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Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception
This book provides a comprehensive account of the intentionality of perceptual experience. With special emphasis on vision Searle explains how the raw phenomenology of perception sets the content and the conditions of satisfaction of experience. The central question concerns the relation between the subjective conscious perceptual field and the objective perceptual field. Everything in the objective field is either perceived or can be perceived. Nothing in the subjective field is perceived nor can be perceived precisely because the events in the subjective field consist of the perceivings , whether veridical or not, of the events in the objective field.
Searle begins by criticizing the classical theories of perception and identifies a single fallacy, what he calls the Bad Argument, as the source of nearly all of the confusions in the history of the philosophy of perception. He next justifies the claim that perceptual experiences have presentational intentionality and shows how this justifies the direct realism of his account. In the central theoretical chapters, he shows how it is possible that the raw phenomenology must necessarily determine certain form of intentionality. Searle introduces, in detail, the distinction between different levels of perception from the basic level to the higher levels and shows the internal relation between the features of the experience and the states of affairs presented by the experience. The account applies not just to language possessing human beings but to infants and conscious animals. He also discusses how the account relates to certain traditional puzzles about spectrum inversion, color and size
constancy and the brain-in-the-vat thought experiments. In the final chapters he explains and refutes Disjunctivist theories of perception, explains the role of unconscious perception, and concludes by discussing traditional problems of perception such as skepticism.
Searle begins by criticizing the classical theories of perception and identifies a single fallacy, what he calls the Bad Argument, as the source of nearly all of the confusions in the history of the philosophy of perception. He next justifies the claim that perceptual experiences have presentational intentionality and shows how this justifies the direct realism of his account. In the central theoretical chapters, he shows how it is possible that the raw phenomenology must necessarily determine certain form of intentionality. Searle introduces, in detail, the distinction between different levels of perception from the basic level to the higher levels and shows the internal relation between the features of the experience and the states of affairs presented by the experience. The account applies not just to language possessing human beings but to infants and conscious animals. He also discusses how the account relates to certain traditional puzzles about spectrum inversion, color and size
constancy and the brain-in-the-vat thought experiments. In the final chapters he explains and refutes Disjunctivist theories of perception, explains the role of unconscious perception, and concludes by discussing traditional problems of perception such as skepticism.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 20, 2014
About the author
John Rogers Searle
70 books331 followersJohn Rogers Searle (born July 31, 1932 in Denver, Colorado) is an American philosopher and was the Slusser Professor of Philosophy and Mills Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). Widely noted for his contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and social philosophy, he was the first tenured professor to join the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley. He received the Jean Nicod Prize in 2000, and the National Humanities Medal in 2004.
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March 1, 2019
كتاب رؤية الأشياء كما هي للكاتب جون سيرل كتاب يتحدث عن الرؤية و المفاهيم المتعلقة بها , ويحوي محاججات فلسفية كثيرة حول ما نراه و ما هو حقيقي و ما هو غير حقيقي , الرحلة مع هذا الكتاب لغير المختص كحالتي هي رحلة عسيرة بعض الشيء , فبعض الفقرات تحتاج إعادة القراءة و البحث والاطلاع الموسع , وهناك بعض الفقرات التي تجاوزتها مرغماً لأنها تحتاج بحثاً موسعاً , ولكن وبصورة عامة , هكذا أنواع من الكتب يفيد القارىء في مناح عديدة , فعبر الرحلة مع محاججات الكاتب حول الرؤية والواقع و الوعي واللاوعي , يكتشف الإنسان مناح كثيرة حول الحقيقة , فيتسع نطاق رؤيتك للأشياء وكأنك إكتسبت أعين جديدة , فهذا الكتاب في بعض فقراته , يشرح لك لوحات فنية و رسومات توضيحية من مناظير رؤية مختلفة و يوضح لك كيف تختلف التفسيرات تماما كلما اختلفت نوع المعلومات المرافقة للصورة و المعلومات , وبحسب الكتاب سوف تخلص إلى أن هناك عوالم مختلفة بحسب الاشخاص فالمرء يرى من خلال تجاربه وكل شيء نسبي تبعا للشخص نفسه ولا يوجد حقيقة مطلقة في هذه الحياة , ولكن الفصل الذي أثار فضولي إلى حد كبير هو فصل الوعي و اللاوعي و من الذي لديه السطوة على الآخر أي من يتحكم بنا هل هو الوعي أم اللاوعي ؟ و هل هذا التحكم يشمل خياراتنا وقراراتنا في الحياة ؟ وخاصة حين تمر بنا مواقف تتراكم في اللاوعي حتى تشكل قناعة لا نعي بها , ولكنها تحدد مسارنا و خيارنا في الحياة , وان صح ذلك فهل يمكن القول أننا نتحمل المسؤولية المطلقة حيال كل خيار نقوم به , أم أن الامر هو مجرد محض صدفة بحكم المواقف التي مرت بنا ! في الختام , الكاتب - لغير المختص مثلي - مميز بصورة عامة لانه يطرح تساؤلات كثيرة تنطبق على حالات كثيرة من حياتنا و فيه معلومات وافية جداً عن المجال البصري والعملية البصرية تغني الشخص بما يرضي فضوله , تقيمي للكتاب 3/5
مقتطفات من كتاب رؤية الأشياء كما هي للكاتب جون سيرل
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intentional , قصدي : فالقصدية هي تلك السمة العقلية الموجهة إلى أو حول أو عن الموضوعات والظروف في العالم. إن الجوع، والعطش، والمعتقدات، والتجارب الإدراكية، والنوايا والرغبات، والآمال، والمخاوف كلها قصدية؛ لأنها تتعلق بشيء ما
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phenomenological , فينومينولوجي : تشير الفينومينولوجيا إلى الجانب النوعي فقط من حالاتنا، وأحداثنا، وعملياتنا الواعية. كلما وُجد الوعي، كانت هناك فينومينولوجيا. وعندما تفقد الوعي تماما، فليست هناك فينومينولوجيا. وفي كثير من الأحيان، من الضروري وصف السمات الخاصة للإدراك الواعي، ولذلك أحتاج إلى مفردات الفينومينولوجيا لتنفيذ ذلك
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Representative Realism , الواقعية التمثيلية : التي تقول إننا ندرك تمثيلات )صور( العالم الحقيقي وليس الموضوعات الحقيقية نفسها.
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يظهر العلم أننا لا نرى العالم الحقيقي، لكننا لا نرى سوى سلسلة من الأحداث الناتجة عن تأثير العالم الحقيقي، عن طريق انعكاسات الضوء على جهازنا العصبي
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كيف يمكننا، على أساس الإدراك، أن نعرف أي حقائق عن العالم الواقعي؟ تستعصي المشكلة على الحل؛ لأن مدخلنا الإدراكي الوحيد يفضي إلى تجاربنا الشخصانية الخاصة، وليست هناك طريقة للانتقال من التجارب الشخصانية أنطولوجيا إلى العالم الحقيقي الموضوعي أنطولوجيا.
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إذا أنكرت الواقعية المباشرة، فلن تستطيع مطلقا أن تدرك الأشياء وظروف العالم بصورة مباشرة؛ فكيف يمكنك إذن الحصول على معرفة بحقائق العالم؟ الأجوبة التي قدمها ديكارت ولوك هي أن مدركاتنا للعالم، أي أفكارنا، تعطينا صورة عن كيفية سير الأمور في العالم. يبدو الأمر كأننا ظللنا نشاهد أحد الأفلام إلى الأبد، لكننا لا نستطيع مغادرة دار السينما. نحن نتعرف على العالم لأن الصور تشبه في بعض النواحي الموضوعات التي هي صور لها.
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ليس من المفترض أن تتناسب الرغبات والنوايا مع ماهية العالم، بل مع الكيفية التي نودها أن تكون عليها أو التي ننوي جعلها عليها
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إن الحالات القصدية، مثل المعتقدات والرغبات، لا تأتي بمفردها في الأغلبية الساحقة من الحالات. ولذلك لو كنت أعتقد، على سبيل المثال، أن أوباما رئيس، فلا بد أن يكون لديّ العديد من المعتقدات الأخرى من أجل إعطاء معنى لهذا الاعتقاد. يجب أن أؤمن بأن للولايات المتحدة حكومة، وأنها جمهورية، وأن هناك انتخابات رئاسية لانتخاب رئيس الحكومة، وأن الرئيس هو رأس السلطة التنفيذية للحكومة... إلخ. يمكنني استخدام شبكة التعبير للقول بأن الحالات القصدية لا تعمل، ولا تحدّد شروط إشباعها، إلا ضمن شبكة من الحالات القصدية
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هناك علاقات معقدة بين الفينومينولوجيا والمضمون القصدي. بالنسبة إلى معظم الحالات الأساسية، مثل رؤية اللون الأحمر أو الشعور بنعومة الطاولة، تحدد الفينومينولوجيا المضمون القصدي بالكامل. لكن أي تغيير في القصدية يؤدي في كثير من الأحيان إلى إحداث تغيير في الفينومينولوجيا. إذا ظننتُ أن الموضوع الذي أراه هو منزل، فسيبدو مختلفا عما يبدو عليه إذا ظننت أنه ليس سوى واجهة المنزل، حتى لو كان المحفّز البصري هو نفسه في الحالتين. إذا ظننت أن السيارة التي أنظر إليها هي سيارتي، فستبدو مختلفة بالنسبة إليّ عن السيارات المماثلة في النوع والمصنوعة في العام نفسه من قبل الشركة المصنعة نفسها.
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الخطأ الأكثر أهمية الذي ينبغي تفاديه هو الخلط بين المضمون والموضوع. يمكن لتجربتين إدراكيتين أن يكون لهما مضمونان متطابقان في النوع، لكن يكون لإحداهما موضوع أما الأخرى فلا. وينطبق هذا، كما ذكرت، على إدراك موضوع ما وعلى الهلوسة المقابلة. وفي هذه الحالة أُشبع الإدراك؛ ولم تُشبع الهلوسة. يمكن أن يكون لهما المضمون نفسه بالضبط، لكن هناك موضوعا في إحدى الحالتين وليس هناك في الحالة الأخرى
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عندما أفكر في شيء ما، تكون أفكاري تمثيلات للشيء الذي أفكر فيه. لكن عندما أدركه مباشرة - أي عندما أراه، على سبيل المثال - فإن تجاربي البصرية تكون تصويرات فعلية للموضوع والظروف التي أراها
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يستلزم التمييز بين الوهم/ الواقع تمييزاً بين كيف تبدو لك الأمور في الحالة الواعية وما هي عليه حقا. لكن عندما يتعلق الأمر بوجود الوعي، لا يمكنك إجراء هذا التمييز؛ لأن توهمك الواعي بالوعي هو حقيقة الوعي. ولأن الوعي لديه أنطولوجيا شخصانية أو بصيغة المتكلم؛ فلا يمكن اختزاله إلى أي أنطولوجيا موضوعية أو بصيغة الغائب
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إن اتجاه تجربتي الإدراكية يسير من العقل إلى العالم. وخلافا لرغباتي ومقاصدي، فمدركاتي ليست موجهة إلى تغيير العالم بحيث يتطابق مع مضمون تجاربي، لكن التجارب تبدو لي كأنها تعرض الكيفية التي يسير بها العالم.
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يستجيب الأشخاص المختلفون ذوو الخلفيات الثقافية المختلفة لنفس المحفز بصورة مختلفة، مثل العمل الفني نفسه
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فالمحفز نفسه تماما يمكنه أن ينتج تجارب شديدة الاختلاف، على رغم أن المرء لا ينخدع أو يعاني أي فشل آخر في الإدراك البصري - فليس هناك أدنى احتمال للهلوسة أو الضلالات، أو الوهم، إلخ
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المرء لا يرى الموضوعات والظروف في العالم أبدا، بل يرى التجارب الشخصانية الخاصة بالمرء فقط
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جميع تجاربنا الواعية، في أي لحظة بعينها، ناتجة عن عمليات تدور في الدماغ
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إن السمات الموضوعية أنطولوجيا للخصائص الإدراكية الأساسية للعالم تسبب تجارب بصرية يعرّف طابعها جزئيا خاصية العالم تلك. فالخط المستقيم هو ذلك الذي يبدو كذلك , حيث يعني يبدو ذلك انه قادر على تسبيب هذا النوع من التجارب البصرية. تنطبق هذه النقطة على الصفات الأولية فضلا على الصفات الثانوية.
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هناك فرق بين التجارب اللمسية والتجارب البصرية، وهو أن التجارب اللمسية أحاسيس، أما التجارب البصرية فليست كذلك. الشعور بالنعومة هو إحساس جسدي. من الممكن التوهم في حالة التجارب البصرية بأنها تتناقض بطريقة أو بأخرى مع التجارب اللمسية؛ لأنها ليست أحاسيس ذات موقع جسدي يُعايش بالطريقة التي يُعد بها الإحساس بالنعومة بالفعل إحساسا واعيا في أطراف أصابعي
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لا نستطيع بالفعل التوصل إلى استنتاجات مهمة ومشوّقة من خصائص الصور البصرية؛ لأن القرار المتعلق بتحديد ما يوضع في الصورة البصرية متروك لنا. بإمكاننا تخيّل صورة بصرية نكون فيها ملتزمين بوجود موضوع يُرى في المشهد المتخيّل، وصورة بصرية لها المضمون نفسه بالضبط، لكنها لا تنطوي على مثل هذا الالتزام
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إن الطريقة التي يتمكن بها الطفل من استخدام اللغة، والطريقة التي يمكنه بها معالجة المحفزات اللغوية، والطريقة التي يمكنه بها تشكيل الجمل، يُفترض أنها مسألة تتعلق بالعمليات الذهنية التي ليست لاواعية فقط بل هي - على عكس اللاوعي الفرويدي - ليست من ذلك النوع من الأشياء الذي يمكن للفاعل أن يصبح واعيا به. إن الحالات العقلية المعنية هي الحالات الحسابية. إذا كان للمرء أن يمثلها في نظرية، فلا بد أن تكون في صورة برنامج حاسوبي، أو - وهو الأكثر شيوعا - مجموعة من المصطلحات التقنية المستخدمة من قبل علماء النفس المعرفي واللغويين المحترفين
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هناك شك في أن الوعي لا يؤدي سوى دور فرعي للغاية في السلوك والإدراك البشريين، وأن العديد من الأشكال الحاسمة من الإدراك والفعل الإرادي هي أساسا لاواعية، أو أنه يمكن رصدها، استرشادا بالوعي، لكن استهلالها لاواع.
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ينبغي على ضارب البيسبول الذي تُقذف الكرة نحوه بسرعة أكبر من تسعين ميلا في الساعة أن يبدأ ضربته قبل أن يمكنه أن يصبح واعيا بقدوم الكرة. إذا انتظر جسده الوعي الكامل بالكرة، فستكون قد تجاوزته بالفعل
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الوعي يراقب سلوكنا لكنه لا يستهله في الواقع. يُستهل السلوك بصورة لاواعية، ويمكن للعقل الواعي حينئذ أن يرفضه، لكنه لا يستهله أو ينفذه
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مقتطفات من كتاب رؤية الأشياء كما هي للكاتب جون سيرل
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intentional , قصدي : فالقصدية هي تلك السمة العقلية الموجهة إلى أو حول أو عن الموضوعات والظروف في العالم. إن الجوع، والعطش، والمعتقدات، والتجارب الإدراكية، والنوايا والرغبات، والآمال، والمخاوف كلها قصدية؛ لأنها تتعلق بشيء ما
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phenomenological , فينومينولوجي : تشير الفينومينولوجيا إلى الجانب النوعي فقط من حالاتنا، وأحداثنا، وعملياتنا الواعية. كلما وُجد الوعي، كانت هناك فينومينولوجيا. وعندما تفقد الوعي تماما، فليست هناك فينومينولوجيا. وفي كثير من الأحيان، من الضروري وصف السمات الخاصة للإدراك الواعي، ولذلك أحتاج إلى مفردات الفينومينولوجيا لتنفيذ ذلك
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Representative Realism , الواقعية التمثيلية : التي تقول إننا ندرك تمثيلات )صور( العالم الحقيقي وليس الموضوعات الحقيقية نفسها.
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يظهر العلم أننا لا نرى العالم الحقيقي، لكننا لا نرى سوى سلسلة من الأحداث الناتجة عن تأثير العالم الحقيقي، عن طريق انعكاسات الضوء على جهازنا العصبي
---------
كيف يمكننا، على أساس الإدراك، أن نعرف أي حقائق عن العالم الواقعي؟ تستعصي المشكلة على الحل؛ لأن مدخلنا الإدراكي الوحيد يفضي إلى تجاربنا الشخصانية الخاصة، وليست هناك طريقة للانتقال من التجارب الشخصانية أنطولوجيا إلى العالم الحقيقي الموضوعي أنطولوجيا.
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إذا أنكرت الواقعية المباشرة، فلن تستطيع مطلقا أن تدرك الأشياء وظروف العالم بصورة مباشرة؛ فكيف يمكنك إذن الحصول على معرفة بحقائق العالم؟ الأجوبة التي قدمها ديكارت ولوك هي أن مدركاتنا للعالم، أي أفكارنا، تعطينا صورة عن كيفية سير الأمور في العالم. يبدو الأمر كأننا ظللنا نشاهد أحد الأفلام إلى الأبد، لكننا لا نستطيع مغادرة دار السينما. نحن نتعرف على العالم لأن الصور تشبه في بعض النواحي الموضوعات التي هي صور لها.
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ليس من المفترض أن تتناسب الرغبات والنوايا مع ماهية العالم، بل مع الكيفية التي نودها أن تكون عليها أو التي ننوي جعلها عليها
---------
إن الحالات القصدية، مثل المعتقدات والرغبات، لا تأتي بمفردها في الأغلبية الساحقة من الحالات. ولذلك لو كنت أعتقد، على سبيل المثال، أن أوباما رئيس، فلا بد أن يكون لديّ العديد من المعتقدات الأخرى من أجل إعطاء معنى لهذا الاعتقاد. يجب أن أؤمن بأن للولايات المتحدة حكومة، وأنها جمهورية، وأن هناك انتخابات رئاسية لانتخاب رئيس الحكومة، وأن الرئيس هو رأس السلطة التنفيذية للحكومة... إلخ. يمكنني استخدام شبكة التعبير للقول بأن الحالات القصدية لا تعمل، ولا تحدّد شروط إشباعها، إلا ضمن شبكة من الحالات القصدية
----------
هناك علاقات معقدة بين الفينومينولوجيا والمضمون القصدي. بالنسبة إلى معظم الحالات الأساسية، مثل رؤية اللون الأحمر أو الشعور بنعومة الطاولة، تحدد الفينومينولوجيا المضمون القصدي بالكامل. لكن أي تغيير في القصدية يؤدي في كثير من الأحيان إلى إحداث تغيير في الفينومينولوجيا. إذا ظننتُ أن الموضوع الذي أراه هو منزل، فسيبدو مختلفا عما يبدو عليه إذا ظننت أنه ليس سوى واجهة المنزل، حتى لو كان المحفّز البصري هو نفسه في الحالتين. إذا ظننت أن السيارة التي أنظر إليها هي سيارتي، فستبدو مختلفة بالنسبة إليّ عن السيارات المماثلة في النوع والمصنوعة في العام نفسه من قبل الشركة المصنعة نفسها.
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الخطأ الأكثر أهمية الذي ينبغي تفاديه هو الخلط بين المضمون والموضوع. يمكن لتجربتين إدراكيتين أن يكون لهما مضمونان متطابقان في النوع، لكن يكون لإحداهما موضوع أما الأخرى فلا. وينطبق هذا، كما ذكرت، على إدراك موضوع ما وعلى الهلوسة المقابلة. وفي هذه الحالة أُشبع الإدراك؛ ولم تُشبع الهلوسة. يمكن أن يكون لهما المضمون نفسه بالضبط، لكن هناك موضوعا في إحدى الحالتين وليس هناك في الحالة الأخرى
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عندما أفكر في شيء ما، تكون أفكاري تمثيلات للشيء الذي أفكر فيه. لكن عندما أدركه مباشرة - أي عندما أراه، على سبيل المثال - فإن تجاربي البصرية تكون تصويرات فعلية للموضوع والظروف التي أراها
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يستلزم التمييز بين الوهم/ الواقع تمييزاً بين كيف تبدو لك الأمور في الحالة الواعية وما هي عليه حقا. لكن عندما يتعلق الأمر بوجود الوعي، لا يمكنك إجراء هذا التمييز؛ لأن توهمك الواعي بالوعي هو حقيقة الوعي. ولأن الوعي لديه أنطولوجيا شخصانية أو بصيغة المتكلم؛ فلا يمكن اختزاله إلى أي أنطولوجيا موضوعية أو بصيغة الغائب
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إن اتجاه تجربتي الإدراكية يسير من العقل إلى العالم. وخلافا لرغباتي ومقاصدي، فمدركاتي ليست موجهة إلى تغيير العالم بحيث يتطابق مع مضمون تجاربي، لكن التجارب تبدو لي كأنها تعرض الكيفية التي يسير بها العالم.
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يستجيب الأشخاص المختلفون ذوو الخلفيات الثقافية المختلفة لنفس المحفز بصورة مختلفة، مثل العمل الفني نفسه
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فالمحفز نفسه تماما يمكنه أن ينتج تجارب شديدة الاختلاف، على رغم أن المرء لا ينخدع أو يعاني أي فشل آخر في الإدراك البصري - فليس هناك أدنى احتمال للهلوسة أو الضلالات، أو الوهم، إلخ
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المرء لا يرى الموضوعات والظروف في العالم أبدا، بل يرى التجارب الشخصانية الخاصة بالمرء فقط
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جميع تجاربنا الواعية، في أي لحظة بعينها، ناتجة عن عمليات تدور في الدماغ
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إن السمات الموضوعية أنطولوجيا للخصائص الإدراكية الأساسية للعالم تسبب تجارب بصرية يعرّف طابعها جزئيا خاصية العالم تلك. فالخط المستقيم هو ذلك الذي يبدو كذلك , حيث يعني يبدو ذلك انه قادر على تسبيب هذا النوع من التجارب البصرية. تنطبق هذه النقطة على الصفات الأولية فضلا على الصفات الثانوية.
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هناك فرق بين التجارب اللمسية والتجارب البصرية، وهو أن التجارب اللمسية أحاسيس، أما التجارب البصرية فليست كذلك. الشعور بالنعومة هو إحساس جسدي. من الممكن التوهم في حالة التجارب البصرية بأنها تتناقض بطريقة أو بأخرى مع التجارب اللمسية؛ لأنها ليست أحاسيس ذات موقع جسدي يُعايش بالطريقة التي يُعد بها الإحساس بالنعومة بالفعل إحساسا واعيا في أطراف أصابعي
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لا نستطيع بالفعل التوصل إلى استنتاجات مهمة ومشوّقة من خصائص الصور البصرية؛ لأن القرار المتعلق بتحديد ما يوضع في الصورة البصرية متروك لنا. بإمكاننا تخيّل صورة بصرية نكون فيها ملتزمين بوجود موضوع يُرى في المشهد المتخيّل، وصورة بصرية لها المضمون نفسه بالضبط، لكنها لا تنطوي على مثل هذا الالتزام
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إن الطريقة التي يتمكن بها الطفل من استخدام اللغة، والطريقة التي يمكنه بها معالجة المحفزات اللغوية، والطريقة التي يمكنه بها تشكيل الجمل، يُفترض أنها مسألة تتعلق بالعمليات الذهنية التي ليست لاواعية فقط بل هي - على عكس اللاوعي الفرويدي - ليست من ذلك النوع من الأشياء الذي يمكن للفاعل أن يصبح واعيا به. إن الحالات العقلية المعنية هي الحالات الحسابية. إذا كان للمرء أن يمثلها في نظرية، فلا بد أن تكون في صورة برنامج حاسوبي، أو - وهو الأكثر شيوعا - مجموعة من المصطلحات التقنية المستخدمة من قبل علماء النفس المعرفي واللغويين المحترفين
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هناك شك في أن الوعي لا يؤدي سوى دور فرعي للغاية في السلوك والإدراك البشريين، وأن العديد من الأشكال الحاسمة من الإدراك والفعل الإرادي هي أساسا لاواعية، أو أنه يمكن رصدها، استرشادا بالوعي، لكن استهلالها لاواع.
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ينبغي على ضارب البيسبول الذي تُقذف الكرة نحوه بسرعة أكبر من تسعين ميلا في الساعة أن يبدأ ضربته قبل أن يمكنه أن يصبح واعيا بقدوم الكرة. إذا انتظر جسده الوعي الكامل بالكرة، فستكون قد تجاوزته بالفعل
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الوعي يراقب سلوكنا لكنه لا يستهله في الواقع. يُستهل السلوك بصورة لاواعية، ويمكن للعقل الواعي حينئذ أن يرفضه، لكنه لا يستهله أو ينفذه
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April 18, 2018
عن الكتاب:
كتاب أكاديمي عن النظرية القصدية في الإدراك احد فروع علم النفس المعرفي.
كتاب محترم كعادة كتب عالم المعرفة الحقيقة، وإن لم أُدرج الكثير مما قرأته من تلك السلسلة على الموقع لأنه أغلبه استعملته في إعدادات فلم أقرأها بالكامل.
التقييم للمحتوى، طريقة الطرح، الترجمة، الاهتمام بتبسيط المحتوى قدر الإمكان، وليس بالضرورة بالاتفاق الكامل مع النظرية.
عني وعن رؤيتي للأمر:
- فالنظرية القصدية والنظريات الأخرى التي حللها الكاتب وأتى بالأدلة والشواهد كي يثبت ضعفها لا أرفضهما جملةً، فالأصل أن الوجهتين صحيحتين كلٌ في محله!
فما بسري على العالم المشهود يسري عليه ��لقصدية، وغير ذلك من العالم الغيبي تسري عليه باقي النظريات التي بحثت عما وراء ما تراه العين عن أثره.
كتاب أكاديمي عن النظرية القصدية في الإدراك احد فروع علم النفس المعرفي.
كتاب محترم كعادة كتب عالم المعرفة الحقيقة، وإن لم أُدرج الكثير مما قرأته من تلك السلسلة على الموقع لأنه أغلبه استعملته في إعدادات فلم أقرأها بالكامل.
التقييم للمحتوى، طريقة الطرح، الترجمة، الاهتمام بتبسيط المحتوى قدر الإمكان، وليس بالضرورة بالاتفاق الكامل مع النظرية.
عني وعن رؤيتي للأمر:
- فالنظرية القصدية والنظريات الأخرى التي حللها الكاتب وأتى بالأدلة والشواهد كي يثبت ضعفها لا أرفضهما جملةً، فالأصل أن الوجهتين صحيحتين كلٌ في محله!
فما بسري على العالم المشهود يسري عليه ��لقصدية، وغير ذلك من العالم الغيبي تسري عليه باقي النظريات التي بحثت عما وراء ما تراه العين عن أثره.
July 26, 2016
I've read several books by John Searle, and Seeing Things as They Are is another delightful read, even if I don't totally agree with the book. First, I'll lay out the positive aspects of the work before moving on to some criticisms. Searle's positive claim has to be right. When we see objects, events, or states of affairs in the world, it must be the case that something about the world must cause in us the sensations we have of those objects, events, or states of affairs. Maybe that sounds like gobbledygook, so take a more basic example, one that Searle uses: seeing a patch of red. Suppose I see in front of my the red cover of a book. Well, it must just be the case that for me to be able to see red, some feature of the outer world is capable of causing in me the ability to see red.
Searle thinks this is significant because he is the first philosopher, or so it appears, to say this. It amounts to saying that we have a direct connection to what we see (or hear, taste, touch, and smell) in the world, and that those things in the world are causing these sorts of experiences. Furthermore, he thinks this is important because if the account is right, then we have no reason to be skeptical about our experiences in the world: things are pretty much as they appear to be.
So what about illusions? He thinks that in those cases when we experience some optical (or auditory, etc.) illusion is that the brain is not properly interpreting the input. Something going on in our noggins is causing the illusion, and not the object itself.
All right, so very briefly I'll touch on some criticisms, but of course to be able to go into any of this in any detail, you'd have to do a full treatment of the view. But here goes, as a first stab. Searle thinks he's the first philosopher to say as much, and he might be--first mainstream philosopher, anyway. Moreover, he thinks that the other philosophers were just flat wrong about perceptual experience. But this is what Searle has gotten wrong. The other philosophers never said what Searle said because most of them took for granted his view as the easy problem, and were more interested in a harder problem, namely how the mind takes the input and interprets and constructs the perceptual experiences. Where Searle was looking outside to inside, the other philosophers were looking inside to outside.
Searle hand-waves the investigation of what's going on inside the head and says it's not really a philosophical problem but instead just a problem for neurobiologists. That seems to me to be too glib a view. It takes for granted the fact that investigation into how the mind works is still highly theoretical and, if you'd like, still concerned with philosophical matters, the same sorts of issues that Descartes on down to modern times were concerned with: how the mind interprets and constructs the experience of the world.
Searle dismisses some of the best work in this area from a cognitive scientist named David Marr seemingly on account of Searle's own prejudices. Marr proposed three levels of inquiry into how the mind solves problem, including how it would deal with perception. There's first the computational level, where the mental system has to solve some problem. Then the representational level where in order to solve the problem the system has to run certain key algorithms. Finally, there's the third, physical level where all the work is implemented. As far as I can tell, Searle dismisses all this work because he thinks that it relays on non-conscious processing whereas he thinks the focus on the brain/mind should be on conscious processing. And he asserts, without argument, that whatever is non-conscious must be capable of being made conscious.
Here's why Seattle's dismissal is all hogwash. Think about what's going on in your lower intestine. There are all sorts of non-conscious processing going on there, and you wouldn't want to know what was going on if you could. Still, all the processing occurs without you being aware or conscious of what's going on. What's wrong with saying the same for the brain/mind? Nothing stands in the way, it seems to me, except a prejudice.
Searle thinks this is significant because he is the first philosopher, or so it appears, to say this. It amounts to saying that we have a direct connection to what we see (or hear, taste, touch, and smell) in the world, and that those things in the world are causing these sorts of experiences. Furthermore, he thinks this is important because if the account is right, then we have no reason to be skeptical about our experiences in the world: things are pretty much as they appear to be.
So what about illusions? He thinks that in those cases when we experience some optical (or auditory, etc.) illusion is that the brain is not properly interpreting the input. Something going on in our noggins is causing the illusion, and not the object itself.
All right, so very briefly I'll touch on some criticisms, but of course to be able to go into any of this in any detail, you'd have to do a full treatment of the view. But here goes, as a first stab. Searle thinks he's the first philosopher to say as much, and he might be--first mainstream philosopher, anyway. Moreover, he thinks that the other philosophers were just flat wrong about perceptual experience. But this is what Searle has gotten wrong. The other philosophers never said what Searle said because most of them took for granted his view as the easy problem, and were more interested in a harder problem, namely how the mind takes the input and interprets and constructs the perceptual experiences. Where Searle was looking outside to inside, the other philosophers were looking inside to outside.
Searle hand-waves the investigation of what's going on inside the head and says it's not really a philosophical problem but instead just a problem for neurobiologists. That seems to me to be too glib a view. It takes for granted the fact that investigation into how the mind works is still highly theoretical and, if you'd like, still concerned with philosophical matters, the same sorts of issues that Descartes on down to modern times were concerned with: how the mind interprets and constructs the experience of the world.
Searle dismisses some of the best work in this area from a cognitive scientist named David Marr seemingly on account of Searle's own prejudices. Marr proposed three levels of inquiry into how the mind solves problem, including how it would deal with perception. There's first the computational level, where the mental system has to solve some problem. Then the representational level where in order to solve the problem the system has to run certain key algorithms. Finally, there's the third, physical level where all the work is implemented. As far as I can tell, Searle dismisses all this work because he thinks that it relays on non-conscious processing whereas he thinks the focus on the brain/mind should be on conscious processing. And he asserts, without argument, that whatever is non-conscious must be capable of being made conscious.
Here's why Seattle's dismissal is all hogwash. Think about what's going on in your lower intestine. There are all sorts of non-conscious processing going on there, and you wouldn't want to know what was going on if you could. Still, all the processing occurs without you being aware or conscious of what's going on. What's wrong with saying the same for the brain/mind? Nothing stands in the way, it seems to me, except a prejudice.
March 22, 2017
Whilst I agree with Searle to some degree, I think he failed to elucidate and defend his position. Much of the time he dismisses other theories saying "I can't take it seriously". He has to take them seriously in order to give a reasonable exposition of his opinions, and exudes intellectual arrogance in not doing so.
A lot of his views seem a bit problematic. For example, he dismisses the idea that "non-conscious neurobiological processes" have anything to do with his philosophy, because he is concerned only with consciousness. However, seeing as these processes give rise to consciousness (as he believes), they are surely worthy of consideration, as they must also therefore give rise to the intentionality he speaks of.
Furthermore, he dismisses the notion that the brain functions in a similar way to a computer (fair enough) and also that it performs computations, his reason being "computations are observer-relative", i.e. we design algorithms to produce outputs that we can interpret; the computer does not do any interpretation itself, whereas one cannot observe the results of the computations of one's brain, thus the brain does not perform computations. However, this line of reasoning is flawed. Interpretation is not a function that only humans can perform. In a sense, the results of a brain's computations are fed both into the environment and back to itself, so there is constant passive interpretation occurring in the sense of physical interactions/feedback loops.
Towards the start of the book, he claims to refute the "argument from science", and makes the following absurdity in the process: "Vision Science seeks an answer to the question: How do external stimuli cause conscious visual experience? And the answer is given by a detailed analysis of the mechanisms that begin at the photoreceptor cells and continue right through the cortex. The answer is that these processes terminate in the production of a conscious experience, which is realised right there in the brain. But then it looks like the visual experience is the only object that the subject can be aware of, that he can perceive." - a plain non-sequitur, so he isn't actually refuting anything here when he compares it to the "Bad Argument".
He also says such useless things as, to paraphrase, "the difference between perception and hallucination is that the hallucination isn't real". "The difference between Santa Claus and Obama is that Santa isn't real". Well fucking done.
Moreover, he completely dismisses representation theory, and doesn't seem to consider the fact that what we experience is never more than a representation, in our brain state, of the perceptual field, and is not the perceptual field itself. He does labour the point that we don't see our visual processing, and that the visual processing is sight, but I don't think it follows that representation is a wrong idea. At some point in the book he considers the fact that we have no perception of some wavelengths of light, but does not associate this fact with representation. There is considerable evidence to the contrary of this view. For example, kittens who are exposed only to a certain orientation of lines in the first few weeks after birth are blind to other orientations (https://computervisionblog.wordpress....). Searle would dismiss this case as "pathological", failing to see its implications for normal vision. What we see and how we see it obviously depends on our history, and he agrees with this fact, but then says that representation is false.
It's disappointing that he didn't explore further the causal connections between the environment, our brains, and our perceptions, or even attempt to refute solipsism this way. It comes off as lazy. He claims that solipsism is too absurd to consider, but provides no basis for this. Really, for a theory to be satisfactory, it should refute such absurdities.
There are a few more issues I have with this book, but I'll save them for myself. I'd be glad for anyone to defend the work in a comment.
A lot of his views seem a bit problematic. For example, he dismisses the idea that "non-conscious neurobiological processes" have anything to do with his philosophy, because he is concerned only with consciousness. However, seeing as these processes give rise to consciousness (as he believes), they are surely worthy of consideration, as they must also therefore give rise to the intentionality he speaks of.
Furthermore, he dismisses the notion that the brain functions in a similar way to a computer (fair enough) and also that it performs computations, his reason being "computations are observer-relative", i.e. we design algorithms to produce outputs that we can interpret; the computer does not do any interpretation itself, whereas one cannot observe the results of the computations of one's brain, thus the brain does not perform computations. However, this line of reasoning is flawed. Interpretation is not a function that only humans can perform. In a sense, the results of a brain's computations are fed both into the environment and back to itself, so there is constant passive interpretation occurring in the sense of physical interactions/feedback loops.
Towards the start of the book, he claims to refute the "argument from science", and makes the following absurdity in the process: "Vision Science seeks an answer to the question: How do external stimuli cause conscious visual experience? And the answer is given by a detailed analysis of the mechanisms that begin at the photoreceptor cells and continue right through the cortex. The answer is that these processes terminate in the production of a conscious experience, which is realised right there in the brain. But then it looks like the visual experience is the only object that the subject can be aware of, that he can perceive." - a plain non-sequitur, so he isn't actually refuting anything here when he compares it to the "Bad Argument".
He also says such useless things as, to paraphrase, "the difference between perception and hallucination is that the hallucination isn't real". "The difference between Santa Claus and Obama is that Santa isn't real". Well fucking done.
Moreover, he completely dismisses representation theory, and doesn't seem to consider the fact that what we experience is never more than a representation, in our brain state, of the perceptual field, and is not the perceptual field itself. He does labour the point that we don't see our visual processing, and that the visual processing is sight, but I don't think it follows that representation is a wrong idea. At some point in the book he considers the fact that we have no perception of some wavelengths of light, but does not associate this fact with representation. There is considerable evidence to the contrary of this view. For example, kittens who are exposed only to a certain orientation of lines in the first few weeks after birth are blind to other orientations (https://computervisionblog.wordpress....). Searle would dismiss this case as "pathological", failing to see its implications for normal vision. What we see and how we see it obviously depends on our history, and he agrees with this fact, but then says that representation is false.
It's disappointing that he didn't explore further the causal connections between the environment, our brains, and our perceptions, or even attempt to refute solipsism this way. It comes off as lazy. He claims that solipsism is too absurd to consider, but provides no basis for this. Really, for a theory to be satisfactory, it should refute such absurdities.
There are a few more issues I have with this book, but I'll save them for myself. I'd be glad for anyone to defend the work in a comment.
September 15, 2019
كان مقتضب جدًا في الأجزاء اللي بتتعلق بالبيولوجيا العصبية بطريقة محبطة. والقصدية الإدراكية نفسها مش مقنعة بشكل استثنائي.
May 4, 2018
أنهيت الفصل الأول ولم أستطع المواصلة، الكتناب صعب ويمكن أن يعطلني عن قراءة كتب أخري أهم منه.
ربما أعود إليه في وقت لاحق.
ربما أعود إليه في وقت لاحق.
January 3, 2017
Alright. Let's clear this up, with Mr. John Rogers Searle's help, once and for all.
There is a world of real things that exists independent of our selves whether we want it to or not.
You may have seen it. Trees, Rocks, Stars, the Milky Way, your Home, you get the picture.
However, if you have been steeped in Western Philosophy from at least Descartes moving forward, this has not been the state of affairs.
You see, the Westerns for some time now, have held that the only Perception we have is our own subjective experiences. We could, even, be brains in vats in the not too distant future, hooked up to whatever technology that could cause hallucinations.
In our postmodern times, think of the movie the Matrix...
However, Mr. Searle is here to save the day with 'Direct Realism' - the Philosophy of Mind that sets out to prove there is indeed a world out there beyond ourselves, and that we really do see 'Red' when there are Red Objects in front of us.
Wow....I don't know how Searle made his way into this angle, but it's shear brilliance, and very relevant...a hard hand smack to the face to wake us out of our solipsism.
Although Mr. Searle proves imminently cogent in explaining the 'What' of Direct Realism, later, you better plan on reading, re-reading and then re-re reading the 'How' of Direct Realism.
It is, it turns out, quite the task to prove there is a world, objective and real that exists outside ourselves...and Mr. Searle is certainly a good guide...
I'll leave it to you if he is able to follow all the way through on proving his philosophy....
There is a world of real things that exists independent of our selves whether we want it to or not.
You may have seen it. Trees, Rocks, Stars, the Milky Way, your Home, you get the picture.
However, if you have been steeped in Western Philosophy from at least Descartes moving forward, this has not been the state of affairs.
You see, the Westerns for some time now, have held that the only Perception we have is our own subjective experiences. We could, even, be brains in vats in the not too distant future, hooked up to whatever technology that could cause hallucinations.
In our postmodern times, think of the movie the Matrix...
However, Mr. Searle is here to save the day with 'Direct Realism' - the Philosophy of Mind that sets out to prove there is indeed a world out there beyond ourselves, and that we really do see 'Red' when there are Red Objects in front of us.
Wow....I don't know how Searle made his way into this angle, but it's shear brilliance, and very relevant...a hard hand smack to the face to wake us out of our solipsism.
Although Mr. Searle proves imminently cogent in explaining the 'What' of Direct Realism, later, you better plan on reading, re-reading and then re-re reading the 'How' of Direct Realism.
It is, it turns out, quite the task to prove there is a world, objective and real that exists outside ourselves...and Mr. Searle is certainly a good guide...
I'll leave it to you if he is able to follow all the way through on proving his philosophy....
December 25, 2021
كتاب وجدته عميق، حيث يحاول الكاتب إعادة فهم مفهوم الإدراك بطريقة تحليلية توسعية جداً.
لم أتمكن من كل شيء و لكنه تجربة جيدة.
لم أتمكن من كل شيء و لكنه تجربة جيدة.
Shelved as 'not-continued'
April 1, 2018حدث خطأ فى فهمى لعنوان الكتاب جعلنى اعتقد أن موضوعه هو المنطق لهذا اشتريته و اقبلت على قراءته و لكنى اكتشفت أن موضوعه هو الفلسفة .. اتممت الفصل الاول و لم احتمل اكثر من ذلك
ان ترى كتابا على الطاولة موضوع للخلاف بين الفلسفة هل يوجد كتاب حقا ؟ ام انه صورة لكتاب فى عالم اخر حقيقى ؟
بصيغة أخرى هل للكتاب و جود مادى خارج عقولنا ؟ ام انه صورة داخلية ( هلوسة ) ؟؟؟
اعتقد أن حسم هذا الأمر بسيط .. هل يراه شخص واحد ام الجميع ؟؟
فإذا كانت الإجابة هى الاولى ..
فهل توجد اختلافات اداركية أخرى بين هذا الشخص و البقية ام لا ؟؟ و بتتبعها يمكن الحكم على حالته العقلية
و ماذا لو كانت الإجابة هى الثانية و لكنك لازلت تحمل بعض الشك
يكون الحل .. فى البحث عن الصورة / المضمون الذى يراه المجموع بعد فصلهم عن بعض .. ما هى ابعاد الكتاب المادية (طوله و عرضه و سمكه ) ؟ ما العنوان ؟ ما هى صورة الغلاف و ألوانه ؟ كم عدد صفحاته ؟؟
فلو جاءت الإجابة موحدة فالجمع على صواب لان تكوين مضمون واحد للرؤية بدون قصدية لدى جمع منفصل من الناس أمر مستحيل
أما السؤال الأهم فى نظرى فهو .. متى ينبغى أن نبحث عن إجابة أسئلة كهذه حتى لا يتحول الأمر إلى متاهات عقلية و غياب عن الواقع و الحياة الحقيقية؟؟
و برغم نفورى من المجال الا انى اشهد بقوة منطق المؤلف حتى كدت اعتقد أن الكتاب يمكن أن يكون علاجا لداء حب الفلسفة لولا أن تذكرت أنه مقدم فى إطار علم الفلسفة مما يجعله علاجا لبعض الأفكار الفلسفية فقط
و يعاودنى ذلك السؤال مرة أخرى .. اين المشكلة ؟؟
هل هى فى الشك نفسه ؟ ام فى غياب حدود منهجية النقد أو التأكيد ؟ ام فى التحيزات المعرفية و النفسية ؟
ام أن امثالى هم من يتعجلون القفز إلى الاستنت��جات ؟؟
ان ترى كتابا على الطاولة موضوع للخلاف بين الفلسفة هل يوجد كتاب حقا ؟ ام انه صورة لكتاب فى عالم اخر حقيقى ؟
بصيغة أخرى هل للكتاب و جود مادى خارج عقولنا ؟ ام انه صورة داخلية ( هلوسة ) ؟؟؟
اعتقد أن حسم هذا الأمر بسيط .. هل يراه شخص واحد ام الجميع ؟؟
فإذا كانت الإجابة هى الاولى ..
فهل توجد اختلافات اداركية أخرى بين هذا الشخص و البقية ام لا ؟؟ و بتتبعها يمكن الحكم على حالته العقلية
و ماذا لو كانت الإجابة هى الثانية و لكنك لازلت تحمل بعض الشك
يكون الحل .. فى البحث عن الصورة / المضمون الذى يراه المجموع بعد فصلهم عن بعض .. ما هى ابعاد الكتاب المادية (طوله و عرضه و سمكه ) ؟ ما العنوان ؟ ما هى صورة الغلاف و ألوانه ؟ كم عدد صفحاته ؟؟
فلو جاءت الإجابة موحدة فالجمع على صواب لان تكوين مضمون واحد للرؤية بدون قصدية لدى جمع منفصل من الناس أمر مستحيل
أما السؤال الأهم فى نظرى فهو .. متى ينبغى أن نبحث عن إجابة أسئلة كهذه حتى لا يتحول الأمر إلى متاهات عقلية و غياب عن الواقع و الحياة الحقيقية؟؟
و برغم نفورى من المجال الا انى اشهد بقوة منطق المؤلف حتى كدت اعتقد أن الكتاب يمكن أن يكون علاجا لداء حب الفلسفة لولا أن تذكرت أنه مقدم فى إطار علم الفلسفة مما يجعله علاجا لبعض الأفكار الفلسفية فقط
و يعاودنى ذلك السؤال مرة أخرى .. اين المشكلة ؟؟
هل هى فى الشك نفسه ؟ ام فى غياب حدود منهجية النقد أو التأكيد ؟ ام فى التحيزات المعرفية و النفسية ؟
ام أن امثالى هم من يتعجلون القفز إلى الاستنت��جات ؟؟
March 2, 2018
Searle continues to expand the scope of his work, this time to include a theory of perception, pieces of which appeared in various earlier writings on intentionality.
By a theory of perception, Searle means something specific — a theory of how our subjective experiences of objects in the world are related to those objects themselves. By the very formulation of the problem, we can see that Searle is going to take a realist position. He refers to his position as “Direct Realism”, to indicate that, according to his view, when we perceive objects in the world, we perceive them directly, not through some evidentiary intermediary such as sense data.
In fact, perhaps the principal argument in the book concerns sense data, or anything else that is supposed as the direct object of perception rather than objects in the world themselves. Searle believes that by exposing what he calls “the Bad Argument” he will cut through a mistake he thinks “disastrous” for the history of epistemology and the theory of perception from the seventeenth century forward.
The “Bad Argument” seems to come down to a confusion about the relations between, in Searle’s terms, intentional content and intentional objects. The mistake is in thinking that wherever there is intentional content, there is an intentional object — whenever we have an experience, there is an object experienced. Thus, when we experience a hallucination, we have intentional content (the content of our hallucination) and then we suppose there to be an intentional object (the hallucination itself — some sort of of sensory object or “sense data”). And then we make the additional step of supposing that the analysis of the hallucination is the same as the analysis of any other perceptual experience — what we see in each case is sense data, the only difference being that the object of our experience sometimes does and sometimes does not match the reality outside our experience.
Searle’s own account relies on a strong distinction between intentional content and intentional object. When we see a chair, we have the experience of a chair — that is the intentional content. But the intentional object is the chair itself, not something internal to our experience. In other words, we experience chairs, not some internal representation, idea, or set of sense data.
The two — intentional content and intentional object — are related causally. What differentiates the hallucination from the veridical case is that, in the veridical case, our intentional content is caused by the chair. In the hallucination, it is not.
On this account, Searle does not have the traditional problem of making sense of representation in the perceptual context. Seeing a chair doesn't consist in having or seeing some internal image of a chair that represents real, objective chairs. We do not see images in our heads that, in veridical perception, represent objects in the world. What we see are just objects in the world. Nothing represents anything.
In place of representation, though, he does have to account for the causal relationship between objects in the world and our perceptual experiences. Abandoning representation has a cost, and there was an important role played by representation. Veridical perception requires not just that the perceptual experience be caused by something, but that it be caused by the right kind of thing. In the “brain in a vat” scenario, where, in a Matrix-like world, we are fed continuous illusions of reality, the experience of a red chair, for example, is certainly caused — it just isn’t caused by the right kind of thing.
As I read him, Searle’s response is a bit tricky. What he says is that “for something to be red in the ontologically objective world is for it to be capable of causing ontologically subjective visual experiences like this.” In other words, being red consists in causing red experiences. Actually, he qualifies the claim, in most passages, by saying that being red, for example, consists “at least in part” in its causing red experiences.
Since he isn't giving a representational account, he isn't going to say that the object itself shares a likeness to our perceptions in some way. Instead the relationship is constitutive and at least quasi-logical -- what systematically causes red experiences just is red. This is central to his notion of "intentional causality" in which cause and effect bear a different, "internal" relationship to one another than causes and effects of the "billiard ball" variety, in which cause and effect can be defined independently of one another.
This claim sounds dangerously close to Berkeleyian idealism, which Searle certainly wants to deny. Berkeley’s “esse est percepi” (“to be is to be perceived”) sounds superficially much like Searle’s claim. The test of whether or not something is red (or a chair) is that it produces that sort of perceptual experience.
Searle of course maintains a kind of causal distance between the experience and its object that Berkeley does not. That places a great burden on “cause” in Searle’s theory. He accordingly claims that the causal relationship is itself imminently observable, although, to me, the more compelling examples have to do with action (lifting my arm) rather than more passive perception (seeing a chair). I’m not sure where I come out on Searle’s claim.
A different aspect of Searle’s theory is the perception of everyday objects. Although he supports "Direct Realism,” Searle does not think that the perception of familiar objects is really very simple. Seeing a car is a complicated matter. That our experience is caused by the object that is a car, if we grant that, is one thing. But our actual recognition of the object as a car is another. Cars exist and are defined as cars in a world of relations, actions, etc. that influence our experience of objects in such a way as to make them experiences of cars. We have to have some familiarity with cars to recognize cars when we see them.
Searle addresses this problem with a hierarchy of perceptual features. As he says, seeing a car is dependent on perceiving other perceptual features. Seeing the car is dependent on seeing its shape. The shape of the car, unlike the car itself, is “basic” — it is not dependent on seeing other perceptual features, and it is perceivable by anyone. Seeing a car is dependent on seeing its shape, and also on other things like my understanding what a car is.
It’s a little surprising to see Searle adopt a notion of “basic perceptual features,” given the historical association of such an idea with sense data theories. In addition to the problem Searle raises for sense data (the claim that all we really see is our own impressions and not real objects), sense data theories have a problem in reconstructing perceptions of familiar objects from the paltry data of color patches and shapes. Searle now has a similar problem. His answer here isn’t complete — it involves both what we could call geometrical construction (e.g., 3D objects from 2D colored shapes) and more involved workings of what he refers to as the “Background” — our understandings of cars, effects of perspective, etc. His account sounds a bit more like a project than a done deal.
These two issues — making good on the causal relationships between subjective experiences and objective realities, and accounting for the complex perception of familiar objects — are ones that I’m not entirely convinced Searle has resolved.
Those are issues with the problem that Searle is trying to solve. Separately, I think it is important for understanding Searle’s project to distinguish that problem from one he is not solving. He is not solving the problem of skepticism, which he says he doesn’t find particularly interesting.
The problem he is solving is accounting for perception, or how our perceptual experience relates to objects in the world. The skeptical problem is one of determining whether or not those perceptual experiences are in fact related to real objects in the world that in some way match (or are related in a preferred way to) those experiences, a related but distinct problem. And we could grant that what distinguishes the veridical from the hallucinatory is the presence or absence of the intentional object causing the intentional content without supposing that we ever know when it in fact is true that the intentional object is causing the intentional content. This would just be a different formulation of the skeptical problem.
In evaluating his theory, the fact that he has not solved the problem of skepticism is neither here nor there. The value of his theory is rather in whether or not he has successfully explained how perceptual experiences relate to objects outside experience, in objective reality.
By a theory of perception, Searle means something specific — a theory of how our subjective experiences of objects in the world are related to those objects themselves. By the very formulation of the problem, we can see that Searle is going to take a realist position. He refers to his position as “Direct Realism”, to indicate that, according to his view, when we perceive objects in the world, we perceive them directly, not through some evidentiary intermediary such as sense data.
In fact, perhaps the principal argument in the book concerns sense data, or anything else that is supposed as the direct object of perception rather than objects in the world themselves. Searle believes that by exposing what he calls “the Bad Argument” he will cut through a mistake he thinks “disastrous” for the history of epistemology and the theory of perception from the seventeenth century forward.
The “Bad Argument” seems to come down to a confusion about the relations between, in Searle’s terms, intentional content and intentional objects. The mistake is in thinking that wherever there is intentional content, there is an intentional object — whenever we have an experience, there is an object experienced. Thus, when we experience a hallucination, we have intentional content (the content of our hallucination) and then we suppose there to be an intentional object (the hallucination itself — some sort of of sensory object or “sense data”). And then we make the additional step of supposing that the analysis of the hallucination is the same as the analysis of any other perceptual experience — what we see in each case is sense data, the only difference being that the object of our experience sometimes does and sometimes does not match the reality outside our experience.
Searle’s own account relies on a strong distinction between intentional content and intentional object. When we see a chair, we have the experience of a chair — that is the intentional content. But the intentional object is the chair itself, not something internal to our experience. In other words, we experience chairs, not some internal representation, idea, or set of sense data.
The two — intentional content and intentional object — are related causally. What differentiates the hallucination from the veridical case is that, in the veridical case, our intentional content is caused by the chair. In the hallucination, it is not.
On this account, Searle does not have the traditional problem of making sense of representation in the perceptual context. Seeing a chair doesn't consist in having or seeing some internal image of a chair that represents real, objective chairs. We do not see images in our heads that, in veridical perception, represent objects in the world. What we see are just objects in the world. Nothing represents anything.
In place of representation, though, he does have to account for the causal relationship between objects in the world and our perceptual experiences. Abandoning representation has a cost, and there was an important role played by representation. Veridical perception requires not just that the perceptual experience be caused by something, but that it be caused by the right kind of thing. In the “brain in a vat” scenario, where, in a Matrix-like world, we are fed continuous illusions of reality, the experience of a red chair, for example, is certainly caused — it just isn’t caused by the right kind of thing.
As I read him, Searle’s response is a bit tricky. What he says is that “for something to be red in the ontologically objective world is for it to be capable of causing ontologically subjective visual experiences like this.” In other words, being red consists in causing red experiences. Actually, he qualifies the claim, in most passages, by saying that being red, for example, consists “at least in part” in its causing red experiences.
Since he isn't giving a representational account, he isn't going to say that the object itself shares a likeness to our perceptions in some way. Instead the relationship is constitutive and at least quasi-logical -- what systematically causes red experiences just is red. This is central to his notion of "intentional causality" in which cause and effect bear a different, "internal" relationship to one another than causes and effects of the "billiard ball" variety, in which cause and effect can be defined independently of one another.
This claim sounds dangerously close to Berkeleyian idealism, which Searle certainly wants to deny. Berkeley’s “esse est percepi” (“to be is to be perceived”) sounds superficially much like Searle’s claim. The test of whether or not something is red (or a chair) is that it produces that sort of perceptual experience.
Searle of course maintains a kind of causal distance between the experience and its object that Berkeley does not. That places a great burden on “cause” in Searle’s theory. He accordingly claims that the causal relationship is itself imminently observable, although, to me, the more compelling examples have to do with action (lifting my arm) rather than more passive perception (seeing a chair). I’m not sure where I come out on Searle’s claim.
A different aspect of Searle’s theory is the perception of everyday objects. Although he supports "Direct Realism,” Searle does not think that the perception of familiar objects is really very simple. Seeing a car is a complicated matter. That our experience is caused by the object that is a car, if we grant that, is one thing. But our actual recognition of the object as a car is another. Cars exist and are defined as cars in a world of relations, actions, etc. that influence our experience of objects in such a way as to make them experiences of cars. We have to have some familiarity with cars to recognize cars when we see them.
Searle addresses this problem with a hierarchy of perceptual features. As he says, seeing a car is dependent on perceiving other perceptual features. Seeing the car is dependent on seeing its shape. The shape of the car, unlike the car itself, is “basic” — it is not dependent on seeing other perceptual features, and it is perceivable by anyone. Seeing a car is dependent on seeing its shape, and also on other things like my understanding what a car is.
It’s a little surprising to see Searle adopt a notion of “basic perceptual features,” given the historical association of such an idea with sense data theories. In addition to the problem Searle raises for sense data (the claim that all we really see is our own impressions and not real objects), sense data theories have a problem in reconstructing perceptions of familiar objects from the paltry data of color patches and shapes. Searle now has a similar problem. His answer here isn’t complete — it involves both what we could call geometrical construction (e.g., 3D objects from 2D colored shapes) and more involved workings of what he refers to as the “Background” — our understandings of cars, effects of perspective, etc. His account sounds a bit more like a project than a done deal.
These two issues — making good on the causal relationships between subjective experiences and objective realities, and accounting for the complex perception of familiar objects — are ones that I’m not entirely convinced Searle has resolved.
Those are issues with the problem that Searle is trying to solve. Separately, I think it is important for understanding Searle’s project to distinguish that problem from one he is not solving. He is not solving the problem of skepticism, which he says he doesn’t find particularly interesting.
The problem he is solving is accounting for perception, or how our perceptual experience relates to objects in the world. The skeptical problem is one of determining whether or not those perceptual experiences are in fact related to real objects in the world that in some way match (or are related in a preferred way to) those experiences, a related but distinct problem. And we could grant that what distinguishes the veridical from the hallucinatory is the presence or absence of the intentional object causing the intentional content without supposing that we ever know when it in fact is true that the intentional object is causing the intentional content. This would just be a different formulation of the skeptical problem.
In evaluating his theory, the fact that he has not solved the problem of skepticism is neither here nor there. The value of his theory is rather in whether or not he has successfully explained how perceptual experiences relate to objects outside experience, in objective reality.
April 30, 2020
كتاب لا يمكن أن يقود لأي شيء يحاول فيه جون سيرل حل مشكلة فلسفية بمجرد ألعاب لغوية لأثبات ما يريد أن يتصوره عن العالم. "الواقعية المباشرة" أو اسمها الآخر "الواقعية الساذجة" -و الذي يبدو أنه مناسب جدا- كنظرية عن العالم, كعالم يمكن اختباره بشكل مباشر عوضا عن المثالية أو الاشكال المتعددة من الواقعية غير المباشرة هي نظرية عوجاء جدا تعارض النظرة الرئيسية للفلسفة و العلوم الطبيعية في آن واحد, و سيتطلب إثباتها ما هو أكثر من مجرد سوء استخدام لفظي في بناء تلك النظريات (قد يكون سوء الاستخدام موجود في تلك النظريات فعلا) و لكن هذا لا يثبت تلقائيا أننا نختبر العالم مباشرة على صورته الحقيقية, أتعجب كيف أمكن لفيلسوف كبير كجون سيرل أن يقوم بتلك القفزة الاستنتاجية ليصف النظريات الأخرى عن اختبار العالم ب"الحجة السيئة", و يمضي بعد ذلك في توضيح تبعات الواقعية المباشرة على كل شيء و أي شيء كأنها ثبتت و تحققت, و عليه فإن الكتاب يصلح فقط كمثال على سهولة استخدام الفلاسفة للألعاب اللغوية لأثبات ما يريدونه عن طريق التشتيت و التعقيد المصطنع.
April 14, 2019
Me ---> Phenenomology
I summed it up right there.
I summed it up right there.
October 18, 2022
Say what you want about John Searle – the man knows how to build an argument. In Seeing Things As They Are, Searle expands on his earlier phenomenological work, Intentionality (1983), and turns his attention toward consciousness and the visual experience. His thesis is quite technical, but I’ll do my best to present the gist of it here.
Quickly, Searle thinks that the phenomena-noumena distinction laid out by Kant is completely wrong and incoherent. In fact, he considers all statements about phenomena, qualia, sense data, or evidence as unfortunate hand-me-downs from Cartesian dualism, which he, somewhat irreverently, refers to as “the bad argument” throughout the book. Contra-Descartes, Searle posits a view that he calls “direct realism”. In effect, he thinks that we can – and do – have direct, immediate and objective knowledge of the world because we are already in the world. When we look at a red ball, we don’t see sense data or qualia or impressions as another layer of perception above and over the red ball – we’re simply just seeing the red ball itself.
For Searle, this tethering between the ontologically subjective mind with the ontologically objective world is both consistent with the current understanding of neurobiology, and devastating to any arguments that hinge on mind-body dualism. In a way, I can see why Hubert Dreyfus thought that Searle’s intentionality was more compatible with Heidegger’s being-in-the-world than Searle would ever care to admit. I actually somewhat prefer Heidegger’s view over Searle’s, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
It’s curious that Searle refers to Cartesian dualism as “the bad argument” throughout the book, even though he relies on the sort of dichotomous reasoning which invites dualism into his core arguments. Consider the following passage: “There is the object outside the head that causes a conscious experience inside the head. The conscious experience presents the object as its conditions of satisfaction” [my emphasis]. In this passage and many others, Searle seems to take away Cartesianism with one hand, only to give it back with the other. Distinctions of inside and outside, subject and object, mind and world – these are all very much still intact in Searle’s writing. He appeals to the language associated with a dualistic ontology, even as he tries to refute the dualist tradition. This is where I give Heidegger some credit; although his language was often impenetrable, at least he was trying to shed the language associated with Cartesianism by demanding a new way to speak about ontology. Of course, this demand took Heidegger to some insanely solipsistic places. But I can at least appreciate the motivation behind the odd word choices and strange ideas of Being and Time.
After my reading of Seeing Things As They Are, I don’t think that Searle offered a convincing refutation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, nor did he address the structuralism which stemmed from the Kantian tradition, such as the developmental psychology of Piaget. I don’t buy the argument that we have unmediated and direct access to the world, or that we can somehow know things in themselves apart from our private experience. I do agree that there must be some kind of coherence between mind and world which makes any knowledge possible – even fragmentary or partial knowledge. Yet it’s quite another thing to assert that the object I see in front of me looks exactly the way it does to every observer in the world, due to its intrinsically causal “conditions of satisfaction”. To this, I ask: how does Searle respond to the role of the observer in a quantum mechanical universe? His system seems totally inadequate to handle such problems.
Hats off to Searle for being one of the toughest, most rigorous and systematic thinkers I've encountered. However, for the time being, I think I'll take Kant's transcendental idealism over his direct realism.
Quickly, Searle thinks that the phenomena-noumena distinction laid out by Kant is completely wrong and incoherent. In fact, he considers all statements about phenomena, qualia, sense data, or evidence as unfortunate hand-me-downs from Cartesian dualism, which he, somewhat irreverently, refers to as “the bad argument” throughout the book. Contra-Descartes, Searle posits a view that he calls “direct realism”. In effect, he thinks that we can – and do – have direct, immediate and objective knowledge of the world because we are already in the world. When we look at a red ball, we don’t see sense data or qualia or impressions as another layer of perception above and over the red ball – we’re simply just seeing the red ball itself.
For Searle, this tethering between the ontologically subjective mind with the ontologically objective world is both consistent with the current understanding of neurobiology, and devastating to any arguments that hinge on mind-body dualism. In a way, I can see why Hubert Dreyfus thought that Searle’s intentionality was more compatible with Heidegger’s being-in-the-world than Searle would ever care to admit. I actually somewhat prefer Heidegger’s view over Searle’s, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
It’s curious that Searle refers to Cartesian dualism as “the bad argument” throughout the book, even though he relies on the sort of dichotomous reasoning which invites dualism into his core arguments. Consider the following passage: “There is the object outside the head that causes a conscious experience inside the head. The conscious experience presents the object as its conditions of satisfaction” [my emphasis]. In this passage and many others, Searle seems to take away Cartesianism with one hand, only to give it back with the other. Distinctions of inside and outside, subject and object, mind and world – these are all very much still intact in Searle’s writing. He appeals to the language associated with a dualistic ontology, even as he tries to refute the dualist tradition. This is where I give Heidegger some credit; although his language was often impenetrable, at least he was trying to shed the language associated with Cartesianism by demanding a new way to speak about ontology. Of course, this demand took Heidegger to some insanely solipsistic places. But I can at least appreciate the motivation behind the odd word choices and strange ideas of Being and Time.
After my reading of Seeing Things As They Are, I don’t think that Searle offered a convincing refutation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, nor did he address the structuralism which stemmed from the Kantian tradition, such as the developmental psychology of Piaget. I don’t buy the argument that we have unmediated and direct access to the world, or that we can somehow know things in themselves apart from our private experience. I do agree that there must be some kind of coherence between mind and world which makes any knowledge possible – even fragmentary or partial knowledge. Yet it’s quite another thing to assert that the object I see in front of me looks exactly the way it does to every observer in the world, due to its intrinsically causal “conditions of satisfaction”. To this, I ask: how does Searle respond to the role of the observer in a quantum mechanical universe? His system seems totally inadequate to handle such problems.
Hats off to Searle for being one of the toughest, most rigorous and systematic thinkers I've encountered. However, for the time being, I think I'll take Kant's transcendental idealism over his direct realism.
June 3, 2021
" يمكن للمعتقدات أن تكون إما واعية وإما غير واعية ، وفي واقع الأمر أن معظم معتقداتنا تكون لا واعية في معظم الوقت ".*
......
" للأشياء والظروف وجود مستقل ، بمعنى أنها موجودة بشكل مستقل عن معايشتنا لها ". *
رؤية الأشياء كما هي :
يقدم الكتاب قراءة شاملة حول قصدية تجربة " الإدراك " حيث يرى سيرل أننا ندرك الأشياء والحالات مباشرة وليس فقط من خلال تمثيلاتها ، موضحاً أن هناك مقولة خاطئة ما زالت الفلسفة تقع فيها منذ القرن التاسع عشر بخصوص الإدراك ؛ وهي :
" أننا لا نستطيع أن ندرك مباشرة سوى تجاربنا الشخصانية الخاصة ، لكننا لا نستطيع مطلقاً أن ندرك الموضوعات وظروف العالم في حد ذاتها ".
من خلال قراءة الكتاب نستطيع معرفة الكيفية التي تحددها الفينومينولوجيا " الخبرة الحسية للظواهر " الخام للتجارب الإدراكية المضمون عن طريق دمج السببية القصدية مع الخصائص الإدرا��ية الأساسية للعالم ، والتي تسبب التجربة .
" أن المحفز البصري نفسه سينتج استجابات مختلفة تماماً لدى الأشخاص اعتماداً على القدرات الخلفية التي يجلبونها للتأثير في التجربة ". *
كما ويفسر المؤلف أيضا كيف تؤدي بنية التجارب الإدراكية إلى مدركات رفيعة المستوى وشديدة التعقيد ، والتي ترتكز على القدرات الإدراكية الأساسية المفروضة بيولوجيا .
" والإدراك الأساس هو أي إدراك لموضوع أو لسمة قد توجد لديك من دون إدراك أي شيء آخر عن طريق إدراكك لها ". *
صدقاً كتاب ثري فيه من التبسيط ما يجعلك تشعر بتعقيد الأمور أكثر 😅 أول مرة بكتب مراجعة بأخذها بشكل شبه حرفي من الكتاب 😬
#جون_ر_سيرل
#رؤية_الأشياء_كما_هي :نظرية للإدراك
#مروه
......
" للأشياء والظروف وجود مستقل ، بمعنى أنها موجودة بشكل مستقل عن معايشتنا لها ". *
رؤية الأشياء كما هي :
يقدم الكتاب قراءة شاملة حول قصدية تجربة " الإدراك " حيث يرى سيرل أننا ندرك الأشياء والحالات مباشرة وليس فقط من خلال تمثيلاتها ، موضحاً أن هناك مقولة خاطئة ما زالت الفلسفة تقع فيها منذ القرن التاسع عشر بخصوص الإدراك ؛ وهي :
" أننا لا نستطيع أن ندرك مباشرة سوى تجاربنا الشخصانية الخاصة ، لكننا لا نستطيع مطلقاً أن ندرك الموضوعات وظروف العالم في حد ذاتها ".
من خلال قراءة الكتاب نستطيع معرفة الكيفية التي تحددها الفينومينولوجيا " الخبرة الحسية للظواهر " الخام للتجارب الإدراكية المضمون عن طريق دمج السببية القصدية مع الخصائص الإدرا��ية الأساسية للعالم ، والتي تسبب التجربة .
" أن المحفز البصري نفسه سينتج استجابات مختلفة تماماً لدى الأشخاص اعتماداً على القدرات الخلفية التي يجلبونها للتأثير في التجربة ". *
كما ويفسر المؤلف أيضا كيف تؤدي بنية التجارب الإدراكية إلى مدركات رفيعة المستوى وشديدة التعقيد ، والتي ترتكز على القدرات الإدراكية الأساسية المفروضة بيولوجيا .
" والإدراك الأساس هو أي إدراك لموضوع أو لسمة قد توجد لديك من دون إدراك أي شيء آخر عن طريق إدراكك لها ". *
صدقاً كتاب ثري فيه من التبسيط ما يجعلك تشعر بتعقيد الأمور أكثر 😅 أول مرة بكتب مراجعة بأخذها بشكل شبه حرفي من الكتاب 😬
#جون_ر_سيرل
#رؤية_الأشياء_كما_هي :نظرية للإدراك
#مروه
November 20, 2016
This was the first serious set of writings on philosophy of perception that I have read, which makes me hesitant to accept all of Searle's arguments immediately. His main contention seems very convincing, but I am not certain what I think about some of his other claims. Searle also reviewed, and responded to, many other positions within philosophy of perception and related fields, which acted as a useful introduction for me to the field. Searle's writing style was simple, but entertaining and very easy to understand. Overall, a good read, and one which makes me want to read much more of Searle's work.
January 31, 2019
This is a rough read, it has a lot of heavy duty theories and vocabulary, but it is very interesting. Searles discusses perception and the different views, especially from the field of philosophy, on what is perceived and what is not, and do we actually see. Pretty heady stuff, have a dictionary with in reach if you check it out.
December 23, 2017
It's very neat. Useful for getting yourself clear on intentionality, regardless of where you stand relative to Searle. There was UNsaid here which I found very helpful.
March 31, 2018
اذا كنت تحب تتفلسف و تحب الفلسفة ؟ فهذا الكتاب سيكون المفضل لديك : )
May 25, 2019
كتاب جميل ومختلف
انصح به
انصح به
December 20, 2020
Too long
March 2, 2017
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is well-researched and well written. Searle has the ability to clearly explain complex phenomena such as perception and render it interesting. I learned a considerable amount about perception. I would recommend viewing one of his YouTube explanations or discussions to see if you like his approach. Well worth reading!
May 22, 2020
The beginning and end were decent... the middle just dragged (for me)
April 6, 2022
This is my second reading. I started this read on the flight to the Bahamas. I did not understand this book the first time I read it. I could not understand how one could establish conditions of satisfaction when it comes to perception. In the case of beliefs, the facts establish the conditions of satisfaction. But, intentionality does not eliminate the issue of my experience versus the way things are.
He is a realist and opposed to representationalism and phenomenalism. He does admit near the end of the book that he does not solve the issue of veridicality. He instead claims he finds representationalism and phenomenalism to be implausible because they both ground out in solipsism.
He takes a look at the recent theory called disjunctivism and claims it accepts representationalism and so cannot be realist. The idea here is that a real experience and a hallucinatory experience cannot be imagined to be identical according to the disjunctivists. This implies there is something more, something missing between the two experiences. But, as he points out this identicality is stipulated at the beginning of the argument.
He is a realist and opposed to representationalism and phenomenalism. He does admit near the end of the book that he does not solve the issue of veridicality. He instead claims he finds representationalism and phenomenalism to be implausible because they both ground out in solipsism.
He takes a look at the recent theory called disjunctivism and claims it accepts representationalism and so cannot be realist. The idea here is that a real experience and a hallucinatory experience cannot be imagined to be identical according to the disjunctivists. This implies there is something more, something missing between the two experiences. But, as he points out this identicality is stipulated at the beginning of the argument.
November 22, 2016
John Searle is arguably the most presumptuous philosopher alive. His strenuous defence of naive realism is riddiculous and its weakness is ostended by the same person who's trying to defend it in the chapter regarding the problem of Putnam's brain in a pool, which Searle admits being defenseless against at the end. It may not look like much, but that's because he conveniently gives it very little room: the whole problem with naive realism rests in the impossibility to be certain of the non-existence of a reality the one we experience depends on, and Searle can say nothing about it, lest he destroy his whole system. It also looks like he has no clue whatsoever of Kant's transcendental idealism, doing an awful mess while trying to prove every "Great Philosopher" stupid. On a phenomenological level the essay contains some interesting ideas (for instance, the difference between objective and subjective ontology) and good answers to intentionalism's adversaries.
April 28, 2023
Broadly helpful reflections on perception and sight.
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November 20, 2015121.34 S4394 2015
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