Phenomenal continua and the Sorites

被引:66
作者
Graff, D [1 ]
机构
[1] Cornell Univ, Sage Sch Philos, Ithaca, NY 14853 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1093/mind/110.440.905
中图分类号
B [哲学、宗教];
学科分类号
01 ; 0101 ;
摘要
I argue that, contrary to widespread philosophical opinion, phenomenal indiscriminability is transitive. For if it were not transitive, we would be precluded from accepting the truisms that if two things look the same then the way they look is the same and that if two things look the same then if one looks red, so does the other. Nevertheless, it has seemed obvious to many philosopher (e.g., Goodman, Armstrong and Dummett) that phenomenal indiscriminability is not transitive; and, moreover, that this non-transitivity is straightforwardly revealed to us in experience. I show this thought to be wrong. All inference from the character of our experience to the non-transitivity of indiscriminability involve either a misunderstanding of continuity, a mistaken interpretation of the idea that we have limited powers of discrimination, or tendentious claims about what our our experience is really like; or such inferences are based on inadequately supported premisses, which though individually plausible are jointly implausible.
引用
收藏
页码:905 / 935
页数:31
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