The Realism in Perception Author(s): David Woodruff Smith Reviewed work(s): Source: Nos, Vol. 16, No.

1, 1982 A. P. A. Western Division Meetings (Mar., 1982), pp. 42-55 Published by: Blackwell Publishing Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2215411 . Accessed: 06/12/2011 18:27
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Blackwell Publishing is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Nos.

http://www.jstor.org

The Realism in Perception

DAVID WOODRUFF SMITH UNIVERSIY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVMNE

INTRODUCTION

The traditional metaphysical doctrine of realism holds that physical objects exist and are as they are independently of anyone's perceptions of them (or theories or beliefs about them). The traditional epistemological doctrine of realism-naive or direct realism-holds that we perceive physical objects directly, in that we do not perceive sense-data or appearances or ideas or whatever from which we then infer the existence and nature of physical objects themselves. I want to urge a certain analysis of perception as "acquaintance", or "intuition", an analysis which entails the epistemological doctrine. And on that basis I want to show how the content of everyday perception commits one to metaphysical realism.
1. REALISM AND INTENTIONALITY THEORY

Traditional metaphysical realism holds that physical objects exist independently of our perceptions of them. It is important to see that this is an integral part of a certain classical theory of the intentionality of perceptual experience, its being a consciousness "of' something. That theory holds: The object of a perceptual experience is distinct from the experience, in no way a part of the experience. The object would exist even if the experience were not occurring, and it is not brought into being or caused to exist by its being perceived, its being the object of that experience. The experience is intentionallyrelated to, or veridically "of', the object if and only if the object satisfies, or "corresponds" to, the content of the experience. Idealism is the classical anti-realism, holding that the object of a perception exists only in the perceiver's mind, "in" the perceptual experience:
42

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

43

There is only the perceptual experience, with a certain "presentational" or intentional character. There is no distinct and independent object, to which the experience is (intentionally) related.' There are other doctrines of metaphysical realism as well, and each too is an integral part of an overall theory of intentionality. There is realism with regard to universals. The realist here says there are independently existing properties and relations corresponding to predicative forms of thought, e.g., the property of laziness corresponding to the predicative part of my judging that this dog is lazy. In contrast, the anti-realist is either the conceptualist, who says the property exists only in minds as the concept "lazy", or the nominalist, who says there is in reality no property and indeed no concept but only the word 'lazy' and its use in language. There is also realism with regard to "facts". Here the realist says there corresponds to a true judgment a fact (or state of affairs), in virtue of which the judgment is true. The anti-realist may allow that the act of judging has a "proposition" as content, but deny that there are such things as facts aligning with true propositions or judgments; or he may deny both propositions and facts. This realism regarding facts is, of course, part and parcel of one very explicit correspondence theory of truth. Indeed, the theory of truth is part and parcel of the theory of the intentionality ofjudgment. Thus, a "nominalist" theory of truth might deny both facts and propositional contents of judgment, saying there is only the word 'true' and offering, to boot, a redundancy theory of how the word 'true' works. Although recent discussion of realism has centered on truth and verification, we shall focus on realism with regard to the objects of perception, without addressing issues of realism with regard to the objects of attribution and judgment.2
2. PERCEPTION AS ACQUAINTANCE, OR INTUITION

There is a long tradition in philosophy that defines "intuition" as direct awareness of something. The paradigm of such awareness, I believe, is perception of a physical object immediately before one: ideally, perception penetrates the veil of appearance and grasps the thing itself, it apprehends or refers to the thing transparently, without the mediation of conception or description of the thing. Following Russell, I shall use the more colloquial term 'acquaintance' rather than 'intuition'.3 Acquaintance is a direct cognitive awareness of something. Fundamentally, acquaintance is an intentional relation. But one is acquainted with something only if it exists: so acquaintance is a successful intentional relation. Nonetheless, one can have an "acquainting" experience, with the same phenomenological content, even if no existing

44

NOtfS

object satisfies the content of the experience, even if one is not successfully acquainted with anything. An acquainting experience is a cognitive experience in that it "posits" its object as existing or actual and so permits a claim ceterisparibus to know the object exists. However, as Russell observed, acquaintance is knowing in the sense of knowing things as opposed to knowing facts or truths. The paradigm of acquaintance, or intuition, is perception as we experience and conceive it in everyday life. Russell said we are acquainted in perception only with sense-data and not with physical objects; Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and the Gestalt psychologists insisted that we see physical objects and not sense-data. I side with the latter view and hold that we are acquainted in perception with physical objects. Now, acquaintance is "direct" in three different ways. It is epistemically directin that its object is presented "self evidently", that is, without conscious inference. Importantly, we should not rule out of perception unconscious processes of inference, association, or whatever. Further, directin that it is a presentation of an acquaintance is phenomenologically object "itself', a definite or singular persentation, a de re presentation. More specifically, it is an indexical presentation, a presentation of "this" or "I" or "you" or whatever. Finally, acquaintance, qua successful, is ontically direct in that the object is "present" to the subject on the occasion of the acquainting experience, that is, the object is in proximal contextual relation to the subject, or to the experience. Indeed, as we shall note below, ontic directness flows from phenomenological directness, for it is precisely the force of the indexical structure to prescribe the presence of the object of acquaintance. It is important to separate the epistemic from the intentional features of acquaintance; the latter, being our chief concerns, embrace phenomenological and ontic directness.4 Clearly, the preceding account of acquaintance, applied to perception, entails the epistemological doctrine of naive or direct realism, according to which we directly perceive physical objects. However, we have offered a closer analysis of "directness" than is customary. We turn now to our focal interest, the case of perception.
3. THE CONTENT OF PERCEPTION

Perception is an intentional experience, a consciousness or presentation "of ' something. There are irreducibly different forms of perceptual experience: one may see colors or shapes, one may see physical objects, and one may see states of affairs, events, and processes. The objectof a perceptual experience is that which the perceiver perceives: the color, the rose, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, or whatever one sees. By contrast, the content of the experience is that which embodies the

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

45

phenomenological character or structure or type of the experience, the mode of presentation of the object in the experience. The content is something very different from the object of the experience. Contents are what we naturally call "thoughts", "concepts", and the like, but contents of perceptions are special because they are "sensuous" as well as "conceptual": we might call them "percepts", except that term often is used for special objects of perception like "sense-data" or "phenomenal objects", things we forego. The content of a perceptual experience may be articulated (at least partially) by a phenomenological description of the experience, a description of the experience just "as" it is experienced, for instance: I I I I see see see see this red [or: this red of this rose]. this jacaranda tree with these blue blossoms. that gray morning dove sitting on that wire. that eruption of that volcano.

An essential part of the content of any perceptual experience is the "demonstrative" content ascribed by 'this' or 'that' in a phenomenological description. I see, for instance, not "a toad" or even "the toad" (or "the toad such that. . . ") but "thistoad" or "thattoad". We may call this demonstrative content in a perceptual experience the acquainting content of the experience. For it is this part of the content in a perception that does the primary work of prescribing the object of the perception. Even if other items of content in the perception should "explode", for instance, if I should suddenly realize that "this" is not a toad but a gray and bumpy rock shaped like a toad, I would still see "this".5 The demonstrative, acquainting content in a perception intentionally appeals to the sensuouspresenceof the object to the subject: the object's being appropriately located before the subject and causally affecting his senses on the occasion of the perceptual experience. That is the central force of the acquainting content in a perception. And, as we shall urge in the next section, it is what renders the experience (if veridical) an acquaintance, or intuition, of the object. Implicit, then, in the acquainting content of a perception, we may say, is a sense of the sensuous presence of the object. Implicit as well, we noted earlier, is a sense of the individuality of the object. Thus: I see this toad (itself) (now here sensuously before me).6 As we shall see, these two items of content implicit in the acquainting content of a perception carry various commitments to metaphysical realism. But first we must say more carefully how acquaintance is achieved by the content of a perception.

46 4. PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE: INTERNALIST AND EXTERNALIST ANALYSES

NOtfS

Perceptual acquaintance is the relation of veridically perceiving. In what does this consist? An appealing analysis is that we may call the externalisttheory of perceptual acquaintance: In having a perceptual experience a person is perceptually acquainted with an object, or the experience is veridically of the object, if and only if the object is appropriately located before the person on the occasion of the experience and plays an appropriate role in the causal genesis of the experience. On this theory, acquaintance consists in a causal contextual relation between subject and object of perception. This is a form of the familiar causal theory of perception. It is "externalist" because it says that what makes a perception "of" its object is not the "internal", or phenomenological, structure of the experience but rather "external", or contextual, features of the experience. I have argued elsewhere7 that the externalist theory miscasts the relation of acquaintance as a contextual relation rather than an intentional relation. An appropriate causal contextual relation between a perceptual experience and its object is indeed required by the relation of perceptual acquaintance. But these relations are not the same thing. The relation of perceptual acquaintance does not consistin the relevant causal contextual relation between perceiver and perceived. Rather, that causal contextual relation is intentionallyprescribedby the perceptual experience, specifically, by the demonstrative, acquainting content of the experience. A proper theory of acquaintance must thus observe the proper roles of both content and context in acquaintance. We should not reduce an intentional relation, which essentially involves the content of an experience, to a causal or other contextual relation of the experience, leaving content out of the picture. Generally, an experience is intentionally related to an objectjust in case the object satisfies, or is prescribed the content of the experience. by, But perception is special because "demonstrative". The acquainting content "this" is an occasionalcontent in that it prescribes, or is satisfied by, an object only relative to, only where present in, a perceptual experience on a particular occasion. In a particular perceptual experience it prescribes, or is satisfied by, that object (if any) which is sensuously before the perceiver on the occasion of the experience. (By contrast, the content "the shortest Soviet spy in 1982" is not occasional, since its satisfaction does not depend on the occasion of a thought or

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

47

experience in which it resides.) We now have at hand a proper analysis of perceptual acquaintance. The internalist theory of perceptual acquaintance holds: In having a perceptual experience a person is perceptually acquainted with an object, or the experience is veridically of the object, if an only if that object satisfies, or is prescribed by, the content in the experience. We are assuming the content of a perceptual experience includes a demonstrative, acquainting content "this" (or "that"). And, we hold, an object satisfies, or is prescribed by, the content "this" in a perceptual experience occurring on a given occasion if and only if that object is sensuously before the perceiver on that occasion, that is, it is appropriately before the perceiver and plays an appropriate role in the causal genesis of the experience. Thus, as John Searle has observed independently, the object's causal relation to the experience is part of the "conditions of satisfaction" of the intentional content of the experience.8 On this theory, then, perceptual acquaintance remains an intentional relation, as it is achieved by the satisfaction of the content of perception. And it is by that token an "internalist" theory.
5. A BASIC REALISM IN PERCEPTION

Traditional metaphysical realism says that physical objects exist (and are as they are) independently of our perceptual experiences of them. The acquainting content in a perception, as we have articulated it, carries an implicit commitment to this doctrine. Let us observe how. A perceptual experience essentially has a sensuous phenomenological character. Now, the sensuous character of the experience is experienced as forced, as caused by something other than oneself or one's experience. But a cause is ontologically independent of its effect. Accordingly, the sensuous character of perceptual experience issues into perception a basic realism. For, implicit in the acquainting content "this" in a perception, we said, is a sense of the sensuous presence of the object of perception, its causal contextual relation to the experience. I see "this toad (here before me and affecting my senses)". Implicit in my perceptual experience, then, is my belief that "this toad is causally affecting my senses". And since I believe a cause exists or occurs independently of its effects, there is implicit in my perceptual experience my belief that "this toad I am now seeing exists independently of my now seeing it". This belief posits an occasionalrealism, the application of realism to the occasion of this object and this experience. But we may presume it is

48

NOUS

a manifestation on this occasion of a belief in the general doctrine of realism, which holds that all things in the world exist independently of anyone's perceiving them.
6. REALISM, INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL

The basic realism we observed in a perception is an internal realism, in that the object's independence from the perceptual experience of it is intentionally prescribed by the phenomenological content of the experience.9 I do not have to get outside my perceptual experience and make a distinct judgment about the experience in order to be aware of the object's independence from the experience. For, by virtue of its content, my perceptual experience implicitly requires its causal relation to its object, and hence the object's independence. And so the experience carries within itself a commitment to realism. Indeed, our realism in general remains an internal realism so long as it is posited within our experience or belief system, so that the independence of the world is intentionally prescribed by our experiences or attitudes. A much stronger realism holds that things in the world exist independently of whether we have or ever could have the intentional capacity or conceptual scheme for apprehending them. This doctrine is "metaphysical" in a naughty sense: it says things in the world exist even if we cannot "know" them, either in the sense that we cannot verify their existence (even in our ultimately best empirical theories'0) or in the sense that we cannot apprehend or conceive them. This "noumenal" realism is a radically externalrealism in that it propounds a reality possibly beyond the reach of our intentional experiences or attitudes or apprehensions. It seems we have then no conceptual capacity for meaningfully asserting it, and so it seems untenable. Kant and Husserl called such a doctrine "transcendental realism", and both called their positions in opposition to it "transcendental idealism". Joining this noumenal realism is an extreme externalist theory of perceptual acquaintance, a "noumenal" theory holding that the acquaintance relation between a perceptual experience and its object is a noumenal relation of intuition which we cannot conceive or apprehend in itself. The causal theory of acquaintance we observed stops well short of this extreme and of any commitment to noumenal realism, but it has a certain tendency in that direction. On the causal theory, perceptual acquaintance is identified with a causal relation between the perceptual experience and its object. (We may see this move as an attempt to explicate the acquaintance relation in terms of familiar physical theory-a part of our belief-system-and so to bring it in from the noumenal hinterworld.) However, no awareness of that relation itself is assumed to be either explicit or implicit in the experience. Such aware-

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

49

ness must then lie in a distinctjudgment of belief about the experience, and so must any commitment to the object's ontic or causal independence. Thus, on the causal theory, no realism is internal to perceptual experience.I 1
7. CONDITIONS OF THE POSSIBILITY OF PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE

In its content a perceptual experience harbors realist commitments of several kinds. One sort lies in the experience's demonstrative appeal to the physical, especially causal, conditions of its occurrence. There are other sorts of conditions on which the occurrence of the experience also depends, including psychological and social and historical conditions. All are parts of the larger context of the perceptual experience. All are, in a traditional catch-phrase, "conditions of the possibility" of perceptual experience: enabling conditions, conditions on whose occurrence the occurrence of the experience -depends in various ways.12 The occurrence of these conditions does not, however, depend on the occurrence of the perceptual experience. So any claim that the experience depends on these conditions but not vice versa is a commitment to realism. Now, through its content a perceptual experience appeals in various ways to various of its enabling conditions. and so it carries a variety of further realist commitments. First let us note some of these conditions of perceptual experience. Then, in the next two sections, we shall note how the content in a perception appeals to such conditions. First, consider the physical conditions of a typical veridical perceptual experience. We have said the content of the experience implicitly appeals to the spatiotemporal-causal circumstances of the experience. But the content appeals to this condition only as presented or conceived in our everyday conceptual scheme: the object's being "before me and affecting my eyes." It specifies nothing of the proper physics of the physical condition of the perception. Second, consider some of the psychological conditions of a typical perceptual experience. I see "this toadstool." I so see only because I recognize "this" as a toadstool. Thus, my visual experience depends upon my ability to recognize toadstools. This ability is part of my psychological make-up and part of the psychological conditions of my experience. However, it seems my experience includes no awareness of that ability or of the mental processing in which consists my exercising it. Further psychological conditions of perception include body skills used in perception.13 I turn my body and then my head toward the toadstool on the ground before me, and I focus my eyes on it (using the muscles in my eye structure). My bodily movements are conscious, voluntary movements, but by and large they are habitual and my

50

NOUS

consciousness lies only in my seeing "this toadstool." Focussing my eyes is something I can do with some conscious awareness of so doing; but as I turn to look at the toadstool, I focus my eyes quite habitually, and with no explicit consciousness of so doing. Moreover, my eyes are in fact darting very rapidly over the object and tracing its shape, but I do not even have the capacity to be aware of these movements of my eyes (unless by some extraordinary technique of biofeedback). Certain skills or abilities of body and eye movement are thus psychological conditions of the occurrence of my perceptual experience of seeing the toadstool. But it seems the content of the experience makes no intentional appeal to them in any way whatsoever. Third, consider some of the social and historical conditions of a perceptual experience. I see this little shovel here by the fireplace (used for removing ashes). My recognizing it as a fireplace shovel depends on a number of things historical and social: my own past experience with shovels and with fireplaces and cleaning them; my social interactions with family and friends before the hearth; my instruction in the English language concerning 'fireplace' and 'shovel' insofar as these forms of language influence my recognition of fireplace shovels; my developed culture that has produced fireplaces and shovels; and so on. These conditions of my perceptual experience are among those on which the occurrence of the experience depends in various ways. But it seems the content of the experience makes no appeal to such conditions.
8. QUASI-INDEXICAL APPEALS TO CONDITIONS OF PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE

We have cited various physical, psychological, and social-culturalhistorical conditions on which a perceptual experience depends in various ways, all parts of the larger context of the experience and circumstances that make possible the occurrence of the experience as it is. At first glance, it seems, as we noted, that the content of the experience makes no intentional appeal to these conditions of the experience. Certainly the content includes no descriptiveprescription, either explicit or implicit, of these conditions: it prescribes nothing of the details of the physics, physiology, psychology, history (personal or social), culture, or social structure involved. However, the content does, I think, include an implicit quasi-indexical appeal of a special kind to some of these conditions.14 Hilary Putnam has observed that terms for natural kinds and substances are partly indexical in that the term 'water', for instance, is defined ostensively as the same substance or liquid as this, or more broadly as the same substance as our "water", the liquid around here15-

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

51

if we might so say, the same liquid as that we human beings have encountered as so much a part of our everyday life. I think Putnam is onto an important truth, but I would like to change the subject to concepts, taken as contents of thought or experience. The concept "water" is partly indexical in that where present in our everyday thoughts or experiences, it prescribes the liquid we deal with in countless ways in our surrounding everyday human culture. Again., the concept "toadstool" prescribes in everyday experience that species of plant we or others in our familiar culture have encountered and dealt with. Concepts of artifacts are also partly indexical: the concept "fireplace shovel," in a typical experience, prescribes that artifactual kind of objects that we in modern culture have produced and used in various ways. Furthermore, concepts pertaining to the human body are also indexical in this broad way: the concepts "body," "hand," "head," "eye," etc., prescribe those parts of a human being's body that we all know so well from awareness of our own bodies as well as others'. It should be clear how such quasi-indexical concepts affect perception. I see "this (now here before my body and affecting my eyes)". The contents "me," "my body," "my eyes" refer to my own instantiations of our human kind of persons, bodies, eyes. "Here before" refers to an instance of our familiar kind of spatial relations, and "(causally) affects" refers to a causal process of the kind involved in an object's affecting the eyes of one of our kind. Where I see "this toadstool" or "this fireplace shovel," the contents "toadstool" and "fireplace shovel" refer quasi-indexically to natural and artifactual kinds of objects with which we human beings are familiar in our appropriate activities. The concept "I" (or "me") refers to my own instance of the kind of psychological and physical being that all we human beings are. And this includes the way my typically human mind works, including my abilities of recognition and of motor control of my body, head, and eyes. Insofar as the content of an everyday perceptual experience makes such quasi-indexical appeals to the physical, psychological, and social-cultural-historical conditions of its occurrence, the experience includes commitments to the doctrine of realism. For these conditions of a perceptual experience are conceived as independent of the perceptual experience itself, and realismjust says the world is independent of our experience and attitudes. But we have here a ramified realism. For the kinds of dependence and independence involved are numerous: physical, psychological, social, historical. And, indeed, until we have spelled out the kinds of dependence at issue, we have not fully spelled out the forms of realism at issue!16
9. SEEINGTHE SAMETHING

A perceptual experience is a presentation of "this object (itself)." The

52

NOOJS

implicit content "itself' is a certain sense of the identity or individuality of the object presented: it is "this" object, "itself," "that same" object. However, this sense of the identity of the presented object does not rest on any explicit or assumed presentation of the broad range of properties that individuate the object prescribed, properties such as its essential nature, its locus of spatiotemporal positions through its history, its birth certificate or social security number or fingerprints or whatever.17 Implicit in the content of a perception, then, is the assumption that the presented object has an individuating nature that is not prescribed in the perception. This assumption carries a realist commitment. For surely the perceiver believes the object's having that nature does not depend upon its being preceived or otherwise intended of the object. There are further realist commitments accruing to the sense of identity in a perception. These concern the "co-directedness" of perceptual experiences, their being in point of content experiences presenting "the same" object. I see "this toadstool" continuously as I approach it and look more closely at it. Implicit in each phase of my continuing perception is the assumption that "this toadstool" is continuously "the same". Again, when I turn away and then a moment later turn back to see a toadstool, I am presented still with "the same" toadstool: implicit in the content of my later presentation of "this toadstool" is the assumption that it is the same toadstool as I saw a moment ago. And again, when you and I are walking in the woods and come upon a toadstool, I am presented with the same object that you see: implicit in my seeing "this toadstool" is my assumption that "this"is the same toadstool as you are now seeing too. Here are three cases of co-directed perceptual experience: phases of one person's continuing perception, subsequent perceptions by the same person, and perceptions by different persons.18 In each of these three cases, the two perceptual experiences present presumedly the same object. But the content of such a perception does not specify individuating properties of the object. Indeed, the subject may know very little about that kind of object, about what individuates a thing of that kind-for that matter, the whole human race may not know much about what individuates a thing of that kind. Yet the content of the perception prescribes "the same" object as is presented in another perception, projecting the identity of the object beyond the immediate context of the perception itself. Here again is a commitment to realism. For the perception rests on the assumption that the object presented has an unspecified, and presumedly independent, individuating nature.

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION CONCLUSION

53

Realism, in various forms, is part of common sense. And everyday perceptual experiences are intertwined with common sense. So it should be anything but surprising that the content of everyday perceptual experience carries various realist commitments. Anti-realisms, from Berkeley's idealism to phenomenalism and verificationism and somewise pragmatism, have sought to reduce the claims of common sense and science to reports of perception. But if there are no "pure" perceptual experiences sharply separated from the theory-laden everyday perceptual experiences we have discussed, whose content is laden with realism, then these anti-realisms fly in the face of the phenomenology of perception. Science begins with observations that are just simple everyday perceptions. The practices of science are thus continuous with those of everyday life,19 where simple perceptions are imbued with the realism of common sense. When the anti-realist goes against common-sense realism in propounding a theory of science, of the aims of science or the meaning of scientific statements, he is running afoul of science itself, its aims and the content of its assertions. The beliefs of common sense, including realism, are controverted not from above by a metatheory, but from within by substantive theories that show the limits or failings of our belief-system.20 We ought, then, to respect common sense and its realist commitments until we have substantive evidence that common sense is wrong in those respects. We have said not a word about doctrines holding that every proposition or knowledge claim (especially about what there is) is assertible only within, and in that way relative to, some theory or belief-system or conceptual scheme or system of everyday or scientific practices. Nor should we. For those sorts of relativity are quite a different matter from the kinds of dependence at issue in the forms of realism we have
addressed.21. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Karl Ameriks, "Husserl's Realism", The PhilosophicalReview 86(1977). Robert Brandom, "Truth and Assertibility", TheJournal of Philosophy73(1976), 137 49. Hector-Neri Castanieda, "Indicators and Quasi-Indicators", AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly4(1967), 1-16. Roderick M. Chisholm, Person and Object(London and La Salle, IL: Allen and Unwin, Ltd., and Open Court Publishing Co., 1976). , The First Person (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981). Romane Clark, "Sensuous Judgments", Nous 7(1973), 45-56. , "Old Foundations for a Logic of Perception", Synthese 33(1976), 75-99. Michael Dummett, "Truth",Proceedings of theAristotelianSociety59958-59),141-62, reprinted in his Truth and Other Enigmas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 1-24.

54 [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]

NOUJS
, "The Philosophical Basis of Intuitionistic Logic", reprinted in Truth and OtherEnigmas, 223-25. Hartry Field, 'Tarski's Theory of Truth", The Journal of Philosophy 69(1972), 347-75. J. N. Findlay, "Phenomenology and the Meaning of Realism", in Edo Pivc!evic, editor,PhenomenologyandrPhilosophical Understanding(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 143-58. Harrison Hall, "Was Husserl a Realist or an Idealist?", in Hubert L. Dreyfus, editor, Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/ Bradford Books, 1981). Paul Horwich, "Three Forms of Realism", Synthese, forthcoming. Edmund Husserl, CartesianMeditations (translated by Dorion Cairns; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960; first published in 1931). , The Crisisin European Sciencesand Transcendental Phenomenology(translated by David Carr; Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1960; first published, posthumously, in 1954). John F. Lad, On Intuition, Evidence, and UniqueRepresentation(doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1973). N. David Mermin, "Quantum Mysteries for Anyone", The Journal of Philosophy 78(1982), 397-408. Izchak Miller, The Phenomenologyof Perception: Husserl's Account of Our Temporal Awareness (doctoral dissertation, UCLA, 1979). John Perry, "The Problem of the Essential Indexical", Nous 13(1979), 3-21. Hilary Putnam, "The Meaning of 'Meaning"', in his Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 215-71. , Meaning and the Moral Sciences (Boston and London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), especially "Realism and Reason", 123-140 (originally the Presidential Address to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Boston, December 29, 1976). Richard Rorty, Philosophyand the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: PrincetOuiUniversity Press, 1979). Bertrand Russell, "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description", in his Mysticismand Logic (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1917; originally published in Proceedings of the AristotelianSociety, 1910-11). John Searle, Intentionality, (photocopied, UC Berkeley). David Woodruff Smith, The Case of the Exploding Perception", Synthese 41(1979), 239-69. ,"Content and Context of Perception", Synthese. forthcoming. 'Acquaintance (typescript, 1980, UC Irvine, forthcoming). . "Husserl on Demonstrative Reference and Perception", in Hubert L. Dreyfus, editor, Husserl, Intentionality,and Cognitive Science (cited above). David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre, "Intentionality via Intensions", The Journal of Philosophy 68(1971), 541-61. , Husserl and Intentionality(Boston and Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1981). Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).

[22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

NOTES 1The realist theory sketched here has roots reaching no doubt into Locke, Aquinas, and Aristotle. It attains a mature form, along with the notion of intentionality, in one interpretation of Husserl's philosophy (see Smith and McIntyre [29] and [30], Chapter III, and Miller [18]; re an idealist interpretation of Husserl, see Ameriks [1], Findlay [11], and Hall [12]). The anti-realist theory sketched here is one form Berkeley's idealism might have taken and resembles a construal of Brentano's doctrine of "intentional in-existence" (as summarized in Smith and McIntyre [30], Chapter II).

THE REALISM IN PERCEPTION

55

2See Brandom [2], Dummett [8] and [9], Field [10], Horwich [13], Putnam [21], Rorty [22], and van Fraassen [31]. 3A brief history of the notion of intuition in Scotus, Ockham, Descartes, Kant, Bolzano, and Husserl may be found in Lad [16]. Russell's notion of acquaintance in his [23] falls neatly into that tradition, I have shown in Smith [27]. 4The preceding account of acquaintance is a summary of results in Smith [27]. A detailed study of the epistemic side of acquaintance is found in Chisholm [4]. His more recent [5] offers an analysis of the intentional side of acquaintance. My analysis, summarized here, and Chisholm's are very different and independently developed. 5I have argued for the demonstrative element in the content of perception in Smith [25]. That it is essential to perception can be argued in ways parallel to the ways John Perry has argued in his [19] that indexical terms are essential to the expression of certain beliefs. A demonstrative element in perception was noted by Husserl: see Miller [18] and Smith [28]. A realist logic of perception, based on naive realism and observing the demonstrative structure of perception. is developed in Clark [7], with philosophical foundations in Clark [6]. 6This separation of the force of the demonstrative content is discussed in more detail in Smith [27]. 7See Smith [27]. 8See Searle [24]. Searle's view and my own dovetail nicely but were developed independently and from different directions. Izchak Miller has expressed a similar view too, in discussion of his [18] and my [25]. 9Cf. Putnam's different but related notion of "internal realism" in his [21], "Realism and Reason". 0'Cf. Putnam [21], "Realism and Reason". "There is a tension between Putnam's internal realism and his theory of reference and meaning in his [20] (pp. 219-27, 268ff), insofar as his view of indexical reference is analogous to what I have called an "externalist" theory of acquaintance. 12Myreflections here are prompted by views of Hubert Dreyfus andJohn Searle on the "background" of intentional states (which are prompted in turn by ideas of Heidegger and Wittgenstein). These views were aired in the summer of 1980 at the Council for Philosophic Studies/National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute at UC Berkeley on intentionality from continental and analytic perspectives; the institute was directed by Dreyfus and John Haugueland. 13Cf. Husserl [15]. "4With apologies to the Editor of Nou's, who has used the similar term 'quasiindicator' for a different purpose in Castaneda [3]. 15Cf. Putnam [20], pp. 223ff and 229ff. 16Paul Horwich in his [13] has stressed the importance of spelling out the kind of independence at issue in realism. 17See Smith and McIntyre [30], Ch. VIII, on individuation and individuative awareness of something. "'Cf. Husserl [14], ??17-18. See Smith [25] on seeing the same individual. 19This point is stressed in Husserl [15]. 20Forexample, it has been claimed on the basis of quantum physics that "the moon is demonstrably not there when nobody looks". While the claim is not really what Berkeley had in mind, it isjust what I had in mind as an example of a substantive claim from science or elsewhere that would seem to go against common-sense realism. I thank Mermin [17] for developing the very claim in print even after I had finished the present essay. (The quotation is from Mermin's opening paragraph.) 21This essay is dependent on my work on perceptual acquaintance in Smith [25], [26], and [27]. With regard to related issues of realism, I have found Putnam [20] and Horwich [13] particularly stimulating.