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Rating: 
Summary: Fine Survey
Review: I'm the only human (or animal of any species) in a room, and I'm looking at a candle as it burns. It's a 9 inch tall candle. I leave the room to go about some business and, when I return, I see that the candle is still burning. It's now 7" tall. Few people outside of philosophy seminars have any difficulty with my inference that at some point there was an unobserved 8" candle in that room. Indeed, I think that few philosophers have trouble with that, either. What they do argue about, though, is what it means to say that. What are we saying about ourselves and our relations to the rest of the world when we say we are sure there was an unobserved 8" candle (or one observed only by God, to include the Berkeleyans)? The most interesting portion of this book traces the fate of that question in American philosophic history, subsequent to the death of William James in 1910. The problems break down, roughly, this way. Is one's initial perception of the 9" candle direct or mediated? If one perceives candles directly, how are illusions or possible? If one's perception is mediated, how is knowledge possible? On a related point, are we to think of the common-sense candle, with its definite color and odor, as primary? Or is the candle of a scientist, composed of electrons, protons, and a lot of empty space, more truly real? Can we say that the common-sense candle exists when we're in the room but only the scientist's candle continues when we aren't there?
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