserlian conception of the relation between perception and demonstrative content can be found in Soldati (2008)). For the moment it might be enough to note that the view described so far should not commit one to the idea that the correctness conditions of a perceptual experience are propositional, nor to the claim that the perceptual experience is "experience of being caused" (Searle, 1983, 74). Although we do mention causality as an example of the relation R under consideration, and although we do think that causality plays a crucial role with respect to the correctness conditions of perceptual experiences, we wish to remain neutral for the moment about the precise way in which the experience manifests this trait of its correctness conditions in the way it is given in consciousness. As we shall later see, actuality and transparency can however be shown to play an important role in this respect. 374 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error tially a reflexive R-appearance, but the experience does not stand in relation to an object of the intended kind. In our example: the relational property of being caused by an external object and the phenomenal property of appearing itself to be caused by an external object would both be essential properties of experiences, they would determine together the nature of the experience and thus the fundamental kind to which it belongs. Under these conditions, an experience that reflexively appears to be caused by an external object when in fact it is not, misleads the subject about its own nature. VI. Experiential and Phenomenal Error The case described above concerns one of the ways the experience can mislead the subject about its own nature. Let us try to better understand the kind of error that occurs in such a case and let us distinguish it from other, related errors.22 Forget about phenomenal properties for a moment, and consider the sort of unconscious causal powers of an experience we mentioned above. The subject can clearly be wrong about that sort of property: the subject can believe that the pain does not cause the heart to beat faster although it does. Now, if that specific causal power is an essential property of the experience, one has a false belief about the nature of the experience. If this is possible with unconscious properties of an experience, why should it not be possible with respect to the phenomenal properties of an experience? Suppose we have a pain experience, it hurts, but for some reason we do not believe that it hurts. Maybe we should start to worry about ourselves, maybe this is the starting point of serious psychological problems, but it is hard to see what in principle could prevent that kind of situation from happening. Now, if it happens, and if hurting is an essential property of our experience, then it seems again right to say that we are wrong about the nature, in fact about the phenomenal nature of our experience. This kind of doxastic error would have to be attributed not to the perceptual experience itself, but to a higher order introspective belief that is intentionally directed to it. The mistake concerns a belief the subject has about her own experience. The question may now be raised whether the way the experience is given in the stream of consciousness could be the very source of this kind of error. Consider the following analogy. When looking at an artificially produced banana one may mistake it for a real one. It is not just that one wrongly judges that the artificial banana is real; the way it looks provides a 22Some of the non-phenomenal errors we shall consider in this section may arguably be impossible. By being more liberal then one probably should be we wish to concede as much as possible to our possible disputant. 375 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 reason to believe that it is. The source of the false belief lies in the very way the artificial banana is given in perception. In perception the fake banana, one may say, conceals its true nature. The parallel question would then be whether a perceptual experience could conceal its nature by the way it is given in consciousness. We have seen that the nature of an experience may be determined by different kinds of properties. Suppose, as above, that among the properties that determine the nature of an experience, some are phenomenal and some are not. Being an F -appearance is a phenomenal property, being G is not, and both properties constitute the nature of the experience.23 There is a fundamental kind of experience that is both an F -appearance and a G. Now, if it is possible that some F -appearance are G-experiences and some are not, then we may obtain a situation in which the subject would not only erroneously believe that his experience is G, the experience itself, by being an F -appearance, would provide him a reason to believe so. This line of argument would not be uncontroversial. One may wonder how the way the artificial banana looks could provide a reason for the (false) belief that the banana is real, given that the artificial and the real banana are supposed to be indistinguishable on the basis of how they look. Could one not, by symmetry, consider the way the real banana looks to provide a reason for the (false) belief that the banana is artificial? Should one thus not conclude that the way a banana looks cannot provide any more reason for the belief that it is real than it does for the belief that it is artificial? Yet if such a result could be secured in the perceptual case, the analogy would be useless with respect to the introspective case. Once again it ought to be stressed that we are not committed to defend the asymmetry under consideration. We simply intend to locate the possibility of error one would have to accommodate if one were to maintain the asymmetry claim. This being said, an argument in favour of the asymmetry in the perceptual case might be provided by a combination of common considerations concerning relevant alternatives and warrant transmission. One may thus submit that where the appearance of a real banana can provide a reason to believe that there is a real banana without having to provide a reason to believe that it is not an artificial one, any appearance that would provide a reason to believe that it is an artificial one would have to provide a reason to believe that it is not a real one. The asymmetry may be rooted in the fact that our perceptual system is tuned to represent real bananas, rather than fake ones, without having been tuned to distinguish the real from the fakes bananas by the way they look. This priority may, but need not, be explained 23If one accepts such a situation, then one will be led to say that the experience has a phenomenal and a non-phenomenal nature, or that its nature is partly phenomenal and partly not (cf. chapters 2 and 11). 376 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error in statistical or nomological terms. A better explanation may be provided by considering the evolutionary function of perception: the perceptual experience represents real bananas because real bananas, and not fake ones, lead to an evolutionary advantage and thus to the selection of the kind of perceptual experience under consideration.24 Whatever the merits of this line of argument, its application to the introspective case would obviously require further instructions. If one intends to argue that an F -appearance equips the subject with a reason to believe that the experience is G rather than non-G, and that an F -appearance thus misleads about its true nature when in fact it is not G, one needs a specific argument for the priority of F -appearances that are G over those that are not. This will obviously depend on the specific instances taken into consideration, such as perception and hallucination. A point to which we shall return below. The relevant result at this stage is that this kind of error, if it could occur, would not concern the phenomenal nature of the experience: although the experience conceals some of its nature, it does not conceal its phenomenal nature. This, at least, holds when G is not itself a phenomenal property of the experience. When the experience provides the subject with a reason to believe that it is G by being an F -appearance, then the way the experience is given in consciousness misleads the subject about one of its non-phenomenal properties. We suggest calling this kind of error, where the experience occurs in consciousness in a way that misleads about its non-phenomenal properties, experiential error. An experiential error can certainly be the source of a doxastic error, in this case of a false introspective belief about the non-phenomenal nature of one's own experience (see chapter 11). Suppose now that the F -appearance we have been considering has a further phenomenal property, the property H. The question would now be whether it is possible for an F -appearance to mislead the subject about its own H -ness. Several situations would have to be distinguished here, depending on whether H is an essential phenomenal property of the experience and on whether H is determined by the intentional content of the experience. Consider first the case where the F -appearance is also a J -appearance. An example would be a perceptual experience of a red square. The object appears red and square, the experience is both a red-appearance and a square-appearance.25 Now, could an F -appearance mislead the subject with respect to its being a J appearance? By definition, if the F -appearance is also a J -appearance, then the experience presents itself as a J -appearance in consciousness. And if being 24Elements of this influential view can be found in Dretske (1971, 1988, 2005). See also Soldati (1996). 25In the experience we are considering the two properties are related to each other by the fact that they appear to belong to one and the same object. 377 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 a J -appearance is an essential property of the experience, then in cases of the kind under consideration the phenomenal nature of the experience is manifest in consciousness. Could an F -appearance not warrant the subject's belief that she is not having a J -appearance although she is? Consider circumstances where one and the same object appears to have incompatible properties: the object may look both F and J although no ordinary material object can be both F and J.26 In such a case the fact that the object looks J provides a reason to believe that it is J but the fact that it looks F also provides a reason to believe that it is not J. One and the same experience grounds contradictory judgements about the perceived object. We may call this a case of phenomenal dissonance. A situation of this kind may eventually lead the subject to cast doubt on the reliability of her own introspective abilities.27 She may conclude that she has an F -appearance but not really a J -appearance, thus entertaining a false belief about the nature of her own experience. The most obvious explanation for this kind of doxastic error, it appears, would appeal to the pressure general assumptions about material objects and their properties exercise on the particular case. The source of the false belief is not the way the experience is given in consciousness, but general background beliefs about the nature of objects given in perception.28 Consider further the case of a F -appearance that has some pure phenomenal property. Imagine a subject with blurred vision who reasons about the origin of the blurred character of his visual experience. Two kinds of questions would have to be distinguished. The subject may wonder first whether the object's edges actually are fuzzy, or if it just appears to him as if they were. This is a question about the correctness of his perceptual experience. But the subject might also wonder whether the blurredness comes from the fact that the object actually appears fuzzy to him or rather from the experience itself. Consider an analogy. Suppose you are looking at a photograph representing an unidentified object on a uniformly coloured background. Suppose the image of the object is blurred. You may genuinely wonder whether the object really has fuzzy borders, like a cloud. Suppose instead that you identify the depicted 26One may naturally think of the sort of visual effects generated by some of M. C. Escher's famous paintings such as Ascending and Descending, where the stairs at the top of the tower appear both to lead up and down. There obviously are special issues related to the perception of depiction, as opposed to the perception of objects, that one would have to consider here. 27This of course need not occur. In fact, we often settle precisely with the idea that our experience has dissonant properties and that our judgement about the perceived object cannot be made on the basis of the experience alone. 28A similar situation may occur in the case of one expecting to touch something hot that is in fact cold. The expectation may cancel the evidential power of the experience. Notice that there could also be phenomenal contamination, as we shall explain below. 378 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error object as being of a kind you are much more familiar with, like a knife, say. It would then be peculiar for you to wonder whether the knife has fuzzy borders. The default assessment would be that there is something wrong with the picture.29 In analogy, the subject might come to consider blurredness as a pure phenomenal property of his experience, instead of being linked to the presentation of an object as having a certain property. More should obviously be said about this distinction. But suppose one accepts it. Could then the way the experience is given in consciousness mislead the subject in a way such that he judges, for instance, that the experience has the pure phenomenal property of blurredness while in fact the experience is rather a presentation of an object with fuzzy borders? It is important for this line of thought to admit that the intentional blurredness (Bi) be phenomenally distinct from the pure blurredness (Bp). If this were not the case, then the introspective judgement that one has one kind of experience rather than the other would in any case not be based on the way the experience is given in consciousness.30 So, if the subject mistakenly comes to judge that her experience is Bp while in fact it is Bi, where could the source of the mistake lie? Could the way the experience is given in consciousness provide a reason for the subject to judge erroneously that her experience is Bp? If a subject has a Bi-experience, then the experience provides him with a reason to believe that he has an experience of something with fuzzy edges. If the subject nevertheless finds a reason to judge that his experience is a Bp-experience, then this will typically come from supplementary considerations that undercut the rational power stemming from the fact that it is a Bi-experience. Typically, such considerations will concern the nature of the perceived object. If one believes that the object is of a kind that cannot have fuzzy borders, then one will normally resist the idea that it appears blurred on some particular occasion. The result above would be compatible with the fact that the undercutting considerations might have an impact on the phenomenal properties of the experience. The object might in fact stop to appear blurred when one comes 29One might of course insist on the fact that in such a case there is no room for doubt simply because the default position is that one believes that the knife cannot have the property the picture represents it as having. The question may however be formulated in more general terms: can the picture have perceptually accessible properties that do not correspond to a way the depicted object appears? If the answer is yes, as it certainly should be, then the subject might be described as wondering, on a specific occasion, whether the property he sees while looking at the picture is precisely of that kind. This obviously does not settle the question as to whether the analogy holds in the introspective case under consideration. 30Unless other phenomenal properties can provide the same sort of ground. 379 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 to believe that it cannot be fuzzy. This kind of phenomenal contamination may occur not only by virtue of pressure coming from background beliefs. It may also emerge from relations between phenomenal properties: an object that appears to have fuzzy edges when seen on its own may appear not to have such edges, but simply to be more distant, when seen in the background of a focussed object. There finally is a very specific kind of error one might need to consider in our context. Remember the case mentioned above of an experience that is essentially relational and that presents itself in consciousness as such. The experience is, as we said above, a reflexive R-appearance. Now, suppose that the relation R itself constitutes a further phenomenal property, R*.31 This would be a pure phenomenal property of the experience, not an appearance property. An experience of this kind, let us assume, would provide the subject with a reason to judge that his experience is indeed relational and with a reason to believe that it has the pure phenomenal property R*. Suppose now an experience that presents itself in consciousness as standing in relation to an external object while it does not. We said that the experience would then mislead the subject about its own non-phenomenal nature. We called this kind of error an experiential error. But if the relation in question constitutes a phenomenal property, would we then not have to say that the experience misleads the subject about one of its phenomenal properties, and thus, when the phenomenal property under consideration is an essential one, about the experience's phenomenal nature? It is again important to distinguish the pure phenomenal property R*, from the experience's property of being a reflexive R-appearance. If the two properties where not phenomenally distinct, then the presence of the latter would not be compatible with the absence of the former.32 It is further important to recognise that even if the relation R constitutes the phenomenal property R*, the fact that the experience is a self-reflexive R-appearance does not imply that it is a self-reflexive R* -appearance. This being so, the fact that the property of being a reflexive R-appearance can mislead the subject about the relational nature of the experience does not imply as such that it can mislead the subject about the phenomenal property that is constituted by the relation. The fact that an experience is given in consciousness as a reflexive R-appearance provides a reason for the subject to believe that the experience is relational, but not as such a reason to believe that it has the phenomenal property R*. In order to obtain this further reason the subject would have to be credited with 31Acquaintance may be taken to be such an essentially relational phenomenal quality. More about this later. 32The very assumption that the two properties are phenomenally distinct might appear implausible. We shall however assume it for the sake of the argument. Besides, phenomenal distinctness may be compatible with introspective undistinguishability. 380 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error a reason to believe that the phenomenal property R* is constituted by, or at least strongly correlated with, R. Such a supplementary reason may of course be available to the subject (if needed through philosophical investigation)33, but it would not be a reason he has simply by virtue of the way the experience is given in consciousness. If the subject comes to form the false belief that he is having and R* -experience, the origin of his mistake cannot be the simple fact he has a reflexive R-appearance. The origin of his mistake must rather lie in the assumption that when one has a reason for believing that one's experience is relational, then one thereby obtains a reason for believing that it is R* by virtue of the fact that he property R* is constituted by the relation under consideration. A warrant concerning that constitutive constraint cannot be obtained simply by virtue of having the experience. Phenomenal error, in the way we suggest to understand it34, would be a case of one being mislead about the phenomenal properties of one's own experience by the way the experience is given in the stream of consciousness. When the phenomenal properties are essential to the experience, phenomenal error would lead to a situation where the phenomenal nature of the experience is not manifest in consciousness. The arguments presented above appear to show that, strictly speaking, phenomenal error is impossible. If a subject has a false belief about a phenomenal property of her own perceptual experience, then the source of her mistake cannot lie in the way the experience is given in consciousness. A perceptual experience manifests each of its phenomenal properties in consciousness. This, we submit, is the sense one ought to give to the common claim that, for an experience, there is no gulf between being and appearing. Thus Husserl writes:35 In the psychic sphere there is ... no difference between appearance and being, and if nature is a being that appears in appearances, then appearances ... are not themselves beings that appear in further appearances. (Husserl, 1996, 311-312) 33The result may also be attained through empirical research. The relational property R might be 'hardwired' to R*. The simple fact that it is does not provide an experiential reason to believe that it is, a reason the subject has access to through the way the experience is given in consciousness. 34Our understanding is close, although not identical, to the one Hellie appears to use when he claims that "[...] while the phenomenal character of an experience might have crucial gaps as to its nature, there is no way that phenomenal character could mislead" (Hellie, 2006, 2). In the related footnote Hellie writes: "I find the idea of phenomenal error most repugnant" (ibid.). 35Husserl accepted the strong claim that the nature of appearances is uniquely and entirely phenomenal and that experiences do not belong to the realm of nature. He thought that experiences, phenomena, as he called them, "have no real parts, and are not subject to any real change" (ibid.). Our argument so far should help to see that the point Husserl makes in the passage quoted above can be made independently from this strong metaphysical view. 381 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 What Husserl suggests here is that, while a non-mental entity may 'appear' in the sense of being the intentional objects of an experience, the experience itself 'appears' in a different sense. And this may be identified with the way the experience is given in the stream of consciousness. Furthermore, what is distinctive of this second of kind of 'appearing' is that, according to Husserl, there is indeed no distinction between the way an experience 'appears' and the way it is: a way an experience 'appears' is a way for it to be. A similar claim is effective in Kripke's view, when he contends that: To be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain if one had a pain is to have a pain; to be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain in the absence of pain is not to have a pain ... (Kripke, 1980, 152) If "to be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain if one had a pain" means to be in a situation where the way an experience is given in consciousness constitutes a reason for the belief that one is in pain, then Kripke's claim is indeed that an experience cannot offer by the way it is given in consciousness an epistemic ground that misleads the subject about the experience's phenomenal properties. And if "to be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain in the absence of pain" means to be in a situation where the way an experience is given in consciousness does not constitute a reason to believe that one is in pain, then Kripke's claim is indeed that an experience cannot offer by the way it occurs in the stream of consciousness the epistemic ground for attributing to the experience a phenomenal property it does not posses. These results should not be confused with the common claim that introspective beliefs are infallible: Not only people seem to have a special epistemic access to their pains, they seem to have a very special epistemic authority with respect to their pain: they seem to be incorrigible, or even infallible, about their pains and pain reports: necessarily, if I sincerely believe that I am in pain, then I am in pain. Conversely, if I feel pain, then I know that I am in pain. Again this conditional seems necessarily true. This is the self-intimating aspect of pain experiences. (Aydede, 2010) As we have seen above, one can perfectly form a sincere incorrect belief about one of one's own experience. This may happen, for instance, as a consequence of phenomenal dissonance. The claim cannot be that necessarily, if I sincerely believe to be in pain, then I am pain. The claim should rather be that necessarily, if my reason to believe that I am in pain lies in the way the experience is given to me in consciousness, then I am in pain.36 36The impossibility of phenomenal error should thus not be confused with the infallibility 382 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error VII. Where Disjunctivism Can Lead Us Astray Mike Martin, an influential advocate of disjunctivism, writes: The idea that introspection will lead us into error about how things seem to us is hardly an attractive one. Yet given the considerations about phenomenal transparency, it is difficult to avoid. In contrast to the kind of global errors in introspection posited by sense-datum theories and intentional accounts, the disjunctivist can claim that veridical perceptual experiences are exactly as they seem to us to be: states in which parts of how the world is are manifest to us. But even the disjunctivist is forced to concede that we are misled about the nature of some of our experiences by introspection: after all, it can hardly be denied that it is possible for one to have an illusion or hallucination which is indistinguishable for one from a veridical perception. Given the disjunctivist's account of veridical perception, he is required to deny that such experiences are as they seem to us to be. Such experience is misleading not only about the world, but about its own nature. So in the end, sensedatum theories, intentional theories and disjunctivist accounts all have to endorse some form of error-theory concerning perceptual appearances and the introspection of experience. (Martin, 2002b, 421) In the current context, the suggestion is that in the light of introspection, our experience of the world seems to have a certain nature, i.e. that articulated by näıve realism, which it does not have. An account of perception then needs not only to tell us what the nature of appearances is, but also how states of being appeared to can come to seem to be different from how they really are. (Martin, 2010, Ch. 1: 41) What sort of errors is Martin appealing to in these passages? What does he mean, when he says that "introspection will lead us into error about how things seem to us"? What sort of seeming is he appealing to when he writes that a disjunctivist "is required to deny that such experiences [hallucinations] are as they seem to us to be". Is Martin suggesting that these are cases of phenomenal error? We shall see that this need not be Martin's view. Once this is made clear, however, some of Martin's disjunctivist conclusions can bee seen to be compatible with the sort of intentionalism presented at the beginning of this paper.37 of introspective beliefs. The view we are presenting is not committed to deny Armstrong's famous claim that experiences and beliefs about them have a distinct existence (Armstrong, 1993, 324). Nor are we committed to the self-intimation claim (see Alston (1976) and Shoemaker (1996)). A view of introspection that is compatible with the analysis of first personal error presented above can be found in Soldati (1998). 37See the chapters 8 and 11 for further discussion. 383 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 In order to understand Martin's point it may be useful to recall the sort of errors he thinks the traditional alternatives to disjunctivism have been obliged to accept.38 These errors concern two distinct phenomenal properties of perceptual experiences: transparency and actuality. In the light of the distinctions made above, transparency may now be characterized as the property of being an appearance of an object as external and mind-independent. So, for instance, in perception an object appears to stand in front of one. The corresponding phenomenal property is the property of being an appearance of something standing in front of one. The phenomenal property is not identical to the appearing property, but no intrinsic feature of the experience would need to be added to the appearing property in order to characterise the phenomenal property. The experience simply has the property of being an appearance of something outside of one: it is an externality-appearance. Actuality, on the other hand, is the phenomenal property of being an appearance of an existent object. We may say that in the experience the object appears to exist and that the phenomenal property is the property of representing an object as existent. The experience is, we may say, an existence-appearance. On Martin's view, sense-data theorists maintain that in perception we are always in contact with existing objects, but that those objects do not possess most of the properties we represent them as having. They are sense data, so they are not really red, not really located in the external world, and so on.39 The intentionalist, instead, is said to claim that the objects of perception may be correctly represented as red, in front of us, etc., but sometimes, i.e. in the case of hallucination, they simply do not exist. What sort of errors are those theories then supposed to admit? As mentioned above, actuality and transparency are among the phenomenal properties of perceptual experiences. It appears, in fact, that all perceptual experiences possess those properties. An experience that lacks the phenomenal property of transparency is not an experience of something appearing to one as external and mind-independent. And an experience that lacks actuality is not an experience of there appearing to be something existent one stands in relation to. In the first case we might have something like a pure sensation40, in the second case we might have an imagination. So transparency and actuality are not 38Different version of the argument that follows can be found in Martin (2002b, 392ff.). 39Some defenders of sense data are prepared to attribute to them some of the properties material objects are supposed to have (cf. Moore (1993)). Here we are supposing that at least some of the properties the objects appear to have, such as being denizens of public space, are properties sense data do not have. An argument concerning positions that would maintain that sense data and material objects can share all perceptually appearing properties would obviously have to be developed in a different way. 40In the light of what has been said above, a pure sensation would be an experience that possess only pure phenomenal properties. 384 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error only pervasive; they are more fundamental, too, since they contribute to the determination of the kind of experience under consideration (e.g. perception as opposed to imagination and sensation). But transparency and actuality are not pure phenomenal properties: they are both associated with correctness conditions that concern not only the external world, but the experiences themselves. Transparency concerns the nature of some (if not all) phenomenal properties of perceptual experiences, actuality concerns the relational character of perception. There is thus room for error concerning the satisfaction of those correctness conditions. The sense data theorist can now be seen as arguing that the objects of perception not only do not generally possess the properties they appear to possess, but that because of transparency perceptual experiences present those properties in a systematically misleading way, namely as properties of external objects. It is not just the fact that the objects that appear to be red, square, distant from us, etc., do not really possess those properties; it is much more the fact that the objects of perception are of a kind that could not possess them. The intentionalist, on the other side, can be seen as arguing that perceptual experiences misleadingly present themselves as standing in relation to existing things, as experiences whose instances depend on there actually being an object one stands in perceptual relation to. So the errors both theories appeal to concern the correctness conditions associated to specific phenomenal properties. In so far as those phenomenal properties are essential to perceptual experiences, we obtain cases where essential phenomenal properties misrepresent the experiences themselves. Do these errors concern the nature of the experiences? Two important assumptions are at work at this stage. First, both theories maintain that perceptions and hallucinations belong to the same fundamental (phenomenal) kind: they share their essential phenomenal properties. And second, both theories assume that if perceptions and hallucinations have the same phenomenal nature, then they ought to have the same non-phenomenal nature, too. And here the two theories part company. Sense-data theorists maintain that perception is essentially relational; intentionalists argue that it is not. Intentionalists submit that (most if not all) phenomenal properties of the perceptual experience are fully determined by the appearing properties of the object, sense-data theorists deny it. On both theories the essential phenomenal properties of perceptual experiences involve an error concerning their non-phenomenal nature. It is not a phenomenal error since the mistake concerns precisely the non-phenomenal nature of the experience. It is rather a case of an essential phenomenal property that misrepresents the non-phenomenal nature of the experience. This generates a mismatch between phenomenal and non-phenomenal nature - an experiential error. 385 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 Among the different reasons one may have to be unsatisfied with intentionalism and sense-data theory there is the fact that they appear not to be in a position to articulate a basic intuitive asymmetry between perception and hallucination. There is a sense in which there is nothing wrong with perception, but much wrong with hallucination. On the conjunctive solution there would be something wrong with both, perception and hallucination. At this point disjunctivism can be seen as a view that aims to restore and articulate the intuitive asymmetry. Indeed, along with the näıve realist, the disjunctivist will typically argue that in perception we do enter into a relation with an external object, and that most (if not all) phenomenal properties of the perceptual experience are determined by this relation to the external object.41 Accordingly, transparency and actuality correctly represent the non-phenomenal properties in the case of perceptions. The asymmetry would thus be explained by the fact that the same is not true of hallucinations. In this line of thought the disjunctivist would assume that hallucinations share their phenomenal properties with perceptions, notably their transparency and actuality. But he would then have to maintain that perceptions and hallucinations differ in their non-phenomenal nature. This requires treating their difference with respect to their relation to the external object both as nonphenomenal and as essential. Transparency and actuality would thus correctly represent the non-phenomenal nature of perceptual experiences; while they would misrepresent the non-phenomenal nature of hallucinations. But if hallucinations and perceptions are experiences of a different fundamental kind by virtue of their different non-phenomenal natures, how can they share their phenomenal properties? If one accepts the two assumptions mentioned above, the assumptions that are common to intentionalism and sense-data theory, then the version of disjunctivism under consideration finds itself in an uncomfortable position. If perception and hallucination possess different non-phenomenal natures then, by virtue of the second assumption, they should also have different phenomenal natures. This, however, is precisely what the first assumption denies.42 The disjunctivist might be willing to challenge this assumption. Martin has indeed insisted on the fact that the indiscriminability of experiences does not imply their phenomenal identity (Martin, 2004, 74ff.). Whatever the merits of that argument, it is important to see that on pain of admitting phenomenal 41Classical formulations of the disjunctivist claim can be found in Hinton (1973, 37), Snowdon (1980, 159) and McDowell (1998b, 387). 42The fact that a hallucination shares all the phenomenal properties with a perception does not imply on its own that those properties are essential to the hallucination as it is for the perception. But this obviously depends on how the essentiality of those properties is established in the case of perception. If the metaphysical point is that, for any experience that has F, F is essential to x, then F is essential to x even if x is an hallucination. 386 Chapter 13 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error error, the disjunctivist needs to accept that the mistaken judgement cannot be based on the way the experience is given in consciousness. If one cannot discriminate a hallucination from a perception, although they are supposed to be phenomenally different, then this cannot have its source in the way the hallucination is given in consciousness. The hallucination cannot be said to present itself in consciousness as a perception. So the disjunctivist would need to show that the error has an independent source. Considerations related to acquaintance might be relevant at this stage. Remember the case of the pure phenomenal relational property R* mentioned above. Acquaintance might be such a property. The argument could then be that hallucinations lack indeed that essential phenomenal property and thus possess a different phenomenal nature than perceptions. We are mislead about the phenomenal nature of hallucinations, not because of the way they are given in consciousness, but because of background assumptions concerning the relation between phenomenal properties hallucinations share with perceptions and acquaintance. We typically associate, for instance, the phenomenal properties of actuality and transparency with acquaintance. This is the source of our false introspective belief about the phenomenal nature of hallucination. But this proposal would have to be confronted with the possibility of removing the background assumptions under consideration. If the reason I have to believe that my present hallucination has the phenomenal property of being an acquaintance, although it is not given as such in my consciousness, is the presence of some background assumption, then discovering that those assumptions are misleading should open the experience to my cognitive scrutiny. One would then expect that the phenomenal difference between perception and hallucination should become accessible to my introspective scrutiny. But this does not seem right. Hallucinations do not show their supposedly true phenomenal nature once one ceases to fall prey to the cognitive illusion generated by some background assumptions. The disjunctivist must thus postulate a brute and thoroughly inaccessible phenomenal difference that would be responsible for the distinction in phenomenal nature of the experiences. This is the point where the intentionalist may be in a position to offer an attractive alternative. Instead of challenging the first assumption common to traditional sense-data theory and intentionalism, he could suggest to forgo the second. He would thus argue that although perception and hallucination do in fact have the same phenomenal nature, they have different non-phenomenal natures. Perceptions are indeed states in which we enter in contact with external objects in such a way that this relation determines how the objects appear. In contrast, there are no external objects to which one stands in relation when hallucinating, but hallucinations present themselves as if they were relations to such objects. Hallucinations misrepresent their non-phenomenal 387 Intentionalism, Experiential and Phenomenal Error Chapter 13 nature. Again, this would not be a case of a phenomenal error, but a case of an experiential error. The brand of intentionalism under consideration can thus readily admit that there is an asymmetry between perception and hallucination: perception manifests its true (non-phenomenal) nature in consciousness while hallucination does not. Indeed, a hallucination misleadingly provides one with a reason to believe that it is a perception, whereas a perception does not provide one with a reason to believe that it is a hallucination. The intentionalist can explain this asymmetry with the fact that the phenomenal properties of actuality and transparency are themselves intentional, they have correctness conditions that are satisfied by perceptions, and not by hallucinations. We can now understand why phenomenologists such as Husserl seem to have been rather agnostic about disjunctivism concerning the non-phenomenal nature of experiences. 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