[...]... subjectively matching, the cerebral and mental factors that are causally involved in their occurrence are of exactly the same type For, as we have seen, the fundamentalist does not suppose that such cerebral and mental factors are the only factors that causally contribute to the psychological character of the resulting experience If, in the case of Ralph, he can say, without embarrassment, that the role of the. .. speak here of the obtaining of a fact, I do not mean to refer to the higher-order fact that the relevant fact obtains I only mean to refer to the fact itself, but in a way that conveys its nature as an instance of what is the case So, when I speak of the obtaining of a fact F as logically due to (or as involving nothing over and above) the obtaining of a fact F , this is just another way of saying that,... that, quite apart from any issue about hallucination, his fundamentalist account of the φ-terminal perceptual relationship is untenable IV I have formulated the two rival general views about the nature of physical-item perception, and illustrated them by reference to a particular case It is also clear that this case is entirely typical, and that the way in which the two views work out in other cases of... further aspect of how the item appears to him does not count as an aspect of its sensible appearance Likewise, I may feel the φterminal object of my tactual perception not just as a surface of a certain shape, hardness, texture, and temperature, but also as the surface of a bottle, and, again, this further aspect of how the item may appear to me would not count as an aspect of its sensible appearance... , an item which we can assume to be a correspondingly later momentary stage of the same portion of the apple’s surface Let us also suppose that the causal process from O to brain is of exactly the same kind as that from O to brain, that the resulting brain events are of exactly the same kind, and that the cerebral and mental conditions in which these events occur are relevantly the same Despite the. .. distinct from any other physical item) as the initiator of that process So, in each case, the causal process from the relevant physical item to the brain will play a double causal role with respect to the psychological outcome, being both what brings about the relevant brain event immediately preceding that outcome and what combines with that event, and the other relevant aspects of the prevailing conditions,... the brain event directly depends only on the character of the optic-nerve firings, together with the relevant facts about the structure and prevailing state of the brain; and, crucially, the character of the visual experience directly depends only on the character of the brain event and prevailing brain conditions, together with the relevant facts about the character of the subject’s mind and the form... psychological character alone, puts him into visual contact with O , a momentary stage that is later than, and so numerically different from, O Clearly, then, the fundamentalist cannot, like the decompositionalist, think that the psychological outcomes in the two cases directly causally depend only on the character of the brain events that immediately precede them and the conditions in which these events... causally ensure a seeing of O at t will be the whole causal process from O to brain, and, in particular, the role of O (as distinct from any other physical item) as the initiator of that process; and what, subsequently, will combine with the relevant brain event and conditions to causally ensure a seeing of O at t will be the whole causal process from O to brain, and, in particular, the role of O (as... φ-terminally perceived, but under a sensible appearance that misrepresents its true character That such cases occur can hardly be denied—at least on the assumption that we perceive physical items at all The notorious case of the stick partially immersed in water (in reality straight, but appearing bent) is an obvious example—though if it were thought (surely implausibly) that the presentationalist could handle . any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Foster, John, 1941 May 5- A world for us: the case for phenomenalistic. clear and comprehensible. The technical precision of TheCaseforIdealismmay have a certain virtue in the abstract, but it made enormous, and arguably intolerable, demands on the patience of the. class="bi x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" A WORLD FOR US This page intentionally left blank AWorldforUs The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism JOHN FOSTER 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford