Philosophical Review

Knowledge Without Observation

Author(s): G. N. A. Vesey
Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Apr., 1963), pp. 198-212
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
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DISCUSSION

KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT OBSERVATION

I. MISS ANSCOMBE'S ACCOUNT

IN Section 5 of her book Intention'Miss G. E. M. Anscombe describes

"a rather strange case of causality": a person thinks he sees a face
at the window and this makes him jump. This is said to be a strange
case of causality because "the subject is able to give the cause . . . in
the same kind of way as he is able to state the place of his pain or the
position of his limbs."
What is this way of being able to state something? The answer,
given in Section 8 of the same book, is in terms of a way of knowing
things: "A man usually knows the position of his limbs without
observation."
Why is this knowledge said to be "without observation"?
It is without observation, because nothing shewshim the position of his limbs;
it is not as if he were going by a tingle in his knee, which is the sign that it is
bent and not straight. When we can speak of separately describable sensa-
tions, having which is in some sense our criterion for saying something, then we
can speak of observing that thing; but this is not generally so when we know
the position of our limbs.
If this remark is to be the basis of a definition of "knowledge without
observation," then it must be maintained not only that we can speak
of observing something when we can speak of "separately describable
sensations, having which is in some sense our criterion for saying
something," but also that we cannotspeak of observing something
unlesswe can speak of separately describable sensations, and so forth.
Otherwise, knowledge without observation would not be differentiated
from knowledge by observation: both could occur in the absence of
separately describable sensations. So, if Miss Anscombe does intend
the remark to afford a definition of "knowledge without observation,"
then she is committed either to denying that when, say, a person sees
that something is red, he is observing that it is red, or to affirming
that even in seeing something to be red there are separately describable
sensations.
If by the word "sensation" is meant something like a tingle (that is,
a bodily sensation), then it is false that I must have such sensations
I Ithaca, N.Y., 1957.

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to be able to state that the thing is red. I might indeed have a peculiar
sensation in my eyes whenever I saw something red, but this would
be accidental. It would not be from having this sensation that I knew
the thing to be red (unless, of course, I was color-blind, and had
learned that when I had this sensation other people would call the
thing I was looking at "red").
Is Miss Anscombe using the word "sensation" so as to include
something else besides bodily sensations? It would seem so. In Section
28 of her book she writes:
It is not ordinarily possible to find anything that shews one that one's leg
is bent. It may indeed be that it is because one has sensations that one
knows this; but that does not mean that one knows it by identifying the sensa-
tions one has. With the exterior senses it is usually possible to do this. I mean
that if a man says he saw a man standing in a certain place, or heard someone
moving about, or felt an insect crawling over him, it is possible at least to ask
whether he misjudged an appearance, a sound, or a feeling; that is, we can
say: Look, isn't this perhaps what you saw? and reproduce a visual effect of
which he may say "Yes, that is, or could be, what I saw, and I admit I can't
be sure of more than that"; and the same with the sound or the feeling.

In a footnote, Miss Anscombe adds:

... the fact remains that one can distinguish between actually seeing a man,
and the appearances' being such that one says one is seeing, or saw, a man;
and that one can describe or identify "what one saw" on such an occasion
without knowing e.g. that one really saw a reflection of oneself or a coat
hanging on a hook; now when one does so describe or identify "what one
saw," it is perfectly reasonable to call this: describing or identifying an appear-
ance.

What is the implication of this for the case of seeing something to be

red? It might seem that it means that Miss Anscombe would say that
seeing something to be red is a case of knowledge by observation
because one can distinguish between how the thing appears to one
and how it in fact is, and describe the former without committing
oneself as to the latter. In other words, it might seem as if Miss
Anscombe meant, by the "separation" involved in her talk of "sepa-
rately describable sensations," the familiar separation of appearance
from reality.
But this cannot really be what she would say, for she allows of the
same separation in the case of what is said to be known without obser-
vation. A person's leg may feel bent to him when it is lying straight
out.
About this, she writes:

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If a man says that his leg is bent when it is lying straight out, it would be
incorrect to say that he had misjudged an inner kinaesthetic appearance as an
appearance of his leg bent, when in fact what was appearing to him was his leg
stretched out.
This gives rise to the question, why is it incorrect to say that one
has misjudged an appearance when one's leg feels bent but is not, but
not incorrect to say this when something looks red but is not?
In Intention Miss Anscombe does not say anything which provides
an answer to this question. What she does say is: "This topic is cer-
tainly a difficult one, deserving a fuller discussion."
In a paper, "On Sensations of Position," in Analysis (Vol. XXII,
i962), Miss Anscombe makes a contribution to this "fuller discussion."
In Intention, having introduced the notion of knowledge without
observation with reference to a person's knowledge of the position
of his limbs, she had gone on to say that a person knows without
observation that he has given a reflex kick when a doctor has tapped
his knee. She mentioned the expression, "that sensation which one
has in reflex kicking, when one's knee is tapped." In the Analysis paper
she writes, regarding this expression:
I did not want to object to this use of the word "sensation," but argued that
such a "sensation" could not be adduced in defence of the thesis that we do
after all know our bodily movements and positions by observation, because
the sensation was not separable; elsewhere I implied that a sensation needed to
be "separately describable" if one observed a fact by means of the sensation.
Later she writes:
When I say: "the sensation (e.g. of giving a reflex kick) is not separable" I
mean that the internal description of the "sensation"-the description of the
sense-content-is the very same as the description of the fact known; when
this is so, I should deny that we can speak of observing that fact by means of
the alleged sensation.
Does what Miss Anscombe says here provide an adequate means of
distinguishing between an object looking red and a leg feeling bent?
Unfortunately it does not. If one is asked to describe how one's leg
feels one gives the same answer ("bent") as one does if asked to
describe the position of one's leg. But, equally, if one is asked to
describe the appearance of something which looks red, one gives the
same answer ("red") as one does if asked to describe the object itself.
The formula "separately describable sensations" simply will not do
the work Miss Anscombe wants it to do.
The only remaining hint as to what Miss Anscombe means is
contained in the final paragraphs of the Analysis article. She says

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things which suggest that she would say that "red," used to describe
something seen, was the description of "a sense-content properly
speaking," whereas "bent," used to describe how one's leg feels, was
not. But she does not say how one is to discover what words are
descriptions of "sense-contents properly speaking," and what words
are not.

II. AN ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNT

The attempt to understand what Miss Anscombe means by "knowl-

edge without observation" is like a treasure hunt. From "without
observation" to "without separately describable sensations" the trail
is clear. But beyond that point, the clues ("It is not possible to ask
whether one has misjudged an appearance," "The internal description
of the 'sensation' is the very same as the description of the fact known,"
and so forth) seemto lead, not to any philosophical treasure at all, but to
the absurdity that seeing something to be red is knowledge without
observation. Obviously we have gotten onto the wrong track some-
where. But how?
I think the answer must be this. Miss Anscombe intended us to
contrast (a) the way a person usually knows the position of his limbs,
not with (b) the way a person usually knows that something is red, but
with (c) the way a person usually knows, for example, that an insect
is crawling up the back of his neck. She simply overlooked the fact
that the description which serves to differentiate (a) from (c) does not
serve to differentiate (a) from (b). To that extent the clues were
inadequate, the treasure unattainable.
If I am right about this, then either the game must be abandoned
or it must be reconstituted, with a set of clues which do enable a
player to differentiate between (a) and (b). The remainder of this
paper is an attempt at such a reconstitution. Whether or not the treas-
ure, such as it is, to which they lead, is the one Miss Anscombe had in
mind, only she can say.
The first task is to provide a means of distinguishing between (b) the
way a person usually knows that something is red and (c) the way a
person usually knows that an insect is crawling up the back of his
neck. There are, of course, a number of differences between these
ways of knowing. One is that one of them is by sight, the other by
"feeling." But this can hardly be relevant, for Miss Anscombe does not
distinguish between a man feeling an insect crawling over him, and a
man seeing a man standing in a certain place. What we require is a

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means of distinguishing between (b) and (c) which will enable us to

distinguish between seeing something to be red and seeing a man
standing in a certain place. Is there any traditional philosophical
distinction which will serve this purpose?
Indeed there is: the distinction between what is, and what is not, the
"proper object" of the sense of sight. But is not this a notion which is
hopelessly demodd?One associates it with people like Berkeley. Can
what Berkeley said, in what was a New Theoryof Vision250 years ago,
be relevant today? Can the notion of a "proper object" be given a
new (linguistic) look?
I think it can, and accordingly I propose to distinguish between what
I shall call a "proper-object"perception, and an "association-mediated"
perception. For purposes of exposition I shall take as my example
of an association-mediated perception, not a person's feeling an insect
crawling up the back of his neck, but a person's seeing the coldness of a
distant snow-covered mountain.
The possibility of making the distinction between what is, and what
is not, the proper object of a given mode of perception (sight, hearing,
and so forth) depends on the intelligibility of such a question as "By
what mode of perception does one learn what it is for an object to be
red?" This question must be understood in such as way that there is
only one possible answer, namely "By sight." Other answers would
indicate that the expression "what it is for an object to be red" had
been understood in a wider sense than that intended.
Suppose, for instance, it was said that if an object is red then it will
reflect light waves of a certain frequency, which can be measured
scientifically. One attempt to deal with this would be to ask: but when
we say that something is red, do we meanthat it will satisfy certain
scientific tests? The trouble with this attempt is, of course, that we
do mean that it will satisfy these tests. Ever since it was discovered that
red things reflect light waves of a certain frequency it became pertinent
to ask of a thing whose color was suspect whether it satisfied the tests.
Perhaps it only looked red because it was being viewed under abnormal
conditions; the tests would tell. But is a thing's being red like a thing's
being poisonous, so that it is effectswhich matter? Is not a thing's
looking red an effect of its being red ? Well, yes, but there are effects
and effects. If a thing looked red to normal observers under normal
conditions, that would settle the matter.
I am not sure that we do use the word "red" in this way, so that
redness is a purely visual phenomenon. But we might. We might so
use it that only people with sight could be said to know its meaning.

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If we did, then seeing something to be red would be a proper-object

perception. Redness would be a proper object of sight. One would be
able to learn what it is for an object to be red only if one exercised
one's faculty of vision. The meaning of something being red would be
given by one's sense of sight.
Whether or not we do use any words so as to allow of an answer
to the question "What are the proper objects of sight (hearing, touch,
and so forth) ?" does not matter. All I require is that the notion should
be intelligible. For if it is intelligible then the statement that seeing
the coldness of a distant snow-covered mountain is not an instance of
proper-object perception will readily be understood. (For whether or
not coldness is thought to be the proper object of any other mode of
perception, it is hardly likely to be thought of as the proper object of
sight.) And that it is not an instance of proper-object perception is
part of the meaning of saying that seeing the coldness of a distant
mountain is an association-mediated perception.
The other part of the meaning of this is as follows. It is reasonable
to explain the person's ability to see the coldness of the mountain by
reference to the association, in his past experience, of two things:
coldness, and some other quality of cold things-in this case, whiteness.
It is because of this association that he now sees the white thing as cold.
All that is being said here is that coldness has come to be associated
with whiteness, so that the present object's being seen as white is a
sufficient condition of its being seen as cold. It is not being said that
the person has to remember the occasion of his being simultaneously
aware of coldness and whiteness, or that he is conscious of inferring
the coldness from the whiteness, or even that he can himself explain,
in terms of association, how it is that he sees the coldness of the moun-
tain. But one thing is requisite: that with which he associates coldness
must be something in his present experience to which he could attend
if he so desired. Otherwise it is not association-mediated perception.
Feeling an insect crawling up the back of one's neck differs from
seeing the coldness of a mountain in that, whereas someone might
say that coldness was the proper object of a mode of perception (ther-
matic awareness?), no one would be likely to accord this distinction to
an insect. (Insects are obviously "common sensibles"-that is, they
can be seen, touched, heard, and so forth-but this does not affect what
I am saying. Feeling an insect crawling up the back of one's neck is no
less a case of association-mediated perception than is seeing the coldness
of a mountain.)
This must suffice to distinguish between (b), the way a person

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usually knows that something is red, and (c), the way a person usually
knows that an insect is crawling up the back of his neck. Now let us
return to the central issue: how does (a), the way a person usually
knows the position of his limbs, differ from (b) and (c) ?
It differsfrom (c) in that it is notan association-mediated perception.
(This was the point of all that Miss Anscombe said about there not
being "separately describable sensations.") And it differs from (b) in
that the position of one's limbs is not the proper object of kinesthesis.
Another way of putting this would be to say that while it is like
association-mediated perception in that what is perceived is not the
proper object of the mode of perception in operation, it is unlike it in
that there is nothing in the person's present experience to explain how
he can perceive what he perceives. This is not an easy combination
of characteristics to grasp. Is it adequately suggested by the title
"knowledge without observation"?

III. OBJECTIONS TO THE TITLE

"KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT OBSERVATION"

i. The word "observe" is a verb of perception, but it is neither

clearly just a perceptual task verb, like "watch" and "listen," nor
clearly just a perceptual achievement verb, like "see" and "hear."
As with the verb "witness," there is a noun, "observer," which seems
to take precedence over the verb. There is The ObserverCorps, The
Observer's Bookof Birds, and so on. An observer is a person who watches
(listens, and so forth) and noteswhat he sees (hears, and so forth). The
verb "observe" might seem to have been introduced to provide an
answer in one word to the question "What does an observer do?"
rather as the verb "farm" might have been introduced to provide an
answer in one word to the question "What does a farmer do?" As a
consequence it is a bit artificial to talk of people observing
the position of
their limbs, even when they are looking at their limbs and noting their
position. But it does not seem to be any moreartificial to say of a
person who has been asked, as part of an experiment, to try to notice
the position his limbs are in when he wakes up, and who does so, but
without opening his eyes or making a judgment on the basis of "sepa-
rately describable sensations," that he has observedtheir position. Conse-
quently, to say of such noticing that it is knowledge without observa-
tion is neither to say something the meaning of which is very clear,
nor is it to say something which is clearly true.

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2. The choice of the title "knowledge without observation" might

be taken to mean that Miss Anscombe would not say that a person
feels his leg to be bent (or that his leg feels bent to him) when he knows
that it is bent without having to look at it or having to rely on feelings
of pressure and the like. It is evident from what she says in the Analysis
paper that this is not in fact Miss Anscombe's view. But I think that
Mr. 0. R. Jones, in his i960-i96i Aristotelian Society paper, "Things
Known without Observation," does take it to be her view. He describes
her view as being that we have "a mysterious acquaintance" with our
limbs, and he says that he is "baffled" as to what sort of mistake there
could be under these conditions. (Jones's bafflement reminds one of
Arnaud's reaction to what Leibniz wrote about there being "a more
distinct expression" in one's soul of what happens in some parts of
one's body than of what happens in other parts.)
3. The title "knowledge without observation" readily lends itself
to a misunderstanding such that very many things, with which Miss
Anscombe is not concerned at all, can be said to be "known without
observation." For instance, Mr. A. R. Manser, in his i960-i96i
Aristotelian Society paper, "Pleasure," writes:
What I think Miss Anscombe intended the phrase "knowing without observa-
tion" to imply, and what I certainly intend to convey, is that the question
"How do you know?" in the sense of "What evidence can you cite for your
claim?" just doesn't apply in these cases.
This interpretation, in terms of the inapplicability of questions about
evidence, lets in a great deal. (Indeed, if one accepts what J. L. Austin
says about the proper use of the word "evidence," in Chapter Ten of
Sense and Sensibilia, it lets in practically everything.) If I said that I
was thirsty, or that I felt hot or tired, or that I was enjoying digging in
the garden, or that I intended having a shower when I had finished, in
no case would questions about my evidence be applicable. On Man-
ser's account they would all be things I know without observation.
But in that case "knowledge without observation" would merely be a
synonym for "introspection."
4. (This is my main objection.) If what Miss Anscombe calls
"knowledge without observation" is to be understood in the manner
indicated at the end of the second section of this paper, then it would
seem that other members of the class of "things known without obser-
vation" will be (a) sounds heard as having their source in a certain
direction, and (b) objects seen as being further away than other
objects. Admittedly such perceptions are often association-mediated
perceptions (for example, we can tell that the balloon is going further

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and further away from its seeming to get smaller and smaller) but
they are not exclusively so. Itwould seem thatwhen it is not association-
mediated perception MissAnscombe would have to say that it is not
observation. But it does not seem reasonable to say that a person has
not observedthat one object is further away than another just because
its looking further away than the other can only be explained by
reference to things of which he is not aware (for example, the features
of his sensory apparatus which enable him to see pictures in three
dimensions by using a stereoscope). To say that it is not observation
when a person tells the direction of the source of a sound simply by
by listening (and, perhaps, by turning his head slightly) seems to me to
be a gross misuse of the word "observation."
In short, what Miss Anscombe calls "knowledge without observation"
seems to me to have nothing whatsoever to do either with observation
or with the absence of observation.

IV. AN ALTERNATIVE TERMINOLOGY

I shall call what Miss Anscombe calls "knowledge without observa-

tion" "borrowed-meaning knowledge." This, at least, is a more
positive-sounding title and may suggest (i) that we are concerned with
questions about meaning, (ii) that the meaning of what is said to be
known is given otherwise than by the mode of perception in operation
(that is, that what is said to be known is not the proper object of that
mode of perception), and (iii) that, nevertheless, it is not the same
as association-mediated knowledge (for otherwise it would not have
been given a different name).
But my real reason for calling it "borrowed-meaning knowledge" is
that I want to take the treasure hunt beyond the end Miss Anscombe
envisaged. I want to characterize a way of knowing things which is
related to the way in which we usually know the position of our limbs as
appropriating something is related to borrowing it.
In order to do this, let me first draw attention to one feature of
borrowed-meaning knowledge. What is said to be known (for example,
that one's leg is bent, that one object is further away than another,
that the source of a sound is to one's right, and so forth) is described
in such a way that a person who was not capable of borrowed-meaning
knowledge would still be able to understand what is said to be known.
In "appropriated-meaning knowledge," as I shall call it, this is not
so. The description of what is said to be known is such that only a

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person capable of the relevant kind of borrowed-meaning knowledge

could understand it. Anyone else would either not understand it, or
misunderstand it. In this respect appropriated-meaning knowledge
is like proper-object knowledge. (It differs from proper-object knowl-
edge in that what is known is not the proper object of the mode of
perception in operation, being dependent for its existence on the
conditions which make borrowed-meaning knowledge possible.)
A person who has merely borrowed something is answerable to the
person from whom he has borrowed it. A person who has appropriated
something does not acknowledge any such obligation. He has taken
the thing over. Originally it belonged to the other person, but now,
through his having appropriated it, it is his. These features, interpreted
in terms of meaning, are the features of an appropriated-meaning
description.
Let me now try to give body to this abstract account, with examples.
Suppose that I hear the source of a sound to be to my right, and that
thisis not an instance of association-mediated perception. I may describe
what I am aware of by saying that the source of the sound is to my
right. In that case what I say would be understood by a person who
was incapable of locating sounds merely by listening. But I might have
said that the soundis comingfrom my right. This, I submit, could not be
properly understood by a person incapable of locating sounds merely
by listening.
In an article, "The Location of Sound," in Mind (LXVI, I957),
Mr. B. O'Shaughnessy writes:
Reality might conceivably have been such that no creature of any sort ever
at any time located sounds merely by listening to them. This would mean that
sounds would be said to have locality rather in the way in which smells have,
so that we would make use of criteria like: (i) what produces the sound,
(ii) does the sound grow louder as we get close to what we take to be its origin?
Suppose that just one person was able to locate sounds merely by
listening to them. He might say that he heard a sound as coming from
his right. People hearing him might say to him, "You mean you hear
a sound which is such that you can tell that the object producing
it is to your right, for example, that it is the sound made by traffic
and you know the main road to be to your right." If he said that this
was not what he meant, they might say to him, "You mean you hear a
sound and, in some way which can be explained only by the psychol-
ogists, you just know that it is produced by some object to your
right." If he said, "No, I hear the soundas comingfrom my right," they
would be as much at a loss as we should be if someone said he smelled

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a smellas coming
from his rightand denied that this was a matter of telling
from what kind of a smell it was that it came from his right, or a matter
of telling from where the smell was stronger where it came from, or a
matter of smelling the smell and "just knowing" where it came from.
Another example. Suppose that I feel a new pair of shoes pinching
my feet. Instead of saying that I can feel that they are pinching me,
I may say that I have feeling, of being pinched, in myfeet.(Advocates of
the local sign theory of the location of bodily sensations will say that
this is an association-mediated perception, but I do not find their
arguments plausible. I have given my reasons in a paper, "The Loca-
tion of Bodily Sensations," in Mind [LXX, i96i].) A person
who was incapable of borrowed-meaning knowledge of where things
were pressing on his body would not be able to understand this. It
would be a case of appropriated-meaning knowledge.
Sometimes it may not be easy to think up an appropriated-meaning
description. This is so in the case of distance perception by sight.
.Suppose that an object is receding from us and that we are aware
that it is receding otherwise than by virtue of an association. In other
words, we have borrowed-meaning knowledge that it is receding.
What is the corresponding appropriated-meaning description? I do
not think there is any phrase in regular use. If pressed, I would say
that we are aware of the "increasing visual depth" of the object.
What is known, in appropriated-meaning knowledge, might be
described as a visual phenomenon but not the proper object of vision,
an auditory phenomenon but not the proper object of hearing, a
kinesthetic phenomenon but not the proper object of kinesthesis, and
so forth. It is no more necessarily something about which a person
cannot be mistaken than is the possession by an object of what is a
proper object of a given mode of perception. For example, people can,
and often do, disagree with one another about the direction from which
-asound is coming. We might use an appropriated-meaning description
in such a way that it would not be allowed that a person could be
mistaken; but that would be for other reasons than simply that it was
an appropriated-meaning description. For instance, we might say
that a person could not be mistaken about the location of a bodily
sensation. If we did this, I suppose it would be for some such reason
as the following. Two or more people can tell, by listening, that the
source of a sound is to their right. But only I can tell, by kinesthesis,
that my shoes are pinching me. Hence, whereas I am not the sole
authority on the direction from which sounds are coming, I am the
'sole authority when it comes to my own bodily sensations. This is a

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reason (though not, I would think, a very good one) for saying that I
cannot be mistaken about the location of my bodily sensations.

V. KNOWLEDGE OF ONE'S OWN

INTENTIONAL MOVEMENTS

The treasure at the end of Miss Anscombe's treasure hunt is, as the
title of her book suggests, an insight into the nature of an intentional
action. Intentional actions are members of the class of things known
without observation. Having rejected her account of, and her title for,
this way of knowing things, what can I say on this topic?
The question for me is: when someone moves some part of his
body-say, one of his hands-intentionally, is his knowledge that it is
in a state of motion proper-object knowledge, or association-mediated
knowledge, or borrowed-meaning knowledge?
For it to be proper-object knowledge it would have to be the case
that what it is for a hand to be in motion is something the meaning
of which is given by the experience of moving it. This is clearly not
so. A hand's being in motion is as much something to be understood
in terms of what can be seen and touched as is a billiard ball's being
in motion, and a person need never have moved himself to understand
what it is for a billiard ball to be in motion.
Is it association-mediated knowledge? This is a question about which
there has been, and still is, a great deal of controversy. There are those
who say that a person's knowledge that his hand is in motion, when
he moves it, is based on a learned association, between an "act of
volition," on the one hand, and the motion of the bodily part, on the
other. They produce what are, on the face of it, plausible arguments for
their view. There are others, including myself ("Volition," Philosophy
[XXXVI, i96i]), who dispute that this is so, and question the
validity of the arguments. It is not a matter which can be dealt with
both adequately and, at the same time, briefly. I shall therefore not
attempt to deal with it at all here, but merely state my own conclusion.
This is that a person can know that his hand moved, when he moved
it, solely by virtue of the fact that he moved it. In Aristotelian terms
(Physics,Book 8, Chapter 5), he is the "original cause" of the move-
ment, and no "instrumental cause" intervenes between him and the
movement.
For it to be borrowed-meaning knowledge it would have to be the
case that while the meaning of what was said to be known would be

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given otherwise than by the experience of moving, yet the knowledge

would not be by virtue of a learned association. This, I think, is so.
If we grant that a person's knowledge that his hand is in motion,
when he moves it, is borrowed-meaning knowledge, then it would seem
reasonable to expect to find a corresponding appropriated-meaning
description of what he knows. Is there such a description? Some would
say that there is, and that it employs the word "wills": "he wills the
movement to take place." My objection to this answer is that it can so
easily be taken to mean that an instrumental cause does intervene
between the person and the movement. That is, it is an answer which
seems to assimilate a person's moving his hand to his causing something
to happen by doing something else, as, for instance, he may cause
tears to come to his eyes by thinking of something sad.
Is there a form of words in current English which does not convey
this suggestion, the suggestion that the person does something else to
make his hand move? I do not think so. But I can see no reason why
this should deter us from introducing a form of words to fill the gap.
At one time there may have been no words to describe what I have
called "visual depth." We might say that at that time people did not
have the concept of visual depth. They acquired it when some philos-
opher started talking of it and they accepted this talk as meaningful,
as filling a gap in their conceptual scheme, a gap which until then they
may not have recognized as such. Language grows, and it is philos-
ophers who grow it.
I suggest we might say of somebody: "So far as he, but not necessarily
his hand, was concerned, he moved his hand." This will either strike
one as nonsense, or it will be accepted as meaningful. If it strikes one as
nonsense it is likely to be for the same kind of reason as Freud's talk of
unconscious desires struck some people as nonsense. That is, it will be
said that "A moved his hand" entails "A's hand moved," so it is
logically impossible for a person to move his hand without its moving.

VI. WIDER ISSUES: THE EMBODIED MIND

Does what I have been saying have any bearing on any of the
traditional "problems of philosophy"? Does it enable us to see any
of the traditional issues in a new light?
I think it does. It provides a means of stating, in an articulate
fashion, what a number of philosophers seem to have felt, but never
been able to express very clearly, about the way in which the mind is
embodied.

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Consider, for instance, what Descartes says on this topic in his letters
to Princess Elizabeth von der Pfalz. In a letter dated 21 May i643, he
wrote:
There are two facts about the human soul on which there depends any knowl-
edge we may have as to its nature: first, that it is conscious; secondly, that,
being united to a body, it is able to act and suffer along with it. Of the second
fact I said almost nothing [in the Meditations];my aim was simply to make the
first properly understood; for my main object was to prove the distinction
of soul and body; and to this end only the first was serviceable, the second
might have been prejudicial.

How are we to understand the manner in which the soul is "united

to a body"? In his letter of 28 June i643, Descartes answered this
question as follows:
What belongs to the union of soul and body can be understood only in an
obscure way either by pure intellect or even when the intellect is aided by
imagination, but is understood very clearly by means of the senses. Conse-
quently, those who never do philosophise and make use only of their senses
have no doubt that the soul moves the body and the body acts on the soul;
indeed they consider the two as a single thing, i.e. they conceive of their
union; for to conceive of the union between two things is to conceive of them
as a single thing.

Later in the same letter he wrote:

It seems to me that the human mind is incapable of distinctly conceiving both

the distinction between body and soul and their union, at one and the same
time; for that requires our conceiving them as a single thing and simultane-
ously conceiving them as two things, which is self-contradictory. I supposed
that your Highness still had very much in mind the arguments proving the
distinction of soul and body; and I did not wish to ask you to lay them aside,
in order to represent to yourself that notion of their union which everybody
always has in himself without doing philosophy-viz. that there is one single
person who has at once body and consciousness, so that this consciousness
can move the body and be aware of the events that happen to it.

I suggest that what Descartes meant when he said that the soul and
body are "united," and that this is something which is "understood
very clearly by means of the senses," could be expressed as follows.
It is not the case that, when I feel a touch as a touch on some part of
my body, this is association-mediated perception. And it is not the case
that, when I move some part of my body, my knowledge that that
part of my body is in motion is association-mediated knowledge. In
neither case do I first have to learn of the association of one thing,

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some quality of a mental event, with another, some disturbance or

movement of some part of my body, and later put this learned associa-
tion to use. My awareness of myself as embodied is not mediated:
it is immediate. It is an instance, not of association-mediated but of
borrowed-meaning knowledge.
G. N. A. VESEY
Universityof London

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