I wish I could say that the new realist
perspective dissolves the idiographic mystery.. the fact that people are so
DAMNED individual. But it
doesnt; it merely recasts
it. From the point of view of
the folk psychological account, the mystery is that an indivdiuals mind is
locked away inside a vault that can never be accessed; from the NR perspective, the mystery
arises from the fact that an individuals mind is a point of view from a
place that one can never stand.
I would argue that of the two perspectives, the NR is the more
heuristic because the slope leading up to the goal is more gradual. One is led, on the New Realist view, to try to approximate anothers
point of view; in the Folk
Psychological view one is led to try and break into a vault. And one is never sure whether the
Vault one is breaking into is the vault that contains the treasure that one
is trying to discover.
Eric (and
Nick),
I'm still
pursuing clarity.
nst ---> As well you
might!
Kindly
consider the following:
Person A,
a high-school student, is asked by a teacher (B) to solve a
maths problem on the board in front of the class. Among the other
students is person C, a close friend of A. A is taking an unusually
long time to solve the problem, frequently erasing partial calculations, now
and then pausing to stare at the board with a frown.
B is a
new teacher and has only interacted with A a few times. It appears to
him that the problem is simply too much for A, and starts forming an idea
about A's math skills.
C knows
that A is good at maths and that the problem on the board should
really not be difficult for him. He also knows A well enough to
recognise that the frown A exhibits means something is bothering him.
Things between A and his girlfriend are a bit shaky lately and he wonders if
it took a turn for the worse.
A has a
really bad headache. He very rarely gets headaches, but woke up this
morning with a monster. He hates giving up on math problems, though,
and is sure he should be able to solve this one. Also, he suspects the
new teacher thinks he isn't very good at maths and he wants to correct that
impression. And he just realised he forgot to do biology homework and
is trying to recall which period biology is.
nst --->
OK. Great hypothetical. As a "New Realist" [the philosophical
perspective from which this all arises], I am committed to using the
metaphor of "point of view" rather than the metaphor of "private
space". So, A, B, and C have different "points of view" on A's
behavior. We, also, have a point of view on the situation, call
it "D". All of these points of view are dynamic, and constantly being
updated. So, for instance, from the point of view with the least
information about A, the Teacher's, [B], it appears that a brief review
of A's academic records would show that he had never done well at
Maths. Once that prediction is disconfirmed, B's point of view on
A would be different.
Can you
please comment:
1. I
understand you to say that A is an observer of A in much the same way as B
and C. You're *not* saying A is not having an experience of A, only
that A's experience is not *privileged* compared to B and
C.
nst ---> Yes.
Good. Thank you.
Does
that mean you consider A's experience to be qualitatively indistinguishable
from that of B and C, or only that the difference in the quality of A's
experience, compared to that of B and C, is not of
consequence?
nst ---> I am sorry to
say I don't have a good grip on what is meant by "quality" here. I
would strive to make a distinction between sources of information and the
manner in which those sources are integrated into a view of the
situation. And I certainly believe that some sources of
information are better (will prove out when the frame is widened) than
others. Even B, whose viewpoint the hypothetical invites us to
disparage, might have information the others might profit from. True,
she has been called into the situation as a substitute teacher at the last
moment and doesn't know these students well, but she has been teaching Maths
for 30 years and has vast knowledge of the range of skills that students
present and of their behavior under the stress situation of an exam.
2.
Obvious A can think a great many things that B and C can't
know anything about. He can access memory about himself that B
and C cannot. He has access to interoceptive sensory information that
B and C does not. He has the experience of directly influencing the
mathematical symbols in his working memory, outside the perception or direct
influence of B and C. On the other hand, B and C has access to some
exteroceptive sensory information about A that A lacks. Do you
consider these various kinds of information and experiences to be entirely
interchangeable?
nst --->
Exactly. You said it better than I did above.
3. Do you
distinguish between "experience" and "have information
about"?
nst ---> Oh what a good
question! The field of psychology was influenced by the New
Realists by two distinct routes. One was through the "cognitive"
psychologist, E. C. Tolman; the other was through the perceptual
psychologist, JJ Gibson. Eric and I are from these different
traditions and he and I have often wrestled over this point. Eric will
no doubt contradict me at this point.
I see my challenge
here to be to come up with a way of talking that is as internally consistent
as possible. I think I would say that "information" is "potential
experience". It involves imagining a kind of universal point of view
that "sees" everything that all observers have ever or might possibly
see. All the stuff about A's headache is information that some
observers have and others do not; as such it is part of the potential
experience or information available in the situation. So,
to "have information" means the same thing as to "experience". If the
information is "in" one's "field of view", one is experiencing it.
4. When
you say that A's point of view is not privileged, do you consider anything
beyond the ability to identify motives and intent, gauge current
emotional state, and identify habitual patterns of
behaviour?
nst ---> Well, I
would have to evaluate each claim of privilege, case by case. If we
are talking about what is written on your side of the cup that sits on
the table between us, I would be inclined, on theoretical grounds, to
grant you privilege; if, however, you are blindfolded, and I put the
cup before you a moment ago, I would ret ain that privilege for myself, on the
same sorts of theoretical grounds. Spouses are often pretty
equally privileged with respect to one anothers' emotional states, which is
why marriage is such an interesting human relation.
5. We
can extend the example and allow A to spontaneously start hallucinating
a swarm of hand-sized pterodactyls that are attacking him. His body
and mind responds to the perceived threat like it would to a real one.
In some sense he really is having the experience, yet, B and C would deny
that it is taking place. What exactly does it mean to be "wrong" about
one's own experience?
nst ---> The New
Realists spent a lot of time talking about hallucination and what they wrote
didn't help me much. My answer would be something like this. Our
own point of view on the situation ... point of view D ... evolves as we
listen to the conversation between A and the others...."Sure looks like a
swarm of pterodactyls there" "Pterodactyls?" "Yep. They're
attacking me from all sides!" "I don't see no damned pterodactyls!"
ETC. Now, a fifth observer, E, watching and listening to all of
this, might begin to see the degree to which the D point of view is shaped
by D's experience of A, B, and C's point of view. So E might say,
"From where I stand, D sees A is wrong and B as
right."
Thanks again. I feel
like my mind is a flock of sheep being moved around by some very good sheep
dogs.
By the way, I think Eric
is correct to try and anchor our discussion of First/third person to
grammar. Speech about the self is first person speech; speech about
others is third person speech. Our position could then be distilled
into the statement that there is nothing special about the perceptual
processes that lie behind first person speech.
Nick