Reading Notes: May 20th, 2022

“The thing itself which we know about is simply identical with its intrinsic characters, taken all together as united in a quite peculiar form of unity, which we can name only by saying that they are all characters of the same subject. This complex unity includes all qualifications which are conceivably capable of being ascribed to it, as a whole includes its parts—as, e.g. the leg of a chair is distinguished from, yet belongs to, the chair. But here there is an obvious difficulty. How, it may be asked, can we refer a part to a whole without first knowing the whole, and how can we know the whole without first knowing all the parts? It would seem that we ought not to be able to know anything about a datum of experience without knowing all about it. Yet this is by no means always necessary, even in intuitive knowledge, though perhaps it is sometimes possible. If, for instance, we set out to examine the total content of our immediate sense-experience at any moment, we find ourselves pickling out, in successive analytic judgments, now these, now those partial features and aspects of it; and yet we are aware throughout of these partial features and aspects as belonging to a whole which includes and transcends them. We are aware of this whole as existentially present, though we are very far from knowing all about it in detail.” (Stout, God and Nature, 73-74)  

“It is plain that all the characteristics which we now ascribe to physical things are in their general nature ultimately derived from immediate sense-experience. We should not know what is meant by a thing’s being extended, figured, blue or smooth or hot, if we had not visual and tactual presentations of like nature. From the point of view of science, it may be denied that some of these characters really belong to the physical world. But in spite of this even the man of science still continuous to perceive the sky as blue in the same was as he perceives its extension. We may then take it that in primary and primitive sense-perception the physical object is apprehended as akin in nature to the perceptual sensum. In the second place, what appears to sense-perception as physically real is apprehended as conditioning the occurrence of the perceptual sensum in the special mode in which it occurs at the moment of perception. This condition is expressed by saying that in sense-experience we feel ourselves receptive. The present sensum would not be such as it is, if it were not determined to be so by the physical fact perceived. This causal reference must be taken as primary, inasmuch as it cannot be otherwise accounted for, and is presupposed in all subsequent developments.” (Stout, God and Nature, 144-145) 

“For (1) empirical evidence strongly supports the view that what we perceive depends for its qualities at least partly on our sense-organs. It is not only that we cannot e.g. see without eyes but that, if our optic nerve is affected in certain ways, we shall see what is not there. In order to see stars it is not necessary to look at the heavens on a dark night, it is sufficient to receive a blow on the head. If we get drunk, things look double; if we have jaundice, everything looks yellow; if we merely change our position, the things perceived alter drastically in shape and size. All this strongly supports the view that the objects we immediately perceive, though their nature may be causally determined partly by external physical things, depend for their existence on our perceiving them.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 68) 

“But if we adopt a wholly representative theory, the question may be asked how we are to justify the belief in external independent physical objects at all. If you ask me why I believe there is a table in this room, the natural answer is: Because I see it; but if I did not, strictly speaking, see the table but only a representation of it, what then? Unless it is admitted that I sometimes at least perceive physical objects directly, I cannot compare my representations with the reality in order to determine whether they are good likenesses of it or not, and it is certainly at least conceivable that my representations might be all illusory and produced by quite different causes from those physical objects to which common sense attributes them.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 71-72) 

“For this reason, and also for others which will become clear shortly, many realists make a distinction between primary qualities which they conceive as existing in physical objects independently of being perceived and secondary qualities which they do not. The former comprise such qualities as shape, size, velocity, duration, texture; the latter such qualities as colour, sound, taste, smell. Now it has been found that science can explain our experience adequately for its purposes without ascribing secondary qualities to physical objects, but not without ascribing primary. Colour vision itself can be explained scientifically without supposing that physical objects really have colour, but not without referring to the size, structure, etc., of the light waves and the things which reflect them.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 78) 

“Faced with this distinction idealists have brought three arguments in order to show that the realist account of primary is no more tenable than that of secondary qualities, (a) It is pointed out that we are just as subject to illusions in regard to primary as in regard to secondary qualities. This argument will be dealt with later, (b) It is argued that primary qualities cannot be conceived as existing without secondary and that therefore the two are in the same position. This I think is invalid. It is true that it would be self-contradictory to suppose that there could be an object having only primary qualities. What has shape and size must have some other quality or qualities besides. For to talk about the shape of a physical object (or of a sense-datum for that matter) is only to talk about its boundaries, and there must be something within the boundaries. To talk about its size is to talk about the extent it occupies, but there must be some quality or qualities to occupy the extent. To have motion or velocity you must have some qualities which change their position. All the primary qualities are really relations, and relations imply terms which stand in the relations. Therefore, the philosophers like Descartes, and probably Locke, who thought that physical objects had no qualities but the primary ones must be wrong. It does not follow, however, that the other qualities they have need be identical with any of the secondary qualities we perceive. It might be that the qualities other than the recognized primary ones which physical objects possessed were quite unknowable to us, though they appeared as colour, hardness, warmth, etc. Consequently, the realist is committed to no logical absurdity if he ascribes primary qualities to physical objects but refuses to ascribe secondary.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 78-79) 

“Some idealists have had recourse to an argument from relations in order to show that primary qualities really imply mind. They certainly involve relations, and it is argued that relations imply mind. If A and B are related, they are at once separate and together in a mysterious way, and it is contended that this combination of separateness and togetherness is only intelligible if we think of A and B as existing for a mind which at once distinguishes them and yet holds them together in the same unity of consciousness.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 79) 

“If we hold to realism, it is difficult for us to avoid a representative theory of perception, and…if we hold a representative theory it is difficult, since we never see physical objects directly, for us to justify realism. Most realists have tried to meet the difficulty by an argument to the effect that physical objects were necessary to explain our experience causally. But we cannot understand by a physical object just an unknown X which causes our experience; if we are to understand such objects as common sense and science understands them, we must be able to ascribe to them more or less definite qualities. Now how can we tell what are the qualities of a cause from the qualities of its effects? It is commonly agreed that we can do so only because we have in the past experienced similar causes producing similar effects, e.g. though I have been asleep at night and not seen it rain, I can infer that the puddles in the road were caused by rain because I have on other occasions seen rain cause puddles. [But] the representative theory [states that] we have never directly experienced physical objects, and therefore we cannot know in this way what they are like. Nor are we entitled to say that the cause is necessarily like the effect. A draught is not even supposed to be like a cold in the head or the tearing of my flesh by a knife like the pain it causes. This argument is supported by…cases of admitted illusion which suggest that we can never say what the real shape, size or colour of any physical object is, even if we admit that they have some shape, size and colour. [It is reasonable to argue that], if we do introduce the conception of external physical objects, we can produce no good reason for saying anything whatever about them. [Thus] the conception becomes that of an unknown X, and it [is doubtful] whether it can be of any help towards the explanation of our experience to postulate an unknowable X. (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 79-80) 

“[If we hold to a representative theory of perception, then] we can only perceive physical objects by the mediation of sense, and we can only infer their existence or properties by using some sort of causal argument from the sensa. Now, since particular causal laws can only be established by experience, it is difficult to see how we can pass by a causal argument to something quite different in kind from anything we have ever experienced. Further, if sensa are to represent physical objects adequately, the latter must contain in themselves elements which are like the sensa….[If (1)] we can only apprehend physical objects in so far as we apprehend sensa which we in our ordinary experience of perception regard as parts of [physical objects….(2)] we can only describe [physical objects] in terms of characteristics of sensa; [3] we can only determine their positions or characteristics either by taking “on faith” our sensa as giving characteristics belonging to them, or by causal argument from our sensa [then] this suggests the conclusion that physical objects are best regarded as groups of entities qualitatively the same in kind as our sensa but existing independently of being perceived. It would indeed be ridiculous to identify a physical thing with a single sensum, but it might well consist of a group of entities of the same kind as sensa, only existing unsensed….In that case it would really have something like the color, shape, hardness, or softness which we under the most favourable conditions perceive in it.” (Ewing, The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, 86-87)