EPM: Chs X & XI Pete Mandik Chairman, Department of Philosophy Coordinator, Cognitive Science Laboratory William Paterson University, New Jersey USA
Ch X: PRIVATE EPISODES: THE PROBLEM “Let us now return, after a long absence, to the problem of how the similarity among the experiences of seeing that an object over there is red, its looking to one that an object over there is red (when in point of fact it is not red) and its looking to one as though there were a red object over there (when in fact there is nothing over there at all) is to be understood. Part of this similarity, we saw, consists in the fact that they all involve the idea -- the proposition, if you please -- that the object over there is red. But over and above this there is, of course, the aspect which many philosophers have attempted to clarify by the notion of impressions or immediate experience.” (p. 85)
Two possible explanations the similarity between different kinds of experience: Either impressions are (a) posited or (b) given. (p. 86). Sellars’ arguments so far have been primarily an attack on the given, and the main faults of the given are summarized on pp. 86-87.
Pp 86-87 key points We describe impressions by words like “red” Physical objects alone can be literally red “Red impression” then seems to mean “impression the sort of which is common to experiences that nonetheless differ in such-and such respects” If that’s what impression talk amounts to, then it is a code for the thing to be explained, not an explanation of it. Since we are not born with knowledge of physical objects and their properties, it is puzzling how we could come to know of impressions at all
The failure of The Myth of the Given leaves us with this problem: “…the general problem of understanding how there can be inner episodes -- episodes, that is, which somehow combine privacy, in that each of us has privileged access to his own, with intersubjectivity, in that each of us can, in principle, know about the other's.” p. 87
In subsequent chapters… Sellars will show how this problem can be solved by showing that the two main kinds of mental episodes--thoughts and impressions--are, instead of being given, actually theoretical posits.
Ch XI: THOUGHTS: THE CLASSICAL VIEW Recent empiricism (not the Classical View) says of thoughts: They are episodes which are verbal or linguistic in character Saying that someone has thoughts is really just code for saying that they will behave in such-and-such manner
Problems with recent empiricism’s view of thoughts: There are more thoughts than can be accounted for by overt speech and verbal imagery We explain intelligent behavior by reference to thought, therefore reference to thought cannot simply be a code for descriptions of intelligent behavior
The Classical Tradition… In opposition, says: Thoughts are introspectible inner episodes separate from their expression in speech, verbal imagery, and intelligent behavior. Further, thoughts could not occur without being known to occur
Sellars is cool with 1 but not 2 That thoughts can only occur when known to occur is a confusion borne of, among other things, the mistaken view that thoughts belong in the same general category as sensations.
“If we purge the classical tradition of these confusions, it becomes the idea that to each of us belongs a stream of episodes, not themselves immediate experiences, to which we have privileged, but by no means either invariable or infallible, access. These episodes can occur without being "expressed" by overt verbal behavior, though verbal behavior is -- in an important sense -- their natural fruition. Again, we can "hear ourselves think," but the verbal imagery which enables us to do this is no more the thinking itself than is the overt verbal behavior by which it is expressed and communicated to others. It is a mistake to suppose that we must be having verbal imagery -- indeed, any imagery -- when we "know what we are thinking" -- in short, to suppose that "privileged access" must be construed on a perceptual or quasi-perceptual model.” p. 90
THE END