Perceptual Knowledge

Perceptual Knowledge

The thesis to be defended here is that perception is knowledge and the most basic kind of knowledge.[1] This knowledge has nothing essentially to do with belief, except by way of repudiation. Perceiving is knowing and knowing is perceiving (more or less). In practice this comes down to the thesis that knowing and seeing are interchangeable—two names for the same thing. Knowing is seeing a fact not believing a proposition. This seeing is foundational and constitutive. I begin with an anecdote: I was sitting in a restaurant in Barbados (“La Luna”) and a bird flew over and perched on a nearby ledge; it seemed interested in something, but it was hard to know what. It sagely kept its distance, never getting too close; if I moved towards it, it moved away. Eventually it flew onto the table, obviously knowing the risk. At an opportune moment it did something remarkable: it flew quickly to the sugar tray and snatched a packet of sugar, instantly flying away with its haul. About this clever bird I would say that two things are obvious: one, it had knowledge, lots of it; and two, it had no beliefs. It knew but it didn’t believe. It knew because it could see what was going on; its seeing was a case of knowing. It didn’t need any additional belief state—it could simply see that there was a packet of sugar on the table. I doubt it had ever had a belief in its life (more on this later). The seeing was not just a matter of passively receiving a sense-datum; its visual system was tightly hooked into its motor system—the executive branch. Clearly, it had learned this trick from other birds, presumably by imitation; it had a learning history, a background of memory. The whole performance was a demonstration of avian knowledge. The bird was consciously aware of my presence and of the desired sugar: it had a kind of direct acquaintance with the objects and facts in question. This awareness constituted its knowledge, suitably embedded in the animal’s sensorimotor system and learning history. It had no language, no concepts, no opinions, no beliefs—but it did have knowledge. It knew in the plainest and least metaphorical sense. Its perceptual-executive system gave it knowledge—useful, actionable knowledge. No doubt this capacity had a long evolutionary history: perceptual knowledge is a very useful adaptation. This bird trusted its eyes implicitly to give it the necessary information; it didn’t just think there was sugar there, or that I was potentially dangerous. As we say, it knew, without a doubt. Knowledge of this kind is a primitive automatic response to sensory contact, though obviously sophisticated. It is not a matter of considered belief, evaluative justification, or careful deliberation. Nor does it arise by testimony. It comes straight from the senses. There is no such thing as perception without knowledge; an identity theory would seem to be appropriate. People like to say “Seeing is believing”; that is obviously false, but it is not false to say “Seeing is knowing”. We often say “I saw it with my own eyes” to indicate well-founded knowledge, and we are not wrong to do so. Yet recent epistemology has been obsessed with knowledge as true justified belief (“propositional knowledge”), neglecting the kind of sensory knowledge I am drawing attention to. In fact, there would be no knowledge unless this kind of primitive belief-independent knowledge existed. We must not intellectualize knowledge; it would be completely wrong to say that the perception that leads to it is a species of opinion, judgment, surmise. Perceptual awareness is knowledge.

It is a kind of empiricism to say that all knowledge rests on perception, where perception is construed in the pre-conceptual way I am recommending—direct consciousness of facts. But we should not take this to exclude rationalist epistemology: for there is room for the idea of direct rational (in)sight, say of logical connections. Similarly for mathematical and ethical knowledge. You can see that certain things have to be so, rationally. This is a perfectly natural way to talk, and quite unexceptionable. It might even be true that we use this intellectual notion of seeing in understanding the nature of vision by means of the eyes: we often see by seeing. Someone draws a diagram on the board and looking on we exclaim, “Oh, I see”. I myself often see (understand) by seeing (directing my eyes)—say, in watching a tennis demonstration. The eyes and the intellect both see and often work together to do so. So, rationalist epistemology can be perfectly empiricist in the sense that it accepts the foundational role of episodes of seeing. The important point is that perceptual knowing is basic epistemologically—and is not a type of belief. In fact, it wants as little to do with belief as possible, as we shall see. What this means is that what is often called “knowledge by acquaintance” is epistemically basic; but we should note that the notion is broader than is often supposed. For it covers all kinds of entities: mental entities, physical objects, qualities, facts, events, theories, necessities—anything that we can be said to perceive. It is not what we are acquainted with that counts but the acquaintance relation itself. Nor should we be deterred by the difficulty of understanding the nature of this kind of knowledge, involving consciousness and intentionality as it does. William James says at one point, “Now the relation of knowing is the most mysterious thing in the world. If we ask how one thing can know another we are led into the heart of Erkenntnisstheorie and metaphysics”. (The Principles of Psychology, p.216). But mystery is no reason for rejection, so we shouldn’t be suspicious of perceptual knowledge for this reason. Okay, all our knowledge rests on mysterious foundations—so what! Facts are facts, even if the facts are difficult to comprehend. Neither should we be concerned about the complexity of sensory processes, or their occasional fallibility (nothing is infallible). What matters is that knowledge by acquaintance is a superior type of knowledge, providing immediate contact with the thing known; it can’t be acquired in any other way (say, by testimony). Acquaintance is as good as it gets, the gold standard (even gold varies in value). If you could know everything by acquaintance, you would leap at the chance—so much better than mere description! God knows everything this way—he sees everything (no conjecture or inference). We feel frustrated that not everything can be perceived; life would be a lot simpler that way (consider other minds). We dream we could see into every nook and cranny of the universe, especially the future. Perceptual knowledge is good. If you see, you don’t need to infer. Seeing is your first resort. Carnal knowledge is sense-based not inferred, and generally thought desirable. Seeing is the epistemic ideal.

We must also note some further special features of perceptual knowledge: informational richness and selective attention, particularly. A lot comes in visually, far more than in a verbal report. So, we derive a great deal of acquaintance knowledge from a momentary perceptual encounter. We can also track an object with our eyes, learning more about it as time passes. Seeing is a very economical way to gain knowledge, much faster than reading about something. In addition, we can attend to certain portions of the perceived environment, thereby acquiring fine-grained knowledge; this makes our knowledge useful and relevant to our concerns. Seeing is a mighty faculty epistemically. We often notice things we didn’t expect, or see things we weren’t supposed to (where would spies be without vision?). Sight is really a lot better than blindsight—or telepathy, intuition, and gut feelings. It makes you a superior class of knower. Moreover, perceptual knowledge possesses a certain kind of generality: not only do you gain knowledge of a token state of affairs; you also gain knowledge of its type, or many types. Properties are exemplified in the token that apply to other tokens, actual and possible. If you’ve seen one cat, you’ve seen them all—you know what a cat is. So, your knowledge goes well beyond the particular token you are now perceiving; it generalizes. You see the general features that characterize a cat. You are not confined to knowledge of the token in question; you become acquainted with much more. But it must be admitted that perceptual knowledge is limited—we only perceive certain parts of the world. We need to go beyond this; the question is whether we can knowingly do so. I will consider that question in the next paper. For now, we have a tolerably clear idea of the nature of perceptual knowledge and why it deserves to be so described. It is indubitably knowledge, if anything is.[2]

[1] Again, I am indebted to Michel Ayers’ bracingly unorthodox (but commonsensical) work in what follows, particularly his Knowing and Seeing (2019).

[2] Ayers calls perceptual knowledge “primary knowledge” as distinct from the “secondary knowledge” that comprises knowledge by inference from primary perceptual knowledge. The question I will be concerned with is whether so-called secondary knowledge is really knowledge—really and truly.