the intentionality of observation

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

The Intentionality of ObservationAuthor(s): Edwin Martin, Jr.Source: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Sep., 1973), pp. 121-129Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40230428 .

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY Volume III, Number 1, September 1973

The Intentionality of Observation*

EDWIN MARTIN JR., Indiana University

A main thrust of much of Quine's work is that meaning, belief, desire, motive and other so-called "intentional phenomena" are underdetermined by all possible evidence: the totality of possible evidence could not determine whether two persons meant, believed, desired, or had as motives (he same thing. One way to identify a person's beliefs, desires and motives is to frame a theory of his meanings, for then we could ask him what he believed and desired; this will be a theory of translation for his language. But such a theory of meaning, according to Quine, is also not uniquely determined by all the evidence. Thus

To accept intentional usage at face value is ... to postulate translation relations as somehow objectively valid though indeterminate in principle relative to the totality of speech dispositions. Such postulation promises little gain in scientific insight . . .1

But the notion of an observation, or of an observation sentence - so central to Quine's epistemology and theory of translation - is, according to Quine, unlike intentional notions of meaning and belief: it is "rather clear and clean-cut."2 I shall here urge that observation also possesses the traits of intentionality and indeterminacy deemed so damning in the other cases, and that observationality is not so clean-cut as Quine would like. Observation thus seems relegated to the same inferior scientific status as meaning, belief, desire and motive. In reaching this conclusion, stimulation, or stimulatory state, will emerge as an

important mediating notion.3 A classic view of language- present in, e.g., Aristotle and Frege -

is that words and sentences are symbols for or express mental ex-

* Thanks are due Romane Clark and especially David W. Smith for guidance; they are not responsible, however, for remaining defects.

1 Quine, Word and Object (Cambridge, M.I.T. Press, 1960), p. 221, hereafter cited as W&O.

2 Quine, "Grades of Theoreticity," in Expereince and Theory. Edited by Lawrence Foster and J. W. Swanson. (Amherst, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1970), p. 4, hereafter cited as "GOT."

3 John Wallace reached the same conclusion in A Query on Radical Translation, Journal of Philosophy Vol. LXVIII (1971), p. 148. Our routes to this conclusion are

different, though, as are some of our other conclusions.

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periences or contents, or ideas or thoughts. An adequate translation, on this view, should preserve the idea expressed; i.e., the original and its translation should express the same idea. Of course we cannot check the adequacy of translation by examining the expressed ideas in their mental residences; we can only examine the overt behavioral clues given by speakers of the language. This presents the possibility that

two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all

possible sensory stimulations, and yet the meanings or ideas expressed in their

identically triggered and identically sounded utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases. (W&O, p. 26).

In developing his theory of radical translation Quine has presented a

prolonged argument that this possibility is actual. Translation of one

speaker by another, Quine contends, is not uniquely determined by behavioral evidence and canons of methodology. Thus there will in

general be no unique specification of the ideas the speaker meant to

express. And, accordingly, that there are any such ideas, or meanings, at all is a dogma unsupported by the available evidence; it is a dogma of Aristotelianism.

The idea idea lives on in our uncritical assessment of the bilingual's position, and this is one of the causes of the failure to perceive the

indeterminacy of translation (cf. W&O, p. 74). The bilingual translates between his two languages, we feel, by correlating sentences which

preserve the expression of ideas. Mentalism may even be seen dis-

pensable here: neural, or body, states may serve as well. Each sentence of the bilingual's two languages would then correspond to some one

body state of the bilingual determined by his linguistic dispositions toward the sentence. What the bilingual does in translating between his two languages is to study his body states and correlate sentences which correspond to a single body state. As Quine rightly notes, this will not count against indeterminacy of translation. For the point is that two bilinguals might translate differently - might correlate sentences by matching up those which correspond to one of their

body states differently- and still remain alike in verbal dispositions other than this translation.

The disappearance of mentalism in favor of body states in the case of the bilingual suggests that the classical view of language might itself be recast in terms of body states. We might, that is, view words or sentences as being symbols for, or expressions of, certain states of the speaker's body. Determinacy of translation is then to be sought in the preservation of accompanying body states. Interpersonal identification of mental experiences is now supplanted by interpersonal identification of body states.

It is doubtful, however, that in this there is much progress. Thus consider our plight when we meet a Martian who for all the world appears to speak English. Are we to translate him homophonically, mapping each sentence of his to the same sequence of English phonemes? Since the Martian's neural wiring differs radically from ours in its geometry, we must devise a hitherto undevised theory for

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comparing his body states to ours before we can know if homophonic translation is in order. What we must do, that is, is to concoct a

theory which identifies some of his bodily states with some of ours

despite the obvious geometrical differences.4 Not until then will we be in a position to say whether or not homophonic translation preserves bodily state. The evidence for a theory which compares these body states, though, will be composed primarily of knowledge about the Martian's overt behavior when he is in a given neural state, and our overt behavior when we are in a given neural state. To judge his neural state the same as ours, we will compare his accompanying behavior with our accompanying behavior, and here we will often look to the

accompanying linguistic behavior. Thus a theory of the Martian's

language- a scheme of translation- will here loom large. We will, then, have to construct theories of the Martian's language and of his neural states simultaneously, as part of the same project. In short, appeal to body states will not rescue determinacy of translation. There will in general be more than one adequate dual theory of translation and

comparison of body states which both translates the Martian in accor- dance with all verbal dispositions and maintains that its translation

preserves identity of associated bodily state. But yet these equally adequate theories may be mutually incompatible.

The case is in principle no different closer to home. Even if we were to assume that two people display a complete and total isomorphism in neural routings, still there is a theoretical leap from this to the correlation of geometrically similar states as the same bodily state, and

saying on that basis whether or not to translate homophonically. This

leap is the same kind as the leap from maintaining that two speakers are alike in all verbal dispositions to maintaining that translation between them should be homophonic. The correlation, and the translation, are well supported by behavioral evidence, but so are others, though they be incompatible with one another. The indeterminacy of translation which discredits the idea idea and the classical view of language also infects the interpersonal comparison of body states; and so there is no

hope of saving uniqueness of translation by appeal to neurophysiology.

Quine characterizes observation sentences in two variant ways. A first characterization is that a sentence is observational for a speaker if he could have learned the sentence ostensively.5

I mean 'ostensively' broadly here; it need not involve actual pointing. It is just that we learn under what total stimulatory situations to assent to the sentence, if asked, and under what stimulatory situations to dissent from it. ("GOT/' p. 6).

A second characterization is that an occasion sentence is observational for a speaker if "all speakers of the language, nearly enough, will assent to the sentence under the same concurrent stimulations." (TWOB, p. 16;

4 The correlated body states are "functionally equivalent." Cf. Jerry Fodor, Psychological Explanation (New York, Random House, 1968), pp. 107-120.

s Cf. W&O, p. 45, "GOT," p. 3, Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief (New York, Random House, 1970), pp. 16f, hereafter cited as TWOB, and Quine, Philosophy of

Logic (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 6, hereafter cited as POL

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cf. also W&O, pp. 42f, "GOT/' pp. 3ff and PCX, p. 6.) These two characterizations do not exactly coincide; there are sentences which are observational under the first but not the second characterization, and there are sentences observational under the second but not the first characterization. Thus consider the one word sentence 'Red'. It is observational for most of us; it is both intersubjectively agreed upon and could be learned ostensively. 'Unred', or 'Not red', thus, will also be intersubjectively agreed upon, for disagreement here would doubt- less be reflected in disagreement over 'Red' and there is no disagreement over 'Red'. But 'Unred', Quine is inclined to say, could not be learned ostensively.

The question hinges on that subjective quality of similarity upon which the ostensive

learning of an observation term depends. Are all unred stimulations felt to be

sufficiently akin so that one could learn the use of 'unred' outright as a simple word, independently of 'red', by generalizing from a lot of ostensions? . . . One inclines more strongly to a negative answer in the case of such compounds than in the case of attributive compounds. ("GOT", p. 11).

'Unred', then, looks to meet the second characterization though failing the first. And since 'Unred' fails the first characterization Quine looks

upon it as not purely observational:

Hence I see these [truth functional] modes of composition of observation terms as

representing already a step upward in the theoreticity scale, but a short one.

("GOT," p. 11).

The second characterization of an observation sentence is relative to a community of speakers. This opens the possibility that some sentences will be observational relative to one community but not relative to a wider community. In fact

"Deer track" and "Condenser" will qualify as observation sentences for communities of experts and not for wider communities. What meet the test of obser-

vationality for wider communities are sentences more numerous speakers have learned to associate with concurrent stimulations - sentences like "Bent grass," "Wired box," and "The cat is on the mat." (TWOB, p. 19).

Sentences like 'Condenser', presumably, are both ostensively learnable and intersubjectively agreed upon by the experts; thus they are observational for the experts. The non-experts disagree over them and have not learned them ostensively. Still, the non-experts could have learned them ostensively just as the experts could have. And so, relative to a community including non-experts, 'Condenser' will meet characterization one but not characterization two. Accordingly Quine sees 'Condenser' - for such a community - as not purely observational.

It is interesting that in both these cases Quine counts the sentences in question as non-observational. This suggests that he thinks of the two characterizations as supplementing one another: in order for a sentence to be observational relative to a community it must satisfy both characterizations relative to that community. Thus failure to meet either condition entails non-observationality. In this way the social flavor of the notion can be preserved.

In order for the notion of observationality to be "rather clear and clean-cut," then, it will have to be clear both when a sentence can be

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learned ostensively and when there is intersubjective agreement "under the same concurrent stimulations." It is the second part of this which seems to me doubtful. Stimulation, I shall urge, is as indeterminate as belief, and thus so is observationality. The second condition is that all

speakers who are in the same stimulatory state agree. It thus appeals to interpersonal comparison and identification of stimulatory states. This notion, I maintain, is subject to an indeterminacy parallel to that of our previously viewed notion of interpersonal identification of body states.

What are we to count as a stimulation, or as a stimulatory state? I see no fault in defining the sensory stimulation of a person at a time as the

triggering, at that time, of all of a subclass of his sensory receptors. I see no fault, either, in defining a pattern of stimulation of that person simply as a subclass of his sensory receptors; realization of the pattern is then the stimulation that consists in activating all and only the receptors in that subclass.6

How, now are we to identify stimulatory states from one person to another? How, that is, can we say that one subclass of a subject's sensory receptors constitutes the same stimulation as a subclass of another subject's sensory receptors? Consider once more our plight with a Martian. His neural geometry and sensory apparatus, we may suppose, look quite different from ours. Supposing that we can identify his sensory receptors, how are we to go about correlating subclasses of them with subclasses of ours? We could try exposing the Martian to sample outside forces and see what receptors are triggered; the class of those receptors could then be identified with the class of our

receptors triggered when we are exposed to those same forces. But

suppose the Martian can see behind himself; then if the visual forces

change from behind but not from in front, the Martian will get two stimulations, two subclasses of triggered receptors, while the earthling has one. We then must say that each of the Martian's subclasses is the same stimulation as the earthling's subclass, and thus that each of the Martian's subclasses is the same stimulation as the other Martian subclass. But that isn't true: the Martian saw different things, had different stimulations the two times.

The Martian might indeed make trouble for us by reaching to forces to which man is

unresponsive and vice versa. The triggering of a receptor is what counts, and this is why the equating of stimulations for two subjects persists in raising homology considerations when we try for an explicit theory. ("PO," p. 159).

What we want to do is to measure the impinging external sensory forces. Appealing to receptors accomplishes that when sensory powers are similar from subject to subject. But in a case of divergent sensory powers, such as our Martian and earthling, or as in the case of a blind

earthling and a normally sighted one, our straightforward manner of identifying subclasses fails. We might, then, seek some physical description of the external forces and say that those forces are the stimulation. Or, better, drop talk of stimulation and say that if a sentence is ob-

6 Quine, "Propositional Objects/' in Ontological Relativity (New York, Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1969), p. 158, hereafter cited as "PO."

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servational then all speakers agree on it under the same concurrent forces. Our Martian and earthling will then simply fail to share visual- observational vocabulary.

But what are we then to say of the person who has his eyes closed, or is sleeping? The forces impinge but there is no response. Do sleeping people, or those with closed eyes, fail to share visual-observational

vocabulary with awake people with their eyes open? Does my language change when I close my eyes? (This is a problem, too, at the level of

receptors; for some receptors go right on firing when people sleep; some blind people's receptors fire though the optic nerve fails to

respond.) And it is not just our Martian and earthling who, on this account, fail to share observational vocabulary. Visual powers vary some from person to person in, e.g., peripheral capacities, and in a host of other ways. Two earthlings, though, who differ in peripheral capacities will be essentially like the Martian and earthling: instead of seeing behind himself, one earthling can now see more to the side, and so the two earthlings- just as in the Martian-earthling case- will fail to share visual-observational vocabulary. And so it will be with

practically every pair of earthlings. We might try thinking of there being grades of observationality according to the amount of agreement the sentence evokes. It is not clear, I think, that this will be fruitful. But in any event, there will be no bottom, absolute, grade of observa-

tionality; and this is what Quine wants. Psychological theories attempt to make sense of a person's actions

by attributing certain desires, beliefs and motives to him. What beliefs we should attribute to a person depends both on his actions, his behavior, and on what we are willing to see as his desires and motives. The thesis of the indeterminacy of intentional phenomena is the claim that there is in general more than one way to assign beliefs, desires and motives to a person so that his behavior- all his behavior- is

comprehensible. Beliefs, desires and motives must balance with one another so as to come out right in terms of the agent's behavior; and, in general, we can add here and subtract there while still maintaining equilibrium. What seems clear from looking at the Martian and other hard cases is that attributions of stimulation are part of this same

psychological nexus. Our theories about a person's stimulation are guided both by what the person does in various situations and by what beliefs, desires and motives we are inclined to see as his. Attention to sensory receptors is not enough to identify stimulation: we must also attend to behavioral clues, and we must rely on hypotheses about the agent's other psychological states. Only in this way can we make our claims about stimulation balance right. In the end we may want to say (as Quine does) that it is the sensory receptor that counts. Still, when we set out to identify stimulations from person to person, we will be forced to make use of information about the people's reactions, and we will be forced to rely on hypotheses about the people's meanings, beliefs, desires and motives. For a theory which says when two people have the same stimulation must be capable of judging the contextual psychological positions of certain neurological events as

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the same. The context, though, is a background psychological theory which places other neurological events as believings, desirings and

wantings in the people. Thus a theory for interpersonal comparison of stimulation will be of a piece with theories of other intentional

phenomena and- like them- will not be determined by all evidence

possible. The point, as in translation, is not that theory of stimulatory states is a part of physical theory and thus shares physical theory's indeterminacy. Rather, we may adopt whatever adequate physical theory we want; still our translation of the Martian, our theory of his

bodily states, and our theory of his stimulatory states are not uniquely determined.

The case is in principle no different closer to home. Even if we were to assume that two people display a complete and total isomorphism in receptor hookup, still there is a theoretical leap from this to the correlation of geometrically similar subclasses as the same stimulation; this leap is the same kind as the leap from isomorphism of neural

routings to correlation of geometrically similar body states as the same

body state, and thus it is the same kind as the leap from maintaining that two speakers are alike in all verbal dispositions to maintaining that translation between them should be homophonic. The correla- tions and the translation are well supported by behavioral evidence, but so are others, though they be incompatible with one another. The

indeterminacy of translation which discredits the idea idea and the classical view of language also infects the interpersonal comparison of stimulation. And the notion of observationality- since it depends on

comparison of stimulation - must be counted as indeterminate also. This conclusion reinforces the indeterminacy of translation. For

translation begins by matching up stimulations, at least in estimate. And if there is evidential slack in this matching up of stimulations, there is bound to be a resultant slack in translation. In fact, as I have

urged, the two theories go together. A theory of the stimulatory states of another will grow hand in hand with a manual for translating him; the two must balance, and compensate for one another, as well as balance with other theories. This is why the related notions are part of the irreducibly intentional circle (cf. W&O, pp. 220f); the product is an irreducible, underdetermined theory for interpersonal comparison of mental events.

The conclusion does not seem to reinforce our view of the status of observation sentences however. Observation sentences are im-

portant because they are one class of sentences which does not look for support elsewhere in the theory; and translation of observation sentences supposedly does not await analytical translational hypotheses. Observation sentences are boundary conditions, the tug which tows the ship of theory. They are the arbiters of dissident theorists. Thus the notion of observationality promises much gain in under-

standing our scientific enterprise. Yet if its demarcation is to be clear and clean-out we will have to "postulate translation relations [viz., those of observation sentences] as somehow objectively valid though indeterminate in principle relative to the totality of speech dispositions."

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At least one intentional usage (viz. 'x and y have the same stimulation, or observation') will have to be accepted at face value.

Stimulation, as a fixed, clean-cut, non-intentional, determinate notion in terms of which we can understand our scientific enterprise now seems lost. With it go our old standards for choosing among rival theories- the primary one being that the theory fit all the stimulations. And without standards for judging theories it is impossible to understand indeterminacy theses; for these claim a multiplicity of theories all meeting the standards. One thing this emphasizes- as Quine has em-

phasized - is that in producing theories each person is beholden only to his observations at a given time and his memories of past observations at that time (cf. TWOB, pp. 19f, 33-41). We should not be too

quick in taking the testimony of others at face value, translating them

homophonically. It is only their observation reports- not their observations-that serve as data for us. In this way we can perhaps lessen the feeling of dependence on an interpersonal notion of observation.

Another thing this emphasizes is the legitimacy, usefulness and in-

sightfulness of indeterminate idioms. Indeed the indeterminacy of

physics, of molecular theory for example, relative to all data possible should have already been pressure in this direction (cf. W&O, pp. 21f). To accept molecular usage, talk of molecules, at face value, we might well claim, is to postulate molecular truth as somehow objectively valid

though indeterminate in principle relative to the totality of "truths that can be said in common-sense terms about ordinary things." Molecular truth and intentional truth are in the same boat vis-a-vis

indeterminacy, so why should intentional usage- but not molecular

usage- be inferior, Grade B idiom? One reason Quine gives is that

the parameters of truth [i.e., physical theory] stay conveniently fixed most of the time. Not so the analytical hypotheses that constitute the parameter of translation. We are always ready to wonder about the meaning of a foreigner's remark without reference to any one set of analytical hypotheses, indeed even in the absence of

any .... (W&O, pp. 76).

Some of us are prepared to wonder about molecular behavior without reference to any one theory. But no matter; let us grant Quine's remark. Still, seemingly we could perfectly well talk of the meanings, beliefs, desires, and motives of another, and explain and predict his actions on that basis, all relative to a background theory - even though that theory is underdetermined by all the evidence possible. This is just the way we talk about the motions of objects and explain and predict their

physical behavior all relative to a conveniently fixed background theory -even though that theory is underdetermined by all the evidence possible. The indeterminacy of translation is additional to the indeterminacy of physics, true,7 but why should that matter? So long as our talk is relative to a background theory we can make as much sense of meaning and belief as we can of molecules.

7 Cf. Words and Objections. Edited by Davidson and Hintikka (Dordrecht, D. Reidel, 1969), pp. 303f, hereafter cited as Ws&Os.

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Apparently for other reasons, Quine has recently softened his

rejection of intentional idioms.

What makes me take the propositional attitudes more seriously than logical modality is ... not that they are clearer, but that they are less clearly dispensable. We cannot easily forswear daily reference to belief, pending some substitute idiom as

yet unforseen. (Ws&Os, p. 336). [The cat's] wanting or fearing is a strictly physiological affair, granted, and our evidence for it is our observation of the cat's overt behavior. But the particular range of possible physiological states, each of which would count as a case of

wanting to get on that particular roof, is a gerrymandered range of states that could

surely not be encapsulated in any manageable anatomical description even if we knew all about cats. Again the range of possible sequences of overt behavior, each of which would count as evidence of wanting to get on that particular roof, is a

gerrymandered range that cannot be encapsulated in any compact behavioral des-

cription. Relations to states of affairs, such relations as wanting and fearing, afford some very special and seemingly indispensable ways of grouping events in the natural world. ("PO," pp. 146f).

(Cf. also POL, pp. 33f, 78f, and the discussion of belief in TWOS, Ch. I.) The unmanageability and incompactness of the relevant anatomical

descriptions here suggests that Quine despairs of finding a useful and

applicable law couched in physiological terms which we can appeal to in explaining the cat's behavior. There are, no doubt, laws couched in physiological terms relating the cat's wanting or fearing to his behavior. But that we will ever discover such laws or, if we do, that they will be much help to our various projects of explanation seems doubtful. We can, however, explain the cat's actions by appeal to intentional

phenomena. We might, for example, explain why the cat is on the mat

by citing the cat's desire to get on the roof and its belief that getting on the mat first will further that goal. This explanation works, if it does, because there are causal laws relating the cat's physiological state to his behavior. But yet the explanation is not called on to produce those

laws; and this is a necessary condition- in our present state of ignorance -for the explanation to work. Idioms of propositional attitude thus

provide us with explanations for which we haven't substitutes and

haven't, perhaps, very good prospects of finding substitutes. And that is why "we cannot easily forswear daily reference to belief, pending some substitute idiom as yet unforsees." Perhaps, then, Quine is more

prepared now than he was ten years ago to accept "the indispen- sability of intentional idioms and the importance of an autonomous science of intention." If so, then the notions of stimulatory state and observation would appear to fall within the province of such a science.

August 7977

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