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do genuinely perceive the external object: If we do really per-
ceive the external object itself, there seems to be no necessity, no
use, for an image of it (EIP II, vii [263b]). I submit that if per-
ception consisted in acquaintance with the object perceived,
there would also be no necessity, no use for a sign of the object.
If we interpret the conception involved in our perception of
primary qualities as apprehension by acquaintance, Reid s stan-
dard schema becomes just as incoherent for our perception of
primary qualities as for our perception of secondary qualities.
What are we then to make of the passage in which Reid says
that primary qualities, by means of certain corresponding sen-
sations of touch, are presented to the mind as real external quali-
ties (IHM V, iv [123b; B 62]; my italics), and of the passage in
which he says that feelings of touch . . . present extension to the
mind (IHM V, v [124a; B 63]; my italics)? There are a good
many other passages in which Reid speaks the same way. Well,
notice that Reid does not say that real external qualities are
present to the mind in tactile perception; he says that they are
presented to the mind by sensations. From the fact that Reid
thinks sensations present external qualities to the mind, I do not
think we can reliably infer that he thinks they are thereby made
present to the mind. Presented may well mean something like
represented.
More to the point is a passage in which Reid unambiguously
suggests an analysis of tactile perception similar to his analysis of
perception of visible figure: why may not a material impression
upon the retina suggest visible figure, as well as the material
impression made upon the hand, when we grasp a ball, suggest
real figure? In the one case, one and the same material impres-
sion suggests both colour and visible figure; and in the other case,
one and the same material impression suggests hardness, heat, or
cold, and real figure, all at the same time (IHM VI, viii [146b; B
101]). In every other passage with which I am acquainted Reid
uses his standard schema to analyze our tactile perception of
primary qualia. What s striking about this passage is that here he
tacitly rejects the standard schema and replaces it with the alter-
150 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
native schema that he used to analyze our perception of visible
figure. On this alternative schema, perception does incorporate
acquaintance with objective qualities. But on this schema, the sen-
sations have disappeared. Thus, once again, no double source of
information. And that, I suggest, was consistently Reid s view:
either sensations functioning as signs, as on the standard schema,
or acquaintance with objective qualities, on the alternative
schema; never both.
I think Reid was right about that: Double information is theo-
retically incoherent. That is to say, double information is theo-
retically incoherent when understood as Reid would have
understood it. Reid would have understood it as acquaintance
with external objects plus sensations yielding the same perceptual
knowledge as that acquaintance yields. It would not be incoherent
to hold that perception consists of acquaintance with external
objects, and that such acquaintance is rather often accompanied
by sensations of one sort and another. But of course the alterna-
tive schema no more involves double information than does the
standard schema. So the question remains: Should we not use the
alternative schema for our analysis of the tactile perception of
primary qualities?
Consider an example of the analysis offered by the standard
schema. One s act of touching some hard object evokes in one a
pressure sensation of a certain sort, which in turn evokes in one
an apprehension of that hardness by means of the singular
concept, the hardness of the object I m touching. One of the basic ques-
tions to put to this analysis is the following: How does one acquire
the (general) concept of hardness, which is a constituent of that
singular concept, if acquaintance with hardnesses is not available
to us human beings?
In section vi of his discussion of tactile perception in the Inquiry
Reid poses the following question: whether from sensation alone
we can collect any notion of extension, figure, motion, and space
[125; B 65]. That is to say, whether the theory of concept origi-
nation offered by the Way of Ideas theorists is plausible for our
concepts of extension, figure, motion, and space. What follows
after the posing of the question is an imaginative and compelling
line of argument extending for the remainder of the section and
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