Topics Perception

Question We always say that "is" or "doing" instead of "looks" or "I think". For example, when I am cold I say that it is "cold". Would not it be more correct to say that "I feel cold"? When we say that a car is green, is it because we see it green - but who says that there will be another who sees it blue? Siempre decimos "es" y "hacer" en vez de "parece" y "me parece". Por ejemplo, cuando tengo frío digo que hace frío. ¿No sería más correcto decir que "me parece que hace frío"? Cuando decimos que un coche es verde, es porque lo vemos verde, ¿pero quién dice que no habrá otro que lo vea azul?

Accepted:
August 30, 2009

Comments

If you assume that the air might really be cold, and the car might really be green, then I can think of two situations in which it is more appropriate to say "I feel cold" and "The car seems to be green":

1. You have doubts about whether the temperature really is low (perhaps you are getting sick),or whether the car really is green (perhaps the light is especially low). Conversely, you may want to assert that "It is cold" even though you do not feel it (perhaps because you just emerged from a hot bath) and "the car is green" even though you see it as blue (perhaps because you are colorblind).

2. You want to sound tentative or accommodating of other views (even though you may be quite confident of your own judgment). It may be more polite or friendly to say "I feel cold" or "It looks green" when others disagree.

I suspect, though, that your concern arises from the conviction that properties like coldness and greenness do not exist independently of a subject who feels cold or sees green. If you think that these properties are relational properties -- the result of a particular interaction between a subject and an object -- then it is still quite appropriate to report that "it is cold" or "the car is green", with the understanding that these are relational properties of the air and the car. (This is no different that saying "She is short", with the understanding that she is short in relation to some others.)

If, however, you think that coldness and greenness are properties that belong to subjects only, and that we mistakenly project them onto external objects -- that coldness is a feeling that we wrongly attribute to the air, and that greenness is a sensation that we wrongly attach to cars, then it would be more accurate to say that "I have a cold feeing" and "I have a green experience". The problem with this position is the problem of identifying feelings or experiences independently of the external situations to which they respond. How do we know what a cold feeling except through its correlation with actually low temperatures? How do we know what a green experience is except through its correlation with particular lights and surfaces?