Wallace, B. Alan. The Taboo of subjectivity

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is in the final consensus of our farther knowledge about the thing in question, later views
correcting earlier ones, until at last the harmony of a consistent system is reached. 31
This is precisely how scientific observations have always been validated. The fact that
introspective observations are private and may be specific to the individual should not
detract from their value, he maintains, for in fact no point of view is absolutely public and
universal. Private and incommunicable perceptions are inescapable.32
James s evaluation of introspection within the broader framework of perception
has been rejected by some scientific materialists on the grounds that unaided, human
sensory perception is fundamentally unreliable and on these grounds alone introspection
has no place in scientific research. However, any instrument of detection has finite
sensitivity, specificity, reliability, and precision, and its usefulness is determined in terms
of its purposes. Thus, for many of the purposes to which the human senses are applied,
they are perfectly adequate and reliable, while in other circumstances they are not. For
example, from a neurophysiological perspective, central control of sensory receptors and
central sensory relays modifies incoming sensory signals before they reach levels of
perceptual experience. These modifications are not random effects but systematically
relate to past experiences, expectations, and purposes of the perceiver. These powerful
and ubiquitous mechanisms are built into our nervous systems in accordance with
genetic, nutritional, and experiential contexts in which we grow up. This condition is
equally true of a scientist making observations with a microscope, a surveyor observing a
landscape, and a psychological subject introspectively observing mental events.
As a result of such influences, two persons may give contradictory testimony to
witnessing the same event, as it would ostensibly be seen from a purely objective
standpoint. Many neuroscientists conclude that one or both of them is either lying or is
unable to go from the raw (that is, ideally objective) percept to testimony without
subjective, psychological distortion. However, others suggest that one or both of them are
perceiving the event with sufficient modulation prior to the assembly of their perceptions
that, in effect, the two are observing two distinctively different events. This problem
pertains equally to extraspective, sensory perception and introspective mental perception,
and it is one more instance of underdeter-mination, which is prevalent in scientific
research.
Despite its evident fallibility, might there be some facet of clear and distinct
perception that is infallible, as Descartes proposed? On the basis of our own experience,
all mental images are evident to the perceptions to which they appear; so all perceptions
may be said to be valid simply with respect to those appearances. Even in the case of a
mistaken cognition, such as mistaking a coiled rope for a snake, there is an appearance of
the nonexistent object; and that appearance of a snake does exist. Thus, a mistaken
cognition errs only in terms of how it apprehends or conceives of its object. But all
cognitions including sensory and mental perception, as well as all types of conceptual
cognitions may be said to be valid with reference to the representations that directly
appear to them. If so, all mental perceptions are valid with respect to the appearances of
mental phenomena; but they, like any other perception, may be mistaken in the
identification of those phenomena.33
This hypothesis differs from the Cartesian view in its assertion that if one attends
with mental perception to a mental representation itself, there is room for error in the
manner in which one apprehends that object. The distinction may be drawn here between
perceiving and identifying as. According to the hypothesis presented here, mental
perception is always valid with respect to the mere appearance of mental representations;
but it may be mistaken in the manner in which it identifies them. Although the mental
perception of appearances is valid, error may creep in as soon as one identifies those
appearances as being one thing and not another. In the case of dreaming, there is
commonly the mistake of apprehending dream phenomena as existing independently of
the dreaming mind. For example, in a dream I may mentally perceive an image of a
unicorn. That perception is valid. But if I apprehend it as a real unicorn existing
independently of my perception of it, that cognition is mistaken. On the other hand, if I
identify the dream state for what it is, and I identify it as a unicorn in a dream, that
cognition is valid.
In our day-to-day experience it is evident that we almost always perceive
phenomena as familiar things and events that are intelligible within our conceptual
frameworks. Thus, in virtually all our perceptions both extraspective and
introspective there is the possibility of error. Insofar as a perception is theory laden, it is
in principle fallible; but it is also our theories that allow us to perceive many phenomena
that would otherwise remain hidden from view. A well-trained molecular biologist will
see many things with a microscope that are not seen with the untrained eye, and a person
who is well versed in a sophisticated theory of mental phenomena may be able to observe
introspectively many things that would otherwise be hidden. In all kinds of perception, as
James asserts, it is crucial to learn how to observe relationships, as well as discrete [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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