Husserl and Disjunctivism

The Theory of Perceptual Experience

In Transcendental Phenomenology

Shun Sato

The Philosophy of perception

• What event is it to have perceptual experience?• How is it to know the case in the world from

perceptual experiences?

My presentation addresses the...

• Phenomenological theory of perceptual experience developed by Edmund Husserl.

• Disjunctive theory.

My aim is ...

• To reconsider Husserl’s thought in order to make it available to contemporary philosophy of perception.

• To characterize Husserl's position as some type of disjunctivism: epistemological disjunctivism.

IWHAT IS THE OBJECT OF

PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE?

What visual experience is like1

(Mach 1914)

What is depicted in such a picture?

Two different answers:

(1) What is depicted is, e.g., a window.

But if the picture is drawn as a one of visual experience …

(2) What the picture represents is some mental inner scene in a subject's mind: what is depicted cannot be a window, but some mental object, which is a part of such a scene.2

Two views on visual experience

Naïve, or Direct Realism:

The objects of experience are ordinary, middle-sized goods, physical objects in the world.

Indirect Realism:

The objects of experience are non-physical, mental entities in our mind3.

In the history of philosophy, indirect realism has been an orthodoxy.

Argument from hallucination

Suppose that one has a hallucination of a red tomato.

It appears to him as if there is a red, spherical thing.

If he had a genuine perception of the tomato, it appears to him as if there is a red, spherical thing, as well as in the hallucinatory case.

There is something common to both cases, which is red, spherical.

But this cannot be a real object. It is something mental.4

IIEITHER/OR

“It appears to me as if there is something red, spherical.”

Indirect realism argues ...

“It is true, if it is true, whether the subject have a perception or hallucination. So, there must be something which makes it true in both cases; but this cannot be the physical, for in a hallucinatory case such is not available. Therefore, it must be something mental, which is common element to both cases.”

Disjunctivist interpretation

The report may be equivalent to the disjunction:

“Either I really perceive a worldly physical object which is spherical and red, or I merely have such a hallucination.”

This statement is made true not by a single unique fact such that the subject is aware of something mental and common element to the perceptual and hallucinatory case.5 (Hinton 1967, 1973; Snowdon 1981, 1990)

Argument from hallucination

Suppose that one has hallucination of a red tomato.

It appears to him as if there is a red, spherical thing.

If he had a genuine perception of the tomato, it appears to him as if there is a red, spherical thing, as well as in the hallucinatory case.

There is something common to both cases, which is red, spherical.

Either he perceives the tomato which is red, spherical, or hallucinates it.6

IIIPHENOMENOLOGY

What is phenomenology?

A science of phenomenon, or appearance

But appearance is always appearance of something.

Intentionality as the basic concept

Intentionality = of-ness, or about-ness of mental phenomena

Our conscious experience is always experience of something.

Perception as an intentional experience

Suppose that you see a tomato...

A tomato appears to you as red, spherical thing.

But your seeing-tomato-experience is not about the appearance as such, but about the tomato itself.

Intentional object of perception

The object toward which our perceptual experience is directed, is not mind-dependent object such as sense-data, but the “transcendent” object7.

Intentional experience as an ability

Ability to intend something

We can see the red things only if we have some ability to see something as red. 8

Husserl's transcendental idealism

There is no reality which is apart from our (possible) intentional experience: there is no reality wholly independent of our epistemic capacity.9

“*A+nti-representationalist [Anti-indirect-realist] criticism of metaphysical realism.” (Zahavi 2008)

Husserl's conception of perception and reality

Reality can only be given to us in some experience, and if we perceiving something veridically, the object making itself appear in this experience is, eo ipso, a real external object.

Husserl's Commitment to disjunctivism (Cf. Smith 2008)

Since there is only appearance which is of something, and any reality can be given as this something, appearance must be either appearance of a real external object, or appearance which is merely intended so.10

IVHUSSERL’S DISJUNCTIVISM

Is there any commonality to perception and hallucination?

Appearance is either the aspect of a worldly object, or mental replica of it.

→ There is nothing common to perception and hallucination.

Ontological (metaphysical) disjunctivism

Husserl would not endorse such a claim, for...

Appearance, in any case, essentially includes our own contribution, i.e., the exercise of some ability.

Both (HA) and (PA) are, at least partly, constituted by ability which enables the subject to intend something as spherical: appearance is appearance of something spherical.11

What kind of disjunctivism is available to Husserl?

The reason why indirect realism is to be rejected

The world would be behind our mental inner scene, “veil of perception.”

“ ‘Concealed’ world cannot conceivably be our empirical world.” (Smith 2002)

What is at stake is…

Whether we can know experientially the case in reality.

What idea we should rehabilitate

In case of genuine perception, experience, quaexperience, makes knowledge of the external available to one.

Epistemological disjunctivism

“*E+ither one knows that there is a red spherical thing before one, or it merely seems that one has evidence good enough for knowing there is a red spherical thing before one [...].'' (Byrne & Logue 2008; cf. McDowell 1982)12

We need not deny some commonality between perceptual appearance and hallucinatory one.

The exercise of some ability which is constitutive for both appearances does not exclude their having different epistemic significance.

The line of thought which is to be denied:

There is only “mere seeming to know” the case in the world in our experience qua experience.

In genuine perceptual case, I know the case in the world, while in hallucinatory case, I merely seem to know the case.

Conclusion

Husserl as an epistemological disjunctivist

Husserl's idea is better characterized as a type of epistemological disjunctivism. This should be the bottom line of the research into Husserliantheory of sense perception.

Phenomenology is not outdated at all.

We can obtain rich insight from his thought.

Reference

• Alex Byrne and Heather Logue. “Either/Or”. In Adrian Haddock and Fiona Macpherson (eds.), Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge, 57–94. Oxford University Press, 2008.

• J. M. Hinton. “Visual Experiences.” Mind, Vol. 76, 217-227, 1967.

• -------------. Experiences: An Inquiry Into Some Ambiguities. Oxford University Press, 1973.

• Ernst Mach. The Analysis of Sensations. Translated by C. M. Williams, Open Court, 1914.

• John McDowell. “Criteria, Defeasibility and Knowledge.” Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 68, 455-79, 1982.

• A. D. Smith, “Husserl and Externalism.” Synthese, Vol. 160, 313–333, 2008.

• P. Snowdon. “Perception, Vision, and Causation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 81, 175-92, 1981.

• ------------. “The Object of Perceptual Experience.” Proceedings of Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, Vol. 64, 121–150, 1990.