Ancient
Greece & You
Joe Greenwald, Champlain Valley
Union High School, VT
Appearance and Reality
"The distinction
between appearance and reality) is one of the distinctions that
causes the most trouble in philosophy." - Bertrand Russel
Looks and Appearances
The root of the debate
over how things appear to be and how they really are stems from
the ambiguity in the term to appear and similar phrases. The
difference between how things seem and their reality is not a
simple matter. There are two main groups of appearance idioms;
these are seeming idioms and looking idioms. Seeming idioms include
such expressions as appears to be, seems to be, has the appearance
of being. Looking idioms include such expressions as looks, appears,
tastes, feels, and sounds. The line between these two groups
of idioms is not always clear. My good buddy Sarah's mother got
a splinter in her finger and soaked it in a glass of water to
ease the pain. Sarah and I noticed a rather interesting phenomenon.
The finger, through the water looked very large but it did not
appear to be large. This was because the water distorted the
size of the finger, causing it to look large, but it did not
appear to be large because Sarah and I knew from seeing the finger
before that in actuality it was not the size which it looked.
This paradox was examined by philosopher St. Augustine when he
saw an oar in water, which seemed bent although it did not actually
appear to be bent. He wrote, "Is that true, then, which
the eyes see in the case of the oar and water? Quite true. For
since there is a special reason for the oar looking that way,
I should rather accuse my eyes of playing me false if the oar
looked straight when dipped in water for in that case my eyes
would not be seeing what, under the circumstances, ought to be
seen."
Seeming Idioms
Uses of seeming idioms
are to express what one believes is most likely the case or to
express reluctance about what is specifically the case. Even
though one thing may appear to be another, as in the case of
the finger and water using the term appears means that if one
saw the finger in the water without knowing the actual size of
the finger, one would not be able to distinguish whether the
finger was actually large or only seemed to be large.
Looking Idioms
Looking idioms can be
considered in three main respects which must be kept separate.
Noticing resemblances. One
can look to the sky and notice that a cloud resembles an animal.
Here the appearance of the cloud is not in contrast with it's
reality, rather what seems to be is since the cloud does look
like something other than a cloud. This is noticing a visual
resemblance between the cloud and the animal, meaning that this
is a reality because it does not contrast with what is possibly
a reality. This does not mean that the cloud appears to be an
animal or just looks but actually isn't an animal; the difference cannot
be inferred from the statement appears.
Describing. When
describing the appearance of something, it is simply to describe
what is visible, audible, and tactile. These descriptions tell
how something is, not how it looks or appears. In this case what
qualities appear to be is what they really are.
Looks and merely
looks.
Mere appearance
shows that there is a looking idiom which is neutral in respect
to how things are. For example, X merely looks red suggests that
X is not actually red. But saying that X looks red one cannot
differentiate between X being red or X not being red. But if
X can look (sound, feel, and taste) red, then X must at least
possibly be red.
Protagorean Relativism
"Man is the measure
of all things- alike of being of things that are and of the non-being
of things that are not. Any given thing is to me such as it appears
to me, and is to you such as it appears to you." -Protagoras
This quote can be interpreted
in two ways, depending on whether the use of appears is as a
seeming or a looking idiom. Each person's interpretation is valid;
not one can be justified more than another because each viewpoint
is one person's reality. A thing can appear to be two different
ways to two people, but it cannot logically be both. A conclusion
of this paradox is not possible because one view cannot be determined
as the reality, thus blurring the line between appearance and
reality.
The Argument From
Illusion
This argument is based
on the fact that things sometimes appear in different natures
to different observers or to the same observer in different circumstances.
The argument states that qualities described by the senses are
not really part of things because if a thing can look (smell,
sound, taste, feel) different to different people, in different
situations or when they are supposedly really a different way,
we can never determine exactly what quality really applies to
the object. Therefore, the quality which can never be determined
cannot actually be the object. We can not say what qualities
things have, only what qualities they appear to have. This suggests
that there can be no such thing as colored bodies, because color
can never be determined. Other paradoxes are based on the same
principle of existing things contradicting themselves. Zeno's
paradoxes for example claim the impossibility of motion, multiplicity,
empty space and time, when to us all these things appear to exist.
According to F. H. Bradley in Appearance and Reality,
"all these things are unreal as such because they contradict
themselves; hence they are mere appearances: or contradictory
appearances."
