Ziring Ziderata Fred I. Dretske Mind, New Series, Vol. 75, No. 298. (Apr., 1966), pp. 211-223. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28196604%292%3A75%3A298%3C211%3AZZ%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Mind is currently published by Oxford University Press.
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1V.-ZIRING
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ZIDERATA
CERTAINphilosophers, if I understand them correctly, refuse to admit that people have any direct perceptual contact with physical objects and events ; many of them would even deny that, as ordinarily conceived, there are such objects and events. Instead, we are given to understand that pencils and paper-clips are an elaborate composite of perceptual data (and, perhaps, possible data) with or without an unknowable cause, physical occupant, or nucleus. I assume the pattern is familiar enough without my supplying the details. Now, whether one likes to admit it or not, such analyses are short-sighted in more ways than one. Occupied as they are with the problems of perception, these analyses tend to neglect the many other ways humans have of getting themselves entangled with the inscrutable world of everyday objects. That is to say, we still expect the mailman, desire a rare book, fear a wild beast, and love our wives ; moreover, we expect, desire, fear, and love these things as ordinarily conceived. Yet, we are told that these things, as ordinarily conceived, do not exist-or, if they do, we never encounter them. I find this paradoxical. Admittedly, we sometimes desire or expect things which don't exist, but to suppose that nothing we expect or desire exists is, if not paradoxical, a t least depressing. It will not do to be told that there still exists, for all practical purposes, a satisfactory facsimile of the things we . expect and the objects we desire ; this doesn't prevent anyone from wanting or expecting the originals. Clearly, something stands in need of adjustment here. However others may be inclined, I, personally, am disposed to approach the matter stoically; we must, I am convinced, adjust our desires and expectations to the philosophical realities-however disappointing these latter may be. The task I have set myself in this essay, then, is to sketch a programme for harnessing our hopes, fears, desires, and expectations. That is, I want to resolve the paradox mentioned in the preceding paragraph by showing that our desires, in particular, are in harmony with the objects made available to us by a sensedata analysis of perception. The results achieved in relation to 1 The idea for this article arose, and took its initial shape, in a stimulating discussion with Mr. James Sfinger. Whether he would agree ~vithmy way of stating the case I do not know, but I am sure that 7%-hatevermerit it has is, in part, due to him.
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" desire " will then apply, with very little change, to such notions as " hope ", " fear ", " expect ", " need ", and so on. Purthermore, in order to insure the validity of the present analysis only those arguments and analytical techniques will be employed which have already proven so effective in the hands of Ayer, Moore, Price, et al. in curtailing our perceptual ambitions.
As I have already indicated, the concept " desire " has been selected for detailed dismemberment. Before we begin, however, a word about the sense of this term which will be in question. When Johnny desires a new baseball glove, there is a sense of this term in which it would have been false to say he desired it if, when presented with the object of his alleged desire, he was not pleased or gratified in any way. He may not, of course, derive much satisfaction from its possession once he has it (" Why did I want this ? "), but this is something different from his initial reception of the glove. It is this sense of the term which is a t work in such cases a s : " You couldn't really have desired (wanted) that glove very much-you weren't even pleased to get it." Or (to a person ignoring the arrival of food) " I thought you wanted something to eat ".l To put it in another way, " S desires X " will be taken to imply that if S receives X (without, of course, having ceased desiring it), then S will be pleased or gratified upon receiving X. One cannot desire something, in this sense of the term, and fail to be pleased a t the prospect of receiving the desired object. To desire something, however, involves .more than the satisfaction of this one condition ; there are other elements which must now be sorted out and examined. One should first observe that a person can be mistaken about what it is that he desires. There are two ways in which such mistakes can occur. On the one hand, Johnny might think he desires a new baseball glove when all he really wants is some attention from negligent parents. The mistake might be revealed by his disappointment at having his new baseball glove delivered to him in a perfunctory manner by his parents, or by his indifference to the glove when received from some other source. " I guess I didn't really want a glove after all." Let us call this type of mistake a qualitative error ; one does desire something, but one is mistaken about the character of that which is desired. Contemplating the prospect of a gift from his parents, Herea,fter, I shall use " to 7%-ant" interchangeably with " to desire " ; whether it can be so used is not my present concern.
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Johnny mistakenly takes the gift, rather than the giving, as the object of his desire. The second type of error which can be made, although it is perhaps much less frequent, is to think that one is desiring something when, in fact, nothing can bring the kind of satisfaction associated with the receipt of a desired object. " I thought I wanted something, but nothing seems to satisfy me." Let us call this second type of mistake an existential blunder. It is always possible, of course, that there are no actual instances of existential blundering ; there may always be something, albeit of a completely different sort than one had imagined, which would allay (gratify) one's feelings of desire. The point is not crucial, though ; as A. J. Ayer observes in reference to a similar feature of perceptual error : " It is not, however, necessary to the argument that anyone should ever actually be deceived by an experience of this kind. . . . All that is required is that it be possible.
...
"
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1
Since mistakes are possible, it behoves us to examine our evidential basis for saying of ourselves, as we often do, that we want or desire a certain article (or desire so-and-so to do such-andsuch). To what do we appeal in justifying our declarations of desire ?--What is the foundation for such claims ? Admittedly, it sounds a bit odd to ask how one knows that one desires something ; this is simply not the kind of statement that is generally questioned-except, perhaps, with acquisitive children. But neither do we generally question someone's claim to be seeing something like a pencil or chair. In both cases, in the case of desire and in the case of perception, requests for justification have to be seen within a framework or context that makes the basis for such requests clear. Consider the following two questions : (1)" What makes you think you see a pencil ? Everyone here is using a pen." (2) " What makes you think you want a new baseball glove ? You already have three of them which you never use." Neither of these questions are inappropriate or senseless ; both can be answered. How, then, do we set about answering questions of the second kind ? Imagine three individuals, A, B, and C a t time t,. A desires X and professes such a desire ; B also professes a desire for X, but, unlike A, he is mistaken-he does not desire X. C neither desires X nor thinks he desires X. Since both A and B believe they desire X (B mistakenly), there is a respect in which they resemble one another (at t,), but differ from C. Call the respect The Problem of Knowledge (Baltimore, 1956), pp. 87-88.
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in which A and B resemble one another, in regard to their attitude toward X a t t,, the experiential aspect of desire for X or, for short, a feeling of desire for X . Both A and B experience something which C does not ; how else could we account for their both professing a desire for X when C does not ? It may be helpful to think of this aspect of desire as the longing or craving with which we are all familiar, but these terms may be misleading. Strictly speaking, the experiential aspect of a desire for X is that element in one's experience without which one would not think one desired X. It should be clear that whatever the exact nature of this aspect of desire, A and B have it and C does not ; for C does not acknowledge the relevant desire. To calm any suspicions that may be plaguing the sceptical reader about the legitimacy of this .new notion I would again like to refer to Professor Ayer ; although he is interested in the experiential aspect of perception, his remarks apply with equal force to the experiential element of desire : I t may still be argued that there could be no such experience as I am trying to describe. To which I can only answer that there is such an experienoe since I am at this moment undergoing it. I t is an experience of a type which is perfectly familiar to anyone who can see [substitute " desire " for " see "1 . . .l Nevertheless, A and B, by hypothesis, are different in regard to their relationship to X ; if this difference is not manifest a t t,, then it must reveal itself a t other times or, a t least, be capable of revealing itself under suitable conditions at other times. We have already indicated one of the ways in which they might .differ ; if X is given to both A and B, they might respond differently-A being pleased, and B not. %ven if A and B never receive X, we still might detect the fact that A desires it, whereas B does not, by noting that a t other times (subsequent to t,) A's feelings of desire for X persist in a more or less uniform and undiminished form while B, when he thinks about X a t all, ceases to have any feelings of desire for it. We might then say that B did not really desire X ; he thought he wanted X (at ti) but this was, perhaps, a temporary infatuation. On the other hand, we might, depending on the circumstances, want to say that he had ceased desiring X. We may sum up this preliminary stage of the analysis in the following equation : (1) S desires X (at tl) = (i) S has a feeling of desire for X (at ti) %,
1
The Problem of Knowledge (Baltimore, 1956), p. 100.
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(ii) S's feelings of desire for X tend to persist (after t, and prior to receiving X) . (iii) S would be pleased with X if he received it.
It should be noticed that, strictly speaking, the left hand side of (1) should have been written : S i s desiring X (at t,). As it stands, clause (i) is doubtful since one can desire something without continuously thinking about it or feeling desirous of it. Hereafter, when speaking of someone's desire for something, I should always be understood as referring to the " active " state of desire ; i.e. that state in which A was depicted in the previous example. I n terms of this example, A satisfied conditions (i), (ii) and (iii) ; B, who mistakenly thought he desired X, satisfied condition (i), but not (iii). Since the satisfaction of (ii) is a matter of degree, we may suppose that B had very few, if any, subsequent feelings of desire for X. C differs from both A and B by not satisfying (i) and (ii), although he might possibly satisfy condition (iii). That is, C might be pleased with X, but this alone is not a sufficient condition for his desiring it ; for he may never have heard of X or, if he had, he may never have thought about it. Having isolated the experiential aspect of desire, it is time we moved to a more refined analysis of this element. What is now needed is what G. E. Moore provided for the experiential aspect of perception when he differentiated between the awareness of blue and the blue of which we are aware. Moore began by making the following observation : " We all know that the sensation of blue differs from that of green. But it is plain that if both are sensations they also have some point in common." Taking this as our model, we may note that the feeling of desire for X differs from the feeling of desire for Y ; yet, since they are both feelings of desire, they must have some point in common. The common element, that element in one's feeling of desire for X which makes it a desire for X rather than a fear of X or an anticipation of X, we can call zire (infinitive form ; to ire).^ We shall call that element which differentiates these feelings of desire-that element which makes one a feeling of desire for X, the other a feeling of desire for Y, the zideratum. The experiential aspect of desire, that which we have been calling the feeling of desire, may now be described as the airing of a particular zideratum. If Johnny wants a new baseball glove and Billy wants a pony (at t,), the ,
,
,
1 " The Refutation of Idealism ",reprinted in Philsophical Htudies (London, 1958),p. 17. 2 The form " to sire ", the natural candidate for this technical notion, was avoided because of its possibly misleading implications.
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difference between them (at t,) is a difference in their respective ziderata. This may be the only difference between them (with respect to these two objects) since they might each be pleased with receiving the other's desideratum ; i.e. Johnny might be pleased with a pony, and Billy might be pleased with a new glove. But they feel different toward ponies and baseball gloves, and we are now marking this difference by saying that they zire different ziderata. So far, then, we have broken the notion of " desiring " down into these more ultimate constituents : (2) S desires X (at t,) = (i) S is ziring an X-ish zideratum (at t,) (ii) S tends to zire other X-ish ziderata (iii) S would be pleased with X if he received it.
I have not yet said anything about the nature of xire or the properties of ziderata ; they have simply been introduced as the elements in our experience which, respectively, account for the similarity and difference between our feelings of desire. We shall also have to look a little more closely a t the adjective " X-ish " that appears in clauses (i) and (ii). But before doing this I would like to sketch, for the benefit of the linguistically oriented reader, an alternative method for introducing ziderata. Following Ayer we could interpret the preceding discussion as a linguistic recommendation to talk about desire in a new and more perspicuous fashion. By speaking in the manner depicted on the right side of (2) we clarlfy our talk about desire, we gain an insight into the nature of desire, which would otherwise be denied us. We can reach the first clause of (2), the epistemological basement of our claims to desire, by proceeding in the following way., We begin with the ordinary statement : (A) I desire a cigarette case. But in saying this one is, strictly speaking, claiming more than one's experience warrants ; one may not be pleased with a cigarette case. If I want to give a strict account of my experience, I must make a more cautious statement. I must not say that I desire a cigarette case, if this is to carry the implication that I will be pleased with one if I receive it, but only that it seems to me that I desire one. Thus, we make the more cautious statement : (B) It seems to me that I desire a cigarette case. 1 The rest of this paragraph is an adaptation of Ayer's argument for the introduction of sense-data, op. cit. pp. 96-97.
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The next step is to convert (B) into : (C) I am now desiring a seemipg-cigarette case, and this seeming cigarette-case is simply what I have been calling a zideratum. Since continued use of the term " desire " may be misleading now that the objects are seeming-objects, we may replace it by " ziring ". This gives us : (D) I am now ziring a cigarette-case-ish zideratum. The conclusion, to paraphrase Ayer, may be more simply expressed by saying that it is always ziderata that are zired, i.e. directly desired. What we have pared away in our linguistic reduction of (A) to (D) are simply clauses (ii) and (iii) of our previous analysis of desire ; putting them back with (D) would give us, then, the complete set of conditions.
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I would like to take the time in this section to clear up some of the questions which might have arisen during our hasty pursuit of ziderata. I have said that anyone who desires X, or thinks he desires X, is ziring an X-ish zideratum. I did not intend to beg any questions by this way of putting the matter ; I am not yet illicitly assuming that the zideratum has any of the properties (colour, shape, etc.) that X has. All that is meant in calling it an X-ish zideratum is that it is distinguishable from a Y-ish zideratum, and that it is that element in a person's experience which leads him (mistakenly or otherwise) to say that it is an X, rather than a Y, which he desires. We might expect, of course, some kind of correspondence between X-ish ziderata and X, but this is a question which will be discussed more fully in the next section. Secondly, although one may be mistaken about whether or not he desires an X, he certainly cannot be mistaken about the fact that he zires an X-ish zideratum. Por to characterize someone as ziring an X-ish zideratum is simply to describe him as experiencing whatever it is that leads him, mistakenly or not, to think that he desires (in contrast, say, to hates) an X (in contrast to a Y). He may be lying, of course, but if he sincerely reports that he desires an X then, whether or not he does, he is ziring an X-ish zideratum. The first element, (i), in our analysis of desire is, therefore, incorrigible ; mistakes occur in going from the indubitable ziring of an X-ish zideratum to the claim that one desires an X. That is, mistakes occur in the " inference " that because (i) is true, (ii) and (iii) are also true. Such " inferences ''
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are generally warranted by one's past experience ; whenever in the past I have zired a particular type of zideratum. I have subsequently found that a particular type of object pleased me. Hence, I now infer, automatically, that an X will please me whenever I zire an X-ish zideratum-the whole experience being summed up in my claim to desire an X. Finally, there is an interesting feature of zire which should be noticed. Just as sensing is an. optimal form of perceiving, zire is an optimal form of desire. One always gets (indeed, has) what one zires, and, what is more, the object of one's zires, the ziderata, are always precisely as one zires them. Consequently, one never zires what one does not have. Surely, we have here a worthy counterpart to that primitive form of perception which never misses its mark-sensing. One cannot zire an X-ish zideratum without it having all (and only) those qualities it is zired as having; for to suppose otherwise is to suppose that one does not know what one thinks one desires. Now it may be true, as we have already suggested earlier, that one may not know exactly what i t is that one desires ; one may desire something to drink, but not know exactly how much vermouth one wants in it. All this means, however, is that the zideratum which one zires is commensurately less determinate ; not that the zideratum is nonvermouth-ish (for this, also, is too determinate), but simply that it has no determinate quality under this determinable. The idea of a zideratum lacking any determinate properties may disturb some people. What, they may ask, is a drink-ish zideratum ? Just some liquid-ish zideratum with nothing corresponding to colour, taste, consistency, etc.? But there are no liquids like this. So there aren't, but, remember, we aren't talking about liquids ; we are talking about ziderata, and these can become pretty strangish. Certain philosophers have already conceded (without, it seems, excessive embarrassment) that sensedata may not be fully determinate. If, in looking up a t the night sky, there appear to be very many stars, but for any number n there do not appear to be n, stars, then, although there may be a great many starrish sense-dara, there are not, for any n you might choose, n, sense-data. As Ayer put it : " For a group of sensedata can be said to be enumerable only if it is in fact en~merated."~ Similarly, if i t seems that one wants something to drink, but it does not seem, for any determinate drink one can name, that it is that drink which one desires, then the corresponding zideratum is just drink-ish in nature yithout further specification. 1 The
Foundation of Empirical Knowledge (London, 1962), p. 124.
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We have already said something about the epistemological status of ziderata. It is now time to examine their ontological character. We know that they exist, but it isn't altogether ;lear what it is that is. The phenomenologists may be of some-help in this enternrise : I am certain that their efforts in this area will not prove any less rewarding than they have elsewhere. Be that as it may, there are some questions which can be answered, in a preliminary way, without such assistance. For instance, one of the most pressing questions is whether there are unzired ziderata -ziderilia. This is a difficult question ; it requires some temerity to even ask it. Although ziderata have been introduced as that element in experience (in the feeling of desire) which differentiates one feeling of desire from another, we can, along with Moore, ask whether there exist any entities exactly like these experiential ziderata which differ from them only in not being experienced (zired). These ziderilia would be ~ossibleziderata-ziderata khich could be zired, but which are ;ot. Some may regard this question as pointless since there does not appear to be any straightforward way of answering it. Nonetheless, philosophical issues of such obvious ontological i m ~ o r tshould not be side" stepped on practical grounds alone. F& this reason I would like to sketch, in the form of a conjecture, what I think the answer to this question must be. The hypothesis I am about to propose will also supply us with an answer to an earlier question : viz. what, exactly, is the nature of a zideratum ? Up to this point I have been speaking rather loosely about the obiect of desire. This must now be corrected. Notice. first. that t h l third clause in our analysis of desire, (2), reads thus': S d-ould be pleased with X if he received it. It is in this clause that the sense-data analysis of perception and the present critique join forces in a remarkable way ; the former analysis is merely " plugged into " the third clause of (2)to giveus a clear and consistent picture of desire without the mention of any physical object. Whatever is involved in receiving an object, we can feel safe in assuming that it is analysable into the sensing of various patterns of sense-data. If we let " R-pattern " stand for the pattern of sense-data which represents the receiving of a particular object, we can reformulate our analysis of desire in the following, more satisfactory, way : (3) S desires X (at t,) = (i) S is ziring an X-ish zideratum (at t,) (ii) S tends to zire other X-ish ziderata 2
16
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z
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(iii) S would be pleased if he sensed an R-pattern of X-ish sense-data. On this analysis it is not correct, strictly speaking, to say that we desire, say, a. new baseball glove ; not is it correct, fortunately, to say that we desire a particular pattern of sense-data. Statements about our desires are simply compendious ways of asserting numerous categorical and hypothetical statements about ziderata and sense-data. Now, what is the relationship between sense-data and ziderata ? Do ziderata " represent " sense-data ? Do they somehow " prefigure " the sense-data so that we can infer which sense-data it will be pleasing to sense on the basis of the ziderata we actually zire? The variety of answers which can be given to this question 'is, indeed, staggering, but I do not intend to stagger through them all. There is, as I see it, one view which is so compelling, which accords so well with common sense, that it must be given &st hearing. This view, an adaptation of nai've realism, equates ziderilia with sensibilia. We have one ontological domain ; when members of this domain are sensed., they are sense-data : when they are zired, they are ziderata. When they are neither zired nor sensed, we can call them, indifferently, ziderilia or sensibilia. I, personally, would prefer to give the members of this domain a new, neutral, title (experiencabilia !), but I do not want to burden the reader with excessive technical terminology. Notice, incidentally, that a sense-datum may be zired a t the same time it is being sensed ; this happens when, as we commonly say, we desire something we see in the store window. Clearly, this possibility ' lends support to our thesis that there is no intrinsic difference between the objects of zire and the objects we sense. There are several advantages to compensate for the simplicity of this approach. First, sensibilia, while unsensed, can now be experienced ; they can be zired. Here, then, we have a second point of access to sensibilia ; when they are not being sensed, they can a t least be zired, and this fact should go a long way in rescuing them from that ontological limbo in which even the most ardent sense-data analysts were ready to commit them. As an added feature. we simultaneouslv make ziderilia accessible to another mode of consciousness-sensing. The second advantage to this hypothesis is that it explains the " representative " mechanism of ziderata. That is, it explains what it is about ziderata which enables us to infer the sort of sense-data which will lease us (when sensed). The ziderata si$lply are potential semi-data, aAd we infer that we would be pleased to sense (instead of, or in addition d
.
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to, ziring) this particular entity or similar entities. By the way, this helps to account for our tendency to dream of a desired object; we please ourselves with an appropriate, though incomplete, complement of sense-data. Finally, and this is the most significant benefit, we attain an enormous simplification in our ontology. As pointed out earlier, we commonly desire things which don't exist. I can, for instance, desire a speckled poodle when there are no speckled poodles. Moreover, according to the sense-data analysis, we are always desiring things which don't exist (as we desire them). Formerly, this might have required the introduction of peculiar intensional objects. This is no longer necessary. All the objects of zire exist, and they exist precisely as they are zired. Furthermore, all the objects of zire can be sensed-if not in veridical perception (so-called), then a t least in dreams or hallucinations. Here, without much question, we have taken this sorry scheme of things entire, and re-moulded it nearer to the heart's desire. It is a pity Omar was not a philosopher. Notice, by the way, that one zideratum may not completely specify what it is that one desires, just as one sense-datum may fail to specify exactly what it is that one sees. This is how mistakes occur. To use our old example, Johnny's zideratum (at t,) represented his parents giving him a new baseball glove. As far as this one zideratum is concerned, the object of desire could be either the object being given (the glove) or the giving itself (there are, of course, other possibilities). Johnny mistakenly thought it was the former. Subsequent ziderata will ordinarily reveal what it is that is desired (i.e. the pattern of sense-data that will please) by repeating those features of the original zideratum that, compositely, make up the desideratum. Either this or the subsequent ziderata will represent different aspects of the giving without, as it were, detailing the gift in a similar way. Johnny's subsequent ziderata, assuming that this is not a systematic and persistent delusion, will focus on diverse representations of giving by parents, or other forms of attention, and not a baseball glove. Mistakes can be reduced by a close attention to the successive ziderata. It is, after all, rather hasty to suppose that one desires an X on the basis of one X-ish zideratum. It is certainly possible to be subject to a whole sequence of delusive ziderata, but this is the exception. Something like Price's Principle of Con$rmability is operative here ; the existence of an X-ish zideratum is prima facie evidence for one's desire of an X. Further X-ish ziderata tend to increase the probability that one desires an X.l Cf. Perception (London, 1961), chapter vii.
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Ordinarily, if we zire a coherent set of X-ish ziderata, although mistakes are still possible, it is reasonably safe to infer that we desire an X-or, to speak strictly, that we would be pleased with a coherent set of X-ish sense-data. One sour note : it may be doubted whether, in desiring a speckled poodle, one actually has in one's experience anything which is speckled or poodle-like. That is, if ziderata aye sensibilia, we should expect them to appear with the properties they are alleged to have (colour, shape, etc.) when they are being sensed. But do our ziderata appear speckled ? Or, better, aye they speckled ? This is a damaging objection, I admit, but I do not think it insurmountable. There are at least three ways it can be handled. We might insist that ziring is a mode of consciousness or awareness which acquaints us with aspects of the sensibilia different from those revealed in sensing (or, perhaps, the same aspects under a different guise). Or, we could doggedly maintain that the zideratum does have the properties which sensibilia reportedly have and that we are -aware of them, but that our introspective faculties were simply not developed enough to appreciate the fact. Or, finally, we could deny that sensibilia have the properties they are alleged to have ; we could, in other words, deny that the sensedata corresponding to a speckled poodle were themselves poodleshaped or speckled. I am inclined to favour this last dodge, but I do not have the nerve to develop it here.1 It should be clear that the effort embodied in this essay is programmatic a t best. A great deal remains to be done in the way of clarifying the complicated web of relationships that exist between sense-data and ziderata. Despite the pressing need for a joint attack on these problems, I realize that some philosophers will question the point to this enterprise. What, they might ask, is the purpose of this elaborate duplication of linguistic effort ? Don't we already have ways of describing precisely what this flurry of technical jargon attempts to describe in such a misleading way ? If its simply a linguistic recommendation, why recommend it ? Fortunately, we already have an answer to this type of harassment. If I may paraphrase A. J. Ayer's rebuttal to a similar charge : All the same, if the procedure which leads to the introduction of ziderats is legitimate, the nai've realist by refusing to follow it denies us an insight into the analysis of statements about desire. His method of describing the facts, though adequate in one sense, is not in another : for there are important distinctions 1 See my unpublishable paper " Are Specklish Ziderata Really Speckled ? "
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which it fails to bring to light. It has, indeed, the advantage that it shields us from a difficult problem ; there is no question for the na'ive realist of anything's ever seeming to come between us and the physical world. But philosophical problems are not settled simply by our taking care that they should not arise.l Whatever shortcomings this essay may have, I am sure that it has not sinned in the way Ayer suggests : no care was taken t o see that philosophical problems did not arise.
1
The Problem of Knowledge, pp. 97-98.
