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can do its work some maturation must have taken place. One must
possess the concept of existence, or be capable of having it evoked
in one, if one is to believe, of the object of one s apprehension,
that it exists. Since infants have presumably not yet matured to
that extent, they are not capable of perception; they cannot
perform the objectivation that constitutes the core of perception.
Yet it is by virtue of the original principles of our constitution that
certain tactile sensations evoke in us apprehensions of, and beliefs
about, hardness, extension, figure, and motion, and that certain
visual sensations evoke in us apprehensions of, and beliefs about,
color.
What happens in the course of experience, then, is that sensa-
tions acquire powers of suggestion well behind those that they
have by virtue of our hard wiring. That is to say, they acquire the
disposition to evoke many other apprehensions and beliefs than
those that they evoke by virtue of one s hard wiring. Certain
perceptions also acquire such powers.20
The way sensations and perceptions acquire these additional
powers is as follows: There is in all of us the disposition to acquire
customs or habits. This is one of the original principles of our
constitution (Reid calls it the  inductive principle.) It s repeti-
tion of one sort and another that accounts for the activation of
this disposition, and thus, for the acquisition of a particular habit
20
 In original perception, the signs are the various sensations which are produced by the
impressions made upon our organs. . . . In acquired perception, the sign may be either
a sensation, or something originally perceived (EIP II, xxi [332a]).
118 Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology
or custom. In the case before us, it s the repeated observation
of a constant, or nearly constant, conjunction in nature that
accounts for the formation of the relevant custom or habit. Many
times over I smell this particular objective fragrance when I see
that I am in the vicinity of a rose. Eventually a custom or habit is
formed in me so that now, upon smelling that objective fragrance,
I believe of it that it s the fragrance of a rose. (Alternatively, a
custom or habit is formed in me so that now, upon having a
certain olfactory sensation, I believe, of that objective fragrance
which I m smelling, that it s the fragrance of a rose. Nota bene:
It s not about my olfactory sensation that I believe it s the fra-
grance of a rose; it s about that objective secondary quality that
I m smelling.)
Reid rather often describes the product of an acquired per-
ception as if it were the perception of a fact; one of the examples
he cites in the passage quoted above is the perception  that this
is the taste of cider. But though that s a natural way of putting
the point he has in mind, it s also somewhat misleading. Recall
that in the example cited, the rose is absent. Hence I don t per-
ceive the fact that this is the fragrance of a rose; I do that when I
get up close to a rose and both see the rose and smell the fra-
grance  just as I perceive the fact that the clock shows one o clock
when I look at a clock showing one o clock. Reid s thought, con-
cerning the case we ve been considering, is that the olfactory sen-
sation evokes in me, by virtue of an original principle of the mind,
an apprehension of that objective quality that I am smelling; and
then, by virtue of the custom that I have acquired, I believe of it
that it is the fragrance of a rose. I believe it to be the fragrance
of a rose.
Why call this a  perception, Reid asks? Why say that I perceive
this to be the fragrance of a rose? One consideration is that
this is how we do in fact speak.21 But there s also a systematic,
or theoretical, consideration in favor of classifying these cases
21
Cf. EIP II, xxii [336b]:  That [acquired perceptions] are formed even in infancy no
man can doubt; nor is it less certain that they are confounded with the natural and
immediate perception of sense, and in all languages are called by the same name. We
are therefore authorized by language to call them perception, and must often do so,
or speak unintelligibly. But philosophy teaches us in this, as in many other instances,
to distinguish things which the vulgar confound. I have therefore given the name of
acquired perception to such conclusions, to distinguish them from what is naturally,
originally, and immediately testified by our senses.
Reid s Analysis of Perception 119
under perception: They fit the analysis of perception Reid arrived
at when he had his eye on original perceptions. Perception, he
says, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]