On Non-Perceptual Intuition

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On Non-Perceptual Intuition Gustav Bergmann Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Dec., 1949), pp. 263-264. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205%28194912%2910%3A2%3C263%3AONI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is currently published by International Phenomenological Society.

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DISCUSSION ON NON-PERCEPTUAL INTUITION The phrase "non-perceptual intuition" has been borrowed from Broad,' who uses it when he discusses problems that are, I believe, closely related to the issue I wish to raise. Thus, in choosing it for the title of this note, I hope to provide a hint about the general context of my remarks. However, I shall state my problem quite independently. Consider the statement Everything that is green is extended,

(1) which I shall, in the symbolism of Principia Mathematics, transcribe by

(2) ( 4 [gr(x> 3 ext(x)l.

Some philosophers feel that (2) is not an adequate transcription of what

(1) says, or, a t least, of what we could say upon being acquainted with a

single particular that is both green and extended. One possible argument

in support of this objection rests on two premises.

(a) The following two classes of statements are the only ones that express certain truths. (al) Analytical statements, that is, substitution instances of such forms as 'p v p' and '(x)[f (x) 3 f (x)]', in which, to use Quine's suggestive phrase, the names of particulars and of characters (properties and relations) occur only vacuously. (a2) Statements molecularly compounded of statements that contain only the names of particulars and of simple characters, such as 'gr(a)' and 'color(gr)', provided that we are acquainted with what they express. I assume here, for the sake of illustration, that 'gr', 'ext', 'color', are simple or, as one also says, undefined predicates. (b) Nonanalytical statements containing universal operators in a nonvacuous manner, such as (2), do not express certain truths. If these premises are accepted, the argument may be stated in this manner: (c) Since (1) is, in fact, certain, (2) is not an adequate translation of (1). I t seems to me that some philosophers who accept (a) and (b), argue (c) and also believe that (d) every significant statement can be transcribed into a Principia-like symbolism, propose what amounts to transcribing (1) by (3) C(gr, ext), where 'C' stands for a simple, relational character of the second type. 'C' may then be retranslated by such phrases as 'essentially connected' or .

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C. D. Broad, Examination of McTaggartls Philosophy, Vol. I , pp. 51-53. 263

'necessarily co-inherent'; it is, of course, the peculiar nature of this character, with which we are supposedly acquainted, that led to the use of the phrase %on-perceptual intuition." I am now ready to state the only point I wish to make in this note. U p o n assumptions (a), (b), and (d) transcription of (1) by (3) leads to the same difficulty which, in the view of its proponents, argues against the transcription of (1) by (2). Before showing why this is so, I shall mention what the proposal does achieve. First, (3) is of the form (232) and, therefore, according to this view "certain." Second, the objection that while we are now acquainted with a state of affairs veridically expressed by (3), we may conceivably, at some other time, be acquainted with the referent of the negation of (3) can be dismissed as irrelevant. For a sagacious proponent of (3) merely insists that what would happen in this case is of the same kind as what would happen if one and the same particular were found to be both green and not green. And this sameness he establishes by pointing out that the two pairs 'gr(a)', '-gr(a)' and 'C(gr, ext)', '-C(gr, ext)' are essentially of the same form and, of course, both logical contradictions. For any two predicates, 'fl' and 'gl', (x)[fl(x) 3 gl(x)] does, of course, not imply 'C(fl, gl)'. But it seems to me that, conversely, if 'C' really means what it is intended to mean, the second of these two expressions must in all cases imply the first. In terms of the illustration, the proponents of (3) must be able to maintain consistently the certainty of C (gr, ext) 3 (x) [gr(x) 3 ext(x)]. (4) Thus, they would have to show that (4) belongs to one of the two classes (al) and (a2). But (4) does not belong to (al), since it is quite easy to find three predicates of appropriate types which, if put for 'C,' 'gr', 'ext' in (4), yield a sentence that is not even contingently true. Nor can (4) belong to (a2), since it contains nonvacuously the generality (2). This, in particular. is what I had in mind when I said that the supposed difficulty reappears. I infer, tentatively, that intuitionistic philosophers, if they want to be consistent, cannot be satisfied with introducing certain "non-perceptual" simples. They must, or so at least it seems, reject the current criterion of analytic truth. An argument of the same kind could be constructed for a simple term of the causation. The only difference is that, as I have shown el~ewhere,~ simple term is not, properly speaking, a predicate but, without being a connective, a connector of sentences. And the introduction of such a syntactical category is, of course, in itself a major change in logic. GUSTAV BERGMANN. THE STATEUNIVERSITYOF IOWA. Pp. 40 ff. of "Frequencies, Probabilities, and Positivism," this journal, Vol. V I (1945), pp. 26-44.