2.76
“Error is touching the world and things in a way in which they or we recoil” (§1.76).
This doesn’t mean that error doesn’t touch the world. Suppose I think that woman over there’s Rosalyn, but she’s actually a stranger. It’d be a poor account of things to say that my error doesn’t touch the world. My error is an error precisely because it inhabits the space of things: I thought her silhouette resembled Rosalyn’s; her hair is the same colour, and she holds herself just so.
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at. First, it seemed you were suggesting only truth touches phenomena, so error was a failure to see what’s there. Now, you seem to be suggesting that error too touches phenomena, as some kind of illusion deviating from a clearer picture.’
Error is “a failure to see what is there.”[1] Yet, it’s also, in its way, seeing what is there: it isn’t an illusion, as though error were somehow a mist overtop of reality. Phenomena can lead us astray; but in being led astray, we’re still being led. To see the stranger as Rosalyn is an error, yet this error reveals something about the phenomena: that this stranger resembles Rosalyn in X and Y ways, that there is a resonance between this stranger and Rosalyn.
‘But it almost sounds like you’re saying we can never be wrong.’
Well, if that’s what you’re hearing, listen again. – To take this stranger as Rosalyn is wrong. It isn’t borne out by the phenomena; and yet, it is partially borne out by the phenomena.
‘Ok, but you picked two people who resemble one another in certain ways. What if I mistake someone who has nothing in common with Rosalyn for her? Or, better yet, what if I mistake a lamppost for her? Or even nothing at all — I’ve been up all night and I’m edgy, I think I see Rosalyn, but there’s nothing there.’
Ok, let’s take up your last example (for the others are still suggestive of similarity). – There’s nothing in the surroundings that’s similar to Rosalyn. Yet, perhaps we’re concealing the problem with reference to surroundings. For in thinking this way we think ourselves as facing reality bound by skin. But we’re also surrounded by thoughts. Maybe we were expecting Rosalyn or thinking idly about her; maybe we were doing nothing of the sort, yet Rosalyn is clearly someone with whom we’re familiar. The particular situation called for the phenomena of mis-taking: something about the overall context called forth mistaking nothing for Rosalyn; the error is rooted in the overall situation. That you think Rosalyn may be there is phenomenal. Even if it’s a wrongful projection, the projection is encountered, then determined to be false.
“Error has improper traction in the world” (§1.76). – Error has traction insofar as it’s contextualized and understood as error.
Suppose at the moment when you think that Rosalyn is there but it’s nothing, you exclaim—‘there’s Rosalyn!’—and someone nearby who knows her says ‘that’s not her, there’s no one there!’ You were always wrong, even at the moment when you were partially tracking the phenomena, for that was never Rosalyn even though you took it as being her.
‘My senses were deceiving me!’
What an odd reaction. ‘No: I sensed what wasn’t in fact there. I jumped to an unwarranted conclusion. I should use my reason and withhold my assent to what my senses tell me to be the case.’ – But that’s not remotely how things happen. You could not withhold your assent. You didn’t jump to a conclusion; you were pulled right in. You sensed what was there, with your reason involved. Of course, you can change how you react to such a sensation, but the point I’m making is that neither your senses nor your reason are strictly deceiving you: they’re showing something that is there. To deny this in favour of ‘grasping the whole thing as it is’ (i.e., not as Rosalyn but as whatever it ‘really’ was) is to deny an aspect of the phenomena (§2.37).
Error isn’t the only way phenomena is partly taken away from itself. There’s also obfuscation: for example, the tyrant who just says so. The tyrant rules by fiat, overriding alternative perception. ‘The rivulet is a river because I say so.’
To evaluate a claim, we cannot simply look at what someone says of their experience, nor simply what people do: phenomena can betray both. We must turn to the phenomena. Yes, this may involve turning to what someone says of their experience or what people do. But in the case of the tyrant, we may sense ill will: the rivulet cannot appear as a river. (There’s no internal relation that allows for this possibility.)
Obviously, real cases will be more persuasive. Yet, while it may be difficult to see how, for example, spirits reside in a particular river, we could take steps towards seeing how this could be the case experientially: we can’t take these same steps in the case of the tyrant, short of denying the phenomena. As we approach the claim in question, we see if and how it fits. Some claims don’t fit. For example, some claims betray a reliance on ontological assumptions that don’t do justice to the world (e.g., grounded in ressentiment) — they don’t affirm the world as it is.
‘This talk of spirits and gods doesn’t fit!’ — Are you sure you understand what’s meant by ‘spirits,’ ‘gods’?
[1] Zwicky, W&M, LH25.