A claim to the effect that a certain creature possesses a faculty which should be counted as a ‘sense,’ different from any of the five senses with which we are familiar, might be met in more than one way, without actual repudiation of the alleged facts on which the claim is based.

It might be said that this faculty of sensation, though possibly in some way informative about the world, is not a faculty of perceiving; 

or it might be admitted that the exercise of the faculty does constitute perception, and maintained that no sixth sense is involved, but only one of the familiar ones operating, perhaps, in some unfamiliar way.

About the first alternative Grice shall not say a great deal. 

It embraces a number of subalternatives:

The faculty might be assimilated to such things as a moral ‘sense,’ or a ‘sense’ of humour.

These are dubiously informative.

And even if treated as informative, these could not be regarded as telling (in the first instance) only about conditions of the world spatially and temporally present to the creature who is exercising them.

The faculty might be held to be some kind of power of divination — Cicero.

This line might be adopted if the creature seemed to have direct, non-inferential, knowledge of certain contemporary states or events in the material world, though this knowledge is not connected with the operation of any sense-organ. 

We should, of course, be very reluctant to accept this subalternative — as is Cicero.

 We should so far as possible cling to the idea that such knowledge must be connected with the operation of a sense-organ, even if we could not identify it.

The exercise of the faculty — let us call it karulising — might be denied the title of perception because of its analogy with the having of sensations. 

It might be held that carulising consists in having some sort of experience generated by a material thing or event in the caruliser's environment by way of some effect on his nervous system, though it did not qualify as perceiving the thing or event in question. 

The kind of situation in which this view might be taken may perhaps be indicated if we consider the assaults made by physiologists and psychologists on the so-called "sense of touch." 

They wish, Grice thinks on neurological grounds, to distinguish three senses: 

a pressure-sense, 

a warm-and-cold sense, and 

a pain-sense. 

Would we be happy to accept their pain-sense as a sense in the way in which sight or smell is a sense? 

Grice thinks not; 

for to do so would involve regarding the fact that we do not

"externalize" pains as a mere linguistic accident. 

That is to say, it would involve considering as unimportant the following facts: 

(a) 

that we are ready to regard "malodorous," as distinct from "painful" or "sharply painful," as the name of a relatively abiding characteristic which a material thing in general either possess or do not possess; 

we are as a general rule prepared to regard questions of the form 

Is M (a material thing) malodorous?'

as being at least in principle answerable either affirmatively or negatively, whereas we should very often wish to reject questions of the form 

Is M painful?

or 

Is M sharply painful?

; and (b) that

 we speak of smells but not of pains as being in the kitchen.

Pains are  at most, in hospitals.

Very briefly, the salient points here seem to me as follows:

Pains are not greatly variegated, except in intensity and loca-tion. 

Smells are.

There is no standard procedure for getting a pain: 

one can be cut, bumped, burned, scraped, and so on. 

There is a standard procedure for smelling, namely, inhaling.

Almost any type of object can inflict pain upon us, often in more than one way.

In consequence of these facts, our pain is on the whole a very poor guide to the character of the thing that hurts us. 

Particular kinds of smells, on the other hand, are in general characteristic of this or that type of object. 

These considerations Grice hopes constitute a partial explanation of the fact that we do not, in general, attribute pain-qualities to a thing.

we may in a special case speak of a thumbscrew, for ex-ample, as being a painful instrument.

Or the Second World War as a painful event.

But this is because there is a standard way of applying thumbscrews to people.

We do not speak of pains as being in (say) the kitchen; — hospital ward at most, or a trench.

and the reason for this is, Grice thinks, that, if a source of pain moves away from a given place, a person arriving in this place after the removal do not get hurt. 

A Smell, on the other hand, does linger in places, and so is "de-tachable" from the material thing which is its source. 

Though pains do not linger in places, they do linger with an individual after the source of pain has been removed. 

In this again they are unlike smells.

Grice shall now turn to discussion of the second possible way of meeting the claim of carulising to be the exercise of a sixth sense. 

This, you will remember, took the form of arguing that carulising, though perceiving, is merely perceiving by one of the familiar five senses, perhaps through an unfamiliar kind of sense-organ. 

At this point we need to ask by what criteria one of the five senses is to be distinguished from the other four.

The answer to this question, if obtainable, would tell us how carulising must differ from the exercise of any of the five familiar senses in order to count as the operation of a sixth sense. 

Seemingly independent ideas might be in-volved:

It might be suggested that the senses are to be distinguished by the differing features that we become aware of by means of them: 

that is to say, 

seeing might be characterized as perceiving (or seeming to perceive) a thing as having certain colors, shapes, and sizes; 

hearing as perceiving a thing (or better, in this case, events) as having certain degrees of loudness, certain determinates of pitch, certain tone-qualities; 

and so on for the other theee senses.

It might be suggested that two senses, for example, seeing and smelling, are to be distinguished by the *special introspectible* character of the *experience* of seeing and the experience of smelling; 

that is, disregarding the differences between the characteristics we learn about by sight and smell, we are entitled to say that seeing is itself different in character from smelling.

Our attention might be drawn to the differing general features of the external physical conditions on which the various modes of perceiving depend, to differences in the "stimuli" connected with different senses: 

the sense of touch is activated by contact,

sight by light rays, hearing by sound waves, 

and so on for the other three senses.

Reference might be made to the internal mechanisms associated with the various senses—the character of the sense-organs, and their mode of connection with Grice’s brain. 

These suggestions need not of course be regarded as mutually exclusive. 

It is possible — perhaps indeed likely — that there is no one essential criterion for distinguishing the senses; 

that there is, rather, a multiplicity of criteria.

One procedure at this point (perhaps the most desirable one) would be to consider, in relation to difficult cases, the applicability of the suggested criteria and their relative weights. 

But a combination of ignorance of zoology with poverty of invention diverts Grice to perhaps not uninteresting questions concerning the independence of these cri-teria, and in particular to the relation between the first and the sec-ond. 

The first suggestion (that differing senses are to be distinguished by the differing features which we perceive by means of them) may seem at first sight attractive and unmystifying; 

but difficulties seem to arise if we attempt to make it the sole basis of distinction between the senses. 

It looks as if, when we try to work out this suggestion in detail we are brought round to some version of the second suggestion (that the senses are to be distinguished by the special introspectible characters of their exercise).

There is a danger that the first suggestion may incorporate from the start, in a concealed way, the second suggestion 

for instance, to adopt it might amount to saying 

"Seeing is the sort of *experience* that we have when we perceive a thing as having certain colors, shapes, etc." 

If we are to eliminate this danger, Grice thinks we must treat the first suggestion as advancing the idea that, starting with such sense-neutral verbs as

"perceive,"

POTCH

 "seem," 

“Appears to Grice” — Bradley, Appearance and Reslity —

we can elucidate the notion of 

seeing in terms of the notion of perceiving things to have such-and-such features, 

smelling in terms of perceiving things to have such-and-such other features, 

and so on for the remaining three senses.

In general, special perceptual verbs are to be explained in terms of general perceptual verbs together with names of special generic features which material things or events may be perceived to have. 

At this point an obvious difficulty arises: 

among the features which would presumably figure in the list of a *tactual* qualities 

— which are to be used to distinguish feeling from other modes of perceiving — is that of warmth; 

but to say that someone perceives something to have a certain degree of warmth 

does not entail that he is feeling anything at all,

 for 

we can see that things are warm, and 

things can look warm.

To extricate the suggestion from this objection, it looks as if it would be necessary to introduce some such term as 

"directly per-ceive" 

Potch

and perhaps also the term "directly seem," or 

Directly appears to Grice 

the terms being no doubt definitionally linked). 

How precisely these terms would have to be defined Grice does not propose to inquire, but the definition would have to be such as to ensure that 

someone who sees that something is blue 

might be directly perceiving that it is blue, 

while someone who sees that something is warm 

could NOT be di-rectly or immediately perceiving that it is warm. 

We then might try to define "see" and its congeners (and primary uses of "look" and its congeners) in terms of these specially introduced verbs.

 We might put up the following as samples of rough equivalences, without troubling ourselves too much about details, since all we require for present purposes is to see the general lines on which the initial suggestion will have to be devel-oped:

Grice sees M (material object) = 

X directly perceives M to have

some color and some spatial property.

X feels M = X directly perceives M to have some spatial property and degrees of one or more of such properties as warmth (cold-ness), hardness (softness), etc.

M looks (primarily) $ to X = 

M directly seems to X to

have certain spatial and color properties, one of which is .

M looks (secondarily) $ to X =

 M directly seems to X to

have certain spatial and color properties, one or more of which *indicate* to X that M is or may be .

Analogous definitions could be provided for primary and secondary uses of "feel" (with a nonpersonal subject).

This maneuver fails, Grice thinks, to put the first suggestion in the clear. 

Some might object to the definitions of verbs like 

see

used with a direct thing

in terms of "perceive that" — he saw God. what the butler saw.

 and there would remain the question of defining the special terms "directly perceive" and "directly seem." 

But a more immediately serious difficulty seems to Grice to be one connected with the seemingly unquestionable acceptability of the proposition that spatial properties may be directly perceived to belong to things both by sight and by touch. 

Suppose a man to be resting a half-crown on the palm of one hand and a penny on the palm of the other: 

he might (perhaps truthfully) say, 

The half-crown *looks* to me larger than the penny, though the half-crown and the penny *feel* the same size."

 If we apply the rough translations indicated above, this statement comes out thus: 

The half-crown and the penny directly seem or appear to me or are perceived by me to have certain spatial and color properties, including (in the case of the half-crown) that of being *larger* than the penny: 

but they also directly

seem to me to have certain properties, such as certain degrees of roughness, warmth, etc., and spatial properties which include that of being *equal in size*."

The facts stated by this rigmarole seem to be (differently ordered)

as follows:

The half-crown and the penny directly seem to have certain spatial and color prop-erties.

The half-crown and the penny directly seem to have certain properties drawn from the "tactual" list.

The half-crown directly seems larger than the penny.

The half-crown and the penny directly seem to be of the same size.

But there is nothing in this statement of the facts to tell us whether the coins *look* different in size but feel the same size, or alternatively *feel* different in size but look the same size.

At this point two somewhat heroic courses suggest themselves. 

The first is to proclaim an ambiguity in the expression "size," distinguishing between visual size and tactual size, thus denying that spatial properties are really accessible to more than one sense. 

This more or less Berkeleian position is perhaps unattractive independently of the current argument;

 in any case the introduction of the qualifications

"visual" and "tactual," in the course of an attempt to distinguish the senses from one another without invoking the special character of the various modes of perceiving, is open to the gravest suspicion. 

The second course is to amend the accounts of looking and feeling in such a way that, for example, 

"A looks larger than B" 

is re-expressible more or less as follows: "

A directly seems larger than B in the kind of way which entails that 

A and B directly seem to have certain color-properties." 

But this seems to introduce a reference to special kinds or varieties of "direct seeming," and this brings in what seems to be only a variant version of the second suggestion.

But there is a rather more subtle course to be considered. 

This idea was suggested to Grice by Wood.

In addition to the link (whatever that may be) which may join certain generic properties (e.g., color, shape, size) so as to constitute them as members of a group of properties associated with a particular sense (e.g., as visual properties), another kind of link may be indicated which holds between specific properties (e.g., specific colors and shapes, etc.), and which might be of use in dealing with the difficulty raised by this current example.

 Suppose that A, is a specific form of some generic property which occurs only in the visual list (e.g., a particular color), that B, is a specific form of some generic property occurring in only the tactual list (e.g., a particular degree of warmth), and that X, and X, are specific forms of a generic property occurring in both the visual and the tactual lists (e.g., are particular shapes). 

Suppose further that someone simultaneously detects or seems to detect the presence of all these properties (A,, B,, X,, X,) in a given object. 

Now the percipient might find that he could continue to detect or seem to detect A, and X, while no longer detecting or seeming to detect B, and X,; 

and equally that he could detect or seem to detect B, and X2 while no longer detecting or seeming to detect A, and X,; 

but on the other hand that he could not retain A, and X, while eliminating B, and X,, or retain B, and X, while eliminating A, and X,. 

There would thus be what might be called a "detection-link" between A, and X,, and another such link between B, and X,.

 On the basis of this link between X, and a purely visual property it might be decided that X, was here being visually detected, and analogously it might be decided that X, was being tactually detected.

 Similarly, in the case of the half-crown and the penny, one might say that there is a detection-link between inequality of size and certain purely visual properties the coins have or seem to have — e.g., their real or apparent colors — and a detection-link between equality of size and certain purely tactual properties the coins have or seem to have — e.g., their coldness —; and thus the difficulty may be re-solved.

There are three considerations which prevent Grice from being satisfied with this attempt to make the first suggestion serviceable.

 Grice puts them in what he regards as the order of increasing importance:

Consider the possible case of a percipient to whom the half-crown and the penny look equal in size when only seen, feel equal in size when only felt, but look unequal and feel equal when both seen and felt. 

This case is no doubt fantastic, but nevertheless it seems just an empirical matter whether or not the way things appear to one sense is affected in this sort of way by the operation or inoperation of another sense.

If such a case were to occur, the method adumbrated in Grice’s previous paragraph would be quite inadequate to deal with it: 

for equality of size would be codetectable both with visual properties alone and with tactual properties alone, whereas inequality in size would be codetectable neither with visual properties alone nor with tactual properties alone. 

So the percipient would, so far as this test goes, be at a loss to decide by which sense he detected (or seemed to detect) inequality. 

But Grice doubts whether this conclusion is acceptable.

If it were possible for a creature to have two different senses by each of which he detected just the same generic properties, the test suggested could not be applied in the case of those senses; 

for it depends on these being properties accessible to one but not both oftwo senses with regard to which it is invoked. 

It is far from clear to me that it is inconceivable that just the same set of generic properties should be detectable by either one of two different senses. 

Grice touches again on this question later.

Whether or not the suggested test, if applied, would always rightly answer the question whether a given spatial property is on a given occasion being detected by sight or touch, it seems quite certain that we never do employ this method of deciding such a question.

Indeed there seems something peculiar about the idea of using any method, for the answer to such a question, asked about ourselves, never seems in the slightest doubt.

 And it seems rather strange to make the difference between detecting (or seeming to detect) a given property by sight and detecting (or seeming to detect) it by touch turn on what would be the result of an experiment which we should never in any circumstances perform.

The first Suggestion has a further unattractive feature. 

According to it, certain properties are listed as visual properties, certain others as tactual properties, and so forth; 

and to say that color is a visual property would seem to amount to no more than saying that color is a member of a group of properties the others of which are ... 

This leaves membership of the group as an apparently arbitrary matter.

Grice now wishes to see if some general account of the notion of a visual (tactual, etc.) property could be given if (as the second suggestion would allow) we make unhampered use of special perceptual verbs like "see" and "look."

Grice shall go into this question perhaps rather more fully than the immediate purposes of the discussion demand, since it seems to Grice to be of some intrinsic interest. 

Grice doubts if such expressions as "visual prop-erty" and "tactual property," have any clear-cut accepted use, so what follows should be regarded as a preliminary to deciding upon a use, rather than as the analysis of an existing one. 

Grice shall confine himself to the notion of a visual property, hoping that the discussion of this could be adapted to deal with the other senses (not, of course, necessarily in the same way in each case).

Grice suggests that we take it to be a necessary (though not a suf-ficient) condition of a property P being a visual property that it should be linguistically correct to speak of someone as 

seeing 

that some material thing M is P, and also (with one qualification to be mentioned later) of some thing M as looking P to someone. 

Within the class of properties which satisfy this condition Grice wants to make some distinctions which belong to two nonindependent dimensions,one of which I shall call "determinability," the other "complexity":

There are certain properties (for example, that of being blue) such that if P is one of them there is no better way (though there may be an equally good way) for Grice to make sure that a thing M is P than to satisty himself that, observational conditions being optimal, M looks P to Grice.

Such properties Grice shall label "directly visually deter-minable."

It seems to Grice that there might be a case for labeling some properties as visually determinable, though indirectly so. 

Grice has in mind two possible kinds of indirectness. 

First, it might be the case that a primary (noninferior) test for determining whether M is P would be not just to ensure that M looked P in the most favorable conditions for observation, but to ensure, by scrutiny, that certain parts (in a wide sense) or elements of M had certain characteristics and were interrelated in certain ways;

 it being understood that the characteristics and relations in question are to be themselves directly visually determinable. 

For Grice, though no doubt *not* for a Chinese, the property of being inscribed with a certain Chinese character might be of this kind; 

and for everyone, no doubt, the property of having a chiliagonal surface would be of this kind. 

Second, a characteristic might be such that its primary test involved comparison of M (or its elements) with some standard specimen. 

Under this head Grice means to take in both such properties as being apple-green, for which the primary test involves comparison with a color chart, and such a property as that of being two feet seven inches long, the primary test for which is measurement by a ruler. 

It is to be understood that the results of such comparison or measurement are to be describable in terms of properties which are directly visually determinable.

It seems to Grice possible that "visual characteristic" might be used in such a way that P would qualify as a visual characteristic only if it were directly visually determinable, or in such a way that it would so qualify if it were visually determinable either directly or indirectly. 

But there also seems to be a different, though Grice thinks linked, basis of clas-sification, which might also be employed to fix the sense of the expression "visual characteristic." 

There will be some values of P such that an object M may be said to look P, with regard to which the question, 

What is it about the way that M looks that makes it look p?" 

has no answer. 

More generally, it will be impossible to specify anything about the way a thing looks, when it looks P, which will account for or determine its looking P. 

One cannot, for example,specify anything about the way a thing looks when it looks blue, which makes it look blue. 

Characteristics for which this rough condition is satisfied Grice will call "visually simple." 

But with regard to those values of P which are such that a thing may look P, but which are not visually simple, there are various possibilities:

The specification of what it is about the way a thing looks which makes it look P, or determines it to look P, may consist in specifying certain characteristics (of the visually determinable kind) which M has or looks to have, the presence of which indicates more or less reliably that M is P. 

Warmth is such a characteristic.

 In this kind of case P will not be visually determinable, and Grice should like to say that P is not a visual characteristic, and is neither visually simple nor visually complex. 

P will be merely "visually indicable."

The specification of what it is about the way a thing M looks which makes it look P or determines it to look P might take the form of specifying certain properties (of a visually determinable or visually simple kind or both) the possession of which constitutes a logically sufficient condition for being P. 

The property of being lopsided might be of this kind. 

A man's face could perhaps be said to be made to look lopsided by his looking as if he had (and perhaps indeed his actually having) one ear set lower than the other; and his actually having one ear set lower than the other would perhaps be a logically sufficient condition of his face's being lopsided. 

Characteristics belonging to this class Grice will label "visually tightly complex."

Consider such examples as "X's face looks friendly" or "X looks tough." 

Certainly friendliness and toughness are not themselves visually determinable: and certainly the questions "

What is there about the way his face looks that makes it look friendly?" 

and "What is there about the way he looks that makes him look tough?"

 are in order. 

Nevertheless there may be considerable difficulty in answering such questions; 

and when the answer or partial answer comes, it may not amount to saying what it is about the look of X's face (or of X) which *indicates* more or less reliably that X *is* friendly (or tough).

 In such cases one might be inclined to say that though toughness is not a visual characteristic, being tough-looking is.

 The following remarks seem in point:

It might be thought necessary, for this type of characteristic, to relax the initial condition which visual characteristics were required to satisfy, on the grounds that one cannot speak of someone as 

"looking tough-looking." 

But as Albritton has pointed out to me, it does not seem linguistically improper to say of someone that (for example) 

he looked tough-looking when he stood in the dim light of the pas-sage, 

but as soon as he moved into the room it could be seen that really he looked quite gentle.

Being tough-looking is in some way dependent on the possession of visually determinable characteristics: 

there would be a logical absurdity in saying that two people were identical in respect of all visually determinable characteristics, and yet that one person was tough-looking and the other was not.

Even if one has specified to one's full satisfaction what it is about the way X looks that make him look tough, one has not given a logically sufficient condition for being tough-looking. 

If Grice just produced a list of X's visually determinable characteristics, the possession of which does in fact make him look tough, no one could strictly deduce from the information given that X looks tough; 

to make quite sure, he would have to look at X himself.

Though the primary test for determining whether X is tough-looking is to see how he looks in the most favorable observational conditions, this test may not (perhaps cannot) be absolutely decisive.

If, after examination of X, I and my friends say that X is tough-looking, and someone else says that he is not, it need not be the case that the last-mentioned person is wrong or does not know the language; 

he may for example be impressed by some dissimilarity between X and standard tough customers, by which I and my friends are not impressed, in which case the dissident judgment may perhaps be described as *eccentric*, but not as wrong. 

In the light of this discussion one might say that such characteristics as being tough-looking are "visually near-determinable"; and they might also be ranked as visually complex (in view of their dependence on visually determinable characteristics), though "loosely complex" (in view of the non-existence of logically sufficient conditions of their presence).

The logical relations between the different sections of the deter-minability range and those of the simplicity-complexity range may need detailed examination. 

For instance, consider the statement "

The sound of the explosion came from my right" (or "

The explosion sounded as if it were on my right").

 It may be impossible to specify anything about the way the explosion sounded which determined its sounding as if it were on Grice’s right, in which case by my criterion being on my right will qualify as an auditory simple property.

 Yet certainly the explosion's sounding, even in the most favorable observational conditions, as if it were on my right is a secondary (inferior) test for the location of the explosion. 

So we would have an example of a property which is auditorily simple without being auditorily deter-minable. 

This may be of interest in view of the hesitation we may feel when asked if spatial characteristics can be auditory.

Grice should like to emphasize that Grice has not been trying to legislate upon the scope to be given to the notion of a visual characteristic, but have only been trying to provide materials for such legislation on the assumption that the special character of visual experience may be used to distinguish the sense of sight, thus allowing a relatively unguarded use of such words as "look."

Let us now for a moment turn our attention to the second suggestion, the idea that senses are to be distinguished by the special character of the experiences which their exercise involves. 

Two fairly obvious difficulties might be raised. 

First, that such experiences (if experiences they be) as seeing and feeling seem to be, as it were, diaphanous or transparent.

if we were asked to pay close attention, on a given occasion, to our seeing or feeling as distinct from what was being seen or felt, we should not know how to proceed; 

and the attempt to describe the differences between seeing and feeling seems to dissolve into a description of what we see and what we feel. 

How then can seeing and feeling have the special character which the second suggestion requires them to have, if this character resists both inspection and description? 

The second difficulty is perhaps even more serious.

 If to see is to detect by means of a special kind of experience, will it not be just a contingent matter that the characteristics we detect by means of this kind of experience are such things as color and shape? 

Might it not have been the case that we thus detected characteristic smells, either instead of or as well as colors and shapes? 

But it does *not* seem to be just a contingent fact that we do *not* see the smells of things. 

The first Suggestion, on the other hand, seems to avoid both these difficulties; the first because the special character of the experiences connected with the various senses is not invoked, and the second because since the smell of a thing is not listed among the properties the (direct) detection of which counts as seeing, on this view it emerges as *tautological* that smells cannot be seen.

We seem now to have reached an impasse.

 Any attempt to make the first suggestion work leads to difficulties which seem soluble only if we bring in the second suggestion, and the second suggestion in its turn involves diff-culties which seem avoidable only by adopting the first suggestion.

Is it thecase, that the two criteria should be combined; 

that is, is the right answer that, for anything to count as a case of seeing, two conditions must be fulfilled: 

first, that the properties detected should belong to a certain group, 

and second, that the detection should involve a certain kind of experience? 

But this does not seem to be a satisfactory way out; 

for if it were, it would be logically possible to detect smells by means of the type of experience characteristically involved in seeing, yet only to do this would *not* be to see smells, since a further condition (the property qualification) would be unfulfilled.

But surely we object on logical grounds no less to the idea that we might detect smells through visual experiences than to the idea that we might see the smells of things: 

indeed, the ideas seem to be the same. 

So perhaps the criteria mentioned in the two suggestions are not distinguishable; 

yet they seem to be distinct.

Maybe all is not yet lost, for there still remains the possibility that something may be achieved by bringing into the discussion the third and fourth suggestions. 

Perhaps we might save the first suggestion, and thus eliminate the second suggestion, by combining the former with one or both of the last two suggestions. 

For if to see is to detect certain properties (from the visual list) by means of a certain sort of mechanism (internal or external or both), the arguments previously advanced to show the need for importing the second suggestion seem to lose their force.

 We can now differentiate between the case in which a half-crown and a penny  look different in size but feel the same size and the case in which they feel different in size but look the same size: 

we shall say that in the first case by mechanism A (eyes and affection by light waves) we detect or seem to detect difference in size while by mechanism B (hands and pressure) we detect or seem to detect equality of size: 

whereas in the second case the mechanisms are transposed. 

We can also characterize the visual list of properties as those detectable by mechanism A, and deal analogously with other lists of properties.

 In this way the need to invoke the second suggestion seems to be eliminated.

Promising as this approach may appear, Grice very much doubts if it succeeds in eliminating the need to appeal to the special character of experiences in order to distinguish the senses.

Suppose that long-awaited invasion of the Martians takes place, that they turn out to be friendly creatures and teach us their language: Martian.

We get on all right, except that we find no verb in Martian which unquestionably corresponds to our verb "see."

 Instead we find *two* verbs which we decide to render as yogging and zogging.

we find that (in  Martian) they speak of themselves as yogging, and also as zogging, things to be of this and that color, size, and shape. 

Further, in physical appearance they are more or less like ourselves, except that in their heads they have, one above the other, two pairs of organs, not perhaps exactly like one another, but each pair more or less like our eyes: 

each pair of organs is found to be sensitive to light waves.

It turns out that for them yogging is dependent on the operation of the upper organs, and zogging on that of the lower organs. 

The question which it seems natural to ask is this:

Are yogging and zogging both cases of seeing, the difference between them being that yogging is seeing with the upper organs, and zogging is seeing with the lower organs? 

Or alternatively, do one or both of these accomplishments constitute the exercise of a new sense, other than that of sight?

If we adopt, to distinguish the senses, a combination of the first suggestion (with one or both of the third suggestion and the fourth suggestion, the answer seems clear: 

both yogging and zogging are seeing, with different pairs of organs. 

But is the question really to be settled so easily?

Would we not in fact want to ask whether yogging something to be round was like xogging it to be round, or whether when something yogged blue to them this was like or unlike its zogging blue to them? 

If in answer to such questions as these they said, 

Oh no, there's all the difference in the world!" 

Grice thinks we should be inclined to say that either yogging or zogging (if not both) must be something other than seeing: 

we might of course be quite unable to decide which (if either) was seeing.

Grice is aware that here those whose approach is more Wittgen-steinian than Grice’s own might complain that unless something more can be said about how the difference between yogging and zogging might "come out" or show itself in publicly observable phenomena,  the claim by the supposed Martians that yogging and zogging are different would be one of which nothing could be made, which would leave one at a loss how to understand it. 

First, Grice is not convinced of the need for "introspectible" differences to show themselves in the way this approach demands (Grice shall not discuss this point further); 

second, Grice thinks that if Grice has to meet this demand, Grice can. 

One can suppose that one or more of these Martians acquired the use of the lower zogging organs at some comparatively late date in their careers, and that at the same time (perhaps for experimental purposes) the operation of the upper yogging organs was inhibited. 

One might now be ready to allow that a difference between yogging and zogging would have shown itself if in such a situation the creatures using their zogging organs for the first time were unable straightaway, without any learning process,to use their "color"-words fluently and correctly to describe what they detected through the use of those organs.)

It might be argued at this point that we have not yet disposed of the idea that the senses can be distinguished by an amalgam of first, third, and fourth suggestions 

for it is not clear that in the example of the Martians the condition imposed by the first suggestion is fulfilled. 

The thesis, it might be said, is only upset if yogging and zogging are accepted as being the exercise of different senses; 

and if they are, the Martians' color-words could be said to have a concealed ambiguity. 

Much as "sweet" in English may mean "sweet-smelling" or "sweet-tasting," so "blue" in Martian may mean "blue-yogging" or "blue-zogging." 

But if this is so, the Martians after all do not detect by yogging just those properties of things which they detect by zogging. 

To this line of argument there are two replies:

The defender of the thesis is in no position to use this argument; 

for he cannot start by making the question whether yogging and xogging are exercises of the same sense turn on the question (inter alia) whether or not a single group of characteristics is detected by both, and then make the question of individuation of the group turn on the question whether putative members of the group are detected by one, or by more than one, sense. 

He would be saying in effect, 

"Whether, in yogging and zogging, different senses are exercised depends (inter alia) on whether the same properties are detected by yogging as by zogging; but whether a certain yogged property is the same as a certain zogged property depends on whether yogging and xogging are or are not the exercise of a single sense." 

This reply seems fatal.

 For the circularity could only be avoided by making the question whether "blue" in Martian names a single property depend either on whether the kinds of experience involved in yogging and zogging are different, which would be to reintroduce the second suggestion, or on whether the mechanisms involved in yogging and zogging are different (in this case whether the upper organs are importantly unlike the lower organs): 

and to adopt this alternative would, Grice thinks, lead to treating the differentiation of the senses as being solely a matter of their mechanisms, thereby making the first suggestion otiose.

Independently of its legitimacy or illegitimacy in the present context, we must reject the idea that if it is accepted that in yogging and zogging different senses are being exercised, Martian color-words will be ambiguous. 

For ex hypothesi there will be a very close correlation between things yogging blue and their zogging blue, far *closer* than that between things smelling sweet and their tasting sweet. 

This being so, it is only to be expected that yogging and zogging should share the position of arbiters concerning the color of things:

 that is, "blue" would be the name of a single property, determinable equally by yogging and zogging. 

After all, is this not just like the actual position with regard to shape, which is doubly determinable, by sight and by touch?

While Grice would not wish to quarrel with the main terms of this second reply, Grice should like briefly to indicate why Grice thinks that this final quite natural comparison with the case of shape will not do.

 It is quite conceivable that the correlation between yogging and zogging, in the case supposed, might be close enough to ensure that Martian color-words designated doubly determinable properties, and yet that this correlation should break down in a limited class of cases:

 for instance, owing to some differences between the two pairs of organs, objects which transmitted light of a particular wavelength might (in standard con-ditions) yogged blue but zogged black.

 If this were so, for these cases the conflict would render decision about the real color of the objects in question impossible. 

Grice ignores the possibility that the real color might be made to depend on the wavelength of the light transmitted, which would involve depriving color of its status as a purely sensibly determinable property.

Grice is, however, very much inclined to think that a corresponding limited breakdown in the correlation between sight and touch with regard to shape is not conceivable. 

The nature of the correlation between sight and touch is far too complicated a question to be adequately treated within the compass of this essay; so Grice shall attempt only to indicate, in relation to two comparatively simple imaginary cases, the special intimacy of this correlation. 

Both cases involve me-dium-sized objects, which are those with regard to which we are most willing to accept the equality of the arbitraments of sight and touch.

The question at issue in each case is whether we can coherently suppose both (a) that, in a world which in general exhibits the normal correlation between sight and touch, some isolated object should standardly feel round but standardly look square, and also (b) that it should be undecidable, as regards that object, whether preference should be given to the deliverance of sight or to that of touch.

 In one case Grice does not attribute to the divergent object the power of temporarily upsetting the correlation of sight and touch with regard to other normal objects while they are in its vicinity. 

Suppose that, feeling in my pocket, I were to find an object which felt asif it were round and flat like a penny, I take it out of my pocket and throw it on the table, and am astonished to see what looks like a square flat object: I find, moreover, that when surveyed by myself (and others) from various points, it continues to look as a square object should look. I now shut my eyes and "frame" the object by running my finger round its edge; my finger feels to me as if it were moving in a circle. I then open my eyes, and, since we are supposing that other objects are not affected by the divergent one, my finger also feels to me as if it were tracing a circular path, but not, of course, as if it were "framing" the visible outline of the object. 

One possibility is that my finger is seen to cut through the corners of the visible outline of the divergent object; and I think that such a lack of "visual solidity" would be enough to make us say that the object is really round, in spite of its visual appearance. 

Another possibility is that the visible path of my finger should be a circle within which the visible outline of the object is inscribed, and that, if I try, I fail to establish visible contact between my finger and the object's outline, except at the corners of that outline.

 I suggest that if the object's outline were visually unapproachable in this kind of way, this would very strongly incline us to say that the object was really round; and I suspect that this inclination could be decisively reinforced by the application of further tests of a kind to be mentioned in connection with the second case.

 In a different case Grice does attribute to the object the power of "in-fecting" at least some other objects, in particular my finger or (more strictly) the path traced by my finger. 

Suppose that, as before, when I trace the felt outline of the divergent object, it feels to me as if my finger were describing a circle, and also that, as before, the object looks square; now, however, the visible path of my moving finger is not circular but square, framing the visible outline of the object. 

Suppose also that I find a further object which is indisputably round, the size of which feels equal to the size which the divergent object is felt as having, and which (we will suppose) is not infected by proximity to the divergent object; if I place this unproblematic object behind the divergent one, as I move my finger around the pair of objects, it feels as if I am continuously in contact with the edges of both objects, but it looks as if I am in continuous contact with the divergent object, but in only occasional contact with the normal object. (I am taking the case in which the corners of the visible outline of the divergent object overlap the visible outline of the normal object.) 

Given this informa-tion alone, I think that it cannot be decided what the real shape of the divergent object is; but there are various further tests which I can make. One of these would be to put the two objects on the table, the divergent object being on top, to place my finger and thumb so that they are in felt contact with both objects but are visually in contact only with opposed corners of the visible outline of the divergent ob-ject, and then raise my hand; if thereby I lift both objects, the divergent object is really round; 

if I lift only the divergent object, it is really square.

A test closely related to the foregoing would be to discover through what sorts of aperture the divergent object could be made to pass, on the general principle that it is square pegs which fit into square holes and round pegs which fit into round holes. 

For example, suppose I find an aperture the real shape and size of which is such that, according to tactual comparison, it ought to accommodate the divergent object, while according to visual comparison it ought not to do so; then (roughly speaking) if the object can be made to pass through the aperture it is really round; if it cannot, it is really square. It seems to me that the decisiveness of this test can be averted only if we make one of two suppositions. 

We might suppose our fantasy-world to be such that apertures of a suitable real shape are not available to us; for this supposition, however, to be of interest, it would have to amount to the supposition of a general breakdown of the correlation of sight and touch as regards shape, which is contrary to the terms of our discussion, which is concerned only with the possibility of a limited breakdown in this respect. 

Alternatively, we might suppose that when we attempt to make the divergent object pass through a suitably chosen aperture which is really round, it feels as if the object passes through, but it looks as if the object fails to pass through. On this supposition there is some prospect that the real shape of the divergent object should remain undecidable. But we must consider the consequences of this supposition.

 What, for example, happens to my finger when it is pushing the divergent object tactually, though not visually, through the aperture? In order to keep the question of the real shape undecidable, I think we shall have to suppose that the finger tactually moves into the aperture, but visually remains outside. Given this as-sumption, it seems reasonable to conclude that it will have become a practical possibility, with regard to any object whatsoever, or at least any movable object, to divorce its tactual location from its visual lo-cation. 

Imagine, for example, that the divergent object is just outsideone end of a suitably selected cylinder, and is attached to my waist by a string which passes through the cylinder; now I set myself the task of drawing the object through the cylinder by walking away. If I do not tug too hard, I can ensure that tactually my body, together with any objects attached to it, will move away from the cylinder, while visually it will not. And one might add, where shall I be then?

Grice suggests, then, that given the existence of an object which, for the Martians, standardly x-ed blue but y-ed black (its real color being undecidable), no conclusion could be drawn to the effect that other objects do, or could as a matter of practical possibility be made to, x one way and y another way either in respect of color or in respect of some other feature within the joint province of x-ing and y-ing; given, on the other hand, the existence of an object which, for us, standardly felt one shape and looked another, then either its real shape would be nonetheless decidable, or it would be practically possible to disrupt in the case of at least some other objects the correlation between sight and touch as regards at least one feature falling within their joint domain, namely spatial location; at least some objects could be made standardly to feel as if they were in one place and standardly to look as if they were in another. 

Whether such notions as those of a material object, of a person, and of human action could apply, without radical revision, to such a world, and whether such a world could be coherently supposed to be governed by any system of natural laws, however bizarre, are questions which I shall not here pursue.

 Compare the Molyneux problem.

 It has been properly objected against me that, in comparing the possibility of a limited breakdown in the correlation between x-ing and y-ing with the possibility of a corresponding limited breakdown in the correlation between sight and touch, I have cheated. 

For whereas I consider the possibility that a certain class of objects might x blue but y black, I consider only the possibility that a certain isolated object should standardly feel round but look square: I have failed to consider the possibility that, for ex-ample, objects of a particular felt size which feel round should look square and that there should therefore be no normal holes to use for testing divergent objects.

Grice can here do no more than indicate the lines on which this objection should be met. 

The supposed limited breakdown cannot be restricted to objects of particular shapes, since the dimensions of objects and of holes can be measured both tactually and visually by measuring rods: and what happens when a divergent measuring rodis bent double? 

Any shape-divergent object would be tolerated tactually but not visually (or vice versa) by normal holes (if available) of more than one specifically different size. Consequently, since we are ruling out a general breakdown of the correlation between sight and touch as regards the shapes in question, there must be at least some normal holes which will tolerate tactually but not visually (or visually but not tactually) at least some divergent objects: and this is enough for my purpose.

To return to the main topic, Grice hopes that he has put up a fair case for supposing that second suggestion cannot be eliminated. 

How then, are we to deal with the difficulties which seemed to lead us back from the second suggestion to the first suggestion, with a consequent impasse? 

The first of these was that such an alleged special experience as that supposedly involved in seeing eluded inspection and description. I think that this objection conceals an illegitimate demand. 

We are being asked to examine and describe the experience we have when we see, quite without reference to the properties we detect or think we detect when we see. But this is impossible, for the description of the experiences we have when we see involves the mention of properties we detect or seem to detect. More fully, the way to describe our visual experiences is in terms of how things look to us, and such a description obviously involves the employment of property-words. 

But in addition to the specific differences between visual experiences, signalized by the various property-words employed, there is a generic resemblance signal-ized by the use of the word "look," which differentiates visual from nonvisual sense-experience. 

This resemblance can be noticed and la-beled, but perhaps not further described. 

To object that one cannot focus one's attention, in a given case, on the experience of seeing, as distinct from the properties detected, is perhaps like complaining that one cannot focus one's attention on the color of an object, ignoring its particular color. 

So the initial assumption of the independence of suggestions (I) and II) has broken down: how extensive the breakdown is could be determined only by going on to consider how far differences in character between things reduce to differences between the experiences which people have or would have in certain circum-stances. This would involve a discussion of traditional theories of perception for which at the moment I have neither time nor heart.

The second difficulty is that of explaining why, if sight is to be distinguished from other senses by the special character of the experiences involved in seeing, there is a logical objection to the idea thatwe might detect (say) the smells of things by means of experience of the visual type. Why can we not see the smell of a rose? Well, in a sense we can; a rose can (or at any rate conceivably might) look fra-grant. But perhaps the objector wants us to explain why a rose cannot look fragrant in the same sense of "look" in which it may look red.

The answer here is presumably that had nature provided a closer correlation between the senses of sight and smell than in fact obtains, the word "fragrant" might have been used to denote a doubly determinable property: in which case roses could have been said to look fragrant in just the sense of "look" in which they now look red. 

But of course the current rules for the word "fragrant" are adapted to the situation actually obtaining. If, however, the objector is asking us to explain why, on our view, given that fragrance is merely an olfactorily determinable property, it is not also at the same time a visually determinable property, then perhaps we may be excused from replying. H. P. Grice.