Peirce's Theory of the Perceptual Judgment: An Ambiguity

Peirce's Theory of the Perceptual Judgment: An Ambiguity SANDRA B. ROSENTHAL ON APPROACHINGPEIRCE'S THEORYOF PERCEPTION,or, for that matter any topic in Peirce's philosophy, one is struck with the large number of seemingly incompatible statements to be found in his writings. One may attempt either to find in Peirce's philosophy two or more distinct and opposing trends or to introduce an overall consistency by interpretation of the statements. The position of the present essay is that Peirce's array of writings on the topic of perception can most profitably be understood as an attempt to clarify what he at first saw only obscurely and hesitatingly, and that this is so true that his latter writings are to a large extent indispensable to a correct understanding of his earlier writings, if this is a tenable point of view, then perhaps clarification can best be introduced in the area of perception by beginning with Peirce's latter writings to see how certain distinctions there introduced reflect upon earlier statements in a way which makes his overall analysis of perception consistent and comprehensive. In keeping with this procedttre , Iet us turn to the analysis of Peirce's concept of the percipuum, introduced in a manuscript of 1903. t Peirce's late introduction of this term has been noted by Richard Bernstein,2 but the exact role of the percipuum has not been examined in detail, with the result that it has not been seen to clarify as precisely as it might the role of the perceptual judgment in Peirce's philosophy. What Peirce means by "percipuum" is indicated in his proposal "to consider the percept as it is immediately interpreted in the perceptual judgment, under the name of the 'percipuum'." 3 In light of this statement, it might seem that the nature of the percipuum can best be understood by examining the perceptual judgment , but just the reverse is true, for the concept of the percipuum gives a much needed clarity to the nature of the perceptual judgment. By understanding the nature of the percipuum, one wilI be able to understand that which is the outcome of the perceptual judgment, and hence, indirectly, the nature of the perceptual judgment. What wi!l become clear is that Peirce uses the term "perceptual judgCollected Papers, Vols. I-VI, ed. Hartshorne and Weiss (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ., 1931-1935),Vols. VII and VIII, ed. Arthur Burks (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958),VII, 642-681; hereafter cited as CP. J "Peirce's Theory of Perception," Studies in the Philosophy (9] Charles Sanders Peirce, ~1. Moore and Robin (Amherst: Univ. of Mass. Press, 1964), p. 175. ) CP, VII, 642. [303] 304 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ment" in two different senses, a wide sense and a narrow sense, corresponding to the two senses of the term "percipuum." The percipuum in its narrow sense, as an analytic element of the perceptual experience, will be seen to be a recognized but ineffable sense content, the content best indicated by the "seeming" or "appearing" statement. The percipuum in its wide sense, as that which is actually known or perceived in the perceptual process as it temporally occurs, will be seen to be an objective property or objective state of affairs, a sense content "irfformed" with conceptual interpretation or predictive meaning; in perception we do not actually perceive bare sense contents but objects. Since the percipuum is by definition the outcome of a perceptual judgment, the perceptual judgment in its narrow sense will be seen to be a first level interpretation which yields a recognized sense content , while the perceptual judgment in its wide sense will be seen to be a second level interpretation which makes an objective claim and which yields a perception of an object or objective property. The following discussion will show that perceptual judgments in the narrow sense are both infallible and indubitable, while perceptual judgments in the wide sense are fallible and either dubitable or indubitable, depending upon the contextual conditions involved. However, it must be noted that two distinct types of indubitability are involved in the two senses of the perceptual judgment. David Savan expresses this important distinction in Peirce's writings...