The Given

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a satisfactory account of the chief modes of givenness. From this point of view, contemporary philosophy seems to me to be in a highly unsatisfactory state: it either totally denies that there is at all anything given or, if it accepts the given, restricts the same to one favoured kind of objects. Those who deny that there is at all anything given do so on the supposed ground that all human knowledge is interpretative, though they differ amongst themselves as to the source and the nature of such interpretations: the source may be either the a priori constitution of the human mind (Kant), or a metaphysical system (Hegel), or the rules of the language one uses (Wittgenstein). There are on the other hand the sense-datum philosophers who base their philosophy on the notion of the given, but recognise only one mode of givenness, i.e., sensation, and only one kind of objects that are given, i.e., the sense-data. This has led to endless difficulties as to how we come to perceive physical objects. As against this philosophy, some belonging to the first sort of persuasion have formulated the Alternate Language Thesis, according to which since nothing is absolutely given, what has to be regarded as given depends upon the linguistic decision that one makes, so that each such decision commits one to a particular conception of what is given. In short, nothing according to these last mentioned philosophers is given, but only anything may be taken as given.

Read before the Delhi Philosophical Colloquium, 1962, and subsequently printed in the Proceedings of the Colloquium, India International Centre, New Delhi, 1964.