[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

experiences, there is a more basic use of perceptual imagination, to think about ordinary
non-mental things.5
Now, a quite analogous point can also be made about the other use of phenomenal
concepts, in introspective classification, as when we focus on some aspect of our current
experience, and think  this feeling . . .  ,  this colour experience . . .  , and so on. Parallel
to this
end p.107
kind of introspective classification of experience stands ordinary perceptual
classification. When I am looking at a visual scene, I will visually classify certain aspects
of that scene. For example, when looking out to sea, I will see the waves as waves, say,
and the seagulls as seagulls. Or in the office I might identify the new i-Mac as such,
perhaps as a result of noting that it has one of those curious colours.
Again, such world-directed perceptual classification seems prior to introspective
phenomenal classification. While some of the same sensory powers may be involved,
their basic use is surely to think about the external world, rather than about experiences
themselves. Consider again thinkers who are incapable of thinking about mental states as
such. They can still use their powers of perceptual classification to think about the world,
to think about waves and rock pools, even though they can't use them to think about
experiences.
It is perhaps worth making clear that I take the underlying classificatory power here
perceiving as to be a matter of perception rather than of judgement. I can see something
as red, or as a cube, or as an elephant, even when I judge that it is not (because I know
my visual system is being fooled in some way). As I am understanding it, the underlying
power of perceiving as involves nothing beyond some kind of attention, wherein
incoming stimuli are compared with some stored pattern, and a match between them is
registered. Exercises of this underlying power can be taken up to form concepts which
enter into full-fledged judgements (this kind of seagull is not found in Britain), but the
power of perceiving as is in itself perceptual rather than judgemental.
4.5 Perceptual Concepts
In two sections time I shall consider the relationship between perceptual thinking about
the non-mental world, on the one hand, and phenomenal thinking about experiences, on
the other. But first let me say some more about the former world-directed powers.
To help keep things clear, I shall henceforth use the terms  perceptual re-creation and
 perceptual classification specifically to
end p.108
refer to world-directed thinking using perceptual imagination and classification
respectively, and I shall also talk about these as two uses of  perceptual concepts . When
I want to talk about the corresponding uses of phenomenal concepts to refer to
experiences, I shall continue to speak of  imaginative and  introspective uses of
phenomenal concepts.6
Note, to start with, that there is a question of whether we should talk about separate re-
creative and classificatory perceptual concepts, as opposed to counting these as two uses
of single perceptual concepts. This parallels the corresponding question which came up in
connection with phenomenal concepts at the end of Chapter 2.
Thus, consider my perceptual concept of  this kind of bird , where I don't know anything
else about the kind of bird in question, but can classify it visually, and can re-create it in
visual imagination. Now, the classificatory power involved here seems dissociable from
the re-creative power, and vice versa. It is easy enough to think of cases where one can
classify something perceptually when it is present, but cannot re-create it in perceptual
imagination. And a priori nothing seems to rule out the possibility of someone being able
to re-create something perceptually, even though they are no good at picking it out when
it is present (though this would admittedly be somewhat stranger). Given this possibility
of dissociation, should we not recognize two different kinds of perceptual concept, re-
creative versus classificatory, rather than one kind of concept variously deployed?
However, as with the corresponding question about perceptual concepts, I shall not spend
time on this issue. Once more, it seems a matter of description rather than substance. So
sometimes I shall talk about perceptual concepts simpliciter, and at other times I shall
end p.109
distinguish between re-creative and classificatory uses of these concepts.
Another way in which perceptual concepts are like phenomenal concepts is in their
dependence on prior experience. Possessing a perceptual concept of some entity normally
requires that you have previously perceived that entity. You will not be able to classify
something visually as a certain kind of bird, say, or as a certain colour, unless you have
seen it before; nor will you be able to think about it using perceptual re-creation. This
mirrors the point that the possession of a phenomenal concept requires that you have
previously undergone the experience that the concept refers to.
Of course, the normal qualification is needed here, to allow that we can think
perceptually about complex objects red circles, say that we have never seen before
(provided, that is, that the requisite simple concepts have been derived from previous
perceptions of red things and circular things). And a further qualification is needed, in the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]