International Phenomenological Society

The Pictures in the Head of a Man Born BlindAuthor(s): Charles F. KielkopfSource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Jun., 1968), pp. 501-513Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2105688 .Accessed: 16/04/2011 03:04

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THE PICTURES IN THE HEAD OF A MAN BORN BLIND 1

A congenitally blind man can imagine that he is riding across a white beach in a red convertible while the sun blazes in a bright blue sky. Am I trying to increase the hoard of philosophic paradoxes? I hope not. I hope to increase our understanding of the thesis that visual imagery does not consist of pictures in the mind or head.2 Our understanding of this negative thesis will be increased if we clarify some of the terms in it, develop an equivalent but affirmative version of the thesis, and then recognize that we have a clear idea of what it would be like for the affirmative version to be true. After I clarify and define some crucial terms, I shall argue that visual images are not pictures in the mind or head if and only if a congenitally blind man can honestly and accurately tell us what he is imagining in statement containing color words. We shall see that we have a clear idea of what it would be like for a congenitally blind man to use color words when he tells us what he imagines.

However, shouldn't I defend or refute the thesis? Isn't philosophic goal truth? Although my professed goal is merely to augment under- standing of a philosophic thesis, such a goal is intimately connected with determining the truth of the thesis. I think that a philosophic thesis is necessarily true or necessarily false. Hence, I think that a false philo- sophic thesis cannot be understood, i.e., we cannot think of what the world would be like if a false philosophic thesis were to be true. If a false philosophic thesis cannot be understood, then the very fact that I can illustrate the thesis, i.e., describe a situation which could exist if

1 A version of this paper was read at the Western Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association held at Minneapolis, Minnesota in May 1966.

2 In Chapters VII and VIII of his Concept of Mind, Barnes & Noble, Gilbert Ryle advances such a thesis. For instance, he writes on pages 254-255 "In short there are no such objects as mental pictures, and if there were such objects, seeing them would still not be the same thing as seeming to see faces or mountains. We do picture or visualise faces and mountains, just as we do more rarely 'smell' singed hoofs, but picturing a face or a mountain, it is something that having a physical likeness in front of one's nose commonly helps us to do, though we can and often do do it without any such promptings. Dreaming, again, is not being present at a private cinematograph show;..."

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and only if visual images are not pictures in the mind or head, proves the thesis.

This conjecture that philosophic theses are necessarily true or neces- sarily false requires some elaboration to make it plausible. Although my main point, the equivalence argument, is not affected if the conjecture about philosophic theses is wrong, I want to support this conjecture since I also would like to prove that visual images are not pictures in the mind or head. The conjecture is: Philosophic theses assert that certain empirical situations are or are not logically possible. However, "logically possible" does not necessarily mean that the situation is describable by means of a sentence which is not an analytic falsehood. (Analytic falsehoods are sentences with forms which are universally false in some standard propositional or predicate calculi.) For instance, maybe being red and green is logically impossible although "It is R and it is G" is not the form of an analytic falsehood. The claim that the only logical falsehoods are analytic falsehoods is a philosophic thesis which can be covered by the conjecture. According to the conjecture the thesis that the only logical falsehoods are the analytic falsehoods is the claim that every sentence which does not have the form of an analytic falsehood describes an empirical possibility. Other philosophic theses from metaphysics, philosophical analysis, and logic can be inter- preted in the light of this conjecture. According to the conjecture nominalism may be construed as the claim that it is impossible that two spatially distinct objects have one and the same quality. By philosophical analysis I mean the enterprise of trying to define such crucial concepts as "number", "good", "to know", "to will", and "to choose". When a philosopher submits a definition as an analysis he claims, or at least hopes, that it is impossible that you find a situation which provides a counter-example to his analysis. And the counter-examples will be de- scriptions of empirical situations because they will be descriptions of people using a word in a way it would not be used if the philosopher's analysis is correct. By logic I mean the familiar enterprise of making and supporting such claims as: "Modus ponens is a valid argument form" and "Affirming the consequent is an invalid argument form." When we claim that modus ponens is valid we claim that it is impos- sible to find an empirical situation which provides data for making the premises of a modus ponens true while also providing data which makes the conclusion of the modus ponens false. Of course, I am not sug- gesting that the truth tables are not a perfectly good method for estab- lishing the validity of modus ponens. But what we claim when we claim that modus ponens is valid cannot be merely the claim that a truth table shows that it is valid. Similarly, when we claim that affirming

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the consequent is invalid we claim that it is possible that there is an empirical situation which provides data for making the premises of an affirming the consequent true and its conclusion false. (I specify that it be empirical situations that are said to be possible or impossible since, if it were true that mathematics is logic, mathematical counter-examples would not be helpful in logic since we would be using logic to establish fundamental points in logic.) I hope the preceding illustrations help clarify and make plausible the conjecture that philosophic theses are necessarily true or necessarily false. A proof of the conjecture would, I suspect, involve reconstructing any philosophic thesis advanced.

Now, after this brief discussion of philosophic theses in general, it is time to return to an appraisal of the particular philosophic thesis that visual imagery does not consist of pictures in the mind or head. It is intolerably vague to assert that visual imagery does not consist of pictures in the mind or head. What is visual imagery? What is being denied? What are these pictures which are not supposed to be in the mind or head? Terms must be explained and some definitions need to be given.

What is visual imagery? Imagine riding across a white beach in a red convertible. Visual imagery is what you imagined when you imagined riding across a white beach in a red convertible. My denotative defini- tions of "visual imagery" as well as my formal defintion to be given later, rest on an assumption that we have an understanding of what it is to imagine in a certain sense (or senses) of "to imagine." If you are daydreaming about being at the beach you could say that you are imagining being at the beach. I am using "imagine" in the sense in which daydreaming is imagining. If you are reading or hearing a de- scription of a seashore at dawn, you may, on occasion, do more than merely read or hear the description. You may try to picture or visualize the described scenery. What I have in mind is the difference between reading through the descriptions of landscapes in a novel and trying to appreciate them. I am also using "imagine" in the sense in which visualizing is imagining. I am not sure that daydreaming and visualizing are the same kind of activity. If they are different activities we may have to say that "imagine" has at least two senses if it is used to refer to both daydreaming and visualizing. However, I am using "imagine" to refer only to daydreaming and visualizing and I am assuming an understanding of what it is like to daydream and what it is like to picture something corresponding to a description. Visual imagery is what you have in mind when you daydream and visualize. Unfortunately, I cannot rest with these denotative definitions of "visual imagery" since the denotative definitions suggest very strongly that visual imagery does

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consist of pictures in the mind or head. Still these denotative definitions, although imprecise and misleading, are useful for determining to what I an referring in my formal definition of "visual imagery."

I shall give a formal definition of "visual imagery" in terms of "reporting visual imagery" and I shall identify reporting visual imagery with what I call telling what you imagine in visual terms. So first I must explain what I mean by "telling what you imagine in visual terms." If someone asks you about the color of your first car, you may have to think a bit. Let us say that your first car was a red Chevrolet. In your efforts to recall its color, you may try to visualize, to get an image, of your first car. Let us say that you succeed in imagining how your first car looked and then you answer the question about the color of your first car by saying, "It was red." I want to use "tell what you imagine" in such a way that the answer, "It was red", even if given while you are imagining how your first car looked, is not telling what you imagine. The answer, "It was red", is telling the color of your first car. However, if you were now asked whether or not you imagined, in the sense of visualized, anything when you recalled or tried to recall the color of your first car, your answer would be telling what you imagined. Your answer may be: "I imagined a red Chevrolet", "I imagined a red car", "I imagined a blue Buick", "I imagined nothing at all". Of course, your answer need not begin "I imagine .. .", you could simply answer, "A red Chevrolet", etc. But the "I imagined .. ." must be understood to begin your answer. I also want to use "tell what you imagine" in such a way that you have told what you imagine if you tell someone some details of your day dreaming. For instance, if you told someone that you were daydreaming about being at the beach you have told at least a few details of your fantasy. However, if you merely said you were daydreaming or that your fantasy was exciting you have not told what you imagined; you have only told that you imagined. Also, if your telling what you daydream is to count as telling what you imagine, you must realize that you are telling about a daydream and the person to whom you are talking must realize that you are telling about a day- dream. (There may be other types of conversation which could be called telling what you imagine. For instance, maybe a conversation in which your hearer does not know you are telling a daydream could be called telling what you imagine. But I am not giving an exhaustive analysis of "tell what you imagine". I want only to specify how I am using "tell what you imagine".) You have told what you imagine in visual terms if you use color words in a non-metaphorical sense when you tell what you imagine. (For simplicity's sake, I won't discuss words for shapes.) By metaphorical use of color words I mean such uses as

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using "red" to refer to a political affiliation, "blue" to a mood, and "yellow" to cowardice. I admit that telling what you have imagined in visual terms may not be a very frequent verbal activity. Other people are not very interested in our imagery or fantasies. But frequently done or not, I think that it is clear that there is such an activity as telling what we have visualized and telling what we daydream. In the remain- der of this paper, I shall replace "tell what you imagine in visual terms" with the less cumbersome "report visual imagery."

Now I can give a formal definition of "visual imagery" which does not suggest too readily that visual imagery consists of pictures in the mind or head.

Definition (1). Visual imagery is that on the basis of which you deter- mine that the color words you use when you report visual imagery are the correct color words to use. Or visual imagery is that on the basis of which you would determine that the color words you would use if you were to report your visual imagery are the correct color words to use.

What do I mean by "using color words correctly" when I talk about reporting visual imagery?

Definition (1). A color word is used correctly when you report visual imagery if use of that word does not make your telling of what you imagine a lie and use of that word does not make your telling of what you imagine a statement which fails to express what you intended to say.

These definitions require illustration and comment. Assume that you imagined riding in a red car and that you reported this visual imagery. If you said, "I imagined riding in a blue car", you either lied or you must admit that your statemen failed to express what you wanted to say. (At this point it makes no difference whether you have used "blue" instead of "red" because of a slip of the tongue or because you habitu- ally use "blue" where others use "red". The fact remains that the use of "blue" does not tell others what you want to say to them.)

Let us say that you lied when you said, "I imagined riding in a blue car." You have some grounds for knowing that you lied. And wouldn't those grounds be what you imagined, viz., riding in a red car? Consider, now, the alternative that claiming that you imagined riding in a blue car was not a lie but was a statement which failed to express what you wanted to say. How would you find out that "blue" was not the correct word? (Of course, you may never find out. I will not argue that atten-

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tion to what we imagine will always tell us that we have used the wrong words in reporting visual imagery, if we have used the wrong words. I shall argue only that if we do realize that our report of visual imagery does not express what we want to say, we do so on the basis of what we imagine.) If you use "blue" because of a slip of the tongue, you yourself, once you hear what you said, may very likely recognize that you used the wrong word. That on the basis of which you realize "blue" was wrong is certainly what you imagine, i.e., what you could call your visual imagery. However, if you used "blue" because you thought that it was the right word to use, you may need someone else's help to discover that you did not say what you wanted to say. For instance, someone who hears your "I imagined riding in a blue car", may ask while pointing to a blue dish, "Do you mean that color?" Or he may ask, "Do you mean the color of the sky?" If you can answer him "No," you have a basis for your answer. Isn't that basis what you imagined, i.e., your visual imagery? On the other hand, if you realize that "I imagined riding in a red car." is an honest and accurate report of what you imagined, you have a basis for knowing it is honest and accurate. It seems reasonable to say that your visual imagery forms that basis.

I want to stress that I am not maintaining that visual imagery is nothing but that on the basis of which we determine whether or not our reports of visual imagery are honest and accurate. Visual imagery may be more in the sense that it plays roles in our life other than this epistemological role. It may function as a mechanism for releasing tension, it may serve as an aid for recollection, or it may exist simply for enjoyment. I suspect that visual imagery rarely plays the epistemo- logical role since telling what we imagine is not a very frequent activity. I am assuming, however, that visual imagery is nothing more than what it need be in order to play the epistemological role of providing a basis on which we can determine the honesty and accuracy of our reports of visual imagery. Also, I do not want to suggest that the only way in which one can fail or do poorly while reporting visual imagery is by lying or using the wrong word in the way in which "blue" was the wrong word in our example. For instance, a report of your imagery may be dull or fragmentary without your lying or failing to say what you want to say. But the point remains that telling what you imagine can be done wrongly in the ways I suggested and that, whatever it is on the basis of which you know the telling has gone wrong, can legiti- mately be called visual imagery.

Visual imagery, as I defined it, does exist. All you need do to establish the existence of visual imagery is to imagine some scenery or to daydream a bit and then realize that if you told what you were

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imagining in a certain way you would be lying. With a definition of visual imagery and the realization that it exists as defined, we can reformulate the negative thesis that visual imagery does not consist of pictures in the mind or head. The reformulated thesis is: That on the basis of which you determine whether or not a report of your visual imagery is, or would be, honest and accurate has neither color nor shape. For instance, if you imagined riding in a red car, the thesis claims that that on the basis of which you know "I imagined riding in a red car" is honest and accurate is neither red nor shaped like a car.

Unfortunately, it is still very difficult to think of what it is like for the reformulated thesis to be true. What are these colorless and shape- less things? Even if it is introspection which tells us that they, visual images, are present or absent, introspection does not necessarily give us a clear idea of what they are. (As a matter of fact, to me, introspection does suggest that visual imagery does consist of objects with colors and shapes. And because of the difficulty of locating these alleged colored and shaped objects in the mind, I believe that the suggestion of intro- spection is very misleading.) So I shall show that the thesis is true if and only if a congenitally blind man can make acceptable reports of visual imagery. If the equivalence holds, then when we try to think of what it would be like for the thesis to be true we will not be forced to try to think of there being some colorless and shapeless things on the basis of which people determine that certain color words are the correct color words to use when they talk about these colorless and shapeless things. All we need to do to think of what it is like for the thesis to be true is to think of ourselves accepting a statement, which contains color words, from a congenitally blind mnan as being an honest and accurate report of what he imagined. (The proof of the equivalence will involve showing that a congenitally blind man can use color words well enough to give acceptable reports of visual imagery.)

I shall establish the equivalence in the following way. First, I shall establish that if we deny the thesis, i.e., if we hold that visual images have color and shape, then we can deny that a congenitally blind man can give acceptable reports of visual imagery. The proof of this first half of the equivalence is important because it shows why I must talk about a congenitally blind man in the equivalent version of the thesis. Second, I shall establish that if we hold that visual imagery has neither color nor shape, we must admit that a congenitally blind man can use color words well enough to give acceptable reports of visual imagery. I am not interested in establishing the empirical point of whether or not a congenitally blind person has ever given acceptable reports of visual imagery. However, I shall buttress my contention that a congeni-

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tally blind person could give such reports by citing passages from Helen Keller who lost her sight at nineteen months. Let us turn to arguments for the equivalence.

If someone believes that visual imagery does consist of a kind of visible object, i.e., objects with shape and color, he should not accept reports of visual imagery from a man born blind. If we hold that visual imagery is visible, viz., visible in private space, and this is a very natural view, our first inclination is to assert that a congenitally blind man simply could not have such imagery. But after a bit of thought we realize that sense experience is not necessary for the occurrence of visual imagery even if visual imagery somehow consists of objects very much like those a person with sight sees with his eyes. There is nothing inconsistent in the supposition that the nerves of a congenitally blind man are so stimulated that he has the image of riding across a white beach in a red convertible. Even if we think of imagery as pictures, we can think of these pictures fluttering in the mind of a congenitally blind man. If we can imagine what it is like for anyone to have pictures in his head or mind, we can perform this feat for a man born blind. So we cannot argue that a congenitally blind man must lack the requisite imagery. At best it is empirically true that there is nothing in the in- tellect which is not first in the senses.

However, a person who holds that visual imagery consists of visible objects does have some arguments which show that he should not accept reports of visual imagery from a congenitally blind man. If visual imagery does consist of colored and shaped objects, then a report of visual imagery is a description of a situation of which the reporter is aware. However, a congenitally blind man cannot use color words to describe some scenery of which he is aware. The congenitally blind man would not know how to use color words to describe some scenery of which he is aware because no one would ever have been able to correct or reinforce his use of colors words in descriptions of scenery which he is aware of. For instance, maybe the sky in the congenitally blind man's imagery is green but he calls it blue. Maybe the convertible that he calls red is blue? We can assume that such mistakes occur if we assume that visual imagery consists of colored and shaped objects. So if someone believes that visual imagery is a kind of mental picture, he should accept no reports of visual imagery from congenitally blind men. He should reject the reports, not because these blind men lack the imagery, but because their reports of them are essentially unreliable descriptions.

In the preceding paragraph, I argued that a congenitally blind man cannot describe, in visual terms, some scenery of which he is aware.

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I stressed the "scenery of which he is aware." It was not argued that a congenitally blind man cannot give acceptable descriptions in visual terms. Congenitally blind people can give descriptions in visual terms. For instance, a congenitally blind man could use color words in a very impressive description of mountain peaks or a forest. But when a con- genitally blind man gives a description or writes a bit of descriptive prose we cannot regard him as describing some scenery in either public or private space. (It is not eccentric to to talk about descriptions which are not describings. Consider the descriptive passages in a novel.)

Half of the equivalence has now been established: If we deny the thesis about visual imagery not being any kind of picture, we cannot accept reports of visual imagery from congenitally blind men. And in the proof of the first half of the equivalence it was essential to talk about congenitally blind men to justify the claim that they could not use color words correctly. Let us turn to the other half of the equivalence: If we accept the thesis that visual imagery is not pictures, we can accept reports of visual imagery from congenitally blind men. But before we begin the proof of the second half of the equivalence I shall give a third definition to specify exactly what I mean by "acceptable report of visual imagery."

Definition (3). A report of visual imagery is acceptable if and only if we cannot say that the report is a lie or fails to express what the speaker wants to say.

Can we say that if a congenitally blind man asserts "I imagined riding across a white beach in a red convertible," he must be lying? The answer is: No. The blind man may meet all the conditions a sighted person must meet to be judged as giving an honest report. He may be a man who rarely lies. We may know that he has no reason for trying to deceive us. He may give his report of visual imagery with all signs of sincerity. You could not call such a man is liar.

Consider the following passage from Helen Keller's The Story of my Life 3:

"On the third day after the beginning of the storm the snow ceased. The sun broke through the clouds and shown upon a vast, undulating white plain. High mounds, pyramids heaped in fantastic shapes, and impenetrable drifts lay scattered in every direction.

"Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak and hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. Half walking in the paths, half working our way through the lesser drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just outside a broad pasture. The trees stood motionless and white

3 Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City New York 1922, Ch. Xii, p. 56.

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like figures in a marble frieze. There was no odor of pine-needles. The rays of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched them. So dazzling was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my eyes."

This description of Helen Keller supports the argument that a con- genitally blind person is not necessarily lying if he reports visual imagery. I cannot believe that Miss Keller lied when she gave this report of how she imagined or visualized the wintry scene. And we have to say that part of her description is a report of visual imagery. Although she was describing her experience, we have to say that the part of her description about how the snow and trees looked reports what she imagined or visualized since she did not see the snow or trees. As a matter of fact, if becoming blind at nineteen months were the same as being congenitally blind and if Miss Keller was not merely parroting words in the above passage, the second half of the equivalence would be proved since some acceptable reports of visual imagery from con- genitally blind people would have actually been given. Unfortunately, I cannot assume that becoming blind at nineteen months is tantamount to being congenitally blind. Still the passage from Helen Keller does show that it is not simply eccentric philosophical speculation which suggests that a congenitally blind man could report visual imagery.

Can we hold that if a congenitally blind man asserts, "I imagined that I rode in a red car across a white beach." this assertion cannot express what he wants to say? Can we say that Helen Keller could not have written what she wanted to say in the preceding passage? Again the answer is: No. If we want to check whether someone's utterance says what he wants to say we check whether some other locution would be more satisfactory to him and we check whether he understands the words he used. A congenitally blind man who uses color words may reject any paraphrase of his report. For instance, he may reject para- phrases such as: "I imagined riding in a car with a hot surface," I imagined riding in a car which roared," and "I imagined riding in a car which smelled like burning paint." We may suggest such paraphrases because we associate red with such tactile, auditory, and olfactory sen- sations. After we suggest these alternatives, he may well, impatiently, reply "I imagined that I rode in a red car says exactly what I want to say." He responds irritably as any person would if you suggest too often that they do not know their own language. Consider how Helen Keller replies to the suggestion that she should not use color words.

"Suppose I omitted all words of seeing, hearing, color, light, landscape, the thousand phenomena, instruments and beauties connected with them. I should suffer a great diminution of the wonder and delight in attaining knowledge;

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also - more dreadful loss - my emotions would be blunted, so that I could not be touched by things unseen." 4

Later in the same chapter she writes:

"The blind are expected to read the Bible as a means of attaining spiritual happiness. Now, the Bible is filled throughout with reference to clouds, stars, colors, and beauty, and often mention of these is essential to the meaning of the parable or the message in which they occur. Here one must needs see the inconsistency of people who believe in the Bible, and yet deny us a right to talk about what we do not see, and for that matter what they do not see either." 5

But despite what the blind man wants to believe about his knowledge of our language can't we still say that he does not understand the meaning of words such as "red"? Frequent use makes one feel familiar with terms and this feeling of familiarity is easily confused with under- standing. For instance, if you are doing a non-technical job around technicians in a field it is easy to start using some of their technical terms without a very clear understanding of them. Maybe a congenitally blind man would use color words only because he hears them so often. We check whether a persons understands the meaning of a word by checking whether he knows how to use it. Can a congenitally blind man use color words correctly? Two points are certain. A congenitally blind man cannot use color words to describe some scenery visibly only to himself if there is such a thing as private space with visible objects in it. Nor can he use color words to describe what is in front of him in his ordinary environment unless he uses some sense other than sight. Do these points show that a congenitally blind man cannot use color words correctly? We, who have sight, could not use color words to describe what is in front of us if we shut our eyes, blindfolded ourselves, or became blind. We would not admit that we lost much, if any, of our understanding of the word "red" by shutting our eyes, etc. However, I must concede that a congenitally blind man would still differ from us even if we shut our eyes etc. because he would never have been able to use color words to describe what is in front of him while using no sense other than sight. Also, it is possible for a congenitally blind man to use color words to identity colors of objects in his environment if he uses a sense other than sight. For instance, maybe he could use touch to distinguish one color from another. Possibly he could make finer color discriminations than the careless sighted person. But again I must concede that the congenitally blind man's use of color words would be different from ours because he would have different criteria for color

4 The World I Live In, New York: The Century Co., 1908, Chapter XII, p. 127. 5 Ibid., p. 131.

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identification. The difference in criteria would reveal itself if the con- genitally blind man suddenly gained the power of sight; it would take him a while to correlate the visual criteria for colors with his tactile criteria. So it is not too rash to charge that if a congenitally blind man uses color words to describe some scenery which he claims is presented to him and if he does not use a sense other than sight he does not know what he is talking about.

But do the concessions that a congenitally blind man's understanding of color words differs from a sighted person's because he cannot use them in one way sighted people can and that if he uses them in the identification of the color of objects he uses criteria different from those of people with sight require us to say that a congenitally blind man does not understand what he is saying if he reports visual imagery? If we think that visual imagery is a kind of picture and reports of it are descriptions of these pictures, then we must say that a congenitally blind man's reports of visual imagery cannot mean to him what they do to us. Hence, if he wants us to understand by his sentences what he under- stands by his sentences, his sentences do not express what he wants to say. On the other hand, if we do not think that visual imagery consists of visible objects which are described when visual imagery is reported, then from the fact that a congenitally blind man does not know what his color words mean in our sense for color words if he uses them to describe visible objects, we cannot conclude that his reports of visual imagery fail to say what he wants.

Also it should be noted that these two concessions do not affect the equivalence proof. Since we are now working on the second half of the equivalence, we have assumed that visual imagery does not consist of visible objects. But simply noting that under this assumption the con- cessions that a congenitally blind man does not understand, in the way we do, how to use color words to describe colored objects and to identify colors do not imply that he cannot understand reports of visual imagery, does not entitle us to say that a congenitally blind man can understand his reports of visual imagery. It must also be established that a congenitally blind man does have some understanding of color words.

This further condition is easily established. We have already noted that a congenitally blind man can give descriptions as long as it is not claimed that the description is a description of some objects visible to him while describing. Of course, there are non-descriptive uses of color words. A congenitally blind man may know conceptual truths about colors. For instance, he may be able to say that no red surface can be green. A congenitally blind man could be an expert on the physics of

THE PICTURES IN THE HEAD OF A MAN BORN BLIND 513

color, the physiology of color perception, and the psychological effects of color. For instance, he may be able to tell us precisely why he cannot see red and green. Also, he could use color words intelligently in aesthetic judgments. For instance, he may have been told that a dark brown jacket with a blue tie is unpleasing. On the basis of his knowl- edge of physics, he infers that a beige jacket and a light blue tie will not be too attractive. So he may say to his wife, "Don't set out my powder blue tie today because I am going to wear my beige jacket. I think that my rust-color tie would be just right." So clearly the con- genitally blind man can have some understanding of color words.

The second half of the equivalence has been proved. We can conclude that visual imagery does not consist of pictures in the head if and only if a congenitally blind man can give acceptable reports of visual imagery. Of course, if a congenitally blind man can honestly and accu- rately tell us that he has imagined riding across a white beach in a red convertible while the sun blazed in a bright blue sky, we have to admit that a congenitally blind man can imagine such a panorama. However, the panorama is colorless. But this is no paradox. On the contrary it brings down to earth the metaphorical thesis that visual imagery does not consist of pictures. We can now clearly understand what must be able to occur in our ordinary environment if visual imagery does not consist of mental pictures. And we can think of this possibility occur- ring in our ordinary environment by simply thinking of a congenitally blind man who is usually honest saying, "I imagined riding across a white beach in a red convertible." But I think that I have done more than clarify a metaphorical thesis. If I have correctly conjectured that we know a philosophic thesis is true as soon as we understand it, i.e., know what would show it to be true, I have proved that visual imagery does not consist of some mental pictures. If visual images are not pictures it is not paradoxical that a congenitally blind man can imagine colorless panorama because those we imagine are also colorless.

CHARLES F. KIELKOPF. OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY.