HILARY PUTNAM
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nervous system , but since it can also be causally explained by my
wish to hand someone an ashtray, there is no question of this wish
being something which I feel before the arm moves, but which does
not "really" cause the arm to move.
I have indicated that practicing philosophers today feel a strong
sense of
deja vu
when they read this sort of thing. Ayer will reply that
he is quite aware that his views are "out of fashion." But is a change
of fashion really all that is in question? A change of fashion is cer–
tainly part of what is involved. As Ayer remarks, materia,lism is
again in vogue, at least in American and Australian philosophy, and
"sense-qualia" are out of vogue. But more is also involved. What
analytic philosophers of almost any persuasion will regard as strange
is that Ayer ignores an enormous amount of discussion of the issue of
recognition of sense-qualia. Ayer has, so to speak, no interest in
cognitive psychology. But a cognitive psychology of some sort - a
theory of the mind - is what is needed to back his talk of "primary
recognition ." Thus, the possibility of misinterpreting one's sense–
data is mentioned only in passing (they are qualitatively the same
even if one misinterprets them, according to Ayer, who agrees with
C .
I.
Lewis on this point) . There are no entries under "corrigibility,"
"inco rrigibility," or "privileged access" in the index, although these
are notions around which discussion has centered for the last forty
years.
To see why this ought to be a problem for Ayer, let us recall
tha t Ayer follows Hume in regarding causal statements as just a
special class of regularity statements. Certain sorts of regularities
may be especially important and useful, and we may call them
"causal" for that reason , but this should not mislead us, Ayer argues,
into believing that the event we call the "cause" somehow
necessitates
the events we call the "effect." This is why Ayer can think that two
such different events (in his view) as an electrochemical event in my
brain and a desire to hand someone an ashtray can both cause the
motion of my arm; why shouldn't the regularity statements, "When I
wish to hand someone an ashtray my arm moves in such-and-such a
way" and "When such-and-such an electrochemical event takes place
in my brain my arm moves in such-and-such a way" both be true?
("How can two different events
both
bring about the motion of my
arm?" is only a confused question on the Hume-Ayer view.)
Imagine now that someone misinterprets a sense-quale on a
particular occasion . I myself once referred to a sweater as "blue"
