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A Defense of Locke and The Representative Theory of Perception
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
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This paper is a defense of the “representative theory of perception” in general, and Locke's views about perception in particular. It is intended only as a limited defense, but one against those objections which recently have been taken thoroughly to discredit both the general theory and Locke's particular position. The chief of these objections is that the representative theory leads inevitably to skepticism about the existence of objective material things. George Pitcher finds this objection to the representative theory completely persuasive and so well established that it scarcely requires discussion:
It is just here [in the area of justifying perceptual knowledge of the world] that the most serious and notorious deficiencies of sense-datum theories are encountered. If the sense-datum theorist maintains the existence of physical objects, … as ordinarily conceived, then his claim that sense-data are metaphysically distinct from anything in the physical world commits him to a version of representative realism. The enormous epistemological difficulties [due to their skeptical consequences] faced by theories of this kind are well known, and I shall not say anything about them, except that I regard them as insuperable ….
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 4: New Essays on Rationalism and Empiricism , 1978 , pp. 101 - 120
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1978
References
1 A Theory of Preception (Princeton, 1971), p. 63
2 Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford, 1971), p. 65. In this work, Bennett says that locke's treatment of skepticism renders his views on perception untenable. In the earlier “Substance, Reality and Primary Qualities,“ in Locke and Berkeley, ed. by Martin, C. B. and Armstrong, D. M. (Garden City, N.Y., 1968), Bennett says that locke's theory of perception “strongly reinforces“ his mishandling of the skeptical conjecture (p. 90).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Woolhouse, R. S., Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (New York, 1971), p. 35.Google Scholar This objection to the representative theory is not uncommon in essays on one or more of the British Empiricists; see e.g. R.I.|Aaron, John Locke, second edn. (Oxford, 1955), pp. 102f; Jeffries, M. V. C., john Locke: Prophet of Common Sense (London, 1967), p. 49.Google Scholar The objection can also be found in more general works on theory of knowledge, e.g. Hirst, R. J., “Realism,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edwards, Paul, v. 7, p. 81Google Scholar.
4 For present purposes, I attach no significance to these variations in the statement of the representative theory; however, the version which has it that ideas copy objects is peculiarly implausible, as has often been noticed (see e.g. locke's Examination of P. Malebranch's Opinion, sec. 51 and Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 8). As far as locke's views are concerned, although he does hold that ideas of primary qualities resemble bodies, he makes no use of this doctrine in his accounts of perceptual knowledge; see Essay, IV, ii, 14; IV, iv, 4; II, ix.
5 Wool house does not make it clear whether the representative theory has it that (i) it is contingent that some ideas correspond to objects, or (ii) it is contingent that any particular idea does. In any case, the question of the contingency of the correspondence does not seem central. The question is whether we can know of it.
6 Both these tendencies are exhibited in Cornman, James W.'s discussion of the representative theory, in Perception,CommonSense, and Science (New Haven, 1975), pp. 250ff.Google Scholar
7 See Aaron, op. cit., pp. 102f and 239ff; Lewis, Douglas, “The Existence of Substances and Locke's Way of Ideas”, Theoria, 35 (1969);Google ScholarYolton, John W., Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding (Cambridge, 1970), ch. 5.Google Scholar
8 See especially Essay, II, i, 1; II, vii, 8; II, xxx, 3; II, xxxi, 2 and 12; II, xxxii, 14; IV, ii, 14; IV, iv, 4.
9 See e.g. Pitcher, op. cit., p. 63; Bennett, Locke, etc., op. cit., sees. 12,13 and 26; Quinton, A. M., “The Problem of Perception,” in Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing, Ed. by Swartz, Robert J. (Garden City, N.Y., 1965), pp. 397-8Google Scholar; Ayer, A. J. and Winch, Raymond, eds., British Empirical Philosophers (New York), introduction, p. 19.Google Scholar Also see Berkeley, Principles, sees 4, 20, 21, etc.
10 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (New York, 1874), pp. 240- 41.
11 The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (London, 1964), p. 232.
12 Perhaps no one has actually held this view, as I have described it. But some have held a similar view in which talk of ideas (or sense data) is replaced with talk of how one is “appeared to“; e.g. Bennett, Locke, etc., op. cit., and Pollock, John L., “What Is an Epistemic Problem?”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 5 (1968)Google Scholar and “Perceptual Knowledge,” Philosophical Review, 80 (1971).
13 See Ayer, op. cit., sec. 22 and especially C. I. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (LaSalle, Ill., 1946), ch. 7. Berkeley sometimes seems content to identify objects with actual ideas, alone; see Principles, secs.6 and 45 and also see Bennett, Locke, etc., op. cit., sec. 38. But this is simply to give in to skepticism.
14 See Quinton, op. cit., pp. 397-98.
15 One may think they are. For, the representative theorist's hypothesis is “stronger” than the phenomenalist's; it entails all the idea statements entailed by the phenomenalist's hypothesis, and more. But it is unclear how this affects the epistemic situation. It may allow the representative theorist to appeal to evidence of a sort (allowable on (v)) which would be irrelevant to the phenomenalist's hypothesis. For this sort of defense of a realist position, see especially Putnam, Hilary, “Other Minds,” in Philosophical Papers (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), v. 2.Google Scholar
16 Some who hold this view have a view about concepts which precludes the concept of an object required by tenet (ii); and some have based their argument for the thesis on such a view of concepts. For instance, Pollock, “What, etc.” op. cit., holds that “the meaning of a concept is uniquely determined by its justification-conditions” (p. 186), but this seems implausible. Suppose one's having certain ideas is evidence that one is near a P; on Pollock's view, that means that one's having those ideas is evidence that one is near the sort of thing for which those ideas are evidence—but what sort of thing is it? Any answer violates the view of concepts Pollock urges.
The contention that the representative theorist's concept of an object is meaningless, or contentless, also begs the question against the theory. One who holds it can insist that, because it is our concept of an object, it cannot be contentless. As grounds to rule out the concept, we would need a more complete theory of verification than any we seem to have.
17 To hold the thesis in question (that necessarily if we have a concept, then we can justify its use in particular cases), one is not forced to hold the different thesis that necessarily we have concepts of objects. (The conjunction of these may be incompatible with (iv).) Neither is one forced to hold the thesis that objects exist only if we have concepts of them. (This is incompatible with (ii).)
18 Pitcher, op. cit., pp. 129-30.
19 Ibid., p. 218; for a different sort of “direct realist” view, see Cornman, op. cit.
20 Pitcher himself makes this point (pp. 218f). Apparently, his complaint against the representative theory is that on it, even if it is assumed that objects exist, we are never aware of their features and do not perceive what they are like. But this is not a particular difficulty for the representative view. A representative theorist may hold, for instance, that color is a dispositional property of objects; in perceiving that a thing has a certain color, one is perceiving a feature of it and one is perceiving what it is like.
21 For an explanation of this terminology, see Chisholm, Roderick M., Theory of Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), pp. 30-34.Google Scholar
22 See e.g. Austin, J. L., Sense and Sensibility (Oxford, 1962), ch. X.Google Scholar
23 IV, xi, 2. All quotations from the Essay are taken from the P. H. Nidditch edition (Oxford, 1975).
24 In fact, Locke's introduction of these arguments favors the view that they are a response to the fallibility of perception in particular cases. They are offered “besides the assurance we have from our senses” as “other concurrent reasons“ for relying upon them (emphasis mine); this would not be appropriate if the initial credibility of the senses was to be justified by these arguments.
25 This is Aaron's view, however he thinks the account of perceptual knowledge is inconsistent with this general view, op. cit., pp. 102f and 239ff.
26 IV, i, 1 and 2.
27 Mabbott, J. D., John Locke (London, 1973), pp. 90–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 See especially IV, xxi, 4. It is an interesting question whether Locke's theory of cognition is viable; this is briefly discussed by Gilbert Ryle, “Locke and the Human Understanding,” in Martin and Armstrong, op. cit., pp. -22f; it is examined in detail in an unpublished paper by William P. Alston, “The Representative Function of Ideas in Locke.“
29 IV, xi, 1-2.
30 IV, iv, 3.
31 The same argument is suggested at II, xxx, 2; II, xxxi, 2 and 12; II, xxxii, 14.
32 IV, ii, 14.
33 This is consistent with the view that claims to perceive, say, a rose are directly warranted. Locke holds that a rose is a thing with all the causal dispositions of the actual things that cause certain sensory ideas (those collected in the abstract idea of a rose), whatever the additional properties turn out to be (see my “Substances, Substrata, and Names of Substances in Locke's Essay,“ Philosophical Review, 85 (1976) ). We believe that roses have far more properties than we need to establish that something has in order to be warranted in believing that it is a rose. It should now be clear that Locke subscribes to tenet (iv), where “fully characterized” objects are concerned, but not where “minimal” objects are concerned.
34 Op. cit., pp. 91-92.
35 Some direct evidence that Locke regards the thesis that minimal objects correspond to all involuntary ideas is found in his account of “true ideas.” Of course, he is familiar with the fact that, e.g., the same water may feel both warm and cold at the same time; nevertheless, he writes: “ … our simple ideas can none of them be false, in respect of things existing without us. For the truth of these appearances … consisting … only in their being answerable to the powers in external objects, to produce by our senses such appearances in us: … it cannot … referr'd to such a pattern, be false” (II, xxxii, 16); see E. M. Curley, “Locke, Boyle, and the Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities,“ Philosophical Review, 81 (1972), pp. 460-64.
36 See Bennett, Jonathan, Kant's Analytic (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 19–22.Google Scholar
37 See IV, x, 3.
38 “Perception and Action,” in Knowledge and Necessity, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, v. 3 (London, 1970), pp. 93-94.
39 Locke, etc., op. cit., pp. 63-70 and Kant's Analytic, op. cit., pp. 19-22.
40 Op. cit., p. 92. See also Cornman, op. cit., pp. 254-58; however, Cornman's contention rests on the view that Locke accepts the epistemic principle in (v). For this sort of objection to the representative theory, in general, see e.g. Ewing, A. C. and Aaron, R. I., “The Causal Argument for Physical Objects,“ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, sup. v. 19 (1945).Google Scholar