The Language of Visual Phenomenology

A close lexical analysis of the word "see" and related perceptual verbs shows that the purported phenomenological distinction between the sensory given and what goes beyond it does not fully correspond to how we actually use these words. Reviewing mid-twentieth-century debates about "sees" and comparing the semantics of perceptual verbs with a philosophically neutral word, "climbs," reveals that the semantics of these words do not support separating "direct" or "immediate" perception from the products of "judgment" or "inference." If such a distinction is accessible by introspection, it would have to come from phenomenology directly and would require newly coined terminology.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract With a close lexical analysis of the word “see” and the related words “perceives,” “notices,” “observes,” and so on, one can see that the purported phenomenological distinction between the sensory given and what goes beyond the sensory given fails to correspond to the language we use to describe the distinction, though not entirely. Reviewing some key mid-twentieth-century debates about “sees,” and reviewing the lexical properties of a philosophically neutral word, “climbs,” that has important lexical characteristics in common with the perceptual verbs we are considering, it becomes clear that the semantics of these words do not provide the distinctions that would underwrite separating “direct” or “immediate” perception from the products of “judgment” or “inference.” If such a distinction is to be accessible to us by introspection, it would have to come from the phenomenology directly, and to talk about it would require newly minted terminology.