And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
I can’t help myself. Whenever I am catching up on the literature on epistemology and come across some view that makes much ado about “seemings,” a little voice pops into my head, as if it’s an AI assistant whose response was triggered by the appropriate words. Instead of hearing Siri’s voice, however, I hear a much more grating voice, for the voice that I hear in my head is that of Jerry Seinfeld. And the schtick that he is reciting is his bit on “chalk outline guy.”
“There are many different jobs in the police…” He begins. “No! You! Get out of my head!” I shout back. But it’s to no avail. He continues, undisturbed. “It seems to me…” he really draws that part out… “that the chalk-outline guy is one of the better jobs that you can get.” At last! He’s finished his performance and I can move on, at least until the author uses the word “seemings” again.
I’ve spent a lot of time wondering just why it is that my subconscious mind pulls this protest every time philosophers talk about “seemings,” and I think I’ve figured it out. My mind is rebelling against what Whitehead called “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” To borrow a phrase, seemings “aren’t a thing,” leastways, no one ever seems to be able to tell me what seemings actually are. It seems to me that seemings are just shorthand for a variety of different combinations of mental processes, which explains why it’s so hard to pin down just what “seemings” are. They are like “freedom” or “rights” — rights talk, Peter Singer quite rightly insists, also has no referent and is just shorthand for a variety of different ethical concepts. These concepts can’t be pinned down to a single definition. So we are better off ditching the shorthand and speaking specifically about what we mean, otherwise we risk confusion.
In my head, Janis Joplin is already warming up her voice, so I need to move on.
♫ “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for a train…” ♫
YOU! Not another word!
So for the epistemologists who are busy writing their next Publish or Perish™ article, might I suggest that you precisely define just what a “seeming” is? Or better yet, just ditch the language altogether and just say precisely what you mean. Are we talking Perceptions? Inferences? Memory? A priori concepts? Intuitions? Hunches? Pulling-things-out-of-our-asses? I don’t intend to dispute the fact that things often “seem to me” a certain kind of way. It seems to me that I am wearing a gold wedding band; and it seems to me that I’m needing my reading glasses more often; and it seems to me that coherentism is by far the best theory of justification; and it seems to me that there’s probably no entity that can answer to the description of “God”; and it seems to me that even if there is an entity that can answer to the description of “God” that that entity would be morally culpable for the pitiable state of the universe; and it seems to me that Joe Biden should probably drop out of the race for President so as to avoid risking a MAGA President; and it seems to me that clam chowder — enhanced with shrimp, crab, scallop, and lobster meat — is the perfect food (New England style, obviously, not Manhattan style); and a myriad other things “seem to me” to be a certain kind of way. But I would claim to know some of those things — i.e., they seem like justified, true, beliefs — and other things are subjective, or else they are hunches, intuitions, or perhaps even fears that are shaping my beliefs. But I wouldn’t want to claim that these “seemings” have the same epistemic status as my direct perceptions do.
In a way, I would hope that when philosophers talk about “seemings” they just are talking about perceptual experiences. If so, let’s just drop the “seemings” talk and talk about perceptual experiences. But sadly, I do not think that this is what most of them mean by “seemings” and the whole point of the “seemings” talk, seemingly, (see what I did there?) is to intentionally obfuscate so that the speaker can raise hunches to the same epistemic status as perceptions by performing a verbal magic trick. I hope that this cynical trick is not what is happening, but I fear that it is. At any rate, this “seemings” talk usually accompanies a far more permissive epistemology than I am comfortable with. So maybe the first step is for the “seemings” crowd to get on the same page about what “seemings” actually are.
