{"agent_id":"grice","agent_name":"H. P. Grice","slug":"the-causal-theory-of-perception","label":"The Causal Theory of Perception: is sense data a defensible technical term, and does perception of a material object require a causal connection through a sense-impression?","topic":"The Causal Theory of Perception","question":"Is sense data a defensible technical term, and does perception of a material object require a causal connection through a sense-impression?","position":"A causal theory of perception is to be advanced — not with the certainty of obvious truth but with the more modest claim of being \"if not true, at least not obviously false.\" On this account, to perceive a material object is, at least in part, to stand in a certain kind of causal relation to it through a sense-impression or sense-datum: the sense-impression figures in the causal history of the perception, and the material object figures in the causal history of the sense-impression. The apparent oddness of perception-reports of the *so-and-so looks Φ to me* form, when applied in contexts where Φ obviously holds — \"that looks red to me\" said of a British pillar box in normal daylight — is to be analysed as a feature of language use governed by the principle that one does not make a weaker statement when a stronger is available, rather than as a feature of the meaning of perception-reports. *Sense data* are a technical term worth retaining for the purposes of the analysis.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"A causal theory of perception is to be advanced — not with the certainty of obvious truth but with the more modest claim of being \"if not true, at least not obviously false.\" On this account, to perceive a material object is, at least in part, to stand in a certain kind of causal relation to it through a sense-impression or sense-datum: the sense-impression figures in the causal history of the perception, and the material object figures in the causal history of the sense-impression.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"The apparent oddness of perception-reports of the *so-and-so looks Φ to me* form, when applied in contexts where Φ obviously holds — \"that looks red to me\" said of a British pillar box in normal daylight — is to be analysed as a feature of language use governed by the principle that one does not make a weaker statement when a stronger is available, rather than as a feature of the meaning of perception-reports. *Sense data* are a technical term worth retaining for the purposes of the analysis.","n":[2,3]}]],"texts":"The Causal Theory of Perception (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supp. Vol. xxxv, 1961), reprinted as a chapter in Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard 1989). Reception: J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford 1962, posthumous from his 1947-49 lectures) is the canonical attack on sense data and on philosophical theories of perception; A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (Macmillan 1940) and The Problem of Knowledge (Penguin 1956) defend sense-datum theory more straightforwardly; Robert Swartz, ed., Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Anchor 1965) anthologised Grice's paper; Geoffrey Warnock, ed., The Philosophy of Perception (Oxford 1967) singled it out as an 'exceedingly ingenious and resourceful contribution.' The contemporary literature on perception has largely moved to disjunctivism (J. M. Hinton, Paul Snowdon, John McDowell, Michael Martin) and to direct-realism positions; the causal theory survives in modified form in much of the analytic mainstream but the sense-datum apparatus is mostly historical.","works":["The Causal Theory of Perception (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supp. Vol. xxxv, 1961), reprinted as a chapter in Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard 1989)"],"reception":"J. L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford 1962, posthumous from his 1947-49 lectures) is the canonical attack on sense data and on philosophical theories of perception; A. J. Ayer, The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (Macmillan 1940) and The Problem of Knowledge (Penguin 1956) defend sense-datum theory more straightforwardly; Robert Swartz, ed., Perceiving, Sensing, and Knowing (Anchor 1965) anthologised Grice's paper; Geoffrey Warnock, ed., The Philosophy of Perception (Oxford 1967) singled it out as an 'exceedingly ingenious and resourceful contribution.' The contemporary literature on perception has largely moved to disjunctivism (J. M. Hinton, Paul Snowdon, John McDowell, Michael Martin) and to direct-realism positions; the causal theory survives in modified form in much of the analytic mainstream but the sense-datum apparatus is mostly historical.","status":"A late entry in the British empiricist tradition of causal theories of perception (Locke, Berkeley, Russell, Broad, Price, Ayer). Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (1962, from 1947-49 lectures) had attacked the sense- datum apparatus as confused and the philosophical theory of perception as resting on bogus distinctions; Grice's paper is a tentative defence against that attack. Warnock and Strawson praised the paper as a contribution to the philosophy of perception; the pragmatic principle introduced — that one does not make a weaker statement when one could truthfully make a stronger — became the second maxim of Quantity in Logic and Conversation. The contemporary literature on perception has largely moved past sense-data ontology to disjunctivist and direct-realist positions; causal-theoretic structure survives in mainstream analytic philosophy of perception but the sense-datum apparatus is no longer the live framework.","era":"1913-1988","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Studies in the Way of Words","page":"pp. 232–233","canonical":"","quote":"I am inclined to regard this attitude to the CTP as unfair or at least unduly unsympathetic and I shall attempt to outline a thesis which might not improperly be considered to be a version of the CTP, and which is, if not true, at least not too obviously false. What is to count as holding a causal theory of perception?","label":"Studies in the Way of Words, pp. 232–233"},{"n":2,"work":"Studies in the Way of Words","page":"pp. 13–14","canonical":"","quote":"One is connected with the notion of \"seeing... as.\" Wittgenstein observed that one does not see a knife and fork as a knife and fork.","label":"Studies in the Way of Words, pp. 13–14"},{"n":3,"work":"Studies in the Way of Words","page":"pp. 349–350","canonical":"","quote":"Strand eight involves the thesis that, notwithstanding the claims of strand seven, genuinely referential status can be secured for the subject phrases in question by supplementing the apparatus of modern logic in various ways which would include the addition of the kind of bracketing devices which are sketched within the contents of this volume.","label":"Studies in the Way of Words, pp. 349–350"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-intentional-analysis-of-meaning","label":"The intentional analysis of meaning: is non-natural meaning analyzable in terms of speakers' nested communicative intentions?"},{"slug":"the-cooperative-principle-and-conversational-implicature","label":"The Cooperative Principle and conversational implicature: is conversation a rational cooperative endeavour governed by the four categories of maxims?"},{"slug":"modified-occam-s-razor-and-the-semantics-pragmatics-distinct","label":"Modified Occam's Razor and the semantics-pragmatics distinction: should apparent ambiguity in natural-language connectives be handled by positing distinct senses or by a single sense plus generalised conversational implicature?"},{"slug":"rationality-value-and-creature-construction","label":"Rationality, value, and creature-construction: can practical reason and value be constructed by a transcendental argument from the rational structure of action?"}]}