Charles Travis

Seeing is, or affords, a certain sort of awareness – visual – of one's surroundings. The obvious strategy for sayingwhatone sees, or what wouldcountas seeing something would be to ask what sort of sensitivity to one'ssurroundings– e.g. thepigbefore me – would so qualify. Alas, for more than three centuries –at leastfrom Descartes to VE day – it was not so. Philosophers were moved by arguments, rarely stated which concluded that one could not, or never did, see what was before his eyes. So much for the obvious strategy. It occurred to almost no one to object that thiscouldnot be right. Frege did, but no one noticed. Austin, finally, did away with that conception of good faith in philosophy which had allowed such a thing to pass, and then with those arguments themselves. Until then, philosophy was deformed. Robbed of the obvious approach, aDrangset in to gaze inward, hoping to find what itreallyis to see in whatenabledsensitivity to pigs, or in its byproducts. Gazing inwardcanbe science, but often merely poses as it. It can be difficult to disentangle actual science (or at least empirical fact) from mere preconception pretending to its rigour. Most nowadaysfeelrid of the grip of those barriers to the obvious approach. But, as we shall see, many so feel wrongly. TheDrangstill misshapes their thought. I aim here to identify theDrangat work; thereby, I hope, to rid us of it.