Feigl on Raw Feels, the Brain, and Knowledge Claims: Some Problems Regarding Theoretical Concepts

Feigl on Raw Feels, the Brain, and Knowledge Claims : Some Problems Regarding Theoretical Concepts *

by Paul TIBBETTS

In a recent article Herbert Feigl has further refined the identity hypothesis regarding the relation between phenomenal states, the linguistic descripta of such states, and the underlying neurophysiological designata of both acquaintance and theoretical terms. In contrast with earlier statements, he more explicitly draws parallels between his position on these matters and the neutral monism favored by the American critical realists and the Russell of ‘I‘hc Analysis of Mind. By drawing these historical parallels to our attention, the continuity between Feigl’s views and those of other recent theorists is made clearer. At the same time it also opens Feigl to some of the same criticisms raised against these earlier thinkers, as we will see. Though Feigl remarks that he has been an advocate of the double-language (or double-knowledge, double-designation) version of the identity hypothesis “for at least thirty years”, two points central to this position continue in my opinion to remain problematic. The first concerns the character of the ultimate designata of both acquaintance and theoretical terms. Within the context of Feigl’s “tentative (physicalistic) reductionism” these designatrt are, supposedly, certain neural processes and, in the final analysis, molecular and sub-molecular events. The second difficulty concerns how concepts are “anchored” in observation, and whether the notion of “anchoring” can be taken beyond a metaphorical usage.

’’. I wish to express my appreciation to my colleagues Professors John Quinn and Raymond Herbenick for their critical reading of this paper in its second and third drafts. I also wish to thank Professor Herbert Feigl for his critical comments, some of which caused me to revise portions of this paper. None of these men is of course responsible for the position expressed in this paper.

Dialectica Vol. 26, NO 3-4 (1972)

248 Paul Tibbetts

In this paper I will first briefly state in the form of three theses Feigl’s position regarding the relation between what is known by acquaintance (raw feels) and what is known by description, as well as the relation between both of these and their ultimate physical designata. I will then direct myself to the issue of theoretical terms in science, the relation between such terms and their designata, and whether there are criteria for distinguishing between empirical and purely theoretical concepts. Though both empirical and theoretical concepts or terms are constructs embedded in a theory about experience, I reserve the category of theoretical concepts to apply only to the more abstract concepts in that theory; that is, to those concepts having no directly observable referent in observation. All concepts referring to unobservable or inferred phenomena will therefore be classified as theoretical. Empirical concepts, on the other hand, will be restricted to those concepts directly correlated with observables. To draw upon some examples from neurophysiology, ”engram“, “reverberatory circuit”, and “nerve impulse”, correspond to nothing directly observable and therefore function as theoretical concepts. Conversely, “optic nerve”, “retinan, and “cerebral cortex”, are more directly correlated with observable phenomena and would be classified as empirical concepts. Following a suggestion of Hempel, then, the difference between empirical and theoretical as here used will roughly parallel that between what he terms the “experiential’’ and the “technical” vocabulaires. Finally, I will use “concept” and “term” as synonymous expressions.

(I) After drawing a distinction between raw feels and statements about raw feels, Feigl argues in numerous places that the former are epistemologically prior to and the evidential ground for all knowledge claims. In The “Mental” and the “Physical” this distinction between acquaintance and knowledge is sometimes referred to as what is “phenomenologically immediate” as against what is the result of “epistemological reconstruction”‘. In the first edition of this work he argued that the datum of immediate experience and the corresponding phenomenal statements

are the ultimate epistemic basis of the confirmation (or disconfir- mation) of knowledge claims...Y [Accordingly,] the first-person data of direct experience are, in the ultimate epistemological analysis, the confirmation basis of all types of factual knowledge claims. This is simply the core of the empiricist thesis over again4.

Feigl on Raw Feels, the Drain, and Knowledge Claims 249

In the second edition postscript he later emphasized the self- evident character of phenomenal (or phenomenological) assertions regarding that which is given; such assertions, unlike those claiming to make knowledge claims, are self-evident and self-validating. That is, the adequacy or inadequacy of phenomenal reports is deter- mined by the given rather than by appeal to external criteria such as inter-observer agreement. Consequently, in order for the concepts and, in turn, the knowledge claims of the physical sciences to have empirical significance they “ must ... be ‘anchored’ (by correspondence rules) in the phenomenologically givenn5.

(11) Though raw feels provide the evidential ground or “confir- mational basis” for all knowledge claims, acquaintance terms and theoretical terms remain only correlated. The ultimate designata to which both types of terms (and, in turn, knowledge claims) isomor- phically correspond are “certain global configurations of cerebral processes”, to use Feigl’s expression. By maintaining that acquaintance terms and theoretical terms are only correlated rather than inter- translatable, Feigl retains the important methodological distinction between “the concepts that designate immediately the phenomenally given events and their qualities and relations” as against “the concepts of the physical sciences”6, though both types of concepts share a common (neurophysiological) datum. As he remarked in 7’he “Mental” and the “Physical”,

the identity thesis which I wish to clarify and to defend asserts that the states of direct expericnce which conscious beings “live through”, ... are identical with certain (presumably configurational) aspects of the neural processes in those organisms. To put the same idea in the terminology explained previously, we may say, what is had-in-experience, and ... knowable by acquaintance, is identical with the object of knowledge by description provided first by molar behavior theory and this in turn identical with what the science of neurophysiology describes ... as processes in the central nervous system’.

Feigl does explore the possibility of reconstructing the facts of direct acquaintance from the theoreticaliexplanatory level, as in the case of a congenitally blind man substituting wave lengths €or colors. By employing symbolic representations as a sort of “conceptual short- hand” for what is given in acquaintance, such an individual could “logically triangulate” to color terms on the basis of wave lengths,

250 Paul Tibbetts

assuming of course that he possessed some means for detecting the latter. In any case, he would never be able to logically triangulate from the physical correlate of a color to the color per se.

(111) As mentioned above, an empirical concept for Feigl directly corresponds to qualities, events or relations found in immediate experience or observation, whereas a theoretical concept is postulated on the level of what he terms “epistemological reconstruction”. Accor- dingly, if a particular concept (assuming it to be empirically interpre- table) originates on the theoretical/explanatory level, then bridge principles and chains of reduction sentences are necessary to anchor the concept in acquaintance and correlate it with phenomenal terms. Though concepts which directly correspond to qualities found in immediate experience belong to “an entirely different semantical type” than concepts whose meaning is largely independent of specific (osten- sive) anchoring in experiences, the former remain in some way or other the evidential basis for the latter. Though Feigl does suggest in places that this notion of “anchoring” is to be defined ostensively, this suggestion is not fully developed. Even in one of his most recent statements touching on the relation between the level of acquaintance and the level of conceptual activity, Feigl continues to employ the expression “anchoring” to describe this relation between empirical concepts and what he now terms the “soil of experience”*O. For these reasons, then, I will argue that the concept of “anchoring ”largely remains on a metaphorical level in Feigl’s writings, and though it may be descriptively satisfying it requires further conceptual elaboration. More will be said on this later.

However briefly expressed, the three claims discussed above represent Feigl’s most mature and recent statement regarding the interrelation between immediate experience, knowledge claims about such experience, and the physical designata which serve as their common referent. I will now develop the difficulties I have experienced with these claims.

(1) The Problem of 7heoretical Terms and 7heir Designata

As is well known, Carnap, Margenau, Hempel, Quine and many others have argued that not all the concepts within a given theory need have physical designata outside that theory. Only the more “element-

Feigl on Raw Feels, the Brain, and Knowledge Claims 25 1

ary” or “primitive terms”, to use Carnap’s expressions, or those nearest the “sensory periphery”, as Quine phrases it, are directly grounded in observation. This could also be stated as the distinction between those terms and concepts which immediately correspond to their designata in experience, in contrast with those having only a postulational and inferential status. This is also Feigl’s distinction. “ I suggest that ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ be understood as knowledge involving no inferential components1’.” Hence, Feigl employs the criterion of experiential immediacy or, equivalently, what is had rather than known, to demarcate observationally-grounded, designating concepts from purely theoretical concepts. Or, expressed somewhat differently, the former unlike the latter stand in a one-to-one mapping relation with their designata. As Quine expressed it in Word and Object, empirical concepts, unlike theoretical concepts, stand in “direct ostension with their objects.” (The question will later be raised whether theoretical concepts even have physical designata and, if so, in what ways these designata differ from those of empirical concepts.) I might mention at this point that in an earlier paper Feigl did not employ the criterion of experiential immediacy in discussing empirical concepts. He there defended the more familiar definition of a concept in terms of the meaning of symbols as “constituted by the syntactical, semantical, and pragmatic rules which determine the relations of those symbols to one another, to their designata and their evidential basis“.” Unfortunately, this definition tends to blur or at least not make evident the crucial distinction between empirical and theoretical concepts that is so central to the program set forth in The “Menial” uud the “Physical”.

With regard to the identity hypothesis, the following question is thus appropriate at this point: is the concept of the “global configurations of cerebral processes” an empirical or a theoretical concept? Un- like the concept of a “receding (or diminishing) auditory stimulus”, or the concept “dypsnea” (or shortness of breath), Feigl’s concept would appear to correspond to nothing observed or directly experienced. To employ his language, there are no raw feels or experiences of acquaintance answering to the conception of “neural processes”, though there are raw feels corresponding to the sounds of the fire engine sirens and the gasping for oxygen. Insofar as raw feels are the confirmation basis for all types of factual-knowledge claims, it would appear to follow that the concept of “neural processes” must be the result of epistemological reconstruction. Accordingly, I would draw the conclusion that such a concept designates nothing at all but is rather a theoretical

252 Paul Tibbetts

postulate. It should be noted, though, that Feigl would certainly want to defend a realism with regard to the existence of the external world (personal correspondence). I refer the reader to reference (13) for Feigl’s latest statement on this matter. In my estimation, the concept of “neural processes” (and especially that of “global configurations”) no more has (nor should be expected to have) a corresponding empirical designatum than do such similar postulates as the “historical process” or the “judicial process” as employed in the social sciences. As with all highly theoretical terms, they terminate only very indirectly in immediate experience through other, more empirically-laden concepts. In the case of the “judicial process” this might be actually serving on a jury or being a plaintiff, in constrast with reflections on the philosophy and rationale of law in general. Respectively, we would have recourse to the experiential and the technical vocabularies suggested by Hempel above.

With regard to the neurophysiological language, let us briefly look at the “human brain”, a concept related to but seemingly less theoretical than “global configurations of cerebral processes”. Being directly observable, this would seem at first sight to be a more likely candidate as the “ultimate physical designaturn” of both acquaintance and theoretical terms. But is it? Even Feigl recognizes that there are, in effect, two brains: the one (Bl) we observe when the skull is removed, the other (B2) is the brain of neurophysiological research. Unlike Bl, B2 is a theoretically-laden concept, as anyone knows who has perused the Journal of Neurophysiology or Brain. What is directly observed, that is without inference (whether by the layman or the neurophysiologist), is B1; B2 is the result of epistemological reconstruction. I agree with Feigl that between B1 and B2 there is at most only an empirical correla- tion rather than a logical identification. Still, on what grounds can Feigl say that B2 is not only a theoretical concept but also the ultimate physical designatum of phenomenal states and knowledge claims?

In other words, why should we assume that any given theoretical concept, even those of the “human brain” (B2) or “neural processes”, must be directly correlated with an empirical referent? By maintaining that the empirical referents of these concepts are identical with the physical designata of phenomenal states, we are in effect making ontological claims. I question whether such claims can ever be extended to what is simply the result of postulation and theoretical considerations and what is consequently far removed from the level of acquaintance and naive observation. To assign concreteness to merely abstract enti-

Feigl on Raw Feels, the Brain, and Knowledge Claims 253

ties (as Feigl does in m y estimation) would be equivalent to saying that although the sun of the peasant (Sl) is experientially prior to the sun of the astronomer (S2), it is the latter that is the ultimate designatum of all knowledge claims regarding (S l ) . As with the brain of neurolo- gical theory (B2), I would maintain that (S2) has only a theoretical status at best.

To pursue this point further, one could easily imagine possible observational data and/or purely theoretical considerations that might require a scientist to modify his conception of S2. This also follows given that our conception of S2 is entirely relative not only to observational data but, more importantly, to the particular conceptual model being employed. When the historian of ideas therefore traces the 5,000 year history of the scientific study of the sun (S2) he is, in effect, recapitulating the historical genesis of a highly theoretical concept (or family of concepts). To partly account for this development, he would of necessity include discussion of the increasingly sophisticated techno- logical means for obtaining data, and of the dialectical interrelation between the observational and the more theoretical levels of inquiry. With S1, on the contrary, the case is quite different. In spite of the infusion o f scientific and other theoretical considerations into everyday experience (whether these considerations originate from science proper, from theology, or even from mythology), the sun of the peasant has remained practically unchanged from ancient times to the present. This conclusion follows given that S1 is, practically speaking, pre- theoretical in character; whatever characteristics S1 has are dictated almost exclusively by the naive observer’s immediate observations rather than by theoretical or speculative demands. Hence an historical account of S1 (unlike such an account of S2) would be uninteresting because relatively unchanging; whatever variety there was from one culture to another would largely if not exclusively be due to differences in the surrounding physical environment and other conditions affecting observation. (This also applies to the difference between B1 and B2.)

1 would even suggest that in our unreflective moments (when experience is lived, to use Feigl’s expression), S1 not only may have characteristics incompatible with those of S2, but that S1 may be experienced in ways quite different than what theoretical considerations demand. Take as an example the relation between the earth and the sun. Before theoretical reflection has broken in, I would argue that each of us implicitly adheres to the geocentric account of planetary motion. It must be admitted that the statement “The earth has a forward velocity

254 Paul Tibbetts

of 18,000 miles per hour”, or even “The earth travels in an eclipse with the sun as one of its foci”, are statements not easily translatable into experiential terms. Thus, the reason I would give why S1 and BI have had a far greater historical longevity than their scientific/speculative counterparts is simply because they have an experiential priority. In point of fact, S2 and B2 are not found in experience at all! Their sole status is as theoretical fictions (in the form of explanatory devices) in the mind of the scientific community. As Nagel expressed it, “...the meaning of such terms is exhausted by the roles they play in guiding inquiries and ordering the materials of observation; and in this perspective the supposition that such terms might refer to physically exist- ing things and processes that are not phenomena in the strict sense seems to be excludedi4”.

Obviously empirical science has no monopoly on theoretical explanation and concept formation; metaphysics and theology have historically also considered this to be an essential part of their function. The difference is that whereas science considers its theoretical concepts and speculative hypotheses as inference tickets or guiding principles for effecting logical transition from one set of experientially based data to another set of such data, these other disciplines have emphasized other criteria for adjudicating between rival truth claims ans explanations. To consider our theories and models as anything more than means for generating propositions confirmable in experience at some point or other would entail the blurring of a line of demarcation between science and metaphysics. In my opinion, the instrumental account of models and theoretical concepts is the most reliable methodological perspective we possess for maintaining this demarcation.

7‘aking the instrumental approach to the firobleni of theoretical terms, I would therefore argue that if there are such things as “ultimate physical designata” then the only objects that would qualify for such a noble designation are such things as B1 and S1. To reexpress the same thought in stronger terms, B2 and S2 refer to nothing at all, have no ontological status, and are entirely relative to the theoretical framework in which they are first postulated. Using Feigl’s distinction between acquaintance and inference, with the former being the confir- mational basis for the latter, it is in B1 and S1 that all theoretical assertions and knowledge claims must eventually terminate. Feigl of course suggests as much in places. The above remarks are therefore not intended as a refutation of his comments on this subject but rather are an attempt to set forth some of the available options with regard


to theoretical terms and their supposed physical designata. As 1 have discussed this problem and the instrumentalist alternative in other places l 5 I will now turn to a second point in Feigl’s position requiring some discussion.

(2) ?he Problem of How Concepts are “Anchored” in Obseruation

The use of the term “anchoring” to express the relation between concepts and observations is a highly misleading metaphor. It might even be termed ‘systematically misleading’. Rather than providing clarification it carries the connotation that the conceptual and the observational are different epistemic levels of inquiry, the one floating as it were over the other, and between which the empirical scientist must manage to anchor some of the terms in the former with observations in the latter. Hempel’s model of the “nomological net” is based on such an analogy. The knots and strings of the “net” represent, respectiveIy, concepts and definitions within the net or theoretical framework, with the net as a whole being suspended over experience. Between the net and the level of observation there are ascending and descending strings, providing semantical interpretation to the concepts and terms in the theory:

By virtue of these interpretive connections, the network can function as a scientific theory: from certain observational data, we may ascend, via an interpretive string, to some point in the theoretical network, thence proceed, via definitions and hypotheses, to other points, from which another interpretive string permits a des- cent to the plane of observation 16.

The function of theoretical concepts for Hempel is to serve as “crys- tallization points” for the formulation of explanatory and predictive principles. In so far as these principles are, in turn, to bear directly on observable phenomena, “...there must be ‘operational’ criteria of application for their constituitive terms, i.e., criteria expressible in terms of observables. Reduction sentences make it possible to formulate such criteria” 17. Beyond discussing the application and limitations of the operational thesis, Hempel unfortunately has little to say regarding the problem of the relation between empirical concepts and their evidential basis, and how the one is anchored in the other. Even to define an empirical concept in terms of a specified set of operations is to leave

256 Paul Tibbetts

unanswered questions concerning the relation between those operations and immediate experience. In other words, my question is: Which is the confirmation basis of a given empirical concept, a set of operations or raw feels? The type of raw feels or immediate experiences one gets may very well have something to do with the type of operations one performs, but it is a serious error to go on and then identify the operations with the immediate experiences.

Nor should it be overlooked that by “operation” Bridgman meant such activities as counting, weighing, and measuring-all of which are cognitive-dependent activities. One cannot count, weigh, or measure without a system of symbols and numbers and an established metrical system, along with the knowledge how to use them. For Feigl, on the other hand, immediate experience is what is had rather than what is known, thus taking such experience (which is the final confirmation basis) out of the domain of what is cognitively significant. For these reasons, then, I think it would be a serious methodological error to simply equate “operations” (in Bridgman’s sense) with what is “given”.

Returning to Hempel, he does suggest in a later work that the experiential or operational significance of theoretical terms may be one of gradation or degree rather than a sharp distinction between what is empirically significant and what is not. According to this suggestion, the distinction between the theoretical and the experiential language would reflect more the influence of methodological and pragmatic considerations, and the set of terms one designates as experientially primitive, than the influence of any supposed extra-theoretical or empirical demands’*. I will later take issue with the last part of this statement.

Let us briefly look at another theorist who has discussed this problem of anchoring at some length. In The Nature of Physical Reality, Margenau distinguished between the conceptual and the perceptual field (respectively, the C-field and the P-field). With regard to the relation between the immediately given and its conceptual counterpart, Margenau introduced what he termed “rules of correspondence”. Through such rules the data of immediate experience are integrated within the C-field and thereby given rational structure:

By this transition, the elements of the given take on orderly traits and allow reason to take hold of them ... The passage to orderly knowledge involves the positing of constructs, which are the rational elements to which data1 experience is made to correspond.


Experience [thus] moves from data to constructs via guiding relations which are called “rules of correspondence” ... [These rulesl, it is held, are not eternally grounded in the nature of things, nor are they immediately suggested by sensory experience: they are important parts of every theory of nature and receive their validity from the consistency, the internal neatness and success of the entire explanatory scheme’O.

This neo-Kantian solution in effet reverses the issue and describes how observations in the P-field are given rational structure by the C-field. By laying greater stress on the conceptual, order-giving element, it is certainly questionable whether such an approach would ever say, with Feigl, that raw feels (or P-field data) are the final confirmation basis of all empirical knowledge claims. I do not see how this conclusion is avoidable given that Margenau’s perceptual data receive whatever structure and empirical significance they have through conceptual elaboration.

There is, however, one aspect of Margenau’s position which suggests an answer to the problem of anchoring. Anticipating Quine, he argued that the boundary between the P-field and C-field is not sharp and rigid but is to some extent arbitrary:

After all, both P and C are parts of m e continuous experience, and the philosopher must learn to view the distinction between the rational and the sensory much as the chemist sees the hazy though meaningful difference between the organic and the inorganic world‘”.

Though I doubt whether this statement i s fully in keeping with earlier remarks Margenau made on the P-field-C-field relation, it is useful for my purposes. If we assume, following Margenau and others, that the difference between the observational and the theoretical levels were one of degree rather than a fundamental epistemic difference, then the problem of anchoring is seen in a different light. The observation (protocol) language and the theoretical/explanatory language would simply represent two types of conceptual frameworks for describing (or “talking about”) reality. Feigl himself offers this suggestion in one place:

- 7 lhere are not two different sorts of reality, but there are two ways of providing a conceptual frame for its description. In fact. at least so it seems to me, therc arc a great many “perspectives” or

258 Paul Tibbetts

frames-the extremes being the purely egocentric as the ”lower limit” and the completely physical account as the “upper limit””.

This proposal of Feigl’s may quite possibly resolve the problem of how theoretical terms are anchored in observation. Let us assume, for example, that the observational and the more theoretical .levels of discourse respectively represent the lower and upper limit of a hierarchy of conceptual frameworks. As we ascend this imaginary hierarchy the concepts and terms become more and more abstract, that is, further and further removed from the plane of observation and sensory (experiential) content. However it is a t the “lower limit”, where observation language and acquaintance merge, that we must be especially careful. If immediate experience or acquaintance is maintained to be pre-linguistic and pre-conceptual in character and is to be sharply differentiated from even the lowest level of the observationally-grounded descriptive framework, then we have simply reopened a new epistemic gap, this time between acquaintance and description. If the notion of a hierarchy on the linguistic level served to close the gap between observational language and theoretical language, then why not employ such a device to bridge the supposed gap between acquaintance and description?

In order for this suggestion to be worked out, one problem thus far left in abeyance must first be resolved. Earlier we discussed the difference between acquaintance terms and theoretical terms. The issue now concerns the relation between acquaintance terms and empirical or observation terms. Let us begin by asking whcre empirical or obesrvation terms come from. Are they extended downward as it were by deductive techniques from the vocabulary of the theoretical framework (as Carnap argued i d 2 ) or are they generated out of acquaintance terminology? That is to say, are empirical terms simply disguised theoretical terms or are they extrapolated from acquaintance terms? If they are simply disguised theoretical terms then the problem of how empirical terms are anchored in experience remains unresolved. If, on the contrary, empirical terms are generated from acquaintance terms then we could not say as suggested above that the observational level of discourse represents the lower limit of a conceptual hierarchy.

The key word which both engenders these problems and prevents their resolution is the term “anchoring”, with its overtones of “nets” and “ascending-descending strings”. In fact the entire conception of anchoring is colored by the type of’ metaphor we employ, with visual metaphors being thc most misleading. As a first step toward resolving


the problems associated with anchoring, 1 propose that we leave behind all metaphorical devices and visual diagrams. This proposal especially extends to Hempel’s nomological net, Margenau’s C-field and P-plane distinction, and Quine’s comparison in the “Two Dogmas” of a scientific theory with a “field of force bounded by a sensory periphery”. In place of such metaphorical analogues of anchoring, let us rather say, following Peirce and others, that a concept is anchored in experience in terms of the practical effects of that concept, that is, when we know how to “use” the concept. (The pragmatists of course diffe- red among themselves as to whether ”practical effects” were to be interpreted in terms of what was conceivable or what was experiential. See Peirce, 5.402, especially footnote three.) As we will see, this pragmatic/ instrumental account would avoid interpreting the relation between theoretical and empirical concepts in terms of the picture theory of meaning. Though the above theorists, along with Feigl, would not want to defend the picture theory of meaning, the analogy of a net horizontally suspended over experience does carry such a connotation. In a more recent statement, Feigl continues to employ this misleading analogy 25. Whereas Feigl is non committal to employ this misleading account of the relation between theory and observation. Quine has defended the emphasis by pragmatism on practical effects: “I espouse a thorough pragmatism. Each man is given a scientific heritage plus a continuing barrage of sensory stimulation; and the considerations which guide him in warping his scientific heritage to fit his continuing sensory promptings are, where rational, pragmatic”’.‘. According to this view, a theoretical concept or term would be anchored in the observation vocabulary to the extent such concepts and terms entail practical or experiential consequences. In turn, this raises a fairly basic question that has been too little discussed in epistemology: Whether there is a difference between praclical as against expriential effects? and, if so, what is the basis of this distinction? As we will see, our answers to these two questions will depend on whether we interpret “experiential effects” in terms of what is phenomenally itmmediate (as what is had rather than what is known), or in terms of bodily and especially manipulatory activity. The remainder of the paper will focus on clarifying and resolving this issue.

It is an implicit thesis throughout ‘I’lie “Mental” and the “Physical” that acquaintance is both pre-linguistic and pre-conceptual. Having an experience is obviously pre-linguistic in contrast with knowing ubout or describing that expcricnce. But is iicioing an experience also pre-

260 Paul Tibbetts

conceptual? According to the definition of a concept quoted earlier from Feigl it would be. On the other hand, if under a concept or, better, conceptual activity we included any type of structuring the organism performed on its environment regardless of whether that structuring employs symbols or other linguistic devices, then many immediate experiences could be termed “conceptual”. To identify conceptual activity with intellectual, reflective, or linguistic activity is due to a particular bias in the Western philosophical tradition toward defi- ning the conceptual in terms of what is “known”. In effect this bias reduces the subject-object relation, the relation between an experiencing organism and its environment, to a cognitive relation. Such an identification thereby makes impossible any understanding of contemporary contributions by the European phenomenologists to such topics as the “lived body”, the relation between meaning and praxis, and most importantly their critique of intellectualism, with its tendency toward reifying theoretical and scientific abstractions.

With regard to the above suggestion that although immediate experience or acquaintance is pre-linguistic it need not for this reason be pre-conceptual, I was able to discover only one sentence in all of Feigl’s writings where he even considered this possibility. ‘Waxing meta- physical’ he proposed that

... the egocentric account, with its direct “labeling” of the qualities of experience, confronts Being ... as immediately as is possible in this world of ours, whereas all scientific accounts, owing to their quality- modality-invariance, deal with Being only indirectly and struc- turally25. I would maintain that such “labeling” or ”naming” can best be

understood when immediate experience (or acquaintance) is interpreted in terms of actions performed rather than in terms of phenomenal immediacy. It is by means of bodily activity rather than by reflective analysis that we conceptually structure oiir immediate environment on the level of acquaintance. Insofar as Feigl seldom if ever discusses the role of the body in experience, there is some room for doubt whether Feigl would concur with this position. (It might be mentioned at this point that by “body” I do not simply mean the senses nor even the nervous system but, more generally, ‘that by means of which we have a perspective on the world’. See referencezK.)

Part of the problem here revolves around the ambiguity of the term “acquaintance”. Sometimes Feigl employs it to refer to what is “phenomenally immediate””, whereas a t other times it refers to what is


”lived through” or ‘‘had-inexperience”28. Depending upon which meaning is being emphasized, the problem of anchoring is cast in a different light. If the emphasis is on what is phenomenologically (or phenomenally) immediate then I do not see how the gap between experience in this sense and descriptions about experience can be closed. The most one could hope for is to obtain well-confirmed, statistically significant correlations between observation terms and reports, on the one hand, and what is phenomenally immediate on the other. However, the general reaction by recent philosophers to the essential artificiality of phenomenal languages should caution us against accepting this alternative. Besides, the Phenomenalist program places too great an emphasis on a cognitive over an actional account of the events leading up to and issuing in perceptual experience. This explains why defenders of the phenomenalist approach, when describing what is phenomenally immediate, invariably draw upon examples from the visual and auditory modalities. Action, bodily activity, and manipulations are not prere- quisites (or so i t is thought) to visual or auditory experiences, so it is understandable that phenomenalist accounts of perception conceive of the experiencing subject as an essentially passive recipient of stimuli.

When the emphasis is on acquaintance as something “lived through” or as actions performed (rather than on what is merely uun- dergone”) then quite different implications follow. One implication is that immediate experience is no longer thought of as an essentially cognitive affair. Dewey’s remark that in pre-reflective experience ”things are had before they are things cognized”29, or Merleau-Ponty’s statement that the world of immediate experience is “not what I think, but what I live throughhno, reflect this particular conception of experience. To translate these remarks into more concrete terms, I would equate “having” and “living through” with action and manipulation, neither of which is a cognitive affair in the sense of being a reconstruction of experience on the theoretical/explanatory level. Rather than employing phenomenal immediacy as the “final confimation basis” for all knowledge claims, the criterion would now shift to whether such claims could be translated into what could be acted upon and manip- ulated by means of the body. This would at the very least provide us with an unambiguous and universally applicable criterion for recog- nizing overinflated concepts. Feigl’s concept of “ultimate physical designata” (that is, neural processes) is, according to this criterion, overinflated since it corresponds to nothing directly given in exper-

Paul Tibbetts 262

ience (that is, in touch, manipulation, etc.). Such a concept is not even translatable into Feigl’s own criterion of empirical significance, namely, acquaintance or raw feels. I would therefore argue that these supposed “ultimate physical designata” are nothing more than extrap- olations from physical theory as to what ultimate reality would con- sist of if the theoretical concepts of physics and microphysics had ontological status. The instrumental thesis, together with the emphasis on translating concepts into practical effects, prohibits not only the reification of individual theoretical concepts but also of entire blocks of such concepts. Consequently, the world of “ultimate physical designata” in Feigl’s position is what might be termed a theoretician’s fic- tion. To suppose in Eddington-like fashion that reality is bifurcated into a phenomenal and an ultimate (micro) physical domain, is to assign concreteness to the wrong sorts of things, namely, to the conceptual posits of epistemological reconstruction. (For further discussion of this point see3I.)

Are we to conclude from this that “ultimate reality” is to be equated with the range of phenomena captured through observation reports? In other words, if we take seriously the criticisms of the instrumentalist regarding the existential or ontological status of the designata of physical and especially microphysical concepts, must the phenomenal world then be construed as the “final confirmation basis” of all empirical knowledge claims ? This conclusion would not follow for two reasons. The first we saw above where I rejected interpreting acquaintance in terms of phenomenal immediacy, favoring instead the criterion of bodily activity, which will be further discussed below. The second reason is that the world conceived along phenomenalist lines is a poor characterization of anything, let alone of what is referred to as “reality”. I would therefore suggest that the overarti- ficiality associated with phenomenal reports and protocol sentences- and the reality coincident with such descriptions-is due to an over- emphasis on the visual sense. In fact the entire conception of theories as maps and of mapping relations is heavily weighted toward the pic- torial and therefore toward the visual modality. Granted that the visuai sense is the primary channel through which observation reports are attained and confirmed. Still, it is not the only modality and in point of epistemological footing some theorists, such as Meads2 and H. H. PriceY3, have argued that manipulation, not sight, is the fundamental perceptual modality. This for the reason that in manipulation and touch, unlike in vision, there is no spatial separation between the


object-as-experienced and the object per SY. In turn there is no need to introduce sense-data, sensibilia or other mediating devices. The SO-

called ‘problem of knowledge’ would never have arisen historically if the author of the 7‘heaetetus and others after him had recognized this important distinction between visual perception and, to coin an expression, manipulatory perception. It must not be overlooked, then, that the reality expressed or captured through observation reports is the world disclosed through only one possible modality, the visual. Un- til a workable theory has been worked out which would integrate within a single conceptual framework the different types of experiences associated with the other sensory modalities, and especially with the modalities of touch and manipulation, then we cannot simply assume that our descriptions of “reality” are exhausted by visually-mediated reports.

One interesting conceptual possibility worth exploring is the question whether the epistemological gap between knower and knower, between experience and its referents, is avoidable given an observation language grounded in manipulatory experience and bodily activity. Beyond some highly suggestive beginnings in Mead’s The Philosophy of the Act and The Philosophy of the Present, such a possibility has to my knowledge never been systematically explored. Certainly Feigl and the other theorists discussed above have paid little attention to such a possibility. Even though other interpreters might disagree, I would maintain that Feigl’s notion of acquaintance as what is “lived through” might best be expressed within the context of bodily activity and action rather than in terms of the largely passive, spectator-like distance receptors. I have developed this last point in greater detail elsewherea4. If we keep in mind the earlier discussion regarding acquainbance as a conceptual, even if pre-cognitive from of experience, and if we also remember that by “conceptual activity” was meant whatever structuring the organism performs on its environment, then bodily acts and manipulation are thc paradigms of pre-cognitive activity. This argument depends of course on how we interpret “acquaintance” and the weight we assign to manipulation and touch over visual perception.

In summary, 1 have not only attempted in this paper to reconstruct Feigl’s account of the relation between observational and theoretical languages, and the relation between both of these and immediate experience, but I have also made some proposals regarding these matters. The proposals made here were intended to overcome or at

264 Paul Tibbetts

least by-pass the supposed epistemological gap between acquaintance and description, and the ensuing problem of how concepts and terms are anchored in immediate experience. Basically I have tried to suggest that these issues and the various historical solutions (including Feigl's) are largely dictated by one's conception of the relation between language and conceptual activity, immediate experience, the body, and that extra-linguistic phenomenon we term "reality". I strongly feel that the problem of anchoring, as with that of the relation between language, experience and reality, will ultimately be explained in terms of a model which emphasizes the essential continuity between the more concrete and the more theoretical levels of conceptual activity. In the last pages of this paper, the remarks concerning manipulation and bodily activity were tentative suggestions regarding the fierceptual di- mension of such a model.

With regard to the problem of how concepts are anchored in experience, this issue may be more susceptible to a resolution if we reexam- ine the relevant presuppositions in Feigl and the other theorists discussed above. As we have seen, some of the more central presuppositions were the following : 1) The interpretation of scientific theories as "overlays of reality" and, in turn, certain misleading connotations as sociated with the concept of "mapping". 2) The belief that both scientific concepts and acquaintance terms are in some way or other "anchored" in a world of observable and, ultimately, unobservable designata. 3) The tendency to restrict phenomenal reports and observation statements to the visual modality, with a corresponding neglect of the role played by touch and manipulation in experience. 4) The suggestion on my part that the perplexing matter of "anchoring" can in the final analysis only be resolved through a radical revision of the perceptual models we employ in characterizing the relation between conceptual activity, perceptual experience, and reality.

NOTES

1. H. Feigl. "Some Crucial Issues of Mind-Body Monism", Sytttiiese, 22 (1971),

2. H. Feigl. 7h "Mental" and the "Physical" (Minneapolis: University of Minne-

3. Ibid., p. 25. 4. Ibid., p. 70. 5. Ibid., p. 144. 6. Ibid., 'Some Crucial Issues of Mind-Body Monism", op. cit., p. 503. 7. Ibid., 'The "Mental" and the "Physical", op. cit., p. 79. 8. Ibid., p. 66. 9. Ibid., 'Some Crucial Issues of Mind-Body Monism", op. cit., p. 306.

pp. 295-312.

sota Press, 1967, second edition), p. 55.


LO. lbid., “The ‘Orthodox’ View of Theories”, Minnesota Studies in the Philosohhy of Science, Vol. IV, edited by M. Radner and S. Winokur (Minneapolis: Univer- sity of Minnesota Press, 1970), p. 7.

11. Ibid., The “Mental“ and the “Physical”, op. cit., p. 36. 12. Ibid., “The Mind-Body in the Development of Logical Empiricism” (1950),

reprinted in and quoted from Readings in the Philosophy of Science, edited by H. Feigl and W. Sellars (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), p. 621.

13. Ibid., “Empiricism at Bay? Revisions and a New Defense”, Boston Stndies in the I’hilosophy of Science (in press).

14. E. Nagel, 7 h e Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), p. 140.

15. P. Tibbetts, “Observable Versus Inferred Entities: Pragmatic and Phenomenolog- ical Considerations”, Studirrm Generule, vol. 24 (197 I), pp. 1 067-1078. P. Tibbetts, “Popper’s Critique of the Instrumentalist Account of Theories and Theoretical Terms: Some Misunderstandings”, Southern Journnl o j Phylosophy,

16. C. Hempel, Fundamentals of Concept Formation i n Ernpirkul Science (Chicago: University of Chirago Press, 1952), p. 36.

l i . Ibid., p. 29. 18. Ibid., “A Logical Appraisal of Operationism” (1954), reprinted in and quoted

from his Aspects o f Scientific Explanation and Other Essays (New York: The Free Press, 1965), pp. 131-133.

19. H. Margenau, The Natrrre of Physicnl Reality (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950),

20. Ibid., p. 121. 21. H. Feigl, The “Mental” and the “Phy.sical”, 01’. cit., p. 15.5. 22. R. Carnap, “‘The Methodological Charactcr o l Theoretical Concepts”, Minnesota

Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. I, edited by H. Feigl and M. Scriven (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 19.56), pp. 38-76.

23. H. Feigl, “The ‘Orthodox’ View of lheories”, Minneso/m Studies in /he Philos- ophy o j Science, op. cit.

24. W. V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951), reprinted in and quoted lrom From a Logical Point of View (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 46.

25 . H. Feigl, The “Mental” and th,r “Physicnl”, op. cit., p. 155. 26. P. Tibbetts, “John Dewc and Contemporary Phenomenology on ‘Experience’

and the ’Subject-Object’ ielation”, Philosophy Today, vol. 15 (197 I), pp. 250- 275.

27. H. Feigl, The “Mentul” und the “Physicul”, op. cit., p. 55. 28. Ibid., p. 79. 29. J. Dewey. Experience mid Nuture (La Salle: Open Court, 1929, second edition),

p. 21. 30. M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology oj Perception (1945), trans. by C. Smith (New

York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. vxi-xvii. 31. P. Tibbetts, “The ‘Levels of Experience’ Doctrine in Modern Philosophy of

Mind”, Uialectica, vol. 25, No. 2 (1971), p :<2. G. H. Mead, “The Physical Thing”, in f i b PhiZosoi)hy of the Present, ed. by

A. K. Murphy (La Salle: Open Court, 1932), pp. 119-139. G. H. Mead, The Philosophy o / lhe Act, cd. by C. W. Morris (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1938). Esp. see Essay I, “The Stage of Mani ulation: Percep- tual and Scientific Objects”, and Essay XIV, “The Perceptual dodel in Science”.

33. H. H. Price, “Touch and Organic Sensation”, Proceedings o / the Aristotelian Society, vol. XLIV (1944), pp. 1-30.

34. P. Tibbets, “Mead’s Theory of Perception and the Act: Some Empirical Confir- mations”, 7 h e Personalist (to appear mid-1973). P. Tibbetts, “Perceptual Theory and Epistemological Dualism: Some Examples Toward a ‘Behavioral Ecology’”, Man-Environment Systems, voi. 2, No. 112 (1972), pp. 37-59. P. Tibbetts, “The Transactional Theory of Human Knowledge and Action: Notes From Experimental Psychology”, Psychological Record, vol. 22 (1972), pp. 401- 411.

VOI. 10, NO. 1 (1972), pp. 57-70.

pp. 74-73.

131-151.

266 Paul Tibbetts

ABSTRACT

Central to Feigl’s position is his methodological distinction between observation terms and theoretical terms, on the one hand, and the physical designata of both of these terms on the other; these physical designata, in turn, are identical with neural processes and molecular events in the brain. The present paper examines in some detail the relation between these physical designata, knowledge claims, and what is phenomenologically immediate (what Feigl terms “raw feels”). It is argued that Feigl’s use of the concept of “anchoring” to characterize this relation is a highly misleading metaphor. The paper concludes by suggesting an alternative account of the relation between knowledge claims, observation, and immediate experience, an account which explicitly rejects the traditional empiricist identification of observation with visual perception.

Prof. Paul Tibbetts Dcpt. of Philosophy University of Dayton Dayton, Ohio -45469- U.S.A.

Dialectica Vol. 26, NO 3-4 (1972)

Documents

Feigl on Raw Feels, the Brain, and Knowledge Claims: Some Problems Regarding Theoretical Concepts