CHAPTER 4

PROBLEM OF COMPATIBILITY OF THE IMAGES

The global problem of materialism for Sellars is to combine, if possible, the Manifest and the Scientific Images-of-Man-in-the-World. He argues, however, that these Images are incompatible, and are, therefore, impossible to combine. What then is the problem of the compatibility of the Images? Why does Sellars believe the Images to be incompatible?

      The problem can be formulated in a narrow and a broad way. The Images are broadly incompatible in two ways. First, they are incompatible in their views about basic entities. The Manifest Image is based on a belief in publicly observable substances: physical objects and persons; while the Scientific Image is based ultimately on a belief in posited absolute processes. Second, they are incompatible in their views about the properties of their respective basic entities. The Manifest Image includes the view of Direct Realism, which holds that physical objects have such continuous (homogeneous) secondary properties as colors. For example, a common sense table has a continuous brown surface; while the table as described in microphysics is a gappy, colorless swarm of molecules. Which table is real? A thing cannot have incompatible properties simultaneously: the table cannot be simultaneously colored and colorless; continuous and gappy.

      The narrow incompatibility of the Images concerns also their respective views about persons. In the Manifest Image persons are characterized by the possession of intentionality and sensations; while in the Scientific Image everything consists of posited colorless processes which do not possess intentionality or sensations.

      Given these incompatibilities, the reasonable alternatives are to: (A) accept the distinction between the Images or (B) reject the distinction. If one opts for (A), then one can either (A-i) agree with Sellars that the Images are incompatible, or (A-ii) agree with someone like James Cornman who argues that they are compatible.

      Assuming (A-i), several alternative present themselves to Sellars. (a) Merge some parts and eliminate or reduce other parts of one Image to the other; (b) eliminate or reduce completely one Image to the other; (c) merge some parts and eliminate or reduce other parts of the two Images to a third Image; or (d) eliminate or reduce both Images to a third.

      Sellars' considered choice is a version of (A-i-a): to combine some portions, eliminate other portions, and reduce still other portions of the Manifest Image into the Scientific Image. To do this Sellars distinguishes different types of discourse: practical, descriptive, explanatory, and semantical. Practical and semantical talk in the Manifest Image is to be merged with the Scientific Image -- it is irreducible; some descriptive talk in the Manifest Image is to be eliminated, and some of it is to be recategorized; while teleological explanations in the Manifest Image are to be reduced to causal explanations.

      A major critic, James Cornman, disagrees with Sellars and accepts (A-ii). Indeed he refers to his ontology as the '"neutral version" of compatible common-sense realism'. {1} He defends his conclusion on the basis of accepting Direct Realism and rejecting all forms of Indirect Realism, of which Sellars' Critical Realism is a species.

      Another approach which should be taken seriously is that of C. D. Hooker{2} who also adopts position (A-ii) but for reasons different from Cornman's. He objects to Sellars' characterizing such secondary qualities as colors being "simple (unanalyzable)" and "homogeneous". He accuses Sellars of the fallacy of moving from "I don't see x as F" to "x is not F". Substitute for "x" some color name, let's say "red"; and for "F" "complex" or "heterogeneous," and this, for Hooker, becomes Sellars' argument for the simplicity and homogeneity of red: "I don't see red as heterogeneous; therefore, red is not heterogeneous." Hooker's own position is to remain agnostic here, but he pointing out that on his interpretation, contrary to Sellars, Materialism(2) remains a possibility.

      My position is (B). I reject the common assumption of both Sellars, Cornman, and Hooker that the Manifest Image is identical to common sense. With this rejection I sidestep a common problem that Sellars and Cornman have about the status of sense impressions in the Manifest Image. I am not satisfied by either Cornman's or Sellars' position because of their mutual rejection of sense data (sensa, sense impressions) as phenomenal individuals. Here I am in agreement with some of Frank Jackson's arguments for the existence of sense data as presented in his book Perception. {3}

      The recognition of sense data as phenomenal individuals in common sense, however, does not eliminate the problem of compatibility between my rendition of a common sense and Sellar' Scientific Image. What I will accomplish, if I succeed in defending the sense data theory, by distinguishing common sense from the Manifest Image, is an ontological simplification. I will also bypass complications in the theory of perception, and I will in addition provide foundations for empirical knowledge. Ultimately, however, I agree with Sellars about the need to give a distinct ontological status to sense impressions in the Scientific Image.

      As to the Sellars-Cornman controversy, insofar as they are arguing about the same issues with the same presuppositions, I believe that Sellars has the more convincing arguments for Critical Realism. But if Critical Realism is correct (as I believe it is), then there is a problem of compatibility of Images.

      It is clear to me that the Manifest Image is not a phenomenological description of our ordinary experience. And if it is not, the main consequence of what I take to be a departure from ordinary experience is a faulty description and analysis of perception. My specific claim is that we have a sensuous perception of absolute processes (events) which we can also recognize to be such. This Sellars denies. The result of this denial is a convoluted theory of perception involving several conceptual transpositions of the descriptions of sensorial contents, which, however, ultimately concludes with the recognition of absolute processes, albeit within a different conceptual framework, the Scientific Image. My main objection to Sellars' position is not that he is wrong in his conclusion, but that he is wrong in taking his peculiar detour to this conclusion. The underlying constraint on his position is the necessity to adhere to what it is possible to think and know within a public language. But even with that constraint an alternative approach is possible--an approach which I will defend in the chapter on perception.

I. THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM

      If there is a distinction between being a person and being a human being, then the necessary condition of being a person is in having and exercising linguistic functions. And although the possession of some kind of body or other is also necessary, no specific type of body seems essential. We may also speculate that for a language to exist which is about the world, observational capacities are also necessary. But whether these observational capacities are exercised through sensorial intermediaries or can be exercised through direct responses to brain states does not seem to be essential. {4} Again the use of language presupposes some kinds of intentions or purposes to be realized, but again no specific ones seem to be essential.

      In dealing with the place of persons in a Materialistic scheme of things, it is clear then that we must give a Materialistic account of language. But human persons have the additional trait of having 'raw feels' (a term used by Sellars to refer to our sentience). And because human being do have raw feels, we must find a place for these in a Materialistic scheme. What has traditionally been called the mind-body (or the mind-brain) problem divides, for Sellars, into two sub-problems. The first (the intentionality-body problem) is to describe and explain intentionality, or equivalently describe and explain the workings of conceptual functions in a language. The existence of thoughts is part of the problem of finding a place for representations in general. The second sub-problem Sellars calls the sensorium-body problem. The problem is to describe and explain the role of raw feels (sensations) in a Materialistic framework. It is a problem because sensations seem to require a distinct categorial status, and this seems to be incompatible with the monistic requirement of Materialism.

      The existence of purposes (intentions) and normative behavior generally require an ontological location. However, Sellars treats purposes as an aspect of intentionality, so that the mind-body problem remains divides for him into the two sub-problems: the intentionality-body and the sensorium-body problem.

      From a linguistic perspective, human beings engage in different types of discourse, and the philosophical endeavor is characterized by Sellars as the attempt to understand how various types of discourses mesh with each other. Initially we can discern three types of discourse: normative, descriptive, and explanatory.

      (a) The striking fact about human beings is that they are engaged in various activities, guided by norms of what ought to be (rules of criticism) and what ought to be done (rules of action). And normative discourse plays an essential role in Sellars' philosophy; for, after all, descriptions and explanations are given relative to norms of correctness, suitability, justification, and such. And though normative discourse is the glue that holds all types of talk together, Sellars does not see any problem of transferring the normative discourse of the Manifest Image to the Scientific Image. Normative discourse needs simply to be joined to the descriptive and explanatory scheme of an ideal science: "Thus the conceptual framework of persons is not something that needs to be reconciled with the scientific image, but rather something to be joined to it." {5} This position is consistent with what in an early essay, "Mind, Meaning, and Behavior," he called Scientific Behaviorism: the "thesis of the causal reducibility of mental events to bodily events, where causal reducibility does not preclude logical [ir]reducibility." {6} Normative language, though logically irreducible, is causally reducible in an ideal science. This is simply the affirmation of the irreducibility of 'ought' to 'is'.

      (b) As to thoughts, Sellars thinks that these can be identified with neuro-physiological processes in the brain, and thus do not pose a serious problem. His proposal (theory) is that the intentionality of thoughts is to be understood by analogy to the intentionality of a conventional language. And intentionality as such can be understood as a unique irreducible semantical metalanguage. But, argues Sellars, the (analytic) irreducibility of types of discourse is compatible with a causal explanation of all discourse with the resources of a sophisticated behavioristic learning theory.

      (c) As to the sensorium-body problem, which for succinctness we can state as the problem of locating the place of (Locke's) secondary qualities in the scheme of things, {7} Sellars transposes the categorial place of secondary qualities as properties of physical objects in the Manifest Image to theoretically posited sensa in the Scientific Image. And sensa, he argues, cannot be eliminated, reduced to, or identified with presently known physical properties or events of the brain. He, therefore, grants them a distinct ontological standing. By contrast, the Manifest Image mistakenly locates secondary qualities in the physical world. And because of this the Manifest Image cannot be reconciled with the Scientific Image; it must be replaced by the Scientific Image. For this reason, the descriptive and explanatory language of the Manifest Image cannot be joined to that of the Scientific one.

      I am not directly concerned with (a), so I will assume that Sellars' position is tenable. (b) can be divided into two sub-theses. I have no quarrel with the first sub-thesis that thoughts are to be identified in some way with brain states. However, the other major sub-thesis, namely that a public conventional language is epistemologically primary and is a necessary condition for conceptual thoughts, is offered by Sellars as necessarily true. He defends this position by arguing that any alternative is impossible. Any other alternative turns out to be a variation of, what Sellars calls, the myth of the given. My criticism of this is that his claims about thoughts tend to conflate claims about conceptual thoughts with claims about non-conceptual thoughts. This difference between conceptual and non-conceptual thoughts is clearly distinguished by Sellars only in his recent writings. But the implication of the distinction are not worked out by Sellars. So I don't know what his considered views are about this distinction. Whatever may be Sellars' considered views on this, I argue that an innate, pre-conventional, representational system is possible, and in virtue of this possibility, a version of the given is a possibility as well. That is to say that the non-conceptual representational system can provide foundations to empirical knowledge. It suffices to refute Sellars' position if it can be shown that some version of the epistemologically given is not impossible, as I will do.

      As to (c), I agree with Sellars' conclusion, but not with his reasoning for this conclusion. My disagreement concerns the constraints that are imposed on the concept of a Manifest Image. These are derived mainly from his denial of the given, and his insistence on behavioral foundations. This requires him to adopt an ontology based on what is possible on the supposition of the primacy of a public language. It turns out that this is an ontology of substances as envisioned by Aristotle and Strawson in his 'descriptive metaphysics'. My objection to the Manifest Image is that it is not the conceptual framework of common sense. Specifically it does not have room for an ontology of absolute processes, while common sense does. The consequence of this denial of absolute processes in common sense is that Sellars is compelled by the logic of the situation to introduce an adverbial theory of sense impressions in the Manifest Image. By contrast, since I accept a version of the given and recognize absolute processes in common sense, I leave myself in a position to defend something like the classical view of sensa. However, in his recent article "Sensa or Sensings" Sellars tries to reconcile the sense datum and the adverbial theories of sensations. {8} But this move, it seems to me, requires the recognition of absolute processes in common sense -- if not in the Manifest Image.

      Let me explain this. By using the phrase 'Manifest Image', I believe Sellars is trying to get at something like the core of common sense. However, I am troubled by his philosophical way of characterizing common sense. I ask myself: What about the common sense of the Hopi Indians? For all I know, Whorf's characterization of their language as based on categories of events and processes is correct. Now isn't the Hopi common sense different from the English or American notion of common sense? To this question, I can only guess Sellars' answer. If Strawson's Individuals or Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (as interpreted by Strawson in his Bounds of Sense){9} can be used as guides here, then the answer would be that a language built solely on the categories of pure processes is impossible. The necessary conditions for a language are the requirements of the identification and reidentification of objects which are relatively stable; otherwise the universe would appear to be too chaotic. Perhaps so. But a mixed language of substances as primary entities and pure processes as secondary entities having a conceptually dependent status on the concepts of material objects and persons is possible. Sellars himself raised this possibility: "we begin to wonder about the relative merits of 'substance' ontologies and 'process' ontologies (to say nothing of 'mixed' ontologies)." {10} Unfortunately, he does not examine the mixed ontology alternative, concentrating on the merits of either a pure substance or a pure process ontology instead. I believe that our common sense conceptual framework contains the sort of mixed ontology which Sellars ignores. And in fact we can construct a very simple argument based on Sellarsian principles to show that these principles imply a commitment to a mixed ontology in the Manifest Image. The argument is this. Consider the following inconsistent triad:

(1) All theoretical terms in the Scientific Image are introduced by models from the Manifest Image.
(2) The Manifest Image does not include a concept of absolute processes.
(3) The Scientific Image is grounded in the theoretical positing of absolute processes.

      (1) is a principle of theory construction for Sellars. (2) and (3) are definitive of these Images.

      Sellars, however, neglects to discuss explicitly how it is possible to introduce the concept of pure processes in the Scientific Image given principle (1). His explicit discussion in his Carus Lectures on the introduction of sensa as pure processes in the Scientific Image uses as models sentence types containing dummy subjects, such as, for example, the sentence 'It is raining'. But the conceptual framework from which these subjectless or dummy subject sentences are obtained is never mentioned. And since by stipulation this conceptual framework cannot be the Manifest Image, I conclude that it must be a different framework--the Common Sense conceptual framework. Given this alternative resource, (1) must be substituted with:

(1') All theoretical terms in the Scientific Image are introduced by models from the Manifest Image or the Common Sense Image.

My solution, then, to the inconsistent triad is to deny (1), specifically I distinguish a Common Sense Image from the Manifest Image, and hold that the Common Sense Image recognizes the existence of absolute processes which also act as models for the theoretical posits of the Scientific Image.

II. REDUCTION OF EVENTS TO SUBSTANCES

      I am interested in evaluating Sellars' contention that the Manifest Image is committed to only persons, animate creatures, physical things, and events (understood as fleeting physical things) in space and time. He excludes from the Manifest Image not only events (as absolute processes) but also underived introspection of such mental processes as sensations and thoughts. These latter claims are implied by his claim that sensations and thoughts are best viewed as theoretical states. He believes that despite the fact that we can learn to respond directly to such theoretical states in introspection; still, they have a derivative methodological standing. At the present I will deal with the exclusion of absolute processes (events); these other exclusions will be taken up later.

      If the existence of absolute processes is recognized in common sense, then the architecture of the Manifest Image, as I see it, collapses. This consequence is seen by Thomas Vinci in his critical article on Sellars' adverbial theory of sensing. He writes in a concluding remark that "One effect of abandoning the reducibility doctrine is to abandon the 'Aristotelian' construal of the common- sense framework." {11} By the 'reducibility doctrine' he means construing sensings as states of affairs rather than, as he puts it, 'event-particulars'. The whole point of the Manifest Image was to claim that what we directly perceive are physical objects and persons in public space. But if it is acknowledged that we also perceive pure processes, then the Manifest Image has lost one relevant function. It may still be an adequate pole for the history of Western philosophy, but it loses any claim of expressing our common sense view of the world.

      The relevance of the ontological status of absolute processes in the Manifest Image is important for the following reason. If these absolute processes (like a flash of light) have a basic status, then a subclass of absolute processes may be categorized as sensa, or serve as a model (by analogy) for the postulation of sensa. Otherwise Sellars' 'no event' ontology of the Manifest Image compels him to either dismiss sensa as not given phenomenologically, or introduce them as postulated entities on the basis of another model. If, however, sensa qua events of common sense are introspectively available, Sellars' theory of perception and ontology can be short-circuited.

      I want to defend the irreducibility of the category of absolute processes (events) in common sense, and to explore the reasoning used by Sellars to defend a physicalistic ontology which attempts to reduce talk of events, as a manier de parler, to talk of substances. Sellars is a radical nominalist sharing with R. Carnap and T. Kotarbinski a desire (on the Manifest Image level) for physicalism (reism).

A. REGIMENTATION OF EVENTS

      My main objection to the Manifest Image is that it excludes events (absolute processes). Of course, the exclusion of events is justified if, as Sellars claims to be doing, he is reconstructing the history of the Platonic tradition. This tradition is built around the category of substance, and does not have a place for independent events. Events, in this tradition, are always to be construed as aspects or histories of substances. In the substance-as-basic-entity tradition, according to Sellars, talk of events is reducible to a subject predicate form of expressions in which events are not mentioned. Events are given the status of facons de parler, that is, paraphraseable modes of speech: a thesis explicitly argued for in Sellars' "Time and the World Order."

Now in the thing framework it is things which primarily exist, and in the 'event' framework it is 'events' which primarily exist. The contrast, in each case, is between the items which are named (by both proper and common names) and the items which are either contextually introduced (e.g., events in the thing framework, and 'things' in the 'event' framework) or are at bottom linguistic entities (thus qualities, relations, facts). {12}

and,

If this is interpreted as a question concerning the structure of 'ordinary' temporal discourse, it seems to me perfectly clear that the basic individuals of this universe of discourse are things and persons--in short the 'substances' of classical philosophy. {13}

There is some wavering on Sellars part on exactly how to provide the translation. On the one hand, he wrote: "Indeed, it is clear that ordinary discourse event-talk is in some sense derivative from substance-talk." {14} On the other hand, he concedes that "I failed to appreciate the kinship of event-expressions with abstract singular terms." {15} Specifically, "We have already construed events as a special kind of proposition." {16} But this wavering is unimportant for my purposes because I will claim that one type of event talk defies paraphrase.

      So the question must be raised whether Sellars has succeeded in providing an analysis of events in terms of things. Eddy Zemach thinks he has:

. . . it has been shown by several philosophers (most clearly, probably, by Wilfrid Sellars, in "Time and the World Order" that the ontology and the language of events can be defined by using the language of things only . . . {17}

I believe that Zemach is wrong about this for the following reason. When speaking of events there is an ambiguity. In one sense an event is whatever happens to something in the course of time, or the relation of that thing to other things in the course of time. These kinds of events Sellars recognizes and analyzes correctly as states and relations between substances. On the other hand there are the 'quasi-physical objects' (Sellars' phrase) such as flashes of lightning, thunder claps, C#-ings, buzzings, etc.

      In publications prior to the Carus lectures, Sellars recognized as basic only physical objects, animate creatures, and persons. But he hedged about the status of 'quasi-physical objects', as is hinted in this passage:

What is an event? 'Event' is a category expression, and to ask the question is to ask for the place of 'event' in a system of categories. Leaving aside such puzzling occurrences as claps of thunder and flashes of lightning . . . {18}

I will call these puzzling events (as does Sellars in his later writings) 'absolute processes'. To mark the distinction, let us refer to the former (reducible) use of event as 'event-1' and to the latter, substantive sense of event (absolute process) as 'event-2'.

      When we examine the cases of 'events' for which Sellars does succeed in providing a reduction, they turn out to be the following sort of cases. Sometimes the word 'event' is used synonymously with the word 'fact'. For example, 'the event of Caesar crossing the Rubicon' is equivalent to 'the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon'. And such talk is metalinguistic talk about the truth of propositions. Thus, 'the fact that Caesar crossed the Rubicon' is equivalent to 'it is true that Caesar crossed the Rubicon'. And if we incorporate Sellars' dot-quotational procedure, this is to be translated as: .Caesar crossed the Rubicon. is true. {19}

      On another occasion, he gives an almost identical analysis. He says that 'the event of Brutus killing Caesar took place' is paraphraseable as 'that Brutus killed Caesar was true.' His next step is to claim that 'that clauses' are disguised ordinary language quoting devices; so the next (second-order) paraphrase becomes "'Brutus killed Caesar' was true." {20}

      We may call all these examples propositional events, and what Sellars has to say about them seems to be true. But there is another type of event talk which is not so easily disposed off; this is the talk of occurrences like flashes of lightning and noises, which in his writings prior to the Carus Lectures Sellars referred to as 'quasi- physical' objects. In "The Structure of Knowledge" {21} he calls such events 'basic entities', but never explains why they are not full-fledged physical objects, and otherwise ignores their ontological status.

B. SUBSTANCES AND ABSOLUTE PROCESSES

      The locus classicus for the discussion of the difference between substances and absolute processes is, as Sellars recognizes, chapter VII, especially the section beginning with the "Independent Discussion of the Notion of Substance," of C. D. Broad's Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy {22} Broad uses various synonymous expressions for these. Substances are referred to as Continuants and Things, while Processes are referred to as Occurrents and Events.

      To bring out the categorial distinctions between substances and processes, Broad employs the technique of considering which predicates are appropriately used with which linguistic expressions: "There are certain predicate-phrases . . . which it seems appropriate to conjoin with certain kinds of substantive names and phrases, and quite inappropriate to conjoin with certain others." {23}

      By using this method, Broad notes that "There is then, prima facie, a distinction between two sorts of substantive, which we will call "Processes" and "Things" respectively."{24}

In Indo-European languages, at any rate, there are at least two kinds of substantive-name, viz., thing-names and process-names. There are several different kinds of adjective-phrase which can be conjoined with thing-names to give intelligible sentences. If any of these be joined with process- names the result is nonsense. Similarly, there are several kinds of adjective-phrase which can be conjoined with process-names to give intelligible sentences. If any of these be joined with thing-names the result is nonsense. This linguistic fact may suggest that there are two fundamentally different, though no doubt closely interconnected, kinds of particulars. {25}

He illustrates this distinction by noting that "It is sensible to say: 'There is a noise going on' or 'There is a movement taking place'. It would be nonsensical to say: 'There is a chair going on in my study.'" {26} Again, in the use of temporal predicates, "we talk of Things as 'enduring' or 'persisting through' a period of time. We talk of Processes as 'going on for' longer or shorter periods of time." {27} He adds:

There are certain kinds of adjectives which may be called 'dispositional adjectives'. Obvious examples are words like 'poisonous', 'fusible', 'massive', etc. These are properly conjoined with thing-names and not with process-names. {28}

By using this same technique, Broad points out that Processes are not Facts:

We can say of a certain process that it is loud and "buzzy"; we can say of a certain other process that it is soft and "tinkly"; and we can say of the two that they go on simultaneously. But surely it would be nonsense to talk of a loud or a soft or a "buzzy" or a "tinkly" fact, or to speak of two facts as "going on simultaneously". {29}

III. ABSOLUTE PROCESSES IN THE CARUS LECTURES

      For Sellars, prior to the Carus Lectures, the difference between full-fledged physical objects and some quasi-physical objects, such as thunder claps and flashes of light, seems to rest on the fact that these quasi-physical objects are fleeting particulars or are in some sense 'incomplete' in the sense of manifesting properties which are 'proper' rather than 'common sensibles' (in the Aristotelian terminology). It is only in his Carus Lectures that Sellars acknowledge these quasi-physical objects to be irreducible processes.

      My impression is that Sellars would say that though there is event-2 talk in common sense, it is taken by common sense to describe fleeting particulars (substances). Yet these are puzzling occurrences because it is unclear what would be the logical subjects of these events. He considers such locutions as 'it flashes' and the 'flash flashed'. But these locutions lead no- where. All he manages to do is draw attention to an awkwardness in our subject-predicate talk. The bottom line for Sellars, despite this awkwardness, is that in the Manifest Image talk of events-2 is talk about ephemeral, fleeting substances. The plain truth is that the categorial status of events in common sense is obscure in the writings of Sellars prior to the Carus Lectures. And it is these kinds of events which find no place in the Manifest Image despite the fact that Sellars 'verbally' includes them. They cannot be included because they are not reducible to things. Sellars seems to concede their irreducible status only years later in the Carus Lectures. But if there is no room for events-2 in the Manifest Image, then it may be one of the shortcomings of that Image; and a good reason within Sellarsian philosophy to abandon the Manifest Image for the Scientific one.

      More troublesome cases arise once we distinguish between objective and subjective cases of, let's say, a flash of light. The objective case of a flash of light is publicly observable; the subjective case is not. What are we to say about a subjective flash of light? If we want to continue using the substance-attribute mode of analysis, how are we to construe such fleeting substances? The core of the classical understanding of substances attributed to them causal interaction. Do fleeting subjective flashes of light have a causal role? If they do not, then they perhaps should be viewed as epiphenomena. And indeed this is an interpretation of such processes taken into account by Sellars, particularly in his "Phenomenalism," {30} and identified with Hobbes' phantasms. Despite his recognition of this Hobbesian element in common sense, Sellars ignores it in the Manifest Image. Here the primary substances are the publicly observable macro-substances such as pink ice cubes and red apples. And his problem is to find a suitable ontology that will do justice to both veridical and unveridical perceptions of public macro- substances. He does not try to reconcile the place of fleeting subjective events-2 in the scheme of things. He mentions them peripherally and in a promissory fashions to talk about them at some future (unspecified) time.

      In the Carus Lectures, Sellars goes back to the examples of lightning flashes, thunder claps, C#-ing, and buzzings as models for making a case for pure processes in the Scientific Image. But if these models exist in the Manifest Image, then surely they can be used as models for a segment of the Manifest Image itself. Specifically, these models can be used to provide the category needed for sensa. The obvious objection to the introduction of such a category at the common sense level is that it serves no good purpose at that level. It may be said that the common sense framework is oriented towards practical ends and such a category is pragmatically useless.

      But such an objection is beside the point. The question should be asked whether there are events-2 recognized by common sense which have no apparent substances as constituents. Sellars in the Carus Lectures points to a whole series of such events which when we try to transcribe them into a more perspicuous grammatical form come out as: 'It <verb>s over there'. For example, to describe the fact that there is thunder over there, we may say 'It is thundering over there' or 'It thunders over there'. Sellars distinguishes an objective and a subjective sense of such locutions. If used in the objective sense, I could be wrong about claiming that it is thundering over there; but if used in the subjective sense, then I cannot be wrong (in any simple sense of wrong), i.e., I am expressing how I am being affected -- in the manner as if I were hearing thunder over there. Sellars himself distinguishes between actual cases of hearing (and actual perceptions generally) from ostensive cases of hearing (and ostensive perceptions generally).

      An ontologically interesting question is: what does 'it' refer to, or, better, how does 'it' function in such sentences as 'it thunders over there'? Are we not saying that the thunder thunders over there, or that lightning flashes over there, or that the flash flashed over there? If we pursue this line of thought, and this way of expressing ourselves, we find that all phenomenalistic uses of appear talk can be recouched in the '<nominalized verb> <verb>' rubric. For example, 'It looks red' can be transcribed as 'The redding reds'. And this linguistic practice can be codified. When the form 'It is <verb>ing' is used, it refers to a quantum of space and time. The word 'thunder' is the nominalization of the verbal noun 'thundering'; 'flash' of 'flashing'; 'sound' of 'sounding'; 'smell' of 'smelling', etc. A 'redding' is just the occurrence of a red patch (as the phenomenalists used to put it) over a time period. The problem with sense-data talk as, for example, a red patch, was to view it as an attribute of something, an attribute of a sensum or a person or some neutral entity. And the ontological commitment seemed to be to a substance. The shift here is not to regard the redding as the redding of something or other, but to say that the redding is a primitive entity. {31}

      In the Carus Lectures, Sellars partially concedes these points. He recognizes the use of such words as 'it' as being transcendental (in the scholastic sense). He recognizes the primitive use, or ur-use of, for example, 'red.' Yet, trying to maintain an ontology of substances in the Manifest Image, he insists on cashing in the demonstrative use of 'it' in (Lewis') expressive judgments by saying that 'it' refers to spatio-temporal stuff. Sometimes he thinks of it as Aristotelian 'matter'. {32} By making the primitive concept of, for example, red refer to stuff, he is trying to save the idea that the Manifest Image is built around the category of substance.

      But there may appears to be a major discrepancy between taking this line and Sellars denial of the given in knowledge. If expressive judgments (phenomenal reports) have a ground categorial structure of being reports about a primitive 'stuff', then Sellars is actually claiming that our observational knowledge does have a grounding. To overcome this criticism, it must be remembered that Sellars never meant to deny that observational knowledge is grounded, but only to deny the claim that such rock bottom knowledge is unalterable. It is the unalterability of our substantive categorial frameworks that Sellars calls the myth of the given.

      My criticism comes to this. Sellars admits, on the one hand, that we can make judgments such as 'It appears to be red' where the 'it' is used as an indefinite demonstrative; yet, on the other hand, he also insists that 'it' in such judgments refers to stuff. Sellars is conflating these two uses of the demonstrative saying that 'it' need not refer to anything in particular, but in actuality it refers (in the Manifest Image) to stuff. My guess is that he would insist on the 'stuff' analysis as the actual rock bottom way we have of observing things (in the Manifest Image), and that the indefinite demonstrative use is an abstraction. This is implied in the following passage:

On my account, however, there is no such determinate category prior to the concept of red as a physical stuff, as a matter for individuated physical things. We, as phenomenologists, can bracket the concept of an expanse of red in that radical way which involves an abstraction from all those implications involved in its being the concept of something physical. But by so abstracting we do not acquire a concept of red which belongs to a more basic determinate category--we simply abstract from such determinate categorial status it has, and construe it merely as a particular having some determinate categorial status or other .{33}

He would probably say that the 'it', used indeterminately, has become a variable, and since variables do not have a referring role (his objection to the objectual use of quantifiers), the only referring role the 'it' can have is by being substituted with a name (his substitutional analysis of quantifiers), and the only primitive category which will do for the substitution is that of stuff.

      But why should he insist on this? His reasoning is that all concepts are learned, and learning is to be explained by a behavioristic theory based on the observation of public phenomena. And the primary public phenomena are relatively stable substances, i.e., stuff.

      Sellars is ready to substitute 'process' for 'stuff' in the Scientific Image, but won't do this in the Manifest Image. Why? Evidently he won't in order to preserve the procrustean nature of the Manifest Image as built on the category of substance. But then I wonder what Sellars would say about Hopi expressive judgments. Would he say that they are grounded on the category of processes? Perhaps he would. But he would also probably add that the Hopi conceptual framework is not the framework of the Manifest Image. And I would answer that the framework of the Manifest Image is not that of common sense.

IV. WHAT'S THE FUSS?

      If events-2 (absolute processes) are recognized by common sense, but neither by the Manifest Image nor the Platonic tradition (which the Manifest Image intends to capture), then the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the Manifest Image and the Platonic tradition are inadequate frameworks. And this is precisely the thesis I am defending. But the acute Sellars student may reply: "Yes, exactly. Sellars himself believes that the Manifest Image is inadequate and proposes the Scientific Image -- built around an event ontology -- as a substitute. So what's the fuss?"

      The fuss comes to this. Sellars implies that talk about claps of thunder, flashes of lighting, C#-ings, and such, is a problem for the Manifest Image, but never expands the Manifest Image into, let us call it, a 'Manifest Image 2' -- a mixed ontology based on both substances and events-2.

      My criticism of the Manifest-Scientific Image distinction can therefore be put simply. Sellars says that the Manifest Image is built around the category of substance, and that it has no room for events as basic entities. There is, of course, talk of events in the Manifest Image, but such talk, according to Sellars, is reducible to substance talk. The ontology of the Manifest Image need not recognize a distinct category of events.

      But on reflection, what Sellars is saying is either misleading or false. It is misleading by suggesting that 'common sense' (broadly conceived) has no room for events as basic entities. We would be misled in believing this if we conflate the Manifest Image with common sense. However, if we remember that the Manifest Image is a prescribed construct, then Sellars is free to stipulate what is and what is not basic in the Image. If he wishes to pursue a program in which substance are the only basic entities (and other apparent entities are claimed to be facons de parler) and call this framework the Manifest Image, he is free to do so. It is a different question when we ask whether the Manifest Image corresponds to our pre-systematic notion of common sense in relevant respects. My notion of common sense, in the relevant respects, contains as a basic category that of events-2 which is irreducible to the category of substances. If my contention about absolute events (events-2) is true, much of what Sellars has to say about sensations will become short-circuited. By not recognizing events-2 as basic entities in common sense, Sellars is almost compelled to introduce a baroque theory of sensations -- called 'the adverbial theory'. He writes that the category of events has to be insightfully posited after strenuous work with the categories of substance. In one sense this is true -- in the sense that one fully appreciates the role of events-2 in ontology after working through, for example, the mind-body problems. But after going through the Sellarsian philosophical tour de force, one feels as if one were tricked into a dishonest game of chess by not being given a Queen and discovering that Queens exist only after managing to get a pawn to the opposite end of the file. Sellars, on this analogy, is playing counterfeit chess by refusing to recognize the basic status of events-2 in common sense. My correction of Sellars is to introduce events-2 as basic entities of common sense by contrast to his introduction of events-2 as posited entities in the Scientific Image.

      As I see it, the epistemological problem of foundationalism rests on whether to recognize the category of absolute processes (events-2) in common sense perception. If pure processes are given this recognition, then the existence of sensa can be recognized as a species of pure processes. The sensing of sensa, in turn, can provide foundations to empirical knowledge. Because Sellars does not give this recognition, he does not give them a role as objects of epistemically basic knowledge, and he is driven to make a detour to their recognition in the Scientific Image. My objection to the Sellarsian strategy is simply that he does not have to make the detour; the road to sensa is open at the common sense level. To make my case I will outline the details of Sellars detour and point out why it need not be taken.

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[Go to Chapter 5]

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