A temporary entry on concepts, propositions, truth and occasions

In ‘Meaning’s role in truth’, Charles Travis says that whilst the words uttered impose a condition on truth, different occasions impose different standards for satisfying that condition. That way of putting makes it seem that there is always the same condition (fixed by the albeit plastic meaning of the words involved in expressing it) and the occasion of its utterance provides a different standard (though not merely weaker and stronger, of course) for it to count as met.

It would be helpful to shed more light on quite how what is fixed – for example by word meaning – and what varies, according to occasions of utterance, is apportioned in Travis’ picture.

Here is one such indication. In ‘To represent as so’, Travis criticises one element of Frege’s thinking.

For Frege, a concept is a function, namely, one from objects to truth values. (See Frege 1891.) If words ‘Sid grunts’ decompose into an element ‘Sid’, which names an object, and an element ‘grunts’, which names a function from objects to truth-values, then the whole, ‘Sid grunts’, names the value of that function for a certain argument, namely, Sid. Which is to say that it names a truth-value: true if Sid grunts, false if he does not. Which is to say that for parts jointly to play these roles is, ipso facto, for them to decide a unique and determinate truth condition for their whole. Mutatis mutandis for propositions, of which words ‘Sid grunts’ could be but one instance, or expression. [Travis 2011: 172]

According to this view, if an element in a proposition (which has pride of place in both Frege’s and Wittgenstein’s thinking) has the role of naming an object or naming a concept its contribution to the truth condition and thus truth value of the whole is fixed by that alone.

Inspired by the later Wittgenstein’s deployment of language games, Travis considers two different contexts for the sentence ‘The room is dark’. In one, it is used to say that books cannot be found by vision alone. In the other, it indicates that undeveloped film can be removed from a canister.

One might correctly say of either game that in it ‘is dark’ names (speaks of) being dark. But the role it plays in naming this differs from the one game to the other. In the one game, but not the other, it contributes to a condition on being as said which is not satisfied if, where whether to remove film turns on whether the room is dark, removing film is not the thing to do. So if a move consists (on an analysis) of parts, for each of which there is a such-and-such it names, those facts about the move are compatible with any of indefinitely many mutually exclusive conditions on correctness (answers to the question when things would be as thus said). [ibid: 173]

So if we think – with Frege – of words naming objects and concepts, still a suitable combination of objects and concepts does not fix the condition under which the result is true, contra the earlier summary of Frege.

That words name such-and-such determines no unique contribution which is that which such words make to conditions on the correctness of the whole they thus are part of. Such is just part of what naming is. It holds equally for naming in the context of a move in a language game, and naming in the context of a proposition. The fact of my speaking of being dark is compatible with my saying any of many things in, and by, doing so. There are many different things, each of which being dark may, sometimes correctly, be taken to be (or come to). Being dark admits of understandings. [ibid: 173]

So the fact that words name such and such is fixed across occasions but its role in the truth of the whole varies between occasions of utterance. Returning to the earlier truism, Travis suggests that the following is the correct thing to say:

It is on an application of a concept to an object, on an occasion, that one says the object to be thus and so. The rest of the truism then holds. The concept as such admits of many applications, each excluding others. So it alone cannot assign an object, in being as it is, a truth value. [ibid: 173]

Sticking with the case of the room being dark, it seems that the same concept is named by ‘dark’ in the different language games, but it has a different application. The concept remains the same across occasions, but its application not, and it is the application which matters to truth. The same concept, I think, admits of ‘understandings’, which correspond to the fine grained applications. I think that the same applies to another Travis phrase for part of the conceptual: ‘a way for things to be’.

What of propositions? These could be common between different occasions but with different applications. Or they could be fine grained: distinct between occasions. But given the connection between propositions and truth, and given the connection between occasions of utterance and the truth of sentences, propositions look to be fine grained (unlike concepts). (Cf also ‘A proposition makes a demand on the world: to decide, in being as it is, the proposition’s fate—true or false. The proposition fixes a way for the world to decide this—if the proposition is that the setting sun is red, then what about the world would make this so or not.’ [ibid: 218]. This, I think, is evidence for my interpretation.)

There’s an added complication in that Travis is using Wittgenstein to correct Frege and so it’s hard to know how much is invested in preserving the idea of propositions rather than exploring word use in language games. But in ‘The proposition’s progress’ there is both a clear suggestion that they still find a place in Travis’ own approach and on the above question:

Propositions are one device for carving up exposure to risk. Language games are another. Such games are used in the Investigations to make a particular point, as above. This is not to banish the notion proposition. In suitable circumstances I may say to you, ‘Pia said that there is wine on the rug’, where this admits the response, ‘And is there?’. We may then go on to discuss ‘the proposition that there is wine on the rug’. What proposition is this? When would it be true? I mentioned it in words ‘there is wine on the rug’. Things would be as they are according to that proposition when they would be as those words speak of things being. When that would be is fixed by the operation of parochial equipment on my words in just the way described, above, for Pia’s. The above model of representing finds just this application here. Such a proposition, one might say, is what it is to us. Nor does it thereby speak of a way for things to be which admits of no divergent understandings. (Cf. §§429-465.) [Travis 2011: 215]

The one thing which is confusing here is the last line. It almost sounds as though the proposition admits of divergent understandings. But my hunch is that different propositions are the results of divergent understandings of utterances.

Travis, C. (2011) ‘The proposition’s progress’ in Objectivity and the Parochial, Oxford: Oxford University Press pp 193-228

Travis, C. (2011) ‘To represent as so’ in Objectivity and the Parochial, Oxford: Oxford University Press pp 165-192

Innocence in Travis’ ‘Frege’s target’

I hope that setting out my own stumbling reading of Charles Travis motivates others to do rather better. ‘Frege’s target’ concerns knowledge of grammar a la Chomsky and McDowell’s account of knowledge which requires having a particular kind of mind (such as knowledge of other’s meanings and of moral value or the good life). Both general issues are approached via a criticism of empiricism which would make such knowledge impossible (and thus instead has to force it into a reductionist mould or deny that the world contains as many facts as we might have supposed).

As anti-empiricists, Chomsky and McDowell differ, however, in that whilst both think that knowledge (more than which empiricists would allow) requires having a particular kind of mind or subjectivity, the subject matter for Chomsky can be allowed to depend on, or itself be shaped by, that subjectivity. McDowell cannot allow that and this presents a prima facie problem. How can it be that the truths a thinker thinks might depend on features of their subjectivity without collapsing into a crass subjectivism? The answer, you won’t be surprised to hear, is a form of occasionalism.

In passing the points that characterise empiricism here are these:

[F]irst of all, a position arrived at a priori. It’s guiding notion, put one way, is that we are universal thinkers: we enjoy no cognitive capacities, so see nothing of the world, that would not be shared by any thinker with our sensory sensitivity to the stimuli that impinge on us (such things as light, sound, pressure).

Second, for a given domain, the empiricist will claim to identify those procedures, or abilities, which are the knowledge-yielding ones with respect to that domain. What these are is, from the empiricist perspective, something to be arrived at a priori. They will be just those capacities enjoyed by any thinker at all with relevant sensory sensitivities.

Third, the empiricist will hold that we can know a fact in the relevant domain only where that fact is provable, or ascertainable (with sufficient certainty) from privileged facts by application of the specified knowledge-yielding procedures.

Fourth, an empiricist may claim that there are facts in the relevant domain only insofar as these are derivable from privileged facts according to the principles defining the correct operation of those knowledge-yielding procedures. Typically, such an empiricist will hold that the facts in the chosen domain are far fewer, and less interesting, than we would have supposed. [Travis 314-7]

This is initially a surprising way of describing empiricism insofar as Epistemology and Metaphysics 101 goes. But the centrality of experience of the traditional Ep&Met view has to be fleshed out with some substance and Travis’ account dovetails with Quine whose views of knowledge of language is one of the two key foci of the paper and is a helpful foil to McDowell’s position

So back with the question raised above: How can it be that the truths a thinker thinks might depend on features of their subjectivity without collapsing into a crass subjectivism? I’ll drop some numbers into the quote of how the problem is set up.

Trivially, a statement is true just when things are the way they are according to it. That suggests, innocently enough, that a statement’s truth depends on precisely two factors [1]: first, how things are according to it; and, second, how things are. Innocence ends if one supposes that one can specify how things are according to a statement—which way it speaks of things as being—in such a way that the truth of any statement which speaks of things as that way can depend only on whether that is, in fact, a way things are. [2] Let P be a way a statement might thus represent things. Then, accepting that idea, [3] we may still innocently allow that the way given thinkers think decides whether some one of their statements stated that P, or, say, that Q, where that is another such way for a statement to represent things.

[4] But one cannot, accepting this idea, allow that, where a statement spoke of things as being P, whether it thus stated truth depends on how a particular (sort of) thinker thinks. [5] For what thinkers could thus decide, in thinking as they do could only be, within this framework, how things were: whether that which is so according to any statement which states P is so. That would be mind-dependence of the worst sort. Yet, with the end of innocence in place, anti-empiricism is under pressure to say just that. [6] For, given the role it assigns to sensibilities, it seems, where thinkers think in terms of, say, things being chairs or not, still, for all that, whether things are as they say (on some occasion) in saying such-and-such to be a chair depends in further ways on how they are designed, or equipped, to think. [ibid: 377-8]

So 1 is innocent: a statement’s truth depends on the two factors one would expect. 2 introduces an idea. If there is some slippage between a statement and how it might represent things, so if there is a way of thinking of the statement without appeal to the occasion of its use, we might label one way things might be P. And it remains innocent that what makes P what a statement states rather than Q a matter for features of the speaker.

So the problem comes with 4. ‘But one cannot... allow that, where a statement spoke of things as being P, whether it thus stated truth depends on how a particular (sort of) thinker thinks.’

But why would we? We’ve already allowed those features of subjectivity to fix whether it was P or Q stated in a given statement. Thereafter, why are we not back with the innocence of 1? The answer is 6: ‘it seems, where thinkers think in terms of, say, things being chairs or not, still, for all that, whether things are as they say (on some occasion) in saying such-and-such to be a chair depends in further ways on how they are designed, or equipped, to think.’

At this point I can’t help thinking that if we’ve bought into the significance of occasionalism, its need at this point might seem obvious. But I’m not there yet. A little earlier we have this helpful vignette:

Sid buys a DIY chair kit. On bringing it home he discovers that it is much more difficult to assemble than he had imagined. It remains a neatly stacked pile of chair parts in his spare room. One day, someone, pointing at the pile, asks, ‘What’s that?’ ‘It’s a chair’, Sid replies, ‘I just haven’t got around to assembling it yet.’ On a later occasion, Sid and Pia, with guests, find themselves a chair short for dinner. ‘There’s a chair in the spare room’, Sid says helpfully. But there is still only the pile. Recognisably, Sid spoke truly the first time, falsely the second. It just takes a different way of thinking of being a chair to see the truth of that first thing from the way it takes to see the falsehood of the second. Such contrasting ways of thinking are a common everyday part of our way of dealing with the world. [ibid: 336]

Given our understanding of the requirements of a chair in a hurry at a dinner party, the chair kit is not a chair. It is not true to say that there is a chair, on that understanding, in the spare room. If this is described sufficiently to explain – in yet another context – so that Sid’s comment, and its falsity, is clear to an audience, could that articulation of the content of the utterance not be called say P by contrast with the Q of the first understanding (where chair as kit is fine)? With that in place, why can’t we say 3 again? I’m not getting the problem. I would be much less puzzled if the very idea of labelling understandings as P and Q were supposed to be the end of innocence (though, in a context, occasionalism should not threaten mere labelling). But the key link seems dark. I will press on with the paper on psychologism and see whether it helps.

Travis, C. (2002) ‘Frege’s target’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 51: 305-343

An aspect of Travis’ ‘Meaning’s role in truth’

Travis summarises the main claim of ‘Meaning’s role in truth’ as follows:

What words mean imposes a condition on their saying, on a speaking, what is so. Different occasions impose different standards for satisfying that condition. Something about what truth is makes occasions matter to such standards. Deflationism cannot recognize such elements in truth. [Travis 1996: 461]

If I follow, the picture is something like this. Word meaning exerts a general constraint on what one can say in using them. So, for example, because of its meaning, the word ‘round’ means round and utterances made using it will speak of being round.

The words “is round”, in meaning what they do, speak of being round. In fact, I suggest, for them to speak of that is just for them to mean what they do. For English words to speak of being round comes to just this. If you use them as meaning what they do, you will thereby speak of being round. At least, on any occasion of your so speaking, that is something you would then be doing. So if you want to speak of being round, e.g., so as to call something round, or describe it as round, a way of achieving your aim in speaking normal English is to speak the words “is round” (in a suitable construction). [ibid: 455]

But that is only part of the story because of occasionalism. The constraint that meaning imposes does not itself determine the truth condition of an utterance in such a way as to connect to a bit of the world. (I wonder whether the constraint meaning imposes would be enough to state correct instances of the T-schema. But if so, such instances would still leave open how or when the conditions described on the right hand side were realised.)

Consider the sentence “The ball is round”, and two cases of its use. Case A: What shape do squash balls assume on rebound? Pia hits a decent stroke; Jones watches. “The ball is round”, she says at the crucial moment. Wrong. It has deformed into an ovoid. Jones did not say the ball to be as it was, so spoke falsely. Case B: Fiona has never seen squash played. From her present vantage point the ball seems a constant blur. “What shape is that ball?”, she asks. “The ball is round”, Alf replies; truly, since that it is the sort of ball a squash ball (and this one) is. It is not, e.g., like a very small rugby ball. [ibid: 454]

So whether the sentence is true of a particular ball at a particular time depends on something in addition to the meaning of the words. It depends on the occasion of its use. In the summary quote with which I began, Travis puts this point by saying that whilst the words uttered impose a condition on truth, different occasions impose different standards for satisfying that condition. That way of putting makes it seem that there is always the same condition (that fixed by essentially plastic meaning) and the occasion provides a different standard (though not merely weaker and stronger, of course) for it to count as met. This may be deliberate for a reason I’ll mention shortly.

Given occasionalism, it is not surprising that to know what the conditions are that are needed for an utterance to be true depend on the occasion of the utterance (recall the two squash ball cases). But Travis thinks that this undermines deflationism about truth and it is not immediately obvious why this might be so. The heart of deflationism is that instances of the T schema (or an equivalent with propositions) captures all there is to truth aside from issues of compendious endorsement and such like. So given occasionalism, one might think that the plasticity of meaning stops such instances being very helpful because the condition stated on the right hand side, is fixed only on an occasion-relative understanding. But then, one might modify the deployment of the T-schema to say that the sentence named on the left hand side, on a particular occasion-relative understanding, is true on the condition set out by a sentence used on the right hand side on the same occasion-relative understanding. That might still serve the purposes of deflationism. So we’d need more of an argument. But Travis offers more. He heads off this thought (connecting to a proposition-based deflationism) which perhaps is the reason for the way he approaches what is fixed and what varied mentioned above.

One might further think: which understanding words bear depends on the circumstances of their speaking; when things would be as said to be on a given understanding does not. Understandings, so conceived, extract content from circumstances. Circumstances play no further role in determining conditions for truth. Deflationism, and its use of “proposition”, depend on exactly that idea... [ibid: 460]

So the idea Travis rejects takes the work of occasions to be done once an understanding of a utterance has fixed the claim it makes about the world. Once that is fixed, nothing more is needed to fix how the world must be for it to be true, or not be for it to be false. That might support deflationism. But it is not Travis’ picture:

But here is another picture. Understanding requires sensitivity. Understanding words consists, in part, in sensitivity to how they fit with the circumstances of their speaking. Part of that is sensitivity to how they need to fit in order to be true. So adequate sensitivity requires grasping what truth is, and how that notion applies in particular cases. [ibid: 460]

This is where my understanding of the paper lapses. My hunch is that for occasionalism to undermine deflationism the following would have to be the case: fixing the understanding that words have on an occasion, and thus whether they are true of some circumstance, would itself have to presuppose truth, or some feature of truth. That seems to fit with Travis’ words here: ‘Part of that is sensitivity [underpinning an understanding] to how they need to fit in order to be true’. But I am not sure that I follow the crucial thought – if I am at all on the right track – that this sensitivity presupposes truth. The action must take place in section V.

But, there, the central example is of understanding the utterance that ‘the oven is hot’ in the context of pizza making. In that context it is reasonable to think that if the oven is merely 140C, then the utterance is false. The context enables a reasonable perception of what is being said when that phrase is used. But why does this presuppose a substantial notion of truth? He says:

These perceptions of occasions are perceptions of what it would be, on them, for a given description to describe truly, or for words which give it to state truth; to provide information which is correct. Their structure thus reveals some ingredients in truth, or what we are prepared to recognize about it. Part of the idea of truth is that a description (of something), to be true, must satisfy a general condition different in kind from conditions to the effect that what is described as thus must be  as thus described: it must serve all the purposes that must be served (for truth) on that occasion, by having all the uses it ought in serving them. Part of this idea is that, for a description, and an occasion (on which there are facts as to what that description would describe truly), there are definite purposes truth demands be served, and uses which truth demands the description have in serving them. [ibid: 462-3]

If I follow, the idea seems to be that the occasion-relative understanding must presuppose some notion of the description being used truly in that context (given one’s knowledge of the requirements of pizza cooking). But I am not sure that this changes anything from the general worry that one cannot combine truth conditional semantics with a deflationary approach to truth. There are two familiar approaches to that: deploy a non-truth conditional approach to meaning (like Horwich) or simply deny that either project is reductionst (like McDowell). Neither is simple, but I am not clear why occasionalism changes this.

Travis, C. (1996) ‘Meaning’s role in truth’ Mind 105: 451-66

See this entry on ‘A sense of occasion’, this on ‘Reason’s reach’, this on ‘The twilight of empiricism’, and this on the discussion of rule following in Thought’s Footing.

The Inaugural Edgington Lectures - John McDowell on the Epistemology of Perception

THE EDGINGTON LECTURES

Professor John McDowell on the Epistemology of Perception

On March 2nd–3rd 2012, John McDowell will give two public lectures at Birkbeck College (London). The lectures will be given in the Birkbeck Main Building Room B33, Malet St., London, WC1E 7HX.

To register, email: edgingtonlectures@gmail.com

Friday 2nd March 18:15–20:00 PERCEPTION : OBJECTS AND CONTENTS

Saturday 3rd March 16:00–18:00 HOW PERCEPTION YIELDS KNOWLEDGE

The Saturday lecture will be followed by a reception in the Birkbeck Council Room, Main Building

UCLan PhD Studentships, School of Health

Reference Number: RS/11/17-19

The School of Health wishes to appoint 3 full time PhD studentships.  Each studentship is tenable for up to 3 years for a PhD (via MPhil route) [subject to satisfactory progress].  The studentship will cover the cost of tuition fees for UK/EU residents plus a stipend (currently £13,590 per annum).  The successful applicant will start on 1 April 2012. International applicants may apply but will be expected to pay the difference between the UK/EU and International Fee Rate.
Applicants need to undertake research projects within an area of methodological and subject expertise within the School of Health details of which can be found on the website
The School of Health has a broad range of expertise and was ranked in the top 10 Nursing and Midwifery Schools in the UK in the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008. Our main subject areas are:-

• Stroke (Professor Caroline Watkins) 01772 89 3646 clwatkins@uclan.ac.uk
• Evidence Based Health Care (Dr Bev French) 01772 893642 bfrench1@uclan.ac.uk
• Cancer Nursing (Professor Kinta Beaver) 01772 893715 kbeaver@uclan.ac.uk
• Mental Health (Dr Joy Duxbury) 01772 895110 jduxbury@uclan.ac.uk
• Families, Children and Life Transition (Professor Bernie Carter) 01772 893720bcarter@uclan.ac.uk
• Centre for Professional Ethics (Professor Doris Schroeder) 01772 892550/2547/2549dschroeder@uclan.ac.uk
• Healthy Settings (Dr Mark Dooris) 01772893760 mtdooris@uclan.ac.uk
• Philosophy and Mental Health (Professor Tim Thornton) 01772 895405tthornton1@uclan.ac.uk

Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss their research proposal with an appropriate lead prior to application.
Applicants should have a first degree (Honours) in a relevant subject at 2.1 or above for standard entry onto MPhil/PhD or Master's level qualification in a relevant subject (Essential for ethics and philosophy applicants)
Requests for an application pack (quoting the reference number RS1117-19) should be directed to the Graduate Research School Office. Tel: 01772 895082 or email:researchdegrees@uclan.ac.uk
Closing Date: 10 February 2012

CHSTM Mental Health Group Programme Jan - May 2012

Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine & Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine

Mental Health Group Programme Jan - May 2012

Thursdays, 4.30.pm, Room 2.57,
2nd Floor, Simon Building, Brunswick St.

26th Jan Matthew Smith, University of Strathclyde
The uses and abuses of the history of hyperactivity

1st March Len Smith, University of Birmingham
Work as treatment in the home and colonial lunatic asylum; England and the West Indies, 1815 – 1890

29th March Sarah Collins, University of Manchester
Second stories: dementia, narrative and memory in conversation

3rd May Jen Wallis, Queen Mary, University of London
The male brain: pathology and gender in the nineteenth- century asylum'

31st May Ian Cummings, University of Salford & Martin King, MMU
Representations of post-traumatic stress in modern detective fiction

The mental health group is an informal, interdisciplinary forum for academics, practitioners and people with an interest in mental health to share and discuss their mutual interests. Everyone very welcome. For more information see http://www.chstm.manchester.ac.uk/newsandevents/seminars/mentalhealthforum/

Metaphor and anomalous self-experience

I have been having a look at Josef Parnas et al’s EASE: Examination of anomalous self-experience with the hope of adding discussion of its attempt to codify, or at least increase the degree of codification of, a complicated diagnosis based on anomalous self-experience to my chapter in the OUP Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. But before turning to that I’m intrigued by an initial comment in the context of the difficulty of patients putting such abnormal experiences into words. The difficulty is this:

The experiences may be fleeting, perhaps even verging on something ineffable. They are not like material objects that one can ‘take out of one’s head’ and describe them as if they were things with certain properties, or redescribe the experience at different occasions in exactly the same terms. The patient may be short of words to express his own experiencing. [Parnas et al 2005: 237]

Given that, then patients employ metaphors. And that prompts the authors to say the following:

Use of Metaphor
The patients employ metaphors to describe what they experience; this is also the case with healthy people – it is a universal process. A metaphor is usually defined as a transfer of meaning from one conceptual domain to another, like in the expression: ‘life is a journey’ (the concept of life is made meaningful by an appeal to a journey, belonging to another domain). In the context of a psychiatric interview, a metaphor should not be seen as ‘just a metaphor’ or ‘just a manner of speaking’ that somehow, distortingly or conventionally, stands for an underlying (more) true or authentic anomalous experience, i.e., a metaphor is not only a signifier (sign), distinct from, and contingently attached to the signified content (‘signifié’ = the sign’s meaning). Rather the following is the case: an experience (non- or prelinguistic), especially of the prereflective type, becomes progressively conceptualized, i.e. transformed into a conceptual (linguistic) format, in order to be grasped by the reflecting subject, thematized and rendered communicable to others. The metaphor should be seen here as a basic functional aspect of this symbolization process, where it operates as a linguistic vehicle or medium through which the experience first articulates itself and so becomes reflectively accessible. The metaphor is therefore the first stage of making a prelinguistic or prereflective experience explicitly accessible to oneself and to the other. The choice of metaphor is linked to the nature of experience in a noncontingent way, i.e., experience and metaphor are not entirely independent. [ibid: 237-8]

The picture is this. In the context of EASE, the use of a metaphor to express an abnormal experience is not mere metaphor where this normally involves either a distorting or a conventional representation which stands in for a true or authentic experience. So the first point of note is the idea that experiences of this (normal) sort could be true. I suspect that is not what is meant at all. A normal perceptual experience could be true if were representational and represented things correctly. (Lots of philosophers, including, eg., McDowell have thought this. Others deny that experiences themselves ever have any content.) But in this passage, there is no suggestion that this is the relevant dimension of truth (between the experience and the world). I think they mean just between the metaphor and the experience. It is as though if a metaphor is distorting or false, there must be a standard of truth and the thought here is that it is the thing for which the metaphor is a metaphor which is itself true. (As though: if a sentence falsely describes something, there is a fact which is true. Or if the sentence is true then there are two true things: derivatively the sentence and originally the fact. But facts are not true; they just are.)

Rejecting that thought – but not rejecting it as senseless – Parnas et al suggest that in the case of EASE, the metaphor is a basic feature of the symbolization process. It serves as vehicle through which the experience articulates itself (another fishy phrase) and thus experience and metaphor are not independent.

That seems very odd to me. Surely if one selects a metaphor to express one’s normal experience, the metaphor and the experience will not be independent. The one will be selected to fit, in whatever way metaphors fit, the experience. If, for example, one thinks that metaphors have content then the content of the metaphor will (be selected to) fit the experience. So the idea of saying that in EASE the two relata are not independent, and that choice of metaphor is instead linked to the nature of experience in a noncontingent way, seems not to distinguish it from the everyday case properly or normally understood.

So my hunch is that this is an attempt to dig deeper and say something like this: in the case of normal experiences, one might put them into words in a non-metaphorical way as well as in metaphorical ways. But in the case of EASE, all there is, is a metaphorical expression. If so, though, I have two worries.

First, ‘metaphor’ is the wrong word because, I suspect, there will be no possibility of unpacking how the metaphor applies to the abnormal experience. There will be no unpacking because there will be no way to weigh up the content of the metaphor and the content of the experience as potentially distinct matters. In fact, that is part of what Parnas et al are trying to say when they contrast the EASE case with normal cases where there is, they claim, by contrast no connection of content. That very closeness (in the EASE case) suggests that this is not a matter for metaphor, however.

Second, the idea of anomalous experience becoming conceptualised having initially been unconceptualised seems odd. Again I say this in part because of something they say: when they say that abnormal experiences are not like material objects that one can ‘take out of one’s head’ and describe them as if they were things with certain properties. For that reason, such experiences seem the wrong sorts of things to be first independent of, but then clothed in, conceptual form.

PS: Look here for a video made by Josef Parnas.

Parnas J, Moeller P, Kircher T, Thalbitzer J, Jansson L, Handest P, Zahavi D. (2005) ‘Examination of Anomalous Self-experience’ Psychopathology, 38: 236-258