Appearance vs. Reality (via Descartes and Sellars)

Streetlight

A second thread on Sellars' "Empiricism and Philosophy of the Mind", exploring some other, but related ideas...

The distinction between appearance and reality is probably among the oldest metaphysical tropes in philosophy - but how to understand it? Or first - why does it seem so important? Well, the first thing to draw attention to is an asymmetry between the terms: while reality can seem to be other than it is, this is not generally the case for appearances. For the most part (this qualification is important), while I can be mistaken about how things are, I cannot be mistaken about how things appear to be. While this seems straightforward enough, there is a question of how to interpret this asymmetry.

For Descartes, the fact that one could not be deceived by appearances was revelatory. It meant that appearances could stand as a secure ground for knowledge, such that the fact of something's appearing meant that one could know that thing, with certainty, if even only just as an appearance. (Descartes: "Because I may be dreaming, I can’t say for sure that I now see the flames, hear the wood crackling, and feel the heat of the fire; but I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be warmed. This cannot be false; what is called ‘sensing’ is strictly just this seeming" - Meditations, bolding mine).

For Descartes then, appearances are thus able to be independent objects of knowledge: appearances belong to the class of things which we can know. But this substantialization or reification of 'apperences' as quasi-entities is not the only way to interpret the asymmetery between appearance and reality. An alternative way - Sellars' way - is to understand the distinction in terms of our dispositions or confidence at making claims: to say "It is red" is to endorse a claim; to say "It seems red" or "it appears red" is to withhold endorsement of a claim.

This account, in terms of endorsement and it's withholding, has the advantage of rendering talk of appearances as derivative or parasitic upon 'is' claims (claims of reality). That is, if this account is right, then we must first be acquainted with reality (or 'things in reality') prior to being acquainted with appearances; for to be able to withhold endorsement about claims (by saying 'it seems...') presupposes that we can already speak of things as they are. Following Sellars, there is thus a logical priority of reality over appearence, and thus no need to engage with the hand-wringing over how to 'get from mere appearance to reality'.

Notably, this is nothing less than a complete reversal of the Cartesian approach, and one that readily recommends itself to anyone who finds the rerification of 'appearances' into quasi-entities (as if they could exist apart from, and independently of, reality) a metaphysically fishy move.

Streetlight

↪Πετροκότσυφας

Yeah, Sellars was super influenced by Witty, although he does diverge with him on some issues. What I like about the Sellarsian take is that he provides a more robust account (for me at least) of why we shouldn't start from doubt. I like the way in which he pin-points a common point of departure (the asymmetry of reality/appearence), and then shows where, exactly the Cartesian approach goes wrong.

jkg20

If there is a distinction between propositional attitudes, on the one hand, and something's appearing visually to one to be a certain way, on the other, then an account purely in terms of inclinations to assent to or withold assent from propositions ignores the distinction. The problem with insisting that there is no such distinction and thus to reduce (in a sense) perceiving to believing/disbelieving tends to show up when trying to account for perceptual error -i.e. not the mere withholding of full assent to a proposition, but a genuine belief, based on vision say, that something in the environment is a certain way visually when it in fact isnot that way. In those cases, the pressure to move from "something appears to be F" to "something actually is F" remains. Sellars, as far as I recall, acknowledgges this and moves towards a kind of adverbialism where the "sensory" element of perception that is "over and above" mere cognition becomes objectless, but that account of the sensory aspect of perception has always seemed to me to fail to do justice to the sensory objectful nature of seeing the environment around us.

Hanover

This account, in terms of endorsement and it's withholding, has the advantage of rendering talk of appearances as derivative or parasitic upon 'is' claims (claims of reality). That is, if this account is right, then we must first be acquainted with reality (or 'things in reality') prior to being acquainted with appearances; for to be able to withhold endorsement about claims (by saying 'it seems...') presupposes that we can already speak of things as they are. Following Sellars, there is thus a logical priority of reality over appearence, and thus no need to engage with the hand-wringing over how to 'get from mere appearance to reality'. — StreetlightX

This doesn't resolve the result of Cartesian doubt. It ignores it. It is obvious that we all consider external reality obvious. Forrest Gump has no doubt he is holding a box of chocolates. It takes someone who is willing to examine the nature of reality some effort to convince himself that there might not really be a rock before him. And so Descartes' contribution was to examine this question and to doubt everything and then to locate which could not be doubted. He realized that he could not doubt appearances, could not doubt he was doubting, and therefore could not doubt he exists. That much is right.

The point here is that we are not first acquainted with things as they are; we are first acquainted with things how we think they are. We don't realize the distinction between things as we think they are and how they actually are until we engage in some amount of introspection, but that's how so much of what we know is. It's sort of like any Socratic discussion. We start with some unexamined claim and through questioning and probing we arrive at a more sophisticated and perhaps accurate response.

The problem with getting from mere appearance to reality is that of incoherence. It is not possible to describe an object without reference to appearance (or some other sensation), so to ask how can I know the rock without reference to how it looks, smells, or taste seems nonsensical. The problem then isn't that we can't know reality prior to appearance, but we can't even discuss a reality without appearances.

Marchesk

The problem then isn't that we can't know reality prior appearance, but we can't even discuss a reality without appearances. — Hanover

We can and we do with science.

so to ask how can I know the rock without reference to how it looks, smells, or taste seems nonsensical — Hanover

The properties that don't depend on how we perceive the rock are how science describes a rock. But really, it's the objective account of things, where we remove the perceiver dependent qualities. A rock's mass, size and shape, and molecular arrangement don't depend on how humans perceive a rock.

Hanover

A rock's mass, size and shape, and molecular arrangement don't depend on how humans perceive a rock. — Marchesk

This is a return to Locke's primary and secondary qualities distinction, which I think is ultimately arbitrary. Your knowledge of mass, for example, would be the sensation of its weight or perhaps your observation of a numeric representation on a scale. The same could be said of size and molecular arrangement. All that you know is what you perceive. To assert that there exists something beyond appearances is just a declaration of realism, but you have nothing to base that on. And even if we were to agree that there was an external rock with all sorts of physical characteristics that exist independent of perception, we could not begin to know or explain what those raw characteristics were because all we could refer to are the impressions of our senses.

Heiko

Problems only arise when falling back after conclusions. Descartes was sure about his existence. Hence there must be a way to explain appearances, illusions and notions of reality from existence instead of thought.

Deleteduserrc

@Hanover

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

We don't realize the distinction between things as we think they are and how they actually are until we engage in some amount of introspection — Hanover

More frequently: we realize the distinction after we experience things behaving differently than we would have anticipated them to behave given what we thought they were. Or: Someone, whose word we trust, tells us that a thing isn't what it appears.

. It takes someone who is willing to examine the nature of reality some effort to convince himself that there might not really be a rock before him. And so Descartes' contribution was to examine this question and to doubt everything and then to locate which could not be doubted.

Your reconstruction makes it sound as though Descartes began in a climate of certitude and, through thought, was able to shake that certitude (in order to rebuild on stabler ground.)

But the opposite is the case. Descartes was living at a time of radical uncertainty and doubt. Everyone was stoned, didn't know how to quit, and he was just the king-stoner who smoked himself sober.

But anyway the point is: the distinction between things as we think they are and how they really are is common, really common, everyday-language common. Even Forrest Gump will tell you, re: his box, that you never know what you're gonna get. Sellars is trying to examine the real conditions of possibility for such a distinction in order to understand it better.

The trouble comes when the distinction is too-quickly put to metaphysical work, without first understanding why and how it works.

So:

The problem with getting from mere appearance to reality is that of incoherence. It is not possible to describe an object without reference to appearance (or some other sensation), so to ask how can I know the rock without reference to how it looks, smells, or taste seems nonsensical. The problem then isn't that we can't know reality prior to appearance, but we can't even discuss a reality without appearances.

This, as you point out, is a mess. What is even meant by 'reality' 'object' 'knowledge' etc at this point? Something's gone really wrong. Sellars' analysis goes part of the way in figuring out where we lost the plot.

For example: a lot of the weirdness in that last quote revolves around the relation of knowledge and description, as though to know a rock, to 'get from' 'mere' appearance to 'reality' would involve describing a realer sensuous rock that lies behind the sensuous rock we describe. Compare to: I know the pythagorean theorem. I know that the Capital of France is Paris. I know that 'tsp' is an abbreviation for teaspoon.' I know that glass breaks when dropped on a hard surface. etc etc.

frank

Descartes was all about using geometry in the discovery of the laws of optics. He followed behind Kepler who was confronted by a mystery about shadow sizes during lunar eclipses.

The attempt to solve the mystery doesn't draw a distinction between appearance and reality, but rather appearance vs what we expected to see prior to understanding atmospheric refraction.

If anything, Descartes helped to return confidence in appearances as long as the appropriate geometry is factored in.

Snakes Alive

A couple things:

Statements about seeming are again statements that have truth conditions: one can be wrong about the way things seem (even, depending on the situation, how things seem to oneself).

It's true that since seem is a propositional operator, propositions about seeming are in some sense more complex than the propositions to which they apply (this sense is only relative to our linguistic usage: we require a more complex statement, built out of a simpler one, in order to express such things). However, this says nothing about the epistemological order of things. If talk about seeming implied prior contact with something real, this would lead to the absurd conclusion that we have contact with whatever we can make seeming-claims about. This is just not true, and there looks to be no reason to believe it with respect to whole swaths of perception generally.

Aaron R

↪Snakes Alive

That's not Sellars's claim. His claim is that the concept of "seems" is parasitic on the concept of "is". We can't understand what it means to affirm that "It seems that X is Y" unless we understand what it would be to affirm "X is Y". Another way to put this would be to say that to understand what it is to have a non-veridical experience one must understand what it is to have a veridical experience. "Seems" talk modifies "is" talk via the withdrawal of assent. That is the sense in which "is" talk is conceptually prior to "seems" talk, according to Sellars.

Snakes Alive

↪Aaron R

So am I understand this as having no epistemological consequences? In what sense, then, is it a response to Descartes?

I'm not sure what 'conceptual priority' is, but whatever it is, it never gets us to any is-claim, which would seem to be the interesting thing to Descartes.

Aaron R

So am I understand this as having no epistemological consequences? In what sense, then, is it a response to Descartes? — Snakes Alive

Of course it has epistemological consequences - it totally inverts the Cartesian approach to knowledge. Instead of employing methodical doubt, retreating to "seems" claims and then trying to define "is" claims based on criterial modifications therein, it does the opposite. In the process it also lessens the temptation to reify "appearances" into the direct objects of perception.

Deleteduserrc

↪Aaron R

I haven't read EPM in a long time (not since the reading-group thread here) so I can't remember if (and if so, how) he talks about this:

It seems to me like the noumenal "is" Hanover's discussing is an entirely different thing than "is" as we normally use it. Which is fine except that the discussion around the noumenal "is" often treats it as though we're talking garden-variety "is", if that makes sense.

I'm drawing on Hegel here, but it feels like what's happening is that a general structure of explanation ( 'seems y because is x, under circumstances z')is precipitated from the vast variety of local, specific explanations. Once this general structure crystallizes into view, and we become conscious of it, we mistakenly treat it as itself something to be explained, rather than as the immanent texture of knowledge,. So now we have "the realm of explanation" where all appearances are explained by something else, and we seek to explain that realm, taken in its entirety, by reference to... a mirror-world - where other, realer, *things* cause ( 'explain') the things we experience (I think this is what Hegel's getting st in the analysis of the 'topsy-turvy')

A step further is to admit that this supra-world is in essence unknowable while nevertheless retaining the void where it would remain, if it were knowable. But this confuses things. This is a matter of desire, not knowledge. It's wanting the (quasi-platonic) constants we use to know reality to have their own *substantial* reality; then: denying that they can, but still judging reality for failing to be the other kind of reality, when that other 'reality' is nothing but the asynchronous nature of knowledge reified.

It's desire in knowledge's clothing.

Snakes Alive

↪Aaron R

Nothing about epistemology follows from that fact that 'seem' statements are syntactically more complex than statements not containing 'seem.'

That from this one can conclude that one must 'start' with veridical perceptions in any way, in the sense that one has to have had any, is nonsense – this would imply that any phenomenon that people say seems to exist must have been met with actually existing, which is not the case. Existence proofs would then be very easy – it something seemed to exist, it would!

Snakes Alive

Also, it's worth noting that the idea that Descartes 'started' with appearances is false. Read the first meditation – he is led to their consideration after spending his life only dealing with things, and not doubting them. Only when he realizes that this has in fact led him into error does he begin the investigation!

Deleteduserrc

Nothing about epistemology follows from that fact that 'seem' statements are syntactically more complex than statements not containing 'seem.' — Snakes Alive

It wasn't that 'seem' statements are syntactically more complex. It's that 'seem' statements can't be understood unless one first understands 'is' statements.

That from this one can conclude that one must 'start' with veridical perceptions in any way, in the sense that one has to have had any, is nonsense – this would imply that any phenomenon that people say seems to exist must have been met with actually existing, which is not the case. Existence proofs would then be very easy – it something seemed to exist, it would!

Not at all. It only means that non-veridical perceptions can only be understood as non-veridical against the backdrop of a web of other, veridical perceptions. If one were to say that all perceptions were non-veridical, but couldn't explain what he meant by 'veridical', then he'd literally be talking nonsense.

Put another way

this would imply that any phenomenon that people say seems to exist must have been met with actually existing

Let me take your perspective for a moment and subtract 'actually existing' from your sentence. What, then, are you saying?

again

Existence proofs would then be very easy – it something seemed to exist, it would!

If something 'seemed' to exist, as opposed to what?

Snakes Alive

Not at all. It only means that non-veridical perceptions can only be understood as non-veridical against the backdrop of a web of other, veridical perceptions. If one were to say that all perceptions were non-veridical, but couldn't explain what he meant by 'veridical', then he'd literally be talking nonsense. — csalisbury

Not so. Compare: it can seem like there is a witch, when there isn't. Must we have veridical witch-perceptions against which to 'compare' for this to be so? No, because it can seem like there are witches (perhaps it even has), yet there are none and have not been (let us assume).

If something 'seemed' to exist, as opposed to what? — csalisbury

There is no 'as opposed to.' Something that seems to exist can actually exist, or it can not.

Deleteduserrc

Not so. Compare: it can seem like there is a witch, when there isn't. Must we have veridical witch-perceptions against which to 'compare' for this to be so? No, because it can seem like there are witches (perhaps it even has), yet there are none and have not been (let us assume). — Snakes Alive

Sure, but we need some sense of what it would mean were there such things as witches. In other words, we need some sense of what veridicality means. Where can we come by such an understanding?

To say that the non-veridical relies on the veridical is not to say that the seeming of any particular thing must rely on a prior veridical perception of some similar thing.

There is no 'as opposed to.' Something that seems to exist can actually exist, or it can not. — Snakes Alive

In explaining why there's nothing opposed, you immediately made recourse to existence and its negation i.e "is-talk". Could you answer another way without doing this?

Aaron R

↪csalisbury

That's an interesting analysis, although in ascribing a motive as you have behind the postulation of a noumenal realm I'm doubtful of the universality of its application. I have to imagine that sometimes people are just legitimately confused regardless of their desires. I know I am. :)

As for Sellars, he basically overlays the phenomenal/noumenal distinction over his own manifest/scientific image distinction, a move that I find to be both unjustified and uncompelling. So while he doesn't fall into the trap of noumenalizing the void, he strips the manifest image of all ontological authority by granting scientific claims the ability to act as defeasors for any all manifest claims despite the complete and utter absence of any actual experience of error.

In any event, it seems like there's an ambiguity in the concept of the noumenal "is", it's meaning changing depending on whether or not someone is reifying the void. If they are reifying the void, the noumenal "is" becomes incoherent. If not, then it collapses back into the "is" of everyday experience (i.e. one half of the is/seems couplet that Sellars describes).

Heiko

I'm drawing on Hegel here, but it feels like what's happening is that a general structure of explanation ( 'seems y because is x, under circumstances z')is precipitated from the vast variety of local, specific explanations. Once this general structure crystallizes into view, and we become conscious of it, we mistakenly treat it as itself something to be explained, rather than as the immanent texture of knowledge — csalisbury

Hegel pointed out the thing-in-itself to be an abstraction. What gets abstracted away is every concrete form of existence leaving the mind with an existence-operator without any predicates following. It is nonsense that this empty form of existence would make up for reality. It is a consequence of contradictions between reality and assumptions that were made. From this the mind extrapolates that any assumption could come into conflict with reality and ends with: nothing. But this extrapolation - again - is not real, it is thought.

Deleteduserrc

↪Aaron R

Yeah 'Desire' is a little loaded, borrowed that from Hegel as well. I'm as confused desire-wise (probably more) as the next guy. A more neutral descriptor might be 'need for a conceptual anchor' where the need is less a personal need of the thinker that something impersonally generated from within the conceptual game. A prime-mover once we've jettisoned God, maybe.

I do think the conceptual analysis holds, as a kind of historical-philosophical narrative, even if you strip out the desire stuff, but I'm not sure.

Either way, mostly saying what you said in your last paragraph. I think the noumenal, treated as a something that 'is', is a smokescreen over something like 'ontological openness' - its a things-can-always-surprise-us rather than a stable second world behind the scenes.

Snakes Alive

Sure, but we need some sense of what it would mean were there such things as witches. In other words, we need some sense of what veridicality means. Where can we come by such an understanding? — csalisbury

Sure, but who doubts this? Not Descartes. And it implies nothing about our epistemologically 'starting with' veridicality, or having had any veridical experiences.

To say that the non-veridical relies on the veridical is not to say that the seeming of any particular thing must rely on a prior veridical perception of some similar thing. — csalisbury

So if I seem to see a witch, I must have seen something similar to a witch?

I get it, it sounds like a good formula, but if you actually try to apply it to the most banal examples, it doesn't seem to work.

In explaining why there's nothing opposed, you immediately made recourse to existence and its negation i.e "is-talk". Could you answer another way without doing this? — csalisbury

How I could answer has nothing to do with epistemology, but again with syntax of language. It's perfectly possible that there are no veridical experiences whatsoever – that veridicality, however we are attuned to it, is a transcendental illusion of which we're doomed to make use.

Deleteduserrc

Hegel pointed out the thing-in-itself to be an abstraction. What gets abstracted away is every concrete form of existence leaving the mind with an existence-operator without any predicates following. It is nonsense that this empty form of existence would make up for reality. It is a consequence of contradictions between reality and assumptions that were made. From this the mind extrapolates that any assumption could come into conflict with reality and ends with: nothing. But this extrapolation - again - is not real, it is thought. — Heiko

Yes, exactly. But also an abstraction generated by the working of thought right? The impossibility of unifying the perceptual/sensual diversity of things into individual 'ones' forces us into the structure of explanation - explaining perceptual reality as the outcome of behind-the-scene forces. But then the same conceptual tendency that wanted - but failed - to unite the variety of perceptions into single 'things' leads to us to point to a united 'thing' in the invisible suprasensible realm.

frank

To know a lack of confidence one must first know what it means to have confidence. This does nothing to undermine global skepticism.

Deleteduserrc

Sure, but who doubts this? Not Descartes. And it implies nothing about our epistemologically 'starting with' veridicality, or having had any veridical experiences. — Snakes Alive

I guess I'd respond by asking the same question again:

We need some sense of what veridicality means. Where can we come by such an understanding? — csalisbury

---

So if I seem to see a witch, I must have seen something similar to a witch? — Snakes Alive

I think you misread me here

To say that the non-veridical relies on the veridical is not to say that the seeming of any particular thing must rely on a prior veridical perception of some similar thing. — csalisbury

(bolding added)

How I could answer has nothing to do with epistemology, but again with syntax of language. It's perfectly possible that there are no veridical experiences whatsoever – that veridicality, however we are attuned to it, is a transcendental illusion of which we're doomed to make use. — Snakes Alive

I'm asking for conceptual unpacking without reference to 'is-talk', not that you don't use 'is' in your sentence. There's another way to say this: If it was 'seems' all the way down, even the 'evil demon' would make no sense as a cause. To talk of an evil demon causing whatever is to revert back to is-talk. If its 'seems' all the way down, 'seems' is lost. It 'seems' (ha!) like we're talking about something when we talk about the total absence of veridical experiences, but we're always smuggling them in, somewhere, as backdrop.

Janus

So if I seem to see a witch, I must have seen something similar to a witch?

I get it, it sounds like a good formula, but if you actually try to apply it to the most banal examples, it doesn't seem to work. — Snakes Alive

You seem to be ignoring the fact that distinctions between real and imaginary or hallucinated "seemings" are established intersubjectively. So, your 'witch' example is irrelevant to the context of this discussion. Intersubjective notions of 'is' are founded upon collectively corroborated "seemings". As Kant pointed out this intersubjectively established understanding of 'is', when rationally analyzed, leads to the "transcendental illusion" of naive realism.

On the other hand the ideality of transcendental conditions is based upon, as is Descartes' radical scepticism, the assumption of the perspective of disembodied-mind-as-subject, and the attendant unbridgeable gulf between that subject and any noumenal "object", especially when that object is thought to be "ultimately" a bare physical existence. How could a disembodied mind apprehend, much less comprehend, a bare physical existence?

Heiko

The impossibility of unifying the perceptual/sensual diversity of things into individual 'ones' forces us into the structure of explanation - explaining perceptual reality as the outcome of behind-the-scene forces. But then the same conceptual tendency that wanted - but failed - to unite the variety of perceptions into single 'things' leads to us to point to a united 'thing' in the invisible suprasensible realm. — csalisbury

The problem is that one cannot wait for something not to happen. The diversity is assumed to be infinite and anti-theses to be arbitrary while they are not. With such assumptions the realm of reality is already left behind and finally the conclusion made that nothing could be said about it.
It is not that Descartes had problems synthesizing concrete view-points. He failed because of counter-arguments that were never made. It is like with numbers: There can only be so and so many of them in reality due to lack of material but one can think of infinitely many of them by just adding one more ad infinitum. This is what Hegel calls "bad eternity".

Snakes Alive

If it was 'seems' all the way down, even the 'evil demon' would make no sense as a cause. — csalisbury

So?

Snakes Alive

You seem to be ignoring the fact that distinctions between real and imaginary or hallucinated "seemings" are established intersubjectively. So, your witch example is irrelevant to the context of this discussion. Intersubjective notions of 'is' are founded upon collectively corroborated 'seemings". As Kant pointed out this intersubjectively established understanding of "is" when rationally analyzed leads to the "transcendental illusion' of naive realism. — Janus

Doesn't matter, since the intersubjectivity can't establish anything and faces the same problem.

Aaron R

↪Snakes Alive

At that point the whole scenario slips into incoherence. Doesn't that seem like a problem?

Appearance vs. Reality (via Descartes and Sellars)

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