Abstract
According to Paul Snowdon, one directly perceives an object x iff one is in a position to make a true demonstrative judgement of the form “That is x”. Whenever one perceives an object x indirectly (or dependently, as Snowdon puts it) it is the case that there exists an item y (which is not identical to x) such that one can count as demonstrating x only if one acknowledges that y bears a certain relation to x. In this paper I argue that what we hear directly are sounds, and that material objects (such as violins and goldfinches) are only indirectly heard. However, there are cases of auditory object perception that should count as direct: Some blind persons’ ears are so sensitive to the way sound waves are modified by things in their surroundings that they can detect objects such as other persons, fences or trees. Interestingly, objects localized in this way make themselves felt via a kind of pressure in the perceiver’s face (that is why the phenomenon is commonly called “facial vision”), the perception is phenomenally quite different from hearing. Since, to some degree, most people are able to conclude from the way it sounds that, say, they stand at the foot of a concrete wall (when there is enough traffic noise around), we can imagine situations where two persons perceive the same wall, one indirectly (demonstratively apprehending sounds) and the other directly (demonstratively apprehending nothing but the wall). These cases invite us to discuss the role phenomenology plays in determining whether an object is perceived directly or indirectly.
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Notes
Taken alone, this remark is a little bit obscure. Our perceptions of objects often depend on many things. Andreas cannot see the light switch at the opposite wall of our office without his glasses. So his perception of it depends on them. Is it therefore an indirect perception? That would be strange. What Snowdon has in mind is that y is something of which a demonstrative judgment would be true, and which somehow represents or stands for x (this is meant by “a certain relation”).
Compare: When moving things are objects of our perception, we generally experience them as moving, for example the wind in our face, the waves on the beach, the car driving by.
Interestingly, what is false here seems to be true in other sense modalities: what we smell is in some sense “in our nose”, what we taste is in our mouth. When we touch something, it is usually on our skin, but there are cases of feeling the sun’s heat via tactile perception, and this is, thank God, without being in contact with it.
Generally, of course, this is not so. I cannot take the ticking of my pocket watch (held near to my ear) for the ticking of my clock (in the other edge of the room) although they’re equally loud. The distance-detection is quite accurate in our immediate surroundings. But it should be possible to mix up two sounds in bigger distances.
One might object at this point, that a flash of light isn’t a typical object of vision, because it is a kind of event for which it is not implausible to suppose independent motion (it is not senseless to speak of “sending” a flash of light to the depths of the universe). So let’s change settings a bit: I look at the moon with a serious face and smile just for a moment. I will see my smile in the mirror on the moon two seconds later (you need some good optical apparatus for that, I suppose). It seems weird to suppose that my smile is capable of independent motion.
Maybe hearing the telephone ring is not the most common case of auditive demonstrative judgement because there is no act of singling out. More elaborate are the situations where we concentrate on one sound while we hear several at once, i.e. listening to one instrument in an orchestral audition, following a conversation on a party.
One could claim that there might be situations, in which a statement like this does not sound stupid at all. Suppose you are looking through a slit at some feathers or plumage and you can see above the slit that there are five finches but you can’t match things up. Couldn’t you now just say that you are looking at one of the five without being able to say which one it is?
I think not, mainly because looking through the slit and looking at the finches above it are quite distinct perceptual situations. When seeing the plumage through the slit, I certainly know which finch I see—this one. When, afterwards, I see all the five above the slit, I can say “Well, I don’t know which of these I just saw through the slit”. But in the moment when I perceive one of the finches—through the slit or not—it doesn’t make much sense to claim that I don’t know which one I single out visually.
Note, things are quite different from the case discussed when I hear and see the birds simultaneously: Here I may look at any of the five and think “Is that the one I am hearing?”
Alternatively, taking a distinction from neurobiology, one could perhaps say that in the cases above objects are rather detected than perceived (see Keeley 2002, p. 26).
It would be possible, at this juncture, to cast doubt on the assumption that the difference is merely a phenomenological one. One might argue that the detection of a wall by concentrating on how sounds are reflected and facially seeing the wall involve operations of thoroughly different perceptual systems. If so, my argument against DP would not be valid, because the difference between the two perceptions was not merely grounded in phenomenology—that a wall can be heard indirectly and seen directly, for example, does not call into question the directness criterion of possible true demonstrative judgements.
Empirical support for my claim that the difference between “phenomenally indirect” and “phenomenally direct” hearing of the same kind of object is merely of a gradual kind can be found in the fact that the difference in accuracy in determining the size and material of heard obstacles between blind and sighted subjects has been shown to be not very great (See Lopes 2000, 448).
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Andreas Maier, Alexander Bagattini, Patrick Leland and Paul Crane for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and linguistic revision.
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Matthiessen, H.O. Seeing and Hearing Directly. Rev.Phil.Psych. 1, 91–103 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-009-0005-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-009-0005-4