"[Reading Ebersole] requires—and often succeeds in producing—a radical reorientation of one´s thinking . . . "— from a book review
Things We Know is a collection of fifteen essays that focus on perennial philosophical problems about knowledge. The essays let you participate in Frank Ebersole´s unique struggles to come to terms with such questions as: Can we know the world? . . . the past? . . . the future? . . . of God´s existence? . . . whether our actions are free? . . . the foundations of logic and language?
This is not just another philosophy book about problems of knowledge. In Things We Know, Ebersole, by carefully using examples, exposes the problems to be the products of philosophical pictures. The examples also make the pictures less compelling. Thus, by reading this philosophy book readers can join the author in working to free themselves from some perplexing philosophical concerns.
How the Second Edition differs from the First Edition
This edition differs from the First Edition (University of Oregon Books, 1967) in three ways.
An essay is added. — "Everyman´s Ontological Argument" has been inserted as Essay 14, following two other essays about the ontological argument. "Everyman´s Ontological Argument" was published in the Fall 1978 issue of Philosophical Investigations. (The original Chapter 14, "Where the Action Is," is now Chapter 15.) An essay is replaced. — The original Essay 3, "How Philosophers See Stars," has been replaced by a modified version that was printed in Philosophy Today (no. 2, 1969). The replacement includes some further improvements. The text is improved. — Throughout the book, the author has made corrections, stylistic improvements, and changed the wording as needed to make clearer his line of thought.
Summary
Each of the fifteen essays takes up a philosophical problem. In most of the essays, Ebersole first clarifies the problem and reviews common attempts to resolve the problem. Then he focuses on the central ideas and terms used to state the problem and creates examples of people using the terms under consideration. The examples are unique because of their focus on the context and point of what we say. If his investigations fail to find a use of the terms that supports the philosophical problem, he is led to conclude that the problem does not really derive from a philosophical insight but rather arises from a philosophical picture or model.
Preface
The essays in Things We Know address some of the perennial philosophical problems of knowledge. The essays are unified by being similar in method and philosophic aim. Ebersole exposes a picture behind each problem. In the essays he works through some of the ways that pictures control our thinking and tries to make the pictures less compelling.
Chapters 1 — 6: Perception and Language
Chapter 1: "Seeing Red in Red Things"
Philosophical problem: Must words for simple visual properties (e.g., "red") refer to things because the things share some property (e.g., redness)? Can we see this property? Topics investigated: Family resemblances, properties of colors, when we regard things as the same, when we regard colors as the same, when we regard things as having common properties, language-world philosophical pictures. Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, J. Herder, J. S. Mill.
Chapter 2: "Seeing Things"
Philosophical problem: Do hallucinations and afterimages support the existence of sense-data? Topics investigated: Illusions, hallucinations, afterimages, sense data. Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, George Berkeley, G. E. Moore.
Chapter 3: "How Philosophers See Stars"
Philosophical problem: Does the travel-time of light waves prove there are immediate objects of perception (sense-data)—because we may "see" stars that no longer exist and thereby not see physical objects? Topics investigated: Seeing, the present, the past, seeing stars, light, existing, common sense meaning of words, cause of seeing. Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, Roderick Chisholm, Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead.
Chapter 4: "And Then I See"
Philosophical problem: Does the causal chain of vision require us to conclude that the chain produces sense-data (mental images)? Topics investigated: Causal chain, light waves, mental images, explanations of seeing, causes of seeing, interpreting what is seen, seeing at a distance, sense-data.
Chapter 5: "The Objects of Perceptions and Dreams" Click here to read this chapter.
Philosophical problem: In dreams, aren´t we acquainted with direct private objects of perception (things that are intrinsically and qualitatively the same as things we see when awake)? Topics investigated: Being deceived in dreams, talking in dreams, dreaming means being asleep, sense-data. Philosophers discussed: R. Descartes, Plato.
Chapter 6: "Feeling Eggs and Pains"
Philosophical problem: Philosophical problems caused by the causal or prehensile model of feeling—we feel pains, but they are extraordinary objects. Topics investigated: Models of feeling, feeling pain, having a pain, how feeling eggs and pains differ, sense-data. Philosophers discussed: George Berkeley, R. Descartes, Plato, A. N. Whitehead.
Chapters 7 — 11: The Future and the Past
Chapter 7: "The Precarious Reality of the Past"
Philosophical problem: How can we remember (have direct acquaintance with) things that no longer exist (the past)? Topics investigated: Philosophical pictures, returning words to ordinary settings, what is past, what is gone, what we know, memory. Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, A. D. Woozley.
Chapter 8: "The Things We Remember"
Philosophical problem: My memories must be of my own experiences, but how do I know they are experiences of the past? Topics investigated: Memory, what is past, what is learned and not forgotten, feelings, intermediate objects, images, what we remember that is not past (telephone numbers, etc.). Philosophers discussed: A. J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle, W. Von Leyden.
Chapter 9: "Of All My Fallacious Memory Reports"
Philosophical problem: Isn´t it possible that there may be no past?—If so, our direct memory objects must be present. Topics investigated: Cartesian doubt, candidates for memory (images, claims about the past, feelings of familiarity), no one kind of memory object, requirements for present objects to be memory objects, problems with thinking about a one-day-old person, sense-data. Philosopher discussed: R. Descartes.
Chapter 10: "Was the Sea Battle Rigged?"
Philosophical problem: Isn´t the future determined because every proposition about the future is already true or false? Topics investigated: Future, propositions, true, false, fatalism, law of excluded middle, tautologies, logic, disjunctions that exclude, knowledge of the future. Philosophers discussed: G. E. M. Anscombe, Aristotle, Gilbert Ryle.
Chapter 11: "Our Knowledge of the Future World"
Philosophical problem: Can the future be knowable, because, if so, what is known would be in the present and time would then be unreal? Topics investigated: Future, time, what we know, what we are acquainted with, what is impossible, knowledge of the future. Philosopher discussed: H. Bergson.
Chapters 12 — 15: Borderlands of Metaphysics
Chapter 12: "Whether Existence is a Predicate"
Philosophical problem: Can human reason without experience prove God´s existence, if existence is not a predicate? Topics investigated: Existence, predicates, God, "does not exist" means mythical or extinct or destroyed, what a concept is, "there is" and "exist," classes, examples, provability of existence. Philosophers discussed: J. L. Austin, Immanuel Kant, Plato, C. J. Warnock.
Chapter 13: "Perfection and Existence"
Philosophical problem: Can human reason without experience prove God´s existence, because existence is a perfection? Topics investigated: The variety of things that are perfect, what it is to exist, God, necessary existence, kinds of perfection, connection between existence and perfection, provability of existence. Philosopher discussed: Norman Malcolm.
Chapter 14: "Everyman´s Ontological Argument"
Philosophical problem: Can human reason without experience prove existence? A review of common objections in the light of a new form of the argument designed to better show its logical form. Topics investigated: Basic form of the argument, existence and predicates, comparing existing and non-existing things, why we feel the argument is fishy. Philosopher discussed: James Kellenberger.
Chapter 15: "Where the Action Is"
Philosophical problem: Can we find a place for human actions in the physical world? How are bodily movements related to human actions? Topics investigated: Bodily movements, actions, bodily movements in certain circumstances, seeing as, physiology, bodies, persons, human action, free will. Philosophers discussed: G. E. M. Anscombe, A. I. Melden, Gilbert Ryle.
Note that some of the issues and lines of thought in Things We Know are developed further in Professor Ebersole´s two other books, Language and Perception and Meaning and Saying.
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