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The Argument from Illusion

I
The problem of other minds or entrapment within subjectivity

Perhaps this should be called “the problem of other consciousnesses”. If by “having a mind” we mean “behaving in the way that objects with minds behave” then there is no problem of other minds. Those objects have minds that behave in the way that objects that have minds behave. However, our problem is that we do not know whether an object that behaves as if it has a mind, it actually is conscious.
Here is the problem of “other consciousnesses”: since we are only conscious of what is presented to our own minds, and not conscious of what is presented to other minds, we do not know (for certain) that other minds (consciousnesses) exist. Since every experience is my own experience, and I am not directly acquainted with the subjective experience of any other person, I cannot know, for certain, that other minds (consciousnesses) exist.
Sometimes this problem is expressed in terms of the language we use to express statements about experience. We express our own (subjective) experience in first-person terms (for example, “I am seeing a blue banana”). We express beliefs about the experiences of other minds in third person terms (for example, “He is thinking about eating a ripe banana”). So the problem may be expressed that, given the validity and certainty of first person statements, we cannot infer the validity or certainty of third person statements. There is no bridge from the subjective to the objective.
So we can also call this problem “entrapment within subjectivity”. Only what is subjective is known; what is objective cannot be inferred from what is subjective.
This is how Berkeley presents the argument.
From Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge
1It is evident to anyone who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes, and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, small, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.
2And besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in its being perceived.
3That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by anyone that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist when applied to sensible things. The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelled; there was a sound, that is to say, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
We can summarise this argument as follows.
All objects of human knowledge are either external sensations or inner sensations or memories or imaginings. Imaginings are combinations of other ideas. Objects are consistent collections of sense-experiences — for example, an apple is a collection of a certain sight with a taste, and so forth. In addition to ideas there is a distinct thing that perceives them — this is called mind or soul. Now the existence of an idea is to be perceived — esse est percipi. Everyone admits that thoughts and passions exist in the mind and also that sensations cannot exist except in the mind. People do not generally realize that this also means that a table exists only as an object of sensation. To say that an object that I do not see exists is to say that if I looked at it I would see it, or alternatively, that another mind actually does see it. It is impossible to understand the idea of an absolute object — that is to say, the idea of an object that wholly exists without ever being perceived.

II
The Argument from Illusion — in Descartes and the reply from J. L. Austin

This is also a very confusing term, because it denotes several related arguments, some of which are particularly vulnerable to “attack”. Essentially, there are two forms of the argument: firstly, there is that put forward by Descartes in the Meditations, and secondly there is that put forward by Berkeley.
This second argument is very succinctly expressed by Hume in his Treatise as well, and that is probably the best place to study it, though Berkeley's argument is also very clear.
Actually, it is Descartes argument that should be called the “argument from illusion” since it relies specifically on illusions; whereas neither Berkeley nor Hume (and especially not Hume) are particularly concerned with illusions, though Berkeley does discuss them at some length.
Descartes presents the first form of the argument from illusion as follows.
Up to now everything that I have accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty I have acquired either from or through the senses. However, I observed that these [senses] sometimes deceive us; and it is prudent not to place absolute confidence in anything that has deceived us even once.
Descartes argument is the first of three skeptical arguments that he proposes in The Meditations. He argues that the senses have frequently been proven to be deceptive; and hence infers that he can repose no trust in the senses. He implies that because the senses have been deceptive in the past, an external reality is not guaranteed to exist.
He also supports this argument with dream scepticism, which is the second of his sceptical arguments.
However, I must note that I am only human, and consequently that I habitually sleep, and that in my dreams I have images of those same things, or even of more improbable things, that insane people see when they are awake. How many times have I dreamt during the night that I was in this room by the fire, whereas in fact I was asleep, naked in my bed? It seems certain just now that I am not looking at this paper with closed eyes; that as I shake my head I am not asleep; that when I deliberately and intentionally hold out my hand, I am aware of it. The images presented in dreams are not so clear and distinct as these are. Yet, on reflecting more carefully about all of this, I remember that I have often been deceived in my sleep by similar illusions, and thinking even more closely, I conclude that there is nothing that conclusively and clearly distinguishes between waking and sleeping. I am quite amazed at this, and I feel so astonished that I am almost convinced that I am actually asleep right now!
This argument is, in fact, not very good as it stands, and J.L. Austen has subjected it to what is probably a highly successful attack in his work Sense and Sensibilia. He declares his intention to expose the fallacies in this first form of the argument as follows.
What we have above all to do is, negatively, to rid ourselves of such illusions as 'the argument from illusion' — an 'argument' which those (e.g. Berkeley, Hume, Russell, Ayer) who have been most adept at working it, most fully masters of a certain special, happy style of blinkering philosophical English, have all themselves felt to be somehow spurious. There is no simple way of doing this — partly because, as we shall see, there is no simple 'argument'. It is a matter of unpicking, one by one, a mass of seductive (mainly verbal) fallacies, of exposing a wide variety of concealed motives — an operation which leaves us, in a sense, just where we began.

In a sense — but actually we may hope to learn something positive in the way of a technique for dissolving philosophical worries (some kinds of philosophical worry, not the whole of philosophy); and also something about the meanings of some English words ('reality', 'seems', 'looks' etc.) which, besides being philosophically very slippery, are in their own right interesting. Besides, there is nothing so plain boring as the constant repetition of assertions that are not true, and sometimes not even faintly sensible; if we can reduce this a bit, it will be all to the good.
However, Austen wrongly attributes this argument to Berkeley, Hume, Russell and Ayer!! This argument is only presented by Descartes!
In Sense and Sensibilia he points out that there is a formal contradiction in the argument.
Of course — this may seem perhaps hardly worth saying, but in philosophy it seems it does need to be said — we make a distinction between 'a real x' and 'not a real x' only if there is a way of telling the difference between what is a real x and what is not. A distinction which we are not in fact able to draw is — to put it politely — not worth making.
The premise of the argument is that we have, in the past, been deceived by our senses. What this in effect states is that we have, in the past, been able to judge that there is a distinction between appearance and reality. But the conclusion is that we cannot judge that there is a distinction between appearance and reality! So this looks like a flat contradiction.
Premise I am able to distinguish appearance from reality.
Conclusion I cannot be sure that there is a distinction between appearance and reality.
Austen concludes that the whole argument is a bundle of fallacious inferences.
I conclude, then, that this part of the philosophical argument involves (though not in every case equally essentially) (a) acceptance of a quite bogus dichotomy of all 'perceptions' into two groups, the 'delusive' and the 'veridical' — to say nothing of the unexplained introduction of 'perceptions' themselves; (b) an implicit but grotesque exaggeration of the frequency of 'delusive perceptions'; (c) a further grotesque exaggeration of the similarity between 'delusive' perceptions and 'veridical' ones; (d) the erroneous suggestion that there must be such similarity, or even qualitative identity; (e) the acceptance of the pretty gratuitous idea that things 'generically different' could not be qualitatively alike; and (f) — which is really a corollary of (c) and (a) — the gratuitous neglect of those more or less subsidiary features which often make possible the discrimination of situations which, in other broad respects, may be roughly alike. These seem to be rather serious deficiencies.
Furthermore, in what sense can we say that the senses deceive us? The act of deception implies a willful act of telling a falsehood. It is appropriately used when one person lies to another. But our senses are not in themselves endowed with conscious will. What is a sense deception? For example, suppose I mistake a round tower for a square one? Then, my senses have not deceived me; what has happened is that I have made an erroneous judgement. In fact, if I attend carefully to my sense-experience I may be able to avoid these errors. In this case the whole use of the term “deception” is probably misguided as applied to what our senses tell us. The whole topic of the formation of perceptual judgements is more involved. Some people wish to distinguish the raw material of sense-experience, which they call sense-data, from the judgements made with that data, and they claim that if they do so it is at least theoretically possible to attain to infallibility with regard to sense-judgements. However, it is also possible to deny that sense-data exist, which is tantamount to claiming that all perception involves judgement. The former position has been proposed by Russell and Ayer in modern times, and the latter position is associated with Kant.

III
The Argument from illusion — in Berkely and Hume

Returning to the second argument that is called the “argument from illusion”, this is a claim that it is self-evidently true that every object presented to consciousness depends on consciousness. What this means is, for instance, if I am seeing a red book, then, unless I am conscious of the red book, then, literally, my perception of the red book does not exist. Subjective consciousness is the necessary correlative of every act of perception or conception whatsoever. Nothing becomes experience unless it becomes experience for a conscious mind.
For Hume the belief that there exist physical objects, in whatever way we want to conceive of them, cannot be shown to be justified in a true cognitive sense. In fact, Hume tends to believe that absolutely nothing can be justified in this sense. His whole philosophy is, therefore, an investigation of the psychology of belief. The following passage is taken from Hume's attempt to explain why we come to believe in the existence of physical objects even though there is no rational foundation for this belief.
When we have been accustom'd to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found, that the perception of the sun or ocean, for instance, returns upon its first appearance, we are not apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different, (which they really are) but on the contrary consider them as individually the same, upon account of their resemblance. But as this interruption of their existence is contrary to their perfect identity, and makes us regard the first impression as annihilated, and the second as newly created, we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involv'd in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty, we disguise, as much as possible, the interruption, or rather remove it entirely, by supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible. This supposition, or idea of continu'd existence, acquires a force and vivacity from the memory of these broken impressions, and from that propensity, which they give us, to suppose them the same; and according to the precedent reason, [that is, the arguments Hume has already given] the very essence of belief consists in the force and vivacity of the conception.
Hume discusses the extent to which illusions are important to this argument.
'Twill first be proper to observe a few of those experiments, which convince us, that our perceptions are not possest of any independent existence. When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become double, and one half of them to be removed from their common and natural position. But as we do not attribute a continued existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive, that all our perceptions are dependent on our organs, and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits. This opinion is confirmed by the seeming encrease and diminution of objects, according to their distance; by the apparent alterations in their figure; by the changes in their colour and other qualities from our sickenss and distempers; and by an infinite number of other experiments of the same kind; from all which we learn, that our sensible perceptions are not possest of any distinct or independent existence.
However, this second version of the argument from illusion requires not a single illusion to make it valid. For this reason, it should not really be called the argument from illusion, but, perhaps, better “entrapment within subjectivity”.
On the other hand, it is often the experience of an illusion that confronts us with our entrapment within subjectivity. And so, illusions are often used as examples to make us aware of how objects of consciousness depend on consciousness and would not exist without it. Several illusions are cited as illustrations to force upon us an awareness that what we perceive depends on our subjective consciousness, and on no other consciousness that we know of. They force upon us the awareness that there is no fundamental distinction between an image and a “real” perceived object, that all that we perceive is an appearance only, that the distinctions we draw in everyday life between what is “real” and what is “illusory” are actually distinctions drawn between different kinds of perception, and that reality, as a thing-in-itself, is beyond all appearances whatsoever, and all perceptions.
Some of the specific illustrations of this dependency of perceptions on consciousness that are sometimes cited are as follows: (a) When I press down lightly on my eye-ball the images of what I see are shifted and blurred, but we do not believe that the real objects have actually been moved or altered in any way. This reminds us that what we see is an “image” only and not what exists independently of consciousness. (b) Mirages are interpreted by the mind as being signs of real objects but are only images of objects that do not exist. However, subjectively what one sees when one sees a mirage is similar to what one sees when one sees a “real” object. Both real objects of perception and mirages depend on consciousness for their existence, and we are not directly acquainted with real objects in the sense of “not depending on consciousness”. (c) When we dream we sometimes interpret our dream images as images of “real” things. However, a dream image is similar as an experience to a waking image. We interpret dream images as arising in subjective consciousness alone and waking images as impressions forced upon us by an objective world existing independently of consciousness; however, as objects of perception both dream and waking experiences depend on consciousness. (d) When you place both a hot hand and a cold hand in the same luke-warm bowl of water the hot hand feels colder and the cold hand feels hotter. The object itself appears to have contradictory properties of being both hot and cold simultaneously. However, we ignore the contradictory properties of the water, arguing that the real bowl of water has just one temperature but subjectively it is experienced by each hand differently. However, since we only receive the sense impressions of our hands, this reminds us that everything that we see and feel depends on consciousness. All images are images presented to consciousness, and if there were no consciousness to perceive the image, the image would not exist. (e) There are also perceptions that are relative to the position of the viewer. For example, as we walk around a coin resting on a table, the shape of the coin changes. However, we believe that real shape of the coin (which is round) does not change.
In conclusion, this second form of the argument from illusion seeks to establish that it self-evidently true that every object presented to consciousness depends on consciousness.
We may also call this doctrine, entrapment within subjectivity.