MindPapers: 3.7c. Discriminability

Burgess, John A. (1990). Phenomenal qualities and the nontransitivity of matching. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 68 (2):206-220. (Google | More links | Edit)

Chuard, Philippe (ms). Indiscriminable shades and demonstrative concepts. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: A familiar perceptual fact: it sometimes happens that, say, two distinct shades of red are so similar in colour that you cannot discriminate them visually. In spite of their chromatic difference, they are chromatically _indiscriminable_: no matter how hard you look, you seem unable to detect the relevant difference in the way these shades visually appear to you

Chuard, Philippe & Corry, Richard (ms). Looks non-transitive! (Google | Edit)

Abstract: Suppose you are presented with three red objects. You are then asked to take a careful look at each possible pair of objects, and to decide whether or not their members look chromatically the same. You carry out the instructions thoroughly, and the following propositions sum up the results of your empirical investigation:

i. red object #1 looks the same in colour as red object #2.

ii. red object #2 looks the same in colour as red object #3

Danto, Arthur C. (1999). Indiscernibility and perception: A reply to Joseph Margolis. British Journal of Aesthetics 39 (4):321-329. (Cited by 5 | Google | More links | Edit)

De Clercq, Rafael & Horsten, Leon (2004). Perceptual indiscriminability: In defence of Wright's proof. Philosophical Quarterly 54 (216):439-444. (Cited by 2 | Google | Edit)

Deutsch, Max (2005). Intentionalism and intransitivity. Synthese 144 (1):1-22. (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: I argue in this paper that the existence of sorites series of color patches – series of color patches arranged so that the patches on each end look different in color though no two adjacent patches do – shows that the relation of same phenomenal character as is not a transitive relation. I then argue that the intransitivity of same phenomenal character as conflicts with certain versions of intentionalism, the view that an experiences phenomenal character is exhausted, or fully determined by its intentional content. Lastly, I consider various objections to the arguments and reply to them

Farkas, Katalin (2006). Indiscriminability and the sameness of appearance. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106 (2):39-59. (Cited by 3 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: sub> How exactly should the relation between a veridical perception and a corresponding hallucination be understood? I argue that the epistemic notion of ‘indiscriminability’, understood as a lack of evidence for the distinctness of things, is not suitable for deﬁning this relation. Instead, we should say that a hallucination and a veridical perception involve the same phenomenal properties. This has further consequences for attempts to give necessary and suﬃcient conditions for the identity of phenomenal properties in terms of indiscriminability, and for considerations about the phenomenal sorites

Graff, Delia (2001). Phenomenal continua and the sorites. Mind 110 (440):905-935. (Cited by 24 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: I argue that, contrary to widespread philosophical opinion, phenomenal indiscriminability is transitive. For if it were not transitive, we would be precluded from accepting the truisms that if two things look the same then the way they look is the same and that if two things look the same then if one looks red, so does the other. Nevertheless, it has seemed obvious to many philosophers (e.g. Goodman, Armstrong and Dummett) that phenomenal indiscriminability is not transitive; and, moreover, that this non-transitivity is straightforwardly revealed to us in experience. I show this thought to be wrong. All inferences from the character of our experience to the non-transitivity of indiscriminability involve either a misunderstanding of continuity, a mistaken interpretation of the idea that we have limited powers of discrimination, or tendentious claims about what our experience is really like; or such inferences are based on inadequately supported premisses, which though individually plausible are jointly implausible

Hanson, Norwood Russell (1960). On having the same visual experiences. Mind 69 (July):340-350. (Cited by 1 | Google | More links | Edit)

Hellie, Benj (2005). Noise and perceptual indiscriminability. Mind 114 (455):481-508. (Cited by 4 | Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: Perception represents colors inexactly. This inexactness results from phenomenally manifest noise, and results in apparent violations of the transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability. Whether these violations are genuine depends on what is meant by 'transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability'

Jackson, Frank & Pinkerton, R. J. (1973). On an argument against sensory items. Mind 82:269-72. (Cited by 10 | Google | Edit)

Jackson, Frank & Pinkerton, R. J. (1973). On an argument against sensory items. Mind 82 (326):269-72. (Cited by 10 | Google | More links | Edit)

Lewis, Carroll (1973). On undetectable differences in sensations. Analysis 33 (June):193-194. (Google | Edit)

Linsky, Bernard (1984). Phenomenal qualities and the identity of indistinguishables. Synthese 59 (June):363-380. (Cited by 2 | Google | More links | Edit)

Mills, Eugene O. (2002). Fallibility and the phenomenal sorites. Noûs 36 (3):384-407. (Cited by 7 | Google | More links | Edit)

Pelling, Charles (forthcoming). Exactness, inexactness, and the non-transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability. Synthese. (Google | Edit)

Abstract: I defend, to a certain extent, the traditional view that perceptual indiscriminability is non-transitive. The argument proceeds by considering important recent work by Benj Hellie: Hellie argues that colour perception represents ‘inexactly’, and that this results in violations of the transitivity of colour indiscriminability. I show that Hellie’s argument remains inconclusive, since he does not demonstrate conclusively that colour perception really does represent inexactly. My own argument for the non-transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability uses inexactness instead as one horn of a dilemma: the key idea is that there is a class of perceptual experiences which might plausibly be supposed either to represent inexactly or to represent exactly—but which demonstrate the non-transitivity of perceptual indiscriminability either way

Pelling, Charlie (2007). Conceptualism and the (supposed) non-transitivity of colour indiscriminability. Philosophical Studies 134 (2). (Google | More links | Edit)

Abstract: In this paper, I argue that those who accept the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception should reject the traditional view that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive. I start by outlining the general strategy that conceptualists have adopted in response to the familiar ‘fineness of grain’ objection, and I show why a commitment to what I call the indiscriminability claim seems to form a natural part of this strategy. I then show how together, the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim –the claim that colour indiscriminability is non-transitive –entail a further, suspicious-looking claim that I call the problematic claim. My argument then splits into two parts. In the first part, I show why the conceptualist does indeed need to reject the problematic claim. Given that this claim is jointly entailed by the indiscriminability claim and the non-transitivity claim, the conceptualist is then left with a straight choice: reject the indiscriminability claim, or reject the non-transitivity claim. In the second part, I then explain why the conceptualist should choose the latter option

Perin, Casey (2005). Academic arguments for the indiscernibility thesis. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4):493-517. (Google | Edit)

Abstract: The Academics offered an argument from twins or perceptually indiscernible objects and an argument from dreams or madness in support of the indiscernibility thesis: that every true perceptual impression is such that some false impression just like it is possible. I claim that these arguments, unlike modern sceptical arguments, are supposed to establish mere counterfactual rather than epistemic possibilities. They purport to show that for any true perceptual impression j, there are a number of alternative causal histories j might have had which would not have resulted in any change in the way in which j represents its object

Raffman, Diana (2000). Is perceptual indiscriminability nontransitive? Philosophical Topics 28 (1):153-75. (Cited by 6 | Google | Edit)

Abstract: It is widely supposed that one family of sorites paradoxes, perhaps the most perplexing versions of the puzzle, owe at least in part to the nontransitivity of perceptual indiscriminability. To a first approximation, perceptual indiscriminability is the relationship obtaining among objects (stimuli) that appear identical in some perceptual respect—for example hue, or pitch, or texture. Indiscriminable objects look the same, or sound the same, or feel the same. Received wisdom has it that there are or could be series of objects _o__1…_o__n in which _o_₁ and _o_₂ are indiscriminable, _o_₂ and _o_3 are indiscriminable, etc., and _o_n-1 and_ o_n are indiscriminable, but _o_1 and _o_n are discriminably different. For example, there could be a series of colored patches so ordered that each patch looks the same in hue as its immediate neighbors but the whole progresses from a clear case of red to a clear case of orange. On the assumption that an observational word like ‘red’ applies to both if to either of a pair of perceptually indiscriminable items, the absurd conclusion of the sorites comes into view. Crispin Wright explains

Shoemaker, Sydney (1975). Phenomenal similarity. Critica 7 (October):3-37. (Cited by 7 | Google | Annotation | Edit)

Williamson, Timothy (1990). Identity and Discrimination. Blackwell. (Cited by 44 | Google | Edit)

3.7a	Color [276]

3.7b	Sound [16]

3.7c	Discriminability [21]

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