Common-Sense and the Perceptible World

Whenever we perceive a part of the perceptible world, we perceive it as “having” or “consisting of” qualities. Furthermore, the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are the “what” (i.e., the “content” or characteristica) that we appeal to whenever we say that “this” part of the perceptible world is different from “that” part of the perceptible world. Indeed, without this qualitative “whatness,” every part of the perceptible world we perceive would be indistinguishable from any other. Puzzles regarding the peculiar relationship between a perceived part of the perceptible world and the qualities we perceive that part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” often leads Common-Sense to maintain that all the qualities we perceive any part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are dependent upon and relative to the structure of our sense organs—a view which, when taken to its logical conclusions, leads to contradictions. 

Now, our sense organs—on which the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are said to depend—are themselves parts of the perceptible world, and, as such, the qualities we perceive our sense organs (e.g., Our eyes) as “having” or “consisting of” are likewise dependent upon and relative to our sense organs (e.g., Our hands). However, these “second-order” sense organs (e.g., Our hands)—on which the qualities we perceive the “first-order” sense organs (e.g., Our eyes) as “having” or “consisting of” depend—are, in turn, themselves parts of the perceptible world, and so the qualities we perceive the “second-order” sense organs (e.g., Our hands) as “having” or “consisting of” depend upon a “third-order” of sense organs (e.g., Our nose and tongue), or—Heaven forbid—upon the “first-order” sense organs again (e.g., Our eyes). There is no end to the mutual dependence. However, if, as Common-Sense holds, the qualities we perceive a part of the perceptible world as “having” or “consisting of” are themselves actual features of that part of the perceptible world we perceive them as inhering in, then we are either sent off into a vicious regress or entrapped within a vicious circle. In the former case, we are led into an inconsistency: all parts of the perceptible world (including our sense organs) dissolve into “states” of “states” of “states” of an unknown X—a “something-we-know-not-what” never to be found. In the latter case, we are led to an absurd contradiction: our sense organs would have given rise to the whole perceptible world of which our sense organs are proper parts—“into the man’s head the whole world goes, including the head itself.”

The above argument is a refinement of a similar argument from A.E. Taylor’s 1903 work, Elements of Metaphysics, page 198-199.