Daniel Sega 1

Observation or Perception: What is the proper way of describing data?

In April, 2015, a group of physicist from various universities published a paper that

postulated that dark matter interacts via non-gravitational forces when galaxies collide.

They write: In terrestrial collider experiments, the forces acting on particles can be

inferred from the trajectory and quantity of emerging material. Collisions between galaxy

clusters, which contain dark matter, provide similar tests for dark sectors. (David Harvey,

2015) Dark matter, as the name implies, is a postulated entity that cannot be seen: it has

mass but its unable to interact via electromagnetic forces (light), and hence remains

completely transparent. It is the best candidate to what philosophers call, an unobservable

theoretical entity. Nevertheless, in this paper the authors claim to have observed offsets

between galaxies, gas and dark matter, finding that the dark matter (whose location they

know indirectly via gravitational lensing effects) doesnt drift as far as it should If it were

only interacting gravitationally.

Questions arise: are these scientists being too sloppy when describing their data?

Should they describe in a more observational-laden language, e.i as an offset between the

mass of the galaxy and the observed gravitational lensing. But then again, isnt

gravitational lensing itself part of a theory and hence not part of our observational

language? All this questions points towards a central problem in the philosophy of science:

the observational/theoretical distinction, data should be what we observe, and theory should

be what we use to account for the data. But is there a clean and cut line in this distinction?

Where is it? The answer to this may be found in Strawsons Perception and its Objects, in

which he defines a criterion for the theory/observation distinction based on epistemological

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prioricity1. In this paper Ill argue that that Strawsons account of epistemic priority fails to

incorporate the possibility of observation being theory-laden, and hence leaves open the

possibility of there being epistemic priorities between 2 beliefs that have theoretical

content, whichever is the prior one then, under our scheme, may count as being the data.
Before we dive in into the matter proper, I want to clarify the meaning of some

terminology as Strawson uses it, and as it is used in the context of this problem in general.

Observation is usually understood as a judgment with cognitive content (it is dependent

somewhat on the beliefs of the observer) that is related to having a particular experience.

Perception is sometimes used to interchangeably with observation,2 while sometimes is

used to describe the experience corresponding to a particular observation.3 This last use is

the use Strawson employs in its paper, and we will to the same here. A final note in

observation is that there seems to be general agreement on the fact that observation happens

quickly and partly unconsciously. Some philosophers say these judgments are made

non-inferentially, but that is not to say that they are prior to the beliefs in which they rest,

but that an intentional inference, as the one we do when we solve a puzzle, is not at work

when we make this judgment. If an inference is present it is done somewhat

1 Some justified belief A is epistemicly prior to B if believing A is needed to

justify B. In this sense, knowledge of experience will be prior to any theory that
accounts for it.

2 For example Harman writes in The Nature of Morality: Observations are

always theory laden. What you perceive depends to some extent to the
theory you hold, consciously or unconsciously. You see some children pour
gasoline on a cat (Harman, 1988, pp. 120) (Underlying by me).

3 This is what Strawson does in Perception and Its Objects. For example:
when x is a physical object and y in the perception of x, the x is observed and
y is enjoyed. And in taking the enjoyment of y to be the perception of x
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unconsciously or intuitively. This fast-and-frugal aspect of observation, and the way it

may be affected by our beliefs systems, will become important later in the paper.
II
Strawson explores the theory/observation distinction by taking on Ayers idea that

our common-sense view that external objects are real is a theory we advance to account for

our sensible experience (which would constitute data). Ayer is motivated by the notion that

our common-sense view of the world go above and beyond (in an epistemic sense) that

which can be accounted by our sensible experience. We may say that our common-sense

view doesnt directly follow from our sensible experiences, and hence, to justify our belief

in them, we have to make it the case that it better explains our sensible experience. i.e., we

have to advance it as a theory that accounts for our sensible experiences. Strawson denies

this; while he still concedes that our experiences may indeed be better explained by there

being an external world, he points out that this is not how we actually advance the view,

because we cannot describe our experiences as such without having to assume that the

concepts present in our common-sense view of the world.

Strawson is somewhat vague on what this common-sense view is, and how

beyond can it go from our sensible experiences, but he does specify that what interests

him for his main case is that it postulates the world as containing objects, variously

propertied, located in a common space and continuing in their existence independently of

our interrupted and relatively fleeting perceptions of them. Without the possession of this

view, he claims, we cannot describe our sensorial experiences. To support this he asks us to

consider a non-philosophical observer trying to give account of his visual experience.

Strawson writes that he may reply that he sees the red

light of the setting sun filtering through the black and thickly clustered branches of

the elms, I see a dappled deer grazing in groups on the vivid green grass.

(Strawson, 1979 pp. 94) Later after explaining to him that he is to give an account
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of his experiences alone, an account that would remain true even if this were all a

dream. Our fellow then quickly changes his reply; --I had a visual experience

which would be natural to describe as seeing the red light of the setting sun etc.,

if you werent asking me to omit all direct reference to any entity that may lie

outside of my experience, and which is best described in the way I did in my initial

response.
This episode, which I believe to be somewhat accurate, shows the true problem with

the view that external realism is a theory we advance. We cannot describe our data (our

sensible experiences) without appealing to the concepts that were using to account for the

data in the first place. As far as the common-sense view go, doing so is not too common.

A certain degree of abstraction and concentrations is required to see only the experience

and not the object itself, and hence the realist view, in this case, would not be a (quick)

perceptual judgment but something else, and which Strawson considers can be regarded as

a theory by she whom is able to make such abstraction.

Epistemicly speaking, we first get to know, or to belief, that there are objects and

that there are experiences corresponding to such objects (both at the same time), and then

we can take a step back (in general) from our perceptual judgments, in framing accounts

of our sensible experiences; for we have (in general) to include a reference to the former in

framing a veridical description of the later. The notion of epistemic priority that has to

hold between data and theory doesnt hold between the common-sense realist view of the
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world4 and our sensible experiences, and hence we cannot consider our sensible experience

as data, and the common-sense realist view as a theory. And this is solely because we

cannot even start to qualify our sensible experience as data if we dont first have the

concepts of external realism at our disposal. He writes:

In order from some belief or set of beliefs to be correctly described as a theory in

respect to certain data, it must be possible to describe the data on the basis of which

the theory held in terms which do not presuppose the acceptance of the theory on

the part of those for whom the data are data.

The basis of Strawsons argument is that the common realist view of the world

doesnt comprise a theory because sensible experiences cannot be taken as data. He

doesnt take on the contents of the realist view itself (checking if it has theoretical content

on not)5 but rather on the fact that the data that it accounts for cannot be data because it

cannot be properly described without the realist view on hand. So the main distinction

between data and theory is the epistemic prioricity of data and the posterioricity of theory.

The beliefs about our data are to be describable without the presupposition of the theory

that its supposed to account for them.

There are a couple of important point we want to take out from Strawsons view. The first is

that a theory, in order to be a theory, has to be an account for some data. The second one is

that the data in order to be data has to be describable in terms that are independent of any

4 Note that Strawson doesnt explicitly distinguish between realist view of the
world and perceptual judgment. This can be read as he allowing observation,
in general, to be theory-laden, but this is not explicitly mentioned in the paper.
Here I will maintain a conservative reading of Strawson, and keep in mind that
his paper is specifically about perception and its objects, and that we may only
say that the common-sense view of the world is the perceptual judgment that
we may consider a theory.

5 Though he talks about this later in his essay, he doesnt need to go there to
make this point
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theory that accounts for the data. Note that the possibility of data being describable in terms

of another theory which doesnt account for it is omitted by Strawson, and this is the main

point that we will develop in the next section.

III
Strawson points about epistemic prioricity shines light into the problem of whats

theory and whats observation, but the questions that we formulated at the beginning of the

essay are still to be answered. It is unclear what the scope of Strawsons conclusion is

because were not told exactly what this common-sense view of the world is in the first

place. While he does focus on the external realism that conforms it, one is left to wonder

how more of this common-sense view can fit in Strawsons non-theoretical scheme until it

starts sounding suspiciously like a theoretical scheme.

Take, for example Strawsons non-philosophical observer. Suppose that apart from

being non-philosophical, she also happens to be a physicist that has developed a good

amount of intuition in physics thanks to her dedicated studies. When asked to describe what

she sees, she may naturally respond something like this: I see part of the refracted light of

the sun as the nitrogen molecules fail to scatter red light. Imagine what one may get if one

asked a solar astronomer, maybe he would say: I see a main sequence star, with a surface

temperature about 6000K, and so on. Strawson may reply that these examples were

exactly what he was avoiding when he introduced the ordinary modifier to the perceptual

judgment he was talking about. But one may ask then, what makes these judgments

extraordinary? It is the fact that one needs to be more informed about the sun than most

people? What about if were to ask a firm believer of Ra what he says, and he would then

reply precisely that he sees Ra? Would this be extraordinary as well?

Another example can be found in ethics. If one accepts that moral judgments are a

type of perceptual judgment, in the sense that, when looking at someone mistreating an

animal, ones intuition may immediately make the judgment that is wrong. And if one
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also concedes the view that the feeling (experience) of it being wrong is something that

couldnt be described without evoking the concept of right and wrong. Then, phrased like

this, it seems that moral judgments and their corresponding trigger may also conform some

sort of non-theoretical scheme in which right and wrong are not really advanced as theories,

since we could understand the feeling of something being wrong without them(and that

moral sense is essential in the construction of theories).6

These examples raise the next question: at what point can we really say that our

perceptual judgments are not theoretical, just because the experience that initiates them is

not describable without them? What role does our upbringing has in all of this? The moral

example makes it clear that upbringing form an important part of observation: a person

with different beliefs may see right and wrong in different actions, and this may even

change over time. In general, when talking about any type of judgment, they are said to be

dependent, but not prior, to our underlying beliefs. So as long as our underlying beliefs are

not an inference based on the judgments themselves, they still serve as observations to a

theory that accounts for them, in the sense of them being epistemic prior to the theory.
What, though, is the role of perception and experience in all of this? If perceptual

judgments are to be theory-laden, then can perception be taken as data that accounts for this

theory? Where do Strawsons non-theoretical scheme lies? Strawson seem to agree to a

certain extent, that our judgments can be modified by training. Moreover, this training can

even allow us to perceive experiences without having to understand them in terms of

external objects. He writes: I have no interest at all in denying the thesis that there also

6 This example may be making the assumption of moral intuitionism and

maybe others, but I believe it conveys the example that the concepts to
epistemic prioricity, observation and experience can get complicated and
unclear just a few steps from Strawsons case.
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occur cases of sensitive experiences that the employment of full blooded concepts of

physical objects would not be Indispensable.

An observer, gazing through the window, may perhaps, by an effort of will, bring

himself to see, of perhaps willessly find himself seeing, what he knows to be the

branches of the trees no longer as branches at all, but as an intricate of dark lines of

complex directions and shapes and various size against a background a various

shades of grey. The frame of mind in which we enjoy, if we ever do enjoy, this kind

of experience is sophisticated, not a standard or normal frame of mind. (Strawson,

1979, pp. 98)

He then recognized the possibility that under such circumstances we may even say

that sensible experience are inferred, and hence may have some theoretical nature (in virtue

of being epistemic posterior). Strawson quickly debunks this possibility by claiming that

such a position would be the final irony. The items in question would have changed their

status radically: instead of data for a common-sense theory of the world, they would appear

as consequences of a sophisticated theory of mind.

Lets consider what Strawson is saying here. Being able to see these patterns of

shadows and lights is, and I agree with him, something extraordinary, and hence it doesnt

form part of the body of beliefs that form conform the ordinary perceptual judgments he

was addressing to begin with. What its unclear is why observations or perceptions (he

doesnt specify) of these shapes would appear as a consequence of a theory of mind. As we

have seen, the fact a particular perceptual judgment is inferred does not mean it is

theoretical, as it can be an observation, which indeed has cognitive content and may involve

an inferential process. It would seem, however, that what Strawson example suggest is that

given the right frame of mind we can observe sense experience.

What we perceive cannot change with our frame of mind, or our education, but what

we observe does. It is import to note that whether something is observed can change with
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the state of out theoretical knowledge, which is not to say whether something is

experienced, is changed in that way. We may put this this way:

Let X be an object that creates the experience y, and causes the perceptual judgment

z in an observer, we may say that we observe that z and that y is enjoyed.

Somebody else may also say that she observes that u and enjoys y.
Finally, someone else may say that he observes that y and enjoys y
In all three cases the difference in the observation is made possible by there being different

agent with different beliefs systems or frames of mind.7 Now, we dont want our account of

observation is science to be this subjective, but it doesnt have to be. The status of

observational language changes over the years, and it indeed is relative, but to the overall

scientific progress. As theories get accepted, like the existence of muons or dark matter,

scientist eager to explain phenomena related to this entities will may employ them in the

language they use to described their data the more this concepts are sedimented in the

community of scientist. That is why scientist may be hesitant to say they have observed a

muon at the beginnings of the standard model, and may rather talk about streaks of gas in a

cloud chambers or a detector reading, will later talk about an observed uniform flux of

muon coming through the atmosphere (N. Ramesh, 2011).

Strawsons position doesnt directly contradict these notions, but he doesnt take

them into consideration, and fails to draw a distinction between perception and observation

(perceptual judgments). In order for the idea of epistemic priority to be applicable to more

than a very general realist view of the world as a theory, we needed to introduce some

subjectivity in the process of qualifying data. Where we do agree with Strawson is that its

7 I agree with Strawson in the idea that in most cases u, y and z will just be the
observation of x, the physical object itself. For instance, if x is a tree then
everyone will see a tree. But there will still be cases, in every-day life, in which
different people may see different things; as in morality, different people my
see something to be right or wrong, or different people may see something to
be sacred or not, and so on.
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status of being data may be set by its order in the epistemic game: if it can qualify without

involving any theory that account for it, then its data. And a theory is a theory in virtue

of it being something that accounts, that better explains, a set of data.

IV
What do us now with our observation language then? Should we now (that we have

claimed we can see sense experience) reduce it solely to sense experience in our most

rigorous account of anything? We cant, we now know that this wont do, because as weve

seen sensible experience can themselves have the aspects of theory laden observations,

which we are trying to get rid of. Our observational language (the language we use to

describe the data) will then depend on our belief system and may include theoretical

language, even theoretical entities, which are, in science, widely put to test and verified.

This and the scientific convention ensure that everyone at a given time uses very similar

observational language, which still has to remain prior to any theory that accounts for it.
To conclude, its not theory or perception that forms or should form the description

of the data in the paper about dark matter, but perceptual judgments, which is precisely

what this scientist have done. Dark-matter has become part of language used to describe

data because of the history these scientist have in detecting dark-matter in halo, and

because it has slowly become an accepted theory. Their belief systems and the state of

affairs in Science may provoke them to not use observational language to describe their

data, but in reality this two entities are the ones that allow them to use the terms they indeed

use, as long as the epistemic priority is maintained.

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Works Cited
David Harvey, R. M. (2015). The non.gravitation interaction if dark matter in
colliding galaxy clusters. Science, 1462-1564.

Harman, G. (1988). Ethics and Observation. En G. Sayre-McCord, Essays on

Moral Realism (pgs. 119-124). Cornell University Press.

N. Ramesh, M. H. (2011). Flux Variation of Cosmic Muons. JAAS, 67-71.

Strawson, P. (1979). Perception and its Objects. En G. McDonald, Perception

and Identity: Essays presented to A.J Ayer (pgs. 92-101). London:
Macmillian.