[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

to begin instead with touch. Let me, however, enter Reid s line
of thought by starting with a case of proprioceptive, rather than
tactile, perception.6
While now sitting here at my desk I perceive, proprioceptively,
the position of my left leg. If I were paralyzed from waist down
and lying flat on a bed, strapped down, covered with blankets, I
would have to ask someone to tell me the position of my left leg
if I wanted to know it. That is not my present condition. I per-
ceive the position of my left leg proprioceptively.
The central thesis of the Way of Ideas theorist, as it applies to
6
Reid recognized that his attack on the account of perception of secondary qualities
offered by the Way of Ideas theorists would have to be different from that on their
account of perception of primary qualities; here it is his attack on the latter that is in
view.  Locke saw clearly, he says,  and proved incontestably, that the sensations we have
by taste, smell, and hearing, as well as the sensations of colour, heat and cold, are not
resemblances of any thing in bodies; and in this he agrees with Des Cartes and Male-
branche. Joining this opinion with the hypothesis, it follows necessarily, that three senses
of the five are cut off from giving us any intelligence of the material world, as being alto-
gether inept for that office. Smell, and taste, and sound, as well as colour and heat, can
have no more relation to body, than anger or gratitude; nor ought the former to be
called qualities of body, whether primary or secondary, any more than the latter. For it
was natural and obvious to argue thus from that hypothesis: if heat, and colour, and
sound, are real qualities of body, the sensations, by which we perceive them, must be
resemblances of those qualities: but these sensations are not resemblances; therefore
those are not real qualities of bodies (IHM VI, vi [141a b; B 92 3]).
The Attack Continues 85
this case, is that the acquaintance which is ingredient in my per-
ception of my leg s position consists of my introspective acquain-
tance with a certain internal object, namely, a sense datum that
is a reflective image of my leg s position; it s by inference from
beliefs about that sense datum, formed in me by acquaintance
with that mental entity, that I come to have knowledge of my leg s
position. Recall the model: By looking at the reflective image of
a mountain in a lake I come to know the mountain s contour 
because the mountain s contour resembles the reflective image s
contour. That is to say, the quality that is the contour of the
mountain resembles that quality that is the contour of the reflective
image.
The suggestion is preposterous! I m aware of a mental image
that exhibits a quality resembling that quality which is my leg s
being bent at the knee? What would such a mental image be?
Would it be an image with a bent-at-the-knee contour? No;
because that would be a visual image whereas my perception of
the position of my leg is proprioceptive. The very idea of a pro-
prioceptive image seems incoherent.7 Nothing in the argument
depends on the sense of the word  image, however. Let s use a
neutral word,  simulacrum. I proprioceptively perceive my leg s
being bent at the knee; and that, so it is said, is because I m intro-
spectively aware of having a sense datum that is a simulacrum of
that quale of my leg. The proposal seems just wacky!
Now for an example of the sort Reid was fond of. I m presently
perceiving, by touch, the hardness of the chair I m sitting at  its
considerable resistance to deformation. Of course its hardness is
not as great as that, say, of a stone; and beyond a certain point on
the gamut of relative hardness I have to use other strategies than
merely touching to make discriminations. But I can tell that the
chair is (relatively) hard by touch. There are lots of other hard-
nesses of objects that I have in mind (apprehend) only by means
of a singular concept. But of the hardness of my chair I presently
have a perception. And let s be clear, says Reid, that hardnesses
7
Cf. Reid, EIP II, iv [257a]:  As to objects of sight, I understand what is meant by an
image of their figure in the brain. . . . As to all other objects of sense, except figure and
colour, I am unable to conceive what is meant by an image of them. Let any man say,
what he means by an image of heat and cold, an image of hardness or softness, an image
of sound, of smell, or taste. The word image, when applied to these objects of sense, has
absolutely no meaning.
86 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
and softnesses are  real qualities of objects  before they [are] [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]