Subjectivity, Objectivity and Frames of Reference in Evans's
Theory of Thought
Adrian Cussins
[1] This paper explores some problems with Gareth Evans's
theory of the fundamental and non-fundamental levels of thought
(Evans 1982). I suggest a way to reconceive the levels of thought
that overcomes these problems. But, first, why might anyone who
was not already struck by Evans's remarkable theory care about
these issues? What's at stake here?
[2] I shall say that experience and judgement are different
modes of cognition. I mean only that they are different
ways in which people have or exercise knowledge of the world.
There are diverse aspects to this difference; for example, the
kind of epistemic commitment involved in
experiencing the world differs from the kind of epistemic
commitment involved in forming judgements about the world. But
that will not be my topic here. There are also differences in
kinds of content: the characteristic content of
experience differs from the characteristic content of judgement,
which is truth-evaluable thought content. I will not here try to
defend a version of Evans's claim that the content of experience
is nonconceptual as contrasted with the conceptual content of
judgeable thought.1
Philosophers have often thought that the
content of experience is subjective, at least in
part, whereas the content of judgement is, or ought to be,
objective. Evans, for example, emphasizes the egocentricity of
how perceptual experience presents the world, and contrasts the
objectivity of his fundamental level of thought. And related to
this, it has often been held that judgements which are based
directly on experience -- for example, observational
judgements -- carry an essentially subjective element, whereas
judgements based on (fundamental) thoughts may be wholly
objective. It is this (supposed) third difference betweeen
experience and judgement that I want to pursue here, in
connection with the distinction between the non-fundamental and
the fundamental levels of thought, as applied to thoughts about
material, spatial objects.2
[3] As we will see, a central category, for Evans, of
non-fundamental concepts of spatial objects are those
which are based on experience, especially perceptual experience.
For example, demonstrative concepts of material objects in the
immediate environment of the thinker, which the thinker is now
perceiving, and where the demonstration of the object relies on
its being perceived.3 The way these concepts are of
their objects is fixed by the way their grounding perceptual
experiences are of their objects. Now if the
intentionality of these concepts is fixed by the intentionality
of the perceptual experiences on which they depend, and the
perceptual experiences are subjective, then it is at least going
to be a concern that thoughts based on these concepts will, in
part, be subjective. Hence the felt need for an independently
grounded level of thought which is not, in part, subjective. On
one reading, Evans's fundamental level is a level of
concepts of objects that are wholly objective; where being
"wholly" objective means being not at all subjective. It may be
that insofar as human minds realize a fundamental level of
thought, concepts that are "wholly" objective are rarely, if
ever, grasped; nevertheless, this sort of objectivity is the
ideal that governs the fundamental level of human
thought.4 We
need the fundamental level of thought to secure thought's
objectivity, as an ideal, and as best as is possible given human
limitations.
[4] So, on this reading -- a popular reading of Evans -- the
distinction in cognition between the subjective and the objective
maps on to the distinction between the non-fundamental and the
fundamental levels of thought: the subjective is non-fundamental
and the fundamental is objective. But, surely, what is not
fundamental is not necessary,5 so we can explore the idea of
cognition which exists entirely at the fundamental level. We can
conceive of, and explore in thought, what on this view would be
an idealization of human thought: a creature whose cognition was
exclusively "wholly" objective because all of the creature's
thought operated at the fundamental level of thought. I will call
such a creature a "Fregean Angel". Now this is what is at stake
here: Is human thought such that its idealisation would be the
thought of a Fregean Angel? We could pursue some philosophical
questions about the nature of human persons by engaging in a
quasi-theology: if the angels are modelled on the best in
humanity, then how should we conceive of the angels? Personally
I am not enamoured of Fregean Angels, but not because I don't
think we should strive for what is best in our cognitive natures.
I'd rather craft a different theological form, but what? And
what theory of cognition could legitimate such an alternative
form?
[5] I won't have very much to say about these last two
questions here, but I want to do some preparatory work by
exploring, in the context of Evans's account, what goes wrong
with the idea of the Fregean Angels. In seeing what goes wrong
with Angelic thought we can better see the nature of the error in
a theory of thought in which there is a "fundamental"
level at which objectivity is secured, which is autonomous of
subjective cognitive phenomena, and which is therefore
cognitively detachable from them. Maybe then we will be better
placed to offer one or two ideas about how to put this right;
about an alternative understanding of objectivity's role in
cognition. If, on the other hand, we find no incoherence in
Angelic thought then we may be unable to resist a conception of
human thought in which the subjective and the objective elements
are assigned to functionally, and philosophically, distinct parts
of the cognitive system.
[6] One way to understand what goes wrong with a metaphysical
picture of the world is to fill the picture out more, find
oneself getting into difficulties in filling out the picture, and
then to give a principled explanation for these difficulties.
Suppose we were to attempt this for a picture of objectivity
secured exclusively at the fundamental level, from which all
subjectivity has been detached. What could such thought and its
world be like?
[7] Think first about the basis for a distinction between
qualitative identity and numerical identity under such
conditions. Normally, if there are two objects which are
qualitatively identical to each other, we can understand that
they are not numerically identical (that they are two rather than
one) because we can imagine them given in different egocentric
presentations to the thinker, or with different significances for
action; for example, one on their left and one on their right.
But this idea is not available in our picture of a
"wholly" objective world, because all subjectivity is
eliminated from such a world, and the idea of being "to the
left" or "to the right" depends on a subject's egocentric
perspective on the world. Likewise significance-for-action
depends on different embodied, subjective ways of being in the
world. We need some other way of making sense of these
qualitatively identical objects being in different places.
Again, normally, we have no difficulty with the idea of
unperceived distinct places, but that is because we are already
conceptually equipped to operate with the distinction between
qualitative and numerical identity: we make sense of unperceived
different places because we can make sense of their being
distinct particular objects located at those places. But
we cannot appeal to that here because we are trying to make
metaphysical sense of this distinction that is presupposed in our
ordinary understanding of different places. What is entirely
legitimate in ordinary practice leads in this metaphysical task
to vicious circularity: numerical distinctness of objects is
explained by appeal to distinct places which in turn is made
sense of in terms of the idea of numerically distinct objects.
Both Strawson and Evans emphasize the explanatory
inter-dependence of objects and places, so in conceiving our
metaphysical picture we cannot rest numerical distinctness of
objects on distinctness of places, nor distinctness of places on
distinctness of objects. At the metaphysical level of
explanation these distinctions must be provided for
symmetrically. But how?
[8] It helps to start with a very simple world -- a world of
shapes -- and ask about the conditions under which one can make
sense of the idea of two distinct objects which are identically
shaped. Strawson (1959) is concerned with the possibility of
this distinction given that "we cannot at any moment observe
the whole of the spatial framework we use, that there is no part
of it that we can observe continuously, and that we ourselves do
not occupy a fixed position within it" (32). In contrasting a
situation in which the subject could monitor continuously the
spatial relations amongst objects he imagines the "world"
depicted in the figure below. I want to focus on a component of
this "world", its bound or frame of reference, which
provides an absolute spatial framework for the shape-world:
Even though there is no subjectivity in this "world", we can
make sense of the distinction between qualitative and numerical
identity for the "world" by means of its frame. 6 The questions "which triangle?"
and "which circle?" make sense only because triangularity and
circularity can be differentially discriminated in terms of
distinct relations to the boundary frame of reference. In what
follows there are two aspects to the frame of reference of this
"world" which will be of importance: that the objects in the
shape-world are always co-presented with their frame of
reference, and that the frame of reference is not itself
dependent on the identity and distinctness of the objects that
are located with respect to it.
[9] If a world is presented at all to a Fregean Angel, it must
be presented in such a way that the entire extent of the world is
laid out before it, as the shape "world" is laid out for us
in the Strawson figure above. Subjects or thinkers cannot act in
this world; or, if they can, their thought about the world in no
way depends on their action in the world. The entire extent of
the world is laid out before the thinker, quite independently of
activity or experience, or embodiment: the world as a purely
formal object.
[10] In sum: if the fundamental level of thought is the level at
which objectivity is secured, and if the fundamental level can be
detached from any non-fundamental level, then we ought to be able
to make sense of an idealised cognitive creature that operates
exclusively at the fundamental level of thought and therefore
whose thought is "wholly" objective in that all subjectivity
has been excised from the thought of the creature. If thought of
any world at all entails the applicability of the distinction
between qualitative and numerical identity (for if it were not
applicable there could be no objects) then the world presented in
the thought of such an idealised cognitive creature would have to
be laid out before it so that the bounds of the whole world were
presented to it along with each object. The very possibility of
objects in such a world depends on their being co-presented with
the frame of the whole world. And the frame of reference itself
is not dependent on the objects in the world, or on action on the
world: rather, it is a transcendental condition on the
possibility of objects at all.
[11] This is not how it is with us! But it doesn't follow that
our cognitive theology is not like this. The question is this:
Does the explanation of why things are not like this with us
appeal to our imperfections; that, for example,
some of our singular thought is dependent on perceptual
experience, and our experience is egocentric and partial? For,
if so, the idealisation of human cognition -- which abstracts
from human imperfections -- would still be the cognition of the
Fregean Angel. And therefore the functionality of human
cognition would entail the coherence of the idea of a Fregean
Angel, which would stand as its model, just as soviet sculpture
in the former USSR modelled workers as their perfection: heroic,
unceasing and strong. Or as Evans's Generality Constraint (see
below) models the less-than-perfect compositionality of
humanly-grasped-concepts? On one view, what's going on with
Evans's fundamental level of thought is to secure a core part of
human cognition which -- unlike subjective experience -- would,
if perfected, sustain a metaphysics of the kind illustrated in
the Strawson figure. A question will be, what might drive Evans
to that, and is it possible to satisfy the motivation without the
Angelic theology? We will know that an alternative conception of
thought is needed because, as we will see, Angelic cognition
loses distinctions that play an essential role in the human
conception of objectivity, even as an ideal for human thought.
[12] Here is one reason one might think that that is what is
going on with Evans's fundamental level. Notice that the frame
of the world in an Angelic metaphysics need not be
geometric-spatial. It might instead be arithmetical: a
constitutive sequence, expressible for example with the integer
numerals, with respect to which the identity of numbers is given.
Identity and distinctness of numbers, like the identity and
distinctness of triangle shapes, makes sense only in relation to
such a canonical sequence. Evans brings out something just like
this when he introduces the notion of the fundamental level via
his discussion of abstract objects, and especially numbers. Since
it is the discussion of abstract, formal objects that
leads up to the fundamental level in Evans, we ought perhaps to
pay special attention to it.
7
[13] Suppose in playing a game one asked, "What number is
the square of a prime, the sum of two primes, and less than
twenty?" It would be a true answer, but a bizarre one, to
say "the number of planets". It would be bizarre
because the connection between the concept is the number of
planets and the concept is the square of a prime, the sum
of two primes, and less than twenty must be mediated
conceptually (one can't "see straight off" that
"the number of planets" is the answer). One could only
recognize "the number of planets" as a way of giving a
true answer to this question if one was in a position to judge
true the mediating thought, the number of planets is nine.
That is, the way of thinking of a number which is the number of
planets only connects to other ways of thinking of numbers via a
canonical way of thinking of numbers in terms of their location
in a canonical sequence, for example the sequence of integers.
Hence, the role of the concept nine in the mediating
thought. To give or understand "the number of planets"
as answer to the question is a two-step process: (1) the
number of planets is nine, and (2) nine is the square of a
prime, the sum of two primes, and less than twenty. Since a
thinker has to go via the mode of presentation of the number as
nine, one wonders why the answer is not expressed using
the same mode of presentation; hence the appearance of
bizarreness.
[14] In order to understand what it is for numerical properties
to apply to a number, one must be able to think of the number in
terms of its location in a canonical sequence, so we could call
this way of thinking of numbers in terms of their location in a
canonical sequence, the "fundamental" way. Other ways
of thinking of numbers -- for example, as "the number of
planets" -- are non-fundamental, because it is only possible
to understand how concepts of numerical properties can be
predicated of them if the thinker knows what it would be
to identify a number so thought of with a number thought of in a
fundamental way. (This restriction doesn't, of course, itself
apply iteratively to fundamental ways of thinking of
numbers).
[15] One could go on from here to the following idea: if the
thinker were attempting to think about a number in a
non-fundamental way, then we should say that the thinker wouldn't
know what they were thinking about if they didn't know which
number they were thinking about, and they wouldn't know which
number they were thinking about if they weren't in a position to
understand the truth conditions of a range of arithmetical
predications of the number. But since arithmetical predications
to numbers make sense only via a fundamental way of thinking of
numbers, a thinker wouldn't know what they were thinking about if
they didn't know what it would be for a thought of the form
<this number is d> to be true
where d is a fundamental way of
thinking of the number. Satisfaction of "Russell's
Principle"8
requires a fundamental level of ways of thinking
of numbers, and it requires the explanatory dependence of
non-fundamental ways of thinking upon fundamental ways of
thinking. Hence the necessity of the two stage procedure noted
above, which is emphasized wherever Evans talks about the
fundamental level of thought.
[16] Notice the equivalent role played by the canonical integer
sequence in thought about numbers and the absolute spatial frame
of reference in thought about shape-objects in the
Strawson-world. Both are absolute frameworks in that the
identity and distinctness of their objects is explained in terms
of the frame of reference, but the frame of reference itself is
not explained in terms of the objects. Both frames extend to the
limits of their world (there cannot be more objects than can be
discriminated with respect to their frame). And in both cases
objects must be co-presented in thought with their frame of
reference: even if one thinks of the objects in a non-fundamental
way, one's understanding of which object is in question (its
satisfaction of Russell's Principle) rests on understanding of an
identity claim in which the object thought of non-fundamentally
(the number of planets, the shape I am thinking of)
is identified with an object thought of in terms of its location
relative to the absolute frame of reference (the number
nine, the triangle at the top left of the frame).
That is, the frame must itself be represented in thought,
in the same kind of way as non-fundamental concepts
are explicitly cognitively represented: understanding which
object is in question rests on understanding the identity
proposition, and in the identity proposition the framework
concept d
stands symmetrically
across from the non-fundamental concept. Russell's Principle is
satisfied only because the frame of reference is rendered
explicit at the fundamental level of thought. The frame itself
figures as a conceptual constituent in thoughts which must be
understood if even non-fundamental thought about particulars is
to be possible.
[17] Impressed by this account of thought about numbers, Evans
-- on this reading -- develops an analogous account for thought
about material, spatial objects. The analog of the canonical
sequence which is constitutive of numerical identity and
difference is an objective frame of reference for spatial
objects. It is not possible that the frame of reference for
human thought extends to the limits of its world, but the frame
plays the equivalent role for human thought that the absolute
frame plays in the number and shape examples: it acts to secure
objectivity, in the sense of securing uniqueness and distinctness
for objects without relying on experiential or other
non-fundamental ways of thinking. In the material, spatial-world
the frame provides for the possibility of thought which is
from no point of view, which -- by contrast with
egocentric thought -- is necessary for objectivity. Moreover,
Evans claims that satisfaction of Russell's Principle for thought
about material, spatial objects rests on being able to bring into
"alignment" one's egocentric presentations with a conception
of the spatial world which is from no point of view. And, as we
will see, Evans claims that satisfaction of the Generality
Constraint for thought about material, spatial objects requires a
fundamental level of thought at which a thinker can make sense of
a full range of predications.
[18] So in this domain too, thought about objects involving
non-fundamental concepts requires a two-stage procedure: to
understand the thought that <a is F> where a
is a non-fundamental concept of an object grounded in egocentric
experience, the thinker must know (1) what it would be for
<a = d> to be true, for a
fundamental way of thinking of an object, d, which is from no point of view
because it exploits an objective frame of reference, and (2) what
it would be for <d is
F> to be true. Thus the frame of reference must be
cognitively represented, so that it is itself presented in
thought ("d")
whenever one thinks of a spatial object. Experience-based thought
about spatial objects is explanatorily dependent on thought about
objects at the fundamental level of thought, which is
"wholly" objective, because "from no point of
view", because anchored by an absolute (if still partial)
frame of reference. And fundamental thought of objects is not
explanatorily dependent on experience-based thought; it can
detach itself from experience-based thought. The objective frame
of reference, on this view, is not a special way of employing
egocentric presentations, or presentations of the world as
activity, because it is constituted by a fundamental kind of
concept, the ds, which present
objects from no point of view, and therefore not experientially
and not in terms of embodied activity. In this sense, then, the
fundamental level of thought about material, spatial objects,
like fundamental thought about numbers and about the Strawsonian
shape-world, is a formal level of thought.
[19] We need now to explore a little how frames of reference
work, so as to be able to distinguish between "pathological"
and "healthy" uses of frames of reference in cognition. I'm
going to suggest that frames of reference, if they are to
successfully provide for the possibility of singular reference
must (1) not be explanatorily independent of the identity of
particular objects that are located with respect to the frame,
and (2), must not figure explicitly in thought, by being directly
cognitively represented at a special level of thought. For, if
they are so represented and they do so figure, they will prevent
the possibility of successful singular reference. Thus we should
abandon the model of the fundamental level of thought about
material, spatial objects that we arrived at via the Angelic
metaphysics of the Strawson shape-world, and Evans's discussion
of thought about numbers; the model in which the frame must be
independent of and co-presented with the objects. We will need
some other way to secure the "objectivity constraints" of
Russell's Principle and the Generality Constraint. The payoff, I
hope, is to gain a richer sense of the contrast between a
formalist conception of thought and of metaphysics, and a
non-formalist conception in which experience provides for the
possibility of objectivity. This opens up a quite different
conception of experience than that which is
subjective-in-the-sense-of-anti-objective.
[20] Let's begin this discussion by distinguishing thought which
is relative to a frame of reference from thought which is
dependent on a frame of reference. First a couple of
examples of frame-dependence.
[21] A subject might make a reference to a chess piece which is
relative to the frame of reference established by the chess
board. I am thinking here of a game of chess not as a
spatiotemporally located episode, but as a formal type whose
existence is independent of any particular spatio-temporal
context, constituted solely as a sequence of moves which might be
materially manifested in any number of different places and
times. For example, the subject might say "black's bishop
moves to Queen-Bishop-4" referring to a move in a game
between Kasparov and Deep Blue. The reference to the chess piece
is relative to the frame of reference which is established by the
chess board; not by any particular chess board situated in the
space through which the thinking subject moves, but relative to a
general or abstract frame which does not belong to the unified
spatio-temporal framework in which actions and material objects
are situated. Such a reference is not only relative to a
frame of reference but is frame-dependent because the
chess-piece in question cannot be identified independently of the
frame of reference established by the generic chess board. The
idea of that particular makes no sense at all
independently of the frame of reference of the chess-board. In
such cases the ability to think about the chess piece is
dependent -- both explanatorily and ontologically -- on the
ability to think about the frame of reference of the chess board,
but the ability to think about this frame of reference is not
dependent on the ability to think about that chess piece. This
sort of asymmetric dependence is characteristic of
frame-dependent reference.
[22] Consider my ability to think about Piggy which is relative
to the reference-frame established by William Golding's book
The Lord of the Flies. I can talk quite happily about
Piggy, even counterfactually about what Piggy would do in various
imagined circumstances, but only so long as I stay within the
reference-frame established by the story.9 If, walking down the
street, someone asks me, "Is that Piggy?", the question
makes no sense unless it is reinterpreted to mean something like
"Doesn't that person look just like what you imagine Piggy to
look like?", or perhaps, "Isn't that the person who was a model
for Golding's depiction of Piggy?", or something of the kind. I
can identify the person walking down the street without
necessarily having to identify anything else, but an actual
identification of Piggy would require the identification of the
objects and places that constitute the story-frame with respect
to which references to Piggy are made. But the story-frame
exists only in Golding's world, not in Piggy's. The cognitive
resources for epistemic access to Piggy are exhausted by the
frame of reference provided by the story. Therefore,
Piggy-references cannot escape the story-frame of The Lord of
the Flies; references to Piggy make sense only internally to
the frame. References to Piggy are not only frame-relative.
They are also frame-dependent. Again we have the characteristic
asymmetry of frame-dependence: Piggy-references are situated and
made possible by the story-frame, but William Golding's
story-frame cannot itself be situated within a space in which
Piggy acts.
[23] One might say about thoughts of Piggy and the chess piece
that they are descriptive thoughts; that they identify their
objects purely descriptively. But it is important to see that
not all descriptive identification is frame-dependent. What is
important to the argument is not so much the distinction between
descriptive and singular content as it is the distinction between
frame dependent identifications and frame relative
identifications of objects. Thoughts based on certain kinds of
definite description or universal quantification are
frame-relative. If I think about the tallest Cornell Professor,
qua tallest Cornell Professor, (and I have no other way
available to me of thinking of this person) then I think about
some particular person only relative to a reference-frame which
establishes a set or a totality: the population of Cornell
Professors, with respect to which the expression "the tallest
Professor" may fix a unique object. In cases like this, a frame
of reference is established not by a fictional story, but in
order to interpret the semantics of a definite description, or of
a quantifier ("all Professors", "most Professors"). My
understanding of which particular Cornell Professors there are
rests, in part, on my grasp of the totality of Cornell
Professors, but it is also true that my understanding of the
totality which is the population of Professors can (at least in
principle) rest on my understanding of what it is to be each of
the members of this totality. Hence my reference to the tallest
Professor is not frame-dependent: the characteristic asymmetry of
frame-dependence does not obtain in these cases. In this example
we use a frame-relative semantics to interpret the definite
description, relying on our background understanding of
particular individuals (particular Professors) to ensure that the
meaning of the description is not frame-dependent.
[24] In certain other cases escape from a frame-dependent
semantics may not be so smooth. Consider thinking about a person
as the tallest spy. If I am given a totality -- the population
of spies -- then I am in a position to think about a particular
as the tallest spy. But how might I be given the totality? I do
not have some prior general understanding of spyhood which
determines its own application to particular objects
independently of knowledge of those particulars. My
understanding of the predication of spyhood to Jones draws
equally on my inter-dependent understandings of spyhood and of
the special character, history and circumstances of Jones. My
understanding of spyhood is dependent on my understanding of what
it is for Jones to be a spy, and what it is for Smith to be a
spy, and so on for a small number of particular spies of whom I
have knowledge. I may have an understanding of these very
particular cases of spy-hood but not in a way which generalizes
to allow me an understanding of what it is for an arbitrary
particular to be a spy. So I cannot generate an intelligible
idea of the totality of spies either through a general concept of
the universal spyhood which independently determines its
own application to particular objects, or through an inductive
understanding -- for the cases of Smith and Jones and so forth --
of what it is to be a particular spy. The semantics, however,
still requires the totality of spies. Since the totality
cannot be given in terms of what is available to be understood in
the predicate "spy" or in particular instances of spyhood,
it must be supposed to exist independently of what can be given.
If the thought of the tallest spy is not to be an illusion, the
world -- but not the world as experienced, or acted on or
otherwise made intelligible -- must somehow provide a
"frame" which bounds the spies from the non-spies. Such a
"noumenal" frame would delimit the totality of spies, it
would outrun my (and anyone else's) understanding of the
predicate "spy", and it would be independent of the
particular known cases of spyhood that fall within it. Thus the
attempted thought about an object as the tallest spy would be
frame-dependent; it would exhibit the characteristic
asymmetric dependence of individual object on totality or frame.
A putative thought about a particular by means of the descriptive
content the tallest spy would, in that case, fail in a way
which is analogous to the failure of a thought about the actual
Piggy: the frame required for the intelligibility of the totality
of spies is a fictional projection onto the world. Or, it might
be preferable to put the point a little differently (picking up,
for example, on a disanalogy due to the intentional
fictionality of Piggy) like this: there could be nothing in our
understanding which would provide for the intelligibility of a
distinction between the frame of reference being fictional and
its being actual; hence the idea of its presupposing a
"noumenal" world. But either way, both "Piggy" and
"the tallest spy" are frame-dependent, and either way the
frame-dependence disables an understanding of these terms as
referring robustly to an objective reality. That this is so does
not entail a complete breakdown in meaning; that's part of
what makes these cases interesting.
[25] This discussion suggests a hypothesis: that where
non-abstract objects are in question, successful and intelligible
reference to a particular requires that, if the reference is
frame-relative, it not be frame-dependent. Moreover, the
distinction between reference to actual material particulars on
the one hand, and reference to fictional objects, or virtual
objects, or representational objects (the woman in the painting)
or merely ideological objects ("most spies", "most
liberals", "most terrorists", "most freedom fighters"),
or objects which are defined by the rules of a closed formal
system, on the other, is to be understood in terms of the
distinction between reference which is merely frame-relative and
reference which is frame-dependent. The hypothesis is that it is
constitutive of any intelligible notion of being actual -- and of
not being fictional, virtual, representational, ideological or
formal -- that reference to the object not be
frame-dependent.
[26] If this hypothesis is correct then the account, considered
above, of the fundamental level of thought about material,
spatial particulars -- which was suggested by the model of
thought about numbers and motivated by a certain conception of
objectivity -- cannot be right. In order to establish a level of
thought uncontaminated by egocentricity or subjectivity, appeal
was made to an absolute spatial framework with respect to which
spatial objects stood in a relation of asymmetric
dependence. But, as we have seen, this kind of asymmetry is
characteristic of frame-dependence. Therefore, on that reading of
Evans, his fundamental level of thought would be frame-dependent,
and so unable to sustain distinctions between reference to actual
objects and reference to fictional or merely representative
objects. But the applicability of such a distinction is a
necessary component in objectivity. Hence, that conception of
thought would fail to satisfy its governing motivation.
[27] It does not help to respond that Evans does not suppose
that his fundamental level can, in humans, eliminate subjectivity
altogether. For the model of the fundamental level would
still be in intact. On that conception of thought, subjectivity
is only an imperfection, and so would entail the coherence of the
Angelic metaphysics. And if the argument just given is correct,
the Angelic metaphysics cannot sustain the distinction between
the fictional and the actual. If reference to any
material thing in the world were relative to the Angelic frame of
reference which limns the extent of the world, then there would
be no content to the distinction between the world's being actual
and the world's being fictional. (The problem with being an
angel is that there would be no gap between dreams and
reality).
[28] I will come later to the second objection to an objectivist
theory of thought, but I want now to consider (a few ideas about)
how an alternative conception of thought might work; a conception
which does not abandon objectivity but reconceives it, not in
oppositional contrast to subjectivity, but rather in contrast to
being a mere information-processor. Thought, even at its most
sophisticated and most fundamental, essentially entwines elements
of subjectivity with elements of objectivity. Put more strongly
the conclusion would be that the objectivity of thought entails
the subjectivity of thought.
[29] We can begin this part of the discussion with what Evans
would classify as non-fundamental concepts of material, spatial
objects. They are non-fundamental at least because they
essentially rely on experience, and embodied activity, and
therefore necessarily incorporate subjective elements. With our
eye towards a more positive account, we are to consider whether
these kinds of concepts could satisfy Evans's guiding motivation
to secure the objectivity of thought. And therefore whether
objectivity can be secured without introducing a special level of
thought -- the fundamental level -- which is independent of
experience and subjectivity.
[30] Suppose I think of a house as number 12, 32nd Street,
downtown then my identification of the house is relative to
the street grid and numbering system for downtown. My ability to
think of the house is not, however, wholly dependent on
the frame of reference provided by the street grid, because I can
gain information from the house, or information which is
house-directed, which is not relative to the street grid, and I
am able to coordinate my judgements and my actions with respect
to these different sources of information. For example, I have
available to me not only descriptions which are given relative to
a street grid, but also a map of downtown which locates the house
relative to other objects based on distances and directions (and
not the street grid) which are given relative to the map-based
frame of reference. I may also have directions for driving to
the house given to me verbally by a trusted and reliable friend
which consist of a sequence of instructions to turn left or to
turn right or to go straight ahead. When I get near to the house
I can ask passers-by if they know where number 12, 32nd street
is. I may have information through memory about the appearance
of the house. What is important for my understanding of which
house is in question is that, whether or not I decide to visit
the house or to form judgements about the house, I have an
epistemic capacity to coordinate information so as to guide my
actions and judgements in a way which is appropriate or sensitive
to that particular house. It may be that there is some
misinformation in what is available to me, and that my
capacity to coordinate amongst the information sources
compensates for these errors, keeping my identification of the
house robustly on target. An important part of the robustness of
my identification of the house may consist in my ability to
recover from guidance errors due to misinformation amongst my
sources. This kind of coordination and recalibration of multiple
frames of reference -- even though each individual frame may be
subjective -- is what eliminates the threat of frame-dependence
from my knowledge of which house is in question. I exploit many
frames in conceptualising the house, but my cognitive resources
for epistemic access to the house are not exhausted by these
frames of reference.
[31] References to particulars are often not frame-dependent
because they have this kind of structure: they are based on the
coordinations of many different frames of reference, which
are illustrated in the house example. I do not mean that they
are dependent on some number of frames of reference greater than
one; that would result in frame-dependence just as much as the
chess example. What I mean is this: a subject's understanding of
which particular is in question does not consist primarily in
knowing the position of the object relative to one or more frames
of reference, but rather in the subject's knowledge of how to
coordinate different frames of reference so as to be able
to judge appropriately or to act appropriately with respect to
the particular object. What I want to suggest is that if there
is a fundamental level of cognition, it is not a special level of
thought, or a uniquely privileged frame of reference, but
rather a capacity to coordinate amongst frames of
reference, and, when necessary, to generate and establish new
frames of reference. We can, in fact, read in this way what
Evans has to say about cognitive maps which ground his
fundamental level. At the level of thought and reference there
would be frames of reference, all of which would include
indexical, demonstrative and first-personal components.
Objectivity, however, would not be secured at this level, but at
a nonconceptual level of capacities and map-like representational
devices whose function is to provide for holistic coordinations
amongst diverse frames of reference.
[32] Coordination of frames of reference often involves
sufficient redundancy to allow for the management of error (as
well as the management of subjectivity). Because the subject's
understanding of which object is in question consists in the
subject's knowledge of how to coordinate amongst multiple frames
of reference, the subject's frame-internal knowledge is not
autonomous. In such examples, a subject's ability to think about
the object in question may depend on the subject's ability to
think about a frame or frames, but it is also the case that the
subject's ability to think about the frames rests on the ability
to think about particulars which are structured by the frame. It
is because of this that errors in a frame of reference may not be
damaging to either action or judgement, that the management of
error can be robust, and that we can make sense of a whole frame
of reference being in error. The subject's ability to think
about the house depends initially on his ability to think about
the street grid, but, as the coordinations develop, his
understanding of the frame of the street grid is also based on
his capacity to think of the house, and other places, as given
within a map of the area, or as reachable by a sequence of turns,
or as having certain characteristic appearances from privileged
vantage points. Successful frame-relative thought of a
particular does not exhibit the asymmetric dependence of the
chess, Piggy and "the tallest spy" examples, and this
affects directly the kind of normativity (error, correctness,
guidance, etc.) that governs adequate singular reference.
[33] We can see both similarities and differences between these
ideas about objectivity's resting on coordinations amongst
multiple frames, none of which are privileged, and an alternative
reading of Evans that moves away from the account of the
fundamental / non-fundamental distinction as the distinction
between subjective and objective levels of thought. The
alternative reading understands the fundamental / non-fundamental
distinction as the contrast between thought which is relative to
an egocentric frame of reference and thought which is relative to
a holistic frame of reference. On this new view of Evans, a
non-fundamental concept identifies its object relative to an
egocentric frame of reference. A fundamental concept identifies
its object relative to a frame of reference which is both
non-local and holistic: it is non-local in that the body of the
subject does not have a privileged role for identifications
relative to the frame, and it is holistic in that the
identification of each place is supported by the potential
identification of any or all of the other places. So, when Evans
requires for non-fundamental thought not only knowledge of
location in egocentric space but also knowledge of what it would
be for something identified egocentrically to be identical to
something given at the fundamental level of thought, he is
requiring that the subject be able to coordinate the two frames
of reference: there must be cognitive resources for identifying a
position in the egocentric frame of reference with a unique
position in the non-local, holistic -- and, in that sense,
objective -- frame of reference.
10
[34] What Evans has to say about cognitive maps fits much better
with this alternative interpretation than with the objectivist
interpretation. It is true that Evans says (on page 152) that
fundamental thought which is grounded in a cognitive map "is
truly objective -- it is from no point of view", but Evans
also explicitly denies that "from no point of view" means
from a God's-eye point of view, or even from a third-person
point of view. It may well be that Evans's notion of
objectivity here -- unlike the notion which is contrasted with
subjectivity -- is quite compatible with identifications of
objects and places which depend on the subject's current
spatio-temporal location, and which are therefore indexical, or
first-personal, or demonstrative. But if the cognitive map
sustains indexical identifications, what becomes of the
distinction between the fundamental and the non-fundamental
levels of thought? What matters for Evans about the fundamental
level is not non-indexicality or anti-subjectivity or avoiding
the contingencies of a subject's idiosyncratic location, but
rather securing objectivity via the holistic coordinations
amongst objects and places. Consider, for example, how cognitive
maps are introduced on page 151:
The places which we think about are
differentiated by their spatial relations to the objects which
constitute our frame of reference.... Hence a fundamental
identification of a place would identify it by simultaneous
reference to its relations to each of the objects constituting
the frame of reference. A place would be thought about in this
way if was identified on a map which represented, simultaneously,
the spatial relations of the objects constituting the frame of
reference. This identification has a holistic character: a place
is not identified by reference to just one or two objects, and so
the identification can be effective even if a few objects move or
are destroyed. Our identifications of places has this holistic
character whenever we rely in our thinking about places upon what
has come to be called a "cognitive map": a
representation in which the spatial relations of several distinct
things are simultaneously represented.
Notice that there is no reference in this passage to
non-indexicality or non-egocentricity. It is holism which is
emphasized. It is true that several paragraphs later, Evans does
say that "each place is represented in the same way as every
other; we are not forced in expressing such thinking, to
introduce any 'here' or 'there'". The alternative interpretation
notes that each side of the semi-colon expresses the same claim,
and that therefore we should interpret "not being forced to
introduce [indexicals or demonstratives]" as being equivalent to
"representing each place [and object] in the same way as every
other". What I think Evans wants is (1) to think of a cognitive
map as constituted by its uses, rather than by intrinsic
properties; (2) that the uses of a map will often involve
indexical and demonstrative modes of presentation, but that (3)
this is still compatible with the cognitive map's securing the
objectivity of the fundamental level. The "heres", "theres",
"thises" and "thats" disperse across the map in different uses of
it; the map itself does not fix, at a time, some place as "here"
or some object as "that one"; the "you are here" pointer is not
part of the cognitive map, but has a varying location in the map
depending on the changing alignment of the egocentric frame of
reference with the cognitive map. The map does not force us to
use "here" of a particular place or "that" of a particular
object, for that would be a map which allowed thought from only
one particular point of view. That is how an egocentric frame
works, but not a frame which is "from no point of view".
[35] This kind of interpretation is most strongly supported in a
passage in chapter 7 (211-212):
Why should we suppose that everything that is
true can be represented [in non-indexical] terms?... Just as our
thoughts about ourselves require the intelligibility of the link
with the world thought of "objectively", so our
"objective" thought about the world also requires the
intelligibility of this link. For no one can be credited with an
"objective" model of the world if he does not grasp
that he is modelling the world he is in -- that he has a
location somewhere in the model, as do the things that he can
see. Nothing can be a cognitive map unless it can be used as a
map -- unless the world as perceived, and the world as mapped, can
be identified. For this reason, I think that the gulf between
the "subjective" and "objective" modes of
thought which Nagel tries to set up is spurious. Each is
indispensably bound up with the other.
This passage denies directly the thesis of detachability required
for the idea of a creature whose cognition was "wholly"
objective. The passage is ignored or set aside in objectivist
interpretations of the fundamental level because it runs counter
to so much else in the book (given that the book was unfinished
at Evans's death, it is not surprising that there are some
tensions between, for example, chapter 6 and chapter 7). Thus in
section 3 of the appendix to chapter 7 -- though in the context
of offering an alternative formulation of the fundamental level
-- we find, "one must conceive the states of affairs one
represents in one's 'egocentric' thoughts -- thoughts expressible
with 'this', 'here' or 'I' -- as states of affairs which could be
described impersonally", which suggests, given the <a = d> form of Evans's account, that the
constituent concepts of the cognitive map are impersonal,
non-indexical, and non-demonstrative, or would be so treated by
the version of the theory being considered in the appendix.
[36] It is at this point in the appendix -- where alternative
accounts of a subject's satisfaction of Russell's Principle are
in play -- that the threat of frame-dependence arises for Evans's
fundamental level.11
The matter is left unresolved, finishing with
the plaintive "It still seems there is something right about
§6.3...". What I think Evans came to see was this:
Holism of the cognitive map is sufficient for it to represent
each object and place in the map in the same way as the other
objects and places that figure in the map. Holism is thus
sufficient for not being forced to introduce a "here"
etc. for some particular place. But, nevertheless, holism is not
sufficient for objectivity because -- given that the extent of
the map's representation is very partial, unlike the
"formal" cases we considered -- the identification of the
frame objects and places would still be egocentric. (There may
be no determinate fact as to which objects and places are the
frame objects and places; in which case the egocentricity will
distribute holistically across all the objects and places. It
would thus remain true that "each object and place is
represented in the same way as every other" but that they are all
somewhat "contaminated by egocentricity").
One must conceive the states of affairs one represents in one's
"egocentric" thoughts -- thoughts expressible with "this",
"here", or "I" -- as states of affairs which could be described
impersonally, from no particular standpoint.
But there is a problem about what exactly this
requirement comes to -- what exactly it is to know what it is for
an arbitrary element of the objective order to be this, or here,
or me.... But it is not clear what we should make of the
requirement if we do not suppose that the subject can formulate,
and in favourable circumstances decide the truth of, propositions
of these kinds [<a = d> and
<d is F>]. And it seems that we
are not entitled to that supposition. Section 6.3, for instance,
gives the impression that the objective or impersonal mode of
thought about space can be understood as a mode of spatial
thinking organized around a framework of known objects and places
-- the "frame of reference". But such a mode of thinking
will not be capable of achieving a higher degree of impersonality
that that achieved by the subject's thought about the objects and
places which constitute the frame; and (especially if we think
here about Twin Earth cases), it seems plausible that a subject's
right to be counted as thinking about these familiar objects and
places turns partly on his conception of the role they have
played in his past life -- being visited by him, seen by
him, etc.... In that case, the seemingly objective mode of
thinking about space is, after all, contaminated by
egocentricity. (1982: 264 - 265)
If the problem is just left like this, it is devastating for
Evans's account, whose point all along had been to show how to
satisfy a strong reading of Russell's Principle compatibly with
realist truth conditions; to show that "the requirement of
discriminating knowledge [for thought] is to be justified outside
a verificationist framework" (106). It is because of
the problem of the appendix, rather than any other difficulty in
the book, that it's being an unfinished posthumous work has
prevented the project from being completed.
[37] To escape the problem entails abandoning the form of
Evans's theory in that it entails abandoning both the fundamental
level of thought at which objectivity is secured, and the
two-stage procedure for understanding (<a = d> and <d
is F>) which was introduced, and made most sense, in
connection with thought about abstract objects. But the
motivations that were important to Evans are still intact, if we
shift the objectivity-securing work of holistic coordinations to
a nonconceptual level -- not itself a level of thought and
concepts -- at which frames of reference are established, aligned
and re-aligned with each other. We can, then, allow that
every frame of reference will include "subjective"
elements, without compromising the objectivity of cognition.
[38] It is possible for a subject's ability to think about the
frame (or frames) of reference to rest on a subject's ability to
think about particulars within the frame(s) -- as well as
conversely -- only because the subject's grasp of which
particular object is in question is not exhausted by his grasp of
the object relative to the frame(s) of reference. This
independent understanding of the particular object is not
possible for thought about chess pieces, but is possible for
thought about the house downtown. What provides for this
difference of understanding? What allows for knowledge of a
particular not to be exhausted by frame-relative knowledge? In
discussing the example I suggested that frame-relative
understanding, if it is not to be frame-dependent, must rest on a
level of cognition which coordinates amongst different frames of
reference. And I want to suggest that these coordinations are
possible only because both object and subject are situated in an
active information environment which allows the
subject to orient with respect to the object. (Contrast this
with the relation between subject and object in -- and out of --
the Strawsonian shape-world). I cognize the house conceptually
by means of the frame of reference provided by the street grid:
number 12, 32nd street, etc. but my cognitive resources
for epistemic access to the house are not exhausted by this and
other frames of reference because I also have available to me
trails of information that lead through the information
environment to the house, and can flexibly guide activity which
is oriented towards the house. These trails of information
provide me with ways of cognizing the house which are not
relative to the street grid or other frames. I am suggesting, in
effect, that for singular thought to succeed -- for the
identification of the object not to be frame-dependent -- it must
rest upon ways of understanding in which the world is given to
subjects as trails of information through an environment of
activity.12
[39] The active information environment -- if it is to sustain
successful singular reference to the object -- must situate both
the subject (in that it is a space in which the subject can act)
and it must situate the object (in that it is a space with
respect to which the object has its identity). This can break
down in various ways; I will consider a couple of examples in a
moment. But we should recognize immediately that the notion of
an active information environment is as subjective as it is
objective; it is certainly not a notion of an absolute spatial
framework. In order to get a better idea of both subject and
object being jointly situated in an active information
environment it will help to contrast Evans's notion of an
information link, with the information trails,
which I discuss (briefly) here.13
[40] An information link exists only when a subject is
experiencing an object, typically in perception. An information
link can allow a subject, without inference, to form
observational judgements about the object.14 A subject may judge
that that object on the table in front of the subject is
spherical on the basis of a visual information link, where the
information link sustains the observation judgement without
requiring any inferential structure. S does not have to
form two judgements: that the j object
is spherical, and that that is the j object, on the basis of which S can
infer that that object is spherical. Rather, the information
link puts S in a position to straightaway judge that that
object is spherical. Moreover, an information link maintains
epistemic contact between subject and object over time, so that
the subject has an unmediated disposition to change his
observational judgements over time as the properties of the
object change. Evans's information links are individualistic:
different information links for different subjects. They are
largely subject-centred: the work of maintaining the link goes
on mostly within the information-processing systems of each
subject. And they are sub-personal: although the
deliverances of a link are personal, the link itself is
not part of a subject's cognition, either in experience or in
thought. For this reason we cannot talk of the content of the
link itself, only of its deliverances.
[41] For Evans, the content of the deliverances of an
information link has two components: it is standardly conceptual
for the predicative component, which "can be specified
neutrally, by an open sentence in one or more variables"
(124). The non-predicative component is egocentric: it
presents the object as standing in a bodily relation to the
subject, which may be specified within the theory of content by
means of a set of bodily axes, with the subject's body at the
origin of the space.
[42] Peacocke (1983) motivated his claim that Evans's
requirements for non-fundamental singular thought were too
stringent by considering a subject in a fairground who sees an
apple through a complex array of mirrors, some of which may be
moving in ways unknown to the subject. In this case the subject
enjoys an information link with the apple which puts the subject
in a position to form, without engaging in any inference, correct
observational judgements about, for example, the color and the
shape of the apple. Moreover, the apple appears in the subject's
perceptual experience as having an apparent position in
egocentric space, though in fact the apple is not at this
apparent position in egocentric space. The subject does not know
where in egocentric space the apple is, or how far it is from
him; a lack of knowledge which is manifested in his inability to
reliably point in the direction of the apple, or to be able to
walk reliably towards the apple. On Evans's account there can be
no adequate singular demonstrative thought about the apple in
this case because the subject neither knows where the object is
in objective space, nor does he know where it is in egocentric
space. That the subject nevertheless enjoys an information link
with the apple secures at best only descriptive thoughts
about the apple, such as the thought *the apple which is
causally producing these images is juicy* where the subject
refers singularly to a component of the information link
("these images") but only descriptively to the apple.
Peacocke's line by contrast is that the information link is
sufficient for a singular demonstrative concept so long as
"some conceivable additional evidence, experiences, and
devices ... would allow the subject to locate the presented
object". Now, this can't be right as it stands. As
McDowell comments, "the bare existence of any
information-link at all will make it conceivable that additional
evidence, and so forth, would enable the subject to locate the
presented object; Peacocke's supposed extra requirement adds
nothing..." (McDowell 1990: 259).
[43] But nor is it correct to return to the strict position
which requires actual knowledge of position in egocentric space.
Given Evans's notion of an information link it looks as if
Evans's strict position and Peacocke's liberal position are the
only options: either the information link produces an egocentric
deliverance which locates the object for the subject, or else it
does not. In the latter case, since the link itself is
sub-personal for Evans, it would only be by "investigating
the details of the perceptual link" that the information
link could sustain knowledge of which object was in question.
But that would be descriptive, not singular, knowledge: "If
the subject's thought can make contact with the apple in
Peacocke's fairground case, as it perhaps can if the subject
knows in general outline about the peculiar nature of the
perceptual link between him and the apple, the 'know which'
requirement is satisfied only in a completely different way: here
it is the idea of the information-link between subject
and object, rather than the information-link itself... that
carries the subject's thought to the right object" (McDowell
190: 257-58). But McDowell15
here misses the possibility that the information link
can be available cognitively to the subject as nonconceptual
content, and therefore not via the idea (a concept) of the
link. The idea is that the information link itself (not just its
deliverances, but the whole trail) is experientially available to
a subject as part of the environment of activity, as salient
forms of guidance within the environment of activity.
Because the trail itself is experientially available, the subject
has unmediated, but still rational dispositions to go this way
rather than that, or to judge that there is the house. Such
actions and judgements are not the products of two-stage
cognitive procedures mediated by a concept j: First I judge that I should go the j way, and then I judge that that is the
j way; so I go that way. Rather I am
in a position to see straightoff which way to go, because
I see the forms of guidance, a part of the trails, laid out
before me. I do not need to see the whole trail, only enough to
start me on and then, at each moment, to keep me on the trail;
the information environment does the rest.
[44] If, as theorists, we use this notion of information trails
through the environment, rather than the notion of an information
link, we can secure genuine epistemic constraints on singular
thought without the excessive requirement of actual knowledge of
egocentric location. What matters about the fairground mirror
example is whether or not the subject's information environment
-- as it can be made available, perhaps only in parts, in the
experience of the subject -- is structured sufficiently for the
subject to orient in the space of the object. Do the forms of
activity guidance allow the subject, knowingly and reliably, to
move towards the object, correcting for missteps if they occur?
Do the forms of activity guidance allow the subject, knowingly
and reliably, to retrace her steps so as to bring the object into
view again? Do they allow for the knowing and reliable
reproduction of object-directed activity? Given features like
the fairground's rotating mirrors it is unlikely that the answers
to these questions are positive in this example; but the point is
that the theorist of content needs to ask these kinds of
questions: it is not just the private, egocentric deliverances to
occurrent experience that matters but rather how an
intersubjective information environment is structured by
information trails, parts of which may be available at a time in
subjects' experience. If such an information environment is well
structured and allows a subject to orient their activity in an
object-directed way, then the information environment provides a
nonconceptual foundation for singular thought.
[45] Similar points can be made about less gerrymandered
examples. It seems correct and important that I can think a
singular demonstrative thought about Hunter Rawlings16 even though
I have never met the man, would not recognise him if he were in
the room today, do not know if he is and where he
is in my egocentric space, nor do I know where he is in space
given objectively. And I say this even though I agree with Evans
about Russell's Principle and about the falsity of the causal
theory of singular thought, according to which it is sufficient
for singular thought that my mental representations be at the end
of an appropriate causal chain whose initial links were caused by
the object which is the referent (Evans 1982, chapter 4). The reason why I can think
singular demonstrative thoughts about Hunter Rawlings even though
I fail to satisfy Evans's requirements for singular thought about
him is that I am plugged into a rich information environment
structured by a multitude of information trails that can guide
action in a Hunter Rawlings appropriate way. The example is
similar to the earlier example of my singular thought about the
house downtown. In this case I can satisfy Russell's Principle
with respect to Hunter Rawlings, even though I don't know his
location, because his identity is currently socially embedded
within the University and I am plugged into a rich set of
socially mediated information trails that guide my action in a
way which is appropriate to an object with that kind of socially
determined identity. The subject, in this example, is located in
an active information environment in that the subject is able to
find their way through the environment; the object is located in
the same information environment, and its location in the
environment is, in part, constitutive of the identity of the
object. (It is not, of course, necessary that the subject
actually does locate the object).
[46] We are now in a position to return to the argument against
a detachable fundamental level of "wholly" objective
thought. There is a second argument against the
"objectivist" conception of the fundamental level, which
rests not on the characteristic asymmetry of frame-dependence,
but on the necessity in frame-dependent reference for the frame
itself to be co-presented along with the object of thought. We
can introduce this argument via a discussion of an inadequate
active information environment; not, this time, Peacocke's
fairground case, but Evans's television example.
[47] When Evans argues that information links are not sufficient
for singular concepts he does so in terms of an example of a
soccer player seen on a TV screen, and he argues that because of
the circuitousness of the information channel the subject is not
in a position to think non-descriptive thoughts about the soccer
player. I think that it is fair to say that many readers have
not been convinced by Evans's example, and that perhaps even more
have failed to understand it properly. A proper discussion of
that example would involve a discussion of the generality
constraint, and I want to avoid that here. So what I will do is
to alter Evans's example in a way that avoids some of the
difficulties. One source of difficulty is that people often
imagine that the viewing subject may recognize the soccer player,
and that this recognitional ability would ground their singular
thoughts about the player. And, secondly, even if the viewing
subject does not recognize the player, surely the subject is
plugged into an information environment in which there are
information sources who would recognize the player, and
through which the television transmission can be tracked allowing
the subject to discover the identity of the player by for example
finding in the newspaper which match was being shown on that
channel at that time. We can avoid these difficulties by
supposing that the TV images are images of coke cans, not soccer
players, and that there are no information trails, for whatever
reason, which lead from the TV display back to the source of the
transmission. You can imagine, if you like, bizarre Peacockian
fairground-style shenanigans which render the information links
untrackable.
[48] Suppose that an image of coke cans appears on a
television screen, (and we do not know, nor have we any way to
track where the information is coming from). One of us then
points (as we might say, "to a coke can") and says something (as
we might say, "about the coke can"). If I have identified some
particular object then I have done so only relative to the frame
of reference established by the television screen: my
identification is frame-relative. My capacity to think about a
particular coke can, which is sustained by the information
provided through the TV, must exploit the frame of the TV:
for example, the can which is presented at the top left of the
screen. It's not that I must entertain such a descriptive
thought which locates the can relative to the screen, but just
that what I do entertain can only have a semantics, an
interpretation which fixes a particular coke can, relative to the
informational frame of the TV. The semantic interpretation
includes the informational frame whether or not I am conscious
of, or explicitly think of, the frame. For without such a frame
to anchor my reference, I may attempt a singular demonstrative
thought about the can -- *That can is made of aluminium*
-- , but the semantic link to the can is sustained only
descriptively: *The one and only can that I am now seeing
through this information channel which is at the top left hand
corner is made of aluminium*. Likewise for thoughts like
*The shiniest can is made of aluminium*, and *All the cans are
made of aluminium*. As in the discussion of *The tallest Cornell
Professor*, the content of these thoughts is fixed relative to a
given totality, of cans or of Professors. But in the case of the
cans, the totality is fixed not by an independent identification
of individuals within the totality but by the frame of the
information channel.
[49] Notice how this case is different from my thought about the
house downtown. In that case I have frame-independent knowledge
of which house it is because I can exploit a complex environment
of information trails that lead downtown and enable me to locate
the street grid frame of reference relative to other sources of
information. And someone might say that in the coke can case I
can similarly exploit my knowledge of the location of the frame
of reference; that is, of the location of the TV. But this won't
work, and seeing why it won't work shows up some similarities to
the Piggy case. There are available to me information trails
which lead downtown, and in virtue of which I know where downtown
is. But these information trails are not part of the
semantics of my thoughts about the house: they do not
enter into the determination of the truth value of these
thoughts. Without the information trails there would be nothing
which would constitute my semantic understanding of sentences
about the house, but there is no sense in which my thoughts are
about the trails. The trails make for the possibility of
my singular thought, but they do so at a nonconceptual level of
cognition: the trails themselves are not co-presented with the
object in the subject's thought, but only -- and occasionally --
in experience. Not so for the coke can thoughts: for them, the
information channel is part of the semantics. It is because of
this -- as well as, and related to, the characteristic asymmetry
-- that the TV-link can sustain only frame-dependent
thoughts.
[50] The house, identified relative to the grid of streets, is
in the same space as downtown. Hence our knowledge of the
location of downtown can ground our knowledge of the location of
the house. But the coke can is not in the same space as the TV:
the epistemic resources which are sufficient for the subject to
act and judge appropriately in the environment of the TV are not
sufficient for the subject to act and judge appropriately in the
environment of the coke cans. (There is no single active
information environment which situates both subject and object,
and is such that the object's location in it is, in part,
constitutive of the identity of the object). Therefore our
knowledge of the location of the TV cannot ground our knowledge
of the location of the can of cola: the location of the TV
provides only a virtual space for the cola cans. Indeed,
the information channel available to us does not tell us anything
about the spatial relation (either direction or distance) of the
coke can to the observer, or to any object whose location is
already known to the observer. It only provides information
about the location of the coke can relative to other coke cans in
the virtual space defined by the frame of the TV. The
information trails which provide epistemic access to the frame of
reference do not provide any epistemic access to the coke cans,
whereas the trails which provide access to downtown do
provide epistemic access to the house. In both the coke can
utterances and the Piggy-references the object is identified
relative to a frame which bears the wrong kind of epistemic
relation to the subject and the object. Piggy's frame of
reference can itself only be identified in literary space, as an
abstract production of William Golding's, etc. Knowledge of that
space is of help only in identifying entities, such as a literary
work of art, with an abstract ontology, rather than the material
ontology of Piggy-the-schoolboy. That's why knowledge of the
book "Lord of the Flies" fails to provide us with any
conception of what it would be to identify Piggy in the street.
Knowledge of the literary space may help in identifying
Piggy-the-literary-archetype, but then knowledge of the frame of
reference provided by the TV helps in identifying the coke
can-qua-visual-image. Only if we change the ontology can
reference to the frame, or knowledge of the location of the
frame, provide a way to avoid the frame-dependence of reference
to Piggy or to the cola can: from Piggy-the-boy to
Piggy-the-abstract-archetype, or from the solid-material-coke-can
to the coke-can-as-set-of-pixels. In such cases thoughts about
the objects (Piggy, the coke can) require the semantic presence
of the frame of reference; the frame itself enters into the
semantics; or, in other words, the frame itself shows up as a
constituent in the cognitive level of thought. Avoiding
frame-dependence requires that the frame of reference not work at
this level, but at a nonconceptual level which subserves thought.
Which is another reason why the Strawson shape-world and
thoughts about numbers are very bad models for what is best in
singular thought about material objects, of even the most
fundamental kind.
Adrian Cussins
University of Illinios, Urbana-Champaign
acussins@uiuc.edu
References
Cussins, Adrian (1990) "The Connectionist Construction of
Concepts". In Oxford Readings in Philosophy: The Philosophy of
Artificial Intelligence, Margaret Boden (ed.). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
----- (1992) "Content, Embodiment and Objectivity". Mind
101, October: 651-688.
----- (forthcoming) "Nonconceptual Content, Frames of Reference,
Trails of Information and Singular Thought".
Evans, Gareth (1982) The Varieties of Reference. J.
McDowell (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McDowell, John (1990) "Peacocke and Evans on Demonstrative Content".
Mind 99 (394) April.
Strawson, Peter (1959) Individuals: An essay in descriptive
metaphysics. London: Methuen.
Notes
1 One attempt is in (Cussins
1990) . A more recent version is in "Nonconceptual Content,
Frames of Reference, Trails of Information and Singular Thought"
(forthcoming). (back)
2 In the following
discussion of the two levels of thought, I will be assuming in
most cases that it is the distinction as it applies to spatial
objects that is in question. Because, for me, the point of all
this has to do with the relations between experience and
judgement, we should consider the fundamental level as it applies
to thought about objects which can be experienced. Perhaps we
can have experiences of objects which are not spatial, but these
will not be central examples of experience. (back)
3 Recognition-based
concepts are also non-fundamental for Evans, and are also based
on experience. (back)
4 I maintain the scare
quotes around "wholly" to distance myself from the conception of
objectivity which is required for the idea of that which is
"wholly objective". (back)
5 That the
non-fundamental is non-essential to thought is borne out in the
discussion of abstract objects below. Part of why I want to
resist this view is that I take experience to be essential to
thought, and not merely necessary for imperfect, embodied
creatures such as humans. (back)
6 We need some
directionality to the frame, to distinguish the sides from each
other. There are interesting questions about what distinctions
could be grounded in symmetries and asymmetries of shapes across
the "world". (back)
7 Consider the discussion
in Evans (1982: 106-7): "An Idea of an object is part of a
conception of a world of such objects, distinguished from one
another in certain fundamental ways... For example, we may say
that shades of colour are distinguished from one another by their
phenomenal properties, that shapes are distinguished from one
another by their geometrical properties, that sets are
differentiated from one another by their possessing different
members, that numbers are differentiated from one another by
their position in an infinite ordering, and that chess positions
are distinguished from one another by the positions of chess
pieces upon the board". The examples are all abstract: color
shades, geometric shapes, sets, numbers, chess positions. And
when Evans introduces the idea of the fundamental ground of
difference he does so in terms of the example of the number
three, and the shape square: "the fundamental ground of
difference of the number three is being the third number in the
series of numbers; the fundamental ground of difference of the
shape square is having four equal sides joined at right
angles...". And when Evans comments that "evidently, we do very
often employ such fundamental Ideas of objects", he notes in a
footnote that "this is especially clear with abstract objects".
The issue in this paper has to do with the consequences of using
such a model for our theories of thought about material, spatial,
concrete objects. (back)
8 Evans's theory of
content is governed by his use of Russell's principle, the
principle that in order to be able to think about an object one
must know which object it is. The principle establishes a direct
connection between thought and knowledge, so that to ask about
the conditions for singular thought about material particulars is
to ask about the kinds of knowledge that are required to sustain
thoughts of these kinds. Evans's line is that the "know which"
requirement is satisfied by knowing where the object is, either
objectively in space given from no point of view (in which case
the subject has a fundamental concept of the object), or else
egocentrically by means of the egocentric deliverances of an
information link (in which case the subject may have a
non-fundamental concept of the object). See the discussion in
chapter 4 of Evans (1982). (back)
9 Strawson calls this
"story-relative identification" (1959: 18) (back)
10 So, there are two
crucial differences between Evans's account and the account that
I prefer. First, that, for Evans, there is a category of
singular thoughts -- fundamental thoughts -- which do not require the
cognitive work of coordination amongst multiple frames of
reference. Whereas, in my favored account, singular thought
always requires such cognitive work. And, secondly, that, for
Evans, the objectivity of singular thought is to be secured by
the use of a special -- holistic -- frame of reference. This holistic
frame of reference provides for Evans the fundamental level of
thought, and thus it is still the case on this interpretation
that the fundamental level is required for securing objectivity.
Whereas, in my favored account, objectivity is secured only by
coordinations amongst multiple frames of reference. There is no
privileged, "objective" frame: all frames of reference are, in
some way or other, situated with respect to the active life of
environments. My argument is that Evans's commitment to a frame
which is privileged as the objective frame of reference leads
disastrously to the frame-dependence of his "fundamental" level
of thought. (back)
11 The distinction
between frame-relativity and frame-dependence is not in Evans,
but this seems a natural way to describe the problem that arises
in the appendix. The issue of "contamination by egocentricity"
also arises at footnote 19 on page 152, which directs the reader
to the appendix. (back)
12 I discuss these ideas
further in Cussins (1992), and in "Nonconceptual Content, Frames
of Reference, Trails of Information and Singular Thought". (back)
13 One role for the
concept of trails in the theory of thought is discussed in
Cussins (1992). See also "Norms, Networks and Trails". (back)
14 This idea is to be
found in Evans (1982) especially chapters 5, 6 and 7. (back)
15 ... and Evans and Peacocke.
(back)
16 By coincidence both
the President of Cornell, and the tallest Cornell Professor. (back)
©1998 Adrian Cussins
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