What is involved in the claim that one directly perceives an object? The notion of
direct perception that I propose to defend in this paper is this: that one 'directly'
perceives an object if one's perception of this object is not mediated by beliefs. Put
another way, a 'direct' perceiver does not believe anything about an object in (directly)
perceiving it. On this construal of the notion of direct perception, it follows that if
one directly perceives an object, one does not describe this object; for any description
of an object is expressed as a belief, and direct perceptions do not involve beliefs. The
direct perceiver, I claim, does not (and indeed may be completely unable to) give a
description of the perceived object, without this lack (or inability) detracting from the
fact that the object is directly perceived.
In defending this view of direct perception, we need to become clearer on how it is
possible for a belief to mediate one's perception of an object. There are (at least) two
ways in which this can occur. Here's the first.
A belief can be said to mediate one's perception of an object if a belief serves as a
premise from which one deduces that an object is perceived. That is, in a perceptual
situation, a belief mediates one's perception of an object if one infers that one is
perceiving this object on the basis of some belief or beliefs that one has. Clearly, this
is a form of what many people would call indirect perception. It includes such cases as
perceiving something on the basis of, or by means of, perceiving something else. And, I
submit, if this is what it means for a belief to mediate one's perception of an object, it
follows that there are, in fact, such things as direct perceptions, and that the object of
a direct perception is an undescribed object. For, to begin with, any chain of inferences
has to start somewhere; and, eventually, there has to be a belief, state of mind, or state
of the world, of which one is aware, without one's having been aware of some other belief,
state of mind, or state of the world beforehand. Such a belief, state of mind, or state of
the world is directly, that is, noninferentially, perceived. Furthermore, suppose that the
object of a direct (noninferential) perception is a described object. Since, once again,
any description of an object is expressed as a belief, and since we are assuming here that
the way for a belief to mediate one's perception of an object is by means of an inference,
this means that the belief expressing the description is playing an inferential role in
perceiving the object—which contradicts our assumption that the object of perception
is uninferred. And so, by reductio, the object of a direct (noninferential) perception is
an undescribed object. Thus, if all one means by the directness of perception is its
uninferredness, then there's little doubt that there are direct perceptions, and that if
one directly perceives an object, one does not describe this object.
However, a belief can mediate one's perception of an object in another sense. On this
other sense, although no belief is needed as a premise from which one infers that one is
perceiving an object, a belief is still needed in an auxiliary capacity in the context of
a perception in so far as one needs to have a belief that to some extent describes the
perceived object. Clearly, if mediation in this new sense is unavoidable in a perceptual
situation, then the notion of direct perception I favor is untenable. Thus, I propose to
defend my notion of direct perception in the following way: I shall examine three reasons
why one might claim that perception is mediated in the way suggested; and, by rebutting
each of these reasons in turn, I hope to show that my view of direct perception, according
to which directly perceived objects are not described objects, is on philosophically sound
footing.
Here, then, are three reasons supporting the claim that perception needs to be mediated
by descriptive beliefs.
Reason (1): for every perception, there is an attendant, descriptive belief because a
perception devoid of such a belief lacks epistemological value—in short, it cannot
generate any information about its object. We need, at this point, to consider two senses
of the phrase 'epistemological value'. On the first sense, the stated worry is exactly
right; and if this were the only sense of 'epistemological value', we would have a strong,
epistemological argument against the claim that perceptions are unmediated by descriptive
beliefs, and so a strong, epistemological argument against the claim that the objects of
perception can ever languish undescribed. The first sense of 'epistemological value' is
this: a perception has epistemological value if it is capable of generating true beliefs
about its object. And, to be sure, in a situation where one perceives an object without
the presence of any attendant, descriptive beliefs about this object, one perceives this
object without any attendant, true, descriptive beliefs about this object. So, if we are
committed to the claim that perception has epistemological value, and if we believe that
it has epistemological value in the sense described above, then perception must be
mediated and indirect, and all perceived objects must be objects one is capable of
describing.
But there is another sense of epistemic value we need to consider. It is the
epistemological value found in any process (be it cognitive or not) that tracks unerringly
the presence of a particular object. A process with such value, in the best case, always
signals when a particular object, x, is present, and never signals when x is absent. Such
a process is clearly an excellent tool with which one can learn about this object. And
there is no reason why a perceptual process cannot have this value even if x reposes
undescribed for the perceiver. Many inanimate objects, such a thermometers, do an
excellent job of tracking particular objects (in this case, a temperature level) without
the aid of descriptions. This is not to say that descriptions exercised by perceivers
hinder the production of this sort of epistemic value. The point is that descriptions are
not needed for such value to accrue.
Thus, our conjecture—that for every perception there is an attendant, descriptive
belief because without such a belief, without, that is, a description for the object of
perception, perception cannot provide us with information about its object—has proved
faulty. Perception freed from descriptive beliefs can provide us with the information that
a particular object or kind of object is present, albeit not elaborating to the perceiver
what the nature of this object, or what the nature of this kind of object, is.
But, one might respond here, what epistemic value could a process have if, despite the
fact that it unerringly tracks a particular object or kind of object, the perceiver cannot
say what this object is? Consider, as a case in point, a situation where one wants to test
one's system of beliefs by exploring its consistency with the results of perception. If
perception is to have any significant epistemic value, surely it must be suited to
accommodate this task. Yet direct, uninterpreted perception, as I have construed it,
cannot serve in this role since there is no way that perceptions, disaffiliated as they
are with beliefs, can be compared with or impact on the constituents of one's system of
beliefs (except, perhaps, in the vaguest of ways, as in Quine's web of belief model).
This objection is easily disarmed. For the object of a direct perception is, I claim,
an undescribed object. But that is not to say it is an indescribable object. In all
likelihood, the object of a direct perception can be described, and so can participate, in
this way, in the commerce of confirmatory discourse. The only point in saying that it's an
object of direct perception is to say that it's perceived without the benefit of
descriptive beliefs. Whatever has been so perceived can, subsequently, I don't doubt, be
the object of a descriptive belief, and so can subsequently bear truth-valuably on other
beliefs.
Here is a second reason why one might claim that, for every perception, there is an
attendant, descriptive belief: (2) the perceptual identification of an object is
inexplicable without the aid of a belief describing this object. For instance, if I say
that I see my watch, and, when asked what my watch looks like, I am either unable to give
any description of it or I give a patently false description of it, one might well
conclude that I don't see my watch, after all. The problem here, I take it, is that if a
perceiver is unable to describe a perceived object to some degree, there is no explanation
for how the perceiver succeeds at identifying the object when the object passes through
its perceptual field, whereas if the perceiver can describe a perceived object, then the
question of how one can explain its ability to identify the object is straightforward.
Now, when one describes a perceived object, one lists a number of properties that the
object has, which properties must themselves be perceived. One wonders: does the
perception of these properties also involve the mediation of descriptive beliefs? It is
clear that at some point there must be a way to perceive properties—or, more exactly,
to perceive objects possessing properties—without the mediation of descriptive
beliefs, on pain of there being a regress. For example, if the perception of object O
involves a description containing properties P1, P2 and P3—or, more exactly, a
description involving objects O1, O2 and O3 with these properties—and if O1, O2 and
O3 are themselves perceived in ways that involve descriptions, and couldn't be perceived
otherwise, then, once again, O1, for example, will involve further properties P4, P5 and
P6 and further objects O4, O5 and O6. Clearly this process will continue until some
objects are perceived without the benefit of descriptions. Now, why is the prospect of
such a regress a problem? It is a problem if one wants to explain how one identifies a
perceived object. For there is no complete explanation here if explaining such a
perceptual identification involves the use of a description, which itself involves further
perceptual identifications and further descriptions, and so on. On the other hand, there
is a complete explanation (of sorts) if at some point the recourse to additional
descriptions is averted, which is the case if direct perceptions are possible. So, if one
is serious about the problem of how to explain the identification of perceived objects,
then one is eventually going to have to face the prospect of perceptions unmediated by
descriptive beliefs. Nevertheless, suppose one insists that the perceptual identification
of objects must involve the use of descriptions. The required description, presumably,
involves noting that the perceived object possesses a property or properties not shared by
other objects in one's perceptual field. For instance, I can perceive a lamp because I can
recognize it as possessing properties distinct from the properties possessed by a desk, a
chair, table, and so on. But let's simplify the case to where a perceiver P's perceptual
field contains only two objects, in particular, two identical lamps, which the perceiver
labels A and B. Side by side, perceiver P can describe a difference between the
two—say, A is to the left of B. Thus, on the account we are criticizing, P can
perceive A because P can recognize it as possessing a property not shared by B—to
wit, "being to the left of a lamp". Now, let the lamps be shuffled without the
perceiver knowing, after shuffling, which is which. And, let the lamps return to their
original positions. Does the perceiver now see lamp A to the left of B? In this
post-shuffling situation, P no longer recognizes the lamps P had originally labelled. In
particular, P doesn't recognize A as possessing the property, "being to the left of a
lamp". Yet surely it is correct to say that P sees A to the left of B. For the
perceptual situation here, following the shuffling, is both phenomenologically and
actually identical to the situation before the shuffling; and before the shuffling we
found it acceptable to say that P saw A to the left of B. So why not say this now? P
certainly doesn't see B to the left of A. Nor does P see "neither A nor B" on
the left, for the lamp on the left is either A or B. Consequently, if we agree that, in
the post-shuffling situation, P perceives A to the left of B, it follows that P's ability
to perceive A to the left of B is inexplicable if the explanation for this ability
involves the use of identifying descriptions.
Let me turn to a third reason why one might claim that, for every perception, there is
an attendant, descriptive belief: (3) given that perceptions have objects, what possibly
can be the object of a perception where this perception is not associated with any
beliefs? That is, how could a direct perception be a perception of something (leaving
aside the question of how the perceiver might identify it), if possessing ofness is a
cognitive achievement? The requisite ofness here is rudimentary, given the presence of
descriptive beliefs enhancing one's perception. For such a perception is of whatever
satisfies the attendant description. On the other hand, because direct perceptions are
devoid of descriptions, the question of their objective content remains. Of course, one
might interpret direct perceptions and so grant them objective content. But surely, if
this were the only way direct perceptions could have objective content, the cited
objection would be affirmed.
In response, I'm not entirely clear why anyone would consider this to be a serious
problem for direct perceptions, for their ofness is easily found relative to the ofness of
indirect perceptions. Why? Well, to begin with, any perceptual state will involve a
perceiver and a perceived object. And with direct perception, the object of perception is
whatever this perceived object is. On the other hand, with indirect perception—in
particular, in a case where one perceives an object through the use of various descriptive
beliefs --, the object of perception is ambiguous: it could be the directly perceived
object or it could be the object that satisfies one's descriptive beliefs. For instance, a
perceiver may see an object through the description, "the green lamp", where
this object is neither a lamp nor green, though it appears as such. What, in this case,
does the perceiver see—a green lamp, or something that's not a green lamp? It can't
be both. But, then, it can't be neither. If the descriptive beliefs are true regarding the
directly perceived object, then, fortunately, this ambiguity vanishes with
veridicality—in our example, the perceiver would be said to see a green lamp. In
other cases, however, cases where the attendant description is false, there is a serious
problem in saying what the object of perception is. Thus, I'm a bit puzzled by any concern
one might have regarding the ofness of a direct perception. There is no particular problem
here, so far as I can see, leaving aside any special problem one might have in saying what
perceptual states are to begin with; and, at any rate, whatever problem one might have
here would attend to the account of indirect perception as well since it, too, presupposes
the existence of perceptual states. On the other hand, a serious problem arises with
indirect perceptions since it can be hard to say what in fact is being indirectly
perceived, due to the possibility of error in a perceiver's set of mediating, descriptive
beliefs.
I said above that the object of indirect perception is ambiguous: it could be the
directly perceived object or it could be the object that satisfies one's descriptive
beliefs. That is, the notion of indirect perception itself involves the notion of direct
perception. Need this be so? Indirect perception, as we have defined it, utilizes an
interpretation of the perceived object—the object indirectly perceived is
interpreted. But indirect perception must utilize more than an interpretation, for there
must be an object that is interpreted. What is this object? It could, itself, be an
interpretation—but then we've simply displaced the problem one step, for the question
will arise again with this interpretation, to wit, what is its object. Nor could the
object of an interpretation simply be what satisfies the interpretation (or, put another
way, whatever satisfies the descriptive beliefs associated with a perception) for an
object could satisfy this interpretation, without being the de facto object of perception.
Indeed, an object of indirect perception might not, in actuality, even satisfy one's
associated descriptive beliefs—and still it will be indirectly perceived. Thus, the
object of an indirect perception must be what is provided by a direct perception—what
other object could be a candidate? That is, the notion of an indirect perception relies on
a prior notion of a direct perception, and is indeed inconceivable without it.
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